the blithedale romance by nathaniel hawthorne table of contents i. old moodie ii. blithedale iii. a knot of dreamers iv. the supper-table v. until bedtime vi. coverdale's sick chamber vii. the convalescent viii. a modern arcadia ix. hollingsworth, zenobia, priscilla x. a visitor from town xi. the wood-path xii. coverdale's hermitage xiii. zenobia's legend xiv. eliot's pulpit xv. a crisis xvi. leave-takings xvii. the hotel xviii. the boarding-house xix. zenobia's drawing-room xx. they vanish xxi. an old acquaintance xxii. fauntleroy xxiii. a village hall xxiv. the masqueraders xxv. the three together xxvi. zenobia and coverdale xxvii. midnight xxviii. blithedale pasture xxix. miles coverdale's confession i. old moodie the evening before my departure for blithedale, i was returning to my bachelor apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of the veiled lady, when an elderly man of rather shabby appearance met me in an obscure part of the street. "mr. coverdale," said he softly, "can i speak with you a moment?" as i have casually alluded to the veiled lady, it may not be amiss to mention, for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted with her now forgotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric line; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a new science, or the revival of an old humbug. since those times her sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice; nor, in fact, has any one of them come before the public under such skilfully contrived circumstances of stage effect as those which at once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady in question. nowadays, in the management of his "subject," "clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread a step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries with him the laws of our actual life and extends them over his preternatural conquests. twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order to set the apparent miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. in the case of the veiled lady, moreover, the interest of the spectator was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity, and an absurd rumor (probably set afloat by the exhibitor, and at one time very prevalent) that a beautiful young lady, of family and fortune, was enshrouded within the misty drapery of the veil. it was white, with somewhat of a subdued silver sheen, like the sunny side of a cloud; and, falling over the wearer from head to foot, was supposed to insulate her from the material world, from time and space, and to endow her with many of the privileges of a disembodied spirit. her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or otherwise, have little to do with the present narrative--except, indeed, that i had propounded, for the veiled lady's prophetic solution, a query as to the success of our blithedale enterprise. the response, by the bye, was of the true sibylline stamp,--nonsensical in its first aspect, yet on closer study unfolding a variety of interpretations, one of which has certainly accorded with the event. i was turning over this riddle in my mind, and trying to catch its slippery purport by the tail, when the old man above mentioned interrupted me. "mr. coverdale!--mr. coverdale!" said he, repeating my name twice, in order to make up for the hesitating and ineffectual way in which he uttered it. "i ask your pardon, sir, but i hear you are going to blithedale tomorrow." i knew the pale, elderly face, with the red-tipt nose, and the patch over one eye; and likewise saw something characteristic in the old fellow's way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealing enough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. he was a very shy personage, this mr. moodie; and the trait was the more singular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him into the stir and hubbub of the world more than the generality of men. "yes, mr. moodie," i answered, wondering what interest he could take in the fact, "it is my intention to go to blithedale to-morrow. can i be of any service to you before my departure?" "if you pleased, mr. coverdale," said he, "you might do me a very great favor." "a very great one?" repeated i, in a tone that must have expressed but little alacrity of beneficence, although i was ready to do the old man any amount of kindness involving no special trouble to myself. "a very great favor, do you say? my time is brief, mr. moodie, and i have a good many preparations to make. but be good enough to tell me what you wish." "ah, sir," replied old moodie, "i don't quite like to do that; and, on further thoughts, mr. coverdale, perhaps i had better apply to some older gentleman, or to some lady, if you would have the kindness to make me known to one, who may happen to be going to blithedale. you are a young man, sir!" "does that fact lessen my availability for your purpose?" asked i. "however, if an older man will suit you better, there is mr. hollingsworth, who has three or four years the advantage of me in age, and is a much more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. i am only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at that! but what can this business be, mr. moodie? it begins to interest me; especially since your hint that a lady's influence might be found desirable. come, i am really anxious to be of service to you." but the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner, was both freakish and obstinate; and he had now taken some notion or other into his head that made him hesitate in his former design. "i wonder, sir," said he, "whether you know a lady whom they call zenobia?" "not personally," i answered, "although i expect that pleasure to-morrow, as she has got the start of the rest of us, and is already a resident at blithedale. but have you a literary turn, mr. moodie? or have you taken up the advocacy of women's rights? or what else can have interested you in this lady? zenobia, by the bye, as i suppose you know, is merely her public name; a sort of mask in which she comes before the world, retaining all the privileges of privacy,--a contrivance, in short, like the white drapery of the veiled lady, only a little more transparent. but it is late. will you tell me what i can do for you?" "please to excuse me to-night, mr. coverdale," said moodie. "you are very kind; but i am afraid i have troubled you, when, after all, there may be no need. perhaps, with your good leave, i will come to your lodgings to-morrow morning, before you set out for blithedale. i wish you a good-night, sir, and beg pardon for stopping you." and so he slipt away; and, as he did not show himself the next morning, it was only through subsequent events that i ever arrived at a plausible conjecture as to what his business could have been. arriving at my room, i threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the brightest to the most sombre; being, in truth, not so very confident as at some former periods that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably with the blithedale affair, was the wisest that could possibly be taken. it was nothing short of midnight when i went to bed, after drinking a glass of particularly fine sherry on which i used to pride myself in those days. it was the very last bottle; and i finished it, with a friend, the next forenoon, before setting out for blithedale. ii. blithedale there can hardly remain for me (who am really getting to be a frosty bachelor, with another white hair, every week or so, in my mustache), there can hardly flicker up again so cheery a blaze upon the hearth, as that which i remember, the next day, at blithedale. it was a wood fire, in the parlor of an old farmhouse, on an april afternoon, but with the fitful gusts of a wintry snowstorm roaring in the chimney. vividly does that fireside re-create itself, as i rake away the ashes from the embers in my memory, and blow them up with a sigh, for lack of more inspiring breath. vividly for an instant, but anon, with the dimmest gleam, and with just as little fervency for my heart as for my finger-ends! the staunch oaken logs were long ago burnt out. their genial glow must be represented, if at all, by the merest phosphoric glimmer, like that which exudes, rather than shines, from damp fragments of decayed trees, deluding the benighted wanderer through a forest. around such chill mockery of a fire some few of us might sit on the withered leaves, spreading out each a palm towards the imaginary warmth, and talk over our exploded scheme for beginning the life of paradise anew. paradise, indeed! nobody else in the world, i am bold to affirm--nobody, at least, in our bleak little world of new england,--had dreamed of paradise that day except as the pole suggests the tropic. nor, with such materials as were at hand, could the most skilful architect have constructed any better imitation of eve's bower than might be seen in the snow hut of an esquimaux. but we made a summer of it, in spite of the wild drifts. it was an april day, as already hinted, and well towards the middle of the month. when morning dawned upon me, in town, its temperature was mild enough to be pronounced even balmy, by a lodger, like myself, in one of the midmost houses of a brick block,--each house partaking of the warmth of all the rest, besides the sultriness of its individual furnace--heat. but towards noon there had come snow, driven along the street by a northeasterly blast, and whitening the roofs and sidewalks with a business-like perseverance that would have done credit to our severest january tempest. it set about its task apparently as much in earnest as if it had been guaranteed from a thaw for months to come. the greater, surely, was my heroism, when, puffing out a final whiff of cigar-smoke, i quitted my cosey pair of bachelor-rooms,--with a good fire burning in the grate, and a closet right at hand, where there was still a bottle or two in the champagne basket and a residuum of claret in a box,--quitted, i say, these comfortable quarters, and plunged into the heart of the pitiless snowstorm, in quest of a better life. the better life! possibly, it would hardly look so now; it is enough if it looked so then. the greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. yet, after all, let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more sagacious, to follow out one's daydream to its natural consummation, although, if the vision have been worth the having, it is certain never to be consummated otherwise than by a failure. and what of that? its airiest fragments, impalpable as they may be, will possess a value that lurks not in the most ponderous realities of any practicable scheme. they are not the rubbish of the mind. whatever else i may repent of, therefore, let it be reckoned neither among my sins nor follies that i once had faith and force enough to form generous hopes of the world's destiny--yes!--and to do what in me lay for their accomplishment; even to the extent of quitting a warm fireside, flinging away a freshly lighted cigar, and travelling far beyond the strike of city clocks, through a drifting snowstorm. there were four of us who rode together through the storm; and hollingsworth, who had agreed to be of the number, was accidentally delayed, and set forth at a later hour alone. as we threaded the streets, i remember how the buildings on either side seemed to press too closely upon us, insomuch that our mighty hearts found barely room enough to throb between them. the snowfall, too, looked inexpressibly dreary (i had almost called it dingy), coming down through an atmosphere of city smoke, and alighting on the sidewalk only to be moulded into the impress of somebody's patched boot or overshoe. thus the track of an old conventionalism was visible on what was freshest from the sky. but when we left the pavements, and our muffled hoof-tramps beat upon a desolate extent of country road, and were effaced by the unfettered blast as soon as stamped, then there was better air to breathe. air that had not been breathed once and again! air that had not been spoken into words of falsehood, formality, and error, like all the air of the dusky city! "how pleasant it is!" remarked i, while the snowflakes flew into my mouth the moment it was opened. "how very mild and balmy is this country air!" "ah, coverdale, don't laugh at what little enthusiasm you have left!" said one of my companions. "i maintain that this nitrous atmosphere is really exhilarating; and, at any rate, we can never call ourselves regenerated men till a february northeaster shall be as grateful to us as the softest breeze of june!" so we all of us took courage, riding fleetly and merrily along, by stone fences that were half buried in the wave-like drifts; and through patches of woodland, where the tree-trunks opposed a snow-incrusted side towards the northeast; and within ken of deserted villas, with no footprints in their avenues; and passed scattered dwellings, whence puffed the smoke of country fires, strongly impregnated with the pungent aroma of burning peat. sometimes, encountering a traveller, we shouted a friendly greeting; and he, unmuffling his ears to the bluster and the snow-spray, and listening eagerly, appeared to think our courtesy worth less than the trouble which it cost him. the churl! he understood the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence for our blithe tones of brotherhood. this lack of faith in our cordial sympathy, on the traveller's part, was one among the innumerable tokens how difficult a task we had in hand for the reformation of the world. we rode on, however, with still unflagging spirits, and made such good companionship with the tempest that, at our journey's end, we professed ourselves almost loath to bid the rude blusterer good-by. but, to own the truth, i was little better than an icicle, and began to be suspicious that i had caught a fearful cold. and now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the old farmhouse, the same fire that glimmers so faintly among my reminiscences at the beginning of this chapter. there we sat, with the snow melting out of our hair and beards, and our faces all ablaze, what with the past inclemency and present warmth. it was, indeed, a right good fire that we found awaiting us, built up of great, rough logs, and knotty limbs, and splintered fragments of an oak-tree, such as farmers are wont to keep for their own hearths, since these crooked and unmanageable boughs could never be measured into merchantable cords for the market. a family of the old pilgrims might have swung their kettle over precisely such a fire as this, only, no doubt, a bigger one; and, contrasting it with my coal-grate, i felt so much the more that we had transported ourselves a world-wide distance from the system of society that shackled us at breakfast-time. good, comfortable mrs. foster (the wife of stout silas foster, who was to manage the farm at a fair stipend, and be our tutor in the art of husbandry) bade us a hearty welcome. at her back--a back of generous breadth--appeared two young women, smiling most hospitably, but looking rather awkward withal, as not well knowing what was to be their position in our new arrangement of the world. we shook hands affectionately all round, and congratulated ourselves that the blessed state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at which we aimed, might fairly be dated from this moment. our greetings were hardly concluded when the door opened, and zenobia--whom i had never before seen, important as was her place in our enterprise--zenobia entered the parlor. this (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our literary biography, need scarcely be told) was not her real name. she had assumed it, in the first instance, as her magazine signature; and, as it accorded well with something imperial which her friends attributed to this lady's figure and deportment, they half-laughingly adopted it in their familiar intercourse with her. she took the appellation in good part, and even encouraged its constant use; which, in fact, was thus far appropriate, that our zenobia, however humble looked her new philosophy, had as much native pride as any queen would have known what to do with. iii. a knot of dreamers zenobia bade us welcome, in a fine, frank, mellow voice, and gave each of us her hand, which was very soft and warm. she had something appropriate, i recollect, to say to every individual; and what she said to myself was this:--"i have long wished to know you, mr. coverdale, and to thank you for your beautiful poetry, some of which i have learned by heart; or rather it has stolen into my memory, without my exercising any choice or volition about the matter. of course--permit me to say you do not think of relinquishing an occupation in which you have done yourself so much credit. i would almost rather give you up as an associate, than that the world should lose one of its true poets!" "ah, no; there will not be the slightest danger of that, especially after this inestimable praise from zenobia," said i, smiling, and blushing, no doubt, with excess of pleasure. "i hope, on the contrary, now to produce something that shall really deserve to be called poetry,--true, strong, natural, and sweet, as is the life which we are going to lead,--something that shall have the notes of wild birds twittering through it, or a strain like the wind anthems in the woods, as the case may be." "is it irksome to you to hear your own verses sung?" asked zenobia, with a gracious smile. "if so, i am very sorry, for you will certainly hear me singing them sometimes, in the summer evenings." "of all things," answered i, "that is what will delight me most." while this passed, and while she spoke to my companions, i was taking note of zenobia's aspect; and it impressed itself on me so distinctly, that i can now summon her up, like a ghost, a little wanner than the life but otherwise identical with it. she was dressed as simply as possible, in an american print (i think the dry-goods people call it so), but with a silken kerchief, between which and her gown there was one glimpse of a white shoulder. it struck me as a great piece of good fortune that there should be just that glimpse. her hair, which was dark, glossy, and of singular abundance, was put up rather soberly and primly--without curls, or other ornament, except a single flower. it was an exotic of rare beauty, and as fresh as if the hothouse gardener had just clipt it from the stem. that flower has struck deep root into my memory. i can both see it and smell it, at this moment. so brilliant, so rare, so costly as it must have been, and yet enduring only for a day, it was more indicative of the pride and pomp which had a luxuriant growth in zenobia's character than if a great diamond had sparkled among her hair. her hand, though very soft, was larger than most women would like to have, or than they could afford to have, though not a whit too large in proportion with the spacious plan of zenobia's entire development. it did one good to see a fine intellect (as hers really was, although its natural tendency lay in another direction than towards literature) so fitly cased. she was, indeed, an admirable figure of a woman, just on the hither verge of her richest maturity, with a combination of features which it is safe to call remarkably beautiful, even if some fastidious persons might pronounce them a little deficient in softness and delicacy. but we find enough of those attributes everywhere. preferable--by way of variety, at least--was zenobia's bloom, health, and vigor, which she possessed in such overflow that a man might well have fallen in love with her for their sake only. in her quiet moods, she seemed rather indolent; but when really in earnest, particularly if there were a spice of bitter feeling, she grew all alive to her finger-tips. "i am the first comer," zenobia went on to say, while her smile beamed warmth upon us all; "so i take the part of hostess for to-day, and welcome you as if to my own fireside. you shall be my guests, too, at supper. tomorrow, if you please, we will be brethren and sisters, and begin our new life from daybreak." "have we our various parts assigned?" asked some one. "oh, we of the softer sex," responded zenobia, with her mellow, almost broad laugh,--most delectable to hear, but not in the least like an ordinary woman's laugh,--"we women (there are four of us here already) will take the domestic and indoor part of the business, as a matter of course. to bake, to boil, to roast, to fry, to stew,--to wash, and iron, and scrub, and sweep,--and, at our idler intervals, to repose ourselves on knitting and sewing,--these, i suppose, must be feminine occupations, for the present. by and by, perhaps, when our individual adaptations begin to develop themselves, it may be that some of us who wear the petticoat will go afield, and leave the weaker brethren to take our places in the kitchen." "what a pity," i remarked, "that the kitchen, and the housework generally, cannot be left out of our system altogether! it is odd enough that the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just that which chiefly distinguishes artificial life--the life of degenerated mortals--from the life of paradise. eve had no dinner-pot, and no clothes to mend, and no washing-day." "i am afraid," said zenobia, with mirth gleaming out of her eyes, "we shall find some difficulty in adopting the paradisiacal system for at least a month to come. look at that snowdrift sweeping past the window! are there any figs ripe, do you think? have the pineapples been gathered to-day? would you like a bread-fruit, or a cocoanut? shall i run out and pluck you some roses? no, no, mr. coverdale; the only flower hereabouts is the one in my hair, which i got out of a greenhouse this morning. as for the garb of eden," added she, shivering playfully, "i shall not assume it till after may-day!" assuredly zenobia could not have intended it,--the fault must have been entirely in my imagination. but these last words, together with something in her manner, irresistibly brought up a picture of that fine, perfectly developed figure, in eve's earliest garment. her free, careless, generous modes of expression often had this effect of creating images which, though pure, are hardly felt to be quite decorous when born of a thought that passes between man and woman. i imputed it, at that time, to zenobia's noble courage, conscious of no harm, and scorning the petty restraints which take the life and color out of other women's conversation. there was another peculiarity about her. we seldom meet with women nowadays, and in this country, who impress us as being women at all,--their sex fades away and goes for nothing, in ordinary intercourse. not so with zenobia. one felt an influence breathing out of her such as we might suppose to come from eve, when she was just made, and her creator brought her to adam, saying, "behold! here is a woman!" not that i would convey the idea of especial gentleness, grace, modesty, and shyness, but of a certain warm and rich characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to have been refined away out of the feminine system. "and now," continued zenobia, "i must go and help get supper. do you think you can be content, instead of figs, pineapples, and all the other delicacies of adam's supper-table, with tea and toast, and a certain modest supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of a housewife, i brought hither in a basket? and there shall be bread and milk, too, if the innocence of your taste demands it." the whole sisterhood now went about their domestic avocations, utterly declining our offers to assist, further than by bringing wood for the kitchen fire from a huge pile in the back yard. after heaping up more than a sufficient quantity, we returned to the sitting-room, drew our chairs close to the hearth, and began to talk over our prospects. soon, with a tremendous stamping in the entry, appeared silas foster, lank, stalwart, uncouth, and grizzly-bearded. he came from foddering the cattle in the barn, and from the field, where he had been ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it impossible to draw a furrow. he greeted us in pretty much the same tone as if he were speaking to his oxen, took a quid from his iron tobacco-box, pulled off his wet cowhide boots, and sat down before the fire in his stocking-feet. the steam arose from his soaked garments, so that the stout yeoman looked vaporous and spectre-like. "well, folks," remarked silas, "you'll be wishing yourselves back to town again, if this weather holds." and, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the twilight fell silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray or sable flakes intermingling themselves with the fast-descending snow. the storm, in its evening aspect, was decidedly dreary. it seemed to have arisen for our especial behoof,--a symbol of the cold, desolate, distrustful phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the eve of adventurous enterprises, to warn us back within the boundaries of ordinary life. but our courage did not quail. we would not allow ourselves to be depressed by the snowdrift trailing past the window, any more than if it had been the sigh of a summer wind among rustling boughs. there have been few brighter seasons for us than that. if ever men might lawfully dream awake, and give utterance to their wildest visions without dread of laughter or scorn on the part of the audience,--yes, and speak of earthly happiness, for themselves and mankind, as an object to be hopefully striven for, and probably attained, we who made that little semicircle round the blazing fire were those very men. we had left the rusty iron framework of society behind us; we had broken through many hindrances that are powerful enough to keep most people on the weary treadmill of the established system, even while they feel its irksomeness almost as intolerable as we did. we had stepped down from the pulpit; we had flung aside the pen; we had shut up the ledger; we had thrown off that sweet, bewitching, enervating indolence, which is better, after all, than most of the enjoyments within mortal grasp. it was our purpose--a generous one, certainly, and absurd, no doubt, in full proportion with its generosity--to give up whatever we had heretofore attained, for the sake of showing mankind the example of a life governed by other than the false and cruel principles on which human society has all along been based. and, first of all, we had divorced ourselves from pride, and were striving to supply its place with familiar love. we meant to lessen the laboring man's great burden of toil, by performing our due share of it at the cost of our own thews and sinews. we sought our profit by mutual aid, instead of wresting it by the strong hand from an enemy, or filching it craftily from those less shrewd than ourselves (if, indeed, there were any such in new england), or winning it by selfish competition with a neighbor; in one or another of which fashions every son of woman both perpetrates and suffers his share of the common evil, whether he chooses it or no. and, as the basis of our institution, we purposed to offer up the earnest toil of our bodies, as a prayer no less than an effort for the advancement of our race. therefore, if we built splendid castles (phalansteries perhaps they might be more fitly called), and pictured beautiful scenes, among the fervid coals of the hearth around which we were clustering, and if all went to rack with the crumbling embers and have never since arisen out of the ashes, let us take to ourselves no shame. in my own behalf, i rejoice that i could once think better of the world's improvability than it deserved. it is a mistake into which men seldom fall twice in a lifetime; or, if so, the rarer and higher is the nature that can thus magnanimously persist in error. stout silas foster mingled little in our conversation; but when he did speak, it was very much to some practical purpose. for instance:--"which man among you," quoth he, "is the best judge of swine? some of us must go to the next brighton fair, and buy half a dozen pigs." pigs! good heavens! had we come out from among the swinish multitude for this? and again, in reference to some discussion about raising early vegetables for the market:--"we shall never make any hand at market gardening," said silas foster, "unless the women folks will undertake to do all the weeding. we haven't team enough for that and the regular farm-work, reckoning three of your city folks as worth one common field-hand. no, no; i tell you, we should have to get up a little too early in the morning, to compete with the market gardeners round boston." it struck me as rather odd, that one of the first questions raised, after our separation from the greedy, struggling, self-seeking world, should relate to the possibility of getting the advantage over the outside barbarians in their own field of labor. but, to own the truth, i very soon became sensible that, as regarded society at large, we stood in a position of new hostility, rather than new brotherhood. nor could this fail to be the case, in some degree, until the bigger and better half of society should range itself on our side. constituting so pitiful a minority as now, we were inevitably estranged from the rest of mankind in pretty fair proportion with the strictness of our mutual bond among ourselves. this dawning idea, however, was driven back into my inner consciousness by the entrance of zenobia. she came with the welcome intelligence that supper was on the table. looking at herself in the glass, and perceiving that her one magnificent flower had grown rather languid (probably by being exposed to the fervency of the kitchen fire), she flung it on the floor, as unconcernedly as a village girl would throw away a faded violet. the action seemed proper to her character, although, methought, it would still more have befitted the bounteous nature of this beautiful woman to scatter fresh flowers from her hand, and to revive faded ones by her touch. nevertheless, it was a singular but irresistible effect; the presence of zenobia caused our heroic enterprise to show like an illusion, a masquerade, a pastoral, a counterfeit arcadia, in which we grown-up men and women were making a play-day of the years that were given us to live in. i tried to analyze this impression, but not with much success. "it really vexes me," observed zenobia, as we left the room, "that mr. hollingsworth should be such a laggard. i should not have thought him at all the sort of person to be turned back by a puff of contrary wind, or a few snowflakes drifting into his face." "do you know hollingsworth personally?" i inquired. "no; only as an auditor--auditress, i mean--of some of his lectures," said she. "what a voice he has! and what a man he is! yet not so much an intellectual man, i should say, as a great heart; at least, he moved me more deeply than i think myself capable of being moved, except by the stroke of a true, strong heart against my own. it is a sad pity that he should have devoted his glorious powers to such a grimy, unbeautiful, and positively hopeless object as this reformation of criminals, about which he makes himself and his wretchedly small audiences so very miserable. to tell you a secret, i never could tolerate a philanthropist before. could you?" "by no means," i answered; "neither can i now." "they are, indeed, an odiously disagreeable set of mortals," continued zenobia. "i should like mr. hollingsworth a great deal better if the philanthropy had been left out. at all events, as a mere matter of taste, i wish he would let the bad people alone, and try to benefit those who are not already past his help. do you suppose he will be content to spend his life, or even a few months of it, among tolerably virtuous and comfortable individuals like ourselves?" "upon my word, i doubt it," said i. "if we wish to keep him with us, we must systematically commit at least one crime apiece! mere peccadillos will not satisfy him." zenobia turned, sidelong, a strange kind of a glance upon me; but, before i could make out what it meant, we had entered the kitchen, where, in accordance with the rustic simplicity of our new life, the supper-table was spread. iv. the supper-table the pleasant firelight! i must still keep harping on it. the kitchen hearth had an old-fashioned breadth, depth, and spaciousness, far within which lay what seemed the butt of a good-sized oak-tree, with the moisture bubbling merrily out at both ends. it was now half an hour beyond dusk. the blaze from an armful of substantial sticks, rendered more combustible by brushwood and pine, flickered powerfully on the smoke-blackened walls, and so cheered our spirits that we cared not what inclemency might rage and roar on the other side of our illuminated windows. a yet sultrier warmth was bestowed by a goodly quantity of peat, which was crumbling to white ashes among the burning brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not ungrateful fragrance. the exuberance of this household fire would alone have sufficed to bespeak us no true farmers; for the new england yeoman, if he have the misfortune to dwell within practicable distance of a wood-market, is as niggardly of each stick as if it were a bar of california gold. but it was fortunate for us, on that wintry eve of our untried life, to enjoy the warm and radiant luxury of a somewhat too abundant fire. if it served no other purpose, it made the men look so full of youth, warm blood, and hope, and the women--such of them, at least, as were anywise convertible by its magic--so very beautiful, that i would cheerfully have spent my last dollar to prolong the blaze. as for zenobia, there was a glow in her cheeks that made me think of pandora, fresh from vulcan's workshop, and full of the celestial warmth by dint of which he had tempered and moulded her. "take your places, my dear friends all," cried she; "seat yourselves without ceremony, and you shall be made happy with such tea as not many of the world's working-people, except yourselves, will find in their cups to-night. after this one supper, you may drink buttermilk, if you please. to-night we will quaff this nectar, which, i assure you, could not be bought with gold." we all sat down,--grizzly silas foster, his rotund helpmate, and the two bouncing handmaidens, included,--and looked at one another in a friendly but rather awkward way. it was the first practical trial of our theories of equal brotherhood and sisterhood; and we people of superior cultivation and refinement (for as such, i presume, we unhesitatingly reckoned ourselves) felt as if something were already accomplished towards the millennium of love. the truth is, however, that the laboring oar was with our unpolished companions; it being far easier to condescend than to accept of condescension. neither did i refrain from questioning, in secret, whether some of us--and zenobia among the rest--would so quietly have taken our places among these good people, save for the cherished consciousness that it was not by necessity but choice. though we saw fit to drink our tea out of earthen cups to-night, and in earthen company, it was at our own option to use pictured porcelain and handle silver forks again to-morrow. this same salvo, as to the power of regaining our former position, contributed much, i fear, to the equanimity with which we subsequently bore many of the hardships and humiliations of a life of toil. if ever i have deserved (which has not often been the case, and, i think, never), but if ever i did deserve to be soundly cuffed by a fellow mortal, for secretly putting weight upon some imaginary social advantage, it must have been while i was striving to prove myself ostentatiously his equal and no more. it was while i sat beside him on his cobbler's bench, or clinked my hoe against his own in the cornfield, or broke the same crust of bread, my earth-grimed hand to his, at our noontide lunch. the poor, proud man should look at both sides of sympathy like this. the silence which followed upon our sitting down to table grew rather oppressive; indeed, it was hardly broken by a word, during the first round of zenobia's fragrant tea. "i hope," said i, at last, "that our blazing windows will be visible a great way off. there is nothing so pleasant and encouraging to a solitary traveller, on a stormy night, as a flood of firelight seen amid the gloom. these ruddy window panes cannot fail to cheer the hearts of all that look at them. are they not warm with the beacon-fire which we have kindled for humanity?" "the blaze of that brushwood will only last a minute or two longer," observed silas foster; but whether he meant to insinuate that our moral illumination would have as brief a term, i cannot say. "meantime," said zenobia, "it may serve to guide some wayfarer to a shelter." and, just as she said this, there came a knock at the house door. "there is one of the world's wayfarers," said i. "ay, ay, just so!" quoth silas foster. "our firelight will draw stragglers, just as a candle draws dorbugs on a summer night." whether to enjoy a dramatic suspense, or that we were selfishly contrasting our own comfort with the chill and dreary situation of the unknown person at the threshold, or that some of us city folk felt a little startled at the knock which came so unseasonably, through night and storm, to the door of the lonely farmhouse,--so it happened that nobody, for an instant or two, arose to answer the summons. pretty soon there came another knock. the first had been moderately loud; the second was smitten so forcibly that the knuckles of the applicant must have left their mark in the door panel. "he knocks as if he had a right to come in," said zenobia, laughing. "and what are we thinking of?--it must be mr. hollingsworth!" hereupon i went to the door, unbolted, and flung it wide open. there, sure enough, stood hollingsworth, his shaggy greatcoat all covered with snow, so that he looked quite as much like a polar bear as a modern philanthropist. "sluggish hospitality this!" said he, in those deep tones of his, which seemed to come out of a chest as capacious as a barrel. "it would have served you right if i had lain down and spent the night on the doorstep, just for the sake of putting you to shame. but here is a guest who will need a warmer and softer bed." and, stepping back to the wagon in which he had journeyed hither, hollingsworth received into his arms and deposited on the doorstep a figure enveloped in a cloak. it was evidently a woman; or, rather,--judging from the ease with which he lifted her, and the little space which she seemed to fill in his arms, a slim and unsubstantial girl. as she showed some hesitation about entering the door, hollingsworth, with his usual directness and lack of ceremony, urged her forward not merely within the entry, but into the warm and strongly lighted kitchen. "who is this?" whispered i, remaining behind with him, while he was taking off his greatcoat. "who? really, i don't know," answered hollingsworth, looking at me with some surprise. "it is a young person who belongs here, however; and no doubt she had been expected. zenobia, or some of the women folks, can tell you all about it." "i think not," said i, glancing towards the new-comer and the other occupants of the kitchen. "nobody seems to welcome her. i should hardly judge that she was an expected guest." "well, well," said hollingsworth quietly, "we'll make it right." the stranger, or whatever she were, remained standing precisely on that spot of the kitchen floor to which hollingsworth's kindly hand had impelled her. the cloak falling partly off, she was seen to be a very young woman dressed in a poor but decent gown, made high in the neck, and without any regard to fashion or smartness. her brown hair fell down from beneath a hood, not in curls but with only a slight wave; her face was of a wan, almost sickly hue, betokening habitual seclusion from the sun and free atmosphere, like a flower-shrub that had done its best to blossom in too scanty light. to complete the pitiableness of her aspect, she shivered either with cold, or fear, or nervous excitement, so that you might have beheld her shadow vibrating on the fire-lighted wall. in short, there has seldom been seen so depressed and sad a figure as this young girl's; and it was hardly possible to help being angry with her, from mere despair of doing anything for her comfort. the fantasy occurred to me that she was some desolate kind of a creature, doomed to wander about in snowstorms; and that, though the ruddiness of our window panes had tempted her into a human dwelling, she would not remain long enough to melt the icicles out of her hair. another conjecture likewise came into my mind. recollecting hollingsworth's sphere of philanthropic action, i deemed it possible that he might have brought one of his guilty patients, to be wrought upon and restored to spiritual health by the pure influences which our mode of life would create. as yet the girl had not stirred. she stood near the door, fixing a pair of large, brown, melancholy eyes upon zenobia--only upon zenobia!--she evidently saw nothing else in the room save that bright, fair, rosy, beautiful woman. it was the strangest look i ever witnessed; long a mystery to me, and forever a memory. once she seemed about to move forward and greet her,--i know not with what warmth or with what words,--but, finally, instead of doing so, she dropped down upon her knees, clasped her hands, and gazed piteously into zenobia's face. meeting no kindly reception, her head fell on her bosom. i never thoroughly forgave zenobia for her conduct on this occasion. but women are always more cautious in their casual hospitalities than men. "what does the girl mean?" cried she in rather a sharp tone. "is she crazy? has she no tongue?" and here hollingsworth stepped forward. "no wonder if the poor child's tongue is frozen in her mouth," said he; and i think he positively frowned at zenobia. "the very heart will be frozen in her bosom, unless you women can warm it, among you, with the warmth that ought to be in your own!" hollingsworth's appearance was very striking at this moment. he was then about thirty years old, but looked several years older, with his great shaggy head, his heavy brow, his dark complexion, his abundant beard, and the rude strength with which his features seemed to have been hammered out of iron, rather than chiselled or moulded from any finer or softer material. his figure was not tall, but massive and brawny, and well befitting his original occupation; which as the reader probably knows--was that of a blacksmith. as for external polish, or mere courtesy of manner, he never possessed more than a tolerably educated bear; although, in his gentler moods, there was a tenderness in his voice, eyes, mouth, in his gesture, and in every indescribable manifestation, which few men could resist and no woman. but he now looked stern and reproachful; and it was with that inauspicious meaning in his glance that hollingsworth first met zenobia's eyes, and began his influence upon her life. to my surprise, zenobia--of whose haughty spirit i had been told so many examples--absolutely changed color, and seemed mortified and confused. "you do not quite do me justice, mr. hollingsworth," said she almost humbly. "i am willing to be kind to the poor girl. is she a protegee of yours? what can i do for her?" "have you anything to ask of this lady?" said hollingsworth kindly to the girl. "i remember you mentioned her name before we left town." "only that she will shelter me," replied the girl tremulously. "only that she will let me be always near her." "well, indeed," exclaimed zenobia, recovering herself and laughing, "this is an adventure, and well-worthy to be the first incident in our life of love and free-heartedness! but i accept it, for the present, without further question, only," added she, "it would be a convenience if we knew your name." "priscilla," said the girl; and it appeared to me that she hesitated whether to add anything more, and decided in the negative. "pray do not ask me my other name,--at least not yet,--if you will be so kind to a forlorn creature." priscilla!--priscilla! i repeated the name to myself three or four times; and in that little space, this quaint and prim cognomen had so amalgamated itself with my idea of the girl, that it seemed as if no other name could have adhered to her for a moment. heretofore the poor thing had not shed any tears; but now that she found herself received, and at least temporarily established, the big drops began to ooze out from beneath her eyelids as if she were full of them. perhaps it showed the iron substance of my heart, that i could not help smiling at this odd scene of unknown and unaccountable calamity, into which our cheerful party had been entrapped without the liberty of choosing whether to sympathize or no. hollingsworth's behavior was certainly a great deal more creditable than mine. "let us not pry further into her secrets," he said to zenobia and the rest of us, apart; and his dark, shaggy face looked really beautiful with its expression of thoughtful benevolence. "let us conclude that providence has sent her to us, as the first-fruits of the world, which we have undertaken to make happier than we find it. let us warm her poor, shivering body with this good fire, and her poor, shivering heart with our best kindness. let us feed her, and make her one of us. as we do by this friendless girl, so shall we prosper. and, in good time, whatever is desirable for us to know will be melted out of her, as inevitably as those tears which we see now." "at least," remarked i, "you may tell us how and where you met with her." "an old man brought her to my lodgings," answered hollingsworth, "and begged me to convey her to blithedale, where--so i understood him--she had friends; and this is positively all i know about the matter." grim silas foster, all this while, had been busy at the supper-table, pouring out his own tea and gulping it down with no more sense of its exquisiteness than if it were a decoction of catnip; helping himself to pieces of dipt toast on the flat of his knife blade, and dropping half of it on the table-cloth; using the same serviceable implement to cut slice after slice of ham; perpetrating terrible enormities with the butter-plate; and in all other respects behaving less like a civilized christian than the worst kind of an ogre. being by this time fully gorged, he crowned his amiable exploits with a draught from the water pitcher, and then favored us with his opinion about the business in hand. and, certainly, though they proceeded out of an unwiped mouth, his expressions did him honor. "give the girl a hot cup of tea and a thick slice of this first-rate bacon," said silas, like a sensible man as he was. "that's what she wants. let her stay with us as long as she likes, and help in the kitchen, and take the cow-breath at milking time; and, in a week or two, she'll begin to look like a creature of this world." so we sat down again to supper, and priscilla along with us. v. until bedtime silas foster, by the time we concluded our meal, had stript off his coat, and planted himself on a low chair by the kitchen fire, with a lapstone, a hammer, a piece of sole leather, and some waxed-ends, in order to cobble an old pair of cowhide boots; he being, in his own phrase, "something of a dab" (whatever degree of skill that may imply) at the shoemaking business. we heard the tap of his hammer at intervals for the rest of the evening. the remainder of the party adjourned to the sitting-room. good mrs. foster took her knitting-work, and soon fell fast asleep, still keeping her needles in brisk movement, and, to the best of my observation, absolutely footing a stocking out of the texture of a dream. and a very substantial stocking it seemed to be. one of the two handmaidens hemmed a towel, and the other appeared to be making a ruffle, for her sunday's wear, out of a little bit of embroidered muslin which zenobia had probably given her. it was curious to observe how trustingly, and yet how timidly, our poor priscilla betook herself into the shadow of zenobia's protection. she sat beside her on a stool, looking up every now and then with an expression of humble delight at her new friend's beauty. a brilliant woman is often an object of the devoted admiration--it might almost be termed worship, or idolatry--of some young girl, who perhaps beholds the cynosure only at an awful distance, and has as little hope of personal intercourse as of climbing among the stars of heaven. we men are too gross to comprehend it. even a woman, of mature age, despises or laughs at such a passion. there occurred to me no mode of accounting for priscilla's behavior, except by supposing that she had read some of zenobia's stories (as such literature goes everywhere), or her tracts in defence of the sex, and had come hither with the one purpose of being her slave. there is nothing parallel to this, i believe,--nothing so foolishly disinterested, and hardly anything so beautiful,--in the masculine nature, at whatever epoch of life; or, if there be, a fine and rare development of character might reasonably be looked for from the youth who should prove himself capable of such self-forgetful affection. zenobia happening to change her seat, i took the opportunity, in an undertone, to suggest some such notion as the above. "since you see the young woman in so poetical a light," replied she in the same tone, "you had better turn the affair into a ballad. it is a grand subject, and worthy of supernatural machinery. the storm, the startling knock at the door, the entrance of the sable knight hollingsworth and this shadowy snow-maiden, who, precisely at the stroke of midnight, shall melt away at my feet in a pool of ice-cold water and give me my death with a pair of wet slippers! and when the verses are written, and polished quite to your mind, i will favor you with my idea as to what the girl really is." "pray let me have it now," said i; "it shall be woven into the ballad." "she is neither more nor less," answered zenobia, "than a seamstress from the city; and she has probably no more transcendental purpose than to do my miscellaneous sewing, for i suppose she will hardly expect to make my dresses." "how can you decide upon her so easily?" i inquired. "oh, we women judge one another by tokens that escape the obtuseness of masculine perceptions!" said zenobia. "there is no proof which you would be likely to appreciate, except the needle marks on the tip of her forefinger. then, my supposition perfectly accounts for her paleness, her nervousness, and her wretched fragility. poor thing! she has been stifled with the heat of a salamander stove, in a small, close room, and has drunk coffee, and fed upon doughnuts, raisins, candy, and all such trash, till she is scarcely half alive; and so, as she has hardly any physique, a poet like mr. miles coverdale may be allowed to think her spiritual." "look at her now!" whispered i. priscilla was gazing towards us with an inexpressible sorrow in her wan face and great tears running down her cheeks. it was difficult to resist the impression that, cautiously as we had lowered our voices, she must have overheard and been wounded by zenobia's scornful estimate of her character and purposes. "what ears the girl must have!" whispered zenobia, with a look of vexation, partly comic and partly real. "i will confess to you that i cannot quite make her out. however, i am positively not an ill-natured person, unless when very grievously provoked,--and as you, and especially mr. hollingsworth, take so much interest in this odd creature, and as she knocks with a very slight tap against my own heart likewise,--why, i mean to let her in. from this moment i will be reasonably kind to her. there is no pleasure in tormenting a person of one's own sex, even if she do favor one with a little more love than one can conveniently dispose of; and that, let me say, mr. coverdale, is the most troublesome offence you can offer to a woman." "thank you," said i, smiling; "i don't mean to be guilty of it." she went towards priscilla, took her hand, and passed her own rosy finger-tips, with a pretty, caressing movement, over the girl's hair. the touch had a magical effect. so vivid a look of joy flushed up beneath those fingers, that it seemed as if the sad and wan priscilla had been snatched away, and another kind of creature substituted in her place. this one caress, bestowed voluntarily by zenobia, was evidently received as a pledge of all that the stranger sought from her, whatever the unuttered boon might be. from that instant, too, she melted in quietly amongst us, and was no longer a foreign element. though always an object of peculiar interest, a riddle, and a theme of frequent discussion, her tenure at blithedale was thenceforth fixed. we no more thought of questioning it, than if priscilla had been recognized as a domestic sprite, who had haunted the rustic fireside of old, before we had ever been warmed by its blaze. she now produced, out of a work-bag that she had with her, some little wooden instruments (what they are called i never knew), and proceeded to knit, or net, an article which ultimately took the shape of a silk purse. as the work went on, i remembered to have seen just such purses before; indeed, i was the possessor of one. their peculiar excellence, besides the great delicacy and beauty of the manufacture, lay in the almost impossibility that any uninitiated person should discover the aperture; although, to a practised touch, they would open as wide as charity or prodigality might wish. i wondered if it were not a symbol of priscilla's own mystery. notwithstanding the new confidence with which zenobia had inspired her, our guest showed herself disquieted by the storm. when the strong puffs of wind spattered the snow against the windows and made the oaken frame of the farmhouse creak, she looked at us apprehensively, as if to inquire whether these tempestuous outbreaks did not betoken some unusual mischief in the shrieking blast. she had been bred up, no doubt, in some close nook, some inauspiciously sheltered court of the city, where the uttermost rage of a tempest, though it might scatter down the slates of the roof into the bricked area, could not shake the casement of her little room. the sense of vast, undefined space, pressing from the outside against the black panes of our uncurtained windows, was fearful to the poor girl, heretofore accustomed to the narrowness of human limits, with the lamps of neighboring tenements glimmering across the street. the house probably seemed to her adrift on the great ocean of the night. a little parallelogram of sky was all that she had hitherto known of nature, so that she felt the awfulness that really exists in its limitless extent. once, while the blast was bellowing, she caught hold of zenobia's robe, with precisely the air of one who hears her own name spoken at a distance, but is unutterably reluctant to obey the call. we spent rather an incommunicative evening. hollingsworth hardly said a word, unless when repeatedly and pertinaciously addressed. then, indeed, he would glare upon us from the thick shrubbery of his meditations like a tiger out of a jungle, make the briefest reply possible, and betake himself back into the solitude of his heart and mind. the poor fellow had contracted this ungracious habit from the intensity with which he contemplated his own ideas, and the infrequent sympathy which they met with from his auditors,--a circumstance that seemed only to strengthen the implicit confidence that he awarded to them. his heart, i imagine, was never really interested in our socialist scheme, but was forever busy with his strange, and, as most people thought it, impracticable plan, for the reformation of criminals through an appeal to their higher instincts. much as i liked hollingsworth, it cost me many a groan to tolerate him on this point. he ought to have commenced his investigation of the subject by perpetrating some huge sin in his proper person, and examining the condition of his higher instincts afterwards. the rest of us formed ourselves into a committee for providing our infant community with an appropriate name,--a matter of greatly more difficulty than the uninitiated reader would suppose. blithedale was neither good nor bad. we should have resumed the old indian name of the premises, had it possessed the oil-and-honey flow which the aborigines were so often happy in communicating to their local appellations; but it chanced to be a harsh, ill-connected, and interminable word, which seemed to fill the mouth with a mixture of very stiff clay and very crumbly pebbles. zenobia suggested "sunny glimpse," as expressive of a vista into a better system of society. this we turned over and over for a while, acknowledging its prettiness, but concluded it to be rather too fine and sentimental a name (a fault inevitable by literary ladies in such attempts) for sunburnt men to work under. i ventured to whisper "utopia," which, however, was unanimously scouted down, and the proposer very harshly maltreated, as if he had intended a latent satire. some were for calling our institution "the oasis," in view of its being the one green spot in the moral sand-waste of the world; but others insisted on a proviso for reconsidering the matter at a twelvemonths' end, when a final decision might be had, whether to name it "the oasis" or "sahara." so, at last, finding it impracticable to hammer out anything better, we resolved that the spot should still be blithedale, as being of good augury enough. the evening wore on, and the outer solitude looked in upon us through the windows, gloomy, wild, and vague, like another state of existence, close beside the little sphere of warmth and light in which we were the prattlers and bustlers of a moment. by and by the door was opened by silas foster, with a cotton handkerchief about his head, and a tallow candle in his hand. "take my advice, brother farmers," said he, with a great, broad, bottomless yawn, "and get to bed as soon as you can. i shall sound the horn at daybreak; and we've got the cattle to fodder, and nine cows to milk, and a dozen other things to do, before breakfast." thus ended the first evening at blithedale. i went shivering to my fireless chamber, with the miserable consciousness (which had been growing upon me for several hours past) that i had caught a tremendous cold, and should probably awaken, at the blast of the horn, a fit subject for a hospital. the night proved a feverish one. during the greater part of it, i was in that vilest of states when a fixed idea remains in the mind, like the nail in sisera's brain, while innumerable other ideas go and come, and flutter to and fro, combining constant transition with intolerable sameness. had i made a record of that night's half-waking dreams, it is my belief that it would have anticipated several of the chief incidents of this narrative, including a dim shadow of its catastrophe. starting up in bed at length, i saw that the storm was past, and the moon was shining on the snowy landscape, which looked like a lifeless copy of the world in marble. from the bank of the distant river, which was shimmering in the moonlight, came the black shadow of the only cloud in heaven, driven swiftly by the wind, and passing over meadow and hillock, vanishing amid tufts of leafless trees, but reappearing on the hither side, until it swept across our doorstep. how cold an arcadia was this! vi. coverdale's sick-chamber the horn sounded at daybreak, as silas foster had forewarned us, harsh, uproarious, inexorably drawn out, and as sleep-dispelling as if this hard-hearted old yeoman had got hold of the trump of doom. on all sides i could hear the creaking of the bedsteads, as the brethren of blithedale started from slumber, and thrust themselves into their habiliments, all awry, no doubt, in their haste to begin the reformation of the world. zenobia put her head into the entry, and besought silas foster to cease his clamor, and to be kind enough to leave an armful of firewood and a pail of water at her chamber door. of the whole household,--unless, indeed, it were priscilla, for whose habits, in this particular, i cannot vouch,--of all our apostolic society, whose mission was to bless mankind, hollingsworth, i apprehend, was the only one who began the enterprise with prayer. my sleeping-room being but thinly partitioned from his, the solemn murmur of his voice made its way to my ears, compelling me to be an auditor of his awful privacy with the creator. it affected me with a deep reverence for hollingsworth, which no familiarity then existing, or that afterwards grew more intimate between us,--no, nor my subsequent perception of his own great errors,--ever quite effaced. it is so rare, in these times, to meet with a man of prayerful habits (except, of course, in the pulpit), that such an one is decidedly marked out by the light of transfiguration, shed upon him in the divine interview from which he passes into his daily life. as for me, i lay abed; and if i said my prayers, it was backward, cursing my day as bitterly as patient job himself. the truth was, the hot-house warmth of a town residence, and the luxurious life in which i indulged myself, had taken much of the pith out of my physical system; and the wintry blast of the preceding day, together with the general chill of our airy old farmhouse, had got fairly into my heart and the marrow of my bones. in this predicament, i seriously wished--selfish as it may appear--that the reformation of society had been postponed about half a century, or, at all events, to such a date as should have put my intermeddling with it entirely out of the question. what, in the name of common-sense, had i to do with any better society than i had always lived in? it had satisfied me well enough. my pleasant bachelor-parlor, sunny and shadowy, curtained and carpeted, with the bedchamber adjoining; my centre-table, strewn with books and periodicals; my writing-desk with a half-finished poem, in a stanza of my own contrivance; my morning lounge at the reading-room or picture gallery; my noontide walk along the cheery pavement, with the suggestive succession of human faces, and the brisk throb of human life in which i shared; my dinner at the albion, where i had a hundred dishes at command, and could banquet as delicately as the wizard michael scott when the devil fed him from the king of france's kitchen; my evening at the billiard club, the concert, the theatre, or at somebody's party, if i pleased,--what could be better than all this? was it better to hoe, to mow, to toil and moil amidst the accumulations of a barnyard; to be the chambermaid of two yoke of oxen and a dozen cows; to eat salt beef, and earn it with the sweat of my brow, and thereby take the tough morsel out of some wretch's mouth, into whose vocation i had thrust myself? above all, was it better to have a fever and die blaspheming, as i was like to do? in this wretched plight, with a furnace in my heart and another in my head, by the heat of which i was kept constantly at the boiling point, yet shivering at the bare idea of extruding so much as a finger into the icy atmosphere of the room, i kept my bed until breakfast-time, when hollingsworth knocked at the door, and entered. "well, coverdale," cried he, "you bid fair to make an admirable farmer! don't you mean to get up to-day?" "neither to-day nor to-morrow," said i hopelessly. "i doubt if i ever rise again!" "what is the matter now?" he asked. i told him my piteous case, and besought him to send me back to town in a close carriage. "no, no!" said hollingsworth with kindly seriousness. "if you are really sick, we must take care of you." accordingly he built a fire in my chamber, and, having little else to do while the snow lay on the ground, established himself as my nurse. a doctor was sent for, who, being homaeopathic, gave me as much medicine, in the course of a fortnight's attendance, as would have laid on the point of a needle. they fed me on water-gruel, and i speedily became a skeleton above ground. but, after all, i have many precious recollections connected with that fit of sickness. hollingsworth's more than brotherly attendance gave me inexpressible comfort. most men--and certainly i could not always claim to be one of the exceptions--have a natural indifference, if not an absolutely hostile feeling, towards those whom disease, or weakness, or calamity of any kind causes to falter and faint amid the rude jostle of our selfish existence. the education of christianity, it is true, the sympathy of a like experience and the example of women, may soften and, possibly, subvert this ugly characteristic of our sex; but it is originally there, and has likewise its analogy in the practice of our brute brethren, who hunt the sick or disabled member of the herd from among them, as an enemy. it is for this reason that the stricken deer goes apart, and the sick lion grimly withdraws himself into his den. except in love, or the attachments of kindred, or other very long and habitual affection, we really have no tenderness. but there was something of the woman moulded into the great, stalwart frame of hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are of what is best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was such a soft place in his heart. i knew it well, however, at that time, although afterwards it came nigh to be forgotten. methought there could not be two such men alive as hollingsworth. there never was any blaze of a fireside that warmed and cheered me, in the down-sinkings and shiverings of my spirit, so effectually as did the light out of those eyes, which lay so deep and dark under his shaggy brows. happy the man that has such a friend beside him when he comes to die! and unless a friend like hollingsworth be at hand,--as most probably there will not,--he had better make up his mind to die alone. how many men, i wonder, does one meet with in a lifetime, whom he would choose for his deathbed companions! at the crisis of my fever i besought hollingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but continually to make me sensible of his own presence by a grasp of the hand, a word, a prayer, if he thought good to utter it; and that then he should be the witness how courageously i would encounter the worst. it still impresses me as almost a matter of regret that i did not die then, when i had tolerably made up my mind to it; for hollingsworth would have gone with me to the hither verge of life, and have sent his friendly and hopeful accents far over on the other side, while i should be treading the unknown path. now, were i to send for him, he would hardly come to my bedside, nor should i depart the easier for his presence. "you are not going to die, this time," said he, gravely smiling. "you know nothing about sickness, and think your case a great deal more desperate than it is." "death should take me while i am in the mood," replied i, with a little of my customary levity. "have you nothing to do in life," asked hollingsworth, "that you fancy yourself so ready to leave it?" "nothing," answered i; "nothing that i know of, unless to make pretty verses, and play a part, with zenobia and the rest of the amateurs, in our pastoral. it seems but an unsubstantial sort of business, as viewed through a mist of fever. but, dear hollingsworth, your own vocation is evidently to be a priest, and to spend your days and nights in helping your fellow creatures to draw peaceful dying breaths." "and by which of my qualities," inquired he, "can you suppose me fitted for this awful ministry?" "by your tenderness," i said. "it seems to me the reflection of god's own love." "and you call me tender!" repeated hollingsworth thoughtfully. "i should rather say that the most marked trait in my character is an inflexible severity of purpose. mortal man has no right to be so inflexible as it is my nature and necessity to be." "i do not believe it," i replied. but, in due time, i remembered what he said. probably, as hollingsworth suggested, my disorder was never so serious as, in my ignorance of such matters, i was inclined to consider it. after so much tragical preparation, it was positively rather mortifying to find myself on the mending hand. all the other members of the community showed me kindness, according to the full measure of their capacity. zenobia brought me my gruel every day, made by her own hands (not very skilfully, if the truth must be told), and, whenever i seemed inclined to converse, would sit by my bedside, and talk with so much vivacity as to add several gratuitous throbs to my pulse. her poor little stories and tracts never half did justice to her intellect. it was only the lack of a fitter avenue that drove her to seek development in literature. she was made (among a thousand other things that she might have been) for a stump oratress. i recognized no severe culture in zenobia; her mind was full of weeds. it startled me sometimes, in my state of moral as well as bodily faint-heartedness, to observe the hardihood of her philosophy. she made no scruple of oversetting all human institutions, and scattering them as with a breeze from her fan. a female reformer, in her attacks upon society, has an instinctive sense of where the life lies, and is inclined to aim directly at that spot. especially the relation between the sexes is naturally among the earliest to attract her notice. zenobia was truly a magnificent woman. the homely simplicity of her dress could not conceal, nor scarcely diminish, the queenliness of her presence. the image of her form and face should have been multiplied all over the earth. it was wronging the rest of mankind to retain her as the spectacle of only a few. the stage would have been her proper sphere. she should have made it a point of duty, moreover, to sit endlessly to painters and sculptors, and preferably to the latter; because the cold decorum of the marble would consist with the utmost scantiness of drapery, so that the eye might chastely be gladdened with her material perfection in its entireness. i know not well how to express that the native glow of coloring in her cheeks, and even the flesh-warmth over her round arms, and what was visible of her full bust,--in a word, her womanliness incarnated,--compelled me sometimes to close my eyes, as if it were not quite the privilege of modesty to gaze at her. illness and exhaustion, no doubt, had made me morbidly sensitive. i noticed--and wondered how zenobia contrived it--that she had always a new flower in her hair. and still it was a hot-house flower,--an outlandish flower,--a flower of the tropics, such as appeared to have sprung passionately out of a soil the very weeds of which would be fervid and spicy. unlike as was the flower of each successive day to the preceding one, it yet so assimilated its richness to the rich beauty of the woman, that i thought it the only flower fit to be worn; so fit, indeed, that nature had evidently created this floral gem, in a happy exuberance, for the one purpose of worthily adorning zenobia's head. it might be that my feverish fantasies clustered themselves about this peculiarity, and caused it to look more gorgeous and wonderful than if beheld with temperate eyes. in the height of my illness, as i well recollect, i went so far as to pronounce it preternatural. "zenobia is an enchantress!" whispered i once to hollingsworth. "she is a sister of the veiled lady. that flower in her hair is a talisman. if you were to snatch it away, she would vanish, or be transformed into something else." "what does he say?" asked zenobia. "nothing that has an atom of sense in it," answered hollingsworth. "he is a little beside himself, i believe, and talks about your being a witch, and of some magical property in the flower that you wear in your hair." "it is an idea worthy of a feverish poet," said she, laughing rather compassionately, and taking out the flower. "i scorn to owe anything to magic. here, mr. hollingsworth, you may keep the spell while it has any virtue in it; but i cannot promise you not to appear with a new one to-morrow. it is the one relic of my more brilliant, my happier days!" the most curious part of the matter was that, long after my slight delirium had passed away,--as long, indeed, as i continued to know this remarkable woman,--her daily flower affected my imagination, though more slightly, yet in very much the same way. the reason must have been that, whether intentionally on her part or not, this favorite ornament was actually a subtile expression of zenobia's character. one subject, about which--very impertinently, moreover--i perplexed myself with a great many conjectures, was, whether zenobia had ever been married. the idea, it must be understood, was unauthorized by any circumstance or suggestion that had made its way to my ears. so young as i beheld her, and the freshest and rosiest woman of a thousand, there was certainly no need of imputing to her a destiny already accomplished; the probability was far greater that her coming years had all life's richest gifts to bring. if the great event of a woman's existence had been consummated, the world knew nothing of it, although the world seemed to know zenobia well. it was a ridiculous piece of romance, undoubtedly, to imagine that this beautiful personage, wealthy as she was, and holding a position that might fairly enough be called distinguished, could have given herself away so privately, but that some whisper and suspicion, and by degrees a full understanding of the fact, would eventually be blown abroad. but then, as i failed not to consider, her original home was at a distance of many hundred miles. rumors might fill the social atmosphere, or might once have filled it, there, which would travel but slowly, against the wind, towards our northeastern metropolis, and perhaps melt into thin air before reaching it. there was not--and i distinctly repeat it--the slightest foundation in my knowledge for any surmise of the kind. but there is a species of intuition,--either a spiritual lie or the subtile recognition of a fact,--which comes to us in a reduced state of the corporeal system. the soul gets the better of the body, after wasting illness, or when a vegetable diet may have mingled too much ether in the blood. vapors then rise up to the brain, and take shapes that often image falsehood, but sometimes truth. the spheres of our companions have, at such periods, a vastly greater influence upon our own than when robust health gives us a repellent and self-defensive energy. zenobia's sphere, i imagine, impressed itself powerfully on mine, and transformed me, during this period of my weakness, into something like a mesmerical clairvoyant. then, also, as anybody could observe, the freedom of her deportment (though, to some tastes, it might commend itself as the utmost perfection of manner in a youthful widow or a blooming matron) was not exactly maiden-like. what girl had ever laughed as zenobia did? what girl had ever spoken in her mellow tones? her unconstrained and inevitable manifestation, i said often to myself, was that of a woman to whom wedlock had thrown wide the gates of mystery. yet sometimes i strove to be ashamed of these conjectures. i acknowledged it as a masculine grossness--a sin of wicked interpretation, of which man is often guilty towards the other sex--thus to mistake the sweet, liberal, but womanly frankness of a noble and generous disposition. still, it was of no avail to reason with myself nor to upbraid myself. pertinaciously the thought, "zenobia is a wife; zenobia has lived and loved! there is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly developed rose!"--irresistibly that thought drove out all other conclusions, as often as my mind reverted to the subject. zenobia was conscious of my observation, though not, i presume, of the point to which it led me. "mr. coverdale," said she one day, as she saw me watching her, while she arranged my gruel on the table, "i have been exposed to a great deal of eye-shot in the few years of my mixing in the world, but never, i think, to precisely such glances as you are in the habit of favoring me with. i seem to interest you very much; and yet--or else a woman's instinct is for once deceived--i cannot reckon you as an admirer. what are you seeking to discover in me?" "the mystery of your life," answered i, surprised into the truth by the unexpectedness of her attack. "and you will never tell me." she bent her head towards me, and let me look into her eyes, as if challenging me to drop a plummet-line down into the depths of her consciousness. "i see nothing now," said i, closing my own eyes, "unless it be the face of a sprite laughing at me from the bottom of a deep well." a bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or suspects that any woman of his acquaintance has given herself away. otherwise, the matter could have been no concern of mine. it was purely speculative, for i should not, under any circumstances, have fallen in love with zenobia. the riddle made me so nervous, however, in my sensitive condition of mind and body, that i most ungratefully began to wish that she would let me alone. then, too, her gruel was very wretched stuff, with almost invariably the smell of pine smoke upon it, like the evil taste that is said to mix itself up with a witch's best concocted dainties. why could not she have allowed one of the other women to take the gruel in charge? whatever else might be her gifts, nature certainly never intended zenobia for a cook. or, if so, she should have meddled only with the richest and spiciest dishes, and such as are to be tasted at banquets, between draughts of intoxicating wine. vii. the convalescent as soon as my incommodities allowed me to think of past occurrences, i failed not to inquire what had become of the odd little guest whom hollingsworth had been the medium of introducing among us. it now appeared that poor priscilla had not so literally fallen out of the clouds, as we were at first inclined to suppose. a letter, which should have introduced her, had since been received from one of the city missionaries, containing a certificate of character and an allusion to circumstances which, in the writer's judgment, made it especially desirable that she should find shelter in our community. there was a hint, not very intelligible, implying either that priscilla had recently escaped from some particular peril or irksomeness of position, or else that she was still liable to this danger or difficulty, whatever it might be. we should ill have deserved the reputation of a benevolent fraternity, had we hesitated to entertain a petitioner in such need, and so strongly recommended to our kindness; not to mention, moreover, that the strange maiden had set herself diligently to work, and was doing good service with her needle. but a slight mist of uncertainty still floated about priscilla, and kept her, as yet, from taking a very decided place among creatures of flesh and blood. the mysterious attraction, which, from her first entrance on our scene, she evinced for zenobia, had lost nothing of its force. i often heard her footsteps, soft and low, accompanying the light but decided tread of the latter up the staircase, stealing along the passage-way by her new friend's side, and pausing while zenobia entered my chamber. occasionally zenobia would be a little annoyed by priscilla's too close attendance. in an authoritative and not very kindly tone, she would advise her to breathe the pleasant air in a walk, or to go with her work into the barn, holding out half a promise to come and sit on the hay with her, when at leisure. evidently, priscilla found but scanty requital for her love. hollingsworth was likewise a great favorite with her. for several minutes together sometimes, while my auditory nerves retained the susceptibility of delicate health, i used to hear a low, pleasant murmur ascending from the room below; and at last ascertained it to be priscilla's voice, babbling like a little brook to hollingsworth. she talked more largely and freely with him than with zenobia, towards whom, indeed, her feelings seemed not so much to be confidence as involuntary affection. i should have thought all the better of my own qualities had priscilla marked me out for the third place in her regards. but, though she appeared to like me tolerably well, i could never flatter myself with being distinguished by her as hollingsworth and zenobia were. one forenoon, during my convalescence, there came a gentle tap at my chamber door. i immediately said, "come in, priscilla!" with an acute sense of the applicant's identity. nor was i deceived. it was really priscilla,--a pale, large-eyed little woman (for she had gone far enough into her teens to be, at least, on the outer limit of girlhood), but much less wan than at my previous view of her, and far better conditioned both as to health and spirits. as i first saw her, she had reminded me of plants that one sometimes observes doing their best to vegetate among the bricks of an enclosed court, where there is scanty soil and never any sunshine. at present, though with no approach to bloom, there were indications that the girl had human blood in her veins. priscilla came softly to my bedside, and held out an article of snow-white linen, very carefully and smoothly ironed. she did not seem bashful, nor anywise embarrassed. my weakly condition, i suppose, supplied a medium in which she could approach me. "do not you need this?" asked she. "i have made it for you." it was a nightcap! "my dear priscilla," said i, smiling, "i never had on a nightcap in my life! but perhaps it will be better for me to wear one, now that i am a miserable invalid. how admirably you have done it! no, no; i never can think of wearing such an exquisitely wrought nightcap as this, unless it be in the daytime, when i sit up to receive company." "it is for use, not beauty," answered priscilla. "i could have embroidered it and made it much prettier, if i pleased." while holding up the nightcap and admiring the fine needlework, i perceived that priscilla had a sealed letter which she was waiting for me to take. it had arrived from the village post-office that morning. as i did not immediately offer to receive the letter, she drew it back, and held it against her bosom, with both hands clasped over it, in a way that had probably grown habitual to her. now, on turning my eyes from the nightcap to priscilla, it forcibly struck me that her air, though not her figure, and the expression of her face, but not its features, had a resemblance to what i had often seen in a friend of mine, one of the most gifted women of the age. i cannot describe it. the points easiest to convey to the reader were a certain curve of the shoulders and a partial closing of the eyes, which seemed to look more penetratingly into my own eyes, through the narrowed apertures, than if they had been open at full width. it was a singular anomaly of likeness coexisting with perfect dissimilitude. "will you give me the letter, priscilla?" said i. she started, put the letter into my hand, and quite lost the look that had drawn my notice. "priscilla," i inquired, "did you ever see miss margaret fuller?" "no," she answered. "because," said i, "you reminded me of her just now,--and it happens, strangely enough, that this very letter is from her." priscilla, for whatever reason, looked very much discomposed. "i wish people would not fancy such odd things in me!" she said rather petulantly. "how could i possibly make myself resemble this lady merely by holding her letter in my hand?" "certainly, priscilla, it would puzzle me to explain it," i replied; "nor do i suppose that the letter had anything to do with it. it was just a coincidence, nothing more." she hastened out of the room, and this was the last that i saw of priscilla until i ceased to be an invalid. being much alone during my recovery, i read interminably in mr. emerson's essays, "the dial," carlyle's works, george sand's romances (lent me by zenobia), and other books which one or another of the brethren or sisterhood had brought with them. agreeing in little else, most of these utterances were like the cry of some solitary sentinel, whose station was on the outposts of the advance guard of human progression; or sometimes the voice came sadly from among the shattered ruins of the past, but yet had a hopeful echo in the future. they were well adapted (better, at least, than any other intellectual products, the volatile essence of which had heretofore tinctured a printed page) to pilgrims like ourselves, whose present bivouac was considerably further into the waste of chaos than any mortal army of crusaders had ever marched before. fourier's works, also, in a series of horribly tedious volumes, attracted a good deal of my attention, from the analogy which i could not but recognize between his system and our own. there was far less resemblance, it is true, than the world chose to imagine, inasmuch as the two theories differed, as widely as the zenith from the nadir, in their main principles. i talked about fourier to hollingsworth, and translated, for his benefit, some of the passages that chiefly impressed me. "when, as a consequence of human improvement," said i, "the globe shall arrive at its final perfection, the great ocean is to be converted into a particular kind of lemonade, such as was fashionable at paris in fourier's time. he calls it limonade a cedre. it is positively a fact! just imagine the city docks filled, every day, with a flood tide of this delectable beverage!" "why did not the frenchman make punch of it at once?" asked hollingsworth. "the jack-tars would be delighted to go down in ships and do business in such an element." i further proceeded to explain, as well as i modestly could, several points of fourier's system, illustrating them with here and there a page or two, and asking hollingsworth's opinion as to the expediency of introducing these beautiful peculiarities into our own practice. "let me hear no more of it!" cried he, in utter disgust. "i never will forgive this fellow! he has committed the unpardonable sin; for what more monstrous iniquity could the devil himself contrive than to choose the selfish principle,--the principle of all human wrong, the very blackness of man's heart, the portion of ourselves which we shudder at, and which it is the whole aim of spiritual discipline to eradicate,--to choose it as the master workman of his system? to seize upon and foster whatever vile, petty, sordid, filthy, bestial, and abominable corruptions have cankered into our nature, to be the efficient instruments of his infernal regeneration! and his consummated paradise, as he pictures it, would be worthy of the agency which he counts upon for establishing it. the nauseous villain!" "nevertheless," remarked i, "in consideration of the promised delights of his system,--so very proper, as they certainly are, to be appreciated by fourier's countrymen,--i cannot but wonder that universal france did not adopt his theory at a moment's warning. but is there not something very characteristic of his nation in fourier's manner of putting forth his views? he makes no claim to inspiration. he has not persuaded himself--as swedenborg did, and as any other than a frenchman would, with a mission of like importance to communicate--that he speaks with authority from above. he promulgates his system, so far as i can perceive, entirely on his own responsibility. he has searched out and discovered the whole counsel of the almighty in respect to mankind, past, present, and for exactly seventy thousand years to come, by the mere force and cunning of his individual intellect!" "take the book out of my sight," said hollingsworth with great virulence of expression, "or, i tell you fairly, i shall fling it in the fire! and as for fourier, let him make a paradise, if he can, of gehenna, where, as i conscientiously believe, he is floundering at this moment!" "and bellowing, i suppose," said i,--not that i felt any ill-will towards fourier, but merely wanted to give the finishing touch to hollingsworth's image, "bellowing for the least drop of his beloved limonade a cedre!" there is but little profit to be expected in attempting to argue with a man who allows himself to declaim in this manner; so i dropt the subject, and never took it up again. but had the system at which he was so enraged combined almost any amount of human wisdom, spiritual insight, and imaginative beauty, i question whether hollingsworth's mind was in a fit condition to receive it. i began to discern that he had come among us actuated by no real sympathy with our feelings and our hopes, but chiefly because we were estranging ourselves from the world, with which his lonely and exclusive object in life had already put him at odds. hollingsworth must have been originally endowed with a great spirit of benevolence, deep enough and warm enough to be the source of as much disinterested good as providence often allows a human being the privilege of conferring upon his fellows. this native instinct yet lived within him. i myself had profited by it, in my necessity. it was seen, too, in his treatment of priscilla. such casual circumstances as were here involved would quicken his divine power of sympathy, and make him seem, while their influence lasted, the tenderest man and the truest friend on earth. but by and by you missed the tenderness of yesterday, and grew drearily conscious that hollingsworth had a closer friend than ever you could be; and this friend was the cold, spectral monster which he had himself conjured up, and on which he was wasting all the warmth of his heart, and of which, at last,--as these men of a mighty purpose so invariably do,--he had grown to be the bond-slave. it was his philanthropic theory. this was a result exceedingly sad to contemplate, considering that it had been mainly brought about by the very ardor and exuberance of his philanthropy. sad, indeed, but by no means unusual: he had taught his benevolence to pour its warm tide exclusively through one channel; so that there was nothing to spare for other great manifestations of love to man, nor scarcely for the nutriment of individual attachments, unless they could minister in some way to the terrible egotism which he mistook for an angel of god. had hollingsworth's education been more enlarged, he might not so inevitably have stumbled into this pitfall. but this identical pursuit had educated him. he knew absolutely nothing, except in a single direction, where he had thought so energetically, and felt to such a depth, that no doubt the entire reason and justice of the universe appeared to be concentrated thitherward. it is my private opinion that, at this period of his life, hollingsworth was fast going mad; and, as with other crazy people (among whom i include humorists of every degree), it required all the constancy of friendship to restrain his associates from pronouncing him an intolerable bore. such prolonged fiddling upon one string--such multiform presentation of one idea! his specific object (of which he made the public more than sufficiently aware, through the medium of lectures and pamphlets) was to obtain funds for the construction of an edifice, with a sort of collegiate endowment. on this foundation he purposed to devote himself and a few disciples to the reform and mental culture of our criminal brethren. his visionary edifice was hollingsworth's one castle in the air; it was the material type in which his philanthropic dream strove to embody itself; and he made the scheme more definite, and caught hold of it the more strongly, and kept his clutch the more pertinaciously, by rendering it visible to the bodily eye. i have seen him, a hundred times, with a pencil and sheet of paper, sketching the facade, the side-view, or the rear of the structure, or planning the internal arrangements, as lovingly as another man might plan those of the projected home where he meant to be happy with his wife and children. i have known him to begin a model of the building with little stones, gathered at the brookside, whither we had gone to cool ourselves in the sultry noon of haying-time. unlike all other ghosts, his spirit haunted an edifice, which, instead of being time-worn, and full of storied love, and joy, and sorrow, had never yet come into existence. "dear friend," said i once to hollingsworth, before leaving my sick-chamber, "i heartily wish that i could make your schemes my schemes, because it would be so great a happiness to find myself treading the same path with you. but i am afraid there is not stuff in me stern enough for a philanthropist,--or not in this peculiar direction,--or, at all events, not solely in this. can you bear with me, if such should prove to be the case?" "i will at least wait awhile," answered hollingsworth, gazing at me sternly and gloomily. "but how can you be my life-long friend, except you strive with me towards the great object of my life?" heaven forgive me! a horrible suspicion crept into my heart, and stung the very core of it as with the fangs of an adder. i wondered whether it were possible that hollingsworth could have watched by my bedside, with all that devoted care, only for the ulterior purpose of making me a proselyte to his views! viii. a modern arcadia may-day--i forget whether by zenobia's sole decree, or by the unanimous vote of our community--had been declared a movable festival. it was deferred until the sun should have had a reasonable time to clear away the snowdrifts along the lee of the stone walls, and bring out a few of the readiest wild flowers. on the forenoon of the substituted day, after admitting some of the balmy air into my chamber, i decided that it was nonsense and effeminacy to keep myself a prisoner any longer. so i descended to the sitting-room, and finding nobody there, proceeded to the barn, whence i had already heard zenobia's voice, and along with it a girlish laugh which was not so certainly recognizable. arriving at the spot, it a little surprised me to discover that these merry outbreaks came from priscilla. the two had been a-maying together. they had found anemones in abundance, houstonias by the handful, some columbines, a few long-stalked violets, and a quantity of white everlasting flowers, and had filled up their basket with the delicate spray of shrubs and trees. none were prettier than the maple twigs, the leaf of which looks like a scarlet bud in may, and like a plate of vegetable gold in october. zenobia, who showed no conscience in such matters, had also rifled a cherry-tree of one of its blossomed boughs, and, with all this variety of sylvan ornament, had been decking out priscilla. being done with a good deal of taste, it made her look more charming than i should have thought possible, with my recollection of the wan, frost-nipt girl, as heretofore described. nevertheless, among those fragrant blossoms, and conspicuously, too, had been stuck a weed of evil odor and ugly aspect, which, as soon as i detected it, destroyed the effect of all the rest. there was a gleam of latent mischief--not to call it deviltry--in zenobia's eye, which seemed to indicate a slightly malicious purpose in the arrangement. as for herself, she scorned the rural buds and leaflets, and wore nothing but her invariable flower of the tropics. "what do you think of priscilla now, mr. coverdale?" asked she, surveying her as a child does its doll. "is not she worth a verse or two?" "there is only one thing amiss," answered i. zenobia laughed, and flung the malignant weed away. "yes; she deserves some verses now," said i, "and from a better poet than myself. she is the very picture of the new england spring; subdued in tint and rather cool, but with a capacity of sunshine, and bringing us a few alpine blossoms, as earnest of something richer, though hardly more beautiful, hereafter. the best type of her is one of those anemones." "what i find most singular in priscilla, as her health improves," observed zenobia, "is her wildness. such a quiet little body as she seemed, one would not have expected that. why, as we strolled the woods together, i could hardly keep her from scrambling up the trees, like a squirrel. she has never before known what it is to live in the free air, and so it intoxicates her as if she were sipping wine. and she thinks it such a paradise here, and all of us, particularly mr. hollingsworth and myself, such angels! it is quite ridiculous, and provokes one's malice almost, to see a creature so happy, especially a feminine creature." "they are always happier than male creatures," said i. "you must correct that opinion, mr. coverdale," replied zenobia contemptuously, "or i shall think you lack the poetic insight. did you ever see a happy woman in your life? of course, i do not mean a girl, like priscilla and a thousand others,--for they are all alike, while on the sunny side of experience,--but a grown woman. how can she be happy, after discovering that fate has assigned her but one single event, which she must contrive to make the substance of her whole life? a man has his choice of innumerable events." "a woman, i suppose," answered i, "by constant repetition of her one event, may compensate for the lack of variety." "indeed!" said zenobia. while we were talking, priscilla caught sight of hollingsworth at a distance, in a blue frock, and with a hoe over his shoulder, returning from the field. she immediately set out to meet him, running and skipping, with spirits as light as the breeze of the may morning, but with limbs too little exercised to be quite responsive; she clapped her hands, too, with great exuberance of gesture, as is the custom of young girls when their electricity overcharges them. but, all at once, midway to hollingsworth, she paused, looked round about her, towards the river, the road, the woods, and back towards us, appearing to listen, as if she heard some one calling her name, and knew not precisely in what direction. "have you bewitched her?" i exclaimed. "it is no sorcery of mine," said zenobia; "but i have seen the girl do that identical thing once or twice before. can you imagine what is the matter with her?" "no; unless," said i, "she has the gift of hearing those 'airy tongues that syllable men's names,' which milton tells about." from whatever cause, priscilla's animation seemed entirely to have deserted her. she seated herself on a rock, and remained there until hollingsworth came up; and when he took her hand and led her back to us, she rather resembled my original image of the wan and spiritless priscilla than the flowery may-queen of a few moments ago. these sudden transformations, only to be accounted for by an extreme nervous susceptibility, always continued to characterize the girl, though with diminished frequency as her health progressively grew more robust. i was now on my legs again. my fit of illness had been an avenue between two existences; the low-arched and darksome doorway, through which i crept out of a life of old conventionalisms, on my hands and knees, as it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that lay beyond. in this respect, it was like death. and, as with death, too, it was good to have gone through it. no otherwise could i have rid myself of a thousand follies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and other such worldly dust as inevitably settles upon the crowd along the broad highway, giving them all one sordid aspect before noon-time, however freshly they may have begun their pilgrimage in the dewy morning. the very substance upon my bones had not been fit to live with in any better, truer, or more energetic mode than that to which i was accustomed. so it was taken off me and flung aside, like any other worn-out or unseasonable garment; and, after shivering a little while in my skeleton, i began to be clothed anew, and much more satisfactorily than in my previous suit. in literal and physical truth, i was quite another man. i had a lively sense of the exultation with which the spirit will enter on the next stage of its eternal progress after leaving the heavy burden of its mortality in an early grave, with as little concern for what may become of it as now affected me for the flesh which i had lost. emerging into the genial sunshine, i half fancied that the labors of the brotherhood had already realized some of fourier's predictions. their enlightened culture of the soil, and the virtues with which they sanctified their life, had begun to produce an effect upon the material world and its climate. in my new enthusiasm, man looked strong and stately,--and woman, oh, how beautiful!--and the earth a green garden, blossoming with many-colored delights. thus nature, whose laws i had broken in various artificial ways, comported herself towards me as a strict but loving mother, who uses the rod upon her little boy for his naughtiness, and then gives him a smile, a kiss, and some pretty playthings to console the urchin for her severity. in the interval of my seclusion, there had been a number of recruits to our little army of saints and martyrs. they were mostly individuals who had gone through such an experience as to disgust them with ordinary pursuits, but who were not yet so old, nor had suffered so deeply, as to lose their faith in the better time to come. on comparing their minds one with another they often discovered that this idea of a community had been growing up, in silent and unknown sympathy, for years. thoughtful, strongly lined faces were among them; sombre brows, but eyes that did not require spectacles, unless prematurely dimmed by the student's lamplight, and hair that seldom showed a thread of silver. age, wedded to the past, incrusted over with a stony layer of habits, and retaining nothing fluid in its possibilities, would have been absurdly out of place in an enterprise like this. youth, too, in its early dawn, was hardly more adapted to our purpose; for it would behold the morning radiance of its own spirit beaming over the very same spots of withered grass and barren sand whence most of us had seen it vanish. we had very young people with us, it is true,--downy lads, rosy girls in their first teens, and children of all heights above one's knee; but these had chiefly been sent hither for education, which it was one of the objects and methods of our institution to supply. then we had boarders, from town and elsewhere, who lived with us in a familiar way, sympathized more or less in our theories, and sometimes shared in our labors. on the whole, it was a society such as has seldom met together; nor, perhaps, could it reasonably be expected to hold together long. persons of marked individuality--crooked sticks, as some of us might be called--are not exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot. but, so long as our union should subsist, a man of intellect and feeling, with a free nature in him, might have sought far and near without finding so many points of attraction as would allure him hitherward. we were of all creeds and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on every imaginable subject. our bond, it seems to me, was not affirmative, but negative. we had individually found one thing or another to quarrel with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed as to the inexpediency of lumbering along with the old system any further. as to what should be substituted, there was much less unanimity. we did not greatly care--at least, i never did--for the written constitution under which our millennium had commenced. my hope was, that, between theory and practice, a true and available mode of life might be struck out; and that, even should we ultimately fail, the months or years spent in the trial would not have been wasted, either as regarded passing enjoyment, or the experience which makes men wise. arcadians though we were, our costume bore no resemblance to the beribboned doublets, silk breeches and stockings, and slippers fastened with artificial roses, that distinguish the pastoral people of poetry and the stage. in outward show, i humbly conceive, we looked rather like a gang of beggars, or banditti, than either a company of honest laboring-men, or a conclave of philosophers. whatever might be our points of difference, we all of us seemed to have come to blithedale with the one thrifty and laudable idea of wearing out our old clothes. such garments as had an airing, whenever we strode afield! coats with high collars and with no collars, broad-skirted or swallow-tailed, and with the waist at every point between the hip and arm-pit; pantaloons of a dozen successive epochs, and greatly defaced at the knees by the humiliations of the wearer before his lady-love,--in short, we were a living epitome of defunct fashions, and the very raggedest presentment of men who had seen better days. it was gentility in tatters. often retaining a scholarlike or clerical air, you might have taken us for the denizens of grub street, intent on getting a comfortable livelihood by agricultural labor; or coleridge's projected pantisocracy in full experiment; or candide and his motley associates at work in their cabbage garden; or anything else that was miserably out at elbows, and most clumsily patched in the rear. we might have been sworn comrades to falstaff's ragged regiment. little skill as we boasted in other points of husbandry, every mother's son of us would have served admirably to stick up for a scarecrow. and the worst of the matter was, that the first energetic movement essential to one downright stroke of real labor was sure to put a finish to these poor habiliments. so we gradually flung them all aside, and took to honest homespun and linsey-woolsey, as preferable, on the whole, to the plan recommended, i think, by virgil,--"ara nudus; sere nudus, "--which as silas foster remarked, when i translated the maxim, would be apt to astonish the women-folks. after a reasonable training, the yeoman life throve well with us. our faces took the sunburn kindly; our chests gained in compass, and our shoulders in breadth and squareness; our great brown fists looked as if they had never been capable of kid gloves. the plough, the hoe, the scythe, and the hay-fork grew familiar to our grasp. the oxen responded to our voices. we could do almost as fair a day's work as silas foster himself, sleep dreamlessly after it, and awake at daybreak with only a little stiffness of the joints, which was usually quite gone by breakfast-time. to be sure, our next neighbors pretended to be incredulous as to our real proficiency in the business which we had taken in hand. they told slanderous fables about our inability to yoke our own oxen, or to drive them afield when yoked, or to release the poor brutes from their conjugal bond at nightfall. they had the face to say, too, that the cows laughed at our awkwardness at milking-time, and invariably kicked over the pails; partly in consequence of our putting the stool on the wrong side, and partly because, taking offence at the whisking of their tails, we were in the habit of holding these natural fly-flappers with one hand and milking with the other. they further averred that we hoed up whole acres of indian corn and other crops, and drew the earth carefully about the weeds; and that we raised five hundred tufts of burdock, mistaking them for cabbages; and that by dint of unskilful planting few of our seeds ever came up at all, or, if they did come up, it was stern-foremost; and that we spent the better part of the month of june in reversing a field of beans, which had thrust themselves out of the ground in this unseemly way. they quoted it as nothing more than an ordinary occurrence for one or other of us to crop off two or three fingers, of a morning, by our clumsy use of the hay-cutter. finally, and as an ultimate catastrophe, these mendacious rogues circulated a report that we communitarians were exterminated, to the last man, by severing ourselves asunder with the sweep of our own scythes! and that the world had lost nothing by this little accident. but this was pure envy and malice on the part of the neighboring farmers. the peril of our new way of life was not lest we should fail in becoming practical agriculturists, but that we should probably cease to be anything else. while our enterprise lay all in theory, we had pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the spiritualization of labor. it was to be our form of prayer and ceremonial of worship. each stroke of the hoe was to uncover some aromatic root of wisdom, heretofore hidden from the sun. pausing in the field, to let the wind exhale the moisture from our foreheads, we were to look upward, and catch glimpses into the far-off soul of truth. in this point of view, matters did not turn out quite so well as we anticipated. it is very true that, sometimes, gazing casually around me, out of the midst of my toil, i used to discern a richer picturesqueness in the visible scene of earth and sky. there was, at such moments, a novelty, an unwonted aspect, on the face of nature, as if she had been taken by surprise and seen at unawares, with no opportunity to put off her real look, and assume the mask with which she mysteriously hides herself from mortals. but this was all. the clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned over and over, were never etherealized into thought. our thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. our labor symbolized nothing, and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the evening. intellectual activity is incompatible with any large amount of bodily exercise. the yeoman and the scholar--the yeoman and the man of finest moral culture, though not the man of sturdiest sense and integrity--are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or welded into one substance. zenobia soon saw this truth, and gibed me about it, one evening, as hollingsworth and i lay on the grass, after a hard day's work. "i am afraid you did not make a song today, while loading the hay-cart," said she, "as burns did, when he was reaping barley." "burns never made a song in haying-time," i answered very positively. "he was no poet while a farmer, and no farmer while a poet." "and on the whole, which of the two characters do you like best?" asked zenobia. "for i have an idea that you cannot combine them any better than burns did. ah, i see, in my mind's eye, what sort of an individual you are to be, two or three years hence. grim silas foster is your prototype, with his palm of sole-leather, and his joints of rusty iron (which all through summer keep the stiffness of what he calls his winter's rheumatize), and his brain of--i don't know what his brain is made of, unless it be a savoy cabbage; but yours may be cauliflower, as a rather more delicate variety. your physical man will be transmuted into salt beef and fried pork, at the rate, i should imagine, of a pound and a half a day; that being about the average which we find necessary in the kitchen. you will make your toilet for the day (still like this delightful silas foster) by rinsing your fingers and the front part of your face in a little tin pan of water at the doorstep, and teasing your hair with a wooden pocket-comb before a seven-by-nine-inch looking-glass. your only pastime will be to smoke some very vile tobacco in the black stump of a pipe." "pray, spare me!" cried i. "but the pipe is not silas's only mode of solacing himself with the weed." "your literature," continued zenobia, apparently delighted with her description, "will be the 'farmer's almanac;' for i observe our friend foster never gets so far as the newspaper. when you happen to sit down, at odd moments, you will fall asleep, and make nasal proclamation of the fact, as he does; and invariably you must be jogged out of a nap, after supper, by the future mrs. coverdale, and persuaded to go regularly to bed. and on sundays, when you put on a blue coat with brass buttons, you will think of nothing else to do but to go and lounge over the stone walls and rail fences, and stare at the corn growing. and you will look with a knowing eye at oxen, and will have a tendency to clamber over into pigsties, and feel of the hogs, and give a guess how much they will weigh after you shall have stuck and dressed them. already i have noticed you begin to speak through your nose, and with a drawl. pray, if you really did make any poetry to-day, let us hear it in that kind of utterance!" "coverdale has given up making verses now," said hollingsworth, who never had the slightest appreciation of my poetry. "just think of him penning a sonnet with a fist like that! there is at least this good in a life of toil, that it takes the nonsense and fancy-work out of a man, and leaves nothing but what truly belongs to him. if a farmer can make poetry at the plough-tail, it must be because his nature insists on it; and if that be the case, let him make it, in heaven's name!" "and how is it with you?" asked zenobia, in a different voice; for she never laughed at hollingsworth, as she often did at me. "you, i think, cannot have ceased to live a life of thought and feeling." "i have always been in earnest," answered hollingsworth. "i have hammered thought out of iron, after heating the iron in my heart! it matters little what my outward toil may be. were i a slave, at the bottom of a mine, i should keep the same purpose, the same faith in its ultimate accomplishment, that i do now. miles coverdale is not in earnest, either as a poet or a laborer." "you give me hard measure, hollingsworth," said i, a little hurt. "i have kept pace with you in the field; and my bones feel as if i had been in earnest, whatever may be the case with my brain!" "i cannot conceive," observed zenobia with great emphasis,--and, no doubt, she spoke fairly the feeling of the moment,--"i cannot conceive of being so continually as mr. coverdale is within the sphere of a strong and noble nature, without being strengthened and ennobled by its influence!" this amiable remark of the fair zenobia confirmed me in what i had already begun to suspect, that hollingsworth, like many other illustrious prophets, reformers, and philanthropists, was likely to make at least two proselytes among the women to one among the men. zenobia and priscilla! these, i believe (unless my unworthy self might be reckoned for a third), were the only disciples of his mission; and i spent a great deal of time, uselessly, in trying to conjecture what hollingsworth meant to do with them--and they with him! ix. hollingsworth, zenobia, priscilla it is not, i apprehend, a healthy kind of mental occupation to devote ourselves too exclusively to the study of individual men and women. if the person under examination be one's self, the result is pretty certain to be diseased action of the heart, almost before we can snatch a second glance. or if we take the freedom to put a friend under our microscope, we thereby insulate him from many of his true relations, magnify his peculiarities, inevitably tear him into parts, and of course patch him very clumsily together again. what wonder, then, should we be frightened by the aspect of a monster, which, after all,--though we can point to every feature of his deformity in the real personage,--may be said to have been created mainly by ourselves. thus, as my conscience has often whispered me, i did hollingsworth a great wrong by prying into his character; and am perhaps doing him as great a one, at this moment, by putting faith in the discoveries which i seemed to make. but i could not help it. had i loved him less, i might have used him better. he and zenobia and priscilla--both for their own sakes and as connected with him--were separated from the rest of the community, to my imagination, and stood forth as the indices of a problem which it was my business to solve. other associates had a portion of my time; other matters amused me; passing occurrences carried me along with them, while they lasted. but here was the vortex of my meditations, around which they revolved, and whitherward they too continually tended. in the midst of cheerful society, i had often a feeling of loneliness. for it was impossible not to be sensible that, while these three characters figured so largely on my private theatre, i--though probably reckoned as a friend by all--was at best but a secondary or tertiary personage with either of them. i loved hollingsworth, as has already been enough expressed. but it impressed me, more and more, that there was a stern and dreadful peculiarity in this man, such as could not prove otherwise than pernicious to the happiness of those who should be drawn into too intimate a connection with him. he was not altogether human. there was something else in hollingsworth besides flesh and blood, and sympathies and affections and celestial spirit. this is always true of those men who have surrendered themselves to an overruling purpose. it does not so much impel them from without, nor even operate as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with all that they think and feel, and finally converts them into little else save that one principle. when such begins to be the predicament, it is not cowardice, but wisdom, to avoid these victims. they have no heart, no sympathy, no reason, no conscience. they will keep no friend, unless he make himself the mirror of their purpose; they will smite and slay you, and trample your dead corpse under foot, all the more readily, if you take the first step with them, and cannot take the second, and the third, and every other step of their terribly strait path. they have an idol to which they consecrate themselves high-priest, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is most precious; and never once seem to suspect--so cunning has the devil been with them--that this false deity, in whose iron features, immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon the surrounding darkness. and the higher and purer the original object, and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter is the probability that they can be led to recognize the process by which godlike benevolence has been debased into all-devouring egotism. of course i am perfectly aware that the above statement is exaggerated, in the attempt to make it adequate. professed philanthropists have gone far; but no originally good man, i presume, ever went quite so far as this. let the reader abate whatever he deems fit. the paragraph may remain, however, both for its truth and its exaggeration, as strongly expressive of the tendencies which were really operative in hollingsworth, and as exemplifying the kind of error into which my mode of observation was calculated to lead me. the issue was, that in solitude i often shuddered at my friend. in my recollection of his dark and impressive countenance, the features grew more sternly prominent than the reality, duskier in their depth and shadow, and more lurid in their light; the frown, that had merely flitted across his brow, seemed to have contorted it with an adamantine wrinkle. on meeting him again, i was often filled with remorse, when his deep eyes beamed kindly upon me, as with the glow of a household fire that was burning in a cave. "he is a man after all," thought i; "his maker's own truest image, a philanthropic man!--not that steel engine of the devil's contrivance, a philanthropist!" but in my wood-walks, and in my silent chamber, the dark face frowned at me again. when a young girl comes within the sphere of such a man, she is as perilously situated as the maiden whom, in the old classical myths, the people used to expose to a dragon. if i had any duty whatever, in reference to hollingsworth, it was to endeavor to save priscilla from that kind of personal worship which her sex is generally prone to lavish upon saints and heroes. it often requires but one smile out of the hero's eyes into the girl's or woman's heart, to transform this devotion, from a sentiment of the highest approval and confidence, into passionate love. now, hollingsworth smiled much upon priscilla,--more than upon any other person. if she thought him beautiful, it was no wonder. i often thought him so, with the expression of tender human care and gentlest sympathy which she alone seemed to have power to call out upon his features. zenobia, i suspect, would have given her eyes, bright as they were, for such a look; it was the least that our poor priscilla could do, to give her heart for a great many of them. there was the more danger of this, inasmuch as the footing on which we all associated at blithedale was widely different from that of conventional society. while inclining us to the soft affections of the golden age, it seemed to authorize any individual, of either sex, to fall in love with any other, regardless of what would elsewhere be judged suitable and prudent. accordingly the tender passion was very rife among us, in various degrees of mildness or virulence, but mostly passing away with the state of things that had given it origin. this was all well enough; but, for a girl like priscilla and a woman like zenobia to jostle one another in their love of a man like hollingsworth, was likely to be no child's play. had i been as cold-hearted as i sometimes thought myself, nothing would have interested me more than to witness the play of passions that must thus have been evolved. but, in honest truth, i would really have gone far to save priscilla, at least, from the catastrophe in which such a drama would be apt to terminate. priscilla had now grown to be a very pretty girl, and still kept budding and blossoming, and daily putting on some new charm, which you no sooner became sensible of than you thought it worth all that she had previously possessed. so unformed, vague, and without substance, as she had come to us, it seemed as if we could see nature shaping out a woman before our very eyes, and yet had only a more reverential sense of the mystery of a woman's soul and frame. yesterday, her cheek was pale, to-day, it had a bloom. priscilla's smile, like a baby's first one, was a wondrous novelty. her imperfections and shortcomings affected me with a kind of playful pathos, which was as absolutely bewitching a sensation as ever i experienced. after she had been a month or two at blithedale, her animal spirits waxed high, and kept her pretty constantly in a state of bubble and ferment, impelling her to far more bodily activity than she had yet strength to endure. she was very fond of playing with the other girls out of doors. there is hardly another sight in the world so pretty as that of a company of young girls, almost women grown, at play, and so giving themselves up to their airy impulse that their tiptoes barely touch the ground. girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent than boys, more untamable and regardless of rule and limit, with an ever-shifting variety, breaking continually into new modes of fun, yet with a harmonious propriety through all. their steps, their voices, appear free as the wind, but keep consonance with a strain of music inaudible to us. young men and boys, on the other hand, play, according to recognized law, old, traditionary games, permitting no caprioles of fancy, but with scope enough for the outbreak of savage instincts. for, young or old, in play or in earnest, man is prone to be a brute. especially is it delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a race, with her head thrown back, her limbs moving more friskily than they need, and an air between that of a bird and a young colt. but priscilla's peculiar charm, in a foot-race, was the weakness and irregularity with which she ran. growing up without exercise, except to her poor little fingers, she had never yet acquired the perfect use of her legs. setting buoyantly forth, therefore, as if no rival less swift than atalanta could compete with her, she ran falteringly, and often tumbled on the grass. such an incident--though it seems too slight to think of--was a thing to laugh at, but which brought the water into one's eyes, and lingered in the memory after far greater joys and sorrows were wept out of it, as antiquated trash. priscilla's life, as i beheld it, was full of trifles that affected me in just this way. when she had come to be quite at home among us, i used to fancy that priscilla played more pranks, and perpetrated more mischief, than any other girl in the community. for example, i once heard silas foster, in a very gruff voice, threatening to rivet three horseshoes round priscilla's neck and chain her to a post, because she, with some other young people, had clambered upon a load of hay, and caused it to slide off the cart. how she made her peace i never knew; but very soon afterwards i saw old silas, with his brawny hands round priscilla's waist, swinging her to and fro, and finally depositing her on one of the oxen, to take her first lessons in riding. she met with terrible mishaps in her efforts to milk a cow; she let the poultry into the garden; she generally spoilt whatever part of the dinner she took in charge; she broke crockery; she dropt our biggest water pitcher into the well; and--except with her needle, and those little wooden instruments for purse-making--was as unserviceable a member of society as any young lady in the land. there was no other sort of efficiency about her. yet everybody was kind to priscilla; everybody loved her and laughed at her to her face, and did not laugh behind her back; everybody would have given her half of his last crust, or the bigger share of his plum-cake. these were pretty certain indications that we were all conscious of a pleasant weakness in the girl, and considered her not quite able to look after her own interests or fight her battle with the world. and hollingsworth--perhaps because he had been the means of introducing priscilla to her new abode--appeared to recognize her as his own especial charge. her simple, careless, childish flow of spirits often made me sad. she seemed to me like a butterfly at play in a flickering bit of sunshine, and mistaking it for a broad and eternal summer. we sometimes hold mirth to a stricter accountability than sorrow; it must show good cause, or the echo of its laughter comes back drearily. priscilla's gayety, moreover, was of a nature that showed me how delicate an instrument she was, and what fragile harp-strings were her nerves. as they made sweet music at the airiest touch, it would require but a stronger one to burst them all asunder. absurd as it might be, i tried to reason with her, and persuade her not to be so joyous, thinking that, if she would draw less lavishly upon her fund of happiness, it would last the longer. i remember doing so, one summer evening, when we tired laborers sat looking on, like goldsmith's old folks under the village thorn-tree, while the young people were at their sports. "what is the use or sense of being so very gay?" i said to priscilla, while she was taking breath, after a great frolic. "i love to see a sufficient cause for everything, and i can see none for this. pray tell me, now, what kind of a world you imagine this to be, which you are so merry in." "i never think about it at all," answered priscilla, laughing. "but this i am sure of, that it is a world where everybody is kind to me, and where i love everybody. my heart keeps dancing within me, and all the foolish things which you see me do are only the motions of my heart. how can i be dismal, if my heart will not let me?" "have you nothing dismal to remember?" i suggested. "if not, then, indeed, you are very fortunate!" "ah!" said priscilla slowly. and then came that unintelligible gesture, when she seemed to be listening to a distant voice. "for my part," i continued, beneficently seeking to overshadow her with my own sombre humor, "my past life has been a tiresome one enough; yet i would rather look backward ten times than forward once. for, little as we know of our life to come, we may be very sure, for one thing, that the good we aim at will not be attained. people never do get just the good they seek. if it come at all, it is something else, which they never dreamed of, and did not particularly want. then, again, we may rest certain that our friends of to-day will not be our friends of a few years hence; but, if we keep one of them, it will be at the expense of the others; and most probably we shall keep none. to be sure, there are more to be had; but who cares about making a new set of friends, even should they be better than those around us?" "not i!" said priscilla. "i will live and die with these!" "well; but let the future go," resumed i. "as for the present moment, if we could look into the hearts where we wish to be most valued, what should you expect to see? one's own likeness, in the innermost, holiest niche? ah! i don't know! it may not be there at all. it may be a dusty image, thrust aside into a corner, and by and by to be flung out of doors, where any foot may trample upon it. if not to-day, then to-morrow! and so, priscilla, i do not see much wisdom in being so very merry in this kind of a world." it had taken me nearly seven years of worldly life to hive up the bitter honey which i here offered to priscilla. and she rejected it! "i don't believe one word of what you say!" she replied, laughing anew. "you made me sad, for a minute, by talking about the past; but the past never comes back again. do we dream the same dream twice? there is nothing else that i am afraid of." so away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, as it was often her luck to do, but got up again, without any harm. "priscilla, priscilla!" cried hollingsworth, who was sitting on the doorstep; "you had better not run any more to-night. you will weary yourself too much. and do not sit down out of doors, for there is a heavy dew beginning to fall." at his first word, she went and sat down under the porch, at hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and happy. what charm was there in his rude massiveness that so attracted and soothed this shadow-like girl? it appeared to me, who have always been curious in such matters, that priscilla's vague and seemingly causeless flow of felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced hearts, before they begin to suspect what is going on within them. it transports them to the seventh heaven; and if you ask what brought them thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn, but cherish an ecstatic faith that there they shall abide forever. zenobia was in the doorway, not far from hollingsworth. she gazed at priscilla in a very singular way. indeed, it was a sight worth gazing at, and a beautiful sight, too, as the fair girl sat at the feet of that dark, powerful figure. her air, while perfectly modest, delicate, and virgin-like, denoted her as swayed by hollingsworth, attracted to him, and unconsciously seeking to rest upon his strength. i could not turn away my own eyes, but hoped that nobody, save zenobia and myself, was witnessing this picture. it is before me now, with the evening twilight a little deepened by the dusk of memory. "come hither, priscilla," said zenobia. "i have something to say to you." she spoke in little more than a whisper. but it is strange how expressive of moods a whisper may often be. priscilla felt at once that something had gone wrong. "are you angry with me?" she asked, rising slowly, and standing before zenobia in a drooping attitude. "what have i done? i hope you are not angry!" "no, no, priscilla!" said hollingsworth, smiling. "i will answer for it, she is not. you are the one little person in the world with whom nobody can be angry!" "angry with you, child? what a silly idea!" exclaimed zenobia, laughing. "no, indeed! but, my dear priscilla, you are getting to be so very pretty that you absolutely need a duenna; and, as i am older than you, and have had my own little experience of life, and think myself exceedingly sage, i intend to fill the place of a maiden aunt. every day, i shall give you a lecture, a quarter of an hour in length, on the morals, manners, and proprieties of social life. when our pastoral shall be quite played out, priscilla, my worldly wisdom may stand you in good stead." "i am afraid you are angry with me!" repeated priscilla sadly; for, while she seemed as impressible as wax, the girl often showed a persistency in her own ideas as stubborn as it was gentle. "dear me, what can i say to the child!" cried zenobia in a tone of humorous vexation. "well, well; since you insist on my being angry, come to my room this moment, and let me beat you!" zenobia bade hollingsworth good-night very sweetly, and nodded to me with a smile. but, just as she turned aside with priscilla into the dimness of the porch, i caught another glance at her countenance. it would have made the fortune of a tragic actress, could she have borrowed it for the moment when she fumbles in her bosom for the concealed dagger, or the exceedingly sharp bodkin, or mingles the ratsbane in her lover's bowl of wine or her rival's cup of tea. not that i in the least anticipated any such catastrophe,--it being a remarkable truth that custom has in no one point a greater sway than over our modes of wreaking our wild passions. and besides, had we been in italy, instead of new england, it was hardly yet a crisis for the dagger or the bowl. it often amazed me, however, that hollingsworth should show himself so recklessly tender towards priscilla, and never once seem to think of the effect which it might have upon her heart. but the man, as i have endeavored to explain, was thrown completely off his moral balance, and quite bewildered as to his personal relations, by his great excrescence of a philanthropic scheme. i used to see, or fancy, indications that he was not altogether obtuse to zenobia's influence as a woman. no doubt, however, he had a still more exquisite enjoyment of priscilla's silent sympathy with his purposes, so unalloyed with criticism, and therefore more grateful than any intellectual approbation, which always involves a possible reserve of latent censure. a man--poet, prophet, or whatever he may be--readily persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is voluntarily tendered. in requital of so rich benefits as he was to confer upon mankind, it would have been hard to deny hollingsworth the simple solace of a young girl's heart, which he held in his hand, and smelled too, like a rosebud. but what if, while pressing out its fragrance, he should crush the tender rosebud in his grasp! as for zenobia, i saw no occasion to give myself any trouble. with her native strength, and her experience of the world, she could not be supposed to need any help of mine. nevertheless, i was really generous enough to feel some little interest likewise for zenobia. with all her faults (which might have been a great many besides the abundance that i knew of), she possessed noble traits, and a heart which must, at least, have been valuable while new. and she seemed ready to fling it away as uncalculatingly as priscilla herself. i could not but suspect that, if merely at play with hollingsworth, she was sporting with a power which she did not fully estimate. or if in earnest, it might chance, between zenobia's passionate force and his dark, self-delusive egotism, to turn out such earnest as would develop itself in some sufficiently tragic catastrophe, though the dagger and the bowl should go for nothing in it. meantime, the gossip of the community set them down as a pair of lovers. they took walks together, and were not seldom encountered in the wood-paths: hollingsworth deeply discoursing, in tones solemn and sternly pathetic; zenobia, with a rich glow on her cheeks, and her eyes softened from their ordinary brightness, looked so beautiful, that had her companion been ten times a philanthropist, it seemed impossible but that one glance should melt him back into a man. oftener than anywhere else, they went to a certain point on the slope of a pasture, commanding nearly the whole of our own domain, besides a view of the river, and an airy prospect of many distant hills. the bond of our community was such, that the members had the privilege of building cottages for their own residence within our precincts, thus laying a hearthstone and fencing in a home private and peculiar to all desirable extent, while yet the inhabitants should continue to share the advantages of an associated life. it was inferred that hollingsworth and zenobia intended to rear their dwelling on this favorite spot. i mentioned those rumors to hollingsworth in a playful way. "had you consulted me," i went on to observe, "i should have recommended a site farther to the left, just a little withdrawn into the wood, with two or three peeps at the prospect among the trees. you will be in the shady vale of years long before you can raise any better kind of shade around your cottage, if you build it on this bare slope." "but i offer my edifice as a spectacle to the world," said hollingsworth, "that it may take example and build many another like it. therefore, i mean to set it on the open hillside." twist these words how i might, they offered no very satisfactory import. it seemed hardly probable that hollingsworth should care about educating the public taste in the department of cottage architecture, desirable as such improvement certainly was. x. a visitor from town hollingsworth and i--we had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon, while the rest of the fraternity were engaged in a distant quarter of the farm--sat under a clump of maples, eating our eleven o'clock lunch, when we saw a stranger approaching along the edge of the field. he had admitted himself from the roadside through a turnstile, and seemed to have a purpose of speaking with us. and, by the bye, we were favored with many visits at blithedale, especially from people who sympathized with our theories, and perhaps held themselves ready to unite in our actual experiment as soon as there should appear a reliable promise of its success. it was rather ludicrous, indeed (to me, at least, whose enthusiasm had insensibly been exhaled together with the perspiration of many a hard day's toil), it was absolutely funny, therefore, to observe what a glory was shed about our life and labors, in the imaginations of these longing proselytes. in their view, we were as poetical as arcadians, besides being as practical as the hardest-fisted husbandmen in massachusetts. we did not, it is true, spend much time in piping to our sheep, or warbling our innocent loves to the sisterhood. but they gave us credit for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupations with a kind of religious poetry, insomuch that our very cow-yards and pig-sties were as delightfully fragrant as a flower garden. nothing used to please me more than to see one of these lay enthusiasts snatch up a hoe, as they were very prone to do, and set to work with a vigor that perhaps carried him through about a dozen ill-directed strokes. men are wonderfully soon satisfied, in this day of shameful bodily enervation, when, from one end of life to the other, such multitudes never taste the sweet weariness that follows accustomed toil. i seldom saw the new enthusiasm that did not grow as flimsy and flaccid as the proselyte's moistened shirt-collar, with a quarter of an hour's active labor under a july sun. but the person now at hand had not at all the air of one of these amiable visionaries. he was an elderly man, dressed rather shabbily, yet decently enough, in a gray frock-coat, faded towards a brown hue, and wore a broad-brimmed white hat, of the fashion of several years gone by. his hair was perfect silver, without a dark thread in the whole of it; his nose, though it had a scarlet tip, by no means indicated the jollity of which a red nose is the generally admitted symbol. he was a subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would doubtless drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more than was good for him,--not, however, with a purpose of undue exhilaration, but in the hope of bringing his spirits up to the ordinary level of the world's cheerfulness. drawing nearer, there was a shy look about him, as if he were ashamed of his poverty, or, at any rate, for some reason or other, would rather have us glance at him sidelong than take a full front view. he had a queer appearance of hiding himself behind the patch on his left eye. "i know this old gentleman," said i to hollingsworth, as we sat observing him; "that is, i have met him a hundred times in town, and have often amused my fancy with wondering what he was before he came to be what he is. he haunts restaurants and such places, and has an odd way of lurking in corners or getting behind a door whenever practicable, and holding out his hand with some little article in it which he wishes you to buy. the eye of the world seems to trouble him, although he necessarily lives so much in it. i never expected to see him in an open field." "have you learned anything of his history?" asked hollingsworth. "not a circumstance," i answered; "but there must be something curious in it. i take him to be a harmless sort of a person, and a tolerably honest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of those of a rat,--a rat without the mischief, the fierce eye, the teeth to bite with, or the desire to bite. see, now! he means to skulk along that fringe of bushes, and approach us on the other side of our clump of maples." we soon heard the old man's velvet tread on the grass, indicating that he had arrived within a few feet of where we sat. "good-morning, mr. moodie," said hollingsworth, addressing the stranger as an acquaintance; "you must have had a hot and tiresome walk from the city. sit down, and take a morsel of our bread and cheese." the visitor made a grateful little murmur of acquiescence, and sat down in a spot somewhat removed; so that, glancing round, i could see his gray pantaloons and dusty shoes, while his upper part was mostly hidden behind the shrubbery. nor did he come forth from this retirement during the whole of the interview that followed. we handed him such food as we had, together with a brown jug of molasses and water (would that it had been brandy, or some thing better, for the sake of his chill old heart!), like priests offering dainty sacrifice to an enshrined and invisible idol. i have no idea that he really lacked sustenance; but it was quite touching, nevertheless, to hear him nibbling away at our crusts. "mr. moodie," said i, "do you remember selling me one of those very pretty little silk purses, of which you seem to have a monopoly in the market? i keep it to this day, i can assure you." "ah, thank you," said our guest. "yes, mr. coverdale, i used to sell a good many of those little purses." he spoke languidly, and only those few words, like a watch with an inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment or two and stops again. he seemed a very forlorn old man. in the wantonness of youth, strength, and comfortable condition,--making my prey of people's individualities, as my custom was,--i tried to identify my mind with the old fellow's, and take his view of the world, as if looking through a smoke-blackened glass at the sun. it robbed the landscape of all its life. those pleasantly swelling slopes of our farm, descending towards the wide meadows, through which sluggishly circled the brimful tide of the charles, bathing the long sedges on its hither and farther shores; the broad, sunny gleam over the winding water; that peculiar picturesqueness of the scene where capes and headlands put themselves boldly forth upon the perfect level of the meadow, as into a green lake, with inlets between the promontories; the shadowy woodland, with twinkling showers of light falling into its depths; the sultry heat-vapor, which rose everywhere like incense, and in which my soul delighted, as indicating so rich a fervor in the passionate day, and in the earth that was burning with its love,--i beheld all these things as through old moodie's eyes. when my eyes are dimmer than they have yet come to be, i will go thither again, and see if i did not catch the tone of his mind aright, and if the cold and lifeless tint of his perceptions be not then repeated in my own. yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that i felt in him. "have you any objection," said i, "to telling me who made those little purses?" "gentlemen have often asked me that," said moodie slowly; "but i shake my head, and say little or nothing, and creep out of the way as well as i can. i am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be told one thing, they would be very apt, i suppose, to ask me another. but it happens just now, mr. coverdale, that you can tell me more about the maker of those little purses than i can tell you." "why do you trouble him with needless questions, coverdale?" interrupted hollingsworth. "you must have known, long ago, that it was priscilla. and so, my good friend, you have come to see her? well, i am glad of it. you will find her altered very much for the better, since that winter evening when you put her into my charge. why, priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!" "has my pale little girl a bloom?" repeated moodie with a kind of slow wonder. "priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks! ah, i am afraid i shall not know my little girl. and is she happy?" "just as happy as a bird," answered hollingsworth. "then, gentlemen," said our guest apprehensively, "i don't think it well for me to go any farther. i crept hitherward only to ask about priscilla; and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps i can do no better than to creep back again. if she were to see this old face of mine, the child would remember some very sad times which we have spent together. some very sad times, indeed! she has forgotten them, i know,--them and me,--else she could not be so happy, nor have a bloom in her cheeks. yes--yes--yes," continued he, still with the same torpid utterance; "with many thanks to you, mr. hollingsworth, i will creep back to town again." "you shall do no such thing, mr. moodie," said hollingsworth bluffly. "priscilla often speaks of you; and if there lacks anything to make her cheeks bloom like two damask roses, i'll venture to say it is just the sight of your face. come,--we will go and find her." "mr. hollingsworth!" said the old man in his hesitating way. "well," answered hollingsworth. "has there been any call for priscilla?" asked moodie; and though his face was hidden from us, his tone gave a sure indication of the mysterious nod and wink with which he put the question. "you know, i think, sir, what i mean." "i have not the remotest suspicion what you mean, mr. moodie," replied hollingsworth; "nobody, to my knowledge, has called for priscilla, except yourself. but come; we are losing time, and i have several things to say to you by the way." "and, mr. hollingsworth!" repeated moodie. "well, again!" cried my friend rather impatiently. "what now?" "there is a lady here," said the old man; and his voice lost some of its wearisome hesitation. "you will account it a very strange matter for me to talk about; but i chanced to know this lady when she was but a little child. if i am rightly informed, she has grown to be a very fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in the world, with her beauty, and her talents, and her noble way of spending her riches. i should recognize this lady, so people tell me, by a magnificent flower in her hair." "what a rich tinge it gives to his colorless ideas, when he speaks of zenobia!" i whispered to hollingsworth. "but how can there possibly be any interest or connecting link between him and her?" "the old man, for years past," whispered hollingsworth, "has been a little out of his right mind, as you probably see." "what i would inquire," resumed moodie, "is whether this beautiful lady is kind to my poor priscilla." "very kind," said hollingsworth. "does she love her?" asked moodie. "it should seem so," answered my friend. "they are always together." "like a gentlewoman and her maid-servant, i fancy?" suggested the old man. there was something so singular in his way of saying this, that i could not resist the impulse to turn quite round, so as to catch a glimpse of his face, almost imagining that i should see another person than old moodie. but there he sat, with the patched side of his face towards me. "like an elder and younger sister, rather," replied hollingsworth. "ah!" said moodie more complacently, for his latter tones had harshness and acidity in them,--"it would gladden my old heart to witness that. if one thing would make me happier than another, mr. hollingsworth, it would be to see that beautiful lady holding my little girl by the hand." "come along," said hollingsworth, "and perhaps you may." after a little more delay on the part of our freakish visitor, they set forth together, old moodie keeping a step or two behind hollingsworth, so that the latter could not very conveniently look him in the face. i remained under the tuft of maples, doing my utmost to draw an inference from the scene that had just passed. in spite of hollingsworth's off-hand explanation, it did not strike me that our strange guest was really beside himself, but only that his mind needed screwing up, like an instrument long out of tune, the strings of which have ceased to vibrate smartly and sharply. methought it would be profitable for us, projectors of a happy life, to welcome this old gray shadow, and cherish him as one of us, and let him creep about our domain, in order that he might be a little merrier for our sakes, and we, sometimes, a little sadder for his. human destinies look ominous without some perceptible intermixture of the sable or the gray. and then, too, should any of our fraternity grow feverish with an over-exulting sense of prosperity, it would be a sort of cooling regimen to slink off into the woods, and spend an hour, or a day, or as many days as might be requisite to the cure, in uninterrupted communion with this deplorable old moodie! going homeward to dinner, i had a glimpse of him, behind the trunk of a tree, gazing earnestly towards a particular window of the farmhouse; and by and by priscilla appeared at this window, playfully drawing along zenobia, who looked as bright as the very day that was blazing down upon us, only not, by many degrees, so well advanced towards her noon. i was convinced that this pretty sight must have been purposely arranged by priscilla for the old man to see. but either the girl held her too long, or her fondness was resented as too great a freedom; for zenobia suddenly put priscilla decidedly away, and gave her a haughty look, as from a mistress to a dependant. old moodie shook his head; and again and again i saw him shake it, as he withdrew along the road; and at the last point whence the farmhouse was visible, he turned and shook his uplifted staff. xi. the wood-path not long after the preceding incident, in order to get the ache of too constant labor out of my bones, and to relieve my spirit of the irksomeness of a settled routine, i took a holiday. it was my purpose to spend it all alone, from breakfast-time till twilight, in the deepest wood-seclusion that lay anywhere around us. though fond of society, i was so constituted as to need these occasional retirements, even in a life like that of blithedale, which was itself characterized by a remoteness from the world. unless renewed by a yet further withdrawal towards the inner circle of self-communion, i lost the better part of my individuality. my thoughts became of little worth, and my sensibilities grew as arid as a tuft of moss (a thing whose life is in the shade, the rain, or the noontide dew), crumbling in the sunshine after long expectance of a shower. so, with my heart full of a drowsy pleasure, and cautious not to dissipate my mood by previous intercourse with any one, i hurried away, and was soon pacing a wood-path, arched overhead with boughs, and dusky-brown beneath my feet. at first i walked very swiftly, as if the heavy flood tide of social life were roaring at my heels, and would outstrip and overwhelm me, without all the better diligence in my escape. but, threading the more distant windings of the track, i abated my pace, and looked about me for some side-aisle, that should admit me into the innermost sanctuary of this green cathedral, just as, in human acquaintanceship, a casual opening sometimes lets us, all of a sudden, into the long-sought intimacy of a mysterious heart. so much was i absorbed in my reflections,--or, rather, in my mood, the substance of which was as yet too shapeless to be called thought,--that footsteps rustled on the leaves, and a figure passed me by, almost without impressing either the sound or sight upon my consciousness. a moment afterwards, i heard a voice at a little distance behind me, speaking so sharply and impertinently that it made a complete discord with my spiritual state, and caused the latter to vanish as abruptly as when you thrust a finger into a soap-bubble. "halloo, friend!" cried this most unseasonable voice. "stop a moment, i say! i must have a word with you!" i turned about, in a humor ludicrously irate. in the first place, the interruption, at any rate, was a grievous injury; then, the tone displeased me. and finally, unless there be real affection in his heart, a man cannot,--such is the bad state to which the world has brought itself,--cannot more effectually show his contempt for a brother mortal, nor more gallingly assume a position of superiority, than by addressing him as "friend." especially does the misapplication of this phrase bring out that latent hostility which is sure to animate peculiar sects, and those who, with however generous a purpose, have sequestered themselves from the crowd; a feeling, it is true, which may be hidden in some dog-kennel of the heart, grumbling there in the darkness, but is never quite extinct, until the dissenting party have gained power and scope enough to treat the world generously. for my part, i should have taken it as far less an insult to be styled "fellow," "clown," or "bumpkin." to either of these appellations my rustic garb (it was a linen blouse, with checked shirt and striped pantaloons, a chip hat on my head, and a rough hickory stick in my hand) very fairly entitled me. as the case stood, my temper darted at once to the opposite pole; not friend, but enemy! "what do you want with me?" said i, facing about. "come a little nearer, friend," said the stranger, beckoning. "no," answered i. "if i can do anything for you without too much trouble to myself, say so. but recollect, if you please, that you are not speaking to an acquaintance, much less a friend!" "upon my word, i believe not!" retorted he, looking at me with some curiosity; and, lifting his hat, he made me a salute which had enough of sarcasm to be offensive, and just enough of doubtful courtesy to render any resentment of it absurd. "but i ask your pardon! i recognize a little mistake. if i may take the liberty to suppose it, you, sir, are probably one of the aesthetic--or shall i rather say ecstatic?--laborers, who have planted themselves hereabouts. this is your forest of arden; and you are either the banished duke in person, or one of the chief nobles in his train. the melancholy jacques, perhaps? be it so. in that case, you can probably do me a favor." i never, in my life, felt less inclined to confer a favor on any man. "i am busy," said i. so unexpectedly had the stranger made me sensible of his presence, that he had almost the effect of an apparition; and certainly a less appropriate one (taking into view the dim woodland solitude about us) than if the salvage man of antiquity, hirsute and cinctured with a leafy girdle, had started out of a thicket. he was still young, seemingly a little under thirty, of a tall and well-developed figure, and as handsome a man as ever i beheld. the style of his beauty, however, though a masculine style, did not at all commend itself to my taste. his countenance--i hardly know how to describe the peculiarity--had an indecorum in it, a kind of rudeness, a hard, coarse, forth-putting freedom of expression, which no degree of external polish could have abated one single jot. not that it was vulgar. but he had no fineness of nature; there was in his eyes (although they might have artifice enough of another sort) the naked exposure of something that ought not to be left prominent. with these vague allusions to what i have seen in other faces as well as his, i leave the quality to be comprehended best--because with an intuitive repugnance--by those who possess least of it. his hair, as well as his beard and mustache, was coal-black; his eyes, too, were black and sparkling, and his teeth remarkably brilliant. he was rather carelessly but well and fashionably dressed, in a summer-morning costume. there was a gold chain, exquisitely wrought, across his vest. i never saw a smoother or whiter gloss than that upon his shirt-bosom, which had a pin in it, set with a gem that glimmered, in the leafy shadow where he stood, like a living tip of fire. he carried a stick with a wooden head, carved in vivid imitation of that of a serpent. i hated him, partly, i do believe, from a comparison of my own homely garb with his well-ordered foppishness. "well, sir," said i, a little ashamed of my first irritation, but still with no waste of civility, "be pleased to speak at once, as i have my own business in hand." "i regret that my mode of addressing you was a little unfortunate," said the stranger, smiling; for he seemed a very acute sort of person, and saw, in some degree, how i stood affected towards him. "i intended no offence, and shall certainly comport myself with due ceremony hereafter. i merely wish to make a few inquiries respecting a lady, formerly of my acquaintance, who is now resident in your community, and, i believe, largely concerned in your social enterprise. you call her, i think, zenobia." "that is her name in literature," observed i; "a name, too, which possibly she may permit her private friends to know and address her by,--but not one which they feel at liberty to recognize when used of her personally by a stranger or casual acquaintance." "indeed!" answered this disagreeable person; and he turned aside his face for an instant with a brief laugh, which struck me as a noteworthy expression of his character. "perhaps i might put forward a claim, on your own grounds, to call the lady by a name so appropriate to her splendid qualities. but i am willing to know her by any cognomen that you may suggest." heartily wishing that he would be either a little more offensive, or a good deal less so, or break off our intercourse altogether, i mentioned zenobia's real name. "true," said he; "and in general society i have never heard her called otherwise. and, after all, our discussion of the point has been gratuitous. my object is only to inquire when, where, and how this lady may most conveniently be seen." "at her present residence, of course," i replied. "you have but to go thither and ask for her. this very path will lead you within sight of the house; so i wish you good-morning." "one moment, if you please," said the stranger. "the course you indicate would certainly be the proper one, in an ordinary morning call. but my business is private, personal, and somewhat peculiar. now, in a community like this, i should judge that any little occurrence is likely to be discussed rather more minutely than would quite suit my views. i refer solely to myself, you understand, and without intimating that it would be other than a matter of entire indifference to the lady. in short, i especially desire to see her in private. if her habits are such as i have known them, she is probably often to be met with in the woods, or by the river-side; and i think you could do me the favor to point out some favorite walk, where, about this hour, i might be fortunate enough to gain an interview." i reflected that it would be quite a supererogatory piece of quixotism in me to undertake the guardianship of zenobia, who, for my pains, would only make me the butt of endless ridicule, should the fact ever come to her knowledge. i therefore described a spot which, as often as any other, was zenobia's resort at this period of the day; nor was it so remote from the farmhouse as to leave her in much peril, whatever might be the stranger's character. "a single word more," said he; and his black eyes sparkled at me, whether with fun or malice i knew not, but certainly as if the devil were peeping out of them. "among your fraternity, i understand, there is a certain holy and benevolent blacksmith; a man of iron, in more senses than one; a rough, cross-grained, well-meaning individual, rather boorish in his manners, as might be expected, and by no means of the highest intellectual cultivation. he is a philanthropical lecturer, with two or three disciples, and a scheme of his own, the preliminary step in which involves a large purchase of land, and the erection of a spacious edifice, at an expense considerably beyond his means; inasmuch as these are to be reckoned in copper or old iron much more conveniently than in gold or silver. he hammers away upon his one topic as lustily as ever he did upon a horseshoe! do you know such a person?" i shook my head, and was turning away. "our friend," he continued, "is described to me as a brawny, shaggy, grim, and ill-favored personage, not particularly well calculated, one would say, to insinuate himself with the softer sex. yet, so far has this honest fellow succeeded with one lady whom we wot of, that he anticipates, from her abundant resources, the necessary funds for realizing his plan in brick and mortar!" here the stranger seemed to be so much amused with his sketch of hollingsworth's character and purposes, that he burst into a fit of merriment, of the same nature as the brief, metallic laugh already alluded to, but immensely prolonged and enlarged. in the excess of his delight, he opened his mouth wide, and disclosed a gold band around the upper part of his teeth, thereby making it apparent that every one of his brilliant grinders and incisors was a sham. this discovery affected me very oddly. i felt as if the whole man were a moral and physical humbug; his wonderful beauty of face, for aught i knew, might be removable like a mask; and, tall and comely as his figure looked, he was perhaps but a wizened little elf, gray and decrepit, with nothing genuine about him save the wicked expression of his grin. the fantasy of his spectral character so wrought upon me, together with the contagion of his strange mirth on my sympathies, that i soon began to laugh as loudly as himself. by and by, he paused all at once; so suddenly, indeed, that my own cachinnation lasted a moment longer. "ah, excuse me!" said he. "our interview seems to proceed more merrily than it began." "it ends here," answered i. "and i take shame to myself that my folly has lost me the right of resenting your ridicule of a friend." "pray allow me," said the stranger, approaching a step nearer, and laying his gloved hand on my sleeve. "one other favor i must ask of you. you have a young person here at blithedale, of whom i have heard,--whom, perhaps, i have known,--and in whom, at all events, i take a peculiar interest. she is one of those delicate, nervous young creatures, not uncommon in new england, and whom i suppose to have become what we find them by the gradual refining away of the physical system among your women. some philosophers choose to glorify this habit of body by terming it spiritual; but, in my opinion, it is rather the effect of unwholesome food, bad air, lack of outdoor exercise, and neglect of bathing, on the part of these damsels and their female progenitors, all resulting in a kind of hereditary dyspepsia. zenobia, even with her uncomfortable surplus of vitality, is far the better model of womanhood. but--to revert again to this young person--she goes among you by the name of priscilla. could you possibly afford me the means of speaking with her?" "you have made so many inquiries of me," i observed, "that i may at least trouble you with one. what is your name?" he offered me a card, with "professor westervelt" engraved on it. at the same time, as if to vindicate his claim to the professorial dignity, so often assumed on very questionable grounds, he put on a pair of spectacles, which so altered the character of his face that i hardly knew him again. but i liked the present aspect no better than the former one. "i must decline any further connection with your affairs," said i, drawing back. "i have told you where to find zenobia. as for priscilla, she has closer friends than myself, through whom, if they see fit, you can gain access to her." "in that case," returned the professor, ceremoniously raising his hat, "good-morning to you." he took his departure, and was soon out of sight among the windings of the wood-path. but after a little reflection, i could not help regretting that i had so peremptorily broken off the interview, while the stranger seemed inclined to continue it. his evident knowledge of matters affecting my three friends might have led to disclosures or inferences that would perhaps have been serviceable. i was particularly struck with the fact that, ever since the appearance of priscilla, it had been the tendency of events to suggest and establish a connection between zenobia and her. she had come, in the first instance, as if with the sole purpose of claiming zenobia's protection. old moodie's visit, it appeared, was chiefly to ascertain whether this object had been accomplished. and here, to-day, was the questionable professor, linking one with the other in his inquiries, and seeking communication with both. meanwhile, my inclination for a ramble having been balked, i lingered in the vicinity of the farm, with perhaps a vague idea that some new event would grow out of westervelt's proposed interview with zenobia. my own part in these transactions was singularly subordinate. it resembled that of the chorus in a classic play, which seems to be set aloof from the possibility of personal concernment, and bestows the whole measure of its hope or fear, its exultation or sorrow, on the fortunes of others, between whom and itself this sympathy is the only bond. destiny, it may be,--the most skilful of stage managers,--seldom chooses to arrange its scenes, and carry forward its drama, without securing the presence of at least one calm observer. it is his office to give applause when due, and sometimes an inevitable tear, to detect the final fitness of incident to character, and distil in his long-brooding thought the whole morality of the performance. not to be out of the way in case there were need of me in my vocation, and, at the same time, to avoid thrusting myself where neither destiny nor mortals might desire my presence, i remained pretty near the verge of the woodlands. my position was off the track of zenobia's customary walk, yet not so remote but that a recognized occasion might speedily have brought me thither. xii. coverdale's hermitage long since, in this part of our circumjacent wood, i had found out for myself a little hermitage. it was a kind of leafy cave, high upward into the air, among the midmost branches of a white-pine tree. a wild grapevine, of unusual size and luxuriance, had twined and twisted itself up into the tree, and, after wreathing the entanglement of its tendrils around almost every bough, had caught hold of three or four neighboring trees, and married the whole clump with a perfectly inextricable knot of polygamy. once, while sheltering myself from a summer shower, the fancy had taken me to clamber up into this seemingly impervious mass of foliage. the branches yielded me a passage, and closed again beneath, as if only a squirrel or a bird had passed. far aloft, around the stem of the central pine, behold a perfect nest for robinson crusoe or king charles! a hollow chamber of rare seclusion had been formed by the decay of some of the pine branches, which the vine had lovingly strangled with its embrace, burying them from the light of day in an aerial sepulchre of its own leaves. it cost me but little ingenuity to enlarge the interior, and open loopholes through the verdant walls. had it ever been my fortune to spend a honeymoon, i should have thought seriously of inviting my bride up thither, where our next neighbors would have been two orioles in another part of the clump. it was an admirable place to make verses, tuning the rhythm to the breezy symphony that so often stirred among the vine leaves; or to meditate an essay for "the dial," in which the many tongues of nature whispered mysteries, and seemed to ask only a little stronger puff of wind to speak out the solution of its riddle. being so pervious to air-currents, it was just the nook, too, for the enjoyment of a cigar. this hermitage was my one exclusive possession while i counted myself a brother of the socialists. it symbolized my individuality, and aided me in keeping it inviolate. none ever found me out in it, except, once, a squirrel. i brought thither no guest, because, after hollingsworth failed me, there was no longer the man alive with whom i could think of sharing all. so there i used to sit, owl-like, yet not without liberal and hospitable thoughts. i counted the innumerable clusters of my vine, and fore-reckoned the abundance of my vintage. it gladdened me to anticipate the surprise of the community, when, like an allegorical figure of rich october, i should make my appearance, with shoulders bent beneath the burden of ripe grapes, and some of the crushed ones crimsoning my brow as with a bloodstain. ascending into this natural turret, i peeped in turn out of several of its small windows. the pine-tree, being ancient, rose high above the rest of the wood, which was of comparatively recent growth. even where i sat, about midway between the root and the topmost bough, my position was lofty enough to serve as an observatory, not for starry investigations, but for those sublunary matters in which lay a lore as infinite as that of the planets. through one loophole i saw the river lapsing calmly onward, while in the meadow, near its brink, a few of the brethren were digging peat for our winter's fuel. on the interior cart-road of our farm i discerned hollingsworth, with a yoke of oxen hitched to a drag of stones, that were to be piled into a fence, on which we employed ourselves at the odd intervals of other labor. the harsh tones of his voice, shouting to the sluggish steers, made me sensible, even at such a distance, that he was ill at ease, and that the balked philanthropist had the battle-spirit in his heart. "haw, buck!" quoth he. "come along there, ye lazy ones! what are ye about, now? gee!" "mankind, in hollingsworth's opinion," thought i, "is but another yoke of oxen, as stubborn, stupid, and sluggish as our old brown and bright. he vituperates us aloud, and curses us in his heart, and will begin to prick us with the goad-stick, by and by. but are we his oxen? and what right has he to be the driver? and why, when there is enough else to do, should we waste our strength in dragging home the ponderous load of his philanthropic absurdities? at my height above the earth, the whole matter looks ridiculous!" turning towards the farmhouse, i saw priscilla (for, though a great way off, the eye of faith assured me that it was she) sitting at zenobia's window, and making little purses, i suppose; or, perhaps, mending the community's old linen. a bird flew past my tree; and, as it clove its way onward into the sunny atmosphere, i flung it a message for priscilla. "tell her," said i, "that her fragile thread of life has inextricably knotted itself with other and tougher threads, and most likely it will be broken. tell her that zenobia will not be long her friend. say that hollingsworth's heart is on fire with his own purpose, but icy for all human affection; and that, if she has given him her love, it is like casting a flower into a sepulchre. and say that if any mortal really cares for her, it is myself; and not even i for her realities,--poor little seamstress, as zenobia rightly called her!--but for the fancy-work with which i have idly decked her out!" the pleasant scent of the wood, evolved by the hot sun, stole up to my nostrils, as if i had been an idol in its niche. many trees mingled their fragrance into a thousand-fold odor. possibly there was a sensual influence in the broad light of noon that lay beneath me. it may have been the cause, in part, that i suddenly found myself possessed by a mood of disbelief in moral beauty or heroism, and a conviction of the folly of attempting to benefit the world. our especial scheme of reform, which, from my observatory, i could take in with the bodily eye, looked so ridiculous that it was impossible not to laugh aloud. "but the joke is a little too heavy," thought i. "if i were wise, i should get out of the scrape with all diligence, and then laugh at my companions for remaining in it." while thus musing, i heard with perfect distinctness, somewhere in the wood beneath, the peculiar laugh which i have described as one of the disagreeable characteristics of professor westervelt. it brought my thoughts back to our recent interview. i recognized as chiefly due to this man's influence the sceptical and sneering view which just now had filled my mental vision in regard to all life's better purposes. and it was through his eyes, more than my own, that i was looking at hollingsworth, with his glorious if impracticable dream, and at the noble earthliness of zenobia's character, and even at priscilla, whose impalpable grace lay so singularly between disease and beauty. the essential charm of each had vanished. there are some spheres the contact with which inevitably degrades the high, debases the pure, deforms the beautiful. it must be a mind of uncommon strength, and little impressibility, that can permit itself the habit of such intercourse, and not be permanently deteriorated; and yet the professor's tone represented that of worldly society at large, where a cold scepticism smothers what it can of our spiritual aspirations, and makes the rest ridiculous. i detested this kind of man; and all the more because a part of my own nature showed itself responsive to him. voices were now approaching through the region of the wood which lay in the vicinity of my tree. soon i caught glimpses of two figures--a woman and a man--zenobia and the stranger--earnestly talking together as they advanced. zenobia had a rich though varying color. it was, most of the while, a flame, and anon a sudden paleness. her eyes glowed, so that their light sometimes flashed upward to me, as when the sun throws a dazzle from some bright object on the ground. her gestures were free, and strikingly impressive. the whole woman was alive with a passionate intensity, which i now perceived to be the phase in which her beauty culminated. any passion would have become her well; and passionate love, perhaps, the best of all. this was not love, but anger, largely intermixed with scorn. yet the idea strangely forced itself upon me, that there was a sort of familiarity between these two companions, necessarily the result of an intimate love,--on zenobia's part, at least,--in days gone by, but which had prolonged itself into as intimate a hatred, for all futurity. as they passed among the trees, reckless as her movement was, she took good heed that even the hem of her garment should not brush against the stranger's person. i wondered whether there had always been a chasm, guarded so religiously, betwixt these two. as for westervelt, he was not a whit more warmed by zenobia's passion than a salamander by the heat of its native furnace. he would have been absolutely statuesque, save for a look of slight perplexity, tinctured strongly with derision. it was a crisis in which his intellectual perceptions could not altogether help him out. he failed to comprehend, and cared but little for comprehending, why zenobia should put herself into such a fume; but satisfied his mind that it was all folly, and only another shape of a woman's manifold absurdity, which men can never understand. how many a woman's evil fate has yoked her with a man like this! nature thrusts some of us into the world miserably incomplete on the emotional side, with hardly any sensibilities except what pertain to us as animals. no passion, save of the senses; no holy tenderness, nor the delicacy that results from this. externally they bear a close resemblance to other men, and have perhaps all save the finest grace; but when a woman wrecks herself on such a being, she ultimately finds that the real womanhood within her has no corresponding part in him. her deepest voice lacks a response; the deeper her cry, the more dead his silence. the fault may be none of his; he cannot give her what never lived within his soul. but the wretchedness on her side, and the moral deterioration attendant on a false and shallow life, without strength enough to keep itself sweet, are among the most pitiable wrongs that mortals suffer. now, as i looked down from my upper region at this man and woman,--outwardly so fair a sight, and wandering like two lovers in the wood,--i imagined that zenobia, at an earlier period of youth, might have fallen into the misfortune above indicated. and when her passionate womanhood, as was inevitable, had discovered its mistake, here had ensued the character of eccentricity and defiance which distinguished the more public portion of her life. seeing how aptly matters had chanced thus far, i began to think it the design of fate to let me into all zenobia's secrets, and that therefore the couple would sit down beneath my tree, and carry on a conversation which would leave me nothing to inquire. no doubt, however, had it so happened, i should have deemed myself honorably bound to warn them of a listener's presence by flinging down a handful of unripe grapes, or by sending an unearthly groan out of my hiding-place, as if this were one of the trees of dante's ghostly forest. but real life never arranges itself exactly like a romance. in the first place, they did not sit down at all. secondly, even while they passed beneath the tree, zenobia's utterance was so hasty and broken, and westervelt's so cool and low, that i hardly could make out an intelligible sentence on either side. what i seem to remember, i yet suspect, may have been patched together by my fancy, in brooding over the matter afterwards. "why not fling the girl off," said westervelt, "and let her go?" "she clung to me from the first," replied zenobia. "i neither know nor care what it is in me that so attaches her. but she loves me, and i will not fail her." "she will plague you, then," said he, "in more ways than one." "the poor child!" exclaimed zenobia. "she can do me neither good nor harm. how should she?" i know not what reply westervelt whispered; nor did zenobia's subsequent exclamation give me any clew, except that it evidently inspired her with horror and disgust. "with what kind of a being am i linked?" cried she. "if my creator cares aught for my soul, let him release me from this miserable bond!" "i did not think it weighed so heavily," said her companion.. "nevertheless," answered zenobia, "it will strangle me at last!" and then i heard her utter a helpless sort of moan; a sound which, struggling out of the heart of a person of her pride and strength, affected me more than if she had made the wood dolorously vocal with a thousand shrieks and wails. other mysterious words, besides what are above written, they spoke together; but i understood no more, and even question whether i fairly understood so much as this. by long brooding over our recollections, we subtilize them into something akin to imaginary stuff, and hardly capable of being distinguished from it. in a few moments they were completely beyond ear-shot. a breeze stirred after them, and awoke the leafy tongues of the surrounding trees, which forthwith began to babble, as if innumerable gossips had all at once got wind of zenobia's secret. but, as the breeze grew stronger, its voice among the branches was as if it said, "hush! hush!" and i resolved that to no mortal would i disclose what i had heard. and, though there might be room for casuistry, such, i conceive, is the most equitable rule in all similar conjunctures. xiii. zenobia's legend the illustrious society of blithedale, though it toiled in downright earnest for the good of mankind, yet not unfrequently illuminated its laborious life with an afternoon or evening of pastime. picnics under the trees were considerably in vogue; and, within doors, fragmentary bits of theatrical performance, such as single acts of tragedy or comedy, or dramatic proverbs and charades. zenobia, besides, was fond of giving us readings from shakespeare, and often with a depth of tragic power, or breadth of comic effect, that made one feel it an intolerable wrong to the world that she did not at once go upon the stage. tableaux vivants were another of our occasional modes of amusement, in which scarlet shawls, old silken robes, ruffs, velvets, furs, and all kinds of miscellaneous trumpery converted our familiar companions into the people of a pictorial world. we had been thus engaged on the evening after the incident narrated in the last chapter. several splendid works of art--either arranged after engravings from the old masters, or original illustrations of scenes in history or romance--had been presented, and we were earnestly entreating zenobia for more. she stood with a meditative air, holding a large piece of gauze, or some such ethereal stuff, as if considering what picture should next occupy the frame; while at her feet lay a heap of many-colored garments, which her quick fancy and magic skill could so easily convert into gorgeous draperies for heroes and princesses. "i am getting weary of this," said she, after a moment's thought. "our own features, and our own figures and airs, show a little too intrusively through all the characters we assume. we have so much familiarity with one another's realities, that we cannot remove ourselves, at pleasure, into an imaginary sphere. let us have no more pictures to-night; but, to make you what poor amends i can, how would you like to have me trump up a wild, spectral legend, on the spur of the moment?" zenobia had the gift of telling a fanciful little story, off-hand, in a way that made it greatly more effective than it was usually found to be when she afterwards elaborated the same production with her pen. her proposal, therefore, was greeted with acclamation. "oh, a story, a story, by all means!" cried the young girls. "no matter how marvellous; we will believe it, every word. and let it be a ghost story, if you please." "no, not exactly a ghost story," answered zenobia; "but something so nearly like it that you shall hardly tell the difference. and, priscilla, stand you before me, where i may look at you, and get my inspiration out of your eyes. they are very deep and dreamy to-night." i know not whether the following version of her story will retain any portion of its pristine character; but, as zenobia told it wildly and rapidly, hesitating at no extravagance, and dashing at absurdities which i am too timorous to repeat,--giving it the varied emphasis of her inimitable voice, and the pictorial illustration of her mobile face, while through it all we caught the freshest aroma of the thoughts, as they came bubbling out of her mind,--thus narrated, and thus heard, the legend seemed quite a remarkable affair. i scarcely knew, at the time, whether she intended us to laugh or be more seriously impressed. from beginning to end, it was undeniable nonsense, but not necessarily the worse for that. the silvery veil you have heard, my dear friends, of the veiled lady, who grew suddenly so very famous, a few months ago. and have you never thought how remarkable it was that this marvellous creature should vanish, all at once, while her renown was on the increase, before the public had grown weary of her, and when the enigma of her character, instead of being solved, presented itself more mystically at every exhibition? her last appearance, as you know, was before a crowded audience. the next evening,--although the bills had announced her, at the corner of every street, in red letters of a gigantic size,--there was no veiled lady to be seen! now, listen to my simple little tale, and you shall hear the very latest incident in the known life--(if life it may be called, which seemed to have no more reality than the candle-light image of one's self which peeps at us outside of a dark windowpane)--the life of this shadowy phenomenon. a party of young gentlemen, you are to understand, were enjoying themselves, one afternoon,--as young gentlemen are sometimes fond of doing,--over a bottle or two of champagne; and, among other ladies less mysterious, the subject of the veiled lady, as was very natural, happened to come up before them for discussion. she rose, as it were, with the sparkling effervescence of their wine, and appeared in a more airy and fantastic light on account of the medium through which they saw her. they repeated to one another, between jest and earnest, all the wild stories that were in vogue; nor, i presume, did they hesitate to add any small circumstance that the inventive whim of the moment might suggest, to heighten the marvellousness of their theme. "but what an audacious report was that," observed one, "which pretended to assert the identity of this strange creature with a young lady,"--and here he mentioned her name,--"the daughter of one of our most distinguished families!" "ah, there is more in that story than can well be accounted for," remarked another. "i have it on good authority, that the young lady in question is invariably out of sight, and not to be traced, even by her own family, at the hours when the veiled lady is before the public; nor can any satisfactory explanation be given of her disappearance. and just look at the thing: her brother is a young fellow of spirit. he cannot but be aware of these rumors in reference to his sister. why, then, does he not come forward to defend her character, unless he is conscious that an investigation would only make the matter worse?" it is essential to the purposes of my legend to distinguish one of these young gentlemen from his companions; so, for the sake of a soft and pretty name (such as we of the literary sisterhood invariably bestow upon our heroes), i deem it fit to call him theodore. "pshaw!" exclaimed theodore; "her brother is no such fool! nobody, unless his brain be as full of bubbles as this wine, can seriously think of crediting that ridiculous rumor. why, if my senses did not play me false (which never was the case yet), i affirm that i saw that very lady, last evening, at the exhibition, while this veiled phenomenon was playing off her juggling tricks! what can you say to that?" "oh, it was a spectral illusion that you saw!" replied his friends, with a general laugh. "the veiled lady is quite up to such a thing." however, as the above-mentioned fable could not hold its ground against theodore's downright refutation, they went on to speak of other stories which the wild babble of the town had set afloat. some upheld that the veil covered the most beautiful countenance in the world; others,--and certainly with more reason, considering the sex of the veiled lady,--that the face was the most hideous and horrible, and that this was her sole motive for hiding it. it was the face of a corpse; it was the head of a skeleton; it was a monstrous visage, with snaky locks, like medusa's, and one great red eye in the centre of the forehead. again, it was affirmed that there was no single and unchangeable set of features beneath the veil; but that whosoever should be bold enough to lift it would behold the features of that person, in all the world, who was destined to be his fate; perhaps he would be greeted by the tender smile of the woman whom he loved, or, quite as probably, the deadly scowl of his bitterest enemy would throw a blight over his life. they quoted, moreover, this startling explanation of the whole affair: that the magician who exhibited the veiled lady--and who, by the bye, was the handsomest man in the whole world--had bartered his own soul for seven years' possession of a familiar fiend, and that the last year of the contract was wearing towards its close. if it were worth our while, i could keep you till an hour beyond midnight listening to a thousand such absurdities as these. but finally our friend theodore, who prided himself upon his common-sense, found the matter getting quite beyond his patience. "i offer any wager you like," cried he, setting down his glass so forcibly as to break the stem of it, "that this very evening i find out the mystery of the veiled lady!" young men, i am told, boggle at nothing over their wine; so, after a little more talk, a wager of considerable amount was actually laid, the money staked, and theodore left to choose his own method of settling the dispute. how he managed it i know not, nor is it of any great importance to this veracious legend. the most natural way, to be sure, was by bribing the doorkeeper,--or possibly he preferred clambering in at the window. but, at any rate, that very evening, while the exhibition was going forward in the hall, theodore contrived to gain admittance into the private withdrawing-room whither the veiled lady was accustomed to retire at the close of her performances. there he waited, listening, i suppose, to the stifled hum of the great audience; and no doubt he could distinguish the deep tones of the magician, causing the wonders that he wrought to appear more dark and intricate, by his mystic pretence of an explanation. perhaps, too, in the intervals of the wild breezy music which accompanied the exhibition, he might hear the low voice of the veiled lady, conveying her sibylline responses. firm as theodore's nerves might be, and much as he prided himself on his sturdy perception of realities, i should not be surprised if his heart throbbed at a little more than its ordinary rate. theodore concealed himself behind a screen. in due time the performance was brought to a close, and whether the door was softly opened, or whether her bodiless presence came through the wall, is more than i can say, but, all at once, without the young man's knowing how it happened, a veiled figure stood in the centre of the room. it was one thing to be in presence of this mystery in the hall of exhibition, where the warm, dense life of hundreds of other mortals kept up the beholder's courage, and distributed her influence among so many; it was another thing to be quite alone with her, and that, too, with a hostile, or, at least, an unauthorized and unjustifiable purpose. i further imagine that theodore now began to be sensible of something more serious in his enterprise than he had been quite aware of while he sat with his boon-companions over their sparkling wine. very strange, it must be confessed, was the movement with which the figure floated to and fro over the carpet, with the silvery veil covering her from head to foot; so impalpable, so ethereal, so without substance, as the texture seemed, yet hiding her every outline in an impenetrability like that of midnight. surely, she did not walk! she floated, and flitted, and hovered about the room; no sound of a footstep, no perceptible motion of a limb; it was as if a wandering breeze wafted her before it, at its own wild and gentle pleasure. but, by and by, a purpose began to be discernible, throughout the seeming vagueness of her unrest. she was in quest of something. could it be that a subtile presentiment had informed her of the young man's presence? and if so, did the veiled lady seek or did she shun him? the doubt in theodore's mind was speedily resolved; for, after a moment or two of these erratic flutterings, she advanced more decidedly, and stood motionless before the screen. "thou art here!" said a soft, low voice. "come forth, theodore!" thus summoned by his name, theodore, as a man of courage, had no choice. he emerged from his concealment, and presented himself before the veiled lady, with the wine-flush, it may be, quite gone out of his cheeks. "what wouldst thou with me?" she inquired, with the same gentle composure that was in her former utterance. "mysterious creature," replied theodore, "i would know who and what you are!" "my lips are forbidden to betray the secret," said the veiled lady. "at whatever risk, i must discover it," rejoined theodore. "then," said the mystery, "there is no way save to lift my veil." and theodore, partly recovering his audacity, stept forward on the instant, to do as the veiled lady had suggested. but she floated backward to the opposite side of the room, as if the young man's breath had possessed power enough to waft her away. "pause, one little instant," said the soft, low voice, "and learn the conditions of what thou art so bold to undertake. thou canst go hence, and think of me no more; or, at thy option, thou canst lift this mysterious veil, beneath which i am a sad and lonely prisoner, in a bondage which is worse to me than death. but, before raising it, i entreat thee, in all maiden modesty, to bend forward and impress a kiss where my breath stirs the veil; and my virgin lips shall come forward to meet thy lips; and from that instant, theodore, thou shalt be mine, and i thine, with never more a veil between us. and all the felicity of earth and of the future world shall be thine and mine together. so much may a maiden say behind the veil. if thou shrinkest from this, there is yet another way." "and what is that?" asked theodore. "dost thou hesitate," said the veiled lady, "to pledge thyself to me, by meeting these lips of mine, while the veil yet hides my face? has not thy heart recognized me? dost thou come hither, not in holy faith, nor with a pure and generous purpose, but in scornful scepticism and idle curiosity? still, thou mayest lift the veil! but, from that instant, theodore, i am doomed to be thy evil fate; nor wilt thou ever taste another breath of happiness!" there was a shade of inexpressible sadness in the utterance of these last words. but theodore, whose natural tendency was towards scepticism, felt himself almost injured and insulted by the veiled lady's proposal that he should pledge himself, for life and eternity, to so questionable a creature as herself; or even that she should suggest an inconsequential kiss, taking into view the probability that her face was none of the most bewitching. a delightful idea, truly, that he should salute the lips of a dead girl, or the jaws of a skeleton, or the grinning cavity of a monster's mouth! even should she prove a comely maiden enough in other respects, the odds were ten to one that her teeth were defective; a terrible drawback on the delectableness of a kiss. "excuse me, fair lady," said theodore, and i think he nearly burst into a laugh, "if i prefer to lift the veil first; and for this affair of the kiss, we may decide upon it afterwards." "thou hast made thy choice," said the sweet, sad voice behind the veil; and there seemed a tender but unresentful sense of wrong done to womanhood by the young man's contemptuous interpretation of her offer. "i must not counsel thee to pause, although thy fate is still in thine own hand!" grasping at the veil, he flung it upward, and caught a glimpse of a pale, lovely face beneath; just one momentary glimpse, and then the apparition vanished, and the silvery veil fluttered slowly down and lay upon the floor. theodore was alone. our legend leaves him there. his retribution was, to pine forever and ever for another sight of that dim, mournful face,--which might have been his life-long household fireside joy,--to desire, and waste life in a feverish quest, and never meet it more. but what, in good sooth, had become of the veiled lady? had all her existence been comprehended within that mysterious veil, and was she now annihilated? or was she a spirit, with a heavenly essence, but which might have been tamed down to human bliss, had theodore been brave and true enough to claim her? hearken, my sweet friends,--and hearken, dear priscilla,--and you shall learn the little more that zenobia can tell you. just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, when the veiled lady vanished, a maiden, pale and shadowy, rose up amid a knot of visionary people, who were seeking for the better life. she was so gentle and so sad,--a nameless melancholy gave her such hold upon their sympathies,--that they never thought of questioning whence she came. she might have heretofore existed, or her thin substance might have been moulded out of air at the very instant when they first beheld her. it was all one to them; they took her to their hearts. among them was a lady to whom, more than to all the rest, this pale, mysterious girl attached herself. but one morning the lady was wandering in the woods, and there met her a figure in an oriental robe, with a dark beard, and holding in his hand a silvery veil. he motioned her to stay. being a woman of some nerve, she did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, as many ladies would have been apt to do, but stood quietly, and bade him speak. the truth was, she had seen his face before, but had never feared it, although she knew him to be a terrible magician. "lady," said he, with a warning gesture, "you are in peril!" "peril!" she exclaimed. "and of what nature?" "there is a certain maiden," replied the magician, "who has come out of the realm of mystery, and made herself your most intimate companion. now, the fates have so ordained it, that, whether by her own will or no, this stranger is your deadliest enemy. in love, in worldly fortune, in all your pursuit of happiness, she is doomed to fling a blight over your prospects. there is but one possibility of thwarting her disastrous influence." "then tell me that one method," said the lady. "take this veil," he answered, holding forth the silvery texture. "it is a spell; it is a powerful enchantment, which i wrought for her sake, and beneath which she was once my prisoner. throw it, at unawares, over the head of this secret foe, stamp your foot, and cry, 'arise, magician! here is the veiled lady!' and immediately i will rise up through the earth, and seize her; and from that moment you are safe!" so the lady took the silvery veil, which was like woven air, or like some substance airier than nothing, and that would float upward and be lost among the clouds, were she once to let it go. returning homeward, she found the shadowy girl amid the knot of visionary transcendentalists, who were still seeking for the better life. she was joyous now, and had a rose-bloom in her cheeks, and was one of the prettiest creatures, and seemed one of the happiest, that the world could show. but the lady stole noiselessly behind her and threw the veil over her head. as the slight, ethereal texture sank inevitably down over her figure, the poor girl strove to raise it, and met her dear friend's eyes with one glance of mortal terror, and deep, deep reproach. it could not change her purpose. "arise, magician!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot upon the earth. "here is the veiled lady!" at the word, up rose the bearded man in the oriental robes,--the beautiful, the dark magician, who had bartered away his soul! he threw his arms around the veiled lady, and she was his bond-slave for evermore! zenobia, all this while, had been holding the piece of gauze, and so managed it as greatly to increase the dramatic effect of the legend at those points where the magic veil was to be described. arriving at the catastrophe, and uttering the fatal words, she flung the gauze over priscilla's head; and for an instant her auditors held their breath, half expecting, i verily believe, that the magician would start up through the floor, and carry off our poor little friend before our eyes. as for priscilla, she stood droopingly in the midst of us, making no attempt to remove the veil. "how do you find yourself, my love?" said zenobia, lifting a corner of the gauze, and peeping beneath it with a mischievous smile. "ah, the dear little soul! why, she is really going to faint! mr. coverdale, mr. coverdale, pray bring a glass of water!" her nerves being none of the strongest, priscilla hardly recovered her equanimity during the rest of the evening. this, to be sure, was a great pity; but, nevertheless, we thought it a very bright idea of zenobia's to bring her legend to so effective a conclusion. xiv. eliot's pulpit our sundays at blithedale were not ordinarily kept with such rigid observance as might have befitted the descendants of the pilgrims, whose high enterprise, as we sometimes flattered ourselves, we had taken up, and were carrying it onward and aloft, to a point which they never dreamed of attaining. on that hallowed day, it is true, we rested from our labors. our oxen, relieved from their week-day yoke, roamed at large through the pasture; each yoke-fellow, however, keeping close beside his mate, and continuing to acknowledge, from the force of habit and sluggish sympathy, the union which the taskmaster had imposed for his own hard ends. as for us human yoke-fellows, chosen companions of toil, whose hoes had clinked together throughout the week, we wandered off, in various directions, to enjoy our interval of repose. some, i believe, went devoutly to the village church. others, it may be, ascended a city or a country pulpit, wearing the clerical robe with so much dignity that you would scarcely have suspected the yeoman's frock to have been flung off only since milking-time. others took long rambles among the rustic lanes and by-paths, pausing to look at black old farmhouses, with their sloping roofs; and at the modern cottage, so like a plaything that it seemed as if real joy or sorrow could have no scope within; and at the more pretending villa, with its range of wooden columns supporting the needless insolence of a great portico. some betook themselves into the wide, dusky barn, and lay there for hours together on the odorous hay; while the sunstreaks and the shadows strove together,--these to make the barn solemn, those to make it cheerful,--and both were conquerors; and the swallows twittered a cheery anthem, flashing into sight, or vanishing as they darted to and fro among the golden rules of sunshine. and others went a little way into the woods, and threw themselves on mother earth, pillowing their heads on a heap of moss, the green decay of an old log; and, dropping asleep, the bumblebees and mosquitoes sung and buzzed about their ears, causing the slumberers to twitch and start, without awaking. with hollingsworth, zenobia, priscilla, and myself, it grew to be a custom to spend the sabbath afternoon at a certain rock. it was known to us under the name of eliot's pulpit, from a tradition that the venerable apostle eliot had preached there, two centuries gone by, to an indian auditory. the old pine forest, through which the apostle's voice was wont to sound, had fallen an immemorial time ago. but the soil, being of the rudest and most broken surface, had apparently never been brought under tillage; other growths, maple and beech and birch, had succeeded to the primeval trees; so that it was still as wild a tract of woodland as the great-great-great-great grandson of one of eliot's indians (had any such posterity been in existence) could have desired for the site and shelter of his wigwam. these after-growths, indeed, lose the stately solemnity of the original forest. if left in due neglect, however, they run into an entanglement of softer wildness, among the rustling leaves of which the sun can scatter cheerfulness as it never could among the dark-browed pines. the rock itself rose some twenty or thirty feet, a shattered granite bowlder, or heap of bowlders, with an irregular outline and many fissures, out of which sprang shrubs, bushes, and even trees; as if the scanty soil within those crevices were sweeter to their roots than any other earth. at the base of the pulpit, the broken bowlders inclined towards each other, so as to form a shallow cave, within which our little party had sometimes found protection from a summer shower. on the threshold, or just across it, grew a tuft of pale columbines, in their season, and violets, sad and shadowy recluses, such as priscilla was when we first knew her; children of the sun, who had never seen their father, but dwelt among damp mosses, though not akin to them. at the summit, the rock was overshadowed by the canopy of a birch-tree, which served as a sounding-board for the pulpit. beneath this shade (with my eyes of sense half shut and those of the imagination widely opened) i used to see the holy apostle of the indians, with the sunlight flickering down upon him through the leaves, and glorifying his figure as with the half-perceptible glow of a transfiguration. i the more minutely describe the rock, and this little sabbath solitude, because hollingsworth, at our solicitation, often ascended eliot's pulpit, and not exactly preached, but talked to us, his few disciples, in a strain that rose and fell as naturally as the wind's breath among the leaves of the birch-tree. no other speech of man has ever moved me like some of those discourses. it seemed most pitiful--a positive calamity to the world--that a treasury of golden thoughts should thus be scattered, by the liberal handful, down among us three, when a thousand hearers might have been the richer for them; and hollingsworth the richer, likewise, by the sympathy of multitudes. after speaking much or little, as might happen, he would descend from his gray pulpit, and generally fling himself at full length on the ground, face downward. meanwhile, we talked around him on such topics as were suggested by the discourse. since her interview with westervelt, zenobia's continual inequalities of temper had been rather difficult for her friends to bear. on the first sunday after that incident, when hollingsworth had clambered down from eliot's pulpit, she declaimed with great earnestness and passion, nothing short of anger, on the injustice which the world did to women, and equally to itself, by not allowing them, in freedom and honor, and with the fullest welcome, their natural utterance in public. "it shall not always be so!" cried she. "if i live another year, i will lift up my own voice in behalf of woman's wider liberty!" she perhaps saw me smile. "what matter of ridicule do you find in this, miles coverdale?" exclaimed zenobia, with a flash of anger in her eyes. "that smile, permit me to say, makes me suspicious of a low tone of feeling and shallow thought. it is my belief--yes, and my prophecy, should i die before it happens--that, when my sex shall achieve its rights, there will be ten eloquent women where there is now one eloquent man. thus far, no woman in the world has ever once spoken out her whole heart and her whole mind. the mistrust and disapproval of the vast bulk of society throttles us, as with two gigantic hands at our throats! we mumble a few weak words, and leave a thousand better ones unsaid. you let us write a little, it is true, on a limited range of subjects. but the pen is not for woman. her power is too natural and immediate. it is with the living voice alone that she can compel the world to recognize the light of her intellect and the depth of her heart!" now,--though i could not well say so to zenobia,--i had not smiled from any unworthy estimate of woman, or in denial of the claims which she is beginning to put forth. what amused and puzzled me was the fact, that women, however intellectually superior, so seldom disquiet themselves about the rights or wrongs of their sex, unless their own individual affections chance to lie in idleness, or to be ill at ease. they are not natural reformers, but become such by the pressure of exceptional misfortune. i could measure zenobia's inward trouble by the animosity with which she now took up the general quarrel of woman against man. "i will give you leave, zenobia," replied i, "to fling your utmost scorn upon me, if you ever hear me utter a sentiment unfavorable to the widest liberty which woman has yet dreamed of. i would give her all she asks, and add a great deal more, which she will not be the party to demand, but which men, if they were generous and wise, would grant of their own free motion. for instance, i should love dearly--for the next thousand years, at least--to have all government devolve into the hands of women. i hate to be ruled by my own sex; it excites my jealousy, and wounds my pride. it is the iron sway of bodily force which abases us, in our compelled submission. but how sweet the free, generous courtesy with which i would kneel before a woman-ruler!" "yes, if she were young and beautiful," said zenobia, laughing. "but how if she were sixty, and a fright?" "ah! it is you that rate womanhood low," said i. "but let me go on. i have never found it possible to suffer a bearded priest so near my heart and conscience as to do me any spiritual good. i blush at the very thought! oh, in the better order of things, heaven grant that the ministry of souls may be left in charge of women! the gates of the blessed city will be thronged with the multitude that enter in, when that day comes! the task belongs to woman. god meant it for her. he has endowed her with the religious sentiment in its utmost depth and purity, refined from that gross, intellectual alloy with which every masculine theologist--save only one, who merely veiled himself in mortal and masculine shape, but was, in truth, divine--has been prone to mingle it. i have always envied the catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred virgin mother, who stands between them and the deity, intercepting somewhat of his awful splendor, but permitting his love to stream upon the worshipper more intelligibly to human comprehension through the medium of a woman's tenderness. have i not said enough, zenobia?" "i cannot think that this is true," observed priscilla, who had been gazing at me with great, disapproving eyes. "and i am sure i do not wish it to be true!" "poor child!" exclaimed zenobia, rather contemptuously. "she is the type of womanhood, such as man has spent centuries in making it. he is never content unless he can degrade himself by stooping towards what he loves. in denying us our rights, he betrays even more blindness to his own interests than profligate disregard of ours!" "is this true?" asked priscilla with simplicity, turning to hollingsworth. "is it all true, that mr. coverdale and zenobia have been saying?" "no, priscilla!" answered hollingsworth with his customary bluntness. "they have neither of them spoken one true word yet." "do you despise woman?" said zenobia. "ah, hollingsworth, that would be most ungrateful!" "despise her? no!" cried hollingsworth, lifting his great shaggy head and shaking it at us, while his eyes glowed almost fiercely. "she is the most admirable handiwork of god, in her true place and character. her place is at man's side. her office, that of the sympathizer; the unreserved, unquestioning believer; the recognition, withheld in every other manner, but given, in pity, through woman's heart, lest man should utterly lose faith in himself; the echo of god's own voice, pronouncing, 'it is well done!' all the separate action of woman is, and ever has been, and always shall be, false, foolish, vain, destructive of her own best and holiest qualities, void of every good effect, and productive of intolerable mischiefs! man is a wretch without woman; but woman is a monster--and, thank heaven, an almost impossible and hitherto imaginary monster--without man as her acknowledged principal! as true as i had once a mother whom i loved, were there any possible prospect of woman's taking the social stand which some of them,--poor, miserable, abortive creatures, who only dream of such things because they have missed woman's peculiar happiness, or because nature made them really neither man nor woman!--if there were a chance of their attaining the end which these petticoated monstrosities have in view, i would call upon my own sex to use its physical force, that unmistakable evidence of sovereignty, to scourge them back within their proper bounds! but it will not be needful. the heart of time womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it!" never was mortal blessed--if blessing it were--with a glance of such entire acquiescence and unquestioning faith, happy in its completeness, as our little priscilla unconsciously bestowed on hollingsworth. she seemed to take the sentiment from his lips into her heart, and brood over it in perfect content. the very woman whom he pictured--the gentle parasite, the soft reflection of a more powerful existence--sat there at his feet. i looked at zenobia, however, fully expecting her to resent--as i felt, by the indignant ebullition of my own blood, that she ought this outrageous affirmation of what struck me as the intensity of masculine egotism. it centred everything in itself, and deprived woman of her very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to make it a mere incident in the great sum of man. hollingsworth had boldly uttered what he, and millions of despots like him, really felt. without intending it, he had disclosed the wellspring of all these troubled waters. now, if ever, it surely behooved zenobia to be the champion of her sex. but, to my surprise, and indignation too, she only looked humbled. some tears sparkled in her eyes, but they were wholly of grief, not anger. "well, be it so," was all she said. "i, at least, have deep cause to think you right. let man be but manly and godlike, and woman is only too ready to become to him what you say!" i smiled--somewhat bitterly, it is true--in contemplation of my own ill-luck. how little did these two women care for me, who had freely conceded all their claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness of my heart; while hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his horrible injustice, seemed to have brought them both to his feet! "women almost invariably behave thus," thought i. "what does the fact mean? is it their nature? or is it, at last, the result of ages of compelled degradation? and, in either case, will it be possible ever to redeem them?" an intuition now appeared to possess all the party, that, for this time, at least, there was no more to be said. with one accord, we arose from the ground, and made our way through the tangled undergrowth towards one of those pleasant wood-paths that wound among the overarching trees. some of the branches hung so low as partly to conceal the figures that went before from those who followed. priscilla had leaped up more lightly than the rest of us, and ran along in advance, with as much airy activity of spirit as was typified in the motion of a bird, which chanced to be flitting from tree to tree, in the same direction as herself. never did she seem so happy as that afternoon. she skipt, and could not help it, from very playfulness of heart. zenobia and hollingsworth went next, in close contiguity, but not with arm in arm. now, just when they had passed the impending bough of a birch-tree, i plainly saw zenobia take the hand of hollingsworth in both her own, press it to her bosom, and let it fall again! the gesture was sudden, and full of passion; the impulse had evidently taken her by surprise; it expressed all! had zenobia knelt before him, or flung herself upon his breast, and gasped out, "i love you, hollingsworth!" i could not have been more certain of what it meant. they then walked onward, as before. but, methought, as the declining sun threw zenobia's magnified shadow along the path, i beheld it tremulous; and the delicate stem of the flower which she wore in her hair was likewise responsive to her agitation. priscilla--through the medium of her eyes, at least could not possibly have been aware of the gesture above described. yet, at that instant, i saw her droop. the buoyancy, which just before had been so bird-like, was utterly departed; the life seemed to pass out of her, and even the substance of her figure to grow thin and gray. i almost imagined her a shadow, tiding gradually into the dimness of the wood. her pace became so slow that hollingsworth and zenobia passed by, and i, without hastening my footsteps, overtook her. "come, priscilla," said i, looking her intently in the face, which was very pale and sorrowful, "we must make haste after our friends. do you feel suddenly ill? a moment ago, you flitted along so lightly that i was comparing you to a bird. now, on the contrary, it is as if you had a heavy heart, and a very little strength to bear it with. pray take my arm!" "no," said priscilla, "i do not think it would help me. it is my heart, as you say, that makes me heavy; and i know not why. just now, i felt very happy." no doubt it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt to come within her maidenly mystery; but, as she appeared to be tossed aside by her other friends, or carelessly let fall, like a flower which they had done with, i could not resist the impulse to take just one peep beneath her folded petals. "zenobia and yourself are dear friends of late," i remarked. "at first,--that first evening when you came to us,--she did not receive you quite so warmly as might have been wished." "i remember it," said priscilla. "no wonder she hesitated to love me, who was then a stranger to her, and a girl of no grace or beauty,--she being herself so beautiful!" "but she loves you now, of course?" suggested i. "and at this very instant you feel her to be your dearest friend?" "why do you ask me that question?" exclaimed priscilla, as if frightened at the scrutiny into her feelings which i compelled her to make. "it somehow puts strange thoughts into my mind. but i do love zenobia dearly! if she only loves me half as well, i shall be happy!" "how is it possible to doubt that, priscilla?" i rejoined. "but observe how pleasantly and happily zenobia and hollingsworth are walking together. i call it a delightful spectacle. it truly rejoices me that hollingsworth has found so fit and affectionate a friend! so many people in the world mistrust him,--so many disbelieve and ridicule, while hardly any do him justice, or acknowledge him for the wonderful man he is,--that it is really a blessed thing for him to have won the sympathy of such a woman as zenobia. any man might be proud of that. any man, even if he be as great as hollingsworth, might love so magnificent a woman. how very beautiful zenobia is! and hollingsworth knows it, too." there may have been some petty malice in what i said. generosity is a very fine thing, at a proper time and within due limits. but it is an insufferable bore to see one man engrossing every thought of all the women, and leaving his friend to shiver in outer seclusion, without even the alternative of solacing himself with what the more fortunate individual has rejected. yes, it was out of a foolish bitterness of heart that i had spoken. "go on before," said priscilla abruptly, and with true feminine imperiousness, which heretofore i had never seen her exercise. "it pleases me best to loiter along by myself. i do not walk so fast as you." with her hand she made a little gesture of dismissal. it provoked me; yet, on the whole, was the most bewitching thing that priscilla had ever done. i obeyed her, and strolled moodily homeward, wondering--as i had wondered a thousand times already--how hollingsworth meant to dispose of these two hearts, which (plainly to my perception, and, as i could not but now suppose, to his) he had engrossed into his own huge egotism. there was likewise another subject hardly less fruitful of speculation. in what attitude did zenobia present herself to hollingsworth? was it in that of a free woman, with no mortgage on her affections nor claimant to her hand, but fully at liberty to surrender both, in exchange for the heart and hand which she apparently expected to receive? but was it a vision that i had witnessed in the wood? was westervelt a goblin? were those words of passion and agony, which zenobia had uttered in my hearing, a mere stage declamation? were they formed of a material lighter than common air? or, supposing them to bear sterling weight, was it a perilous and dreadful wrong which she was meditating towards herself and hollingsworth? arriving nearly at the farmhouse, i looked back over the long slope of pasture land, and beheld them standing together, in the light of sunset, just on the spot where, according to the gossip of the community, they meant to build their cottage. priscilla, alone and forgotten, was lingering in the shadow of the wood. xv. a crisis thus the summer was passing away,--a summer of toil, of interest, of something that was not pleasure, but which went deep into my heart, and there became a rich experience. i found myself looking forward to years, if not to a lifetime, to be spent on the same system. the community were now beginning to form their permanent plans. one of our purposes was to erect a phalanstery (as i think we called it, after fourier; but the phraseology of those days is not very fresh in my remembrance), where the great and general family should have its abiding-place. individual members, too, who made it a point of religion to preserve the sanctity of an exclusive home, were selecting sites for their cottages, by the wood-side, or on the breezy swells, or in the sheltered nook of some little valley, according as their taste might lean towards snugness or the picturesque. altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show of novelty to existence, and contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil beneath our feet had not been fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations, on every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a hitherto unwedded bride. hollingsworth and myself had often discussed these prospects. it was easy to perceive, however, that he spoke with little or no fervor, but either as questioning the fulfilment of our anticipations, or, at any rate, with a quiet consciousness that it was no personal concern of his. shortly after the scene at eliot's pulpit, while he and i were repairing an old stone fence, i amused myself with sallying forward into the future time. "when we come to be old men," i said, "they will call us uncles, or fathers,--father hollingsworth and uncle coverdale,--and we will look back cheerfully to these early days, and make a romantic story for the young people (and if a little more romantic than truth may warrant, it will be no harm) out of our severe trials and hardships. in a century or two, we shall, every one of us, be mythical personages, or exceedingly picturesque and poetical ones, at all events. they will have a great public hall, in which your portrait, and mine, and twenty other faces that are living now, shall be hung up; and as for me, i will be painted in my shirtsleeves, and with the sleeves rolled up, to show my muscular development. what stories will be rife among them about our mighty strength!" continued i, lifting a big stone and putting it into its place, "though our posterity will really be far stronger than ourselves, after several generations of a simple, natural, and active life. what legends of zenobia's beauty, and priscilla's slender and shadowy grace, and those mysterious qualities which make her seem diaphanous with spiritual light! in due course of ages, we must all figure heroically in an epic poem; and we will ourselves--at least, i will--bend unseen over the future poet, and lend him inspiration while he writes it." "you seem," said hollingsworth, "to be trying how much nonsense you can pour out in a breath." "i wish you would see fit to comprehend," retorted i, "that the profoundest wisdom must be mingled with nine tenths of nonsense, else it is not worth the breath that utters it. but i do long for the cottages to be built, that the creeping plants may begin to run over them, and the moss to gather on the walls, and the trees--which we will set out--to cover them with a breadth of shadow. this spick-and-span novelty does not quite suit my taste. it is time, too, for children to be born among us. the first-born child is still to come. and i shall never feel as if this were a real, practical, as well as poetical system of human life, until somebody has sanctified it by death." "a pretty occasion for martyrdom, truly!" said hollingsworth. "as good as any other," i replied. "i wonder, hollingsworth, who, of all these strong men, and fair women and maidens, is doomed the first to die. would it not be well, even before we have absolute need of it, to fix upon a spot for a cemetery? let us choose the rudest, roughest, most uncultivable spot, for death's garden ground; and death shall teach us to beautify it, grave by grave. by our sweet, calm way of dying, and the airy elegance out of which we will shape our funeral rites, and the cheerful allegories which we will model into tombstones, the final scene shall lose its terrors; so that hereafter it may be happiness to live, and bliss to die. none of us must die young. yet, should providence ordain it so, the event shall not be sorrowful, but affect us with a tender, delicious, only half-melancholy, and almost smiling pathos!" "that is to say," muttered hollingsworth, "you will die like a heathen, as you certainly live like one. but, listen to me, coverdale. your fantastic anticipations make me discern all the more forcibly what a wretched, unsubstantial scheme is this, on which we have wasted a precious summer of our lives. do you seriously imagine that any such realities as you, and many others here, have dreamed of, will ever be brought to pass?" "certainly i do," said i. "of course, when the reality comes, it will wear the every-day, commonplace, dusty, and rather homely garb that reality always does put on. but, setting aside the ideal charm, i hold that our highest anticipations have a solid footing on common sense." "you only half believe what you say," rejoined hollingsworth; "and as for me, i neither have faith in your dream, nor would care the value of this pebble for its realization, were that possible. and what more do you want of it? it has given you a theme for poetry. let that content you. but now i ask you to be, at last, a man of sobriety and earnestness, and aid me in an enterprise which is worth all our strength, and the strength of a thousand mightier than we." there can be no need of giving in detail the conversation that ensued. it is enough to say that hollingsworth once more brought forward his rigid and unconquerable idea,--a scheme for the reformation of the wicked by methods moral, intellectual, and industrial, by the sympathy of pure, humble, and yet exalted minds, and by opening to his pupils the possibility of a worthier life than that which had become their fate. it appeared, unless he overestimated his own means, that hollingsworth held it at his choice (and he did so choose) to obtain possession of the very ground on which we had planted our community, and which had not yet been made irrevocably ours, by purchase. it was just the foundation that he desired. our beginnings might readily be adapted to his great end. the arrangements already completed would work quietly into his system. so plausible looked his theory, and, more than that, so practical,--such an air of reasonableness had he, by patient thought, thrown over it,--each segment of it was contrived to dovetail into all the rest with such a complicated applicability, and so ready was he with a response for every objection, that, really, so far as logic and argument went, he had the matter all his own way. "but," said i, "whence can you, having no means of your own, derive the enormous capital which is essential to this experiment? state street, i imagine, would not draw its purser strings very liberally in aid of such a speculation." "i have the funds--as much, at least, as is needed for a commencement--at command," he answered. "they can be produced within a month, if necessary." my thoughts reverted to zenobia. it could only be her wealth which hollingsworth was appropriating so lavishly. and on what conditions was it to be had? did she fling it into the scheme with the uncalculating generosity that characterizes a woman when it is her impulse to be generous at all? and did she fling herself along with it? but hollingsworth did not volunteer an explanation. "and have you no regrets," i inquired, "in overthrowing this fair system of our new life, which has been planned so deeply, and is now beginning to flourish so hopefully around us? how beautiful it is, and, so far as we can yet see, how practicable! the ages have waited for us, and here we are, the very first that have essayed to carry on our mortal existence in love and mutual help! hollingsworth, i would be loath to take the ruin of this enterprise upon my conscience." "then let it rest wholly upon mine!" he answered, knitting his black brows. "i see through the system. it is full of defects,--irremediable and damning ones!--from first to last, there is nothing else! i grasp it in my hand, and find no substance whatever. there is not human nature in it." "why are you so secret in your operations?" i asked. "god forbid that i should accuse you of intentional wrong; but the besetting sin of a philanthropist, it appears to me, is apt to be a moral obliquity. his sense of honor ceases to be the sense of other honorable men. at some point of his course--i know not exactly when or where--he is tempted to palter with the right, and can scarcely forbear persuading himself that the importance of his public ends renders it allowable to throw aside his private conscience. oh, my dear friend, beware this error! if you meditate the overthrow of this establishment, call together our companions, state your design, support it with all your eloquence, but allow them an opportunity of defending themselves." "it does not suit me," said hollingsworth. "nor is it my duty to do so." "i think it is," replied i. hollingsworth frowned; not in passion, but, like fate, inexorably. "i will not argue the point," said he. "what i desire to know of you is,--and you can tell me in one word,--whether i am to look for your cooperation in this great scheme of good? take it up with me! be my brother in it! it offers you (what you have told me, over and over again, that you most need) a purpose in life, worthy of the extremest self-devotion,--worthy of martyrdom, should god so order it! in this view, i present it to you. you can greatly benefit mankind. your peculiar faculties, as i shall direct them, are capable of being so wrought into this enterprise that not one of them need lie idle. strike hands with me, and from this moment you shall never again feel the languor and vague wretchedness of an indolent or half-occupied man. there may be no more aimless beauty in your life; but, in its stead, there shall be strength, courage, immitigable will,--everything that a manly and generous nature should desire! we shall succeed! we shall have done our best for this miserable world; and happiness (which never comes but incidentally) will come to us unawares." it seemed his intention to say no more. but, after he had quite broken off, his deep eyes filled with tears, and he held out both his hands to me. "coverdale," he murmured, "there is not the man in this wide world whom i can love as i could you. do not forsake me!" as i look back upon this scene, through the coldness and dimness of so many years, there is still a sensation as if hollingsworth had caught hold of my heart, and were pulling it towards him with an almost irresistible force. it is a mystery to me how i withstood it. but, in truth, i saw in his scheme of philanthropy nothing but what was odious. a loathsomeness that was to be forever in my daily work! a great black ugliness of sin, which he proposed to collect out of a thousand human hearts, and that we should spend our lives in an experiment of transmuting it into virtue! had i but touched his extended hand, hollingsworth's magnetism would perhaps have penetrated me with his own conception of all these matters. but i stood aloof. i fortified myself with doubts whether his strength of purpose had not been too gigantic for his integrity, impelling him to trample on considerations that should have been paramount to every other. "is zenobia to take a part in your enterprise?" i asked. "she is," said hollingsworth. "she!--the beautiful!--the gorgeous!" i exclaimed. "and how have you prevailed with such a woman to work in this squalid element?" "through no base methods, as you seem to suspect," he answered; "but by addressing whatever is best and noblest in her." hollingsworth was looking on the ground. but, as he often did so,--generally, indeed, in his habitual moods of thought,--i could not judge whether it was from any special unwillingness now to meet my eyes. what it was that dictated my next question, i cannot precisely say. nevertheless, it rose so inevitably into my mouth, and, as it were, asked itself so involuntarily, that there must needs have been an aptness in it. "what is to become of priscilla?" hollingsworth looked at me fiercely, and with glowing eyes. he could not have shown any other kind of expression than that, had he meant to strike me with a sword. "why do you bring in the names of these women?" said he, after a moment of pregnant silence. "what have they to do with the proposal which i make you? i must have your answer! will you devote yourself, and sacrifice all to this great end, and be my friend of friends forever?" "in heaven's name, hollingsworth," cried i, getting angry, and glad to be angry, because so only was it possible to oppose his tremendous concentrativeness and indomitable will, "cannot you conceive that a man may wish well to the world, and struggle for its good, on some other plan than precisely that which you have laid down? and will you cast off a friend for no unworthiness, but merely because he stands upon his right as an individual being, and looks at matters through his own optics, instead of yours?" "be with me," said hollingsworth, "or be against me! there is no third choice for you." "take this, then, as my decision," i answered. "i doubt the wisdom of your scheme. furthermore, i greatly fear that the methods by which you allow yourself to pursue it are such as cannot stand the scrutiny of an unbiassed conscience." "and you will not join me?" "no!" i never said the word--and certainly can never have it to say hereafter--that cost me a thousandth part so hard an effort as did that one syllable. the heart-pang was not merely figurative, but an absolute torture of the breast. i was gazing steadfastly at hollingsworth. it seemed to me that it struck him, too, like a bullet. a ghastly paleness--always so terrific on a swarthy face--overspread his features. there was a convulsive movement of his throat, as if he were forcing down some words that struggled and fought for utterance. whether words of anger, or words of grief, i cannot tell; although many and many a time i have vainly tormented myself with conjecturing which of the two they were. one other appeal to my friendship,--such as once, already, hollingsworth had made,--taking me in the revulsion that followed a strenuous exercise of opposing will, would completely have subdued me. but he left the matter there. "well!" said he. and that was all! i should have been thankful for one word more, even had it shot me through the heart, as mine did him. but he did not speak it; and, after a few moments, with one accord, we set to work again, repairing the stone fence. hollingsworth, i observed, wrought like a titan; and, for my own part, i lifted stones which at this day--or, in a calmer mood, at that one--i should no more have thought it possible to stir than to carry off the gates of gaza on my back. xvi. leave-takings a few days after the tragic passage-at-arms between hollingsworth and me, i appeared at the dinner-table actually dressed in a coat, instead of my customary blouse; with a satin cravat, too, a white vest, and several other things that made me seem strange and outlandish to myself. as for my companions, this unwonted spectacle caused a great stir upon the wooden benches that bordered either side of our homely board. "what's in the wind now, miles?" asked one of them. "are you deserting us?" "yes, for a week or two," said i. "it strikes me that my health demands a little relaxation of labor, and a short visit to the seaside, during the dog-days." "you look like it!" grumbled silas foster, not greatly pleased with the idea of losing an efficient laborer before the stress of the season was well over. "now, here's a pretty fellow! his shoulders have broadened a matter of six inches since he came among us; he can do his day's work, if he likes, with any man or ox on the farm; and yet he talks about going to the seashore for his health! well, well, old woman," added he to his wife, "let me have a plateful of that pork and cabbage! i begin to feel in a very weakly way. when the others have had their turn, you and i will take a jaunt to newport or saratoga!" "well, but, mr. foster," said i, "you must allow me to take a little breath." "breath!" retorted the old yeoman. "your lungs have the play of a pair of blacksmith's bellows already. what on earth do you want more? but go along! i understand the business. we shall never see your face here again. here ends the reformation of the world, so far as miles coverdale has a hand in it!" "by no means," i replied. "i am resolute to die in the last ditch, for the good of the cause." "die in a ditch!" muttered gruff silas, with genuine yankee intolerance of any intermission of toil, except on sunday, the fourth of july, the autumnal cattle-show, thanksgiving, or the annual fast,--"die in a ditch! i believe, in my conscience, you would, if there were no steadier means than your own labor to keep you out of it!" the truth was, that an intolerable discontent and irksomeness had come over me. blithedale was no longer what it had been. everything was suddenly faded. the sunburnt and arid aspect of our woods and pastures, beneath the august sky, did but imperfectly symbolize the lack of dew and moisture, that, since yesterday, as it were, had blighted my fields of thought, and penetrated to the innermost and shadiest of my contemplative recesses. the change will be recognized by many, who, after a period of happiness, have endeavored to go on with the same kind of life, in the same scene, in spite of the alteration or withdrawal of some principal circumstance. they discover (what heretofore, perhaps, they had not known) that it was this which gave the bright color and vivid reality to the whole affair. i stood on other terms than before, not only with hollingsworth, but with zenobia and priscilla. as regarded the two latter, it was that dreamlike and miserable sort of change that denies you the privilege to complain, because you can assert no positive injury, nor lay your finger on anything tangible. it is a matter which you do not see, but feel, and which, when you try to analyze it, seems to lose its very existence, and resolve itself into a sickly humor of your own. your understanding, possibly, may put faith in this denial. but your heart will not so easily rest satisfied. it incessantly remonstrates, though, most of the time, in a bass-note, which you do not separately distinguish; but, now and then, with a sharp cry, importunate to be heard, and resolute to claim belief. "things are not as they were!" it keeps saying. "you shall not impose on me! i will never be quiet! i will throb painfully! i will be heavy, and desolate, and shiver with cold! for i, your deep heart, know when to be miserable, as once i knew when to be happy! all is changed for us! you are beloved no more!" and were my life to be spent over again, i would invariably lend my ear to this cassandra of the inward depths, however clamorous the music and the merriment of a more superficial region. my outbreak with hollingsworth, though never definitely known to our associates, had really an effect upon the moral atmosphere of the community. it was incidental to the closeness of relationship into which we had brought ourselves, that an unfriendly state of feeling could not occur between any two members without the whole society being more or less commoted and made uncomfortable thereby. this species of nervous sympathy (though a pretty characteristic enough, sentimentally considered, and apparently betokening an actual bond of love among us) was yet found rather inconvenient in its practical operation, mortal tempers being so infirm and variable as they are. if one of us happened to give his neighbor a box on the ear, the tingle was immediately felt on the same side of everybody's head. thus, even on the supposition that we were far less quarrelsome than the rest of the world, a great deal of time was necessarily wasted in rubbing our ears. musing on all these matters, i felt an inexpressible longing for at least a temporary novelty. i thought of going across the rocky mountains, or to europe, or up the nile; of offering myself a volunteer on the exploring expedition; of taking a ramble of years, no matter in what direction, and coming back on the other side of the world. then, should the colonists of blithedale have established their enterprise on a permanent basis, i might fling aside my pilgrim staff and dusty shoon, and rest as peacefully here as elsewhere. or, in case hollingsworth should occupy the ground with his school of reform, as he now purposed, i might plead earthly guilt enough, by that time, to give me what i was inclined to think the only trustworthy hold on his affections. meanwhile, before deciding on any ultimate plan, i determined to remove myself to a little distance, and take an exterior view of what we had all been about. in truth, it was dizzy work, amid such fermentation of opinions as was going on in the general brain of the community. it was a kind of bedlam, for the time being, although out of the very thoughts that were wildest and most destructive might grow a wisdom, holy, calm, and pure, and that should incarnate itself with the substance of a noble and happy life. but, as matters now were, i felt myself (and, having a decided tendency towards the actual, i never liked to feel it) getting quite out of my reckoning, with regard to the existing state of the world. i was beginning to lose the sense of what kind of a world it was, among innumerable schemes of what it might or ought to be. it was impossible, situated as we were, not to imbibe the idea that everything in nature and human existence was fluid, or fast becoming so; that the crust of the earth in many places was broken, and its whole surface portentously upheaving; that it was a day of crisis, and that we ourselves were in the critical vortex. our great globe floated in the atmosphere of infinite space like an unsubstantial bubble. no sagacious man will long retain his sagacity, if he live exclusively among reformers and progressive people, without periodically returning into the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new observation from that old standpoint. it was now time for me, therefore, to go and hold a little talk with the conservatives, the writers of "the north american review," the merchants, the politicians, the cambridge men, and all those respectable old blockheads who still, in this intangibility and mistiness of affairs, kept a death-grip on one or two ideas which had not come into vogue since yesterday morning. the brethren took leave of me with cordial kindness; and as for the sisterhood, i had serious thoughts of kissing them all round, but forbore to do so, because, in all such general salutations, the penance is fully equal to the pleasure. so i kissed none of them; and nobody, to say the truth, seemed to expect it. "do you wish me," i said to zenobia, "to announce in town, and at the watering-places, your purpose to deliver a course of lectures on the rights of women?" "women possess no rights," said zenobia, with a half-melancholy smile; "or, at all events, only little girls and grandmothers would have the force to exercise them." she gave me her hand freely and kindly, and looked at me, i thought, with a pitying expression in her eyes; nor was there any settled light of joy in them on her own behalf, but a troubled and passionate flame, flickering and fitful. "i regret, on the whole, that you are leaving us," she said; "and all the more, since i feel that this phase of our life is finished, and can never be lived over again. do you know, mr. coverdale, that i have been several times on the point of making you my confidant, for lack of a better and wiser one? but you are too young to be my father confessor; and you would not thank me for treating you like one of those good little handmaidens who share the bosom secrets of a tragedy-queen." "i would, at least, be loyal and faithful," answered i; "and would counsel you with an honest purpose, if not wisely." "yes," said zenobia, "you would be only too wise, too honest. honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person's expense!" "ah, zenobia," i exclaimed, "if you would but let me speak!" "by no means," she replied, "especially when you have just resumed the whole series of social conventionalisms, together with that strait-bodied coat. i would as lief open my heart to a lawyer or a clergyman! no, no, mr. coverdale; if i choose a counsellor, in the present aspect of my affairs, it must be either an angel or a madman; and i rather apprehend that the latter would be likeliest of the two to speak the fitting word. it needs a wild steersman when we voyage through chaos! the anchor is up,--farewell!" priscilla, as soon as dinner was over, had betaken herself into a corner, and set to work on a little purse. as i approached her, she let her eyes rest on me with a calm, serious look; for, with all her delicacy of nerves, there was a singular self-possession in priscilla, and her sensibilities seemed to lie sheltered from ordinary commotion, like the water in a deep well. "will you give me that purse, priscilla," said i, "as a parting keepsake?" "yes," she answered, "if you will wait till it is finished." "i must not wait, even for that," i replied. "shall i find you here, on my return?" "i never wish to go away," said she. "i have sometimes thought," observed i, smiling, "that you, priscilla, are a little prophetess, or, at least, that you have spiritual intimations respecting matters which are dark to us grosser people. if that be the case, i should like to ask you what is about to happen; for i am tormented with a strong foreboding that, were i to return even so soon as to-morrow morning, i should find everything changed. have you any impressions of this nature?" "ah, no," said priscilla, looking at me apprehensively. "if any such misfortune is coming, the shadow has not reached me yet. heaven forbid! i should be glad if there might never be any change, but one summer follow another, and all just like this." "no summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike," said i, with a degree of orphic wisdom that astonished myself. "times change, and people change; and if our hearts do not change as readily, so much the worse for us. good-by, priscilla!" i gave her hand a pressure, which, i think, she neither resisted nor returned. priscilla's heart was deep, but of small compass; it had room but for a very few dearest ones, among whom she never reckoned me. on the doorstep i met hollingsworth. i had a momentary impulse to hold out my hand, or at least to give a parting nod, but resisted both. when a real and strong affection has come to an end, it is not well to mock the sacred past with any show of those commonplace civilities that belong to ordinary intercourse. being dead henceforth to him, and he to me, there could be no propriety in our chilling one another with the touch of two corpse-like hands, or playing at looks of courtesy with eyes that were impenetrable beneath the glaze and the film. we passed, therefore, as if mutually invisible. i can nowise explain what sort of whim, prank, or perversity it was, that, after all these leave-takings, induced me to go to the pigsty, and take leave of the swine! there they lay, buried as deeply among the straw as they could burrow, four huge black grunters, the very symbols of slothful ease and sensual comfort. they were asleep, drawing short and heavy breaths, which heaved their big sides up and down. unclosing their eyes, however, at my approach, they looked dimly forth at the outer world, and simultaneously uttered a gentle grunt; not putting themselves to the trouble of an additional breath for that particular purpose, but grunting with their ordinary inhalation. they were involved, and almost stifled and buried alive, in their own corporeal substance. the very unreadiness and oppression wherewith these greasy citizens gained breath enough to keep their life-machinery in sluggish movement appeared to make them only the more sensible of the ponderous and fat satisfaction of their existence. peeping at me an instant out of their small, red, hardly perceptible eyes, they dropt asleep again; yet not so far asleep but that their unctuous bliss was still present to them, betwixt dream and reality. "you must come back in season to eat part of a spare-rib," said silas foster, giving my hand a mighty squeeze. "i shall have these fat fellows hanging up by the heels, heads downward, pretty soon, i tell you!" "o cruel silas, what a horrible idea!" cried i. "all the rest of us, men, women, and livestock, save only these four porkers, are bedevilled with one grief or another; they alone are happy,--and you mean to cut their throats and eat them! it would be more for the general comfort to let them eat us; and bitter and sour morsels we should be!" xvii. the hotel arriving in town (where my bachelor-rooms, long before this time, had received some other occupant), i established myself, for a day or two, in a certain, respectable hotel. it was situated somewhat aloof from my former track in life; my present mood inclining me to avoid most of my old companions, from whom i was now sundered by other interests, and who would have been likely enough to amuse themselves at the expense of the amateur workingman. the hotel-keeper put me into a back room of the third story of his spacious establishment. the day was lowering, with occasional gusts of rain, and an ugly tempered east wind, which seemed to come right off the chill and melancholy sea, hardly mitigated by sweeping over the roofs, and amalgamating itself with the dusky element of city smoke. all the effeminacy of past days had returned upon me at once. summer as it still was, i ordered a coal fire in the rusty grate, and was glad to find myself growing a little too warm with an artificial temperature. my sensations were those of a traveller, long sojourning in remote regions, and at length sitting down again amid customs once familiar. there was a newness and an oldness oddly combining themselves into one impression. it made me acutely sensible how strange a piece of mosaic-work had lately been wrought into my life. true, if you look at it in one way, it had been only a summer in the country. but, considered in a profounder relation, it was part of another age, a different state of society, a segment of an existence peculiar in its aims and methods, a leaf of some mysterious volume interpolated into the current history which time was writing off. at one moment, the very circumstances now surrounding me--my coal fire and the dingy room in the bustling hotel--appeared far off and intangible; the next instant blithedale looked vague, as if it were at a distance both in time and space, and so shadowy that a question might be raised whether the whole affair had been anything more than the thoughts of a speculative man. i had never before experienced a mood that so robbed the actual world of its solidity. it nevertheless involved a charm, on which--a devoted epicure of my own emotions--i resolved to pause, and enjoy the moral sillabub until quite dissolved away. whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural scenery, yet the thick, foggy, stifled element of cities, the entangled life of many men together, sordid as it was, and empty of the beautiful, took quite as strenuous a hold upon my mind. i felt as if there could never be enough of it. each characteristic sound was too suggestive to be passed over unnoticed. beneath and around me, i heard the stir of the hotel; the loud voices of guests, landlord, or bar-keeper; steps echoing on the staircase; the ringing of a bell, announcing arrivals or departures; the porter lumbering past my door with baggage, which he thumped down upon the floors of neighboring chambers; the lighter feet of chambermaids scudding along the passages;--it is ridiculous to think what an interest they had for me! from the street came the tumult of the pavements, pervading the whole house with a continual uproar, so broad and deep that only an unaccustomed ear would dwell upon it. a company of the city soldiery, with a full military band, marched in front of the hotel, invisible to me, but stirringly audible both by its foot-tramp and the clangor of its instruments. once or twice all the city bells jangled together, announcing a fire, which brought out the engine-men and their machines, like an army with its artillery rushing to battle. hour by hour the clocks in many steeples responded one to another. in some public hall, not a great way off, there seemed to be an exhibition of a mechanical diorama; for three times during the day occurred a repetition of obstreperous music, winding up with the rattle of imitative cannon and musketry, and a huge final explosion. then ensued the applause of the spectators, with clap of hands and thump of sticks, and the energetic pounding of their heels. all this was just as valuable, in its way, as the sighing of the breeze among the birch-trees that overshadowed eliot's pulpit. yet i felt a hesitation about plunging into this muddy tide of human activity and pastime. it suited me better, for the present, to linger on the brink, or hover in the air above it. so i spent the first day, and the greater part of the second, in the laziest manner possible, in a rocking-chair, inhaling the fragrance of a series of cigars, with my legs and slippered feet horizontally disposed, and in my hand a novel purchased of a railroad bibliopolist. the gradual waste of my cigar accomplished itself with an easy and gentle expenditure of breath. my book was of the dullest, yet had a sort of sluggish flow, like that of a stream in which your boat is as often aground as afloat. had there been a more impetuous rush, a more absorbing passion of the narrative, i should the sooner have struggled out of its uneasy current, and have given myself up to the swell and subsidence of my thoughts. but, as it was, the torpid life of the book served as an unobtrusive accompaniment to the life within me and about me. at intervals, however, when its effect grew a little too soporific,--not for my patience, but for the possibility of keeping my eyes open, i bestirred myself, started from the rocking-chair, and looked out of the window. a gray sky; the weathercock of a steeple that rose beyond the opposite range of buildings, pointing from the eastward; a sprinkle of small, spiteful-looking raindrops on the window-pane. in that ebb-tide of my energies, had i thought of venturing abroad, these tokens would have checked the abortive purpose. after several such visits to the window, i found myself getting pretty well acquainted with that little portion of the backside of the universe which it presented to my view. over against the hotel and its adjacent houses, at the distance of forty or fifty yards, was the rear of a range of buildings which appeared to be spacious, modern, and calculated for fashionable residences. the interval between was apportioned into grass-plots, and here and there an apology for a garden, pertaining severally to these dwellings. there were apple-trees, and pear and peach trees, too, the fruit on which looked singularly large, luxuriant, and abundant, as well it might, in a situation so warm and sheltered, and where the soil had doubtless been enriched to a more than natural fertility. in two or three places grapevines clambered upon trellises, and bore clusters already purple, and promising the richness of malta or madeira in their ripened juice. the blighting winds of our rigid climate could not molest these trees and vines; the sunshine, though descending late into this area, and too early intercepted by the height of the surrounding houses, yet lay tropically there, even when less than temperate in every other region. dreary as was the day, the scene was illuminated by not a few sparrows and other birds, which spread their wings, and flitted and fluttered, and alighted now here, now there, and busily scratched their food out of the wormy earth. most of these winged people seemed to have their domicile in a robust and healthy buttonwood-tree. it aspired upward, high above the roofs of the houses, and spread a dense head of foliage half across the area. there was a cat--as there invariably is in such places--who evidently thought herself entitled to the privileges of forest life in this close heart of city conventionalisms. i watched her creeping along the low, flat roofs of the offices, descending a flight of wooden steps, gliding among the grass, and besieging the buttonwood-tree, with murderous purpose against its feathered citizens. but, after all, they were birds of city breeding, and doubtless knew how to guard themselves against the peculiar perils of their position. bewitching to my fancy are all those nooks and crannies where nature, like a stray partridge, hides her head among the long-established haunts of men! it is likewise to be remarked, as a general rule, that there is far more of the picturesque, more truth to native and characteristic tendencies, and vastly greater suggestiveness in the back view of a residence, whether in town or country, than in its front. the latter is always artificial; it is meant for the world's eye, and is therefore a veil and a concealment. realities keep in the rear, and put forward an advance guard of show and humbug. the posterior aspect of any old farmhouse, behind which a railroad has unexpectedly been opened, is so different from that looking upon the immemorial highway, that the spectator gets new ideas of rural life and individuality in the puff or two of steam-breath which shoots him past the premises. in a city, the distinction between what is offered to the public and what is kept for the family is certainly not less striking. but, to return to my window at the back of the hotel. together with a due contemplation of the fruit-trees, the grapevines, the buttonwood-tree, the cat, the birds, and many other particulars, i failed not to study the row of fashionable dwellings to which all these appertained. here, it must be confessed, there was a general sameness. from the upper story to the first floor, they were so much alike, that i could only conceive of the inhabitants as cut out on one identical pattern, like little wooden toy-people of german manufacture. one long, united roof, with its thousands of slates glittering in the rain, extended over the whole. after the distinctness of separate characters to which i had recently been accustomed, it perplexed and annoyed me not to be able to resolve this combination of human interests into well-defined elements. it seemed hardly worth while for more than one of those families to be in existence, since they all had the same glimpse of the sky, all looked into the same area, all received just their equal share of sunshine through the front windows, and all listened to precisely the same noises of the street on which they boarded. men are so much alike in their nature, that they grow intolerable unless varied by their circumstances. just about this time a waiter entered my room. the truth was, i had rung the bell and ordered a sherry-cobbler. "can you tell me," i inquired, "what families reside in any of those houses opposite?" "the one right opposite is a rather stylish boarding-house," said the waiter. "two of the gentlemen boarders keep horses at the stable of our establishment. they do things in very good style, sir, the people that live there." i might have found out nearly as much for myself, on examining the house a little more closely, in one of the upper chambers i saw a young man in a dressing-gown, standing before the glass and brushing his hair for a quarter of an hour together. he then spent an equal space of time in the elaborate arrangement of his cravat, and finally made his appearance in a dress-coat, which i suspected to be newly come from the tailor's, and now first put on for a dinner-party. at a window of the next story below, two children, prettily dressed, were looking out. by and by a middle-aged gentleman came softly behind them, kissed the little girl, and playfully pulled the little boy's ear. it was a papa, no doubt, just come in from his counting-room or office; and anon appeared mamma, stealing as softly behind papa as he had stolen behind the children, and laying her hand on his shoulder to surprise him. then followed a kiss between papa and mamma; but a noiseless one, for the children did not turn their heads. "i bless god for these good folks!" thought i to myself. "i have not seen a prettier bit of nature, in all my summer in the country, than they have shown me here, in a rather stylish boarding-house. i will pay them a little more attention by and by." on the first floor, an iron balustrade ran along in front of the tall and spacious windows, evidently belonging to a back drawing-room; and far into the interior, through the arch of the sliding-doors, i could discern a gleam from the windows of the front apartment. there were no signs of present occupancy in this suite of rooms; the curtains being enveloped in a protective covering, which allowed but a small portion of their crimson material to be seen. but two housemaids were industriously at work; so that there was good prospect that the boarding-house might not long suffer from the absence of its most expensive and profitable guests. meanwhile, until they should appear, i cast my eyes downward to the lower regions. there, in the dusk that so early settles into such places, i saw the red glow of the kitchen range. the hot cook, or one of her subordinates, with a ladle in her hand, came to draw a cool breath at the back door. as soon as she disappeared, an irish man-servant, in a white jacket, crept slyly forth, and threw away the fragments of a china dish, which, unquestionably, he had just broken. soon afterwards, a lady, showily dressed, with a curling front of what must have been false hair, and reddish-brown, i suppose, in hue,--though my remoteness allowed me only to guess at such particulars,--this respectable mistress of the boarding-house made a momentary transit across the kitchen window, and appeared no more. it was her final, comprehensive glance, in order to make sure that soup, fish, and flesh were in a proper state of readiness, before the serving up of dinner. there was nothing else worth noticing about the house, unless it be that on the peak of one of the dormer windows which opened out of the roof sat a dove, looking very dreary and forlorn; insomuch that i wondered why she chose to sit there, in the chilly rain, while her kindred were doubtless nestling in a warm and comfortable dove-cote. all at once this dove spread her wings, and, launching herself in the air, came flying so straight across the intervening space, that i fully expected her to alight directly on my window-sill. in the latter part of her course, however, she swerved aside, flew upward, and vanished, as did, likewise, the slight, fantastic pathos with which i had invested her. xviii. the boarding-house the next day, as soon as i thought of looking again towards the opposite house, there sat the dove again, on the peak of the same dormer window! it was by no means an early hour, for the preceding evening i had ultimately mustered enterprise enough to visit the theatre, had gone late to bed, and slept beyond all limit, in my remoteness from silas foster's awakening horn. dreams had tormented me throughout the night. the train of thoughts which, for months past, had worn a track through my mind, and to escape which was one of my chief objects in leaving blithedale, kept treading remorselessly to and fro in their old footsteps, while slumber left me impotent to regulate them. it was not till i had quitted my three friends that they first began to encroach upon my dreams. in those of the last night, hollingsworth and zenobia, standing on either side of my bed, had bent across it to exchange a kiss of passion. priscilla, beholding this,--for she seemed to be peeping in at the chamber window,--had melted gradually away, and left only the sadness of her expression in my heart. there it still lingered, after i awoke; one of those unreasonable sadnesses that you know not how to deal with, because it involves nothing for common-sense to clutch. it was a gray and dripping forenoon; gloomy enough in town, and still gloomier in the haunts to which my recollections persisted in transporting me. for, in spite of my efforts to think of something else, i thought how the gusty rain was drifting over the slopes and valleys of our farm; how wet must be the foliage that overshadowed the pulpit rock; how cheerless, in such a day, my hermitage--the tree-solitude of my owl-like humors--in the vine-encircled heart of the tall pine! it was a phase of homesickness. i had wrenched myself too suddenly out of an accustomed sphere. there was no choice, now, but to bear the pang of whatever heartstrings were snapt asunder, and that illusive torment (like the ache of a limb long ago cut off) by which a past mode of life prolongs itself into the succeeding one. i was full of idle and shapeless regrets. the thought impressed itself upon me that i had left duties unperformed. with the power, perhaps, to act in the place of destiny and avert misfortune from my friends, i had resigned them to their fate. that cold tendency, between instinct and intellect, which made me pry with a speculative interest into people's passions and impulses, appeared to have gone far towards unhumanizing my heart. but a man cannot always decide for himself whether his own heart is cold or warm. it now impresses me that, if i erred at all in regard to hollingsworth, zenobia, and priscilla, it was through too much sympathy, rather than too little. to escape the irksomeness of these meditations, i resumed my post at the window. at first sight, there was nothing new to be noticed. the general aspect of affairs was the same as yesterday, except that the more decided inclemency of to-day had driven the sparrows to shelter, and kept the cat within doors; whence, however, she soon emerged, pursued by the cook, and with what looked like the better half of a roast chicken in her mouth. the young man in the dress-coat was invisible; the two children, in the story below, seemed to be romping about the room, under the superintendence of a nursery-maid. the damask curtains of the drawing-room, on the first floor, were now fully displayed, festooned gracefully from top to bottom of the windows, which extended from the ceiling to the carpet. a narrower window, at the left of the drawing-room, gave light to what was probably a small boudoir, within which i caught the faintest imaginable glimpse of a girl's figure, in airy drapery. her arm was in regular movement, as if she were busy with her german worsted, or some other such pretty and unprofitable handiwork. while intent upon making out this girlish shape, i became sensible that a figure had appeared at one of the windows of the drawing-room. there was a presentiment in my mind; or perhaps my first glance, imperfect and sidelong as it was, had sufficed to convey subtile information of the truth. at any rate, it was with no positive surprise, but as if i had all along expected the incident, that, directing my eyes thitherward, i beheld--like a full-length picture, in the space between the heavy festoons of the window curtains--no other than zenobia! at the same instant, my thoughts made sure of the identity of the figure in the boudoir. it could only be priscilla. zenobia was attired, not in the almost rustic costume which she had heretofore worn, but in a fashionable morning-dress. there was, nevertheless, one familiar point. she had, as usual, a flower in her hair, brilliant and of a rare variety, else it had not been zenobia. after a brief pause at the window, she turned away, exemplifying, in the few steps that removed her out of sight, that noble and beautiful motion which characterized her as much as any other personal charm. not one woman in a thousand could move so admirably as zenobia. many women can sit gracefully; some can stand gracefully; and a few, perhaps, can assume a series of graceful positions. but natural movement is the result and expression of the whole being, and cannot be well and nobly performed unless responsive to something in the character. i often used to think that music--light and airy, wild and passionate, or the full harmony of stately marches, in accordance with her varying mood--should have attended zenobia's footsteps. i waited for her reappearance. it was one peculiarity, distinguishing zenobia from most of her sex, that she needed for her moral well-being, and never would forego, a large amount of physical exercise. at blithedale, no inclemency of sky or muddiness of earth had ever impeded her daily walks. here in town, she probably preferred to tread the extent of the two drawing-rooms, and measure out the miles by spaces of forty feet, rather than bedraggle her skirts over the sloppy pavements. accordingly, in about the time requisite to pass through the arch of the sliding-doors to the front window, and to return upon her steps, there she stood again, between the festoons of the crimson curtains. but another personage was now added to the scene. behind zenobia appeared that face which i had first encountered in the wood-path; the man who had passed, side by side with her, in such mysterious familiarity and estrangement, beneath my vine curtained hermitage in the tall pine-tree. it was westervelt. and though he was looking closely over her shoulder, it still seemed to me, as on the former occasion, that zenobia repelled him,--that, perchance, they mutually repelled each other, by some incompatibility of their spheres. this impression, however, might have been altogether the result of fancy and prejudice in me. the distance was so great as to obliterate any play of feature by which i might otherwise have been made a partaker of their counsels. there now needed only hollingsworth and old moodie to complete the knot of characters, whom a real intricacy of events, greatly assisted by my method of insulating them from other relations, had kept so long upon my mental stage, as actors in a drama. in itself, perhaps, it was no very remarkable event that they should thus come across me, at the moment when i imagined myself free. zenobia, as i well knew, had retained an establishment in town, and had not unfrequently withdrawn herself from blithedale during brief intervals, on one of which occasions she had taken priscilla along with her. nevertheless, there seemed something fatal in the coincidence that had borne me to this one spot, of all others in a great city, and transfixed me there, and compelled me again to waste my already wearied sympathies on affairs which were none of mine, and persons who cared little for me. it irritated my nerves; it affected me with a kind of heart-sickness. after the effort which it cost me to fling them off,--after consummating my escape, as i thought, from these goblins of flesh and blood, and pausing to revive myself with a breath or two of an atmosphere in which they should have no share,--it was a positive despair to find the same figures arraying themselves before me, and presenting their old problem in a shape that made it more insoluble than ever. i began to long for a catastrophe. if the noble temper of hollingsworth's soul were doomed to be utterly corrupted by the too powerful purpose which had grown out of what was noblest in him; if the rich and generous qualities of zenobia's womanhood might not save her; if priscilla must perish by her tenderness and faith, so simple and so devout, then be it so! let it all come! as for me, i would look on, as it seemed my part to do, understandingly, if my intellect could fathom the meaning and the moral, and, at all events, reverently and sadly. the curtain fallen, i would pass onward with my poor individual life, which was now attenuated of much of its proper substance, and diffused among many alien interests. meanwhile, zenobia and her companion had retreated from the window. then followed an interval, during which i directed my eves towards the figure in the boudoir. most certainly it was priscilla, although dressed with a novel and fanciful elegance. the vague perception of it, as viewed so far off, impressed me as if she had suddenly passed out of a chrysalis state and put forth wings. her hands were not now in motion. she had dropt her work, and sat with her head thrown back, in the same attitude that i had seen several times before, when she seemed to be listening to an imperfectly distinguished sound. again the two figures in the drawing-room became visible. they were now a little withdrawn from the window, face to face, and, as i could see by zenobia's emphatic gestures, were discussing some subject in which she, at least, felt a passionate concern. by and by she broke away, and vanished beyond my ken. westervelt approached the window, and leaned his forehead against a pane of glass, displaying the sort of smile on his handsome features which, when i before met him, had let me into the secret of his gold-bordered teeth. every human being, when given over to the devil, is sure to have the wizard mark upon him, in one form or another. i fancied that this smile, with its peculiar revelation, was the devil's signet on the professor. this man, as i had soon reason to know, was endowed with a cat-like circumspection; and though precisely the most unspiritual quality in the world, it was almost as effective as spiritual insight in making him acquainted with whatever it suited him to discover. he now proved it, considerably to my discomfiture, by detecting and recognizing me, at my post of observation. perhaps i ought to have blushed at being caught in such an evident scrutiny of professor westervelt and his affairs. perhaps i did blush. be that as it might, i retained presence of mind enough not to make my position yet more irksome by the poltroonery of drawing back. westervelt looked into the depths of the drawing-room, and beckoned. immediately afterwards zenobia appeared at the window, with color much heightened, and eyes which, as my conscience whispered me, were shooting bright arrows, barbed with scorn, across the intervening space, directed full at my sensibilities as a gentleman. if the truth must be told, far as her flight-shot was, those arrows hit the mark. she signified her recognition of me by a gesture with her head and hand, comprising at once a salutation and dismissal. the next moment she administered one of those pitiless rebukes which a woman always has at hand, ready for any offence (and which she so seldom spares on due occasion), by letting down a white linen curtain between the festoons of the damask ones. it fell like the drop-curtain of a theatre, in the interval between the acts. priscilla had disappeared from the boudoir. but the dove still kept her desolate perch on the peak of the attic window. xix. zenobia's drawing-room the remainder of the day, so far as i was concerned, was spent in meditating on these recent incidents. i contrived, and alternately rejected, innumerable methods of accounting for the presence of zenobia and priscilla, and the connection of westervelt with both. it must be owned, too, that i had a keen, revengeful sense of the insult inflicted by zenobia's scornful recognition, and more particularly by her letting down the curtain; as if such were the proper barrier to be interposed between a character like hers and a perceptive faculty like mine. for, was mine a mere vulgar curiosity? zenobia should have known me better than to suppose it. she should have been able to appreciate that quality of the intellect and the heart which impelled me (often against my own will, and to the detriment of my own comfort) to live in other lives, and to endeavor--by generous sympathies, by delicate intuitions, by taking note of things too slight for record, and by bringing my human spirit into manifold accordance with the companions whom god assigned me--to learn the secret which was hidden even from themselves. of all possible observers, methought a woman like zenobia and a man like hollingsworth should have selected me. and now when the event has long been past, i retain the same opinion of my fitness for the office. true, i might have condemned them. had i been judge as well as witness, my sentence might have been stern as that of destiny itself. but, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle against temptation,--no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from passion and despair, on the other,--no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to prevent it,--no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a meed,--would go unappreciated. true, again, i might give my full assent to the punishment which was sure to follow. but it would be given mournfully, and with undiminished love. and, after all was finished, i would come as if to gather up the white ashes of those who had perished at the stake, and to tell the world--the wrong being now atoned for--how much had perished there which it had never yet known how to praise. i sat in my rocking-chair, too far withdrawn from the window to expose myself to another rebuke like that already inflicted. my eyes still wandered towards the opposite house, but without effecting any new discoveries. late in the afternoon, the weathercock on the church spire indicated a change of wind; the sun shone dimly out, as if the golden wine of its beams were mingled half-and-half with water. nevertheless, they kindled up the whole range of edifices, threw a glow over the windows, glistened on the wet roofs, and, slowly withdrawing upward, perched upon the chimney-tops; thence they took a higher flight, and lingered an instant on the tip of the spire, making it the final point of more cheerful light in the whole sombre scene. the next moment, it was all gone. the twilight fell into the area like a shower of dusky snow, and before it was quite dark, the gong of the hotel summoned me to tea. when i returned to my chamber, the glow of an astral lamp was penetrating mistily through the white curtain of zenobia's drawing-room. the shadow of a passing figure was now and then cast upon this medium, but with too vague an outline for even my adventurous conjectures to read the hieroglyphic that it presented. all at once, it occurred to me how very absurd was my behavior in thus tormenting myself with crazy hypotheses as to what was going on within that drawing-room, when it was at my option to be personally present there, my relations with zenobia, as yet unchanged,--as a familiar friend, and associated in the same life-long enterprise,--gave me the right, and made it no more than kindly courtesy demanded, to call on her. nothing, except our habitual independence of conventional rules at blithedale, could have kept me from sooner recognizing this duty. at all events, it should now be performed. in compliance with this sudden impulse, i soon found myself actually within the house, the rear of which, for two days past, i had been so sedulously watching. a servant took my card, and, immediately returning, ushered me upstairs. on the way, i heard a rich, and, as it were, triumphant burst of music from a piano, in which i felt zenobia's character, although heretofore i had known nothing of her skill upon the instrument. two or three canary-birds, excited by this gush of sound, sang piercingly, and did their utmost to produce a kindred melody. a bright illumination streamed through, the door of the front drawing-room; and i had barely stept across the threshold before zenobia came forward to meet me, laughing, and with an extended hand. "ah, mr. coverdale," said she, still smiling, but, as i thought, with a good deal of scornful anger underneath, "it has gratified me to see the interest which you continue to take in my affairs! i have long recognized you as a sort of transcendental yankee, with all the native propensity of your countrymen to investigate matters that come within their range, but rendered almost poetical, in your case, by the refined methods which you adopt for its gratification. after all, it was an unjustifiable stroke, on my part,--was it not?--to let down the window curtain!" "i cannot call it a very wise one," returned i, with a secret bitterness, which, no doubt, zenobia appreciated. "it is really impossible to hide anything in this world, to say nothing of the next. all that we ought to ask, therefore, is, that the witnesses of our conduct, and the speculators on our motives, should be capable of taking the highest view which the circumstances of the case may admit. so much being secured, i, for one, would be most happy in feeling myself followed everywhere by an indefatigable human sympathy." "we must trust for intelligent sympathy to our guardian angels, if any there be," said zenobia. "as long as the only spectator of my poor tragedy is a young man at the window of his hotel, i must still claim the liberty to drop the curtain." while this passed, as zenobia's hand was extended, i had applied the very slightest touch of my fingers to her own. in spite of an external freedom, her manner made me sensible that we stood upon no real terms of confidence. the thought came sadly across me, how great was the contrast betwixt this interview and our first meeting. then, in the warm light of the country fireside, zenobia had greeted me cheerily and hopefully, with a full sisterly grasp of the hand, conveying as much kindness in it as other women could have evinced by the pressure of both arms around my neck, or by yielding a cheek to the brotherly salute. the difference was as complete as between her appearance at that time--so simply attired, and with only the one superb flower in her hair--and now, when her beauty was set off by all that dress and ornament could do for it. and they did much. not, indeed, that they created or added anything to what nature had lavishly done for zenobia. but, those costly robes which she had on, those flaming jewels on her neck, served as lamps to display the personal advantages which required nothing less than such an illumination to be fully seen. even her characteristic flower, though it seemed to be still there, had undergone a cold and bright transfiguration; it was a flower exquisitely imitated in jeweller's work, and imparting the last touch that transformed zenobia into a work of art. "i scarcely feel," i could not forbear saying, "as if we had ever met before. how many years ago it seems since we last sat beneath eliot's pulpit, with hollingsworth extended on the fallen leaves, and priscilla at his feet! can it be, zenobia, that you ever really numbered yourself with our little band of earnest, thoughtful, philanthropic laborers?" "those ideas have their time and place," she answered coldly. "but i fancy it must be a very circumscribed mind that can find room for no other." her manner bewildered me. literally, moreover, i was dazzled by the brilliancy of the room. a chandelier hung down in the centre, glowing with i know not how many lights; there were separate lamps, also, on two or three tables, and on marble brackets, adding their white radiance to that of the chandelier. the furniture was exceedingly rich. fresh from our old farmhouse, with its homely board and benches in the dining-room, and a few wicker chairs in the best parlor, it struck me that here was the fulfilment of every fantasy of an imagination revelling in various methods of costly self-indulgence and splendid ease. pictures, marbles, vases,--in brief, more shapes of luxury than there could be any object in enumerating, except for an auctioneer's advertisement,--and the whole repeated and doubled by the reflection of a great mirror, which showed me zenobia's proud figure, likewise, and my own. it cost me, i acknowledge, a bitter sense of shame, to perceive in myself a positive effort to bear up against the effect which zenobia sought to impose on me. i reasoned against her, in my secret mind, and strove so to keep my footing. in the gorgeousness with which she had surrounded herself,--in the redundance of personal ornament, which the largeness of her physical nature and the rich type of her beauty caused to seem so suitable,--i malevolently beheld the true character of the woman, passionate, luxurious, lacking simplicity, not deeply refined, incapable of pure and perfect taste. but, the next instant, she was too powerful for all my opposing struggles. i saw how fit it was that she should make herself as gorgeous as she pleased, and should do a thousand things that would have been ridiculous in the poor, thin, weakly characters of other women. to this day, however, i hardly know whether i then beheld zenobia in her truest attitude, or whether that were the truer one in which she had presented herself at blithedale. in both, there was something like the illusion which a great actress flings around her. "have you given up blithedale forever?" i inquired. "why should you think so?" asked she. "i cannot tell," answered i; "except that it appears all like a dream that we were ever there together." "it is not so to me," said zenobia. "i should think it a poor and meagre nature that is capable of but one set of forms, and must convert all the past into a dream merely because the present happens to be unlike it. why should we be content with our homely life of a few months past, to the exclusion of all other modes? it was good; but there are other lives as good, or better. not, you will understand, that i condemn those who give themselves up to it more entirely than i, for myself, should deem it wise to do." it irritated me, this self-complacent, condescending, qualified approval and criticism of a system to which many individuals--perhaps as highly endowed as our gorgeous zenobia--had contributed their all of earthly endeavor, and their loftiest aspirations. i determined to make proof if there were any spell that would exorcise her out of the part which she seemed to be acting. she should be compelled to give me a glimpse of something true; some nature, some passion, no matter whether right or wrong, provided it were real. "your allusion to that class of circumscribed characters who can live only in one mode of life," remarked i coolly, "reminds me of our poor friend hollingsworth. possibly he was in your thoughts when you spoke thus. poor fellow! it is a pity that, by the fault of a narrow education, he should have so completely immolated himself to that one idea of his, especially as the slightest modicum of common-sense would teach him its utter impracticability. now that i have returned into the world, and can look at his project from a distance, it requires quite all my real regard for this respectable and well-intentioned man to prevent me laughing at him,--as i find society at large does." zenobia's eyes darted lightning, her cheeks flushed, the vividness of her expression was like the effect of a powerful light flaming up suddenly within her. my experiment had fully succeeded. she had shown me the true flesh and blood of her heart, by thus involuntarily resenting my slight, pitying, half-kind, half-scornful mention of the man who was all in all with her. she herself probably felt this; for it was hardly a moment before she tranquillized her uneven breath, and seemed as proud and self-possessed as ever. "i rather imagine," said she quietly, "that your appreciation falls short of mr. hollingsworth's just claims. blind enthusiasm, absorption in one idea, i grant, is generally ridiculous, and must be fatal to the respectability of an ordinary man; it requires a very high and powerful character to make it otherwise. but a great man--as, perhaps, you do not know--attains his normal condition only through the inspiration of one great idea. as a friend of mr. hollingsworth, and, at the same time, a calm observer, i must tell you that he seems to me such a man. but you are very pardonable for fancying him ridiculous. doubtless, he is so--to you! there can be no truer test of the noble and heroic, in any individual, than the degree in which he possesses the faculty of distinguishing heroism from absurdity." i dared make no retort to zenobia's concluding apothegm. in truth, i admired her fidelity. it gave me a new sense of hollingsworth's native power, to discover that his influence was no less potent with this beautiful woman here, in the midst of artificial life, than it had been at the foot of the gray rock, and among the wild birch-trees of the wood-path, when she so passionately pressed his hand against her heart. the great, rude, shaggy, swarthy man! and zenobia loved him! "did you bring priscilla with you?" i resumed. "do you know i have sometimes fancied it not quite safe, considering the susceptibility of her temperament, that she should be so constantly within the sphere of a man like hollingsworth. such tender and delicate natures, among your sex, have often, i believe, a very adequate appreciation of the heroic element in men. but then, again, i should suppose them as likely as any other women to make a reciprocal impression. hollingsworth could hardly give his affections to a person capable of taking an independent stand, but only to one whom he might absorb into himself. he has certainly shown great tenderness for priscilla." zenobia had turned aside. but i caught the reflection of her face in the mirror, and saw that it was very pale,--as pale, in her rich attire, as if a shroud were round her. "priscilla is here," said she, her voice a little lower than usual. "have not you learnt as much from your chamber window? would you like to see her?" she made a step or two into the back drawing-room, and called,--"priscilla! dear priscilla!" xx. they vanish priscilla immediately answered the summons, and made her appearance through the door of the boudoir. i had conceived the idea, which i now recognized as a very foolish one, that zenobia would have taken measures to debar me from an interview with this girl, between whom and herself there was so utter an opposition of their dearest interests, that, on one part or the other, a great grief, if not likewise a great wrong, seemed a matter of necessity. but, as priscilla was only a leaf floating on the dark current of events, without influencing them by her own choice or plan, as she probably guessed not whither the stream was bearing her, nor perhaps even felt its inevitable movement,--there could be no peril of her communicating to me any intelligence with regard to zenobia's purposes. on perceiving me, she came forward with great quietude of manner; and when i held out my hand, her own moved slightly towards it, as if attracted by a feeble degree of magnetism. "i am glad to see you, my dear priscilla," said i, still holding her hand; "but everything that i meet with nowadays makes me wonder whether i am awake. you, especially, have always seemed like a figure in a dream, and now more than ever." "oh, there is substance in these fingers of mine," she answered, giving my hand the faintest possible pressure, and then taking away her own. "why do you call me a dream? zenobia is much more like one than i; she is so very, very beautiful! and, i suppose," added priscilla, as if thinking aloud, "everybody sees it, as i do." but, for my part, it was priscilla's beauty, not zenobia's, of which i was thinking at that moment. she was a person who could be quite obliterated, so far as beauty went, by anything unsuitable in her attire; her charm was not positive and material enough to bear up against a mistaken choice of color, for instance, or fashion. it was safest, in her case, to attempt no art of dress; for it demanded the most perfect taste, or else the happiest accident in the world, to give her precisely the adornment which she needed. she was now dressed in pure white, set off with some kind of a gauzy fabric, which--as i bring up her figure in my memory, with a faint gleam on her shadowy hair, and her dark eyes bent shyly on mine, through all the vanished years--seems to be floating about her like a mist. i wondered what zenobia meant by evolving so much loveliness out of this poor girl. it was what few women could afford to do; for, as i looked from one to the other, the sheen and splendor of zenobia's presence took nothing from priscilla's softer spell, if it might not rather be thought to add to it. "what do you think of her?" asked zenobia. i could not understand the look of melancholy kindness with which zenobia regarded her. she advanced a step, and beckoning priscilla near her, kissed her cheek; then, with a slight gesture of repulse, she moved to the other side of the room. i followed. "she is a wonderful creature," i said. "ever since she came among us, i have been dimly sensible of just this charm which you have brought out. but it was never absolutely visible till now. she is as lovely as a flower!" "well, say so if you like," answered zenobia. "you are a poet,--at least, as poets go nowadays,--and must be allowed to make an opera-glass of your imagination, when you look at women. i wonder, in such arcadian freedom of falling in love as we have lately enjoyed, it never occurred to you to fall in love with priscilla. in society, indeed, a genuine american never dreams of stepping across the inappreciable air-line which separates one class from another. but what was rank to the colonists of blithedale?" "there were other reasons," i replied, "why i should have demonstrated myself an ass, had i fallen in love with priscilla. by the bye, has hollingsworth ever seen her in this dress?" "why do you bring up his name at every turn?" asked zenobia in an undertone, and with a malign look which wandered from my face to priscilla's. "you know not what you do! it is dangerous, sir, believe me, to tamper thus with earnest human passions, out of your own mere idleness, and for your sport. i will endure it no longer! take care that it does not happen again! i warn you!" "you partly wrong me, if not wholly," i responded. "it is an uncertain sense of some duty to perform, that brings my thoughts, and therefore my words, continually to that one point." "oh, this stale excuse of duty!" said zenobia, in a whisper so full of scorn that it penetrated me like the hiss of a serpent. "i have often heard it before, from those who sought to interfere with me, and i know precisely what it signifies. bigotry; self-conceit; an insolent curiosity; a meddlesome temper; a cold-blooded criticism, founded on a shallow interpretation of half-perceptions; a monstrous scepticism in regard to any conscience or any wisdom, except one's own; a most irreverent propensity to thrust providence aside, and substitute one's self in its awful place,--out of these, and other motives as miserable as these, comes your idea of duty! but, beware, sir! with all your fancied acuteness, you step blindfold into these affairs. for any mischief that may follow your interference, i hold you responsible!" it was evident that, with but a little further provocation, the lioness would turn to bay; if, indeed, such were not her attitude already. i bowed, and not very well knowing what else to do, was about to withdraw. but, glancing again towards priscilla, who had retreated into a corner, there fell upon my heart an intolerable burden of despondency, the purport of which i could not tell, but only felt it to bear reference to her. i approached and held out my hand; a gesture, however, to which she made no response. it was always one of her peculiarities that she seemed to shrink from even the most friendly touch, unless it were zenobia's or hollingsworth's. zenobia, all this while, stood watching us, but with a careless expression, as if it mattered very little what might pass. "priscilla," i inquired, lowering my voice, "when do you go back to blithedale?" "whenever they please to take me," said she. "did you come away of your own free will?" i asked. "i am blown about like a leaf," she replied. "i never have any free will." "does hollingsworth know that you are here?" said i. "he bade me come," answered priscilla. she looked at me, i thought, with an air of surprise, as if the idea were incomprehensible that she should have taken this step without his agency. "what a gripe this man has laid upon her whole being!" muttered i between my teeth. "well, as zenobia so kindly intimates, i have no more business here. i wash my hands of it all. on hollingsworth's head be the consequences! priscilla," i added aloud, "i know not that ever we may meet again. farewell!" as i spoke the word, a carriage had rumbled along the street, and stopt before the house. the doorbell rang, and steps were immediately afterwards heard on the staircase. zenobia had thrown a shawl over her dress. "mr. coverdale," said she, with cool courtesy, "you will perhaps excuse us. we have an engagement, and are going out." "whither?" i demanded. "is not that a little more than you are entitled to inquire?" said she, with a smile. "at all events, it does not suit me to tell you." the door of the drawing-room opened, and westervelt appeared. i observed that he was elaborately dressed, as if for some grand entertainment. my dislike for this man was infinite. at that moment it amounted to nothing less than a creeping of the flesh, as when, feeling about in a dark place, one touches something cold and slimy, and questions what the secret hatefulness may be. and still i could not but acknowledge that, for personal beauty, for polish of manner, for all that externally befits a gentleman, there was hardly another like him. after bowing to zenobia, and graciously saluting priscilla in her corner, he recognized me by a slight but courteous inclination. "come, priscilla," said zenobia; "it is time. mr. coverdale, good-evening." as priscilla moved slowly forward, i met her in the middle of the drawing-room. "priscilla," said i, in the hearing of them all, "do you know whither you are going?" "i do not know," she answered. "is it wise to go, and is it your choice to go?" i asked. "if not, i am your friend, and hollingsworth's friend. tell me so, at once." "possibly," observed westervelt, smiling, "priscilla sees in me an older friend than either mr. coverdale or mr. hollingsworth. i shall willingly leave the matter at her option." while thus speaking, he made a gesture of kindly invitation, and priscilla passed me, with the gliding movement of a sprite, and took his offered arm. he offered the other to zenobia; but she turned her proud and beautiful face upon him with a look which--judging from what i caught of it in profile--would undoubtedly have smitten the man dead, had he possessed any heart, or had this glance attained to it. it seemed to rebound, however, from his courteous visage, like an arrow from polished steel. they all three descended the stairs; and when i likewise reached the street door, the carriage was already rolling away. xxi. an old acquaintance thus excluded from everybody's confidence, and attaining no further, by my most earnest study, than to an uncertain sense of something hidden from me, it would appear reasonable that i should have flung off all these alien perplexities. obviously, my best course was to betake myself to new scenes. here i was only an intruder. elsewhere there might be circumstances in which i could establish a personal interest, and people who would respond, with a portion of their sympathies, for so much as i should bestow of mine. nevertheless, there occurred to me one other thing to be done. remembering old moodie, and his relationship with priscilla, i determined to seek an interview, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the knot of affairs was as inextricable on that side as i found it on all others. being tolerably well acquainted with the old man's haunts, i went, the next day, to the saloon of a certain establishment about which he often lurked. it was a reputable place enough, affording good entertainment in the way of meat, drink, and fumigation; and there, in my young and idle days and nights, when i was neither nice nor wise, i had often amused myself with watching the staid humors and sober jollities of the thirsty souls around me. at my first entrance, old moodie was not there. the more patiently to await him, i lighted a cigar, and establishing myself in a corner, took a quiet, and, by sympathy, a boozy kind of pleasure in the customary life that was going forward. the saloon was fitted up with a good deal of taste. there were pictures on the walls, and among them an oil-painting of a beefsteak, with such an admirable show of juicy tenderness, that the beholder sighed to think it merely visionary, and incapable of ever being put upon a gridiron. another work of high art was the lifelike representation of a noble sirloin; another, the hindquarters of a deer, retaining the hoofs and tawny fur; another, the head and shoulders of a salmon; and, still more exquisitely finished, a brace of canvasback ducks, in which the mottled feathers were depicted with the accuracy of a daguerreotype. some very hungry painter, i suppose, had wrought these subjects of still-life, heightening his imagination with his appetite, and earning, it is to be hoped, the privilege of a daily dinner off whichever of his pictorial viands he liked best. then there was a fine old cheese, in which you could almost discern the mites; and some sardines, on a small plate, very richly done, and looking as if oozy with the oil in which they had been smothered. all these things were so perfectly imitated, that you seemed to have the genuine article before you, and yet with an indescribable, ideal charm; it took away the grossness from what was fleshiest and fattest, and thus helped the life of man, even in its earthliest relations, to appear rich and noble, as well as warm, cheerful, and substantial. there were pictures, too, of gallant revellers, those of the old time, flemish, apparently, with doublets and slashed sleeves, drinking their wine out of fantastic, long-stemmed glasses; quaffing joyously, quaffing forever, with inaudible laughter and song; while the champagne bubbled immortally against their moustaches, or the purple tide of burgundy ran inexhaustibly down their throats. but, in an obscure corner of the saloon, there was a little picture excellently done, moreover of a ragged, bloated, new england toper, stretched out on a bench, in the heavy, apoplectic sleep of drunkenness. the death-in-life was too well portrayed. you smelt the fumy liquor that had brought on this syncope. your only comfort lay in the forced reflection, that, real as he looked, the poor caitiff was but imaginary, a bit of painted canvass, whom no delirium tremens, nor so much as a retributive headache, awaited, on the morrow. by this time, it being past eleven o'clock, the two bar-keepers of the saloon were in pretty constant activity. one of these young men had a rare faculty in the concoction of gin-cocktails. it was a spectacle to behold, how, with a tumbler in each hand, he tossed the contents from one to the other. never conveying it awry, nor spilling the least drop, he compelled the frothy liquor, as it seemed to me, to spout forth from one glass and descend into the other, in a great parabolic curve, as well-defined and calculable as a planet's orbit. he had a good forehead, with a particularly large development just above the eyebrows; fine intellectual gifts, no doubt, which he had educated to this profitable end; being famous for nothing but gin-cocktails, and commanding a fair salary by his one accomplishment. these cocktails, and other artificial combinations of liquor, (of which there were at least a score, though mostly, i suspect, fantastic in their differences,) were much in favor with the younger class of customers, who, at farthest, had only reached the second stage of potatory life. the staunch, old soakers, on the other hand men who, if put on tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor, by way of blood usually confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water, gin, or west india rum; and, oftentimes, they prefaced their dram with some medicinal remark as to the wholesomeness and stomachic qualities of that particular drink. two or three appeared to have bottles of their own behind the counter; and, winking one red eye to the bar-keeper, he forthwith produced these choicest and peculiar cordials, which it was a matter of great interest and favor, among their acquaintances, to obtain a sip of. agreeably to the yankee habit, under whatever circumstances, the deportment of all these good fellows, old or young, was decorous and thoroughly correct. they grew only the more sober in their cups; there was no confused babble nor boisterous laughter. they sucked in the joyous fire of the decanters and kept it smouldering in their inmost recesses, with a bliss known only to the heart which it warmed and comforted. their eyes twinkled a little, to be sure; they hemmed vigorously after each glass, and laid a hand upon the pit of the stomach, as if the pleasant titillation there was what constituted the tangible part of their enjoyment. in that spot, unquestionably, and not in the brain, was the acme of the whole affair. but the true purpose of their drinking--and one that will induce men to drink, or do something equivalent, as long as this weary world shall endure--was the renewed youth and vigor, the brisk, cheerful sense of things present and to come, with which, for about a quarter of an hour, the dram permeated their systems. and when such quarters of an hour can be obtained in some mode less baneful to the great sum of a man's life,--but, nevertheless, with a little spice of impropriety, to give it a wild flavor,--we temperance people may ring out our bells for victory! the prettiest object in the saloon was a tiny fountain, which threw up its feathery jet through the counter, and sparkled down again into an oval basin, or lakelet, containing several goldfishes. there was a bed of bright sand at the bottom, strewn with coral and rock-work; and the fishes went gleaming about, now turning up the sheen of a golden side, and now vanishing into the shadows of the water, like the fanciful thoughts that coquet with a poet in his dream. never before, i imagine, did a company of water-drinkers remain so entirely uncontaminated by the bad example around them; nor could i help wondering that it had not occurred to any freakish inebriate to empty a glass of liquor into their lakelet. what a delightful idea! who would not be a fish, if he could inhale jollity with the essential element of his existence! i had begun to despair of meeting old moodie, when, all at once, i recognized his hand and arm protruding from behind a screen that was set up for the accommodation of bashful topers. as a matter of course, he had one of priscilla's little purses, and was quietly insinuating it under the notice of a person who stood near. this was always old moodie's way. you hardly ever saw him advancing towards you, but became aware of his proximity without being able to guess how he had come thither. he glided about like a spirit, assuming visibility close to your elbow, offering his petty trifles of merchandise, remaining long enough for you to purchase, if so disposed, and then taking himself off, between two breaths, while you happened to be thinking of something else. by a sort of sympathetic impulse that often controlled me in those more impressible days of my life, i was induced to approach this old man in a mode as undemonstrative as his own. thus, when, according to his custom, he was probably just about to vanish, he found me at his elbow. "ah!" said he, with more emphasis than was usual with him. "it is mr. coverdale!" "yes, mr. moodie, your old acquaintance," answered i. "it is some time now since we ate luncheon together at blithedale, and a good deal longer since our little talk together at the street corner." "that was a good while ago," said the old man. and he seemed inclined to say not a word more. his existence looked so colorless and torpid,--so very faintly shadowed on the canvas of reality,--that i was half afraid lest he should altogether disappear, even while my eyes were fixed full upon his figure. he was certainly the wretchedest old ghost in the world, with his crazy hat, the dingy handkerchief about his throat, his suit of threadbare gray, and especially that patch over his right eye, behind which he always seemed to be hiding himself. there was one method, however, of bringing him out into somewhat stronger relief. a glass of brandy would effect it. perhaps the gentler influence of a bottle of claret might do the same. nor could i think it a matter for the recording angel to write down against me, if--with my painful consciousness of the frost in this old man's blood, and the positive ice that had congealed about his heart--i should thaw him out, were it only for an hour, with the summer warmth of a little wine. what else could possibly be done for him? how else could he be imbued with energy enough to hope for a happier state hereafter? how else be inspired to say his prayers? for there are states of our spiritual system when the throb of the soul's life is too faint and weak to render us capable of religious aspiration. "mr. moodie," said i, "shall we lunch together? and would you like to drink a glass of wine?" his one eye gleamed. he bowed; and it impressed me that he grew to be more of a man at once, either in anticipation of the wine, or as a grateful response to my good fellowship in offering it. "with pleasure," he replied. the bar-keeper, at my request, showed us into a private room, and soon afterwards set some fried oysters and a bottle of claret on the table; and i saw the old man glance curiously at the label of the bottle, as if to learn the brand. "it should be good wine," i remarked, "if it have any right to its label." "you cannot suppose, sir," said moodie, with a sigh, "that a poor old fellow like me knows any difference in wines." and yet, in his way of handling the glass, in his preliminary snuff at the aroma, in his first cautious sip of the wine, and the gustatory skill with which he gave his palate the full advantage of it, it was impossible not to recognize the connoisseur. "i fancy, mr. moodie," said i, "you are a much better judge of wines than i have yet learned to be. tell me fairly,--did you never drink it where the grape grows?" "how should that have been, mr. coverdale?" answered old moodie shyly; but then he took courage, as it were, and uttered a feeble little laugh. "the flavor of this wine," added he, "and its perfume still more than its taste, makes me remember that i was once a young man." "i wish, mr. moodie," suggested i,--not that i greatly cared about it, however, but was only anxious to draw him into some talk about priscilla and zenobia,--"i wish, while we sit over our wine, you would favor me with a few of those youthful reminiscences." "ah," said he, shaking his head, "they might interest you more than you suppose. but i had better be silent, mr. coverdale. if this good wine,--though claret, i suppose, is not apt to play such a trick,--but if it should make my tongue run too freely, i could never look you in the face again." "you never did look me in the face, mr. moodie," i replied, "until this very moment." "ah!" sighed old moodie. it was wonderful, however, what an effect the mild grape-juice wrought upon him. it was not in the wine, but in the associations which it seemed to bring up. instead of the mean, slouching, furtive, painfully depressed air of an old city vagabond, more like a gray kennel-rat than any other living thing, he began to take the aspect of a decayed gentleman. even his garments--especially after i had myself quaffed a glass or two--looked less shabby than when we first sat down. there was, by and by, a certain exuberance and elaborateness of gesture and manner, oddly in contrast with all that i had hitherto seen of him. anon, with hardly any impulse from me, old moodie began to talk. his communications referred exclusively to a long-past and more fortunate period of his life, with only a few unavoidable allusions to the circumstances that had reduced him to his present state. but, having once got the clew, my subsequent researches acquainted me with the main facts of the following narrative; although, in writing it out, my pen has perhaps allowed itself a trifle of romantic and legendary license, worthier of a small poet than of a grave biographer. xxii. fauntleroy five-and-twenty years ago, at the epoch of this story, there dwelt in one of the middle states a man whom we shall call fauntleroy; a man of wealth, and magnificent tastes, and prodigal expenditure. his home might almost be styled a palace; his habits, in the ordinary sense, princely. his whole being seemed to have crystallized itself into an external splendor, wherewith he glittered in the eyes of the world, and had no other life than upon this gaudy surface. he had married a lovely woman, whose nature was deeper than his own. but his affection for her, though it showed largely, was superficial, like all his other manifestations and developments; he did not so truly keep this noble creature in his heart, as wear her beauty for the most brilliant ornament of his outward state. and there was born to him a child, a beautiful daughter, whom he took from the beneficent hand of god with no just sense of her immortal value, but as a man already rich in gems would receive another jewel. if he loved her, it was because she shone. after fauntleroy had thus spent a few empty years, coruscating continually an unnatural light, the source of it--which was merely his gold--began to grow more shallow, and finally became exhausted. he saw himself in imminent peril of losing all that had heretofore distinguished him; and, conscious of no innate worth to fall back upon, he recoiled from this calamity with the instinct of a soul shrinking from annihilation. to avoid it,--wretched man!--or rather to defer it, if but for a month, a day, or only to procure himself the life of a few breaths more amid the false glitter which was now less his own than ever,--he made himself guilty of a crime. it was just the sort of crime, growing out of its artificial state, which society (unless it should change its entire constitution for this man's unworthy sake) neither could nor ought to pardon. more safely might it pardon murder. fauntleroy's guilt was discovered. he fled; his wife perished, by the necessity of her innate nobleness, in its alliance with a being so ignoble; and betwixt her mother's death and her father's ignominy, his daughter was left worse than orphaned. there was no pursuit after fauntleroy. his family connections, who had great wealth, made such arrangements with those whom he had attempted to wrong as secured him from the retribution that would have overtaken an unfriended criminal. the wreck of his estate was divided among his creditors: his name, in a very brief space, was forgotten by the multitude who had passed it so diligently from mouth to mouth. seldom, indeed, was it recalled, even by his closest former intimates. nor could it have been otherwise. the man had laid no real touch on any mortal's heart. being a mere image, an optical delusion, created by the sunshine of prosperity, it was his law to vanish into the shadow of the first intervening cloud. he seemed to leave no vacancy; a phenomenon which, like many others that attended his brief career, went far to prove the illusiveness of his existence. not, however, that the physical substance of fauntleroy had literally melted into vapor. he had fled northward to the new england metropolis, and had taken up his abode, under another name, in a squalid street or court of the older portion of the city. there he dwelt among poverty-stricken wretches, sinners, and forlorn good people, irish, and whomsoever else were neediest. many families were clustered in each house together, above stairs and below, in the little peaked garrets, and even in the dusky cellars. the house where fauntleroy paid weekly rent for a chamber and a closet had been a stately habitation in its day. an old colonial governor had built it, and lived there, long ago, and held his levees in a great room where now slept twenty irish bedfellows; and died in fauntleroy's chamber, which his embroidered and white-wigged ghost still haunted. tattered hangings, a marble hearth, traversed with many cracks and fissures, a richly carved oaken mantelpiece, partly hacked away for kindling-stuff, a stuccoed ceiling, defaced with great, unsightly patches of the naked laths,--such was the chamber's aspect, as if, with its splinters and rags of dirty splendor, it were a kind of practical gibe at this poor, ruined man of show. at first, and at irregular intervals, his relatives allowed fauntleroy a little pittance to sustain life; not from any love, perhaps, but lest poverty should compel him, by new offences, to add more shame to that with which he had already stained them. but he showed no tendency to further guilt. his character appeared to have been radically changed (as, indeed, from its shallowness, it well might) by his miserable fate; or, it may be, the traits now seen in him were portions of the same character, presenting itself in another phase. instead of any longer seeking to live in the sight of the world, his impulse was to shrink into the nearest obscurity, and to be unseen of men, were it possible, even while standing before their eyes. he had no pride; it was all trodden in the dust. no ostentation; for how could it survive, when there was nothing left of fauntleroy, save penury and shame! his very gait demonstrated that he would gladly have faded out of view, and have crept about invisibly, for the sake of sheltering himself from the irksomeness of a human glance. hardly, it was averred, within the memory of those who knew him now, had he the hardihood to show his full front to the world. he skulked in corners, and crept about in a sort of noonday twilight, making himself gray and misty, at all hours, with his morbid intolerance of sunshine. in his torpid despair, however, he had done an act which that condition of the spirit seems to prompt almost as often as prosperity and hope. fauntleroy was again married. he had taken to wife a forlorn, meek-spirited, feeble young woman, a seamstress, whom he found dwelling with her mother in a contiguous chamber of the old gubernatorial residence. this poor phantom--as the beautiful and noble companion of his former life had done brought him a daughter. and sometimes, as from one dream into another, fauntleroy looked forth out of his present grimy environment into that past magnificence, and wondered whether the grandee of yesterday or the pauper of to-day were real. but, in my mind, the one and the other were alike impalpable. in truth, it was fauntleroy's fatality to behold whatever he touched dissolve. after a few years, his second wife (dim shadow that she had always been) faded finally out of the world, and left fauntleroy to deal as he might with their pale and nervous child. and, by this time, among his distant relatives,--with whom he had grown a weary thought, linked with contagious infamy, and which they were only too willing to get rid of,--he was himself supposed to be no more. the younger child, like his elder one, might be considered as the true offspring of both parents, and as the reflection of their state. she was a tremulous little creature, shrinking involuntarily from all mankind, but in timidity, and no sour repugnance. there was a lack of human substance in her; it seemed as if, were she to stand up in a sunbeam, it would pass right through her figure, and trace out the cracked and dusty window-panes upon the naked floor. but, nevertheless, the poor child had a heart; and from her mother's gentle character she had inherited a profound and still capacity of affection. and so her life was one of love. she bestowed it partly on her father, but in greater part on an idea. for fauntleroy, as they sat by their cheerless fireside,--which was no fireside, in truth, but only a rusty stove,--had often talked to the little girl about his former wealth, the noble loveliness of his first wife, and the beautiful child whom she had given him. instead of the fairy tales which other parents tell, he told priscilla this. and, out of the loneliness of her sad little existence, priscilla's love grew, and tended upward, and twined itself perseveringly around this unseen sister; as a grapevine might strive to clamber out of a gloomy hollow among the rocks, and embrace a young tree standing in the sunny warmth above. it was almost like worship, both in its earnestness and its humility; nor was it the less humble--though the more earnest--because priscilla could claim human kindred with the being whom she, so devoutly loved. as with worship, too, it gave her soul the refreshment of a purer atmosphere. save for this singular, this melancholy, and yet beautiful affection, the child could hardly have lived; or, had she lived, with a heart shrunken for lack of any sentiment to fill it, she must have yielded to the barren miseries of her position, and have grown to womanhood characterless and worthless. but now, amid all the sombre coarseness of her father's outward life, and of her own, priscilla had a higher and imaginative life within. some faint gleam thereof was often visible upon her face. it was as if, in her spiritual visits to her brilliant sister, a portion of the latter's brightness had permeated our dim priscilla, and still lingered, shedding a faint illumination through the cheerless chamber, after she came back. as the child grew up, so pallid and so slender, and with much unaccountable nervousness, and all the weaknesses of neglected infancy still haunting her, the gross and simple neighbors whispered strange things about priscilla. the big, red, irish matrons, whose innumerable progeny swarmed out of the adjacent doors, used to mock at the pale western child. they fancied--or, at least, affirmed it, between jest and earnest--that she was not so solid flesh and blood as other children, but mixed largely with a thinner element. they called her ghost-child, and said that she could indeed vanish when she pleased, but could never, in her densest moments, make herself quite visible. the sun at midday would shine through her; in the first gray of the twilight, she lost all the distinctness of her outline; and, if you followed the dim thing into a dark corner, behold! she was not there. and it was true that priscilla had strange ways; strange ways, and stranger words, when she uttered any words at all. never stirring out of the old governor's dusky house, she sometimes talked of distant places and splendid rooms, as if she had just left them. hidden things were visible to her (at least so the people inferred from obscure hints escaping unawares out of her mouth), and silence was audible. and in all the world there was nothing so difficult to be endured, by those who had any dark secret to conceal, as the glance of priscilla's timid and melancholy eyes. her peculiarities were the theme of continual gossip among the other inhabitants of the gubernatorial mansion. the rumor spread thence into a wider circle. those who knew old moodie, as he was now called, used often to jeer him, at the very street-corners, about his daughter's gift of second-sight and prophecy. it was a period when science (though mostly through its empirical professors) was bringing forward, anew, a hoard of facts and imperfect theories, that had partially won credence in elder times, but which modern scepticism had swept away as rubbish. these things were now tossed up again, out of the surging ocean of human thought and experience. the story of priscilla's preternatural manifestations, therefore, attracted a kind of notice of which it would have been deemed wholly unworthy a few years earlier. one day a gentleman ascended the creaking staircase, and inquired which was old moodie's chamber door. and, several times, he came again. he was a marvellously handsome man,--still youthful, too, and fashionably dressed. except that priscilla, in those days, had no beauty, and, in the languor of her existence, had not yet blossomed into womanhood, there would have been rich food for scandal in these visits; for the girl was unquestionably their sole object, although her father was supposed always to be present. but, it must likewise be added, there was something about priscilla that calumny could not meddle with; and thus far was she privileged, either by the preponderance of what was spiritual, or the thin and watery blood that left her cheek so pallid. yet, if the busy tongues of the neighborhood spared priscilla in one way, they made themselves amends by renewed and wilder babble on another score. they averred that the strange gentleman was a wizard, and that he had taken advantage of priscilla's lack of earthly substance to subject her to himself, as his familiar spirit, through whose medium he gained cognizance of whatever happened, in regions near or remote. the boundaries of his power were defined by the verge of the pit of tartarus on the one hand, and the third sphere of the celestial world on the other. again, they declared their suspicion that the wizard, with all his show of manly beauty, was really an aged and wizened figure, or else that his semblance of a human body was only a necromantic, or perhaps a mechanical contrivance, in which a demon walked about. in proof of it, however, they could merely instance a gold band around his upper teeth, which had once been visible to several old women, when he smiled at them from the top of the governor's staircase. of course this was all absurdity, or mostly so. but, after every possible deduction, there remained certain very mysterious points about the stranger's character, as well as the connection that he established with priscilla. its nature at that period was even less understood than now, when miracles of this kind have grown so absolutely stale, that i would gladly, if the truth allowed, dismiss the whole matter from my narrative. we must now glance backward, in quest of the beautiful daughter of fauntleroy's prosperity. what had become of her? fauntleroy's only brother, a bachelor, and with no other relative so near, had adopted the forsaken child. she grew up in affluence, with native graces clustering luxuriantly about her. in her triumphant progress towards womanhood, she was adorned with every variety of feminine accomplishment. but she lacked a mother's care. with no adequate control, on any hand (for a man, however stern, however wise, can never sway and guide a female child), her character was left to shape itself. there was good in it, and evil. passionate, self-willed, and imperious, she had a warm and generous nature; showing the richness of the soil, however, chiefly by the weeds that flourished in it, and choked up the herbs of grace. in her girlhood her uncle died. as fauntleroy was supposed to be likewise dead, and no other heir was known to exist, his wealth devolved on her, although, dying suddenly, the uncle left no will. after his death there were obscure passages in zenobia's history. there were whispers of an attachment, and even a secret marriage, with a fascinating and accomplished but unprincipled young man. the incidents and appearances, however, which led to this surmise soon passed away, and were forgotten. nor was her reputation seriously affected by the report. in fact, so great was her native power and influence, and such seemed the careless purity of her nature, that whatever zenobia did was generally acknowledged as right for her to do. the world never criticised her so harshly as it does most women who transcend its rules. it almost yielded its assent, when it beheld her stepping out of the common path, and asserting the more extensive privileges of her sex, both theoretically and by her practice. the sphere of ordinary womanhood was felt to be narrower than her development required. a portion of zenobia's more recent life is told in the foregoing pages. partly in earnest,--and, i imagine, as was her disposition, half in a proud jest, or in a kind of recklessness that had grown upon her, out of some hidden grief,--she had given her countenance, and promised liberal pecuniary aid, to our experiment of a better social state. and priscilla followed her to blithedale. the sole bliss of her life had been a dream of this beautiful sister, who had never so much as known of her existence. by this time, too, the poor girl was enthralled in an intolerable bondage, from which she must either free herself or perish. she deemed herself safest near zenobia, into whose large heart she hoped to nestle. one evening, months after priscilla's departure, when moodie (or shall we call him fauntleroy?) was sitting alone in the state-chamber of the old governor, there came footsteps up the staircase. there was a pause on the landing-place. a lady's musical yet haughty accents were heard making an inquiry from some denizen of the house, who had thrust a head out of a contiguous chamber. there was then a knock at moodie's door. "come in!" said he. and zenobia entered. the details of the interview that followed being unknown to me,--while, notwithstanding, it would be a pity quite to lose the picturesqueness of the situation,--i shall attempt to sketch it, mainly from fancy, although with some general grounds of surmise in regard to the old man's feelings. she gazed wonderingly at the dismal chamber. dismal to her, who beheld it only for an instant; and how much more so to him, into whose brain each bare spot on the ceiling, every tatter of the paper-hangings, and all the splintered carvings of the mantelpiece, seen wearily through long years, had worn their several prints! inexpressibly miserable is this familiarity with objects that have been from the first disgustful. "i have received a strange message," said zenobia, after a moment's silence, "requesting, or rather enjoining it upon me, to come hither. rather from curiosity than any other motive,--and because, though a woman, i have not all the timidity of one,--i have complied. can it be you, sir, who thus summoned me?" "it was," answered moodie. "and what was your purpose?" she continued. "you require charity, perhaps? in that case, the message might have been more fitly worded. but you are old and poor, and age and poverty should be allowed their privileges. tell me, therefore, to what extent you need my aid." "put up your purse," said the supposed mendicant, with an inexplicable smile. "keep it,--keep all your wealth,--until i demand it all, or none! my message had no such end in view. you are beautiful, they tell me; and i desired to look at you." he took the one lamp that showed the discomfort and sordidness of his abode, and approaching zenobia held it up, so as to gain the more perfect view of her, from top to toe. so obscure was the chamber, that you could see the reflection of her diamonds thrown upon the dingy wall, and flickering with the rise and fall of zenobia's breath. it was the splendor of those jewels on her neck, like lamps that burn before some fair temple, and the jewelled flower in her hair, more than the murky, yellow light, that helped him to see her beauty. but he beheld it, and grew proud at heart; his own figure, in spite of his mean habiliments, assumed an air of state and grandeur. "it is well," cried old moodie. "keep your wealth. you are right worthy of it. keep it, therefore, but with one condition only." zenobia thought the old man beside himself, and was moved with pity. "have you none to care for you?" asked she. "no daughter?--no kind-hearted neighbor?--no means of procuring the attendance which you need? tell me once again, can i do nothing for you?" "nothing," he replied. "i have beheld what i wished. now leave me. linger not a moment longer, or i may be tempted to say what would bring a cloud over that queenly brow. keep all your wealth, but with only this one condition: be kind--be no less kind than sisters are--to my poor priscilla!" and, it may be, after zenobia withdrew, fauntleroy paced his gloomy chamber, and communed with himself as follows,--or, at all events, it is the only solution which i can offer of the enigma presented in his character:--"i am unchanged,--the same man as of yore!" said he. "true, my brother's wealth--he dying intestate--is legally my own. i know it; yet of my own choice, i live a beggar, and go meanly clad, and hide myself behind a forgotten ignominy. looks this like ostentation? ah! but in zenobia i live again! beholding her, so beautiful,--so fit to be adorned with all imaginable splendor of outward state,--the cursed vanity, which, half a lifetime since, dropt off like tatters of once gaudy apparel from my debased and ruined person, is all renewed for her sake. were i to reappear, my shame would go with me from darkness into daylight. zenobia has the splendor, and not the shame. let the world admire her, and be dazzled by her, the brilliant child of my prosperity! it is fauntleroy that still shines through her!" but then, perhaps, another thought occurred to him. "my poor priscilla! and am i just to her, in surrendering all to this beautiful zenobia? priscilla! i love her best,--i love her only!--but with shame, not pride. so dim, so pallid, so shrinking,--the daughter of my long calamity! wealth were but a mockery in priscilla's hands. what is its use, except to fling a golden radiance around those who grasp it? yet let zenobia take heed! priscilla shall have no wrong!" but, while the man of show thus meditated,--that very evening, so far as i can adjust the dates of these strange incidents,--priscilla poor, pallid flower!--was either snatched from zenobia's hand, or flung wilfully away! xxiii. a village hall well, i betook myself away, and wandered up and down, like an exorcised spirit that had been driven from its old haunts after a mighty struggle. it takes down the solitary pride of man, beyond most other things, to find the impracticability of flinging aside affections that have grown irksome. the bands that were silken once are apt to become iron fetters when we desire to shake them off. our souls, after all, are not our own. we convey a property in them to those with whom we associate; but to what extent can never be known, until we feel the tug, the agony, of our abortive effort to resume an exclusive sway over ourselves. thus, in all the weeks of my absence, my thoughts continually reverted back, brooding over the bygone months, and bringing up incidents that seemed hardly to have left a trace of themselves in their passage. i spent painful hours in recalling these trifles, and rendering them more misty and unsubstantial than at first by the quantity of speculative musing thus kneaded in with them. hollingsworth, zenobia, priscilla! these three had absorbed my life into themselves. together with an inexpressible longing to know their fortunes, there was likewise a morbid resentment of my own pain, and a stubborn reluctance to come again within their sphere. all that i learned of them, therefore, was comprised in a few brief and pungent squibs, such as the newspapers were then in the habit of bestowing on our socialist enterprise. there was one paragraph, which if i rightly guessed its purport bore reference to zenobia, but was too darkly hinted to convey even thus much of certainty. hollingsworth, too, with his philanthropic project, afforded the penny-a-liners a theme for some savage and bloody minded jokes; and, considerably to my surprise, they affected me with as much indignation as if we had still been friends. thus passed several weeks; time long enough for my brown and toil-hardened hands to reaccustom themselves to gloves. old habits, such as were merely external, returned upon me with wonderful promptitude. my superficial talk, too, assumed altogether a worldly tone. meeting former acquaintances, who showed themselves inclined to ridicule my heroic devotion to the cause of human welfare, i spoke of the recent phase of my life as indeed fair matter for a jest. but, i also gave them to understand that it was, at most, only an experiment, on which i had staked no valuable amount of hope or fear. it had enabled me to pass the summer in a novel and agreeable way, had afforded me some grotesque specimens of artificial simplicity, and could not, therefore, so far as i was concerned, be reckoned a failure. in no one instance, however, did i voluntarily speak of my three friends. they dwelt in a profounder region. the more i consider myself as i then was, the more do i recognize how deeply my connection with those three had affected all my being. as it was already the epoch of annihilated space, i might in the time i was away from blithedale have snatched a glimpse at england, and been back again. but my wanderings were confined within a very limited sphere. i hopped and fluttered, like a bird with a string about its leg, gyrating round a small circumference, and keeping up a restless activity to no purpose. thus it was still in our familiar massachusetts--in one of its white country villages--that i must next particularize an incident. the scene was one of those lyceum halls, of which almost every village has now its own, dedicated to that sober and pallid, or rather drab-colored, mode of winter-evening entertainment, the lecture. of late years this has come strangely into vogue, when the natural tendency of things would seem to be to substitute lettered for oral methods of addressing the public. but, in halls like this, besides the winter course of lectures, there is a rich and varied series of other exhibitions. hither comes the ventriloquist, with all his mysterious tongues; the thaumaturgist, too, with his miraculous transformations of plates, doves, and rings, his pancakes smoking in your hat, and his cellar of choice liquors represented in one small bottle. here, also, the itinerant professor instructs separate classes of ladies and gentlemen in physiology, and demonstrates his lessons by the aid of real skeletons, and manikins in wax, from paris. here is to be heard the choir of ethiopian melodists, and to be seen the diorama of moscow or bunker hill, or the moving panorama of the chinese wall. here is displayed the museum of wax figures, illustrating the wide catholicism of earthly renown, by mixing up heroes and statesmen, the pope and the mormon prophet, kings, queens, murderers, and beautiful ladies; every sort of person, in short, except authors, of whom i never beheld even the most famous done in wax. and here, in this many-purposed hall (unless the selectmen of the village chance to have more than their share of the puritanism, which, however diversified with later patchwork, still gives its prevailing tint to new england character),--here the company of strolling players sets up its little stage, and claims patronage for the legitimate drama. but, on the autumnal evening which i speak of, a number of printed handbills--stuck up in the bar-room, and on the sign-post of the hotel, and on the meeting-house porch, and distributed largely through the village--had promised the inhabitants an interview with that celebrated and hitherto inexplicable phenomenon, the veiled lady! the hall was fitted up with an amphitheatrical descent of seats towards a platform, on which stood a desk, two lights, a stool, and a capacious antique chair. the audience was of a generally decent and respectable character: old farmers, in their sunday black coats, with shrewd, hard, sun-dried faces, and a cynical humor, oftener than any other expression, in their eyes; pretty girls, in many-colored attire; pretty young men,--the schoolmaster, the lawyer, or student at law, the shop-keeper,--all looking rather suburban than rural. in these days, there is absolutely no rusticity, except when the actual labor of the soil leaves its earth-mould on the person. there was likewise a considerable proportion of young and middle-aged women, many of them stern in feature, with marked foreheads, and a very definite line of eyebrow; a type of womanhood in which a bold intellectual development seems to be keeping pace with the progressive delicacy of the physical constitution. of all these people i took note, at first, according to my custom. but i ceased to do so the moment that my eyes fell on an individual who sat two or three seats below me, immovable, apparently deep in thought, with his back, of course, towards me, and his face turned steadfastly upon the platform. after sitting awhile in contemplation of this person's familiar contour, i was irresistibly moved to step over the intervening benches, lay my hand on his shoulder, put my mouth close to his ear, and address him in a sepulchral, melodramatic whisper: "hollingsworth! where have you left zenobia?" his nerves, however, were proof against my attack. he turned half around, and looked me in the face with great sad eyes, in which there was neither kindness nor resentment, nor any perceptible surprise. "zenobia, when i last saw her," he answered, "was at blithedale." he said no more. but there was a great deal of talk going on near me, among a knot of people who might be considered as representing the mysticism, or rather the mystic sensuality, of this singular age. the nature of the exhibition that was about to take place had probably given the turn to their conversation. i heard, from a pale man in blue spectacles, some stranger stories than ever were written in a romance; told, too, with a simple, unimaginative steadfastness, which was terribly efficacious in compelling the auditor to receive them into the category of established facts. he cited instances of the miraculous power of one human being over the will and passions of another; insomuch that settled grief was but a shadow beneath the influence of a man possessing this potency, and the strong love of years melted away like a vapor. at the bidding of one of these wizards, the maiden, with her lover's kiss still burning on her lips, would turn from him with icy indifference; the newly made widow would dig up her buried heart out of her young husband's grave before the sods had taken root upon it; a mother with her babe's milk in her bosom would thrust away her child. human character was but soft wax in his hands; and guilt, or virtue, only the forms into which he should see fit to mould it. the religious sentiment was a flame which he could blow up with his breath, or a spark that he could utterly extinguish. it is unutterable, the horror and disgust with which i listened, and saw that, if these things were to be believed, the individual soul was virtually annihilated, and all that is sweet and pure in our present life debased, and that the idea of man's eternal responsibility was made ridiculous, and immortality rendered at once impossible, and not worth acceptance. but i would have perished on the spot sooner than believe it. the epoch of rapping spirits, and all the wonders that have followed in their train,--such as tables upset by invisible agencies, bells self-tolled at funerals, and ghostly music performed on jew's-harps,--had not yet arrived. alas, my countrymen, methinks we have fallen on an evil age! if these phenomena have not humbug at the bottom, so much the worse for us. what can they indicate, in a spiritual way, except that the soul of man is descending to a lower point than it has ever before reached while incarnate? we are pursuing a downward course in the eternal march, and thus bring ourselves into the same range with beings whom death, in requital of their gross and evil lives, has degraded below humanity! to hold intercourse with spirits of this order, we must stoop and grovel in some element more vile than earthly dust. these goblins, if they exist at all, are but the shadows of past mortality, outcasts, mere refuse stuff, adjudged unworthy of the eternal world, and, on the most favorable supposition, dwindling gradually into nothingness. the less we have to say to them the better, lest we share their fate! the audience now began to be impatient; they signified their desire for the entertainment to commence by thump of sticks and stamp of boot-heels. nor was it a great while longer before, in response to their call, there appeared a bearded personage in oriental robes, looking like one of the enchanters of the arabian nights. he came upon the platform from a side door, saluted the spectators, not with a salaam, but a bow, took his station at the desk, and first blowing his nose with a white handkerchief, prepared to speak. the environment of the homely village hall, and the absence of many ingenious contrivances of stage effect with which the exhibition had heretofore been set off, seemed to bring the artifice of this character more openly upon the surface. no sooner did i behold the bearded enchanter, than, laying my hand again on hollingsworth's shoulder, i whispered in his ear, "do you know him?" "i never saw the man before," he muttered, without turning his head. but i had seen him three times already. once, on occasion of my first visit to the veiled lady; a second time, in the wood-path at blithedale; and lastly, in zenobia's drawing-room. it was westervelt. a quick association of ideas made me shudder from head to foot; and again, like an evil spirit, bringing up reminiscences of a man's sins, i whispered a question in hollingsworth's ear,--"what have you done with priscilla?" he gave a convulsive start, as if i had thrust a knife into him, writhed himself round on his seat, glared fiercely into my eyes, but answered not a word. the professor began his discourse, explanatory of the psychological phenomena, as he termed them, which it was his purpose to exhibit to the spectators. there remains no very distinct impression of it on my memory. it was eloquent, ingenious, plausible, with a delusive show of spirituality, yet really imbued throughout with a cold and dead materialism. i shivered, as at a current of chill air issuing out of a sepulchral vault, and bringing the smell of corruption along with it. he spoke of a new era that was dawning upon the world; an era that would link soul to soul, and the present life to what we call futurity, with a closeness that should finally convert both worlds into one great, mutually conscious brotherhood. he described (in a strange, philosophical guise, with terms of art, as if it were a matter of chemical discovery) the agency by which this mighty result was to be effected; nor would it have surprised me, had he pretended to hold up a portion of his universally pervasive fluid, as he affirmed it to be, in a glass phial. at the close of his exordium, the professor beckoned with his hand,--once, twice, thrice,--and a figure came gliding upon the platform, enveloped in a long veil of silvery whiteness. it fell about her like the texture of a summer cloud, with a kind of vagueness, so that the outline of the form beneath it could not be accurately discerned. but the movement of the veiled lady was graceful, free, and unembarrassed, like that of a person accustomed to be the spectacle of thousands; or, possibly, a blindfold prisoner within the sphere with which this dark earthly magician had surrounded her, she was wholly unconscious of being the central object to all those straining eyes. pliant to his gesture (which had even an obsequious courtesy, but at the same time a remarkable decisiveness), the figure placed itself in the great chair. sitting there, in such visible obscurity, it was, perhaps, as much like the actual presence of a disembodied spirit as anything that stage trickery could devise. the hushed breathing of the spectators proved how high-wrought were their anticipations of the wonders to be performed through the medium of this incomprehensible creature. i, too, was in breathless suspense, but with a far different presentiment of some strange event at hand. "you see before you the veiled lady," said the bearded professor, advancing to the verge of the platform. "by the agency of which i have just spoken, she is at this moment in communion with the spiritual world. that silvery veil is, in one sense, an enchantment, having been dipped, as it were, and essentially imbued, through the potency of my art, with the fluid medium of spirits. slight and ethereal as it seems, the limitations of time and space have no existence within its folds. this hall--these hundreds of faces, encompassing her within so narrow an amphitheatre--are of thinner substance, in her view, than the airiest vapor that the clouds are made of. she beholds the absolute!" as preliminary to other and far more wonderful psychological experiments, the exhibitor suggested that some of his auditors should endeavor to make the veiled lady sensible of their presence by such methods--provided only no touch were laid upon her person--as they might deem best adapted to that end. accordingly, several deep-lunged country fellows, who looked as if they might have blown the apparition away with a breath, ascended the platform. mutually encouraging one another, they shouted so close to her ear that the veil stirred like a wreath of vanishing mist; they smote upon the floor with bludgeons; they perpetrated so hideous a clamor, that methought it might have reached, at least, a little way into the eternal sphere. finally, with the assent of the professor, they laid hold of the great chair, and were startled, apparently, to find it soar upward, as if lighter than the air through which it rose. but the veiled lady remained seated and motionless, with a composure that was hardly less than awful, because implying so immeasurable a distance betwixt her and these rude persecutors. "these efforts are wholly without avail," observed the professor, who had been looking on with an aspect of serene indifference. "the roar of a battery of cannon would be inaudible to the veiled lady. and yet, were i to will it, sitting in this very hall, she could hear the desert wind sweeping over the sands as far off as arabia; the icebergs grinding one against the other in the polar seas; the rustle of a leaf in an east indian forest; the lowest whispered breath of the bashfullest maiden in the world, uttering the first confession of her love. nor does there exist the moral inducement, apart from my own behest, that could persuade her to lift the silvery veil, or arise out of that chair." greatly to the professor's discomposure, however, just as he spoke these words, the veiled lady arose. there was a mysterious tremor that shook the magic veil. the spectators, it may be, imagined that she was about to take flight into that invisible sphere, and to the society of those purely spiritual beings with whom they reckoned her so near akin. hollingsworth, a moment ago, had mounted the platform, and now stood gazing at the figure, with a sad intentness that brought the whole power of his great, stern, yet tender soul into his glance. "come," said he, waving his hand towards her. "you are safe!" she threw off the veil, and stood before that multitude of people pale, tremulous, shrinking, as if only then had she discovered that a thousand eyes were gazing at her. poor maiden! how strangely had she been betrayed! blazoned abroad as a wonder of the world, and performing what were adjudged as miracles,--in the faith of many, a seeress and a prophetess; in the harsher judgment of others, a mountebank,--she had kept, as i religiously believe, her virgin reserve and sanctity of soul throughout it all. within that encircling veil, though an evil hand had flung it over her, there was as deep a seclusion as if this forsaken girl had, all the while, been sitting under the shadow of eliot's pulpit, in the blithedale woods, at the feet of him who now summoned her to the shelter of his arms. and the true heart-throb of a woman's affection was too powerful for the jugglery that had hitherto environed her. she uttered a shriek, and fled to hollingsworth, like one escaping from her deadliest enemy, and was safe forever. xxiv. the masqueraders two nights had passed since the foregoing occurrences, when, in a breezy september forenoon, i set forth from town, on foot, towards blithedale. it was the most delightful of all days for a walk, with a dash of invigorating ice-temper in the air, but a coolness that soon gave place to the brisk glow of exercise, while the vigor remained as elastic as before. the atmosphere had a spirit and sparkle in it. each breath was like a sip of ethereal wine, tempered, as i said, with a crystal lump of ice. i had started on this expedition in an exceedingly sombre mood, as well befitted one who found himself tending towards home, but was conscious that nobody would be quite overjoyed to greet him there. my feet were hardly off the pavement, however, when this morbid sensation began to yield to the lively influences of air and motion. nor had i gone far, with fields yet green on either side, before my step became as swift and light as if hollingsworth were waiting to exchange a friendly hand-grip, and zenobia's and priscilla's open arms would welcome the wanderer's reappearance. it has happened to me on other occasions, as well as this, to prove how a state of physical well-being can create a kind of joy, in spite of the profoundest anxiety of mind. the pathway of that walk still runs along, with sunny freshness, through my memory. i know not why it should be so. but my mental eye can even now discern the september grass, bordering the pleasant roadside with a brighter verdure than while the summer heats were scorching it; the trees, too, mostly green, although here and there a branch or shrub has donned its vesture of crimson and gold a week or two before its fellows. i see the tufted barberry-bushes, with their small clusters of scarlet fruit; the toadstools, likewise,--some spotlessly white, others yellow or red,--mysterious growths, springing suddenly from no root or seed, and growing nobody can tell how or wherefore. in this respect they resembled many of the emotions in my breast. and i still see the little rivulets, chill, clear, and bright, that murmured beneath the road, through subterranean rocks, and deepened into mossy pools, where tiny fish were darting to and fro, and within which lurked the hermit frog. but no,--i never can account for it, that, with a yearning interest to learn the upshot of all my story, and returning to blithedale for that sole purpose, i should examine these things so like a peaceful-bosomed naturalist. nor why, amid all my sympathies and fears, there shot, at times, a wild exhilaration through my frame. thus i pursued my way along the line of the ancient stone wall that paul dudley built, and through white villages, and past orchards of ruddy apples, and fields of ripening maize, and patches of woodland, and all such sweet rural scenery as looks the fairest, a little beyond the suburbs of a town. hollingsworth, zenobia, priscilla! they glided mistily before me, as i walked. sometimes, in my solitude, i laughed with the bitterness of self-scorn, remembering how unreservedly i had given up my heart and soul to interests that were not mine. what had i ever had to do with them? and why, being now free, should i take this thraldom on me once again? it was both sad and dangerous, i whispered to myself, to be in too close affinity with the passions, the errors, and the misfortunes of individuals who stood within a circle of their own, into which, if i stept at all, it must be as an intruder, and at a peril that i could not estimate. drawing nearer to blithedale, a sickness of the spirits kept alternating with my flights of causeless buoyancy. i indulged in a hundred odd and extravagant conjectures. either there was no such place as blithedale, nor ever had been, nor any brotherhood of thoughtful laborers, like what i seemed to recollect there, or else it was all changed during my absence. it had been nothing but dream work and enchantment. i should seek in vain for the old farmhouse, and for the greensward, the potato-fields, the root-crops, and acres of indian corn, and for all that configuration of the land which i had imagined. it would be another spot, and an utter strangeness. these vagaries were of the spectral throng so apt to steal out of an unquiet heart. they partly ceased to haunt me, on my arriving at a point whence, through the trees, i began to catch glimpses of the blithedale farm. that surely was something real. there was hardly a square foot of all those acres on which i had not trodden heavily, in one or another kind of toil. the curse of adam's posterity--and, curse or blessing be it, it gives substance to the life around us--had first come upon me there. in the sweat of my brow i had there earned bread and eaten it, and so established my claim to be on earth, and my fellowship with all the sons of labor. i could have knelt down, and have laid my breast against that soil. the red clay of which my frame was moulded seemed nearer akin to those crumbling furrows than to any other portion of the world's dust. there was my home, and there might be my grave. i felt an invincible reluctance, nevertheless, at the idea of presenting myself before my old associates, without first ascertaining the state in which they were. a nameless foreboding weighed upon me. perhaps, should i know all the circumstances that had occurred, i might find it my wisest course to turn back, unrecognized, unseen, and never look at blithedale more. had it been evening, i would have stolen softly to some lighted window of the old farmhouse, and peeped darkling in, to see all their well-known faces round the supper-board. then, were there a vacant seat, i might noiselessly unclose the door, glide in, and take my place among them, without a word. my entrance might be so quiet, my aspect so familiar, that they would forget how long i had been away, and suffer me to melt into the scene, as a wreath of vapor melts into a larger cloud. i dreaded a boisterous greeting. beholding me at table, zenobia, as a matter of course, would send me a cup of tea, and hollingsworth fill my plate from the great dish of pandowdy, and priscilla, in her quiet way, would hand the cream, and others help me to the bread and butter. being one of them again, the knowledge of what had happened would come to me without a shock. for still, at every turn of my shifting fantasies, the thought stared me in the face that some evil thing had befallen us, or was ready to befall. yielding to this ominous impression, i now turned aside into the woods, resolving to spy out the posture of the community as craftily as the wild indian before he makes his onset. i would go wandering about the outskirts of the farm, and, perhaps, catching sight of a solitary acquaintance, would approach him amid the brown shadows of the trees (a kind of medium fit for spirits departed and revisitant, like myself), and entreat him to tell me how all things were. the first living creature that i met was a partridge, which sprung up beneath my feet, and whirred away; the next was a squirrel, who chattered angrily at me from an overhanging bough. i trod along by the dark, sluggish river, and remember pausing on the bank, above one of its blackest and most placid pools (the very spot, with the barkless stump of a tree aslantwise over the water, is depicting itself to my fancy at this instant), and wondering how deep it was, and if any overladen soul had ever flung its weight of mortality in thither, and if it thus escaped the burden, or only made it heavier. and perhaps the skeleton of the drowned wretch still lay beneath the inscrutable depth, clinging to some sunken log at the bottom with the gripe of its old despair. so slight, however, was the track of these gloomy ideas, that i soon forgot them in the contemplation of a brood of wild ducks, which were floating on the river, and anon took flight, leaving each a bright streak over the black surface. by and by, i came to my hermitage, in the heart of the white-pine tree, and clambering up into it, sat down to rest. the grapes, which i had watched throughout the summer, now dangled around me in abundant clusters of the deepest purple, deliciously sweet to the taste, and, though wild, yet free from that ungentle flavor which distinguishes nearly all our native and uncultivated grapes. methought a wine might be pressed out of them possessing a passionate zest, and endowed with a new kind of intoxicating quality, attended with such bacchanalian ecstasies as the tamer grapes of madeira, france, and the rhine are inadequate to produce. and i longed to quaff a great goblet of it that moment! while devouring the grapes, i looked on all sides out of the peep-holes of my hermitage, and saw the farmhouse, the fields, and almost every part of our domain, but not a single human figure in the landscape. some of the windows of the house were open, but with no more signs of life than in a dead man's unshut eyes. the barn-door was ajar, and swinging in the breeze. the big old dog,--he was a relic of the former dynasty of the farm,--that hardly ever stirred out of the yard, was nowhere to be seen. what, then, had become of all the fraternity and sisterhood? curious to ascertain this point, i let myself down out of the tree, and going to the edge of the wood, was glad to perceive our herd of cows chewing the cud or grazing not far off. i fancied, by their manner, that two or three of them recognized me (as, indeed, they ought, for i had milked them and been their chamberlain times without number); but, after staring me in the face a little while, they phlegmatically began grazing and chewing their cuds again. then i grew foolishly angry at so cold a reception, and flung some rotten fragments of an old stump at these unsentimental cows. skirting farther round the pasture, i heard voices and much laughter proceeding from the interior of the wood. voices, male and feminine; laughter, not only of fresh young throats, but the bass of grown people, as if solemn organ-pipes should pour out airs of merriment. not a voice spoke, but i knew it better than my own; not a laugh, but its cadences were familiar. the wood, in this portion of it, seemed as full of jollity as if comus and his crew were holding their revels in one of its usually lonesome glades. stealing onward as far as i durst, without hazard of discovery, i saw a concourse of strange figures beneath the overshadowing branches. they appeared, and vanished, and came again, confusedly with the streaks of sunlight glimmering down upon them. among them was an indian chief, with blanket, feathers, and war-paint, and uplifted tomahawk; and near him, looking fit to be his woodland bride, the goddess diana, with the crescent on her head, and attended by our big lazy dog, in lack of any fleeter hound. drawing an arrow from her quiver, she let it fly at a venture, and hit the very tree behind which i happened to be lurking. another group consisted of a bavarian broom-girl, a negro of the jim crow order, one or two foresters of the middle ages, a kentucky woodsman in his trimmed hunting-shirt and deerskin leggings, and a shaker elder, quaint, demure, broad-brimmed, and square-skirted. shepherds of arcadia, and allegoric figures from the "faerie queen," were oddly mixed up with these. arm in arm, or otherwise huddled together in strange discrepancy, stood grim puritans, gay cavaliers, and revolutionary officers with three-cornered cocked hats, and queues longer than their swords. a bright-complexioned, dark-haired, vivacious little gypsy, with a red shawl over her head, went from one group to another, telling fortunes by palmistry; and moll pitcher, the renowned old witch of lynn, broomstick in hand, showed herself prominently in the midst, as if announcing all these apparitions to be the offspring of her necromantic art. but silas foster, who leaned against a tree near by, in his customary blue frock and smoking a short pipe, did more to disenchant the scene, with his look of shrewd, acrid, yankee observation, than twenty witches and necromancers could have done in the way of rendering it weird and fantastic. a little farther off, some old-fashioned skinkers and drawers, all with portentously red noses, were spreading a banquet on the leaf-strewn earth; while a horned and long-tailed gentleman (in whom i recognized the fiendish musician erst seen by tam o'shanter) tuned his fiddle, and summoned the whole motley rout to a dance, before partaking of the festal cheer. so they joined hands in a circle, whirling round so swiftly, so madly, and so merrily, in time and tune with the satanic music, that their separate incongruities were blended all together, and they became a kind of entanglement that went nigh to turn one's brain with merely looking at it. anon they stopt all of a sudden, and staring at one another's figures, set up a roar of laughter; whereat a shower of the september leaves (which, all day long, had been hesitating whether to fall or no) were shaken off by the movement of the air, and came eddying down upon the revellers. then, for lack of breath, ensued a silence, at the deepest point of which, tickled by the oddity of surprising my grave associates in this masquerading trim, i could not possibly refrain from a burst of laughter on my own separate account. "hush!" i heard the pretty gypsy fortuneteller say. "who is that laughing?" "some profane intruder!" said the goddess diana. "i shall send an arrow through his heart, or change him into a stag, as i did actaeon, if he peeps from behind the trees!" "me take his scalp!" cried the indian chief, brandishing his tomahawk, and cutting a great caper in the air. "i'll root him in the earth with a spell that i have at my tongue's end!" squeaked moll pitcher. "and the green moss shall grow all over him, before he gets free again!" "the voice was miles coverdale's," said the fiendish fiddler, with a whisk of his tail and a toss of his horns. "my music has brought him hither. he is always ready to dance to the devil's tune!" thus put on the right track, they all recognized the voice at once, and set up a simultaneous shout. "miles! miles! miles coverdale, where are you?" they cried. "zenobia! queen zenobia! here is one of your vassals lurking in the wood. command him to approach and pay his duty!" the whole fantastic rabble forthwith streamed off in pursuit of me, so that i was like a mad poet hunted by chimeras. having fairly the start of them, however, i succeeded in making my escape, and soon left their merriment and riot at a good distance in the rear. its fainter tones assumed a kind of mournfulness, and were finally lost in the hush and solemnity of the wood. in my haste, i stumbled over a heap of logs and sticks that had been cut for firewood, a great while ago, by some former possessor of the soil, and piled up square, in order to be carted or sledded away to the farmhouse. but, being forgotten, they had lain there perhaps fifty years, and possibly much longer; until, by the accumulation of moss, and the leaves falling over them, and decaying there, from autumn to autumn, a green mound was formed, in which the softened outline of the woodpile was still perceptible. in the fitful mood that then swayed my mind, i found something strangely affecting in this simple circumstance. i imagined the long-dead woodman, and his long-dead wife and children, coming out of their chill graves, and essaying to make a fire with this heap of mossy fuel! from this spot i strayed onward, quite lost in reverie, and neither knew nor cared whither i was going, until a low, soft, well-remembered voice spoke, at a little distance. "there is mr. coverdale!" "miles coverdale!" said another voice,--and its tones were very stern. "let him come forward, then!" "yes, mr. coverdale," cried a woman's voice,--clear and melodious, but, just then, with something unnatural in its chord,--"you are welcome! but you come half an hour too late, and have missed a scene which you would have enjoyed!" i looked up and found myself nigh eliot's pulpit, at the base of which sat hollingsworth, with priscilla at his feet and zenobia standing before them. xxv. the three together hollingsworth was in his ordinary working-dress. priscilla wore a pretty and simple gown, with a kerchief about her neck, and a calash, which she had flung back from her head, leaving it suspended by the strings. but zenobia (whose part among the maskers, as may be supposed, was no inferior one) appeared in a costume of fanciful magnificence, with her jewelled flower as the central ornament of what resembled a leafy crown, or coronet. she represented the oriental princess by whose name we were accustomed to know her. her attitude was free and noble; yet, if a queen's, it was not that of a queen triumphant, but dethroned, on trial for her life, or, perchance, condemned already. the spirit of the conflict seemed, nevertheless, to be alive in her. her eyes were on fire; her cheeks had each a crimson spot, so exceedingly vivid, and marked with so definite an outline, that i at first doubted whether it were not artificial. in a very brief space, however, this idea was shamed by the paleness that ensued, as the blood sunk suddenly away. zenobia now looked like marble. one always feels the fact, in an instant, when he has intruded on those who love, or those who hate, at some acme of their passion that puts them into a sphere of their own, where no other spirit can pretend to stand on equal ground with them. i was confused,--affected even with a species of terror,--and wished myself away. the intenseness of their feelings gave them the exclusive property of the soil and atmosphere, and left me no right to be or breathe there. "hollingsworth,--zenobia,--i have just returned to blithedale," said i, "and had no thought of finding you here. we shall meet again at the house. i will retire." "this place is free to you," answered hollingsworth. "as free as to ourselves," added zenobia. "this long while past, you have been following up your game, groping for human emotions in the dark corners of the heart. had you been here a little sooner, you might have seen them dragged into the daylight. i could even wish to have my trial over again, with you standing by to see fair play! do you know, mr. coverdale, i have been on trial for my life?" she laughed, while speaking thus. but, in truth, as my eyes wandered from one of the group to another, i saw in hollingsworth all that an artist could desire for the grim portrait of a puritan magistrate holding inquest of life and death in a case of witchcraft; in zenobia, the sorceress herself, not aged, wrinkled, and decrepit, but fair enough to tempt satan with a force reciprocal to his own; and, in priscilla, the pale victim, whose soul and body had been wasted by her spells. had a pile of fagots been heaped against the rock, this hint of impending doom would have completed the suggestive picture. "it was too hard upon me," continued zenobia, addressing hollingsworth, "that judge, jury, and accuser should all be comprehended in one man! i demur, as i think the lawyers say, to the jurisdiction. but let the learned judge coverdale seat himself on the top of the rock, and you and me stand at its base, side by side, pleading our cause before him! there might, at least, be two criminals instead of one." "you forced this on me," replied hollingsworth, looking her sternly in the face. "did i call you hither from among the masqueraders yonder? do i assume to be your judge? no; except so far as i have an unquestionable right of judgment, in order to settle my own line of behavior towards those with whom the events of life bring me in contact. true, i have already judged you, but not on the world's part,--neither do i pretend to pass a sentence!" "ah, this is very good!" cried zenobia with a smile. "what strange beings you men are, mr. coverdale!--is it not so? it is the simplest thing in the world with you to bring a woman before your secret tribunals, and judge and condemn her unheard, and then tell her to go free without a sentence. the misfortune is, that this same secret tribunal chances to be the only judgment-seat that a true woman stands in awe of, and that any verdict short of acquittal is equivalent to a death sentence!" the more i looked at them, and the more i heard, the stronger grew my impression that a crisis had just come and gone. on hollingsworth's brow it had left a stamp like that of irrevocable doom, of which his own will was the instrument. in zenobia's whole person, beholding her more closely, i saw a riotous agitation; the almost delirious disquietude of a great struggle, at the close of which the vanquished one felt her strength and courage still mighty within her, and longed to renew the contest. my sensations were as if i had come upon a battlefield before the smoke was as yet cleared away. and what subjects had been discussed here? all, no doubt, that for so many months past had kept my heart and my imagination idly feverish. zenobia's whole character and history; the true nature of her mysterious connection with westervelt; her later purposes towards hollingsworth, and, reciprocally, his in reference to her; and, finally, the degree in which zenobia had been cognizant of the plot against priscilla, and what, at last, had been the real object of that scheme. on these points, as before, i was left to my own conjectures. one thing, only, was certain. zenobia and hollingsworth were friends no longer. if their heartstrings were ever intertwined, the knot had been adjudged an entanglement, and was now violently broken. but zenobia seemed unable to rest content with the matter in the posture which it had assumed. "ah! do we part so?" exclaimed she, seeing hollingsworth about to retire. "and why not?" said he, with almost rude abruptness. "what is there further to be said between us?" "well, perhaps nothing," answered zenobia, looking him in the face, and smiling. "but we have come many times before to this gray rock, and we have talked very softly among the whisperings of the birch-trees. they were pleasant hours! i love to make the latest of them, though not altogether so delightful, loiter away as slowly as may be. and, besides, you have put many queries to me at this, which you design to be our last interview; and being driven, as i must acknowledge, into a corner, i have responded with reasonable frankness. but now, with your free consent, i desire the privilege of asking a few questions, in my turn." "i have no concealments," said hollingsworth. "we shall see," answered zenobia. "i would first inquire whether you have supposed me to be wealthy?" "on that point," observed hollingsworth, "i have had the opinion which the world holds." "and i held it likewise," said zenobia. "had i not, heaven is my witness the knowledge should have been as free to you as me. it is only three days since i knew the strange fact that threatens to make me poor; and your own acquaintance with it, i suspect, is of at least as old a date. i fancied myself affluent. you are aware, too, of the disposition which i purposed making of the larger portion of my imaginary opulence,--nay, were it all, i had not hesitated. let me ask you, further, did i ever propose or intimate any terms of compact, on which depended this--as the world would consider it--so important sacrifice?" "you certainly spoke of none," said hollingsworth. "nor meant any," she responded. "i was willing to realize your dream freely,--generously, as some might think,--but, at all events, fully, and heedless though it should prove the ruin of my fortune. if, in your own thoughts, you have imposed any conditions of this expenditure, it is you that must be held responsible for whatever is sordid and unworthy in them. and now one other question. do you love this girl?" "o zenobia!" exclaimed priscilla, shrinking back, as if longing for the rock to topple over and hide her. "do you love her?" repeated zenobia. "had you asked me that question a short time since," replied hollingsworth, after a pause, during which, it seemed to me, even the birch-trees held their whispering breath, "i should have told you--'no!' my feelings for priscilla differed little from those of an elder brother, watching tenderly over the gentle sister whom god has given him to protect." "and what is your answer now?" persisted zenobia. "i do love her!" said hollingsworth, uttering the words with a deep inward breath, instead of speaking them outright. "as well declare it thus as in any other way. i do love her!" "now, god be judge between us," cried zenobia, breaking into sudden passion, "which of us two has most mortally offended him! at least, i am a woman, with every fault, it may be, that a woman ever had,--weak, vain, unprincipled (like most of my sex; for our virtues, when we have any, are merely impulsive and intuitive), passionate, too, and pursuing my foolish and unattainable ends by indirect and cunning, though absurdly chosen means, as an hereditary bond-slave must; false, moreover, to the whole circle of good, in my reckless truth to the little good i saw before me,--but still a woman! a creature whom only a little change of earthly fortune, a little kinder smile of him who sent me hither, and one true heart to encourage and direct me, might have made all that a woman can be! but how is it with you? are you a man? no; but a monster! a cold, heartless, self-beginning and self-ending piece of mechanism!" "with what, then, do you charge me!" asked hollingsworth, aghast, and greatly disturbed by this attack. "show me one selfish end, in all i ever aimed at, and you may cut it out of my bosom with a knife!" "it is all self!" answered zenobia with still intenser bitterness. "nothing else; nothing but self, self, self! the fiend, i doubt not, has made his choicest mirth of you these seven years past, and especially in the mad summer which we have spent together. i see it now! i am awake, disenchanted, disinthralled! self, self, self! you have embodied yourself in a project. you are a better masquerader than the witches and gypsies yonder; for your disguise is a self-deception. see whither it has brought you! first, you aimed a death-blow, and a treacherous one, at this scheme of a purer and higher life, which so many noble spirits had wrought out. then, because coverdale could not be quite your slave, you threw him ruthlessly away. and you took me, too, into your plan, as long as there was hope of my being available, and now fling me aside again, a broken tool! but, foremost and blackest of your sins, you stifled down your inmost consciousness!--you did a deadly wrong to your own heart!--you were ready to sacrifice this girl, whom, if god ever visibly showed a purpose, he put into your charge, and through whom he was striving to redeem you!" "this is a woman's view," said hollingsworth, growing deadly pale,--"a woman's, whose whole sphere of action is in the heart, and who can conceive of no higher nor wider one!" "be silent!" cried zenobia imperiously. "you know neither man nor woman! the utmost that can be said in your behalf--and because i would not be wholly despicable in my own eyes, but would fain excuse my wasted feelings, nor own it wholly a delusion, therefore i say it--is, that a great and rich heart has been ruined in your breast. leave me, now. you have done with me, and i with you. farewell!" "priscilla," said hollingsworth, "come." zenobia smiled; possibly i did so too. not often, in human life, has a gnawing sense of injury found a sweeter morsel of revenge than was conveyed in the tone with which hollingsworth spoke those two words. it was the abased and tremulous tone of a man whose faith in himself was shaken, and who sought, at last, to lean on an affection. yes; the strong man bowed himself and rested on this poor priscilla! oh, could she have failed him, what a triumph for the lookers-on! and, at first, i half imagined that she was about to fail him. she rose up, stood shivering like the birch leaves that trembled over her head, and then slowly tottered, rather than walked, towards zenobia. arriving at her feet, she sank down there, in the very same attitude which she had assumed on their first meeting, in the kitchen of the old farmhouse. zenobia remembered it. "ah, priscilla!" said she, shaking her head, "how much is changed since then! you kneel to a dethroned princess. you, the victorious one! but he is waiting for you. say what you wish, and leave me." "we are sisters!" gasped priscilla. i fancied that i understood the word and action. it meant the offering of herself, and all she had, to be at zenobia's disposal. but the latter would not take it thus. "true, we are sisters!" she replied; and, moved by the sweet word, she stooped down and kissed priscilla; but not lovingly, for a sense of fatal harm received through her seemed to be lurking in zenobia's heart. "we had one father! you knew it from the first; i, but a little while,--else some things that have chanced might have been spared you. but i never wished you harm. you stood between me and an end which i desired. i wanted a clear path. no matter what i meant. it is over now. do you forgive me?" "o zenobia," sobbed priscilla, "it is i that feel like the guilty one!" "no, no, poor little thing!" said zenobia, with a sort of contempt. "you have been my evil fate, but there never was a babe with less strength or will to do an injury. poor child! methinks you have but a melancholy lot before you, sitting all alone in that wide, cheerless heart, where, for aught you know,--and as i, alas! believe,--the fire which you have kindled may soon go out. ah, the thought makes me shiver for you! what will you do, priscilla, when you find no spark among the ashes?" "die!" she answered. "that was well said!" responded zenobia, with an approving smile. "there is all a woman in your little compass, my poor sister. meanwhile, go with him, and live!" she waved her away with a queenly gesture, and turned her own face to the rock. i watched priscilla, wondering what judgment she would pass between zenobia and hollingsworth; how interpret his behavior, so as to reconcile it with true faith both towards her sister and herself; how compel her love for him to keep any terms whatever with her sisterly affection! but, in truth, there was no such difficulty as i imagined. her engrossing love made it all clear. hollingsworth could have no fault. that was the one principle at the centre of the universe. and the doubtful guilt or possible integrity of other people, appearances, self-evident facts, the testimony of her own senses,--even hollingsworth's self-accusation, had he volunteered it,--would have weighed not the value of a mote of thistledown on the other side. so secure was she of his right, that she never thought of comparing it with another's wrong, but left the latter to itself. hollingsworth drew her arm within his, and soon disappeared with her among the trees. i cannot imagine how zenobia knew when they were out of sight; she never glanced again towards them. but, retaining a proud attitude so long as they might have thrown back a retiring look, they were no sooner departed,--utterly departed,--than she began slowly to sink down. it was as if a great, invisible, irresistible weight were pressing her to the earth. settling upon her knees, she leaned her forehead against the rock, and sobbed convulsively; dry sobs they seemed to be, such as have nothing to do with tears. xxvi. zenobia and coverdale zenobia had entirely forgotten me. she fancied herself alone with her great grief. and had it been only a common pity that i felt for her,--the pity that her proud nature would have repelled, as the one worst wrong which the world yet held in reserve,--the sacredness and awfulness of the crisis might have impelled me to steal away silently, so that not a dry leaf should rustle under my feet. i would have left her to struggle, in that solitude, with only the eye of god upon her. but, so it happened, i never once dreamed of questioning my right to be there now, as i had questioned it just before, when i came so suddenly upon hollingsworth and herself, in the passion of their recent debate. it suits me not to explain what was the analogy that i saw or imagined between zenobia's situation and mine; nor, i believe, will the reader detect this one secret, hidden beneath many a revelation which perhaps concerned me less. in simple truth, however, as zenobia leaned her forehead against the rock, shaken with that tearless agony, it seemed to me that the self-same pang, with hardly mitigated torment, leaped thrilling from her heartstrings to my own. was it wrong, therefore, if i felt myself consecrated to the priesthood by sympathy like this, and called upon to minister to this woman's affliction, so far as mortal could? but, indeed, what could mortal do for her? nothing! the attempt would be a mockery and an anguish. time, it is true, would steal away her grief, and bury it and the best of her heart in the same grave. but destiny itself, methought, in its kindliest mood, could do no better for zenobia, in the way of quick relief; than to cause the impending rock to impend a little farther, and fall upon her head. so i leaned against a tree, and listened to her sobs, in unbroken silence. she was half prostrate, half kneeling, with her forehead still pressed against the rock. her sobs were the only sound; she did not groan, nor give any other utterance to her distress. it was all involuntary. at length she sat up, put back her hair, and stared about her with a bewildered aspect, as if not distinctly recollecting the scene through which she had passed, nor cognizant of the situation in which it left her. her face and brow were almost purple with the rush of blood. they whitened, however, by and by, and for some time retained this deathlike hue. she put her hand to her forehead, with a gesture that made me forcibly conscious of an intense and living pain there. her glance, wandering wildly to and fro, passed over me several times, without appearing to inform her of my presence. but, finally, a look of recognition gleamed from her eyes into mine. "is it you, miles coverdale?" said she, smiling. "ah, i perceive what you are about! you are turning this whole affair into a ballad. pray let me hear as many stanzas as you happen to have ready." "oh, hush, zenobia!" i answered. "heaven knows what an ache is in my soul!" "it is genuine tragedy, is it not?" rejoined zenobia, with a sharp, light laugh. "and you are willing to allow, perhaps, that i have had hard measure. but it is a woman's doom, and i have deserved it like a woman; so let there be no pity, as, on my part, there shall be no complaint. it is all right, now, or will shortly be so. but, mr. coverdale, by all means write this ballad, and put your soul's ache into it, and turn your sympathy to good account, as other poets do, and as poets must, unless they choose to give us glittering icicles instead of lines of fire. as for the moral, it shall be distilled into the final stanza, in a drop of bitter honey." "what shall it be, zenobia?" i inquired, endeavoring to fall in with her mood. "oh, a very old one will serve the purpose," she replied. "there are no new truths, much as we have prided ourselves on finding some. a moral? why, this: that, in the battlefield of life, the downright stroke, that would fall only on a man's steel headpiece, is sure to light on a woman's heart, over which she wears no breastplate, and whose wisdom it is, therefore, to keep out of the conflict. or, this: that the whole universe, her own sex and yours, and providence, or destiny, to boot, make common cause against the woman who swerves one hair's-breadth out of the beaten track. yes; and add (for i may as well own it, now) that, with that one hair's-breadth, she goes all astray, and never sees the world in its true aspect afterwards." "this last is too stern a moral," i observed. "cannot we soften it a little?" "do it if you like, at your own peril, not on my responsibility," she answered. then, with a sudden change of subject, she went on: "after all, he has flung away what would have served him better than the poor, pale flower he kept. what can priscilla do for him? put passionate warmth into his heart, when it shall be chilled with frozen hopes? strengthen his hands, when they are weary with much doing and no performance? no! but only tend towards him with a blind, instinctive love, and hang her little, puny weakness for a clog upon his arm! she cannot even give him such sympathy as is worth the name. for will he never, in many an hour of darkness, need that proud intellectual sympathy which he might have had from me?--the sympathy that would flash light along his course, and guide, as well as cheer him? poor hollingsworth! where will he find it now?" "hollingsworth has a heart of ice!" said i bitterly. "he is a wretch!" "do him no wrong," interrupted zenobia, turning haughtily upon me. "presume not to estimate a man like hollingsworth. it was my fault, all along, and none of his. i see it now! he never sought me. why should he seek me? what had i to offer him? a miserable, bruised, and battered heart, spoilt long before he met me. a life, too, hopelessly entangled with a villain's! he did well to cast me off. god be praised, he did it! and yet, had he trusted me, and borne with me a little longer, i would have saved him all this trouble." she was silent for a time, and stood with her eyes fixed on the ground. again raising them, her look was more mild and calm. "miles coverdale!" said she. "well, zenobia," i responded. "can i do you any service?" "very little," she replied. "but it is my purpose, as you may well imagine, to remove from blithedale; and, most likely, i may not see hollingsworth again. a woman in my position, you understand, feels scarcely at her ease among former friends. new faces,--unaccustomed looks,--those only can she tolerate. she would pine among familiar scenes; she would be apt to blush, too, under the eyes that knew her secret; her heart might throb uncomfortably; she would mortify herself, i suppose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed the honor of her sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. poor womanhood, with its rights and wrongs! here will be new matter for my course of lectures, at the idea of which you smiled, mr. coverdale, a month or two ago. but, as you have really a heart and sympathies, as far as they go, and as i shall depart without seeing hollingsworth, i must entreat you to be a messenger between him and me." "willingly," said i, wondering at the strange way in which her mind seemed to vibrate from the deepest earnest to mere levity. "what is the message?" "true,--what is it?" exclaimed zenobia. "after all, i hardly know. on better consideration, i have no message. tell him,--tell him something pretty and pathetic, that will come nicely and sweetly into your ballad,--anything you please, so it be tender and submissive enough. tell him he has murdered me! tell him that i'll haunt him! "--she spoke these words with the wildest energy.--"and give him--no, give priscilla--this!" thus saying, she took the jewelled flower out of her hair; and it struck me as the act of a queen, when worsted in a combat, discrowning herself, as if she found a sort of relief in abasing all her pride. "bid her wear this for zenobia's sake," she continued. "she is a pretty little creature, and will make as soft and gentle a wife as the veriest bluebeard could desire. pity that she must fade so soon! these delicate and puny maidens always do. ten years hence, let hollingsworth look at my face and priscilla's, and then choose betwixt them. or, if he pleases, let him do it now." how magnificently zenobia looked as she said this! the effect of her beauty was even heightened by the over-consciousness and self-recognition of it, into which, i suppose, hollingsworth's scorn had driven her. she understood the look of admiration in my face; and--zenobia to the last--it gave her pleasure. "it is an endless pity," said she, "that i had not bethought myself of winning your heart, mr. coverdale, instead of hollingsworth's. i think i should have succeeded, and many women would have deemed you the worthier conquest of the two. you are certainly much the handsomest man. but there is a fate in these things. and beauty, in a man, has been of little account with me since my earliest girlhood, when, for once, it turned my head. now, farewell!" "zenobia, whither are you going?" i asked. "no matter where," said she. "but i am weary of this place, and sick to death of playing at philanthropy and progress. of all varieties of mock-life, we have surely blundered into the very emptiest mockery in our effort to establish the one true system. i have done with it; and blithedale must find another woman to superintend the laundry, and you, mr. coverdale, another nurse to make your gruel, the next time you fall ill. it was, indeed, a foolish dream! yet it gave us some pleasant summer days, and bright hopes, while they lasted. it can do no more; nor will it avail us to shed tears over a broken bubble. here is my hand! adieu!" she gave me her hand with the same free, whole-souled gesture as on the first afternoon of our acquaintance, and, being greatly moved, i bethought me of no better method of expressing my deep sympathy than to carry it to my lips. in so doing, i perceived that this white hand--so hospitably warm when i first touched it, five months since--was now cold as a veritable piece of snow. "how very cold!" i exclaimed, holding it between both my own, with the vain idea of warming it. "what can be the reason? it is really deathlike!" "the extremities die first, they say," answered zenobia, laughing. "and so you kiss this poor, despised, rejected hand! well, my dear friend, i thank you. you have reserved your homage for the fallen. lip of man will never touch my hand again. i intend to become a catholic, for the sake of going into a nunnery. when you next hear of zenobia, her face will be behind the black veil; so look your last at it now,--for all is over. once more, farewell!" she withdrew her hand, yet left a lingering pressure, which i felt long afterwards. so intimately connected as i had been with perhaps the only man in whom she was ever truly interested, zenobia looked on me as the representative of all the past, and was conscious that, in bidding me adieu, she likewise took final leave of hollingsworth, and of this whole epoch of her life. never did her beauty shine out more lustrously than in the last glimpse that i had of her. she departed, and was soon hidden among the trees. but, whether it was the strong impression of the foregoing scene, or whatever else the cause, i was affected with a fantasy that zenobia had not actually gone, but was still hovering about the spot and haunting it. i seemed to feel her eyes upon me. it was as if the vivid coloring of her character had left a brilliant stain upon the air. by degrees, however, the impression grew less distinct. i flung myself upon the fallen leaves at the base of eliot's pulpit. the sunshine withdrew up the tree trunks and flickered on the topmost boughs; gray twilight made the wood obscure; the stars brightened out; the pendent boughs became wet with chill autumnal dews. but i was listless, worn out with emotion on my own behalf and sympathy for others, and had no heart to leave my comfortless lair beneath the rock. i must have fallen asleep, and had a dream, all the circumstances of which utterly vanished at the moment when they converged to some tragical catastrophe, and thus grew too powerful for the thin sphere of slumber that enveloped them. starting from the ground, i found the risen moon shining upon the rugged face of the rock, and myself all in a tremble. xxvii. midnight it could not have been far from midnight when i came beneath hollingsworth's window, and, finding it open, flung in a tuft of grass with earth at the roots, and heard it fall upon the floor. he was either awake or sleeping very lightly; for scarcely a moment had gone by before he looked out and discerned me standing in the moonlight. "is it you, coverdale?" he asked. "what is the matter?" "come down to me, hollingsworth!" i answered. "i am anxious to speak with you." the strange tone of my own voice startled me, and him, probably, no less. he lost no time, and soon issued from the house-door, with his dress half arranged. "again, what is the matter?" he asked impatiently. "have you seen zenobia," said i, "since you parted from her at eliot's pulpit?" "no," answered hollingsworth; "nor did i expect it." his voice was deep, but had a tremor in it, hardly had he spoken, when silas foster thrust his head, done up in a cotton handkerchief, out of another window, and took what he called as it literally was--a squint at us. "well, folks, what are ye about here?" he demanded. "aha! are you there, miles coverdale? you have been turning night into day since you left us, i reckon; and so you find it quite natural to come prowling about the house at this time o' night, frightening my old woman out of her wits, and making her disturb a tired man out of his best nap. in with you, you vagabond, and to bed!" "dress yourself quickly, foster," said i. "we want your assistance." i could not, for the life of me, keep that strange tone out of my voice. silas foster, obtuse as were his sensibilities, seemed to feel the ghastly earnestness that was conveyed in it as well as hollingsworth did. he immediately withdrew his head, and i heard him yawning, muttering to his wife, and again yawning heavily, while he hurried on his clothes. meanwhile i showed hollingsworth a delicate handkerchief, marked with a well-known cipher, and told where i had found it, and other circumstances, which had filled me with a suspicion so terrible that i left him, if he dared, to shape it out for himself. by the time my brief explanation was finished, we were joined by silas foster in his blue woollen frock. "well, boys," cried he peevishly, "what is to pay now?" "tell him, hollingsworth," said i. hollingsworth shivered perceptibly, and drew in a hard breath betwixt his teeth. he steadied himself, however, and, looking the matter more firmly in the face than i had done, explained to foster my suspicions, and the grounds of them, with a distinctness from which, in spite of my utmost efforts, my words had swerved aside. the tough-nerved yeoman, in his comment, put a finish on the business, and brought out the hideous idea in its full terror, as if he were removing the napkin from the face of a corpse. "and so you think she's drowned herself?" he cried. i turned away my face. "what on earth should the young woman do that for?" exclaimed silas, his eyes half out of his head with mere surprise. "why, she has more means than she can use or waste, and lacks nothing to make her comfortable, but a husband, and that's an article she could have, any day. there's some mistake about this, i tell you!" "come," said i, shuddering; "let us go and ascertain the truth." "well, well," answered silas foster; "just as you say. we'll take the long pole, with the hook at the end, that serves to get the bucket out of the draw-well when the rope is broken. with that, and a couple of long-handled hay-rakes, i'll answer for finding her, if she's anywhere to be found. strange enough! zenobia drown herself! no, no; i don't believe it. she had too much sense, and too much means, and enjoyed life a great deal too well." when our few preparations were completed, we hastened, by a shorter than the customary route, through fields and pastures, and across a portion of the meadow, to the particular spot on the river-bank which i had paused to contemplate in the course of my afternoon's ramble. a nameless presentiment had again drawn me thither, after leaving eliot's pulpit. i showed my companions where i had found the handkerchief, and pointed to two or three footsteps, impressed into the clayey margin, and tending towards the water. beneath its shallow verge, among the water-weeds, there were further traces, as yet unobliterated by the sluggish current, which was there almost at a standstill. silas foster thrust his face down close to these footsteps, and picked up a shoe that had escaped my observation, being half imbedded in the mud. "there's a kid shoe that never was made on a yankee last," observed he. "i know enough of shoemaker's craft to tell that. french manufacture; and see what a high instep! and how evenly she trod in it! there never was a woman that stept handsomer in her shoes than zenobia did. here," he added, addressing hollingsworth, "would you like to keep the shoe?" hollingsworth started back. "give it to me, foster," said i. i dabbled it in the water, to rinse off the mud, and have kept it ever since. not far from this spot lay an old, leaky punt, drawn up on the oozy river-side, and generally half full of water. it served the angler to go in quest of pickerel, or the sportsman to pick up his wild ducks. setting this crazy bark afloat, i seated myself in the stern with the paddle, while hollingsworth sat in the bows with the hooked pole, and silas foster amidships with a hay-rake. "it puts me in mind of my young days," remarked silas, "when i used to steal out of bed to go bobbing for hornpouts and eels. heigh-ho!--well, life and death together make sad work for us all! then i was a boy, bobbing for fish; and now i am getting to be an old fellow, and here i be, groping for a dead body! i tell you what, lads; if i thought anything had really happened to zenobia, i should feel kind o' sorrowful." "i wish, at least, you would hold your tongue," muttered i. the moon, that night, though past the full, was still large and oval, and having risen between eight and nine o'clock, now shone aslantwise over the river, throwing the high, opposite bank, with its woods, into deep shadow, but lighting up the hither shore pretty effectually. not a ray appeared to fall on the river itself. it lapsed imperceptibly away, a broad, black, inscrutable depth, keeping its own secrets from the eye of man, as impenetrably as mid-ocean could. "well, miles coverdale," said foster, "you are the helmsman. how do you mean to manage this business?" "i shall let the boat drift, broadside foremost, past that stump," i replied. "i know the bottom, having sounded it in fishing. the shore, on this side, after the first step or two, goes off very abruptly; and there is a pool, just by the stump, twelve or fifteen feet deep. the current could not have force enough to sweep any sunken object, even if partially buoyant, out of that hollow." "come, then," said silas; "but i doubt whether i can touch bottom with this hay-rake, if it's as deep as you say. mr. hollingsworth, i think you'll be the lucky man to-night, such luck as it is." we floated past the stump. silas foster plied his rake manfully, poking it as far as he could into the water, and immersing the whole length of his arm besides. hollingsworth at first sat motionless, with the hooked pole elevated in the air. but, by and by, with a nervous and jerky movement, he began to plunge it into the blackness that upbore us, setting his teeth, and making precisely such thrusts, methought, as if he were stabbing at a deadly enemy. i bent over the side of the boat. so obscure, however, so awfully mysterious, was that dark stream, that--and the thought made me shiver like a leaf--i might as well have tried to look into the enigma of the eternal world, to discover what had become of zenobia's soul, as into the river's depths, to find her body. and there, perhaps, she lay, with her face upward, while the shadow of the boat, and my own pale face peering downward, passed slowly betwixt her and the sky! once, twice, thrice, i paddled the boat upstream, and again suffered it to glide, with the river's slow, funereal motion, downward. silas foster had raked up a large mass of stuff, which, as it came towards the surface, looked somewhat like a flowing garment, but proved to be a monstrous tuft of water-weeds. hollingsworth, with a gigantic effort, upheaved a sunken log. when once free of the bottom, it rose partly out of water,--all weedy and slimy, a devilish-looking object, which the moon had not shone upon for half a hundred years,--then plunged again, and sullenly returned to its old resting-place, for the remnant of the century. "that looked ugly!" quoth silas. "i half thought it was the evil one, on the same errand as ourselves,--searching for zenobia." "he shall never get her," said i, giving the boat a strong impulse. "that's not for you to say, my boy," retorted the yeoman. "pray god he never has, and never may. slow work this, however! i should really be glad to find something! pshaw! what a notion that is, when the only good luck would be to paddle, and drift, and poke, and grope, hereabouts, till morning, and have our labor for our pains! for my part, i shouldn't wonder if the creature had only lost her shoe in the mud, and saved her soul alive, after all. my stars! how she will laugh at us, to-morrow morning!" it is indescribable what an image of zenobia--at the breakfast-table, full of warm and mirthful life--this surmise of silas foster's brought before my mind. the terrible phantasm of her death was thrown by it into the remotest and dimmest background, where it seemed to grow as improbable as a myth. "yes, silas, it may be as you say," cried i. the drift of the stream had again borne us a little below the stump, when i felt--yes, felt, for it was as if the iron hook had smote my breast--felt hollingsworth's pole strike some object at the bottom of the river! he started up, and almost overset the boat. "hold on!" cried foster; "you have her!" putting a fury of strength into the effort, hollingsworth heaved amain, and up came a white swash to the surface of the river. it was the flow of a woman's garments. a little higher, and we saw her dark hair streaming down the current. black river of death, thou hadst yielded up thy victim! zenobia was found! silas foster laid hold of the body; hollingsworth likewise grappled with it; and i steered towards the bank, gazing all the while at zenobia, whose limbs were swaying in the current close at the boat's side. arriving near the shore, we all three stept into the water, bore her out, and laid her on the ground beneath a tree. "poor child!" said foster,--and his dry old heart, i verily believe, vouchsafed a tear, "i'm sorry for her!" were i to describe the perfect horror of the spectacle, the reader might justly reckon it to me for a sin and shame. for more than twelve long years i have borne it in my memory, and could now reproduce it as freshly as if it were still before my eyes. of all modes of death, methinks it is the ugliest. her wet garments swathed limbs of terrible inflexibility. she was the marble image of a death-agony. her arms had grown rigid in the act of struggling, and were bent before her with clenched hands; her knees, too, were bent, and--thank god for it!--in the attitude of prayer. ah, that rigidity! it is impossible to bear the terror of it. it seemed,--i must needs impart so much of my own miserable idea,--it seemed as if her body must keep the same position in the coffin, and that her skeleton would keep it in the grave; and that when zenobia rose at the day of judgment, it would be in just the same attitude as now! one hope i had, and that too was mingled half with fear. she knelt as if in prayer. with the last, choking consciousness, her soul, bubbling out through her lips, it may be, had given itself up to the father, reconciled and penitent. but her arms! they were bent before her, as if she struggled against providence in never-ending hostility. her hands! they were clenched in immitigable defiance. away with the hideous thought. the flitting moment after zenobia sank into the dark pool--when her breath was gone, and her soul at her lips was as long, in its capacity of god's infinite forgiveness, as the lifetime of the world! foster bent over the body, and carefully examined it. "you have wounded the poor thing's breast," said he to hollingsworth, "close by her heart, too!" "ha!" cried hollingsworth with a start. and so he had, indeed, both before and after death! "see!" said foster. "that's the place where the iron struck her. it looks cruelly, but she never felt it!" he endeavored to arrange the arms of the corpse decently by its side. his utmost strength, however, scarcely sufficed to bring them down; and rising again, the next instant, they bade him defiance, exactly as before. he made another effort, with the same result. "in god's name, silas foster," cried i with bitter indignation, "let that dead woman alone!" "why, man, it's not decent!" answered he, staring at me in amazement. "i can't bear to see her looking so! well, well," added he, after a third effort, "'tis of no use, sure enough; and we must leave the women to do their best with her, after we get to the house. the sooner that's done, the better." we took two rails from a neighboring fence, and formed a bier by laying across some boards from the bottom of the boat. and thus we bore zenobia homeward. six hours before, how beautiful! at midnight, what a horror! a reflection occurs to me that will show ludicrously, i doubt not, on my page, but must come in for its sterling truth. being the woman that she was, could zenobia have foreseen all these ugly circumstances of death,--how ill it would become her, the altogether unseemly aspect which she must put on, and especially old silas foster's efforts to improve the matter,--she would no more have committed the dreadful act than have exhibited herself to a public assembly in a badly fitting garment! zenobia, i have often thought, was not quite simple in her death. she had seen pictures, i suppose, of drowned persons in lithe and graceful attitudes. and she deemed it well and decorous to die as so many village maidens have, wronged in their first love, and seeking peace in the bosom of the old familiar stream,--so familiar that they could not dread it,--where, in childhood, they used to bathe their little feet, wading mid-leg deep, unmindful of wet skirts. but in zenobia's case there was some tint of the arcadian affectation that had been visible enough in all our lives for a few months past. this, however, to my conception, takes nothing from the tragedy. for, has not the world come to an awfully sophisticated pass, when, after a certain degree of acquaintance with it, we cannot even put ourselves to death in whole-hearted simplicity? slowly, slowly, with many a dreary pause,--resting the bier often on some rock or balancing it across a mossy log, to take fresh hold,--we bore our burden onward through the moonlight, and at last laid zenobia on the floor of the old farmhouse. by and by came three or four withered women and stood whispering around the corpse, peering at it through their spectacles, holding up their skinny hands, shaking their night-capped heads, and taking counsel of one another's experience what was to be done. with those tire-women we left zenobia. xxviii. blithedale pasture blithedale, thus far in its progress, had never found the necessity of a burial-ground. there was some consultation among us in what spot zenobia might most fitly be laid. it was my own wish that she should sleep at the base of eliot's pulpit, and that on the rugged front of the rock the name by which we familiarly knew her, zenobia,--and not another word, should be deeply cut, and left for the moss and lichens to fill up at their long leisure. but hollingsworth (to whose ideas on this point great deference was due) made it his request that her grave might be dug on the gently sloping hillside, in the wide pasture, where, as we once supposed, zenobia and he had planned to build their cottage. and thus it was done, accordingly. she was buried very much as other people have been for hundreds of years gone by. in anticipation of a death, we blithedale colonists had sometimes set our fancies at work to arrange a funereal ceremony, which should be the proper symbolic expression of our spiritual faith and eternal hopes; and this we meant to substitute for those customary rites which were moulded originally out of the gothic gloom, and by long use, like an old velvet pall, have so much more than their first death-smell in them. but when the occasion came we found it the simplest and truest thing, after all, to content ourselves with the old fashion, taking away what we could, but interpolating no novelties, and particularly avoiding all frippery of flowers and cheerful emblems. the procession moved from the farmhouse. nearest the dead walked an old man in deep mourning, his face mostly concealed in a white handkerchief, and with priscilla leaning on his arm. hollingsworth and myself came next. we all stood around the narrow niche in the cold earth; all saw the coffin lowered in; all heard the rattle of the crumbly soil upon its lid,--that final sound, which mortality awakens on the utmost verge of sense, as if in the vain hope of bringing an echo from the spiritual world. i noticed a stranger,--a stranger to most of those present, though known to me,--who, after the coffin had descended, took up a handful of earth and flung it first into the grave. i had given up hollingsworth's arm, and now found myself near this man. "it was an idle thing--a foolish thing--for zenobia to do," said he. "she was the last woman in the world to whom death could have been necessary. it was too absurd! i have no patience with her." "why so?" i inquired, smothering my horror at his cold comment, in my eager curiosity to discover some tangible truth as to his relation with zenobia. "if any crisis could justify the sad wrong she offered to herself, it was surely that in which she stood. everything had failed her; prosperity in the world's sense, for her opulence was gone,--the heart's prosperity, in love. and there was a secret burden on her, the nature of which is best known to you. young as she was, she had tried life fully, had no more to hope, and something, perhaps, to fear. had providence taken her away in its own holy hand, i should have thought it the kindest dispensation that could be awarded to one so wrecked." "you mistake the matter completely," rejoined westervelt. "what, then, is your own view of it?" i asked. "her mind was active, and various in its powers," said he. "her heart had a manifold adaptation; her constitution an infinite buoyancy, which (had she possessed only a little patience to await the reflux of her troubles) would have borne her upward triumphantly for twenty years to come. her beauty would not have waned--or scarcely so, and surely not beyond the reach of art to restore it--in all that time. she had life's summer all before her, and a hundred varieties of brilliant success. what an actress zenobia might have been! it was one of her least valuable capabilities. how forcibly she might have wrought upon the world, either directly in her own person, or by her influence upon some man, or a series of men, of controlling genius! every prize that could be worth a woman's having--and many prizes which other women are too timid to desire--lay within zenobia's reach." "in all this," i observed, "there would have been nothing to satisfy her heart." "her heart!" answered westervelt contemptuously. "that troublesome organ (as she had hitherto found it) would have been kept in its due place and degree, and have had all the gratification it could fairly claim. she would soon have established a control over it. love had failed her, you say. had it never failed her before? yet she survived it, and loved again,--possibly not once alone, nor twice either. and now to drown herself for yonder dreamy philanthropist!" "who are you," i exclaimed indignantly, "that dare to speak thus of the dead? you seem to intend a eulogy, yet leave out whatever was noblest in her, and blacken while you mean to praise. i have long considered you as zenobia's evil fate. your sentiments confirm me in the idea, but leave me still ignorant as to the mode in which you have influenced her life. the connection may have been indissoluble, except by death. then, indeed,--always in the hope of god's infinite mercy,--i cannot deem it a misfortune that she sleeps in yonder grave!" "no matter what i was to her," he answered gloomily, yet without actual emotion. "she is now beyond my reach. had she lived, and hearkened to my counsels, we might have served each other well. but there zenobia lies in yonder pit, with the dull earth over her. twenty years of a brilliant lifetime thrown away for a mere woman's whim!" heaven deal with westervelt according to his nature and deserts!--that is to say, annihilate him. he was altogether earthy, worldly, made for time and its gross objects, and incapable--except by a sort of dim reflection caught from other minds--of so much as one spiritual idea. whatever stain zenobia had was caught from him; nor does it seldom happen that a character of admirable qualities loses its better life because the atmosphere that should sustain it is rendered poisonous by such breath as this man mingled with zenobia's. yet his reflections possessed their share of truth. it was a woeful thought, that a woman of zenobia's diversified capacity should have fancied herself irretrievably defeated on the broad battlefield of life, and with no refuge, save to fall on her own sword, merely because love had gone against her. it is nonsense, and a miserable wrong,--the result, like so many others, of masculine egotism,--that the success or failure of woman's existence should be made to depend wholly on the affections, and on one species of affection, while man has such a multitude of other chances, that this seems but an incident. for its own sake, if it will do no more, the world should throw open all its avenues to the passport of a woman's bleeding heart. as we stood around the grave, i looked often towards priscilla, dreading to see her wholly overcome with grief. and deeply grieved, in truth, she was. but a character so simply constituted as hers has room only for a single predominant affection. no other feeling can touch the heart's inmost core, nor do it any deadly mischief. thus, while we see that such a being responds to every breeze with tremulous vibration, and imagine that she must be shattered by the first rude blast, we find her retaining her equilibrium amid shocks that might have overthrown many a sturdier frame. so with priscilla; her one possible misfortune was hollingsworth's unkindness; and that was destined never to befall her, never yet, at least, for priscilla has not died. but hollingsworth! after all the evil that he did, are we to leave him thus, blest with the entire devotion of this one true heart, and with wealth at his disposal to execute the long-contemplated project that had led him so far astray? what retribution is there here? my mind being vexed with precisely this query, i made a journey, some years since, for the sole purpose of catching a last glimpse of hollingsworth, and judging for myself whether he were a happy man or no. i learned that he inhabited a small cottage, that his way of life was exceedingly retired, and that my only chance of encountering him or priscilla was to meet them in a secluded lane, where, in the latter part of the afternoon, they were accustomed to walk. i did meet them, accordingly. as they approached me, i observed in hollingsworth's face a depressed and melancholy look, that seemed habitual; the powerfully built man showed a self-distrustful weakness, and a childlike or childish tendency to press close, and closer still, to the side of the slender woman whose arm was within his. in priscilla's manner there was a protective and watchful quality, as if she felt herself the guardian of her companion; but, likewise, a deep, submissive, unquestioning reverence, and also a veiled happiness in her fair and quiet countenance. drawing nearer, priscilla recognized me, and gave me a kind and friendly smile, but with a slight gesture, which i could not help interpreting as an entreaty not to make myself known to hollingsworth. nevertheless, an impulse took possession of me, and compelled me to address him. "i have come, hollingsworth," said i, "to view your grand edifice for the reformation of criminals. is it finished yet?" "no, nor begun," answered he, without raising his eyes. "a very small one answers all my purposes." priscilla threw me an upbraiding glance. but i spoke again, with a bitter and revengeful emotion, as if flinging a poisoned arrow at hollingsworth's heart. "up to this moment," i inquired, "how many criminals have you reformed?" "not one," said hollingsworth, with his eyes still fixed on the ground. "ever since we parted, i have been busy with a single murderer." then the tears gushed into my eyes, and i forgave him; for i remembered the wild energy, the passionate shriek, with which zenobia had spoken those words, "tell him he has murdered me! tell him that i'll haunt him!"--and i knew what murderer he meant, and whose vindictive shadow dogged the side where priscilla was not. the moral which presents itself to my reflections, as drawn from hollingsworth's character and errors, is simply this, that, admitting what is called philanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be often useful by its energetic impulse to society at large, it is perilous to the individual whose ruling passion, in one exclusive channel, it thus becomes. it ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin, the heart, the rich juices of which god never meant should be pressed violently out and distilled into alcoholic liquor by an unnatural process, but should render life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent, and insensibly influence other hearts and other lives to the same blessed end. i see in hollingsworth an exemplification of the most awful truth in bunyan's book of such, from the very gate of heaven there is a by-way to the pit! but, all this while, we have been standing by zenobia's grave. i have never since beheld it, but make no question that the grass grew all the better, on that little parallelogram of pasture land, for the decay of the beautiful woman who slept beneath. how nature seems to love us! and how readily, nevertheless, without a sigh or a complaint, she converts us to a meaner purpose, when her highest one--that of a conscious intellectual life and sensibility has been untimely balked! while zenobia lived, nature was proud of her, and directed all eyes upon that radiant presence, as her fairest handiwork. zenobia perished. will not nature shed a tear? ah, no!--she adopts the calamity at once into her system, and is just as well pleased, for aught we can see, with the tuft of ranker vegetation that grew out of zenobia's heart, as with all the beauty which has bequeathed us no earthly representative except in this crop of weeds. it is because the spirit is inestimable that the lifeless body is so little valued. xxix. miles coverdale's confession it remains only to say a few words about myself. not improbably, the reader might be willing to spare me the trouble; for i have made but a poor and dim figure in my own narrative, establishing no separate interest, and suffering my colorless life to take its hue from other lives. but one still retains some little consideration for one's self; so i keep these last two or three pages for my individual and sole behoof. but what, after all, have i to tell? nothing, nothing, nothing! i left blithedale within the week after zenobia's death, and went back thither no more. the whole soil of our farm, for a long time afterwards, seemed but the sodded earth over her grave. i could not toil there, nor live upon its products. often, however, in these years that are darkening around me, i remember our beautiful scheme of a noble and unselfish life; and how fair, in that first summer, appeared the prospect that it might endure for generations, and be perfected, as the ages rolled away, into the system of a people and a world! were my former associates now there,--were there only three or four of those true-hearted men still laboring in the sun,--i sometimes fancy that i should direct my world-weary footsteps thitherward, and entreat them to receive me, for old friendship's sake. more and more i feel that we had struck upon what ought to be a truth. posterity may dig it up, and profit by it. the experiment, so far as its original projectors were concerned, proved, long ago, a failure; first lapsing into fourierism, and dying, as it well deserved, for this infidelity to its own higher spirit. where once we toiled with our whole hopeful hearts, the town paupers, aged, nerveless, and disconsolate, creep sluggishly afield. alas, what faith is requisite to bear up against such results of generous effort! my subsequent life has passed,--i was going to say happily, but, at all events, tolerably enough. i am now at middle age, well, well, a step or two beyond the midmost point, and i care not a fig who knows it!--a bachelor, with no very decided purpose of ever being otherwise. i have been twice to europe, and spent a year or two rather agreeably at each visit. being well to do in the world, and having nobody but myself to care for, i live very much at my ease, and fare sumptuously every day. as for poetry, i have given it up, notwithstanding that dr. griswold--as the reader, of course, knows--has placed me at a fair elevation among our minor minstrelsy, on the strength of my pretty little volume, published ten years ago. as regards human progress (in spite of my irrepressible yearnings over the blithedale reminiscences), let them believe in it who can, and aid in it who choose. if i could earnestly do either, it might be all the better for my comfort. as hollingsworth once told me, i lack a purpose. how strange! he was ruined, morally, by an overplus of the very same ingredient, the want of which, i occasionally suspect, has rendered my own life all an emptiness. i by no means wish to die. yet, were there any cause, in this whole chaos of human struggle, worth a sane man's dying for, and which my death would benefit, then--provided, however, the effort did not involve an unreasonable amount of trouble--methinks i might be bold to offer up my life. if kossuth, for example, would pitch the battlefield of hungarian rights within an easy ride of my abode, and choose a mild, sunny morning, after breakfast, for the conflict, miles coverdale would gladly be his man, for one brave rush upon the levelled bayonets. further than that, i should be loath to pledge myself. i exaggerate my own defects. the reader must not take my own word for it, nor believe me altogether changed from the young man who once hoped strenuously, and struggled not so much amiss. frostier heads than mine have gained honor in the world; frostier hearts have imbibed new warmth, and been newly happy. life, however, it must be owned, has come to rather an idle pass with me. would my friends like to know what brought it thither? there is one secret,--i have concealed it all along, and never meant to let the least whisper of it escape,--one foolish little secret, which possibly may have had something to do with these inactive years of meridian manhood, with my bachelorship, with the unsatisfied retrospect that i fling back on life, and my listless glance towards the future. shall i reveal it? it is an absurd thing for a man in his afternoon,--a man of the world, moreover, with these three white hairs in his brown mustache and that deepening track of a crow's-foot on each temple,--an absurd thing ever to have happened, and quite the absurdest for an old bachelor, like me, to talk about. but it rises to my throat; so let it come. i perceive, moreover, that the confession, brief as it shall be, will throw a gleam of light over my behavior throughout the foregoing incidents, and is, indeed, essential to the full understanding of my story. the reader, therefore, since i have disclosed so much, is entitled to this one word more. as i write it, he will charitably suppose me to blush, and turn away my face: i--i myself--was in love--with--priscilla! mosses from an old manse and other stories by nathaniel hawthorne contents the birthmark young goodman brown rappaccini's daughter mrs. bullfrog the celestial railroad the procession of life feathertop: a moralized legend egotism; or, the bosom serpent drowne's wooden image roger malvin's burial the artist of the beautiful from mosses from an old manse the birthmark in the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. he had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. in those days when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. the higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. we know not whether aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over nature. he had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. his love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength of the latter to his own. such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. one day, very soon after their marriage, aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke. "georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?" "no, indeed," said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply. "to tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm that i was simple enough to imagine it might be so." "ah, upon another face perhaps it might," replied her husband; "but never on yours. no, dearest georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection." "shocks you, my husband!" cried georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. "then why did you take me from my mother's side? you cannot love what shocks you!" to explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. in the usual state of her complexion--a healthy though delicate bloom--the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. when she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. but if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. it must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the beholders. some fastidious persons--but they were exclusively of her own sex--affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of georgiana's beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous. but it would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the eve of powers to a monster. masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw. after his marriage,--for he thought little or nothing of the matter before,--aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself. had she been less beautiful,--if envy's self could have found aught else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. it was the fatal flaw of humanity which nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. the crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. in this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, aylmer's sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight. at all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, reverted to this one disastrous topic. trifling as it at first appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. with the morning twilight aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped. georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. it needed but a glance with the peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on the whitest marble. late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily took up the subject. "do you remember, my dear aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, "have you any recollection of a dream last night about this odious hand?" "none! none whatever!" replied aylmer, starting; but then he added, in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of his emotion, "i might well dream of it; for before i fell asleep it had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy." "and you did dream of it?" continued georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. "a terrible dream! i wonder that you can forget it. is it possible to forget this one expression?--'it is in her heart now; we must have it out!' reflect, my husband; for by all means i would have you recall that dream." the mind is in a sad state when sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. aylmer now remembered his dream. he had fancied himself with his servant aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away. when the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, aylmer sat in his wife's presence with a guilty feeling. truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments. until now he had not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace. "aylmer," resumed georgiana, solemnly, "i know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself. again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little hand which was laid upon me before i came into the world?" "dearest georgiana, i have spent much thought upon the subject," hastily interrupted aylmer. "i am convinced of the perfect practicability of its removal." "if there be the remotest possibility of it," continued georgiana, "let the attempt be made at whatever risk. danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust,--life is a burden which i would fling down with joy. either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life! you have deep science. all the world bears witness of it. you have achieved great wonders. cannot you remove this little, little mark, which i cover with the tips of two small fingers? is this beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?" "noblest, dearest, tenderest wife," cried aylmer, rapturously, "doubt not my power. i have already given this matter the deepest thought--thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect than yourself. georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of science. i feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when i shall have corrected what nature left imperfect in her fairest work! even pygmalion, when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be." "it is resolved, then," said georgiana, faintly smiling. "and, aylmer, spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my heart at last." her husband tenderly kissed her cheek--her right cheek--not that which bore the impress of the crimson hand. the next day aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its success. they were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments occupied by aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of nature that had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in europe. seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the secrets of the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. the latter pursuit, however, aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth--against which all seekers sooner or later stumble--that our great creative mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. she permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. now, however, aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the treatment of georgiana. as he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, georgiana was cold and tremulous. aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a strong convulsive shudder. his wife fainted. "aminadab! aminadab!" shouted aylmer, stamping violently on the floor. forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace. this personage had been aylmer's underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the details of his master's experiments. with his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical nature; while aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element. "throw open the door of the boudoir, aminadab," said aylmer, "and burn a pastil." "yes, master," answered aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form of georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, "if she were my wife, i'd never part with that birthmark." when georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled her from her deathlike faintness. the scene around her looked like enchantment. aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman. the walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. for aught georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. and aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled radiance. he now knelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude. "where am i? ah, i remember," said georgiana, faintly; and she placed her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband's eyes. "fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "do not shrink from me! believe me, georgiana, i even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be such a rapture to remove it." "oh, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "pray do not look at it again. i never can forget that convulsive shudder." in order to soothe georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from the burden of actual things, aylmer now put in practice some of the light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its profounder lore. airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and danced before her, imprinting their momentary footsteps on beams of light. though she had some indistinct idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the spiritual world. then again, when she felt a wish to look forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. the scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching, yet indescribable difference which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the original. when wearied of this, aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of earth. she did so, with little interest at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant shooting upward from the soil. then came the slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely flower. "it is magical!" cried georgiana. "i dare not touch it." "nay, pluck it," answered aylmer,--"pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume while you may. the flower will wither in a few moments and leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself." but georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of fire. "there was too powerful a stimulus," said aylmer, thoughtfully. to make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. it was to be effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal. georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been. aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive acid. soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. in the intervals of study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of the resources of his art. he gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and base. aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover this long-sought medium; "but," he added, "a philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it." not less singular were his opinions in regard to the elixir vitae. he more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause to curse. "aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked georgiana, looking at him with amazement and fear. "it is terrible to possess such power, or even to dream of possessing it." "oh, do not tremble, my love," said her husband. "i would not wrong either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our lives; but i would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the skill requisite to remove this little hand." at the mention of the birthmark, georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a redhot iron had touched her cheek. again aylmer applied himself to his labors. she could hear his voice in the distant furnace room giving directions to aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt or growl of a brute than human speech. after hours of absence, aylmer reappeared and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. among the former he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the breezes that blow across a kingdom. they were of inestimable value, the contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and invigorating delight. "and what is this?" asked georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe containing a gold-colored liquid. "it is so beautiful to the eye that i could imagine it the elixir of life." "in one sense it is," replied aylmer; "or, rather, the elixir of immortality. it is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in this world. by its aid i could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might point your finger. the strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the midst of a breath. no king on his guarded throne could keep his life if i, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions justified me in depriving him of it." "why do you keep such a terrific drug?" inquired georgiana in horror. "do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its virtuous potency is yet greater than its harmful one. but see! here is a powerful cosmetic. with a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. a stronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty a pale ghost." "is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" asked georgiana, anxiously. "oh, no," hastily replied her husband; "this is merely superficial. your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper." in his interviews with georgiana, aylmer generally made minute inquiries as to her sensations and whether the confinement of the rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. these questions had such a particular drift that georgiana began to conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her food. she fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her system--a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her cheek. not even aylmer now hated it so much as she. to dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, georgiana turned over the volumes of his scientific library. in many dark old tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. they were the works of philosophers of the middle ages, such as albertus magnus, cornelius agrippa, paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the prophetic brazen head. all these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired from the investigation of nature a power above nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual world. hardly less curious and imaginative were the early volumes of the transactions of the royal society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were continually recording wonders or proposing methods whereby wonders might be wrought. but to georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was attributable. the book, in truth, was both the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and laborious life. he handled physical details as if there were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration towards the infinite. in his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. georgiana, as she read, reverenced aylmer and loved him more profoundly than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than heretofore. much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. his brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. the volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. it was the sad confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part. perhaps every man of genius in whatever sphere might recognize the image of his own experience in aylmer's journal. so deeply did these reflections affect georgiana that she laid her face upon the open volume and burst into tears. in this situation she was found by her husband. "it is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a smile, though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "georgiana, there are pages in that volume which i can scarcely glance over and keep my senses. take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you." "it has made me worship you more than ever," said she. "ah, wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you will. i shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. but come, i have sought you for the luxury of your voice. sing to me, dearest." so she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit. he then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and that the result was already certain. scarcely had he departed when georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. she had forgotten to inform aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had begun to excite her attention. it was a sensation in the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her system. hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time into the laboratory. the first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. there was a distilling apparatus in full operation. around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research. an electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. the atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. the severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. but what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of aylmer himself. he was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. how different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for georgiana's encouragement! "carefully now, aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, thou man of clay!" muttered aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. "now, if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over." "ho! ho!" mumbled aminadab. "look, master! look!" aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than ever, on beholding georgiana. he rushed towards her and seized her arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it. "why do you come hither? have you no trust in your husband?" cried he, impetuously. "would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over my labors? it is not well done. go, prying woman, go!" "nay, aylmer," said georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain. you mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch the development of this experiment. think not so unworthily of me, my husband. tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that i shall shrink; for my share in it is far less than your own." "no, no, georgiana!" said aylmer, impatiently; "it must not be." "i submit," replied she calmly. "and, aylmer, i shall quaff whatever draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand." "my noble wife," said aylmer, deeply moved, "i knew not the height and depth of your nature until now. nothing shall be concealed. know, then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength of which i had no previous conception. i have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except to change your entire physical system. only one thing remains to be tried. if that fail us we are ruined." "why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she. "because, georgiana," said aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger." "danger? there is but one danger--that this horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!" cried georgiana. "remove it, remove it, whatever be the cost, or we shall both go mad!" "heaven knows your words are too true," said aylmer, sadly. "and now, dearest, return to your boudoir. in a little while all will be tested." he conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. after his departure georgiana became rapt in musings. she considered the character of aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love--so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. she felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before. the sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. he bore a crystal goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be the draught of immortality. aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the consequence of a highly-wrought state of mind and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt. "the concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer to georgiana's look. "unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail." "save on your account, my dearest aylmer," observed his wife, "i might wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode. life is but a sad possession to those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which i stand. were i weaker and blinder it might be happiness. were i stronger, it might be endured hopefully. but, being what i find myself, methinks i am of all mortals the most fit to die." "you are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband "but why do we speak of dying? the draught cannot fail. behold its effect upon this plant." on the window seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. aylmer poured a small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. in a little time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure. "there needed no proof," said georgiana, quietly. "give me the goblet i joyfully stake all upon your word." "drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed aylmer, with fervid admiration. "there is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. thy sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect." she quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand. "it is grateful," said she with a placid smile. "methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains i know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. it allays a feverish thirst that had parched me for many days. now, dearest, let me sleep. my earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the heart of a rose at sunset." she spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering syllables. scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in slumber. aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man the whole value of whose existence was involved in the process now to be tested. mingled with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. not the minutest symptom escaped him. a heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,--such were the details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume, but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last. while thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and not without a shudder. yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse he pressed it with his lips. his spirit recoiled, however, in the very act, and georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured as if in remonstrance. again aylmer resumed his watch. nor was it without avail. the crimson hand, which at first had been strongly visible upon the marble paleness of georgiana's cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. she remained not less pale than ever; but the birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of its former distinctness. its presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still. watch the stain of the rainbow fading out the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. "by heaven! it is well-nigh gone!" said aylmer to himself, in almost irrepressible ecstasy. "i can scarcely trace it now. success! success! and now it is like the faintest rose color. the lightest flush of blood across her cheek would overcome it. but she is so pale!" he drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of natural day to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. at the same time he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant aminadab's expression of delight. "ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy, "you have served me well! matter and spirit--earth and heaven--have both done their part in this! laugh, thing of the senses! you have earned the right to laugh." these exclamations broke georgiana's sleep. she slowly unclosed her eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that purpose. a faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their happiness. but then her eyes sought aylmer's face with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for. "my poor aylmer!" murmured she. "poor? nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "my peerless bride, it is successful! you are perfect!" "my poor aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, "you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. aylmer, dearest aylmer, i am dying!" alas! it was too true! the fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. as the last crimson tint of the birthmark--that sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands the completeness of a higher state. yet, had alymer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial. the momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present. young goodman brown young goodman brown came forth at sunset into the street at salem village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. and faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to goodman brown. "dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. a lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she's afeard of herself sometimes. pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year." "my love and my faith," replied young goodman brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must i tarry away from thee. my journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise. what, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?" "then god bless you!" said faith, with the pink ribbons; "and may you find all well when you come back." "amen!" cried goodman brown. "say thy prayers, dear faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee." so they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons. "poor little faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "what a wretch am i to leave her on such an errand! she talks of dreams, too. methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. but no, no; 't would kill her to think it. well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night i'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven." with this excellent resolve for the future, goodman brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. he had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. it was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude. "there may be a devilish indian behind every tree," said goodman brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he added, "what if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" his head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. he arose at goodman brown's approach and walked onward side by side with him. "you are late, goodman brown," said he. "the clock of the old south was striking as i came through boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone." "faith kept me back a while," replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not wholly unexpected. it was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it where these two were journeying. as nearly as could be discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as goodman brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features. still they might have been taken for father and son. and yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and who would not have felt abashed at the governor's dinner table or in king william's court, were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. but the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. this, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light. "come, goodman brown," cried his fellow-traveller, "this is a dull pace for the beginning of a journey. take my staff, if you are so soon weary." "friend," said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, "having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence i came. i have scruples touching the matter thou wot'st of." "sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. "let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if i convince thee not thou shalt turn back. we are but a little way in the forest yet." "too far! too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk. "my father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. we have been a race of honest men and good christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall i be the first of the name of brown that ever took this path and kept--" "such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, interpreting his pause. "well said, goodman brown! i have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the puritans; and that's no trifle to say. i helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the quaker woman so smartly through the streets of salem; and it was i that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an indian village, in king philip's war. they were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. i would fain be friends with you for their sake." "if it be as thou sayest," replied goodman brown, "i marvel they never spoke of these matters; or, verily, i marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from new england. we are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness." "wickedness or not," said the traveller with the twisted staff, "i have a very general acquaintance here in new england. the deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers towns make me their chairman; and a majority of the great and general court are firm supporters of my interest. the governor and i, too--but these are state secrets." "can this be so?" cried goodman brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion. "howbeit, i have nothing to do with the governor and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like me. but, were i to go on with thee, how should i meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at salem village? oh, his voice would make me tremble both sabbath day and lecture day." thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy. "ha! ha! ha!" shouted he again and again; then composing himself, "well, go on, goodman brown, go on; but, prithee, don't kill me with laughing." "well, then, to end the matter at once," said goodman brown, considerably nettled, "there is my wife, faith. it would break her dear little heart; and i'd rather break my own." "nay, if that be the case," answered the other, "e'en go thy ways, goodman brown. i would not for twenty old women like the one hobbling before us that faith should come to any harm." as he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom goodman brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and deacon gookin. "a marvel, truly, that goody cloyse should be so far in the wilderness at nightfall," said he. "but with your leave, friend, i shall take a cut through the woods until we have left this christian woman behind. being a stranger to you, she might ask whom i was consorting with and whither i was going." "be it so," said his fellow-traveller. "betake you to the woods, and let me keep the path." accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had come within a staff's length of the old dame. she, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words--a prayer, doubtless--as she went. the traveller put forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail. "the devil!" screamed the pious old lady. "then goody cloyse knows her old friend?" observed the traveller, confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick. "ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?" cried the good dame. "yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, goodman brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. but--would your worship believe it?--my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as i suspect, by that unhanged witch, goody cory, and that, too, when i was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf's bane." "mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe," said the shape of old goodman brown. "ah, your worship knows the recipe," cried the old lady, cackling aloud. "so, as i was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, i made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night. but now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling." "that can hardly be," answered her friend. "i may not spare you my arm, goody cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will." so saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the egyptian magi. of this fact, however, goodman brown could not take cognizance. he had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither goody cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened. "that old woman taught me my catechism," said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment. they continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his auditor than to be suggested by himself. as they went, he plucked a branch of maple to serve for a walking stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. the moment his fingers touched them they became strangely withered and dried up as with a week's sunshine. thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, goodman brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any farther. "friend," said he, stubbornly, "my mind is made up. not another step will i budge on this errand. what if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil when i thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason why i should quit my dear faith and go after her?" "you will think better of this by and by," said his acquaintance, composedly. "sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along." without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. the young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old deacon gookin. and what calm sleep would be his that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in the arms of faith! amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, goodman brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned from it. on came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. these mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man's hiding-place; but, owing doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. though their figures brushed the small boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky athwart which they must have passed. goodman brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow. it vexed him the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and deacon gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. while yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch. "of the two, reverend sir," said the voice like the deacon's, "i had rather miss an ordination dinner than to-night's meeting. they tell me that some of our community are to be here from falmouth and beyond, and others from connecticut and rhode island, besides several of the indian powwows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion." "mighty well, deacon gookin!" replied the solemn old tones of the minister. "spur up, or we shall be late. nothing can be done, you know, until i get on the ground." the hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered or solitary christian prayed. whither, then, could these holy men be journeying so deep into the heathen wilderness? young goodman brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. he looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. yet there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it. "with heaven above and faith below, i will yet stand firm against the devil!" cried goodman brown. while he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. the blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. once the listener fancied that he could distinguish the accents of towns-people of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. the next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a wind. then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine at salem village, but never until now from a cloud of night there was one voice of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward. "faith!" shouted goodman brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, "faith! faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness. the cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. there was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above goodman brown. but something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. the young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon. "my faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied moment. "there is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. come, devil; for to thee is this world given." and, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did goodman brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. the road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. the whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds--the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all nature were laughing him to scorn. but he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors. "ha! ha! ha!" roared goodman brown when the wind laughed at him. "let us hear which will laugh loudest. think not to frighten me with your deviltry. come witch, come wizard, come indian powwow, come devil himself, and here comes goodman brown. you may as well fear him as he fear you." in truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of goodman brown. on he flew among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him. the fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man. thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. he paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance with the weight of many voices. he knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. the verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony together. goodman brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his own ear by its unison with the cry of the desert. in the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glared full upon his eyes. at one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. the mass of foliage that had overgrown the summit of the rock was all on fire, blazing high into the night and fitfully illuminating the whole field. each pendent twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. as the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once. "a grave and dark-clad company," quoth goodman brown. in truth they were such. among them, quivering to and fro between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council board of the province, and others which, sabbath after sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. some affirm that the lady of the governor was there. at least there were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. either the sudden gleams of light flashing over the obscure field bedazzled goodman brown, or he recognized a score of the church members of salem village famous for their especial sanctity. good old deacon gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. but, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. it was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. scattered also among their pale-faced enemies were the indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to english witchcraft. "but where is faith?" thought goodman brown; and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled. another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. verse after verse was sung; and still the chorus of the desert swelled between like the deepest tone of a mighty organ; and with the final peal of that dreadful anthem there came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted wilderness were mingling and according with the voice of guilty man in homage to the prince of all. the four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths above the impious assembly. at the same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forth and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. with reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the new england churches. "bring forth the converts!" cried a voice that echoed through the field and rolled into the forest. at the word, goodman brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. he could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. was it his mother? but he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old deacon gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led between goody cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and martha carrier, who had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. a rampant hag was she. and there stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire. "welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communion of your race. ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny. my children, look behind you!" they turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage. "there," resumed the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspirations heavenward. yet here are they all in my worshipping assembly. this night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager for widows' weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to inherit their fathers' wealth; and how fair damsels--blush not, sweet ones--have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole guest to an infant's funeral. by the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places--whether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest--where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. far more than this. it shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power--than my power at its utmost--can make manifest in deeds. and now, my children, look upon each other." they did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the wretched man beheld his faith, and the wife her husband, trembling before that unhallowed altar. "lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. now are ye undeceived. evil is the nature of mankind. evil must be your only happiness. welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race." "welcome," repeated the fiend worshippers, in one cry of despair and triumph. and there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating on the verge of wickedness in this dark world. a basin was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? herein did the shape of evil dip his hand and prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they could now be of their own. the husband cast one look at his pale wife, and faith at him. what polluted wretches would the next glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed and what they saw! "faith! faith!" cried the husband, "look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one." whether faith obeyed he knew not. hardly had he spoken when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind which died heavily away through the forest. he staggered against the rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew. the next morning young goodman brown came slowly into the street of salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. the good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on goodman brown. he shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. old deacon gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "what god doth the wizard pray to?" quoth goodman brown. goody cloyse, that excellent old christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. goodman brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself. turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him that she skipped along the street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. but goodman brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting. had goodman brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting? be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young goodman brown. a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. on the sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. when the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did goodman brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. often, waking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. and when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom. rappaccini's daughter [from the writings of aubepine.] we do not remember to have seen any translated specimens of the productions of m. de l'aubepine--a fact the less to be wondered at, as his very name is unknown to many of his own countrymen as well as to the student of foreign literature. as a writer, he seems to occupy an unfortunate position between the transcendentalists (who, under one name or another, have their share in all the current literature of the world) and the great body of pen-and-ink men who address the intellect and sympathies of the multitude. if not too refined, at all events too remote, too shadowy, and unsubstantial in his modes of development to suit the taste of the latter class, and yet too popular to satisfy the spiritual or metaphysical requisitions of the former, he must necessarily find himself without an audience, except here and there an individual or possibly an isolated clique. his writings, to do them justice, are not altogether destitute of fancy and originality; they might have won him greater reputation but for an inveterate love of allegory, which is apt to invest his plots and characters with the aspect of scenery and people in the clouds, and to steal away the human warmth out of his conceptions. his fictions are sometimes historical, sometimes of the present day, and sometimes, so far as can be discovered, have little or no reference either to time or space. in any case, he generally contents himself with a very slight embroidery of outward manners,--the faintest possible counterfeit of real life,--and endeavors to create an interest by some less obvious peculiarity of the subject. occasionally a breath of nature, a raindrop of pathos and tenderness, or a gleam of humor, will find its way into the midst of his fantastic imagery, and make us feel as if, after all, we were yet within the limits of our native earth. we will only add to this very cursory notice that m. de l'aubepine's productions, if the reader chance to take them in precisely the proper point of view, may amuse a leisure hour as well as those of a brighter man; if otherwise, they can hardly fail to look excessively like nonsense. our author is voluminous; he continues to write and publish with as much praiseworthy and indefatigable prolixity as if his efforts were crowned with the brilliant success that so justly attends those of eugene sue. his first appearance was by a collection of stories in a long series of volumes entitled "contes deux fois racontees." the titles of some of his more recent works (we quote from memory) are as follows: "le voyage celeste a chemin de fer," tom., ; "le nouveau pere adam et la nouvelle mere eve," tom., ; "roderic; ou le serpent a l'estomac," tom., ; "le culte du feu," a folio volume of ponderous research into the religion and ritual of the old persian ghebers, published in ; "la soiree du chateau en espagne," tom., vo, ; and "l'artiste du beau; ou le papillon mecanique," tom., to, . our somewhat wearisome perusal of this startling catalogue of volumes has left behind it a certain personal affection and sympathy, though by no means admiration, for m. de l'aubepine; and we would fain do the little in our power towards introducing him favorably to the american public. the ensuing tale is a translation of his "beatrice; ou la belle empoisonneuse," recently published in "la revue anti-aristocratique." this journal, edited by the comte de bearhaven, has for some years past led the defence of liberal principles and popular rights with a faithfulness and ability worthy of all praise. a young man, named giovanni guasconti, came, very long ago, from the more southern region of italy, to pursue his studies at the university of padua. giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice which looked not unworthy to have been the palace of a paduan noble, and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings of a family long since extinct. the young stranger, who was not unstudied in the great poem of his country, recollected that one of the ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, had been pictured by dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his inferno. these reminiscences and associations, together with the tendency to heartbreak natural to a young man for the first time out of his native sphere, caused giovanni to sigh heavily as he looked around the desolate and ill-furnished apartment. "holy virgin, signor!" cried old dame lisabetta, who, won by the youth's remarkable beauty of person, was kindly endeavoring to give the chamber a habitable air, "what a sigh was that to come out of a young man's heart! do you find this old mansion gloomy? for the love of heaven, then, put your head out of the window, and you will see as bright sunshine as you have left in naples." guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not quite agree with her that the paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that of southern italy. such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden beneath the window and expended its fostering influences on a variety of plants, which seemed to have been cultivated with exceeding care. "does this garden belong to the house?" asked giovanni. "heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs than any that grow there now," answered old lisabetta. "no; that garden is cultivated by the own hands of signor giacomo rappaccini, the famous doctor, who, i warrant him, has been heard of as far as naples. it is said that he distils these plants into medicines that are as potent as a charm. oftentimes you may see the signor doctor at work, and perchance the signora, his daughter, too, gathering the strange flowers that grow in the garden." the old woman had now done what she could for the aspect of the chamber; and, commending the young man to the protection of the saints, took her departure. giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down into the garden beneath his window. from its appearance, he judged it to be one of those botanic gardens which were of earlier date in padua than elsewhere in italy or in the world. or, not improbably, it might once have been the pleasure-place of an opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in the centre, sculptured with rare art, but so wofully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original design from the chaos of remaining fragments. the water, however, continued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever. a little gurgling sound ascended to the young man's window, and made him feel as if the fountain were an immortal spirit that sung its song unceasingly and without heeding the vicissitudes around it, while one century imbodied it in marble and another scattered the perishable garniture on the soil. all about the pool into which the water subsided grew various plants, that seemed to require a plentiful supply of moisture for the nourishment of gigantic leaves, and in some instances, flowers gorgeously magnificent. there was one shrub in particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and richness of a gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough to illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine. every portion of the soil was peopled with plants and herbs, which, if less beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous care, as if all had their individual virtues, known to the scientific mind that fostered them. some were placed in urns, rich with old carving, and others in common garden pots; some crept serpent-like along the ground or climbed on high, using whatever means of ascent was offered them. one plant had wreathed itself round a statue of vertumnus, which was thus quite veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged that it might have served a sculptor for a study. while giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a screen of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in the garden. his figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself to be that of no common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly-looking man, dressed in a scholar's garb of black. he was beyond the middle term of life, with gray hair, a thin, gray beard, and a face singularly marked with intellect and cultivation, but which could never, even in his more youthful days, have expressed much warmth of heart. nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific gardener examined every shrub which grew in his path: it seemed as if he was looking into their inmost nature, making observations in regard to their creative essence, and discovering why one leaf grew in this shape and another in that, and wherefore such and such flowers differed among themselves in hue and perfume. nevertheless, in spite of this deep intelligence on his part, there was no approach to intimacy between himself and these vegetable existences. on the contrary, he avoided their actual touch or the direct inhaling of their odors with a caution that impressed giovanni most disagreeably; for the man's demeanor was that of one walking among malignant influences, such as savage beasts, or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should he allow them one moment of license, would wreak upon him some terrible fatality. it was strangely frightful to the young man's imagination to see this air of insecurity in a person cultivating a garden, that most simple and innocent of human toils, and which had been alike the joy and labor of the unfallen parents of the race. was this garden, then, the eden of the present world? and this man, with such a perception of harm in what his own hands caused to grow,--was he the adam? the distrustful gardener, while plucking away the dead leaves or pruning the too luxuriant growth of the shrubs, defended his hands with a pair of thick gloves. nor were these his only armor. when, in his walk through the garden, he came to the magnificent plant that hung its purple gems beside the marble fountain, he placed a kind of mask over his mouth and nostrils, as if all this beauty did but conceal a deadlier malice; but, finding his task still too dangerous, he drew back, removed the mask, and called loudly, but in the infirm voice of a person affected with inward disease, "beatrice! beatrice!" "here am i, my father. what would you?" cried a rich and youthful voice from the window of the opposite house--a voice as rich as a tropical sunset, and which made giovanni, though he knew not why, think of deep hues of purple or crimson and of perfumes heavily delectable. "are you in the garden?" "yes, beatrice," answered the gardener, "and i need your help." soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure of a young girl, arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too much. she looked redundant with life, health, and energy; all of which attributes were bound down and compressed, as it were and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin zone. yet giovanni's fancy must have grown morbid while he looked down into the garden; for the impression which the fair stranger made upon him was as if here were another flower, the human sister of those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they, more beautiful than the richest of them, but still to be touched only with a glove, nor to be approached without a mask. as beatrice came down the garden path, it was observable that she handled and inhaled the odor of several of the plants which her father had most sedulously avoided. "here, beatrice," said the latter, "see how many needful offices require to be done to our chief treasure. yet, shattered as i am, my life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely as circumstances demand. henceforth, i fear, this plant must be consigned to your sole charge." "and gladly will i undertake it," cried again the rich tones of the young lady, as she bent towards the magnificent plant and opened her arms as if to embrace it. "yes, my sister, my splendour, it shall be beatrice's task to nurse and serve thee; and thou shalt reward her with thy kisses and perfumed breath, which to her is as the breath of life." then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so strikingly expressed in her words, she busied herself with such attentions as the plant seemed to require; and giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed his eyes and almost doubted whether it were a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing the duties of affection to another. the scene soon terminated. whether dr. rappaccini had finished his labors in the garden, or that his watchful eye had caught the stranger's face, he now took his daughter's arm and retired. night was already closing in; oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed from the plants and steal upward past the open window; and giovanni, closing the lattice, went to his couch and dreamed of a rich flower and beautiful girl. flower and maiden were different, and yet the same, and fraught with some strange peril in either shape. but there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to rectify whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred during the sun's decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. giovanni's first movement, on starting from sleep, was to throw open the window and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. he was surprised and a little ashamed to find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun which gilded the dew-drops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of ordinary experience. the young man rejoiced that, in the heart of the barren city, he had the privilege of overlooking this spot of lovely and luxuriant vegetation. it would serve, he said to himself, as a symbolic language to keep him in communion with nature. neither the sickly and thoughtworn dr. giacomo rappaccini, it is true, nor his brilliant daughter, were now visible; so that giovanni could not determine how much of the singularity which he attributed to both was due to their own qualities and how much to his wonder-working fancy; but he was inclined to take a most rational view of the whole matter. in the course of the day he paid his respects to signor pietro baglioni, professor of medicine in the university, a physician of eminent repute to whom giovanni had brought a letter of introduction. the professor was an elderly personage, apparently of genial nature, and habits that might almost be called jovial. he kept the young man to dinner, and made himself very agreeable by the freedom and liveliness of his conversation, especially when warmed by a flask or two of tuscan wine. giovanni, conceiving that men of science, inhabitants of the same city, must needs be on familiar terms with one another, took an opportunity to mention the name of dr. rappaccini. but the professor did not respond with so much cordiality as he had anticipated. "ill would it become a teacher of the divine art of medicine," said professor pietro baglioni, in answer to a question of giovanni, "to withhold due and well-considered praise of a physician so eminently skilled as rappaccini; but, on the other hand, i should answer it but scantily to my conscience were i to permit a worthy youth like yourself, signor giovanni, the son of an ancient friend, to imbibe erroneous ideas respecting a man who might hereafter chance to hold your life and death in his hands. the truth is, our worshipful dr. rappaccini has as much science as any member of the faculty--with perhaps one single exception--in padua, or all italy; but there are certain grave objections to his professional character." "and what are they?" asked the young man. "has my friend giovanni any disease of body or heart, that he is so inquisitive about physicians?" said the professor, with a smile. "but as for rappaccini, it is said of him--and i, who know the man well, can answer for its truth--that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. his patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment. he would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge." "methinks he is an awful man indeed," remarked guasconti, mentally recalling the cold and purely intellectual aspect of rappaccini. "and yet, worshipful professor, is it not a noble spirit? are there many men capable of so spiritual a love of science?" "god forbid," answered the professor, somewhat testily; "at least, unless they take sounder views of the healing art than those adopted by rappaccini. it is his theory that all medicinal virtues are comprised within those substances which we term vegetable poisons. these he cultivates with his own hands, and is said even to have produced new varieties of poison, more horribly deleterious than nature, without the assistance of this learned person, would ever have plagued the world withal. that the signor doctor does less mischief than might be expected with such dangerous substances is undeniable. now and then, it must be owned, he has effected, or seemed to effect, a marvellous cure; but, to tell you my private mind, signor giovanni, he should receive little credit for such instances of success,--they being probably the work of chance,--but should be held strictly accountable for his failures, which may justly be considered his own work." the youth might have taken baglioni's opinions with many grains of allowance had he known that there was a professional warfare of long continuance between him and dr. rappaccini, in which the latter was generally thought to have gained the advantage. if the reader be inclined to judge for himself, we refer him to certain black-letter tracts on both sides, preserved in the medical department of the university of padua. "i know not, most learned professor," returned giovanni, after musing on what had been said of rappaccini's exclusive zeal for science,--"i know not how dearly this physician may love his art; but surely there is one object more dear to him. he has a daughter." "aha!" cried the professor, with a laugh. "so now our friend giovanni's secret is out. you have heard of this daughter, whom all the young men in padua are wild about, though not half a dozen have ever had the good hap to see her face. i know little of the signora beatrice save that rappaccini is said to have instructed her deeply in his science, and that, young and beautiful as fame reports her, she is already qualified to fill a professor's chair. perchance her father destines her for mine! other absurd rumors there be, not worth talking about or listening to. so now, signor giovanni, drink off your glass of lachryma." guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat heated with the wine he had quaffed, and which caused his brain to swim with strange fantasies in reference to dr. rappaccini and the beautiful beatrice. on his way, happening to pass by a florist's, he bought a fresh bouquet of flowers. ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near the window, but within the shadow thrown by the depth of the wall, so that he could look down into the garden with little risk of being discovered. all beneath his eye was a solitude. the strange plants were basking in the sunshine, and now and then nodding gently to one another, as if in acknowledgment of sympathy and kindred. in the midst, by the shattered fountain, grew the magnificent shrub, with its purple gems clustering all over it; they glowed in the air, and gleamed back again out of the depths of the pool, which thus seemed to overflow with colored radiance from the rich reflection that was steeped in it. at first, as we have said, the garden was a solitude. soon, however,--as giovanni had half hoped, half feared, would be the case,--a figure appeared beneath the antique sculptured portal, and came down between the rows of plants, inhaling their various perfumes as if she were one of those beings of old classic fable that lived upon sweet odors. on again beholding beatrice, the young man was even startled to perceive how much her beauty exceeded his recollection of it; so brilliant, so vivid, was its character, that she glowed amid the sunlight, and, as giovanni whispered to himself, positively illuminated the more shadowy intervals of the garden path. her face being now more revealed than on the former occasion, he was struck by its expression of simplicity and sweetness,--qualities that had not entered into his idea of her character, and which made him ask anew what manner of mortal she might be. nor did he fail again to observe, or imagine, an analogy between the beautiful girl and the gorgeous shrub that hung its gemlike flowers over the fountain,--a resemblance which beatrice seemed to have indulged a fantastic humor in heightening, both by the arrangement of her dress and the selection of its hues. approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate ardor, and drew its branches into an intimate embrace--so intimate that her features were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets all intermingled with the flowers. "give me thy breath, my sister," exclaimed beatrice; "for i am faint with common air. and give me this flower of thine, which i separate with gentlest fingers from the stem and place it close beside my heart." with these words the beautiful daughter of rappaccini plucked one of the richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten it in her bosom. but now, unless giovanni's draughts of wine had bewildered his senses, a singular incident occurred. a small orange-colored reptile, of the lizard or chameleon species, chanced to be creeping along the path, just at the feet of beatrice. it appeared to giovanni,--but, at the distance from which he gazed, he could scarcely have seen anything so minute,--it appeared to him, however, that a drop or two of moisture from the broken stem of the flower descended upon the lizard's head. for an instant the reptile contorted itself violently, and then lay motionless in the sunshine. beatrice observed this remarkable phenomenon and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise; nor did she therefore hesitate to arrange the fatal flower in her bosom. there it blushed, and almost glimmered with the dazzling effect of a precious stone, adding to her dress and aspect the one appropriate charm which nothing else in the world could have supplied. but giovanni, out of the shadow of his window, bent forward and shrank back, and murmured and trembled. "am i awake? have i my senses?" said he to himself. "what is this being? beautiful shall i call her, or inexpressibly terrible?" beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching closer beneath giovanni's window, so that he was compelled to thrust his head quite out of its concealment in order to gratify the intense and painful curiosity which she excited. at this moment there came a beautiful insect over the garden wall; it had, perhaps, wandered through the city, and found no flowers or verdure among those antique haunts of men until the heavy perfumes of dr. rappaccini's shrubs had lured it from afar. without alighting on the flowers, this winged brightness seemed to be attracted by beatrice, and lingered in the air and fluttered about her head. now, here it could not be but that giovanni guasconti's eyes deceived him. be that as it might, he fancied that, while beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it grew faint and fell at her feet; its bright wings shivered; it was dead--from no cause that he could discern, unless it were the atmosphere of her breath. again beatrice crossed herself and sighed heavily as she bent over the dead insect. an impulsive movement of giovanni drew her eyes to the window. there she beheld the beautiful head of the young man--rather a grecian than an italian head, with fair, regular features, and a glistening of gold among his ringlets--gazing down upon her like a being that hovered in mid air. scarcely knowing what he did, giovanni threw down the bouquet which he had hitherto held in his hand. "signora," said he, "there are pure and healthful flowers. wear them for the sake of giovanni guasconti." "thanks, signor," replied beatrice, with her rich voice, that came forth as it were like a gush of music, and with a mirthful expression half childish and half woman-like. "i accept your gift, and would fain recompense it with this precious purple flower; but if i toss it into the air it will not reach you. so signor guasconti must even content himself with my thanks." she lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then, as if inwardly ashamed at having stepped aside from her maidenly reserve to respond to a stranger's greeting, passed swiftly homeward through the garden. but few as the moments were, it seemed to giovanni, when she was on the point of vanishing beneath the sculptured portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to wither in her grasp. it was an idle thought; there could be no possibility of distinguishing a faded flower from a fresh one at so great a distance. for many days after this incident the young man avoided the window that looked into dr. rappaccini's garden, as if something ugly and monstrous would have blasted his eyesight had he been betrayed into a glance. he felt conscious of having put himself, to a certain extent, within the influence of an unintelligible power by the communication which he had opened with beatrice. the wisest course would have been, if his heart were in any real danger, to quit his lodgings and padua itself at once; the next wiser, to have accustomed himself, as far as possible, to the familiar and daylight view of beatrice--thus bringing her rigidly and systematically within the limits of ordinary experience. least of all, while avoiding her sight, ought giovanni to have remained so near this extraordinary being that the proximity and possibility even of intercourse should give a kind of substance and reality to the wild vagaries which his imagination ran riot continually in producing. guasconti had not a deep heart--or, at all events, its depths were not sounded now; but he had a quick fancy, and an ardent southern temperament, which rose every instant to a higher fever pitch. whether or no beatrice possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, the affinity with those so beautiful and deadly flowers which were indicated by what giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled a fierce and subtle poison into his system. it was not love, although her rich beauty was a madness to him; nor horror, even while he fancied her spirit to be imbued with the same baneful essence that seemed to pervade her physical frame; but a wild offspring of both love and horror that had each parent in it, and burned like one and shivered like the other. giovanni knew not what to dread; still less did he know what to hope; yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately vanquishing one another and starting up afresh to renew the contest. blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! it is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of the infernal regions. sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a rapid walk through the streets of padua or beyond its gates: his footsteps kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the walk was apt to accelerate itself to a race. one day he found himself arrested; his arm was seized by a portly personage, who had turned back on recognizing the young man and expended much breath in overtaking him. "signor giovanni! stay, my young friend!" cried he. "have you forgotten me? that might well be the case if i were as much altered as yourself." it was baglioni, whom giovanni had avoided ever since their first meeting, from a doubt that the professor's sagacity would look too deeply into his secrets. endeavoring to recover himself, he stared forth wildly from his inner world into the outer one and spoke like a man in a dream. "yes; i am giovanni guasconti. you are professor pietro baglioni. now let me pass!" "not yet, not yet, signor giovanni guasconti," said the professor, smiling, but at the same time scrutinizing the youth with an earnest glance. "what! did i grow up side by side with your father? and shall his son pass me like a stranger in these old streets of padua? stand still, signor giovanni; for we must have a word or two before we part." "speedily, then, most worshipful professor, speedily," said giovanni, with feverish impatience. "does not your worship see that i am in haste?" now, while he was speaking there came a man in black along the street, stooping and moving feebly like a person in inferior health. his face was all overspread with a most sickly and sallow hue, but yet so pervaded with an expression of piercing and active intellect that an observer might easily have overlooked the merely physical attributes and have seen only this wonderful energy. as he passed, this person exchanged a cold and distant salutation with baglioni, but fixed his eyes upon giovanni with an intentness that seemed to bring out whatever was within him worthy of notice. nevertheless, there was a peculiar quietness in the look, as if taking merely a speculative, not a human interest, in the young man. "it is dr. rappaccini!" whispered the professor when the stranger had passed. "has he ever seen your face before?" "not that i know," answered giovanni, starting at the name. "he has seen you! he must have seen you!" said baglioni, hastily. "for some purpose or other, this man of science is making a study of you. i know that look of his! it is the same that coldly illuminates his face as he bends over a bird, a mouse, or a butterfly, which, in pursuance of some experiment, he has killed by the perfume of a flower; a look as deep as nature itself, but without nature's warmth of love. signor giovanni, i will stake my life upon it, you are the subject of one of rappaccini's experiments!" "will you make a fool of me?" cried giovanni, passionately. "that, signor professor, were an untoward experiment." "patience! patience!" replied the imperturbable professor. "i tell thee, my poor giovanni, that rappaccini has a scientific interest in thee. thou hast fallen into fearful hands! and the signora beatrice,--what part does she act in this mystery?" but guasconti, finding baglioni's pertinacity intolerable, here broke away, and was gone before the professor could again seize his arm. he looked after the young man intently and shook his head. "this must not be," said baglioni to himself. "the youth is the son of my old friend, and shall not come to any harm from which the arcana of medical science can preserve him. besides, it is too insufferable an impertinence in rappaccini, thus to snatch the lad out of my own hands, as i may say, and make use of him for his infernal experiments. this daughter of his! it shall be looked to. perchance, most learned rappaccini, i may foil you where you little dream of it!" meanwhile giovanni had pursued a circuitous route, and at length found himself at the door of his lodgings. as he crossed the threshold he was met by old lisabetta, who smirked and smiled, and was evidently desirous to attract his attention; vainly, however, as the ebullition of his feelings had momentarily subsided into a cold and dull vacuity. he turned his eyes full upon the withered face that was puckering itself into a smile, but seemed to behold it not. the old dame, therefore, laid her grasp upon his cloak. "signor! signor!" whispered she, still with a smile over the whole breadth of her visage, so that it looked not unlike a grotesque carving in wood, darkened by centuries. "listen, signor! there is a private entrance into the garden!" "what do you say?" exclaimed giovanni, turning quickly about, as if an inanimate thing should start into feverish life. "a private entrance into dr. rappaccini's garden?" "hush! hush! not so loud!" whispered lisabetta, putting her hand over his mouth. "yes; into the worshipful doctor's garden, where you may see all his fine shrubbery. many a young man in padua would give gold to be admitted among those flowers." giovanni put a piece of gold into her hand. "show me the way," said he. a surmise, probably excited by his conversation with baglioni, crossed his mind, that this interposition of old lisabetta might perchance be connected with the intrigue, whatever were its nature, in which the professor seemed to suppose that dr. rappaccini was involving him. but such a suspicion, though it disturbed giovanni, was inadequate to restrain him. the instant that he was aware of the possibility of approaching beatrice, it seemed an absolute necessity of his existence to do so. it mattered not whether she were angel or demon; he was irrevocably within her sphere, and must obey the law that whirled him onward, in ever-lessening circles, towards a result which he did not attempt to foreshadow; and yet, strange to say, there came across him a sudden doubt whether this intense interest on his part were not delusory; whether it were really of so deep and positive a nature as to justify him in now thrusting himself into an incalculable position; whether it were not merely the fantasy of a young man's brain, only slightly or not at all connected with his heart. he paused, hesitated, turned half about, but again went on. his withered guide led him along several obscure passages, and finally undid a door, through which, as it was opened, there came the sight and sound of rustling leaves, with the broken sunshine glimmering among them. giovanni stepped forth, and, forcing himself through the entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its tendrils over the hidden entrance, stood beneath his own window in the open area of dr. rappaccini's garden. how often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! fate delights to thwart us thus. passion will choose his own time to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind when an appropriate adjustment of events would seem to summon his appearance. so was it now with giovanni. day after day his pulses had throbbed with feverish blood at the improbable idea of an interview with beatrice, and of standing with her, face to face, in this very garden, basking in the oriental sunshine of her beauty, and snatching from her full gaze the mystery which he deemed the riddle of his own existence. but now there was a singular and untimely equanimity within his breast. he threw a glance around the garden to discover if beatrice or her father were present, and, perceiving that he was alone, began a critical observation of the plants. the aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied him; their gorgeousness seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural. there was hardly an individual shrub which a wanderer, straying by himself through a forest, would not have been startled to find growing wild, as if an unearthly face had glared at him out of the thicket. several also would have shocked a delicate instinct by an appearance of artificialness indicating that there had been such commixture, and, as it were, adultery, of various vegetable species, that the production was no longer of god's making, but the monstrous offspring of man's depraved fancy, glowing with only an evil mockery of beauty. they were probably the result of experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in mingling plants individually lovely into a compound possessing the questionable and ominous character that distinguished the whole growth of the garden. in fine, giovanni recognized but two or three plants in the collection, and those of a kind that he well knew to be poisonous. while busy with these contemplations he heard the rustling of a silken garment, and, turning, beheld beatrice emerging from beneath the sculptured portal. giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his deportment; whether he should apologize for his intrusion into the garden, or assume that he was there with the privity at least, if not by the desire, of dr. rappaccini or his daughter; but beatrice's manner placed him at his ease, though leaving him still in doubt by what agency he had gained admittance. she came lightly along the path and met him near the broken fountain. there was surprise in her face, but brightened by a simple and kind expression of pleasure. "you are a connoisseur in flowers, signor," said beatrice, with a smile, alluding to the bouquet which he had flung her from the window. "it is no marvel, therefore, if the sight of my father's rare collection has tempted you to take a nearer view. if he were here, he could tell you many strange and interesting facts as to the nature and habits of these shrubs; for he has spent a lifetime in such studies, and this garden is his world." "and yourself, lady," observed giovanni, "if fame says true,--you likewise are deeply skilled in the virtues indicated by these rich blossoms and these spicy perfumes. would you deign to be my instructress, i should prove an apter scholar than if taught by signor rappaccini himself." "are there such idle rumors?" asked beatrice, with the music of a pleasant laugh. "do people say that i am skilled in my father's science of plants? what a jest is there! no; though i have grown up among these flowers, i know no more of them than their hues and perfume; and sometimes methinks i would fain rid myself of even that small knowledge. there are many flowers here, and those not the least brilliant, that shock and offend me when they meet my eye. but pray, signor, do not believe these stories about my science. believe nothing of me save what you see with your own eyes." "and must i believe all that i have seen with my own eyes?" asked giovanni, pointedly, while the recollection of former scenes made him shrink. "no, signora; you demand too little of me. bid me believe nothing save what comes from your own lips." it would appear that beatrice understood him. there came a deep flush to her cheek; but she looked full into giovanni's eyes, and responded to his gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike haughtiness. "i do so bid you, signor," she replied. "forget whatever you may have fancied in regard to me. if true to the outward senses, still it may be false in its essence; but the words of beatrice rappaccini's lips are true from the depths of the heart outward. those you may believe." a fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed upon giovanni's consciousness like the light of truth itself; but while she spoke there was a fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful, though evanescent, yet which the young man, from an indefinable reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. it might be the odor of the flowers. could it be beatrice's breath which thus embalmed her words with a strange richness, as if by steeping them in her heart? a faintness passed like a shadow over giovanni and flitted away; he seemed to gaze through the beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent soul, and felt no more doubt or fear. the tinge of passion that had colored beatrice's manner vanished; she became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion with the youth not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have felt conversing with a voyager from the civilized world. evidently her experience of life had been confined within the limits of that garden. she talked now about matters as simple as the daylight or summer clouds, and now asked questions in reference to the city, or giovanni's distant home, his friends, his mother, and his sisters--questions indicating such seclusion, and such lack of familiarity with modes and forms, that giovanni responded as if to an infant. her spirit gushed out before him like a fresh rill that was just catching its first glimpse of the sunlight and wondering at the reflections of earth and sky which were flung into its bosom. there came thoughts, too, from a deep source, and fantasies of a gemlike brilliancy, as if diamonds and rubies sparkled upward among the bubbles of the fountain. ever and anon there gleamed across the young man's mind a sense of wonder that he should be walking side by side with the being who had so wrought upon his imagination, whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in whom he had positively witnessed such manifestations of dreadful attributes,--that he should be conversing with beatrice like a brother, and should find her so human and so maidenlike. but such reflections were only momentary; the effect of her character was too real not to make itself familiar at once. in this free intercourse they had strayed through the garden, and now, after many turns among its avenues, were come to the shattered fountain, beside which grew the magnificent shrub, with its treasury of glowing blossoms. a fragrance was diffused from it which giovanni recognized as identical with that which he had attributed to beatrice's breath, but incomparably more powerful. as her eyes fell upon it, giovanni beheld her press her hand to her bosom as if her heart were throbbing suddenly and painfully. "for the first time in my life," murmured she, addressing the shrub, "i had forgotten thee." "i remember, signora," said giovanni, "that you once promised to reward me with one of these living gems for the bouquet which i had the happy boldness to fling to your feet. permit me now to pluck it as a memorial of this interview." he made a step towards the shrub with extended hand; but beatrice darted forward, uttering a shriek that went through his heart like a dagger. she caught his hand and drew it back with the whole force of her slender figure. giovanni felt her touch thrilling through his fibres. "touch it not!" exclaimed she, in a voice of agony. "not for thy life! it is fatal!" then, hiding her face, she fled from him and vanished beneath the sculptured portal. as giovanni followed her with his eyes, he beheld the emaciated figure and pale intelligence of dr. rappaccini, who had been watching the scene, he knew not how long, within the shadow of the entrance. no sooner was guasconti alone in his chamber than the image of beatrice came back to his passionate musings, invested with all the witchery that had been gathering around it ever since his first glimpse of her, and now likewise imbued with a tender warmth of girlish womanhood. she was human; her nature was endowed with all gentle and feminine qualities; she was worthiest to be worshipped; she was capable, surely, on her part, of the height and heroism of love. those tokens which he had hitherto considered as proofs of a frightful peculiarity in her physical and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by the subtle sophistry of passion transmitted into a golden crown of enchantment, rendering beatrice the more admirable by so much as she was the more unique. whatever had looked ugly was now beautiful; or, if incapable of such a change, it stole away and hid itself among those shapeless half ideas which throng the dim region beyond the daylight of our perfect consciousness. thus did he spend the night, nor fell asleep until the dawn had begun to awake the slumbering flowers in dr. rappaccini's garden, whither giovanni's dreams doubtless led him. up rose the sun in his due season, and, flinging his beams upon the young man's eyelids, awoke him to a sense of pain. when thoroughly aroused, he became sensible of a burning and tingling agony in his hand--in his right hand--the very hand which beatrice had grasped in her own when he was on the point of plucking one of the gemlike flowers. on the back of that hand there was now a purple print like that of four small fingers, and the likeness of a slender thumb upon his wrist. oh, how stubbornly does love,--or even that cunning semblance of love which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the heart,--how stubbornly does it hold its faith until the moment comes when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! giovanni wrapped a handkerchief about his hand and wondered what evil thing had stung him, and soon forgot his pain in a reverie of beatrice. after the first interview, a second was in the inevitable course of what we call fate. a third; a fourth; and a meeting with beatrice in the garden was no longer an incident in giovanni's daily life, but the whole space in which he might be said to live; for the anticipation and memory of that ecstatic hour made up the remainder. nor was it otherwise with the daughter of rappaccini. she watched for the youth's appearance, and flew to his side with confidence as unreserved as if they had been playmates from early infancy--as if they were such playmates still. if, by any unwonted chance, he failed to come at the appointed moment, she stood beneath the window and sent up the rich sweetness of her tones to float around him in his chamber and echo and reverberate throughout his heart: "giovanni! giovanni! why tarriest thou? come down!" and down he hastened into that eden of poisonous flowers. but, with all this intimate familiarity, there was still a reserve in beatrice's demeanor, so rigidly and invariably sustained that the idea of infringing it scarcely occurred to his imagination. by all appreciable signs, they loved; they had looked love with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love in those gushes of passion when their spirits darted forth in articulated breath like tongues of long-hidden flame; and yet there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any slightest caress such as love claims and hallows. he had never touched one of the gleaming ringlets of her hair; her garment--so marked was the physical barrier between them--had never been waved against him by a breeze. on the few occasions when giovanni had seemed tempted to overstep the limit, beatrice grew so sad, so stern, and withal wore such a look of desolate separation, shuddering at itself, that not a spoken word was requisite to repel him. at such times he was startled at the horrible suspicions that rose, monster-like, out of the caverns of his heart and stared him in the face; his love grew thin and faint as the morning mist, his doubts alone had substance. but, when beatrice's face brightened again after the momentary shadow, she was transformed at once from the mysterious, questionable being whom he had watched with so much awe and horror; she was now the beautiful and unsophisticated girl whom he felt that his spirit knew with a certainty beyond all other knowledge. a considerable time had now passed since giovanni's last meeting with baglioni. one morning, however, he was disagreeably surprised by a visit from the professor, whom he had scarcely thought of for whole weeks, and would willingly have forgotten still longer. given up as he had long been to a pervading excitement, he could tolerate no companions except upon condition of their perfect sympathy with his present state of feeling. such sympathy was not to be expected from professor baglioni. the visitor chatted carelessly for a few moments about the gossip of the city and the university, and then took up another topic. "i have been reading an old classic author lately," said he, "and met with a story that strangely interested me. possibly you may remember it. it is of an indian prince, who sent a beautiful woman as a present to alexander the great. she was as lovely as the dawn and gorgeous as the sunset; but what especially distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breath--richer than a garden of persian roses. alexander, as was natural to a youthful conqueror, fell in love at first sight with this magnificent stranger; but a certain sage physician, happening to be present, discovered a terrible secret in regard to her." "and what was that?" asked giovanni, turning his eyes downward to avoid those of the professor. "that this lovely woman," continued baglioni, with emphasis, "had been nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature was so imbued with them that she herself had become the deadliest poison in existence. poison was her element of life. with that rich perfume of her breath she blasted the very air. her love would have been poison--her embrace death. is not this a marvellous tale?" "a childish fable," answered giovanni, nervously starting from his chair. "i marvel how your worship finds time to read such nonsense among your graver studies." "by the by," said the professor, looking uneasily about him, "what singular fragrance is this in your apartment? is it the perfume of your gloves? it is faint, but delicious; and yet, after all, by no means agreeable. were i to breathe it long, methinks it would make me ill. it is like the breath of a flower; but i see no flowers in the chamber." "nor are there any," replied giovanni, who had turned pale as the professor spoke; "nor, i think, is there any fragrance except in your worship's imagination. odors, being a sort of element combined of the sensual and the spiritual, are apt to deceive us in this manner. the recollection of a perfume, the bare idea of it, may easily be mistaken for a present reality." "ay; but my sober imagination does not often play such tricks," said baglioni; "and, were i to fancy any kind of odor, it would be that of some vile apothecary drug, wherewith my fingers are likely enough to be imbued. our worshipful friend rappaccini, as i have heard, tinctures his medicaments with odors richer than those of araby. doubtless, likewise, the fair and learned signora beatrice would minister to her patients with draughts as sweet as a maiden's breath; but woe to him that sips them!" giovanni's face evinced many contending emotions. the tone in which the professor alluded to the pure and lovely daughter of rappaccini was a torture to his soul; and yet the intimation of a view of her character opposite to his own, gave instantaneous distinctness to a thousand dim suspicions, which now grinned at him like so many demons. but he strove hard to quell them and to respond to baglioni with a true lover's perfect faith. "signor professor," said he, "you were my father's friend; perchance, too, it is your purpose to act a friendly part towards his son. i would fain feel nothing towards you save respect and deference; but i pray you to observe, signor, that there is one subject on which we must not speak. you know not the signora beatrice. you cannot, therefore, estimate the wrong--the blasphemy, i may even say--that is offered to her character by a light or injurious word." "giovanni! my poor giovanni!" answered the professor, with a calm expression of pity, "i know this wretched girl far better than yourself. you shall hear the truth in respect to the poisoner rappaccini and his poisonous daughter; yes, poisonous as she is beautiful. listen; for, even should you do violence to my gray hairs, it shall not silence me. that old fable of the indian woman has become a truth by the deep and deadly science of rappaccini and in the person of the lovely beatrice." giovanni groaned and hid his face "her father," continued baglioni, "was not restrained by natural affection from offering up his child in this horrible manner as the victim of his insane zeal for science; for, let us do him justice, he is as true a man of science as ever distilled his own heart in an alembic. what, then, will be your fate? beyond a doubt you are selected as the material of some new experiment. perhaps the result is to be death; perhaps a fate more awful still. rappaccini, with what he calls the interest of science before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing." "it is a dream," muttered giovanni to himself; "surely it is a dream." "but," resumed the professor, "be of good cheer, son of my friend. it is not yet too late for the rescue. possibly we may even succeed in bringing back this miserable child within the limits of ordinary nature, from which her father's madness has estranged her. behold this little silver vase! it was wrought by the hands of the renowned benvenuto cellini, and is well worthy to be a love gift to the fairest dame in italy. but its contents are invaluable. one little sip of this antidote would have rendered the most virulent poisons of the borgias innocuous. doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of rappaccini. bestow the vase, and the precious liquid within it, on your beatrice, and hopefully await the result." baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the table and withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its effect upon the young man's mind. "we will thwart rappaccini yet," thought he, chuckling to himself, as he descended the stairs; "but, let us confess the truth of him, he is a wonderful man--a wonderful man indeed; a vile empiric, however, in his practice, and therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the good old rules of the medical profession." throughout giovanni's whole acquaintance with beatrice, he had occasionally, as we have said, been haunted by dark surmises as to her character; yet so thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a simple, natural, most affectionate, and guileless creature, that the image now held up by professor baglioni looked as strange and incredible as if it were not in accordance with his own original conception. true, there were ugly recollections connected with his first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could not quite forget the bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished amid the sunny air, by no ostensible agency save the fragrance of her breath. these incidents, however, dissolving in the pure light of her character, had no longer the efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged as mistaken fantasies, by whatever testimony of the senses they might appear to be substantiated. there is something truer and more real than what we can see with the eyes and touch with the finger. on such better evidence had giovanni founded his confidence in beatrice, though rather by the necessary force of her high attributes than by any deep and generous faith on his part. but now his spirit was incapable of sustaining itself at the height to which the early enthusiasm of passion had exalted it; he fell down, grovelling among earthly doubts, and defiled therewith the pure whiteness of beatrice's image. not that he gave her up; he did but distrust. he resolved to institute some decisive test that should satisfy him, once for all, whether there were those dreadful peculiarities in her physical nature which could not be supposed to exist without some corresponding monstrosity of soul. his eyes, gazing down afar, might have deceived him as to the lizard, the insect, and the flowers; but if he could witness, at the distance of a few paces, the sudden blight of one fresh and healthful flower in beatrice's hand, there would be room for no further question. with this idea he hastened to the florist's and purchased a bouquet that was still gemmed with the morning dew-drops. it was now the customary hour of his daily interview with beatrice. before descending into the garden, giovanni failed not to look at his figure in the mirror,--a vanity to be expected in a beautiful young man, yet, as displaying itself at that troubled and feverish moment, the token of a certain shallowness of feeling and insincerity of character. he did gaze, however, and said to himself that his features had never before possessed so rich a grace, nor his eyes such vivacity, nor his cheeks so warm a hue of superabundant life. "at least," thought he, "her poison has not yet insinuated itself into my system. i am no flower to perish in her grasp." with that thought he turned his eyes on the bouquet, which he had never once laid aside from his hand. a thrill of indefinable horror shot through his frame on perceiving that those dewy flowers were already beginning to droop; they wore the aspect of things that had been fresh and lovely yesterday. giovanni grew white as marble, and stood motionless before the mirror, staring at his own reflection there as at the likeness of something frightful. he remembered baglioni's remark about the fragrance that seemed to pervade the chamber. it must have been the poison in his breath! then he shuddered--shuddered at himself. recovering from his stupor, he began to watch with curious eye a spider that was busily at work hanging its web from the antique cornice of the apartment, crossing and recrossing the artful system of interwoven lines--as vigorous and active a spider as ever dangled from an old ceiling. giovanni bent towards the insect, and emitted a deep, long breath. the spider suddenly ceased its toil; the web vibrated with a tremor originating in the body of the small artisan. again giovanni sent forth a breath, deeper, longer, and imbued with a venomous feeling out of his heart: he knew not whether he were wicked, or only desperate. the spider made a convulsive gripe with his limbs and hung dead across the window. "accursed! accursed!" muttered giovanni, addressing himself. "hast thou grown so poisonous that this deadly insect perishes by thy breath?" at that moment a rich, sweet voice came floating up from the garden. "giovanni! giovanni! it is past the hour! why tarriest thou? come down!" "yes," muttered giovanni again. "she is the only being whom my breath may not slay! would that it might!" he rushed down, and in an instant was standing before the bright and loving eyes of beatrice. a moment ago his wrath and despair had been so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither her by a glance; but with her actual presence there came influences which had too real an existence to be at once shaken off: recollections of the delicate and benign power of her feminine nature, which had so often enveloped him in a religious calm; recollections of many a holy and passionate outgush of her heart, when the pure fountain had been unsealed from its depths and made visible in its transparency to his mental eye; recollections which, had giovanni known how to estimate them, would have assured him that all this ugly mystery was but an earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of evil might seem to have gathered over her, the real beatrice was a heavenly angel. incapable as he was of such high faith, still her presence had not utterly lost its magic. giovanni's rage was quelled into an aspect of sullen insensibility. beatrice, with a quick spiritual sense, immediately felt that there was a gulf of blackness between them which neither he nor she could pass. they walked on together, sad and silent, and came thus to the marble fountain and to its pool of water on the ground, in the midst of which grew the shrub that bore gem-like blossoms. giovanni was affrighted at the eager enjoyment--the appetite, as it were--with which he found himself inhaling the fragrance of the flowers. "beatrice," asked he, abruptly, "whence came this shrub?" "my father created it," answered she, with simplicity. "created it! created it!" repeated giovanni. "what mean you, beatrice?" "he is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of nature," replied beatrice; "and, at the hour when i first drew breath, this plant sprang from the soil, the offspring of his science, of his intellect, while i was but his earthly child. approach it not!" continued she, observing with terror that giovanni was drawing nearer to the shrub. "it has qualities that you little dream of. but i, dearest giovanni,--i grew up and blossomed with the plant and was nourished with its breath. it was my sister, and i loved it with a human affection; for, alas!--hast thou not suspected it?--there was an awful doom." here giovanni frowned so darkly upon her that beatrice paused and trembled. but her faith in his tenderness reassured her, and made her blush that she had doubted for an instant. "there was an awful doom," she continued, "the effect of my father's fatal love of science, which estranged me from all society of my kind. until heaven sent thee, dearest giovanni, oh, how lonely was thy poor beatrice!" "was it a hard doom?" asked giovanni, fixing his eyes upon her. "only of late have i known how hard it was," answered she, tenderly. "oh, yes; but my heart was torpid, and therefore quiet." giovanni's rage broke forth from his sullen gloom like a lightning flash out of a dark cloud. "accursed one!" cried he, with venomous scorn and anger. "and, finding thy solitude wearisome, thou hast severed me likewise from all the warmth of life and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror!" "giovanni!" exclaimed beatrice, turning her large bright eyes upon his face. the force of his words had not found its way into her mind; she was merely thunderstruck. "yes, poisonous thing!" repeated giovanni, beside himself with passion. "thou hast done it! thou hast blasted me! thou hast filled my veins with poison! thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself--a world's wonder of hideous monstrosity! now, if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others, let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!" "what has befallen me?" murmured beatrice, with a low moan out of her heart. "holy virgin, pity me, a poor heart-broken child!" "thou,--dost thou pray?" cried giovanni, still with the same fiendish scorn. "thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, taint the atmosphere with death. yes, yes; let us pray! let us to church and dip our fingers in the holy water at the portal! they that come after us will perish as by a pestilence! let us sign crosses in the air! it will be scattering curses abroad in the likeness of holy symbols!" "giovanni," said beatrice, calmly, for her grief was beyond passion, "why dost thou join thyself with me thus in those terrible words? i, it is true, am the horrible thing thou namest me. but thou,--what hast thou to do, save with one other shudder at my hideous misery to go forth out of the garden and mingle with thy race, and forget there ever crawled on earth such a monster as poor beatrice?" "dost thou pretend ignorance?" asked giovanni, scowling upon her. "behold! this power have i gained from the pure daughter of rappaccini." there was a swarm of summer insects flitting through the air in search of the food promised by the flower odors of the fatal garden. they circled round giovanni's head, and were evidently attracted towards him by the same influence which had drawn them for an instant within the sphere of several of the shrubs. he sent forth a breath among them, and smiled bitterly at beatrice as at least a score of the insects fell dead upon the ground. "i see it! i see it!" shrieked beatrice. "it is my father's fatal science! no, no, giovanni; it was not i! never! never! i dreamed only to love thee and be with thee a little time, and so to let thee pass away, leaving but thine image in mine heart; for, giovanni, believe it, though my body be nourished with poison, my spirit is god's creature, and craves love as its daily food. but my father,--he has united us in this fearful sympathy. yes; spurn me, tread upon me, kill me! oh, what is death after such words as thine? but it was not i. not for a world of bliss would i have done it." giovanni's passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his lips. there now came across him a sense, mournful, and not without tenderness, of the intimate and peculiar relationship between beatrice and himself. they stood, as it were, in an utter solitude, which would be made none the less solitary by the densest throng of human life. ought not, then, the desert of humanity around them to press this insulated pair closer together? if they should be cruel to one another, who was there to be kind to them? besides, thought giovanni, might there not still be a hope of his returning within the limits of ordinary nature, and leading beatrice, the redeemed beatrice, by the hand? o, weak, and selfish, and unworthy spirit, that could dream of an earthly union and earthly happiness as possible, after such deep love had been so bitterly wronged as was beatrice's love by giovanni's blighting words! no, no; there could be no such hope. she must pass heavily, with that broken heart, across the borders of time--she must bathe her hurts in some fount of paradise, and forget her grief in the light of immortality, and there be well. but giovanni did not know it. "dear beatrice," said he, approaching her, while she shrank away as always at his approach, but now with a different impulse, "dearest beatrice, our fate is not yet so desperate. behold! there is a medicine, potent, as a wise physician has assured me, and almost divine in its efficacy. it is composed of ingredients the most opposite to those by which thy awful father has brought this calamity upon thee and me. it is distilled of blessed herbs. shall we not quaff it together, and thus be purified from evil?" "give it me!" said beatrice, extending her hand to receive the little silver vial which giovanni took from his bosom. she added, with a peculiar emphasis, "i will drink; but do thou await the result." she put baglioni's antidote to her lips; and, at the same moment, the figure of rappaccini emerged from the portal and came slowly towards the marble fountain. as he drew near, the pale man of science seemed to gaze with a triumphant expression at the beautiful youth and maiden, as might an artist who should spend his life in achieving a picture or a group of statuary and finally be satisfied with his success. he paused; his bent form grew erect with conscious power; he spread out his hands over them in the attitude of a father imploring a blessing upon his children; but those were the same hands that had thrown poison into the stream of their lives. giovanni trembled. beatrice shuddered nervously, and pressed her hand upon her heart. "my daughter," said rappaccini, "thou art no longer lonely in the world. pluck one of those precious gems from thy sister shrub and bid thy bridegroom wear it in his bosom. it will not harm him now. my science and the sympathy between thee and him have so wrought within his system that he now stands apart from common men, as thou dost, daughter of my pride and triumph, from ordinary women. pass on, then, through the world, most dear to one another and dreadful to all besides!" "my father," said beatrice, feebly,--and still as she spoke she kept her hand upon her heart,--"wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable doom upon thy child?" "miserable!" exclaimed rappaccini. "what mean you, foolish girl? dost thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvellous gifts against which no power nor strength could avail an enemy--misery, to be able to quell the mightiest with a breath--misery, to be as terrible as thou art beautiful? wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?" "i would fain have been loved, not feared," murmured beatrice, sinking down upon the ground. "but now it matters not. i am going, father, where the evil which thou hast striven to mingle with my being will pass away like a dream-like the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, which will no longer taint my breath among the flowers of eden. farewell, giovanni! thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart; but they, too, will fall away as i ascend. oh, was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?" to beatrice,--so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon by rappaccini's skill,--as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote was death; and thus the poor victim of man's ingenuity and of thwarted nature, and of the fatality that attends all such efforts of perverted wisdom, perished there, at the feet of her father and giovanni. just at that moment professor pietro baglioni looked forth from the window, and called loudly, in a tone of triumph mixed with horror, to the thunderstricken man of science, "rappaccini! rappaccini! and is this the upshot of your experiment!" mrs. bullfrog it makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible people act in the matter of choosing wives. they perplex their judgments by a most undue attention to little niceties of personal appearance, habits, disposition, and other trifles which concern nobody but the lady herself. an unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable woman will accept them. now this is the very height of absurdity. a kind providence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex and the mass of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious exceptions, any male and female may be moderately happy in the married state. the true rule is to ascertain that the match is fundamentally a good one, and then to take it for granted that all minor objections, should there be such, will vanish, if you let them alone. only put yourself beyond hazard as to the real basis of matrimonial bliss, and it is scarcely to be imagined what miracles, in the way of recognizing smaller incongruities, connubial love will effect. for my own part i freely confess that, in my bachelorship, i was precisely such an over-curious simpleton as i now advise the reader not to be. my early habits had gifted me with a feminine sensibility and too exquisite refinement. i was the accomplished graduate of a dry goods store, where, by dint of ministering to the whims of fine ladies, and suiting silken hose to delicate limbs, and handling satins, ribbons, chintzes calicoes, tapes, gauze, and cambric needles, i grew up a very ladylike sort of a gentleman. it is not assuming too much to affirm that the ladies themselves were hardly so ladylike as thomas bullfrog. so painfully acute was my sense of female imperfection, and such varied excellence did i require in the woman whom i could love, that there was an awful risk of my getting no wife at all, or of being driven to perpetrate matrimony with my own image in the looking-glass. besides the fundamental principle already hinted at, i demanded the fresh bloom of youth, pearly teeth, glossy ringlets, and the whole list of lovely items, with the utmost delicacy of habits and sentiments, a silken texture of mind, and, above all, a virgin heart. in a word, if a young angel just from paradise, yet dressed in earthly fashion, had come and offered me her hand, it is by no means certain that i should have taken it. there was every chance of my becoming a most miserable old bachelor, when, by the best luck in the world, i made a journey into another state, and was smitten by, and smote again, and wooed, won, and married, the present mrs. bullfrog, all in the space of a fortnight. owing to these extempore measures, i not only gave my bride credit for certain perfections which have not as yet come to light, but also overlooked a few trifling defects, which, however, glimmered on my perception long before the close of the honeymoon. yet, as there was no mistake about the fundamental principle aforesaid, i soon learned, as will be seen, to estimate mrs. bullfrog's deficiencies and superfluities at exactly their proper value. the same morning that mrs. bullfrog and i came together as a unit, we took two seats in the stage-coach and began our journey towards my place of business. there being no other passengers, we were as much alone and as free to give vent to our raptures as if i had hired a hack for the matrimonial jaunt. my bride looked charmingly in a green silk calash and riding habit of pelisse cloth; and whenever her red lips parted with a smile, each tooth appeared like an inestimable pearl. such was my passionate warmth that--we had rattled out of the village, gentle reader, and were lonely as adam and eve in paradise--i plead guilty to no less freedom than a kiss. the gentle eye of mrs. bullfrog scarcely rebuked me for the profanation. emboldened by her indulgence, i threw back the calash from her polished brow, and suffered my fingers, white and delicate as her own, to stray among those dark and glossy curls which realized my daydreams of rich hair. "my love," said mrs. bullfrog tenderly, "you will disarrange my curls." "oh, no, my sweet laura!" replied i, still playing with the glossy ringlet. "even your fair hand could not manage a curl more delicately than mine. i propose myself the pleasure of doing up your hair in papers every evening at the same time with my own." "mr. bullfrog," repeated she, "you must not disarrange my curls." this was spoken in a more decided tone than i had happened to hear, until then, from my gentlest of all gentle brides. at the same time she put up her hand and took mine prisoner; but merely drew it away from the forbidden ringlet, and then immediately released it. now, i am a fidgety little man, and always love to have something in my fingers; so that, being debarred from my wife's curls, i looked about me for any other plaything. on the front seat of the coach there was one of those small baskets in which travelling ladies who are too delicate to appear at a public table generally carry a supply of gingerbread, biscuits and cheese, cold ham, and other light refreshments, merely to sustain nature to the journey's end. such airy diet will sometimes keep them in pretty good flesh for a week together. laying hold of this same little basket, i thrust my hand under the newspaper with which it was carefully covered. "what's this, my dear?" cried i; for the black neck of a bottle had popped out of the basket. "a bottle of kalydor, mr. bullfrog," said my wife, coolly taking the basket from my hands and replacing it on the front seat. there was no possibility of doubting my wife's word; but i never knew genuine kalydor, such as i use for my own complexion, to smell so much like cherry brandy. i was about to express my fears that the lotion would injure her skin, when an accident occurred which threatened more than a skin-deep injury. our jehu had carelessly driven over a heap of gravel and fairly capsized the coach, with the wheels in the air and our heels where our heads should have been. what became of my wits i cannot imagine; they have always had a perverse trick of deserting me just when they were most needed; but so it chanced, that in the confusion of our overthrow i quite forgot that there was a mrs. bullfrog in the world. like many men's wives, the good lady served her husband as a steppingstone. i had scrambled out of the coach and was instinctively settling my cravat, when somebody brushed roughly by me, and i heard a smart thwack upon the coachman's ear. "take that, you villain!" cried a strange, hoarse voice. "you have ruined me, you blackguard! i shall never be the woman i have been!" and then came a second thwack, aimed at the driver's other ear; but which missed it, and hit him on the nose, causing a terrible effusion of blood. now, who or what fearful apparition was inflicting this punishment on the poor fellow remained an impenetrable mystery to me. the blows were given by a person of grisly aspect, with a head almost bald, and sunken cheeks, apparently of the feminine gender, though hardly to be classed in the gentler sex. there being no teeth to modulate the voice, it had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but stern, which absolutely made me quiver like calf's-foot jelly. who could the phantom be? the most awful circumstance of the affair is yet to be told: for this ogre, or whatever it was, had a riding habit like mrs. bullfrog's, and also a green silk calash dangling down her back by the strings. in my terror and turmoil of mind i could imagine nothing less than that the old nick, at the moment of our overturn, had annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats. this idea seemed the most probable, since i could nowhere perceive mrs. bullfrog alive, nor, though i looked very sharply about the coach, could i detect any traces of that beloved woman's dead body. there would have been a comfort in giving her christian burial. "come, sir, bestir yourself! help this rascal to set up the coach," said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three countrymen at a distance, "here, you fellows, ain't you ashamed to stand off when a poor woman is in distress?" the countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives, came running at full speed, and laid hold of the topsy-turvy coach. i, also, though a small-sized man, went to work like a son of anak. the coachman, too, with the blood still streaming from his nose, tugged and toiled most manfully, dreading, doubtless, that the next blow might break his head. and yet, bemauled as the poor fellow had been, he seemed to glance at me with an eye of pity, as if my case were more deplorable than his. but i cherished a hope that all would turn out a dream, and seized the opportunity, as we raised the coach, to jam two of my fingers under the wheel, trusting that the pain would awaken me. "why, here we are, all to rights again!" exclaimed a sweet voice behind. "thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. my dear mr. bullfrog, how you perspire! do let me wipe your face. don't take this little accident too much to heart, good driver. we ought to be thankful that none of our necks are broken." "we might have spared one neck out of the three," muttered the driver, rubbing his ear and pulling his nose, to ascertain whether he had been cuffed or not. "why, the woman's a witch!" i fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is positively a fact, that there stood mrs. bullfrog, with her glossy ringlets curling on her brow, and two rows of orient pearls gleaming between her parted lips, which wore a most angelic smile. she had regained her riding habit and calash from the grisly phantom, and was, in all respects, the lovely woman who had been sitting by my side at the instant of our overturn. how she had happened to disappear, and who had supplied her place, and whence she did now return, were problems too knotty for me to solve. there stood my wife. that was the one thing certain among a heap of mysteries. nothing remained but to help her into the coach, and plod on, through the journey of the day and the journey of life, as comfortably as we could. as the driver closed the door upon us, i heard him whisper to the three countrymen, "how do you suppose a fellow feels shut up in the cage with a she tiger?" of course this query could have no reference to my situation. yet, unreasonable as it may appear, i confess that my feelings were not altogether so ecstatic as when i first called mrs. bullfrog mine. true, she was a sweet woman and an angel of a wife; but what if a gorgon should return, amid the transports of our connubial bliss, and take the angel's place. i recollected the tale of a fairy, who half the time was a beautiful woman and half the time a hideous monster. had i taken that very fairy to be the wife of my bosom? while such whims and chimeras were flitting across my fancy i began to look askance at mrs. bullfrog, almost expecting that the transformation would be wrought before my eyes. to divert my mind, i took up the newspaper which had covered the little basket of refreshments, and which now lay at the bottom of the coach, blushing with a deep-red stain and emitting a potent spirituous fume from the contents of the broken bottle of kalydor. the paper was two or three years old, but contained an article of several columns, in which i soon grew wonderfully interested. it was the report of a trial for breach of promise of marriage, giving the testimony in full, with fervid extracts from both the gentleman's and lady's amatory correspondence. the deserted damsel had personally appeared in court, and had borne energetic evidence to her lover's perfidy and the strength of her blighted affections. on the defendant's part there had been an attempt, though insufficiently sustained, to blast the plaintiff's character, and a plea, in mitigation of damages, on account of her unamiable temper. a horrible idea was suggested by the lady's name. "madam," said i, holding the newspaper before mrs. bullfrog's eyes,--and, though a small, delicate, and thin-visaged man, i feel assured that i looked very terrific,--"madam," repeated i, through my shut teeth, "were you the plaintiff in this cause?" "oh, my dear mr. bullfrog," replied my wife, sweetly, "i thought all the world knew that!" "horror! horror!" exclaimed i, sinking back on the seat. covering my face with both hands, i emitted a deep and deathlike groan, as if my tormented soul were rending me asunder--i, the most exquisitely fastidious of men, and whose wife was to have been the most delicate and refined of women, with all the fresh dew-drops glittering on her virgin rosebud of a heart! i thought of the glossy ringlets and pearly teeth; i thought of the kalydor; i thought of the coachman's bruised ear and bloody nose; i thought of the tender love secrets which she had whispered to the judge and jury and a thousand tittering auditors,--and gave another groan! "mr. bullfrog," said my wife. as i made no reply, she gently took my hands within her own, removed them from my face, and fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine. "mr. bullfrog," said she, not unkindly, yet with all the decision of her strong character, "let me advise you to overcome this foolish weakness, and prove yourself, to the best of your ability, as good a husband as i will be a wife. you have discovered, perhaps, some little imperfections in your bride. well, what did you expect? women are not angels. if they were, they would go to heaven for husbands; or, at least, be more difficult in their choice on earth." "but why conceal those imperfections?" interposed i, tremulously. "now, my love, are not you a most unreasonable little man?" said mrs. bullfrog, patting me on the cheek. "ought a woman to disclose her frailties earlier than the wedding day? few husbands, i assure you, make the discovery in such good season, and still fewer complain that these trifles are concealed too long. well, what a strange man you are! poh! you are joking." "but the suit for breach of promise!" groaned i. "ah, and is that the rub?" exclaimed my wife. "is it possible that you view that affair in an objectionable light? mr. bullfrog, i never could have dreamed it! is it an objection that i have triumphantly defended myself against slander and vindicated my purity in a court of justice? or do you complain because your wife has shown the proper spirit of a woman, and punished the villain who trifled with her affections?" "but," persisted i, shrinking into a corner of the coach, however,--for i did not know precisely how much contradiction the proper spirit of a woman would endure,--"but, my love, would it not have been more dignified to treat the villain with the silent contempt he merited?" "that is all very well, mr. bullfrog," said my wife, slyly; "but, in that case, where would have been the five thousand dollars which are to stock your dry goods store?" "mrs. bullfrog, upon your honor," demanded i, as if my life hung upon her words, "is there no mistake about those five thousand dollars?" "upon my word and honor there is none," replied she. "the jury gave me every cent the rascal had; and i have kept it all for my dear bullfrog." "then, thou dear woman," cried i, with an overwhelming gush of tenderness, "let me fold thee to my heart. the basis of matrimonial bliss is secure, and all thy little defects and frailties are forgiven. nay, since the result has been so fortunate, i rejoice at the wrongs which drove thee to this blessed lawsuit. happy bullfrog that i am!" the celestial railroad not a great while ago, passing through the gate of dreams, i visited that region of the earth in which lies the famous city of destruction. it interested me much to learn that by the public spirit of some of the inhabitants a railroad has recently been established between this populous and flourishing town and the celestial city. having a little time upon my hands, i resolved to gratify a liberal curiosity by making a trip thither. accordingly, one fine morning after paying my bill at the hotel, and directing the porter to stow my luggage behind a coach, i took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the station-house. it was my good fortune to enjoy the company of a gentleman--one mr. smooth-it-away--who, though he had never actually visited the celestial city, yet seemed as well acquainted with its laws, customs, policy, and statistics, as with those of the city of destruction, of which he was a native townsman. being, moreover, a director of the railroad corporation and one of its largest stockholders, he had it in his power to give me all desirable information respecting that praiseworthy enterprise. our coach rattled out of the city, and at a short distance from its outskirts passed over a bridge of elegant construction, but somewhat too slight, as i imagined, to sustain any considerable weight. on both sides lay an extensive quagmire, which could not have been more disagreeable either to sight or smell, had all the kennels of the earth emptied their pollution there. "this," remarked mr. smooth-it-away, "is the famous slough of despond--a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that it might so easily be converted into firm ground." "i have understood," said i, "that efforts have been made for that purpose from time immemorial. bunyan mentions that above twenty thousand cartloads of wholesome instructions had been thrown in here without effect." "very probably! and what effect could be anticipated from such unsubstantial stuff?" cried mr. smooth-it-away. "you observe this convenient bridge. we obtained a sufficient foundation for it by throwing into the slough some editions of books of morality, volumes of french philosophy and german rationalism; tracts, sermons, and essays of modern clergymen; extracts from plato, confucius, and various hindoo sages together with a few ingenious commentaries upon texts of scripture,--all of which by some scientific process, have been converted into a mass like granite. the whole bog might be filled up with similar matter." it really seemed to me, however, that the bridge vibrated and heaved up and down in a very formidable manner; and, in spite of mr. smooth-it-away's testimony to the solidity of its foundation, i should be loath to cross it in a crowded omnibus, especially if each passenger were encumbered with as heavy luggage as that gentleman and myself. nevertheless we got over without accident, and soon found ourselves at the stationhouse. this very neat and spacious edifice is erected on the site of the little wicket gate, which formerly, as all old pilgrims will recollect, stood directly across the highway, and, by its inconvenient narrowness, was a great obstruction to the traveller of liberal mind and expansive stomach the reader of john bunyan will be glad to know that christian's old friend evangelist, who was accustomed to supply each pilgrim with a mystic roll, now presides at the ticket office. some malicious persons it is true deny the identity of this reputable character with the evangelist of old times, and even pretend to bring competent evidence of an imposture. without involving myself in a dispute i shall merely observe that, so far as my experience goes, the square pieces of pasteboard now delivered to passengers are much more convenient and useful along the road than the antique roll of parchment. whether they will be as readily received at the gate of the celestial city i decline giving an opinion. a large number of passengers were already at the station-house awaiting the departure of the cars. by the aspect and demeanor of these persons it was easy to judge that the feelings of the community had undergone a very favorable change in reference to the celestial pilgrimage. it would have done bunyan's heart good to see it. instead of a lonely and ragged man with a huge burden on his back, plodding along sorrowfully on foot while the whole city hooted after him, here were parties of the first gentry and most respectable people in the neighborhood setting forth towards the celestial city as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage were merely a summer tour. among the gentlemen were characters of deserved eminence--magistrates, politicians, and men of wealth, by whose example religion could not but be greatly recommended to their meaner brethren. in the ladies' apartment, too, i rejoiced to distinguish some of those flowers of fashionable society who are so well fitted to adorn the most elevated circles of the celestial city. there was much pleasant conversation about the news of the day, topics of business and politics, or the lighter matters of amusement; while religion, though indubitably the main thing at heart, was thrown tastefully into the background. even an infidel would have heard little or nothing to shock his sensibility. one great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage i must not forget to mention. our enormous burdens, instead of being carried on our shoulders as had been the custom of old, were all snugly deposited in the baggage car, and, as i was assured, would be delivered to their respective owners at the journey's end. another thing, likewise, the benevolent reader will be delighted to understand. it may be remembered that there was an ancient feud between prince beelzebub and the keeper of the wicket gate, and that the adherents of the former distinguished personage were accustomed to shoot deadly arrows at honest pilgrims while knocking at the door. this dispute, much to the credit as well of the illustrious potentate above mentioned as of the worthy and enlightened directors of the railroad, has been pacifically arranged on the principle of mutual compromise. the prince's subjects are now pretty numerously employed about the station-house, some in taking care of the baggage, others in collecting fuel, feeding the engines, and such congenial occupations; and i can conscientiously affirm that persons more attentive to their business, more willing to accommodate, or more generally agreeable to the passengers, are not to be found on any railroad. every good heart must surely exult at so satisfactory an arrangement of an immemorial difficulty. "where is mr. greatheart?" inquired i. "beyond a doubt the directors have engaged that famous old champion to be chief conductor on the railroad?" "why, no," said mr. smooth-it-away, with a dry cough. "he was offered the situation of brakeman; but, to tell you the truth, our friend greatheart has grown preposterously stiff and narrow in his old age. he has so often guided pilgrims over the road on foot that he considers it a sin to travel in any other fashion. besides, the old fellow had entered so heartily into the ancient feud with prince beelzebub that he would have been perpetually at blows or ill language with some of the prince's subjects, and thus have embroiled us anew. so, on the whole, we were not sorry when honest greatheart went off to the celestial city in a huff and left us at liberty to choose a more suitable and accommodating man. yonder comes the engineer of the train. you will probably recognize him at once." the engine at this moment took its station in advance of the cars, looking, i must confess, much more like a sort of mechanical demon that would hurry us to the infernal regions than a laudable contrivance for smoothing our way to the celestial city. on its top sat a personage almost enveloped in smoke and flame, which, not to startle the reader, appeared to gush from his own mouth and stomach as well as from the engine's brazen abdomen. "do my eyes deceive me?" cried i. "what on earth is this! a living creature? if so, he is own brother to the engine he rides upon!" "poh, poh, you are obtuse!" said mr. smooth-it-away, with a hearty laugh. "don't you know apollyon, christian's old enemy, with whom he fought so fierce a battle in the valley of humiliation? he was the very fellow to manage the engine; and so we have reconciled him to the custom of going on pilgrimage, and engaged him as chief engineer." "bravo, bravo!" exclaimed i, with irrepressible enthusiasm; "this shows the liberality of the age; this proves, if anything can, that all musty prejudices are in a fair way to be obliterated. and how will christian rejoice to hear of this happy transformation of his old antagonist! i promise myself great pleasure in informing him of it when we reach the celestial city." the passengers being all comfortably seated, we now rattled away merrily, accomplishing a greater distance in ten minutes than christian probably trudged over in a day. it was laughable, while we glanced along, as it were, at the tail of a thunderbolt, to observe two dusty foot travellers in the old pilgrim guise, with cockle shell and staff, their mystic rolls of parchment in their hands and their intolerable burdens on their backs. the preposterous obstinacy of these honest people in persisting to groan and stumble along the difficult pathway rather than take advantage of modern improvements, excited great mirth among our wiser brotherhood. we greeted the two pilgrims with many pleasant gibes and a roar of laughter; whereupon they gazed at us with such woful and absurdly compassionate visages that our merriment grew tenfold more obstreperous. apollyon also entered heartily into the fun, and contrived to flirt the smoke and flame of the engine, or of his own breath, into their faces, and envelop them in an atmosphere of scalding steam. these little practical jokes amused us mightily, and doubtless afforded the pilgrims the gratification of considering themselves martyrs. at some distance from the railroad mr. smooth-it-away pointed to a large, antique edifice, which, he observed, was a tavern of long standing, and had formerly been a noted stopping-place for pilgrims. in bunyan's road-book it is mentioned as the interpreter's house. "i have long had a curiosity to visit that old mansion," remarked i. "it is not one of our stations, as you perceive," said my companion "the keeper was violently opposed to the railroad; and well he might be, as the track left his house of entertainment on one side, and thus was pretty certain to deprive him of all his reputable customers. but the footpath still passes his door, and the old gentleman now and then receives a call from some simple traveller, and entertains him with fare as old-fashioned as himself." before our talk on this subject came to a conclusion we were rushing by the place where christian's burden fell from his shoulders at the sight of the cross. this served as a theme for mr. smooth-it-away, mr. livefor-the-world, mr. hide-sin-in-the-heart, mr. scaly-conscience, and a knot of gentlemen from the town of shun-repentance, to descant upon the inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our baggage. myself, and all the passengers indeed, joined with great unanimity in this view of the matter; for our burdens were rich in many things esteemed precious throughout the world; and, especially, we each of us possessed a great variety of favorite habits, which we trusted would not be out of fashion even in the polite circles of the celestial city. it would have been a sad spectacle to see such an assortment of valuable articles tumbling into the sepulchre. thus pleasantly conversing on the favorable circumstances of our position as compared with those of past pilgrims and of narrow-minded ones at the present day, we soon found ourselves at the foot of the hill difficulty. through the very heart of this rocky mountain a tunnel has been constructed of most admirable architecture, with a lofty arch and a spacious double track; so that, unless the earth and rocks should chance to crumble down, it will remain an eternal monument of the builder's skill and enterprise. it is a great though incidental advantage that the materials from the heart of the hill difficulty have been employed in filling up the valley of humiliation, thus obviating the necessity of descending into that disagreeable and unwholesome hollow. "this is a wonderful improvement, indeed," said i. "yet i should have been glad of an opportunity to visit the palace beautiful and be introduced to the charming young ladies--miss prudence, miss piety, miss charity, and the rest--who have the kindness to entertain pilgrims there." "young ladies!" cried mr. smooth-it-away, as soon as he could speak for laughing. "and charming young ladies! why, my dear fellow, they are old maids, every soul of them--prim, starched, dry, and angular; and not one of them, i will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion of her gown since the days of christian's pilgrimage." "ah, well," said i, much comforted, "then i can very readily dispense with their acquaintance." the respectable apollyon was now putting on the steam at a prodigious rate, anxious, perhaps, to get rid of the unpleasant reminiscences connected with the spot where he had so disastrously encountered christian. consulting mr. bunyan's road-book, i perceived that we must now be within a few miles of the valley of the shadow of death, into which doleful region, at our present speed, we should plunge much sooner than seemed at all desirable. in truth, i expected nothing better than to find myself in the ditch on one side or the quag on the other; but on communicating my apprehensions to mr. smooth-it-away, he assured me that the difficulties of this passage, even in its worst condition, had been vastly exaggerated, and that, in its present state of improvement, i might consider myself as safe as on any railroad in christendom. even while we were speaking the train shot into the entrance of this dreaded valley. though i plead guilty to some foolish palpitations of the heart during our headlong rush over the causeway here constructed, yet it were unjust to withhold the highest encomiums on the boldness of its original conception and the ingenuity of those who executed it. it was gratifying, likewise, to observe how much care had been taken to dispel the everlasting gloom and supply the defect of cheerful sunshine, not a ray of which has ever penetrated among these awful shadows. for this purpose, the inflammable gas which exudes plentifully from the soil is collected by means of pipes, and thence communicated to a quadruple row of lamps along the whole extent of the passage. thus a radiance has been created even out of the fiery and sulphurous curse that rests forever upon the valley--a radiance hurtful, however, to the eyes, and somewhat bewildering, as i discovered by the changes which it wrought in the visages of my companions. in this respect, as compared with natural daylight, there is the same difference as between truth and falsehood, but if the reader have ever travelled through the dark valley, he will have learned to be thankful for any light that he could get--if not from the sky above, then from the blasted soil beneath. such was the red brilliancy of these lamps that they appeared to build walls of fire on both sides of the track, between which we held our course at lightning speed, while a reverberating thunder filled the valley with its echoes. had the engine run off the track,--a catastrophe, it is whispered, by no means unprecedented,--the bottomless pit, if there be any such place, would undoubtedly have received us. just as some dismal fooleries of this nature had made my heart quake there came a tremendous shriek, careering along the valley as if a thousand devils had burst their lungs to utter it, but which proved to be merely the whistle of the engine on arriving at a stopping-place. the spot where we had now paused is the same that our friend bunyan--a truthful man, but infected with many fantastic notions--has designated, in terms plainer than i like to repeat, as the mouth of the infernal region. this, however, must be a mistake, inasmuch as mr. smooth-it-away, while we remained in the smoky and lurid cavern, took occasion to prove that tophet has not even a metaphorical existence. the place, he assured us, is no other than the crater of a half-extinct volcano, in which the directors had caused forges to be set up for the manufacture of railroad iron. hence, also, is obtained a plentiful supply of fuel for the use of the engines. whoever had gazed into the dismal obscurity of the broad cavern mouth, whence ever and anon darted huge tongues of dusky flame, and had seen the strange, half-shaped monsters, and visions of faces horribly grotesque, into which the smoke seemed to wreathe itself, and had heard the awful murmurs, and shrieks, and deep, shuddering whispers of the blast, sometimes forming themselves into words almost articulate, would have seized upon mr. smooth-it-away's comfortable explanation as greedily as we did. the inhabitants of the cavern, moreover, were unlovely personages, dark, smoke-begrimed, generally deformed, with misshapen feet, and a glow of dusky redness in their eyes as if their hearts had caught fire and were blazing out of the upper windows. it struck me as a peculiarity that the laborers at the forge and those who brought fuel to the engine, when they began to draw short breath, positively emitted smoke from their mouth and nostrils. among the idlers about the train, most of whom were puffing cigars which they had lighted at the flame of the crater, i was perplexed to notice several who, to my certain knowledge, had heretofore set forth by railroad for the celestial city. they looked dark, wild, and smoky, with a singular resemblance, indeed, to the native inhabitants, like whom, also, they had a disagreeable propensity to ill-natured gibes and sneers, the habit of which had wrought a settled contortion of their visages. having been on speaking terms with one of these persons,--an indolent, good-for-nothing fellow, who went by the name of take-it-easy,--i called him, and inquired what was his business there. "did you not start," said i, "for the celestial city?" "that's a fact," said mr. take-it-easy, carelessly puffing some smoke into my eyes. "but i heard such bad accounts that i never took pains to climb the hill on which the city stands. no business doing, no fun going on, nothing to drink, and no smoking allowed, and a thrumming of church music from morning till night. i would not stay in such a place if they offered me house room and living free." "but, my good mr. take-it-easy," cried i, "why take up your residence here, of all places in the world?" "oh," said the loafer, with a grin, "it is very warm hereabouts, and i meet with plenty of old acquaintances, and altogether the place suits me. i hope to see you back again some day soon. a pleasant journey to you." while he was speaking the bell of the engine rang, and we dashed away after dropping a few passengers, but receiving no new ones. rattling onward through the valley, we were dazzled with the fiercely gleaming gas lamps, as before. but sometimes, in the dark of intense brightness, grim faces, that bore the aspect and expression of individual sins, or evil passions, seemed to thrust themselves through the veil of light, glaring upon us, and stretching forth a great, dusky hand, as if to impede our progress. i almost thought that they were my own sins that appalled me there. these were freaks of imagination--nothing more, certainly-mere delusions, which i ought to be heartily ashamed of; but all through the dark valley i was tormented, and pestered, and dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking dreams. the mephitic gases of that region intoxicate the brain. as the light of natural day, however, began to struggle with the glow of the lanterns, these vain imaginations lost their vividness, and finally vanished from the first ray of sunshine that greeted our escape from the valley of the shadow of death. ere we had gone a mile beyond it i could well-nigh have taken my oath that this whole gloomy passage was a dream. at the end of the valley, as john bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where, in his days, dwelt two cruel giants, pope and pagan, who had strown the ground about their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims. these vile old troglodytes are no longer there; but into their deserted cave another terrible giant has thrust himself, and makes it his business to seize upon honest travellers and fatten them for his table with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and sawdust. he is a german by birth, and is called giant transcendentalist; but as to his form, his features, his substance, and his nature generally, it is the chief peculiarity of this huge miscreant that neither he for himself, nor anybody for him, has ever been able to describe them. as we rushed by the cavern's mouth we caught a hasty glimpse of him, looking somewhat like an ill-proportioned figure, but considerably more like a heap of fog and duskiness. he shouted after us, but in so strange a phraseology that we knew not what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or affrighted. it was late in the day when the train thundered into the ancient city of vanity, where vanity fair is still at the height of prosperity, and exhibits an epitome of whatever is brilliant, gay, and fascinating beneath the sun. as i purposed to make a considerable stay here, it gratified me to learn that there is no longer the want of harmony between the town's-people and pilgrims, which impelled the former to such lamentably mistaken measures as the persecution of christian and the fiery martyrdom of faithful. on the contrary, as the new railroad brings with it great trade and a constant influx of strangers, the lord of vanity fair is its chief patron, and the capitalists of the city are among the largest stockholders. many passengers stop to take their pleasure or make their profit in the fair, instead of going onward to the celestial city. indeed, such are the charms of the place that people often affirm it to be the true and only heaven; stoutly contending that there is no other, that those who seek further are mere dreamers, and that, if the fabled brightness of the celestial city lay but a bare mile beyond the gates of vanity, they would not be fools enough to go thither. without subscribing to these perhaps exaggerated encomiums, i can truly say that my abode in the city was mainly agreeable, and my intercourse with the inhabitants productive of much amusement and instruction. being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to the solid advantages derivable from a residence here, rather than to the effervescent pleasures which are the grand object with too many visitants. the christian reader, if he have had no accounts of the city later than bunyan's time, will be surprised to hear that almost every street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in higher respect than at vanity fair. and well do they deserve such honorable estimation; for the maxims of wisdom and virtue which fall from their lips come from as deep a spiritual source, and tend to as lofty a religious aim, as those of the sagest philosophers of old. in justification of this high praise i need only mention the names of the rev. mr. shallow-deep, the rev. mr. stumble-at-truth, that fine old clerical character the rev. mr. this-today, who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to the rev. mr. that-tomorrow; together with the rev. mr. bewilderment, the rev. mr. clog-the-spirit, and, last and greatest, the rev. dr. wind-of-doctrine. the labors of these eminent divines are aided by those of innumerable lecturers, who diffuse such a various profundity, in all subjects of human or celestial science, that any man may acquire an omnigenous erudition without the trouble of even learning to read. thus literature is etherealized by assuming for its medium the human voice; and knowledge, depositing all its heavier particles, except, doubtless, its gold becomes exhaled into a sound, which forthwith steals into the ever-open ear of the community. these ingenious methods constitute a sort of machinery, by which thought and study are done to every person's hand without his putting himself to the slightest inconvenience in the matter. there is another species of machine for the wholesale manufacture of individual morality. this excellent result is effected by societies for all manner of virtuous purposes, with which a man has merely to connect himself, throwing, as it were, his quota of virtue into the common stock, and the president and directors will take care that the aggregate amount be well applied. all these, and other wonderful improvements in ethics, religion, and literature, being made plain to my comprehension by the ingenious mr. smooth-it-away, inspired me with a vast admiration of vanity fair. it would fill a volume, in an age of pamphlets, were i to record all my observations in this great capital of human business and pleasure. there was an unlimited range of society--the powerful, the wise, the witty, and the famous in every walk of life; princes, presidents, poets, generals, artists, actors, and philanthropists,--all making their own market at the fair, and deeming no price too exorbitant for such commodities as hit their fancy. it was well worth one's while, even if he had no idea of buying or selling, to loiter through the bazaars and observe the various sorts of traffic that were going forward. some of the purchasers, i thought, made very foolish bargains. for instance, a young man having inherited a splendid fortune, laid out a considerable portion of it in the purchase of diseases, and finally spent all the rest for a heavy lot of repentance and a suit of rags. a very pretty girl bartered a heart as clear as crystal, and which seemed her most valuable possession, for another jewel of the same kind, but so worn and defaced as to be utterly worthless. in one shop there were a great many crowns of laurel and myrtle, which soldiers, authors, statesmen, and various other people pressed eagerly to buy; some purchased these paltry wreaths with their lives, others by a toilsome servitude of years, and many sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet finally slunk away without the crown. there was a sort of stock or scrip, called conscience, which seemed to be in great demand, and would purchase almost anything. indeed, few rich commodities were to be obtained without paying a heavy sum in this particular stock, and a man's business was seldom very lucrative unless he knew precisely when and how to throw his hoard of conscience into the market. yet as this stock was the only thing of permanent value, whoever parted with it was sure to find himself a loser in the long run. several of the speculations were of a questionable character. occasionally a member of congress recruited his pocket by the sale of his constituents; and i was assured that public officers have often sold their country at very moderate prices. thousands sold their happiness for a whim. gilded chains were in great demand, and purchased with almost any sacrifice. in truth, those who desired, according to the old adage, to sell anything valuable for a song, might find customers all over the fair; and there were innumerable messes of pottage, piping hot, for such as chose to buy them with their birthrights. a few articles, however, could not be found genuine at vanity fair. if a customer wished to renew his stock of youth the dealers offered him a set of false teeth and an auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they recommended opium or a brandy bottle. tracts of land and golden mansions, situate in the celestial city, were often exchanged, at very disadvantageous rates, for a few years' lease of small, dismal, inconvenient tenements in vanity fair. prince beelzebub himself took great interest in this sort of traffic, and sometimes condescended to meddle with smaller matters. i once had the pleasure to see him bargaining with a miser for his soul, which, after much ingenious skirmishing on both sides, his highness succeeded in obtaining at about the value of sixpence. the prince remarked with a smile, that he was a loser by the transaction. day after day, as i walked the streets of vanity, my manners and deportment became more and more like those of the inhabitants. the place began to seem like home; the idea of pursuing my travels to the celestial city was almost obliterated from my mind. i was reminded of it, however, by the sight of the same pair of simple pilgrims at whom we had laughed so heartily when apollyon puffed smoke and steam into their faces at the commencement of our journey. there they stood amidst the densest bustle of vanity; the dealers offering them their purple and fine linen and jewels, the men of wit and humor gibing at them, a pair of buxom ladies ogling them askance, while the benevolent mr. smooth-it-away whispered some of his wisdom at their elbows, and pointed to a newly-erected temple; but there were these worthy simpletons, making the scene look wild and monstrous, merely by their sturdy repudiation of all part in its business or pleasures. one of them--his name was stick-to-the-right--perceived in my face, i suppose, a species of sympathy and almost admiration, which, to my own great surprise, i could not help feeling for this pragmatic couple. it prompted him to address me. "sir," inquired he, with a sad, yet mild and kindly voice, "do you call yourself a pilgrim?" "yes," i replied, "my right to that appellation is indubitable. i am merely a sojourner here in vanity fair, being bound to the celestial city by the new railroad." "alas, friend," rejoined mr. stick-to-the-truth, "i do assure you, and beseech you to receive the truth of my words, that that whole concern is a bubble. you may travel on it all your lifetime, were you to live thousands of years, and yet never get beyond the limits of vanity fair. yea, though you should deem yourself entering the gates of the blessed city, it will be nothing but a miserable delusion." "the lord of the celestial city," began the other pilgrim, whose name was mr. foot-it-to-heaven, "has refused, and will ever refuse, to grant an act of incorporation for this railroad; and unless that be obtained, no passenger can ever hope to enter his dominions. wherefore every man who buys a ticket must lay his account with losing the purchase money, which is the value of his own soul." "poh, nonsense!" said mr. smooth-it-away, taking my arm and leading me off, "these fellows ought to be indicted for a libel. if the law stood as it once did in vanity fair we should see them grinning through the iron bars of the prison window." this incident made a considerable impression on my mind, and contributed with other circumstances to indispose me to a permanent residence in the city of vanity; although, of course, i was not simple enough to give up my original plan of gliding along easily and commodiously by railroad. still, i grew anxious to be gone. there was one strange thing that troubled me. amid the occupations or amusements of the fair, nothing was more common than for a person--whether at feast, theatre, or church, or trafficking for wealth and honors, or whatever he might be doing, to vanish like a soap bubble, and be never more seen of his fellows; and so accustomed were the latter to such little accidents that they went on with their business as quietly as if nothing had happened. but it was otherwise with me. finally, after a pretty long residence at the fair, i resumed my journey towards the celestial city, still with mr. smooth-it-away at my side. at a short distance beyond the suburbs of vanity we passed the ancient silver mine, of which demas was the first discoverer, and which is now wrought to great advantage, supplying nearly all the coined currency of the world. a little further onward was the spot where lot's wife had stood forever under the semblance of a pillar of salt. curious travellers have long since carried it away piecemeal. had all regrets been punished as rigorously as this poor dame's were, my yearning for the relinquished delights of vanity fair might have produced a similar change in my own corporeal substance, and left me a warning to future pilgrims. the next remarkable object was a large edifice, constructed of moss-grown stone, but in a modern and airy style of architecture. the engine came to a pause in its vicinity, with the usual tremendous shriek. "this was formerly the castle of the redoubted giant despair," observed mr. smooth-it-away; "but since his death mr. flimsy-faith has repaired it, and keeps an excellent house of entertainment here. it is one of our stopping-places." "it seems but slightly put together," remarked i, looking at the frail yet ponderous walls. "i do not envy mr. flimsy-faith his habitation. some day it will thunder down upon the heads of the occupants." "we shall escape at all events," said mr. smooth-it-away, "for apollyon is putting on the steam again." the road now plunged into a gorge of the delectable mountains, and traversed the field where in former ages the blind men wandered and stumbled among the tombs. one of these ancient tombstones had been thrust across the track by some malicious person, and gave the train of cars a terrible jolt. far up the rugged side of a mountain i perceived a rusty iron door, half overgrown with bushes and creeping plants, but with smoke issuing from its crevices. "is that," inquired i, "the very door in the hill-side which the shepherds assured christian was a by-way to hell?" "that was a joke on the part of the shepherds," said mr. smooth-itaway, with a smile. "it is neither more nor less than the door of a cavern which they use as a smoke-house for the preparation of mutton hams." my recollections of the journey are now, for a little space, dim and confused, inasmuch as a singular drowsiness here overcame me, owing to the fact that we were passing over the enchanted ground, the air of which encourages a disposition to sleep. i awoke, however, as soon as we crossed the borders of the pleasant land of beulah. all the passengers were rubbing their eyes, comparing watches, and congratulating one another on the prospect of arriving so seasonably at the journey's end. the sweet breezes of this happy clime came refreshingly to our nostrils; we beheld the glimmering gush of silver fountains, overhung by trees of beautiful foliage and delicious fruit, which were propagated by grafts from the celestial gardens. once, as we dashed onward like a hurricane, there was a flutter of wings and the bright appearance of an angel in the air, speeding forth on some heavenly mission. the engine now announced the close vicinity of the final station-house by one last and horrible scream, in which there seemed to be distinguishable every kind of wailing and woe, and bitter fierceness of wrath, all mixed up with the wild laughter of a devil or a madman. throughout our journey, at every stopping-place, apollyon had exercised his ingenuity in screwing the most abominable sounds out of the whistle of the steam-engine; but in this closing effort he outdid himself and created an infernal uproar, which, besides disturbing the peaceful inhabitants of beulah, must have sent its discord even through the celestial gates. while the horrid clamor was still ringing in our ears we heard an exulting strain, as if a thousand instruments of music, with height and depth and sweetness in their tones, at once tender and triumphant, were struck in unison, to greet the approach of some illustrious hero, who had fought the good fight and won a glorious victory, and was come to lay aside his battered arms forever. looking to ascertain what might be the occasion of this glad harmony, i perceived, on alighting from the cars, that a multitude of shining ones had assembled on the other side of the river, to welcome two poor pilgrims, who were just emerging from its depths. they were the same whom apollyon and ourselves had persecuted with taunts, and gibes, and scalding steam, at the commencement of our journey--the same whose unworldly aspect and impressive words had stirred my conscience amid the wild revellers of vanity fair. "how amazingly well those men have got on," cried i to mr. smoothit--away. "i wish we were secure of as good a reception." "never fear, never fear!" answered my friend. "come, make haste; the ferry boat will be off directly, and in three minutes you will be on the other side of the river. no doubt you will find coaches to carry you up to the city gates." a steam ferry boat, the last improvement on this important route, lay at the river side, puffing, snorting, and emitting all those other disagreeable utterances which betoken the departure to be immediate. i hurried on board with the rest of the passengers, most of whom were in great perturbation: some bawling out for their baggage; some tearing their hair and exclaiming that the boat would explode or sink; some already pale with the heaving of the stream; some gazing affrighted at the ugly aspect of the steersman; and some still dizzy with the slumberous influences of the enchanted ground. looking back to the shore, i was amazed to discern mr. smooth-it-away waving his hand in token of farewell. "don't you go over to the celestial city?" exclaimed i. "oh, no!" answered he with a queer smile, and that same disagreeable contortion of visage which i had remarked in the inhabitants of the dark valley. "oh, no! i have come thus far only for the sake of your pleasant company. good-by! we shall meet again." and then did my excellent friend mr. smooth-it-away laugh outright, in the midst of which cachinnation a smoke-wreath issued from his mouth and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid flame darted out of either eye, proving indubitably that his heart was all of a red blaze. the impudent fiend! to deny the existence of tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures raging within his breast. i rushed to the side of the boat, intending to fling myself on shore; but the wheels, as they began their revolutions, threw a dash of spray over me so cold--so deadly cold, with the chill that will never leave those waters until death be drowned in his own river--that with a shiver and a heartquake i awoke. thank heaven it was a dream! the procession of life life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. all of us have our places, and are to move onward under the direction of the chief marshal. the grand difficulty results from the invariably mistaken principles on which the deputy marshals seek to arrange this immense concourse of people, so much more numerous than those that train their interminable length through streets and highways in times of political excitement. their scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory of man or even the record of history, and has hitherto been very little modified by the innate sense of something wrong, and the dim perception of better methods, that have disquieted all the ages through which the procession has taken its march. its members are classified by the merest external circumstances, and thus are more certain to be thrown out of their true positions than if no principle of arrangement were attempted. in one part of the procession we see men of landed estate or moneyed capital gravely keeping each other company, for the preposterous reason that they chance to have a similar standing in the tax-gatherer's book. trades and professions march together with scarcely a more real bond of union. in this manner, it cannot be denied, people are disentangled from the mass and separated into various classes according to certain apparent relations; all have some artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn to consider as a genuine characteristic. fixing our attention on such outside shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those realities by which nature, fortune, fate, or providence has constituted for every man a brotherhood, wherein it is one great office of human wisdom to classify him. when the mind has once accustomed itself to a proper arrangement of the procession of life, or a true classification of society, even though merely speculative, there is thenceforth a satisfaction which pretty well suffices for itself without the aid of any actual reformation in the order of march. for instance, assuming to myself the power of marshalling the aforesaid procession, i direct a trumpeter to send forth a blast loud enough to be heard from hence to china; and a herald, with world-pervading voice, to make proclamation for a certain class of mortals to take their places. what shall be their principle of union? after all, an external one, in comparison with many that might be found, yet far more real than those which the world has selected for a similar purpose. let all who are afflicted with like physical diseases form themselves into ranks. our first attempt at classification is not very successful. it may gratify the pride of aristocracy to reflect that disease, more than any other circumstance of human life, pays due observance to the distinctions which rank and wealth, and poverty and lowliness, have established among mankind. some maladies are rich and precious, and only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchased with gold. of this kind is the gout, which serves as a bond of brotherhood to the purple-visaged gentry, who obey the herald's voice, and painfully hobble from all civilized regions of the globe to take their post in the grand procession. in mercy to their toes, let us hope that the march may not be long. the dyspeptics, too, are people of good standing in the world. for them the earliest salmon is caught in our eastern rivers, and the shy woodcock stains the dry leaves with his blood in his remotest haunts, and the turtle comes from the far pacific islands to be gobbled up in soup. they can afford to flavor all their dishes with indolence, which, in spite of the general opinion, is a sauce more exquisitely piquant than appetite won by exercise. apoplexy is another highly respectable disease. we will rank together all who have the symptom of dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by the way supply their places with new members of the board of aldermen. on the other hand, here come whole tribes of people whose physical lives are but a deteriorated variety of life, and themselves a meaner species of mankind; so sad an effect has been wrought by the tainted breath of cities, scanty and unwholesome food, destructive modes of labor, and the lack of those moral supports that might partially have counteracted such bad influences. behold here a train of house painters, all afflicted with a peculiar sort of colic. next in place we will marshal those workmen in cutlery, who have breathed a fatal disorder into their lungs with the impalpable dust of steel. tailors and shoemakers, being sedentary men, will chiefly congregate into one part of the procession and march under similar banners of disease; but among them we may observe here and there a sickly student, who has left his health between the leaves of classic volumes; and clerks, likewise, who have caught their deaths on high official stools; and men of genius too, who have written sheet after sheet with pens dipped in their heart's blood. these are a wretched quaking, short-breathed set. but what is this cloud of pale-cheeked, slender girls, who disturb the ear with the multiplicity of their short, dry coughs? they are seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the service of master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now it is almost time for each to hem the borders of her own shroud. consumption points their place in the procession. with their sad sisterhood are intermingled many youthful maidens who have sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for whose aid science has unavailingly searched its volumes, and whom breathless love has watched. in our ranks the rich maiden and the poor seamstress may walk arm in arm. we might find innumerable other instances, where the bond of mutual disease--not to speak of nation-sweeping pestilence--embraces high and low, and makes the king a brother of the clown. but it is not hard to own that disease is the natural aristocrat. let him keep his state, and have his established orders of rank, and wear his royal mantle of the color of a fever flush and let the noble and wealthy boast their own physical infirmities, and display their symptoms as the badges of high station. all things considered, these are as proper subjects of human pride as any relations of human rank that men can fix upon. sound again, thou deep-breathed trumpeter! and herald, with thy voice of might, shout forth another summons that shall reach the old baronial castles of europe, and the rudest cabin of our western wilderness! what class is next to take its place in the procession of mortal life? let it be those whom the gifts of intellect have united in a noble brotherhood. ay, this is a reality, before which the conventional distinctions of society melt away like a vapor when we would grasp it with the hand. were byron now alive, and burns, the first would come from his ancestral abbey, flinging aside, although unwillingly, the inherited honors of a thousand years, to take the arm of the mighty peasant who grew immortal while he stooped behind his plough. these are gone; but the hall, the farmer's fireside, the hut, perhaps the palace, the counting-room, the workshop, the village, the city, life's high places and low ones, may all produce their poets, whom a common temperament pervades like an electric sympathy. peer or ploughman, we will muster them pair by pair and shoulder to shoulder. even society, in its most artificial state, consents to this arrangement. these factory girls from lowell shall mate themselves with the pride of drawing-rooms and literary circles, the bluebells in fashion's nosegay, the sapphos, and montagues, and nortons of the age. other modes of intellect bring together as strange companies. silk-gowned professor of languages, give your arm to this sturdy blacksmith, and deem yourself honored by the conjunction, though you behold him grimy from the anvil. all varieties of human speech are like his mother tongue to this rare man. indiscriminately let those take their places, of whatever rank they come, who possess the kingly gifts to lead armies or to sway a people--nature's generals, her lawgivers, her kings, and with them also the deep philosophers who think the thought in one generation that is to revolutionize society in the next. with the hereditary legislator in whom eloquence is a far-descended attainment--a rich echo repeated by powerful voices from cicero downward--we will match some wondrous backwoodsman, who has caught a wild power of language from the breeze among his native forest boughs. but we may safely leave these brethren and sisterhood to settle their own congenialities. our ordinary distinctions become so trifling, so impalpable, so ridiculously visionary, in comparison with a classification founded on truth, that all talk about the matter is immediately a common place. yet the longer i reflect the less am i satisfied with the idea of forming a separate class of mankind on the basis of high intellectual power. at best it is but a higher development of innate gifts common to all. perhaps, moreover, he whose genius appears deepest and truest excels his fellows in nothing save the knack of expression; he throws out occasionally a lucky hint at truths of which every human soul is profoundly, though unutterably, conscious. therefore, though we suffer the brotherhood of intellect to march onward together, it may be doubted whether their peculiar relation will not begin to vanish as soon as the procession shall have passed beyond the circle of this present world. but we do not classify for eternity. and next, let the trumpet pour forth a funereal wail, and the herald's voice give breath in one vast cry to all the groans and grievous utterances that are audible throughout the earth. we appeal now to the sacred bond of sorrow, and summon the great multitude who labor under similar afflictions to take their places in the march. how many a heart that would have been insensible to any other call has responded to the doleful accents of that voice! it has gone far and wide, and high and low, and left scarcely a mortal roof unvisited. indeed, the principle is only too universal for our purpose, and, unless we limit it, will quite break up our classification of mankind, and convert the whole procession into a funeral train. we will therefore be at some pains to discriminate. here comes a lonely rich man: he has built a noble fabric for his dwelling-house, with a front of stately architecture and marble floors and doors of precious woods; the whole structure is as beautiful as a dream and as substantial as the native rock. but the visionary shapes of a long posterity, for whose home this mansion was intended, have faded into nothingness since the death of the founder's only son. the rich man gives a glance at his sable garb in one of the splendid mirrors of his drawing-room, and descending a flight of lofty steps instinctively offers his arm to yonder poverty stricken widow in the rusty black bonnet, and with a check apron over her patched gown. the sailor boy, who was her sole earthly stay, was washed overboard in a late tempest. this couple from the palace and the almshouse are but the types of thousands more who represent the dark tragedy of life and seldom quarrel for the upper parts. grief is such a leveller, with its own dignity and its own humility, that the noble and the peasant, the beggar and the monarch, will waive their pretensions to external rank without the officiousness of interference on our part. if pride--the influence of the world's false distinctions--remain in the heart, then sorrow lacks the earnestness which makes it holy and reverend. it loses its reality and becomes a miserable shadow. on this ground we have an opportunity to assign over multitudes who would willingly claim places here to other parts of the procession. if the mourner have anything dearer than his grief he must seek his true position elsewhere. there are so many unsubstantial sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state begets on idleness, that an observer, casting aside sentiment, is sometimes led to question whether there be any real woe, except absolute physical suffering and the loss of closest friends. a crowd who exhibit what they deem to be broken hearts--and among them many lovelorn maids and bachelors, and men of disappointed ambition in arts or politics, and the poor who were once rich, or who have sought to be rich in vain--the great majority of these may ask admittance into some other fraternity. there is no room here. perhaps we may institute a separate class where such unfortunates will naturally fall into the procession. meanwhile let them stand aside and patiently await their time. if our trumpeter can borrow a note from the doomsday trumpet blast, let him sound it now. the dread alarum should make the earth quake to its centre, for the herald is about to address mankind with a summons to which even the purest mortal may be sensible of some faint responding echo in his breast. in many bosoms it will awaken a still small voice more terrible than its own reverberating uproar. the hideous appeal has swept around the globe. come, all ye guilty ones, and rank yourselves in accordance with the brotherhood of crime. this, indeed, is an awful summons. i almost tremble to look at the strange partnerships that begin to be formed, reluctantly, but by the in vincible necessity of like to like in this part of the procession. a forger from the state prison seizes the arm of a distinguished financier. how indignantly does the latter plead his fair reputation upon 'change, and insist that his operations, by their magnificence of scope, were removed into quite another sphere of morality than those of his pitiful companion! but let him cut the connection if he can. here comes a murderer with his clanking chains, and pairs himself--horrible to tell--with as pure and upright a man, in all observable respects, as ever partook of the consecrated bread and wine. he is one of those, perchance the most hopeless of all sinners, who practise such an exemplary system of outward duties, that even a deadly crime may be hidden from their own sight and remembrance, under this unreal frostwork. yet he now finds his place. why do that pair of flaunting girls, with the pert, affected laugh and the sly leer at the by-standers, intrude themselves into the same rank with yonder decorous matron, and that somewhat prudish maiden? surely these poor creatures, born to vice as their sole and natural inheritance, can be no fit associates for women who have been guarded round about by all the proprieties of domestic life, and who could not err unless they first created the opportunity. oh no; it must be merely the impertinence of those unblushing hussies; and we can only wonder how such respectable ladies should have responded to a summons that was not meant for them. we shall make short work of this miserable class, each member of which is entitled to grasp any other member's hand, by that vile degradation wherein guilty error has buried all alike. the foul fiend to whom it properly belongs must relieve us of our loathsome task. let the bond servants of sin pass on. but neither man nor woman, in whom good predominates, will smile or sneer, nor bid the rogues' march be played, in derision of their array. feeling within their breasts a shuddering sympathy, which at least gives token of the sin that might have been, they will thank god for any place in the grand procession of human existence, save among those most wretched ones. many, however, will be astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them thitherward. nothing is more remarkable than the various deceptions by which guilt conceals itself from the perpetrator's conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the splendor of its garments. statesmen, rulers, generals, and all men who act over an extensive sphere, are most liable to be deluded in this way; they commit wrong, devastation, and murder, on so grand a scale, that it impresses them as speculative rather than actual; but in our procession we find them linked in detestable conjunction with the meanest criminals whose deeds have the vulgarity of petty details. here the effect of circumstance and accident is done away, and a man finds his rank according to the spirit of his crime, in whatever shape it may have been developed. we have called the evil; now let us call the good. the trumpet's brazen throat should pour heavenly music over the earth, and the herald's voice go forth with the sweetness of an angel's accents, as if to summon each upright man to his reward. but how is this? does none answer to the call? not one: for the just, the pure, the true, and an who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly back, as most conscious of error and imperfection. then let the summons be to those whose pervading principle is love. this classification will embrace all the truly good, and none in whose souls there exists not something that may expand itself into a heaven, both of well-doing and felicity. the first that presents himself is a man of wealth, who has bequeathed the bulk of his property to a hospital; his ghost, methinks, would have a better right here than his living body. but here they come, the genuine benefactors of their race. some have wandered about the earth with pictures of bliss in their imagination, and with hearts that shrank sensitively from the idea of pain and woe, yet have studied all varieties of misery that human nature can endure. the prison, the insane asylum, the squalid chamber of the almshouse, the manufactory where the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the cotton field where god's image becomes a beast of burden; to these and every other scene where man wrongs or neglects his brother, the apostles of humanity have penetrated. this missionary, black with india's burning sunshine, shall give his arm to a pale-faced brother who has made himself familiar with the infected alleys and loathsome haunts of vice in one of our own cities. the generous founder of a college shall be the partner of a maiden lady of narrow substance, one of whose good deeds it has been to gather a little school of orphan children. if the mighty merchant whose benefactions are reckoned by thousands of dollars deem himself worthy, let him join the procession with her whose love has proved itself by watchings at the sick-bed, and all those lowly offices which bring her into actual contact with disease and wretchedness. and with those whose impulses have guided them to benevolent actions, we will rank others to whom providence has assigned a different tendency and different powers. men who have spent their lives in generous and holy contemplation for the human race; those who, by a certain heavenliness of spirit, have purified the atmosphere around them, and thus supplied a medium in which good and high things may be projected and performed--give to these a lofty place among the benefactors of mankind, although no deed, such as the world calls deeds, may be recorded of them. there are some individuals of whom we cannot conceive it proper that they should apply their hands to any earthly instrument, or work out any definite act; and others, perhaps not less high, to whom it is an essential attribute to labor in body as well as spirit for the welfare of their brethren. thus, if we find a spiritual sage whose unseen, inestimable influence has exalted the moral standard of mankind, we will choose for his companion some poor laborer who has wrought for love in the potato field of a neighbor poorer than himself. we have summoned this various multitude--and, to the credit of our nature, it is a large one--on the principle of love. it is singular, nevertheless, to remark the shyness that exists among many members of the present class, all of whom we might expect to recognize one another by the freemasonry of mutual goodness, and to embrace like brethren, giving god thanks for such various specimens of human excellence. but it is far otherwise. each sect surrounds its own righteousness with a hedge of thorns. it is difficult for the good christian to acknowledge the good pagan; almost impossible for the good orthodox to grasp the hand of the good unitarian, leaving to their creator to settle the matters in dispute, and giving their mutual efforts strongly and trustingly to whatever right thing is too evident to be mistaken. then again, though the heart be large, yet the mind is often of such moderate dimensions as to be exclusively filled up with one idea. when a good man has long devoted himself to a particular kind of beneficence--to one species of reform--he is apt to become narrowed into the limits of the path wherein he treads, and to fancy that there is no other good to be done on earth but that self-same good to which he has put his hand, and in the very mode that best suits his own conceptions. all else is worthless. his scheme must be wrought out by the united strength of the whole world's stock of love, or the world is no longer worthy of a position in the universe. moreover, powerful truth, being the rich grape juice expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has an intoxicating quality, when imbibed by any save a powerful intellect, and often, as it were, impels the quaffer to quarrel in his cups. for such reasons, strange to say, it is harder to contrive a friendly arrangement of these brethren of love and righteousness, in the procession of life, than to unite even the wicked, who, indeed, are chained together by their crimes. the fact is too preposterous for tears, too lugubrious for laughter. but, let good men push and elbow one another as they may during their earthly march, all will be peace among them when the honorable array or their procession shall tread on heavenly ground. there they will doubtless find that they have been working each for the other's cause, and that every well-delivered stroke, which, with an honest purpose any mortal struck, even for a narrow object, was indeed stricken for the universal cause of good. their own view may be bounded by country, creed, profession, the diversities of individual character--but above them all is the breadth of providence. how many who have deemed themselves antagonists will smile hereafter, when they look back upon the world's wide harvest field, and perceive that, in unconscious brotherhood, they were helping to bind the selfsame sheaf! but, come! the sun is hastening westward, while the march of human life, that never paused before, is delayed by our attempt to rearrange its order. it is desirable to find some comprehensive principle, that shall render our task easier by bringing thousands into the ranks where hitherto we have brought one. therefore let the trumpet, if possible, split its brazen throat with a louder note than ever, and the herald summon all mortals, who, from whatever cause, have lost, or never found, their proper places in the wold. obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, most of them with a listless gait, betokening weariness of soul, yet with a gleam of satisfaction in their faces, at a prospect of at length reaching those positions which, hitherto, they have vainly sought. but here will be another disappointment; for we can attempt no more than merely to associate in one fraternity all who are afflicted with the same vague trouble. some great mistake in life is the chief condition of admittance into this class. here are members of the learned professions, whom providence endowed with special gifts for the plough, the forge, and the wheelbarrow, or for the routine of unintellectual business. we will assign to them, as partners in the march, those lowly laborers and handicraftsmen, who have pined, as with a dying thirst, after the unattainable fountains of knowledge. the latter have lost less than their companions; yet more, because they deem it infinite. perchance the two species of unfortunates may comfort one another. here are quakers with the instinct of battle in them; and men of war who should have worn the broad brim. authors shall be ranked here whom some freak of nature, making game of her poor children, had imbued with the confidence of genius and strong desire of fame, but has favored with no corresponding power; and others, whose lofty gifts were unaccompanied with the faculty of expression, or any of that earthly machinery by which ethereal endowments must be manifested to mankind. all these, therefore, are melancholy laughing-stocks. next, here are honest and well intentioned persons, who by a want of tact--by inaccurate perceptions--by a distorting imagination--have been kept continually at cross purposes with the world and bewildered upon the path of life. let us see if they can confine themselves within the line of our procession. in this class, likewise, we must assign places to those who have encountered that worst of ill success, a higher fortune than their abilities could vindicate; writers, actors, painters, the pets of a day, but whose laurels wither unrenewed amid their hoary hair; politicians, whom some malicious contingency of affairs has thrust into conspicuous station, where, while the world stands gazing at them, the dreary consciousness of imbecility makes them curse their birth hour. to such men, we give for a companion him whose rare talents, which perhaps require a revolution for their exercise, are buried in the tomb of sluggish circumstances. not far from these, we must find room for one whose success has been of the wrong kind; the man who should have lingered in the cloisters of a university, digging new treasures out of the herculaneum of antique lore, diffusing depth and accuracy of literature throughout his country, and thus making for himself a great and quiet fame. but the outward tendencies around him have proved too powerful for his inward nature, and have drawn him into the arena of political tumult, there to contend at disadvantage, whether front to front, or side by side, with the brawny giants of actual life. he becomes, it may be, a name for brawling parties to bandy to and fro, a legislator of the union; a governor of his native state; an ambassador to the courts of kings or queens; and the world may deem him a man of happy stars. but not so the wise; and not so himself, when he looks through his experience, and sighs to miss that fitness, the one invaluable touch which makes all things true and real. so much achieved, yet how abortive is his life! whom shall we choose for his companion? some weak framed blacksmith, perhaps, whose delicacy of muscle might have suited a tailor's shopboard better than the anvil. shall we bid the trumpet sound again? it is hardly worth the while. there remain a few idle men of fortune, tavern and grog-shop loungers, lazzaroni, old bachelors, decaying maidens, and people of crooked intellect or temper, all of whom may find their like, or some tolerable approach to it, in the plentiful diversity of our latter class. there too, as his ultimate destiny, must we rank the dreamer, who, all his life long, has cherished the idea that he was peculiarly apt for something, but never could determine what it was; and there the most unfortunate of men, whose purpose it has been to enjoy life's pleasures, but to avoid a manful struggle with its toil and sorrow. the remainder, if any, may connect themselves with whatever rank of the procession they shall find best adapted to their tastes and consciences. the worst possible fate would be to remain behind, shivering in the solitude of time, while all the world is on the move towards eternity. our attempt to classify society is now complete. the result may be anything but perfect; yet better--to give it the very lowest praise--than the antique rule of the herald's office, or the modern one of the tax-gatherer, whereby the accidents and superficial attributes with which the real nature of individuals has least to do, are acted upon as the deepest characteristics of mankind. our task is done! now let the grand procession move! yet pause a while! we had forgotten the chief marshal. hark! that world-wide swell of solemn music, with the clang of a mighty bell breaking forth through its regulated uproar, announces his approach. he comes; a severe, sedate, immovable, dark rider, waving his truncheon of universal sway, as he passes along the lengthened line, on the pale horse of the revelation. it is death! who else could assume the guidance of a procession that comprehends all humanity? and if some, among these many millions, should deem themselves classed amiss, yet let them take to their hearts the comfortable truth that death levels us all into one great brotherhood, and that another state of being will surely rectify the wrong of this. then breathe thy wail upon the earth's wailing wind, thou band of melancholy music, made up of every sigh that the human heart, unsatisfied, has uttered! there is yet triumph in thy tones. and now we move! beggars in their rags, and kings trailing the regal purple in the dust; the warrior's gleaming helmet; the priest in his sable robe; the hoary grandsire, who has run life's circle and come back to childhood; the ruddy school-boy with his golden curls, frisking along the march; the artisan's stuff jacket; the noble's star-decorated coat;--the whole presenting a motley spectacle, yet with a dusky grandeur brooding over it. onward, onward, into that dimness where the lights of time which have blazed along the procession, are flickering in their sockets! and whither! we know not; and death, hitherto our leader, deserts us by the wayside, as the tramp of our innumerable footsteps echoes beyond his sphere. he knows not, more than we, our destined goal. but god, who made us, knows, and will not leave us on our toilsome and doubtful march, either to wander in infinite uncertainty, or perish by the way! feathertop: a moralized legend "dickon," cried mother rigby, "a coal for my pipe!" the pipe was in the old dame's mouth when she said these words. she had thrust it there after filling it with tobacco, but without stooping to light it at the hearth, where indeed there was no appearance of a fire having been kindled that morning. forthwith, however, as soon as the order was given, there was an intense red glow out of the bowl of the pipe, and a whiff of smoke came from mother rigby's lips. whence the coal came, and how brought thither by an invisible hand, i have never been able to discover. "good!" quoth mother rigby, with a nod of her head. "thank ye, dickon! and now for making this scarecrow. be within call, dickon, in case i need you again." the good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended to put in the middle of her corn-patch. it was now the latter week of may, and the crows and blackbirds had already discovered the little, green, rolledup leaf of the indian corn just peeping out of the soil. she was determined, therefore, to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as ever was seen, and to finish it immediately, from top to toe, so that it should begin its sentinel's duty that very morning. now mother rigby (as everybody must have heard) was one of the most cunning and potent witches in new england, and might, with very little trouble, have made a scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister himself. but on this occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and was further dulcified by her pipe tobacco, she resolved to produce something fine, beautiful, and splendid, rather than hideous and horrible. "i don't want to set up a hobgoblin in my own corn-patch, and almost at my own doorstep," said mother rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of smoke; "i could do it if i pleased, but i'm tired of doing marvellous things, and so i'll keep within the bounds of every-day business just for variety's sake. besides, there is no use in scaring the little children for a mile roundabout, though 't is true i'm a witch." it was settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should represent a fine gentleman of the period, so far as the materials at hand would allow. perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief of the articles that went to the composition of this figure. the most important item of all, probably, although it made so little show, was a certain broomstick, on which mother rigby had taken many an airy gallop at midnight, and which now served the scarecrow by way of a spinal column, or, as the unlearned phrase it, a backbone. one of its arms was a disabled flail which used to be wielded by goodman rigby, before his spouse worried him out of this troublesome world; the other, if i mistake not, was composed of the pudding stick and a broken rung of a chair, tied loosely together at the elbow. as for its legs, the right was a hoe handle, and the left an undistinguished and miscellaneous stick from the woodpile. its lungs, stomach, and other affairs of that kind were nothing better than a meal bag stuffed with straw. thus we have made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the scarecrow, with the exception of its head; and this was admirably supplied by a somewhat withered and shrivelled pumpkin, in which mother rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth, leaving a bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for a nose. it was really quite a respectable face. "i've seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate," said mother rigby. "and many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin head, as well as my scarecrow." but the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. so the good old woman took down from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat of london make, and with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs, pocket-flaps, and button-holes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched at the elbows, tattered at the skirts, and threadbare all over. on the left breast was a round hole, whence either a star of nobility had been rent away, or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it through and through. the neighbors said that this rich garment belonged to the black man's wardrobe, and that he kept it at mother rigby's cottage for the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to make a grand appearance at the governor's table. to match the coat there was a velvet waistcoat of very ample size, and formerly embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly golden as the maple leaves in october, but which had now quite vanished out of the substance of the velvet. next came a pair of scarlet breeches, once worn by the french governor of louisbourg, and the knees of which had touched the lower step of the throne of louis le grand. the frenchman had given these small-clothes to an indian powwow, who parted with them to the old witch for a gill of strong waters, at one of their dances in the forest. furthermore, mother rigby produced a pair of silk stockings and put them on the figure's legs, where they showed as unsubstantial as a dream, with the wooden reality of the two sticks making itself miserably apparent through the holes. lastly, she put her dead husband's wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and surmounted the whole with a dusty three-cornered hat, in which was stuck the longest tail feather of a rooster. then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage and chuckled to behold its yellow semblance of a visage, with its nobby little nose thrust into the air. it had a strangely self-satisfied aspect, and seemed to say, "come look at me!" "and you are well worth looking at, that's a fact!" quoth mother rigby, in admiration at her own handiwork. "i've made many a puppet since i've been a witch, but methinks this is the finest of them all. 'tis almost too good for a scarecrow. and, by the by, i'll just fill a fresh pipe of tobacco and then take him out to the corn-patch." while filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost motherly affection at the figure in the corner. to say the truth, whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into a grin--a funny kind of expression betwixt scorn and merriment, as if it understood itself to be a jest at mankind. the more mother rigby looked the better she was pleased. "dickon," cried she sharply, "another coal for my pipe!" hardly had she spoken, than, just as before, there was a red-glowing coal on the top of the tobacco. she drew in a long whiff and puffed it forth again into the bar of morning sunshine which struggled through the one dusty pane of her cottage window. mother rigby always liked to flavor her pipe with a coal of fire from the particular chimney corner whence this had been brought. but where that chimney corner might be, or who brought the coal from it,--further than that the invisible messenger seemed to respond to the name of dickon,--i cannot tell. "that puppet yonder," thought mother rigby, still with her eyes fixed on the scarecrow, "is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a corn-patch, frightening away the crows and blackbirds. he's capable of better things. why, i've danced with a worse one, when partners happened to be scarce, at our witch meetings in the forest! what if i should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty fellows who go bustling about the world?" the old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe and smiled. "he'll meet plenty of his brethren at every street corner!" continued she. "well; i didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch i am, and a witch i'm likely to be, and there's no use trying to shirk it. i'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the joke's sake!" while muttering these words, mother rigby took the pipe from her own mouth and thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature in the pumpkin visage of the scarecrow. "puff, darling, puff!" said she. "puff away, my fine fellow! your life depends on it!" this was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better than a shrivelled pumpkin for a head,--as we know to have been the scarecrow's case. nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, mother rigby was a witch of singular power and dexterity; and, keeping this fact duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in the remarkable incidents of our story. indeed, the great difficulty will be at once got over, if we can only bring ourselves to believe that, as soon as the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of smoke from the scarecrow's mouth. it was the very feeblest of whiffs, to be sure; but it was followed by another and another, each more decided than the preceding one. "puff away, my pet! puff away, my pretty one!" mother rigby kept repeating, with her pleasantest smile. "it is the breath of life to ye; and that you may take my word for." beyond all question the pipe was bewitched. there must have been a spell either in the tobacco or in the fiercely-glowing coal that so mysteriously burned on top of it, or in the pungently-aromatic smoke which exhaled from the kindled weed. the figure, after a few doubtful attempts at length blew forth a volley of smoke extending all the way from the obscure corner into the bar of sunshine. there it eddied and melted away among the motes of dust. it seemed a convulsive effort; for the two or three next whiffs were fainter, although the coal still glowed and threw a gleam over the scarecrow's visage. the old witch clapped her skinny hands together, and smiled encouragingly upon her handiwork. she saw that the charm worked well. the shrivelled, yellow face, which heretofore had been no face at all, had already a thin, fantastic haze, as it were of human likeness, shifting to and fro across it; sometimes vanishing entirely, but growing more perceptible than ever with the next whiff from the pipe. the whole figure, in like manner, assumed a show of life, such as we impart to ill-defined shapes among the clouds, and half deceive ourselves with the pastime of our own fancy. if we must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted whether there was any real change, after all, in the sordid, wornout worthless, and ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow; but merely a spectral illusion, and a cunning effect of light and shade so colored and contrived as to delude the eyes of most men. the miracles of witchcraft seem always to have had a very shallow subtlety; and, at least, if the above explanation do not hit the truth of the process, i can suggest no better. "well puffed, my pretty lad!" still cried old mother rigby. "come, another good stout whiff, and let it be with might and main. puff for thy life, i tell thee! puff out of the very bottom of thy heart, if any heart thou hast, or any bottom to it! well done, again! thou didst suck in that mouthful as if for the pure love of it." and then the witch beckoned to the scarecrow, throwing so much magnetic potency into her gesture that it seemed as if it must inevitably be obeyed, like the mystic call of the loadstone when it summons the iron. "why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?" said she. "step forth! thou hast the world before thee!" upon my word, if the legend were not one which i heard on my grandmother's knee, and which had established its place among things credible before my childish judgment could analyze its probability, i question whether i should have the face to tell it now. in obedience to mother rigby's word, and extending its arm as if to reach her outstretched hand, the figure made a step forward--a kind of hitch and jerk, however, rather than a step--then tottered and almost lost its balance. what could the witch expect? it was nothing, after all, but a scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. but the strong-willed old beldam scowled, and beckoned, and flung the energy of her purpose so forcibly at this poor combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and ragged garments, that it was compelled to show itself a man, in spite of the reality of things. so it stepped into the bar of sunshine. there it stood, poor devil of a contrivance that it was!--with only the thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, through which was evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered, good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a heap upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. shall i confess the truth? at its present point of vivification, the scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm and abortive characters, composed of heterogeneous materials, used for the thousandth time, and never worth using, with which romance writers (and myself, no doubt, among the rest) have so overpeopled the world of fiction. but the fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of her diabolic nature (like a snake's head, peeping with a hiss out of her bosom), at this pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had taken the trouble to put together. "puff away, wretch!" cried she, wrathfully. "puff, puff, puff, thou thing of straw and emptiness! thou rag or two! thou meal bag! thou pumpkin head! thou nothing! where shall i find a name vile enough to call thee by? puff, i say, and suck in thy fantastic life with the smoke! else i snatch the pipe from thy mouth and hurl thee where that red coal came from." thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had nothing for it but to puff away for dear life. as need was, therefore, it applied itself lustily to the pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco smoke that the small cottage kitchen became all vaporous. the one sunbeam struggled mistily through, and could but imperfectly define the image of the cracked and dusty window pane on the opposite wall. mother rigby, meanwhile, with one brown arm akimbo and the other stretched towards the figure, loomed grimly amid the obscurity with such port and expression as when she was wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her victims and stand at the bedside to enjoy their agony. in fear and trembling did this poor scarecrow puff. but its efforts, it must be acknowledged, served an excellent purpose; for, with each successive whiff, the figure lost more and more of its dizzy and perplexing tenuity and seemed to take denser substance. its very garments, moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with the gloss of novelty and glistened with the skilfully embroidered gold that had long ago been rent away. and, half revealed among the smoke, a yellow visage bent its lustreless eyes on mother rigby. at last the old witch clinched her fist and shook it at the figure. not that she was positively angry, but merely acting on the principle--perhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as high a one as mother rigby could be expected to attain--that feeble and torpid natures, being incapable of better inspiration, must be stirred up by fear. but here was the crisis. should she fail in what she now sought to effect, it was her ruthless purpose to scatter the miserable simulacre into its original elements. "thou hast a man's aspect," said she, sternly. "have also the echo and mockery of a voice! i bid thee speak!" the scarecrow gasped, struggled, and at length emitted a murmur, which was so incorporated with its smoky breath that you could scarcely tell whether it were indeed a voice or only a whiff of tobacco. some narrators of this legend hold the opinion that mother rigby's conjurations and the fierceness of her will had compelled a familiar spirit into the figure, and that the voice was his. "mother," mumbled the poor stifled voice, "be not so awful with me! i would fain speak; but being without wits, what can i say?" "thou canst speak, darling, canst thou?" cried mother rigby, relaxing her grim countenance into a smile. "and what shalt thou say, quoth-a! say, indeed! art thou of the brotherhood of the empty skull, and demandest of me what thou shalt say? thou shalt say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said nothing! be not afraid, i tell thee! when thou comest into the world (whither i purpose sending thee forthwith) thou shalt not lack the wherewithal to talk. talk! why, thou shall babble like a mill-stream, if thou wilt. thou hast brains enough for that, i trow!" "at your service, mother," responded the figure. "and that was well said, my pretty one," answered mother rigby. "then thou speakest like thyself, and meant nothing. thou shalt have a hundred such set phrases, and five hundred to the boot of them. and now, darling, i have taken so much pains with thee and thou art so beautiful, that, by my troth, i love thee better than any witch's puppet in the world; and i've made them of all sorts--clay, wax, straw, sticks, night fog, morning mist, sea foam, and chimney smoke. but thou art the very best. so give heed to what i say." "yes, kind mother," said the figure, "with all my heart!" "with all thy heart!" cried the old witch, setting her hands to her sides and laughing loudly. "thou hast such a pretty way of speaking. with all thy heart! and thou didst put thy hand to the left side of thy waistcoat as if thou really hadst one!" so now, in high good humor with this fantastic contrivance of hers, mother rigby told the scarecrow that it must go and play its part in the great world, where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was gifted with more real substance than itself. and, that he might hold up his head with the best of them, she endowed him, on the spot, with an unreckonable amount of wealth. it consisted partly of a gold mine in eldorado, and of ten thousand shares in a broken bubble, and of half a million acres of vineyard at the north pole, and of a castle in the air, and a chateau in spain, together with all the rents and income therefrom accruing. she further made over to him the cargo of a certain ship, laden with salt of cadiz, which she herself, by her necromantic arts, had caused to founder, ten years before, in the deepest part of mid-ocean. if the salt were not dissolved, and could be brought to market, it would fetch a pretty penny among the fishermen. that he might not lack ready money, she gave him a copper farthing of birmingham manufacture, being all the coin she had about her, and likewise a great deal of brass, which she applied to his forehead, thus making it yellower than ever. "with that brass alone," quoth mother rigby, "thou canst pay thy way all over the earth. kiss me, pretty darling! i have done my best for thee." furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no possible advantage towards a fair start in life, this excellent old dame gave him a token by which he was to introduce himself to a certain magistrate, member of the council, merchant, and elder of the church (the four capacities constituting but one man), who stood at the head of society in the neighboring metropolis. the token was neither more nor less than a single word, which mother rigby whispered to the scarecrow, and which the scarecrow was to whisper to the merchant. "gouty as the old fellow is, he'll run thy errands for thee, when once thou hast given him that word in his ear," said the old witch. "mother rigby knows the worshipful justice gookin, and the worshipful justice knows mother rigby!" here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to the puppet's, chuckling irrepressibly, and fidgeting all through her system, with delight at the idea which she meant to communicate. "the worshipful master gookin," whispered she, "hath a comely maiden to his daughter. and hark ye, my pet! thou hast a fair outside, and a pretty wit enough of thine own. yea, a pretty wit enough! thou wilt think better of it when thou hast seen more of other people's wits. now, with thy outside and thy inside, thou art the very man to win a young girl's heart. never doubt it! i tell thee it shall be so. put but a bold face on the matter, sigh, smile, flourish thy hat, thrust forth thy leg like a dancing-master, put thy right hand to the left side of thy waistcoat, and pretty polly gookin is thine own!" all this while the new creature had been sucking in and exhaling the vapory fragrance of his pipe, and seemed now to continue this occupation as much for the enjoyment it afforded as because it was an essential condition of his existence. it was wonderful to see how exceedingly like a human being it behaved. its eyes (for it appeared to possess a pair) were bent on mother rigby, and at suitable junctures it nodded or shook its head. neither did it lack words proper for the occasion: "really! indeed! pray tell me! is it possible! upon my word! by no means! oh! ah! hem!" and other such weighty utterances as imply attention, inquiry, acquiescence, or dissent on the part of the auditor. even had you stood by and seen the scarecrow made, you could scarcely have resisted the conviction that it perfectly understood the cunning counsels which the old witch poured into its counterfeit of an ear. the more earnestly it applied its lips to the pipe, the more distinctly was its human likeness stamped among visible realities, the more sagacious grew its expression, the more lifelike its gestures and movements, and the more intelligibly audible its voice. its garments, too, glistened so much the brighter with an illusory magnificence. the very pipe, in which burned the spell of all this wonderwork, ceased to appear as a smoke-blackened earthen stump, and became a meerschaum, with painted bowl and amber mouthpiece. it might be apprehended, however, that as the life of the illusion seemed identical with the vapor of the pipe, it would terminate simultaneously with the reduction of the tobacco to ashes. but the beldam foresaw the difficulty. "hold thou the pipe, my precious one," said she, "while i fill it for thee again." it was sorrowful to behold how the fine gentleman began to fade back into a scarecrow while mother rigby shook the ashes out of the pipe and proceeded to replenish it from her tobacco-box. "dickon," cried she, in her high, sharp tone, "another coal for this pipe!" no sooner said than the intensely red speck of fire was glowing within the pipe-bowl; and the scarecrow, without waiting for the witch's bidding, applied the tube to his lips and drew in a few short, convulsive whiffs, which soon, however, became regular and equable. "now, mine own heart's darling," quoth mother rigby, "whatever may happen to thee, thou must stick to thy pipe. thy life is in it; and that, at least, thou knowest well, if thou knowest nought besides. stick to thy pipe, i say! smoke, puff, blow thy cloud; and tell the people, if any question be made, that it is for thy health, and that so the physician orders thee to do. and, sweet one, when thou shalt find thy pipe getting low, go apart into some corner, and (first filling thyself with smoke) cry sharply, 'dickon, a fresh pipe of tobacco!' and, 'dickon, another coal for my pipe!' and have it into thy pretty mouth as speedily as may be. else, instead of a gallant gentleman in a gold-laced coat, thou wilt be but a jumble of sticks and tattered clothes, and a bag of straw, and a withered pumpkin! now depart, my treasure, and good luck go with thee!" "never fear, mother!" said the figure, in a stout voice, and sending forth a courageous whiff of smoke, "i will thrive, if an honest man and a gentleman may!" "oh, thou wilt be the death of me!" cried the old witch, convulsed with laughter. "that was well said. if an honest man and a gentleman may! thou playest thy part to perfection. get along with thee for a smart fellow; and i will wager on thy head, as a man of pith and substance, with a brain and what they call a heart, and all else that a man should have, against any other thing on two legs. i hold myself a better witch than yesterday, for thy sake. did not i make thee? and i defy any witch in new england to make such another! here; take my staff along with thee!" the staff, though it was but a plain oaken stick, immediately took the aspect of a gold-headed cane. "that gold head has as much sense in it as thine own," said mother rigby, "and it will guide thee straight to worshipful master gookin's door. get thee gone, my pretty pet, my darling, my precious one, my treasure; and if any ask thy name, it is feathertop. for thou hast a feather in thy hat, and i have thrust a handful of feathers into the hollow of thy head, and thy wig, too, is of the fashion they call feathertop,--so be feathertop thy name!" and, issuing from the cottage, feathertop strode manfully towards town. mother rigby stood at the threshold, well pleased to see how the sunbeams glistened on him, as if all his magnificence were real, and how diligently and lovingly he smoked his pipe, and how handsomely he walked, in spite of a little stiffness of his legs. she watched him until out of sight, and threw a witch benediction after her darling, when a turn of the road snatched him from her view. betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street of the neighboring town was just at its acme of life and bustle, a stranger of very distinguished figure was seen on the sidewalk. his port as well as his garments betokened nothing short of nobility. he wore a richly-embroidered plum-colored coat, a waistcoat of costly velvet, magnificently adorned with golden foliage, a pair of splendid scarlet breeches, and the finest and glossiest of white silk stockings. his head was covered with a peruke, so daintily powdered and adjusted that it would have been sacrilege to disorder it with a hat; which, therefore (and it was a gold-laced hat, set off with a snowy feather), he carried beneath his arm. on the breast of his coat glistened a star. he managed his gold-headed cane with an airy grace, peculiar to the fine gentlemen of the period; and, to give the highest possible finish to his equipment, he had lace ruffles at his wrist, of a most ethereal delicacy, sufficiently avouching how idle and aristocratic must be the hands which they half concealed. it was a remarkable point in the accoutrement of this brilliant personage that he held in his left hand a fantastic kind of a pipe, with an exquisitely painted bowl and an amber mouthpiece. this he applied to his lips as often as every five or six paces, and inhaled a deep whiff of smoke, which, after being retained a moment in his lungs, might be seen to eddy gracefully from his mouth and nostrils. as may well be supposed, the street was all astir to find out the stranger's name. "it is some great nobleman, beyond question," said one of the townspeople. "do you see the star at his breast?" "nay; it is too bright to be seen," said another. "yes; he must needs be a nobleman, as you say. but by what conveyance, think you, can his lordship have voyaged or travelled hither? there has been no vessel from the old country for a month past; and if he have arrived overland from the southward, pray where are his attendants and equipage?" "he needs no equipage to set off his rank," remarked a third. "if he came among us in rags, nobility would shine through a hole in his elbow. i never saw such dignity of aspect. he has the old norman blood in his veins, i warrant him." "i rather take him to be a dutchman, or one of your high germans," said another citizen. "the men of those countries have always the pipe at their mouths." "and so has a turk," answered his companion. "but, in my judgment, this stranger hath been bred at the french court, and hath there learned politeness and grace of manner, which none understand so well as the nobility of france. that gait, now! a vulgar spectator might deem it stiff--he might call it a hitch and jerk--but, to my eye, it hath an unspeakable majesty, and must have been acquired by constant observation of the deportment of the grand monarque. the stranger's character and office are evident enough. he is a french ambassador, come to treat with our rulers about the cession of canada." "more probably a spaniard," said another, "and hence his yellow complexion; or, most likely, he is from the havana, or from some port on the spanish main, and comes to make investigation about the piracies which our government is thought to connive at. those settlers in peru and mexico have skins as yellow as the gold which they dig out of their mines." "yellow or not," cried a lady, "he is a beautiful man!--so tall, so slender! such a fine, noble face, with so well-shaped a nose, and all that delicacy of expression about the mouth! and, bless me, how bright his star is! it positively shoots out flames!" "so do your eyes, fair lady," said the stranger, with a bow and a flourish of his pipe; for he was just passing at the instant. "upon my honor, they have quite dazzled me." "was ever so original and exquisite a compliment?" murmured the lady, in an ecstasy of delight. amid the general admiration excited by the stranger's appearance, there were only two dissenting voices. one was that of an impertinent cur, which, after snuffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its tail between its legs and skulked into its master's back yard, vociferating an execrable howl. the other dissentient was a young child, who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs, and babbled some unintelligible nonsense about a pumpkin. feathertop meanwhile pursued his way along the street. except for the few complimentary words to the lady, and now and then a slight inclination of the head in requital of the profound reverences of the bystanders, he seemed wholly absorbed in his pipe. there needed no other proof of his rank and consequence than the perfect equanimity with which he comported himself, while the curiosity and admiration of the town swelled almost into clamor around him. with a crowd gathering behind his footsteps, he finally reached the mansion-house of the worshipful justice gookin, entered the gate, ascended the steps of the front door, and knocked. in the interim, before his summons was answered, the stranger was observed to shake the ashes out of his pipe. "what did he say in that sharp voice?" inquired one of the spectators. "nay, i know not," answered his friend. "but the sun dazzles my eyes strangely. how dim and faded his lordship looks all of a sudden! bless my wits, what is the matter with me?" "the wonder is," said the other, "that his pipe, which was out only an instant ago, should be all alight again, and with the reddest coal i ever saw. there is something mysterious about this stranger. what a whiff of smoke was that! dim and faded did you call him? why, as he turns about the star on his breast is all ablaze." "it is, indeed," said his companion; "and it will go near to dazzle pretty polly gookin, whom i see peeping at it out of the chamber window." the door being now opened, feathertop turned to the crowd, made a stately bend of his body like a great man acknowledging the reverence of the meaner sort, and vanished into the house. there was a mysterious kind of a smile, if it might not better be called a grin or grimace, upon his visage; but, of all the throng that beheld him, not an individual appears to have possessed insight enough to detect the illusive character of the stranger except a little child and a cur dog. our legend here loses somewhat of its continuity, and, passing over the preliminary explanation between feathertop and the merchant, goes in quest of the pretty polly gookin. she was a damsel of a soft, round figure, with light hair and blue eyes, and a fair, rosy face, which seemed neither very shrewd nor very simple. this young lady had caught a glimpse of the glistening stranger while standing on the threshold, and had forthwith put on a laced cap, a string of beads, her finest kerchief, and her stiffest damask petticoat in preparation for the interview. hurrying from her chamber to the parlor, she had ever since been viewing herself in the large looking-glass and practising pretty airs-now a smile, now a ceremonious dignity of aspect, and now a softer smile than the former, kissing her hand likewise, tossing her head, and managing her fan; while within the mirror an unsubstantial little maid repeated every gesture and did all the foolish things that polly did, but without making her ashamed of them. in short, it was the fault of pretty polly's ability rather than her will if she failed to be as complete an artifice as the illustrious feathertop himself; and, when she thus tampered with her own simplicity, the witch's phantom might well hope to win her. no sooner did polly hear her father's gouty footsteps approaching the parlor door, accompanied with the stiff clatter of feathertop's high-heeled shoes, than she seated herself bolt upright and innocently began warbling a song. "polly! daughter polly!" cried the old merchant. "come hither, child." master gookin's aspect, as he opened the door, was doubtful and troubled. "this gentleman," continued he, presenting the stranger, "is the chevalier feathertop,--nay, i beg his pardon, my lord feathertop,--who hath brought me a token of remembrance from an ancient friend of mine. pay your duty to his lordship, child, and honor him as his quality deserves." after these few words of introduction, the worshipful magistrate immediately quitted the room. but, even in that brief moment, had the fair polly glanced aside at her father instead of devoting herself wholly to the brilliant guest, she might have taken warning of some mischief nigh at hand. the old man was nervous, fidgety, and very pale. purposing a smile of courtesy, he had deformed his face with a sort of galvanic grin, which, when feathertop's back was turned, he exchanged for a scowl, at the same time shaking his fist and stamping his gouty foot--an incivility which brought its retribution along with it. the truth appears to have been that mother rigby's word of introduction, whatever it might be, had operated far more on the rich merchant's fears than on his good will. moreover, being a man of wonderfully acute observation, he had noticed that these painted figures on the bowl of feathertop's pipe were in motion. looking more closely he became convinced that these figures were a party of little demons, each duly provided with horns and a tail, and dancing hand in hand, with gestures of diabolical merriment, round the circumference of the pipe bowl. as if to confirm his suspicions, while master gookin ushered his guest along a dusky passage from his private room to the parlor, the star on feathertop's breast had scintillated actual flames, and threw a flickering gleam upon the wall, the ceiling, and the floor. with such sinister prognostics manifesting themselves on all hands, it is not to be marvelled at that the merchant should have felt that he was committing his daughter to a very questionable acquaintance. he cursed, in his secret soul, the insinuating elegance of feathertop's manners, as this brilliant personage bowed, smiled, put his hand on his heart, inhaled a long whiff from his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere with the smoky vapor of a fragrant and visible sigh. gladly would poor master gookin have thrust his dangerous guest into the street; but there was a constraint and terror within him. this respectable old gentleman, we fear, at an earlier period of life, had given some pledge or other to the evil principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it by the sacrifice of his daughter. it so happened that the parlor door was partly of glass, shaded by a silken curtain, the folds of which hung a little awry. so strong was the merchant's interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the fair polly and the gallant feathertop that, after quitting the room, he could by no means refrain from peeping through the crevice of the curtain. but there was nothing very miraculous to be seen; nothing--except the trifles previously noticed--to confirm the idea of a supernatural peril environing the pretty polly. the stranger it is true was evidently a thorough and practised man of the world, systematic and self-possessed, and therefore the sort of a person to whom a parent ought not to confide a simple, young girl without due watchfulness for the result. the worthy magistrate who had been conversant with all degrees and qualities of mankind, could not but perceive every motion and gesture of the distinguished feathertop came in its proper place; nothing had been left rude or native in him; a well-digested conventionalism had incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and transformed him into a work of art. perhaps it was this peculiarity that invested him with a species of ghastliness and awe. it is the effect of anything completely and consummately artificial, in human shape, that the person impresses us as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a shadow upon the floor. as regarded feathertop, all this resulted in a wild, extravagant, and fantastical impression, as if his life and being were akin to the smoke that curled upward from his pipe. but pretty polly gookin felt not thus. the pair were now promenading the room: feathertop with his dainty stride and no less dainty grimace, the girl with a native maidenly grace, just touched, not spoiled, by a slightly affected manner, which seemed caught from the perfect artifice of her companion. the longer the interview continued, the more charmed was pretty polly, until, within the first quarter of an hour (as the old magistrate noted by his watch), she was evidently beginning to be in love. nor need it have been witchcraft that subdued her in such a hurry; the poor child's heart, it may be, was so very fervent that it melted her with its own warmth as reflected from the hollow semblance of a lover. no matter what feathertop said, his words found depth and reverberation in her ear; no matter what he did, his action was heroic to her eye. and by this time it is to be supposed there was a blush on polly's cheek, a tender smile about her mouth and a liquid softness in her glance; while the star kept coruscating on feathertop's breast, and the little demons careered with more frantic merriment than ever about the circumference of his pipe bowl. o pretty polly gookin, why should these imps rejoice so madly that a silly maiden's heart was about to be given to a shadow! is it so unusual a misfortune, so rare a triumph? by and by feathertop paused, and throwing himself into an imposing attitude, seemed to summon the fair girl to survey his figure and resist him longer if she could. his star, his embroidery, his buckles glowed at that instant with unutterable splendor; the picturesque hues of his attire took a richer depth of coloring; there was a gleam and polish over his whole presence betokening the perfect witchery of well-ordered manners. the maiden raised her eyes and suffered them to linger upon her companion with a bashful and admiring gaze. then, as if desirous of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the full-length looking-glass in front of which they happened to be standing. it was one of the truest plates in the world and incapable of flattery. no sooner did the images therein reflected meet polly's eye than she shrieked, shrank from the stranger's side, gazed at him for a moment in the wildest dismay, and sank insensible upon the floor. feathertop likewise had looked towards the mirror, and there beheld, not the glittering mockery of his outside show, but a picture of the sordid patchwork of his real composition stripped of all witchcraft. the wretched simulacrum! we almost pity him. he threw up his arms with an expression of despair that went further than any of his previous manifestations towards vindicating his claims to be reckoned human, for perchance the only time since this so often empty and deceptive life of mortals began its course, an illusion had seen and fully recognized itself. mother rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth in the twilight of this eventful day, and had just shaken the ashes out of a new pipe, when she heard a hurried tramp along the road. yet it did not seem so much the tramp of human footsteps as the clatter of sticks or the rattling of dry bones. "ha!" thought the old witch, "what step is that? whose skeleton is out of its grave now, i wonder?" a figure burst headlong into the cottage door. it was feathertop! his pipe was still alight; the star still flamed upon his breast; the embroidery still glowed upon his garments; nor had he lost, in any degree or manner that could be estimated, the aspect that assimilated him with our mortal brotherhood. but yet, in some indescribable way (as is the case with all that has deluded us when once found out), the poor reality was felt beneath the cunning artifice. "what has gone wrong?" demanded the witch. "did yonder sniffling hypocrite thrust my darling from his door? the villain! i'll set twenty fiends to torment him till he offer thee his daughter on his bended knees!" "no, mother," said feathertop despondingly; "it was not that." "did the girl scorn my precious one?" asked mother rigby, her fierce eyes glowing like two coals of tophet. "i'll cover her face with pimples! her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! her front teeth shall drop out! in a week hence she shall not be worth thy having!" "let her alone, mother," answered poor feathertop; "the girl was half won; and methinks a kiss from her sweet lips might have made me altogether human. but," he added, after a brief pause and then a howl of self-contempt, "i've seen myself, mother! i've seen myself for the wretched, ragged, empty thing i am! i'll exist no longer!" snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. the eyeholes were now lustreless; but the rudely-carved gap, that just before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was so far human. "poor fellow!" quoth mother rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance. "my poor, dear, pretty feathertop! there are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was! yet they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are. and why should my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it?" while thus muttering, the witch had filled a fresh pipe of tobacco, and held the stem between her fingers, as doubtful whether to thrust it into her own mouth or feathertop's. "poor feathertop!" she continued. "i could easily give him another chance and send him forth again tomorrow. but no; his feelings are too tender, his sensibilities too deep. he seems to have too much heart to bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world. well! well! i'll make a scarecrow of him after all. 'tis an innocent and useful vocation, and will suit my darling well; and, if each of his human brethren had as fit a one, 't would be the better for mankind; and as for this pipe of tobacco, i need it more than he." so saying mother rigby put the stem between her lips. "dickon!" cried she, in her high, sharp tone, "another coal for my pipe!" egotism;[ ] or, the bosom serpent [from the unpublished "allegories of the heart."] [ ] the physical fact, to which it is here attempted to give a moral signification, has been known to occur in more than one instance. "here he comes!" shouted the boys along the street. "here comes the man with a snake in his bosom!" this outcry, saluting herkimer's ears as he was about to enter the iron gate of the elliston mansion, made him pause. it was not without a shudder that he found himself on the point of meeting his former acquaintance, whom he had known in the glory of youth, and whom now after an interval of five years, he was to find the victim either of a diseased fancy or a horrible physical misfortune. "a snake in his bosom!" repeated the young sculptor to himself. "it must be he. no second man on earth has such a bosom friend. and now, my poor rosina, heaven grant me wisdom to discharge my errand aright! woman's faith must be strong indeed since thine has not yet failed." thus musing, he took his stand at the entrance of the gate and waited until the personage so singularly announced should make his appearance. after an instant or two he beheld the figure of a lean man, of unwholesome look, with glittering eyes and long black hair, who seemed to imitate the motion of a snake; for, instead of walking straight forward with open front, he undulated along the pavement in a curved line. it may be too fanciful to say that something, either in his moral or material aspect, suggested the idea that a miracle had been wrought by transforming a serpent into a man, but so imperfectly that the snaky nature was yet hidden, and scarcely hidden, under the mere outward guise of humanity. herkimer remarked that his complexion had a greenish tinge over its sickly white, reminding him of a species of marble out of which he had once wrought a head of envy, with her snaky locks. the wretched being approached the gate, but, instead of entering, stopped short and fixed the glitter of his eye full upon the compassionate yet steady countenance of the sculptor. "it gnaws me! it gnaws me!" he exclaimed. and then there was an audible hiss, but whether it came from the apparent lunatic's own lips, or was the real hiss of a serpent, might admit of a discussion. at all events, it made herkimer shudder to his heart's core. "do you know me, george herkimer?" asked the snake-possessed. herkimer did know him; but it demanded all the intimate and practical acquaintance with the human face, acquired by modelling actual likenesses in clay, to recognize the features of roderick elliston in the visage that now met the sculptor's gaze. yet it was he. it added nothing to the wonder to reflect that the once brilliant young man had undergone this odious and fearful change during the no more than five brief years of herkimer's abode at florence. the possibility of such a transformation being granted, it was as easy to conceive it effected in a moment as in an age. inexpressibly shocked and startled, it was still the keenest pang when herkimer remembered that the fate of his cousin rosina, the ideal of gentle womanhood, was indissolubly interwoven with that of a being whom providence seemed to have unhumanized. "elliston! roderick!" cried he, "i had heard of this; but my conception came far short of the truth. what has befallen you? why do i find you thus?" "oh, 'tis a mere nothing! a snake! a snake! the commonest thing in the world. a snake in the bosom--that's all," answered roderick elliston. "but how is your own breast?" continued he, looking the sculptor in the eye with the most acute and penetrating glance that it had ever been his fortune to encounter. "all pure and wholesome? no reptile there? by my faith and conscience, and by the devil within me, here is a wonder! a man without a serpent in his bosom!" "be calm, elliston," whispered george herkimer, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the snake-possessed. "i have crossed the ocean to meet you. listen! let us be private. i bring a message from rosina--from your wife!" "it gnaws me! it gnaws me!" muttered roderick. with this exclamation, the most frequent in his mouth, the unfortunate man clutched both hands upon his breast as if an intolerable sting or torture impelled him to rend it open and let out the living mischief, even should it be intertwined with his own life. he then freed himself from herkimer's grasp by a subtle motion, and, gliding through the gate, took refuge in his antiquated family residence. the sculptor did not pursue him. he saw that no available intercourse could be expected at such a moment, and was desirous, before another meeting, to inquire closely into the nature of roderick's disease and the circumstances that had reduced him to so lamentable a condition. he succeeded in obtaining the necessary information from an eminent medical gentleman. shortly after elliston's separation from his wife--now nearly four years ago--his associates had observed a singular gloom spreading over his daily life, like those chill, gray mists that sometimes steal away the sunshine from a summer's morning. the symptoms caused them endless perplexity. they knew not whether ill health were robbing his spirits of elasticity, or whether a canker of the mind was gradually eating, as such cankers do, from his moral system into the physical frame, which is but the shadow of the former. they looked for the root of this trouble in his shattered schemes of domestic bliss,--wilfully shattered by himself,--but could not be satisfied of its existence there. some thought that their once brilliant friend was in an incipient stage of insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhaps been the forerunners; others prognosticated a general blight and gradual decline. from roderick's own lips they could learn nothing. more than once, it is true, he had been heard to say, clutching his hands convulsively upon his breast,--"it gnaws me! it gnaws me!"--but, by different auditors, a great diversity of explanation was assigned to this ominous expression. what could it be that gnawed the breast of roderick elliston? was it sorrow? was it merely the tooth of physical disease? or, in his reckless course, often verging upon profligacy, if not plunging into its depths, had he been guilty of some deed which made his bosom a prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? there was plausible ground for each of these conjectures; but it must not be concealed that more than one elderly gentleman, the victim of good cheer and slothful habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the whole matter to be dyspepsia! meanwhile, roderick seemed aware how generally he had become the subject of curiosity and conjecture, and, with a morbid repugnance to such notice, or to any notice whatsoever, estranged himself from all companionship. not merely the eye of man was a horror to him; not merely the light of a friend's countenance; but even the blessed sunshine, likewise, which in its universal beneficence typifies the radiance of the creator's face, expressing his love for all the creatures of his hand. the dusky twilight was now too transparent for roderick elliston; the blackest midnight was his chosen hour to steal abroad; and if ever he were seen, it was when the watchman's lantern gleamed upon his figure, gliding along the street, with his hands clutched upon his bosom, still muttering, "it gnaws me! it gnaws me!" what could it be that gnawed him? after a time, it became known that elliston was in the habit of resorting to all the noted quacks that infested the city, or whom money would tempt to journey thither from a distance. by one of these persons, in the exultation of a supposed cure, it was proclaimed far and wide, by dint of handbills and little pamphlets on dingy paper, that a distinguished gentleman, roderick elliston, esq., had been relieved of a snake in his stomach! so here was the monstrous secret, ejected from its lurking place into public view, in all its horrible deformity. the mystery was out; but not so the bosom serpent. he, if it were anything but a delusion, still lay coiled in his living den. the empiric's cure had been a sham, the effect, it was supposed, of some stupefying drug which more nearly caused the death of the patient than of the odious reptile that possessed him. when roderick elliston regained entire sensibility, it was to find his misfortune the town talk--the more than nine days' wonder and horror--while, at his bosom, he felt the sickening motion of a thing alive, and the gnawing of that restless fang which seemed to gratify at once a physical appetite and a fiendish spite. he summoned the old black servant, who had been bred up in his father's house, and was a middle-aged man while roderick lay in his cradle. "scipio!" he began; and then paused, with his arms folded over his heart. "what do people say of me, scipio." "sir! my poor master! that you had a serpent in your bosom," answered the servant with hesitation. "and what else?" asked roderick, with a ghastly look at the man. "nothing else, dear master," replied scipio, "only that the doctor gave you a powder, and that the snake leaped out upon the floor." "no, no!" muttered roderick to himself, as he shook his head, and pressed his hands with a more convulsive force upon his breast, "i feel him still. it gnaws me! it gnaws me!" from this time the miserable sufferer ceased to shun the world, but rather solicited and forced himself upon the notice of acquaintances and strangers. it was partly the result of desperation on finding that the cavern of his own bosom had not proved deep and dark enough to hide the secret, even while it was so secure a fortress for the loathsome fiend that had crept into it. but still more, this craving for notoriety was a symptom of the intense morbidness which now pervaded his nature. all persons chronically diseased are egotists, whether the disease be of the mind or body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely the more tolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischief among the cords of mortal life. such individuals are made acutely conscious of a self, by the torture in which it dwells. self, therefore, grows to be so prominent an object with them that they cannot but present it to the face of every casual passer-by. there is a pleasure--perhaps the greatest of which the sufferer is susceptible--in displaying the wasted or ulcerated limb, or the cancer in the breast; and the fouler the crime, with so much the more difficulty does the perpetrator prevent it from thrusting up its snake-like head to frighten the world; for it is that cancer, or that crime, which constitutes their respective individuality. roderick elliston, who, a little while before, had held himself so scornfully above the common lot of men, now paid full allegiance to this humiliating law. the snake in his bosom seemed the symbol of a monstrous egotism to which everything was referred, and which he pampered, night and day, with a continual and exclusive sacrifice of devil worship. he soon exhibited what most people considered indubitable tokens of insanity. in some of his moods, strange to say, he prided and gloried himself on being marked out from the ordinary experience of mankind, by the possession of a double nature, and a life within a life. he appeared to imagine that the snake was a divinity,--not celestial, it is true, but darkly infernal,--and that he thence derived an eminence and a sanctity, horrid, indeed, yet more desirable than whatever ambition aims at. thus he drew his misery around him like a regal mantle, and looked down triumphantly upon those whose vitals nourished no deadly monster. oftener, however, his human nature asserted its empire over him in the shape of a yearning for fellowship. it grew to be his custom to spend the whole day in wandering about the streets, aimlessly, unless it might be called an aim to establish a species of brotherhood between himself and the world. with cankered ingenuity, he sought out his own disease in every breast. whether insane or not, he showed so keen a perception of frailty, error, and vice, that many persons gave him credit for being possessed not merely with a serpent, but with an actual fiend, who imparted this evil faculty of recognizing whatever was ugliest in man's heart. for instance, he met an individual, who, for thirty years, had cherished a hatred against his own brother. roderick, amidst the throng of the street, laid his hand on this man's chest, and looking full into his forbidding face, "how is the snake to-day?" he inquired, with a mock expression of sympathy. "the snake!" exclaimed the brother hater--"what do you mean?" "the snake! the snake! does it gnaw you?" persisted roderick. "did you take counsel with him this morning when you should have been saying your prayers? did he sting, when you thought of your brother's health, wealth, and good repute? did he caper for joy, when you remembered the profligacy of his only son? and whether he stung, or whether he frolicked, did you feel his poison throughout your body and soul, converting everything to sourness and bitterness? that is the way of such serpents. i have learned the whole nature of them from my own!" "where is the police?" roared the object of roderick's persecution, at the same time giving an instinctive clutch to his breast. "why is this lunatic allowed to go at large?" "ha, ha!" chuckled roderick, releasing his grasp of the man.-- "his bosom serpent has stung him then!" often it pleased the unfortunate young man to vex people with a lighter satire, yet still characterized by somewhat of snake-like virulence. one day he encountered an ambitious statesman, and gravely inquired after the welfare of his boa constrictor; for of that species, roderick affirmed, this gentleman's serpent must needs be, since its appetite was enormous enough to devour the whole country and constitution. at another time, he stopped a close-fisted old fellow, of great wealth, but who skulked about the city in the guise of a scarecrow, with a patched blue surtout, brown hat, and mouldy boots, scraping pence together, and picking up rusty nails. pretending to look earnestly at this respectable person's stomach, roderick assured him that his snake was a copper-head and had been generated by the immense quantities of that base metal with which he daily defiled his fingers. again, he assaulted a man of rubicund visage, and told him that few bosom serpents had more of the devil in them than those that breed in the vats of a distillery. the next whom roderick honored with his attention was a distinguished clergyman, who happened just then to be engaged in a theological controversy, where human wrath was more perceptible than divine inspiration. "you have swallowed a snake in a cup of sacramental wine," quoth he. "profane wretch!" exclaimed the divine; but, nevertheless, his hand stole to his breast. he met a person of sickly sensibility, who, on some early disappointment, had retired from the world, and thereafter held no intercourse with his fellow-men, but brooded sullenly or passionately over the irrevocable past. this man's very heart, if roderick might be believed, had been changed into a serpent, which would finally torment both him and itself to death. observing a married couple, whose domestic troubles were matter of notoriety, he condoled with both on having mutually taken a house adder to their bosoms. to an envious author, who depreciated works which he could never equal, he said that his snake was the slimiest and filthiest of all the reptile tribe, but was fortunately without a sting. a man of impure life, and a brazen face, asking roderick if there were any serpent in his breast, he told him that there was, and of the same species that once tortured don rodrigo, the goth. he took a fair young girl by the hand, and gazing sadly into her eyes, warned her that she cherished a serpent of the deadliest kind within her gentle breast; and the world found the truth of those ominous words, when, a few months afterwards, the poor girl died of love and shame. two ladies, rivals in fashionable life who tormented one another with a thousand little stings of womanish spite, were given to understand that each of their hearts was a nest of diminutive snakes, which did quite as much mischief as one great one. but nothing seemed to please roderick better than to lay hold of a person infected with jealousy, which he represented as an enormous green reptile, with an ice-cold length of body, and the sharpest sting of any snake save one. "and what one is that?" asked a by-stander, overhearing him. it was a dark-browed man who put the question; he had an evasive eye, which in the course of a dozen years had looked no mortal directly in the face. there was an ambiguity about this person's character,--a stain upon his reputation,--yet none could tell precisely of what nature, although the city gossips, male and female, whispered the most atrocious surmises. until a recent period he had followed the sea, and was, in fact, the very shipmaster whom george herkimer had encountered, under such singular circumstances, in the grecian archipelago. "what bosom serpent has the sharpest sting?" repeated this man; but he put the question as if by a reluctant necessity, and grew pale while he was uttering it. "why need you ask?" replied roderick, with a look of dark intelligence. "look into your own breast. hark! my serpent bestirs himself! he acknowledges the presence of a master fiend!" and then, as the by-standers afterwards affirmed, a hissing sound was heard, apparently in roderick elliston's breast. it was said, too, that an answering hiss came from the vitals of the shipmaster, as if a snake were actually lurking there and had been aroused by the call of its brother reptile. if there were in fact any such sound, it might have been caused by a malicious exercise of ventriloquism on the part of roderick. thus making his own actual serpent--if a serpent there actually was in his bosom--the type of each man's fatal error, or hoarded sin, or unquiet conscience, and striking his sting so unremorsefully into the sorest spot, we may well imagine that roderick became the pest of the city. nobody could elude him--none could withstand him. he grappled with the ugliest truth that he could lay his hand on, and compelled his adversary to do the same. strange spectacle in human life where it is the instinctive effort of one and all to hide those sad realities, and leave them undisturbed beneath a heap of superficial topics which constitute the materials of intercourse between man and man! it was not to be tolerated that roderick elliston should break through the tacit compact by which the world has done its best to secure repose without relinquishing evil. the victims of his malicious remarks, it is true, had brothers enough to keep them in countenance; for, by roderick's theory, every mortal bosom harbored either a brood of small serpents or one overgrown monster that had devoured all the rest. still the city could not bear this new apostle. it was demanded by nearly all, and particularly by the most respectable inhabitants, that roderick should no longer be permitted to violate the received rules of decorum by obtruding his own bosom serpent to the public gaze, and dragging those of decent people from their lurking places. accordingly, his relatives interfered and placed him in a private asylum for the insane. when the news was noised abroad, it was observed that many persons walked the streets with freer countenances and covered their breasts less carefully with their hands. his confinement, however, although it contributed not a little to the peace of the town, operated unfavorably upon roderick himself. in solitude his melancholy grew more black and sullen. he spent whole days--indeed, it was his sole occupation--in communing with the serpent. a conversation was sustained, in which, as it seemed, the hidden monster bore a part, though unintelligibly to the listeners, and inaudible except in a hiss. singular as it may appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sort of affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, with the intensest loathing and horror. nor were such discordant emotions incompatible. each, on the contrary, imparted strength and poignancy to its opposite. horrible love--horrible antipathy--embracing one another in his bosom, and both concentrating themselves upon a being that had crept into his vitals or been engendered there, and which was nourished with his food, and lived upon his life, and was as intimate with him as his own heart, and yet was the foulest of all created things! but not the less was it the true type of a morbid nature. sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter hatred against the snake and himself, roderick determined to be the death of him, even at the expense of his own life. once he attempted it by starvation; but, while the wretched man was on the point of famishing, the monster seemed to feed upon his heart, and to thrive and wax gamesome, as if it were his sweetest and most congenial diet. then he privily took a dose of active poison, imagining that it would not fail to kill either himself or the devil that possessed him, or both together. another mistake; for if roderick had not yet been destroyed by his own poisoned heart nor the snake by gnawing it, they had little to fear from arsenic or corrosive sublimate. indeed, the venomous pest appeared to operate as an antidote against all other poisons. the physicians tried to suffocate the fiend with tobacco smoke. he breathed it as freely as if it were his native atmosphere. again, they drugged their patient with opium and drenched him with intoxicating liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be reduced to stupor and perhaps be ejected from the stomach. they succeeded in rendering roderick insensible; but, placing their hands upon his breast, they were inexpressibly horror stricken to feel the monster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within his narrow limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to unusual feats of activity. thenceforth they gave up all attempts at cure or palliation. the doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed his former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole miserable days before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open, watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of the snake's head far down within his throat. it is supposed that he succeeded; for the attendants once heard a frenzied shout, and, rushing into the room, found roderick lifeless upon the floor. he was kept but little longer under restraint. after minute investigation, the medical directors of the asylum decided that his mental disease did not amount to insanity, nor would warrant his confinement, especially as its influence upon his spirits was unfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant to remedy. his eccentricities were doubtless great; he had habitually violated many of the customs and prejudices of society; but the world was not, without surer ground, entitled to treat him as a madman. on this decision of such competent authority roderick was released, and had returned to his native city the very day before his encounter with george herkimer. as soon as possible after learning these particulars the sculptor, together with a sad and tremulous companion, sought elliston at his own house. it was a large, sombre edifice of wood, with pilasters and a balcony, and was divided from one of the principal streets by a terrace of three elevations, which was ascended by successive flights of stone steps. some immense old elms almost concealed the front of the mansion. this spacious and once magnificent family residence was built by a grandee of the race early in the past century, at which epoch, land being of small comparative value, the garden and other grounds had formed quite an extensive domain. although a portion of the ancestral heritage had been alienated, there was still a shadowy enclosure in the rear of the mansion where a student, or a dreamer, or a man of stricken heart might lie all day upon the grass, amid the solitude of murmuring boughs, and forget that a city had grown up around him. into this retirement the sculptor and his companion were ushered by scipio, the old black servant, whose wrinkled visage grew almost sunny with intelligence and joy as he paid his humble greetings to one of the two visitors. "remain in the arbor," whispered the sculptor to the figure that leaned upon his arm. "you will know whether, and when, to make your appearance." "god will teach me," was the reply. "may he support me too!" roderick was reclining on the margin of a fountain which gushed into the fleckered sunshine with the same clear sparkle and the same voice of airy quietude as when trees of primeval growth flung their shadows cross its bosom. how strange is the life of a fountain!--born at every moment, yet of an age coeval with the rocks, and far surpassing the venerable antiquity of a forest. "you are come! i have expected you," said elliston, when he became aware of the sculptor's presence. his manner was very different from that of the preceding day--quiet, courteous, and, as herkimer thought, watchful both over his guest and himself. this unnatural restraint was almost the only trait that betokened anything amiss. he had just thrown a book upon the grass, where it lay half opened, thus disclosing itself to be a natural history of the serpent tribe, illustrated by lifelike plates. near it lay that bulky volume, the ductor dubitantium of jeremy taylor, full of cases of conscience, and in which most men, possessed of a conscience, may find something applicable to their purpose. "you see," observed elliston, pointing to the book of serpents, while a smile gleamed upon his lips, "i am making an effort to become better acquainted with my bosom friend; but i find nothing satisfactory in this volume. if i mistake not, he will prove to be sui generis, and akin to no other reptile in creation." "whence came this strange calamity?" inquired the sculptor. "my sable friend scipio has a story," replied roderick, "of a snake that had lurked in this fountain--pure and innocent as it looks--ever since it was known to the first settlers. this insinuating personage once crept into the vitals of my great grandfather and dwelt there many years, tormenting the old gentleman beyond mortal endurance. in short it is a family peculiarity. but, to tell you the truth, i have no faith in this idea of the snake's being an heirloom. he is my own snake, and no man's else." "but what was his origin?" demanded herkimer. "oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man's heart sufficient to generate a brood of serpents," said elliston with a hollow laugh. "you should have heard my homilies to the good town's-people. positively, i deem myself fortunate in having bred but a single serpent. you, however, have none in your bosom, and therefore cannot sympathize with the rest of the world. it gnaws me! it gnaws me!" with this exclamation roderick lost his self-control and threw himself upon the grass, testifying his agony by intricate writhings, in which herkimer could not but fancy a resemblance to the motions of a snake. then, likewise, was heard that frightful hiss, which often ran through the sufferer's speech, and crept between the words and syllables without interrupting their succession. "this is awful indeed!" exclaimed the sculptor--"an awful infliction, whether it be actual or imaginary. tell me, roderick elliston, is there any remedy for this loathsome evil?" "yes, but an impossible one," muttered roderick, as he lay wallowing with his face in the grass. "could i for one moment forget myself, the serpent might not abide within me. it is my diseased self-contemplation that has engendered and nourished him." "then forget yourself, my husband," said a gentle voice above him; "forget yourself in the idea of another!" rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him with the shadow of his anguish reflected in her countenance, yet so mingled with hope and unselfish love that all anguish seemed but an earthly shadow and a dream. she touched roderick with her hand. a tremor shivered through his frame. at that moment, if report be trustworthy, the sculptor beheld a waving motion through the grass, and heard a tinkling sound, as if something had plunged into the fountain. be the truth as it might, it is certain that roderick elliston sat up like a man renewed, restored to his right mind, and rescued from the fiend which had so miserably overcome him in the battle-field of his own breast. "rosina!" cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but with nothing of the wild wail that had haunted his voice so long, "forgive! forgive!" her happy tears bedewed his face. "the punishment has been severe," observed the sculptor. "even justice might now forgive; how much more a woman's tenderness! roderick elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile, or whether the morbidness of your nature suggested that symbol to your fancy, the moral of the story is not the less true and strong. a tremendous egotism, manifesting itself in your case in the form of jealousy, is as fearful a fiend as ever stole into the human heart. can a breast, where it has dwelt so long, be purified?" "oh yes," said rosina with a heavenly smile. "the serpent was but a dark fantasy, and what it typified was as shadowy as itself. the past, dismal as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon the future. to give it its due importance we must think of it but as an anecdote in our eternity." drowne's wooden image one sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of boston, a young carver in wood, well known by the name of drowne, stood contemplating a large oaken log, which it was his purpose to convert into the figure-head of a vessel. and while he discussed within his own mind what sort of shape or similitude it were well to bestow upon this excellent piece of timber, there came into drowne's workshop a certain captain hunnewell, owner and commander of the good brig called the cynosure, which had just returned from her first voyage to fayal. "ah! that will do, drowne, that will do!" cried the jolly captain, tapping the log with his rattan. "i bespeak this very piece of oak for the figure-head of the cynosure. she has shown herself the sweetest craft that ever floated, and i mean to decorate her prow with the handsomest image that the skill of man can cut out of timber. and, drowne, you are the fellow to execute it." "you give me more credit than i deserve, captain hunnewell," said the carver, modestly, yet as one conscious of eminence in his art. "but, for the sake of the good brig, i stand ready to do my best. and which of these designs do you prefer? here,"--pointing to a staring, half-length figure, in a white wig and scarlet coat,--"here is an excellent model, the likeness of our gracious king. here is the valiant admiral vernon. or, if you prefer a female figure, what say you to britannia with the trident?" "all very fine, drowne; all very fine," answered the mariner. "but as nothing like the brig ever swam the ocean, so i am determined she shall have such a figure-head as old neptune never saw in his life. and what is more, as there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge your credit not to betray it." "certainly," said drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery there could be in reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the inspection of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. "you may depend, captain, on my being as secret as the nature of the case will permit." captain hunnewell then took drowne by the button, and communicated his wishes in so low a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was evidently intended for the carver's private ear. we shall, therefore, take the opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars about drowne himself. he was the first american who is known to have attempted--in a very humble line, it is true--that art in which we can now reckon so many names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. from his earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack--for it would be too proud a word to call it genius--a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the human figure in whatever material came most readily to hand. the snows of a new england winter had often supplied him with a species of marble as dazzingly white, at least, as the parian or the carrara, and if less durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent existence possessed by the boy's frozen statues. yet they won admiration from maturer judges than his school-fellows, and were indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. as he advanced in life, the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the display of his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid silver as well as the empty praise that had been an apt reward enough for his productions of evanescent snow. he became noted for carving ornamental pump heads, and wooden urns for gate posts, and decorations, more grotesque than fanciful, for mantelpieces. no apothecary would have deemed himself in the way of obtaining custom without setting up a gilded mortar, if not a head of galen or hippocrates, from the skilful hand of drowne. but the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of figure-heads for vessels. whether it were the monarch himself, or some famous british admiral or general, or the governor of the province, or perchance the favorite daughter of the ship-owner, there the image stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous colors, magnificently gilded, and staring the whole world out of countenance, as if from an innate consciousness of its own superiority. these specimens of native sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions, and been not ignobly noticed among the crowded shipping of the thames and wherever else the hardy mariners of new england had pushed their adventures. it must be confessed that a family likeness pervaded these respectable progeny of drowne's skill; that the benign countenance of the king resembled those of his subjects, and that miss peggy hobart, the merchant's daughter, bore a remarkable similitude to britannia, victory, and other ladies of the allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, that they all had a kind of wooden aspect which proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped blocks of timber in the carver's workshop. but at least there was no inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to render them really works of art, except that deep quality, be it of soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and warmth upon the cold, and which, had it been present, would have made drowne's wooden image instinct with spirit. the captain of the cynosure had now finished his instructions. "and drowne," said he, impressively, "you must lay aside all other business and set about this forthwith. and as to the price, only do the job in first-rate style, and you shall settle that point yourself." "very well, captain," answered the carver, who looked grave and somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort of smile upon his visage; "depend upon it, i'll do my utmost to satisfy you." from that moment the men of taste about long wharf and the town dock who were wont to show their love for the arts by frequent visits to drowne's workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, began to be sensible of a mystery in the carver's conduct. often he was absent in the daytime. sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light from the shop windows, he was at work until a late hour of the evening; although neither knock nor voice, on such occasions, could gain admittance for a visitor, or elicit any word of response. nothing remarkable, however, was observed in the shop at those late hours when it was thrown open. a fine piece of timber, indeed, which drowne was known to have reserved for some work of especial dignity, was seen to be gradually assuming shape. what shape it was destined ultimately to take was a problem to his friends and a point on which the carver himself preserved a rigid silence. but day after day, though drowne was seldom noticed in the act of working upon it, this rude form began to be developed until it became evident to all observers that a female figure was growing into mimic life. at each new visit they beheld a larger pile of wooden chips and a nearer approximation to something beautiful. it seemed as if the hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative world within the heart of her native tree, and that it was only necessary to remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and reveal the grace and loveliness of a divinity. imperfect as the design, the attitude, the costume, and especially the face of the image still remained, there was already an effect that drew the eye from the wooden cleverness of drowne's earlier productions and fixed it upon the tantalizing mystery of this new project. copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident of boston, came one day to visit drowne; for he had recognized so much of moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the dearth of professional sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance. on entering the shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image of king, commander, dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the best of which might have been bestowed the questionable praise that it looked as if a living man had here been changed to wood, and that not only the physical, but the intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation. but in not a single instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing the ethereal essence of humanity. what a wide distinction is here! and how far the slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued the utmost degree of the former! "my friend drowne;" said copley, smiling to himself, but alluding to the mechanical and wooden cleverness that so invariably distinguished the images, "you are really a remarkable person! i have seldom met with a man in your line of business that could do so much; for one other touch might make this figure of general wolfe, for instance, a breathing and intelligent human creature." "you would have me think that you are praising me highly, mr. copley," answered drowne, turning his back upon wolfe's image in apparent disgust. "but there has come a light into my mind. i know what you know as well, that the one touch which you speak of as deficient is the only one that would be truly valuable, and that without it these works of mine are no better than worthless abortions. there is the same difference between them and the works of an inspired artist as between a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures." "this is strange," cried copley, looking him in the face, which now, as the painter fancied, had a singular depth of intelligence, though hitherto it had not given him greatly the advantage over his own family of wooden images. "what has come over you? how is it that, possessing the idea which you have now uttered, you should produce only such works as these?" the carver smiled, but made no reply. copley turned again to the images, conceiving that the sense of deficiency which drowne had just expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had heretofore been overlooked. but no; there was not a trace of it. he was about to withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a half-developed figure which lay in a corner of the workshop, surrounded by scattered chips of oak. it arrested him at once. "what is here? who has done this?" he broke out, after contemplating it in speechless astonishment for an instant. "here is the divine, the lifegiving touch. what inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise and live? whose work is this?" "no man's work," replied drowne. "the figure lies within that block of oak, and it is my business to find it." "drowne," said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the hand, "you are a man of genius!" as copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he beheld drowne bending over the half-created shape, and stretching forth his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart; while, had such a miracle been possible, his countenance expressed passion enough to communicate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless oak. "strange enough!" said the artist to himself. "who would have looked for a modern pygmalion in the person of a yankee mechanic!" as yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as in the cloud shapes around the western sun, the observer rather felt, or was led to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. day by day, however, the work assumed greater precision, and settled its irregular and misty outline into distincter grace and beauty. the general design was now obvious to the common eye. it was a female figure, in what appeared to be a foreign dress; the gown being laced over the bosom, and opening in front so as to disclose a skirt or petticoat, the folds and inequalities of which were admirably represented in the oaken substance. she wore a hat of singular gracefulness, and abundantly laden with flowers, such as never grew in the rude soil of new england, but which, with all their fanciful luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible for the most fertile imagination to have attained without copying from real prototypes. there were several little appendages to this dress, such as a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the bosom, and a ring upon the finger, all of which would have been deemed beneath the dignity of sculpture. they were put on, however, with as much taste as a lovely woman might have shown in her attire, and could therefore have shocked none but a judgment spoiled by artistic rules. the face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch, intelligence and sensibility brightened through the features, with all the effect of light gleaming forth from within the solid oak. the face became alive. it was a beautiful, though not precisely regular and somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain piquancy about the eyes and mouth, which, of all expressions, would have seemed the most impossible to throw over a wooden countenance. and now, so far as carving went, this wonderful production was complete. "drowne," said copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his visits to the carver's workshop, "if this work were in marble it would make you famous at once; nay, i would almost affirm that it would make an era in the art. it is as ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real as any lovely woman whom one meets at a fireside or in the street. but i trust you do not mean to desecrate this exquisite creature with paint, like those staring kings and admirals yonder?" "not paint her!" exclaimed captain hunnewell, who stood by; "not paint the figure-head of the cynosure! and what sort of a figure should i cut in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick as this over my prow! she must, and she shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost flower in her hat down to the silver spangles on her slippers." "mr. copley," said drowne, quietly, "i know nothing of marble statuary, and nothing of the sculptor's rules of art; but of this wooden image, this work of my hands, this creature of my heart,"--and here his voice faltered and choked in a very singular manner,--"of this--of her--i may say that i know something. a well-spring of inward wisdom gushed within me as i wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and faith. let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules they choose. if i can produce my desired effect by painted wood, those rules are not for me, and i have a right to disregard them." "the very spirit of genius," muttered copley to himself. "how otherwise should this carver feel himself entitled to transcend all rules, and make me ashamed of quoting them?" he looked earnestly at drowne, and again saw that expression of human love which, in a spiritual sense, as the artist could not help imagining, was the secret of the life that had been breathed into this block of wood. the carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his operations upon this mysterious image, proceeded to paint the habiliments in their proper colors, and the countenance with nature's red and white. when all was finished he threw open his workshop, and admitted the towns people to behold what he had done. most persons, at their first entrance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and pay such reverence as was due to the richly-dressed and beautiful young lady who seemed to stand in a corner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings scattered at her feet. then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be something preternatural. there was, in truth, an indefinable air and expression that might reasonably induce the query, who and from what sphere this daughter of the oak should be? the strange, rich flowers of eden on her head; the complexion, so much deeper and more brilliant than those of our native beauties; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, yet not too fantastic to be worn decorously in the street; the delicately-wrought embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain about her neck; the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely sculptured in open work, and painted to resemble pearl and ebony;--where could drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision here so matchlessly embodied! and then her face! in the dark eyes, and around the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made up of pride, coquetry, and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed copley with the idea that the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing admiration of himself and other beholders. "and will you," said he to the carver, "permit this masterpiece to become the figure-head of a vessel? give the honest captain yonder figure of britannia--it will answer his purpose far better--and send this fairy queen to england, where, for aught i know, it may bring you a thousand pounds." "i have not wrought it for money," said drowne. "what sort of a fellow is this!" thought copley. "a yankee, and throw away the chance of making his fortune! he has gone mad; and thence has come this gleam of genius." there was still further proof of drowne's lunacy, if credit were due to the rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady, and gazing with a lover's passionate ardor into the face that his own hands had created. the bigots of the day hinted that it would be no matter of surprise if an evil spirit were allowed to enter this beautiful form, and seduce the carver to destruction. the fame of the image spread far and wide. the inhabitants visited it so universally, that after a few days of exhibition there was hardly an old man or a child who had not become minutely familiar with its aspect. even had the story of drowne's wooden image ended here, its celebrity might have been prolonged for many years by the reminiscences of those who looked upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else so beautiful in after life. but the town was now astounded by an event, the narrative of which has formed itself into one of the most singular legends that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney corners of the new england metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming of the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the present and the future. one fine morning, just before the departure of the cynosure on her second voyage to fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel was seen to issue from his residence in hanover street. he was stylishly dressed in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold lace at the seams and button-holes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat, with a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted hanger at his side. but the good captain might have been arrayed in the robes of a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either case attracting notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm. the people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped aside from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in astonishment. "do you see it?--do you see it?" cried one, with tremulous eagerness. "it is the very same!" "the same?" answered another, who had arrived in town only the night before. "who do you mean? i see only a sea-captain in his shoregoing clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful flowers in her hat. on my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as my eyes have looked on this many a day!" "yes; the same!--the very same!" repeated the other. "drowne's wooden image has come to life!" here was a miracle indeed! yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or darkened by the alternate shade of the houses, and with its garments fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed the image along the street. it was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the face which the towns-people had so recently thronged to see and admire. not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had its prototype in drowne's wooden workmanship, although now their fragile grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the wearer made. the broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the one represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. a real diamond sparkled on her finger. in her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony fan, which she flourished with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry, that was likewise expressed in all her movements as well as in the style of her beauty and the attire that so well harmonized with it. the face with its brilliant depth of complexion had the same piquancy of mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. on the whole, there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal so perfectly did it represent drowne's image, that people knew not whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized into a spirit or warmed and softened into an actual woman. "one thing is certain," muttered a puritan of the old stamp, "drowne has sold himself to the devil; and doubtless this gay captain hunnewell is a party to the bargain." "and i," said a young man who overheard him, "would almost consent to be the third victim, for the liberty of saluting those lovely lips." "and so would i," said copley, the painter, "for the privilege of taking her picture." the image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still escorted by the bold captain, proceeded from hanover street through some of the cross lanes that make this portion of the town so intricate, to ann street, thence into dock square, and so downward to drowne's shop, which stood just on the water's edge. the crowd still followed, gathering volume as it rolled along. never had a modern miracle occurred in such broad daylight, nor in the presence of such a multitude of witnesses. the airy image, as if conscious that she was the object of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind her, appeared slightly vexed and flustered, yet still in a manner consistent with the light vivacity and sportive mischief that were written in her countenance. she was observed to flutter her fan with such vehement rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its workmanship gave way, and it remained broken in her hand. arriving at drowne's door, while the captain threw it open, the marvellous apparition paused an instant on the threshold, assuming the very attitude of the image, and casting over the crowd that glance of sunny coquetry which all remembered on the face of the oaken lady. she and her cavalier then disappeared. "ah!" murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast pair of lungs. "the world looks darker now that she has vanished," said some of the young men. but the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch times, shook their heads, and hinted that our forefathers would have thought it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire. "if she be other than a bubble of the elements," exclaimed copley, "i must look upon her face again." he accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, stood the image, gazing at him, as it might seem, with the very same expression of mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of the apparition when, but a moment before, she turned her face towards the crowd. the carver stood beside his creation mending the beautiful fan, which by some accident was broken in her hand. but there was no longer any motion in the lifelike image, nor any real woman in the workshop, nor even the witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that might have deluded people's eyes as it flitted along the street. captain hunnewell, too, had vanished. his hoarse sea-breezy tones, however, were audible on the other side of a door that opened upon the water. "sit down in the stern sheets, my lady," said the gallant captain. "come, bear a hand, you lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of a minute-glass." and then was heard the stroke of oars. "drowne," said copley with a smile of intelligence, "you have been a truly fortunate man. what painter or statuary ever had such a subject! no wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and first created the artist who afterwards created her image." drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, but from which the light of imagination and sensibility, so recently illuminating it, had departed. he was again the mechanical carver that he had been known to be all his lifetime. "i hardly understand what you mean, mr. copley," said he, putting his hand to his brow. "this image! can it have been my work? well, i have wrought it in a kind of dream; and now that i am broad awake i must set about finishing yonder figure of admiral vernon." and forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of one of his wooden progeny, and completed it in his own mechanical style, from which he was never known afterwards to deviate. he followed his business industriously for many years, acquired a competence, and in the latter part of his life attained to a dignified station in the church, being remembered in records and traditions as deacon drowne, the carver. one of his productions, an indian chief, gilded all over, stood during the better part of a century on the cupola of the province house, bedazzling the eyes of those who looked upward, like an angel of the sun. another work of the good deacon's hand--a reduced likeness of his friend captain hunnewell, holding a telescope and quadrant--may be seen to this day, at the corner of broad and state streets, serving in the useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical instrument maker. we know not how to account for the inferiority of this quaint old figure, as compared with the recorded excellence of the oaken lady, unless on the supposition that in every human spirit there is imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which, according to circumstances, may either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a mask of dulness until another state of being. to our friend drowne there came a brief season of excitement, kindled by love. it rendered him a genius for that one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, left him again the mechanical carver in wood, without the power even of appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought. yet who can doubt that the very highest state to which a human spirit can attain, in its loftiest aspirations, is its truest and most natural state, and that drowne was more consistent with himself when he wrought the admirable figure of the mysterious lady, than when he perpetrated a whole progeny of blockheads? there was a rumor in boston, about this period, that a young portuguese lady of rank, on some occasion of political or domestic disquietude, had fled from her home in fayal and put herself under the protection of captain hunnewell, on board of whose vessel, and at whose residence, she was sheltered until a change of affairs. this fair stranger must have been the original of drowne's wooden image. roger malvin's burial one of the few incidents of indian warfare naturally susceptible of the moonlight of romance was that expedition undertaken for the defence of the frontiers in the year , which resulted in the well-remembered "lovell's fight." imagination, by casting certain circumstances judicially into the shade, may see much to admire in the heroism of a little band who gave battle to twice their number in the heart of the enemy's country. the open bravery displayed by both parties was in accordance with civilized ideas of valor; and chivalry itself might not blush to record the deeds of one or two individuals. the battle, though so fatal to those who fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences to the country; for it broke the strength of a tribe and conduced to the peace which subsisted during several ensuing years. history and tradition are unusually minute in their memorials of their affair; and the captain of a scouting party of frontier men has acquired as actual a military renown as many a victorious leader of thousands. some of the incidents contained in the following pages will be recognized, notwithstanding the substitution of fictitious names, by such as have heard, from old men's lips, the fate of the few combatants who were in a condition to retreat after "lovell's fight." . . . . . . . . . the early sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the tree-tops, beneath which two weary and wounded men had stretched their limbs the night before. their bed of withered oak leaves was strewn upon the small level space, at the foot of a rock, situated near the summit of one of the gentle swells by which the face of the country is there diversified. the mass of granite, rearing its smooth, flat surface fifteen or twenty feet above their heads, was not unlike a gigantic gravestone, upon which the veins seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters. on a tract of several acres around this rock, oaks and other hard-wood trees had supplied the place of the pines, which were the usual growth of the land; and a young and vigorous sapling stood close beside the travellers. the severe wound of the elder man had probably deprived him of sleep; for, so soon as the first ray of sunshine rested on the top of the highest tree, he reared himself painfully from his recumbent posture and sat erect. the deep lines of his countenance and the scattered gray of his hair marked him as past the middle age; but his muscular frame would, but for the effect of his wound, have been as capable of sustaining fatigue as in the early vigor of life. languor and exhaustion now sat upon his haggard features; and the despairing glance which he sent forward through the depths of the forest proved his own conviction that his pilgrimage was at an end. he next turned his eyes to the companion who reclined by his side. the youth--for he had scarcely attained the years of manhood--lay, with his head upon his arm, in the embrace of an unquiet sleep, which a thrill of pain from his wounds seemed each moment on the point of breaking. his right hand grasped a musket; and, to judge from the violent action of his features, his slumbers were bringing back a vision of the conflict of which he was one of the few survivors. a shout deep and loud in his dreaming fancy--found its way in an imperfect murmur to his lips; and, starting even at the slight sound of his own voice, he suddenly awoke. the first act of reviving recollection was to make anxious inquiries respecting the condition of his wounded fellow-traveller. the latter shook his head. "reuben, my boy," said he, "this rock beneath which we sit will serve for an old hunter's gravestone. there is many and many a long mile of howling wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail me anything if the smoke of my own chimney were but on the other side of that swell of land. the indian bullet was deadlier than i thought." "you are weary with our three days' travel," replied the youth, "and a little longer rest will recruit you. sit you here while i search the woods for the herbs and roots that must be our sustenance; and, having eaten, you shall lean on me, and we will turn our faces homeward. i doubt not that, with my help, you can attain to some one of the frontier garrisons." "there is not two days' life in me, reuben," said the other, calmly, "and i will no longer burden you with my useless body, when you can scarcely support your own. your wounds are deep and your strength is failing fast; yet, if you hasten onward alone, you may be preserved. for me there is no hope, and i will await death here." "if it must be so, i will remain and watch by you," said reuben, resolutely. "no, my son, no," rejoined his companion. "let the wish of a dying man have weight with you; give me one grasp of your hand, and get you hence. think you that my last moments will be eased by the thought that i leave you to die a more lingering death? i have loved you like a father, reuben; and at a time like this i should have something of a father's authority. i charge you to be gone that i may die in peace." "and because you have been a father to me, should i therefore leave you to perish and to lie unburied in the wilderness?" exclaimed the youth. "no; if your end be in truth approaching, i will watch by you and receive your parting words. i will dig a grave here by the rock, in which, if my weakness overcome me, we will rest together; or, if heaven gives me strength, i will seek my way home." "in the cities and wherever men dwell," replied the other, "they bury their dead in the earth; they hide them from the sight of the living; but here, where no step may pass perhaps for a hundred years, wherefore should i not rest beneath the open sky, covered only by the oak leaves when the autumn winds shall strew them? and for a monument, here is this gray rock, on which my dying hand shall carve the name of roger malvin, and the traveller in days to come will know that here sleeps a hunter and a warrior. tarry not, then, for a folly like this, but hasten away, if not for your own sake, for hers who will else be desolate." malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering voice, and their effect upon his companion was strongly visible. they reminded him that there were other and less questionable duties than that of sharing the fate of a man whom his death could not benefit. nor can it be affirmed that no selfish feeling strove to enter reuben's heart, though the consciousness made him more earnestly resist his companion's entreaties. "how terrible to wait the slow approach of death in this solitude!" exclaimed he. "a brave man does not shrink in the battle; and, when friends stand round the bed, even women may die composedly; but here--" "i shall not shrink even here, reuben bourne," interrupted malvin. "i am a man of no weak heart, and, if i were, there is a surer support than that of earthly friends. you are young, and life is dear to you. your last moments will need comfort far more than mine; and when you have laid me in the earth, and are alone, and night is settling on the forest, you will feel all the bitterness of the death that may now be escaped. but i will urge no selfish motive to your generous nature. leave me for my sake, that, having said a prayer for your safety, i may have space to settle my account undisturbed by worldly sorrows." "and your daughter,--how shall i dare to meet her eye?" exclaimed reuben. "she will ask the fate of her father, whose life i vowed to defend with my own. must i tell her that he travelled three days' march with me from the field of battle and that then i left him to perish in the wilderness? were it not better to lie down and die by your side than to return safe and say this to dorcas?" "tell my daughter," said roger malvin, "that, though yourself sore wounded, and weak, and weary, you led my tottering footsteps many a mile, and left me only at my earnest entreaty, because i would not have your blood upon my soul. tell her that through pain and danger you were faithful, and that, if your lifeblood could have saved me, it would have flowed to its last drop; and tell her that you will be something dearer than a father, and that my blessing is with you both, and that my dying eyes can see a long and pleasant path in which you will journey together." as malvin spoke he almost raised himself from the ground, and the energy of his concluding words seemed to fill the wild and lonely forest with a vision of happiness; but, when he sank exhausted upon his bed of oak leaves, the light which had kindled in reuben's eye was quenched. he felt as if it were both sin and folly to think of happiness at such a moment. his companion watched his changing countenance, and sought with generous art to wile him to his own good. "perhaps i deceive myself in regard to the time i have to live," he resumed. "it may be that, with speedy assistance, i might recover of my wound. the foremost fugitives must, ere this, have carried tidings of our fatal battle to the frontiers, and parties will be out to succor those in like condition with ourselves. should you meet one of these and guide them hither, who can tell but that i may sit by my own fireside again?" a mournful smile strayed across the features of the dying man as he insinuated that unfounded hope,--which, however, was not without its effect on reuben. no merely selfish motive, nor even the desolate condition of dorcas, could have induced him to desert his companion at such a moment--but his wishes seized on the thought that malvin's life might be preserved, and his sanguine nature heightened almost to certainty the remote possibility of procuring human aid. "surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not far distant," he said, half aloud. "there fled one coward, unwounded, in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. every true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; and, though no party may range so far into the woods as this, i shall perhaps encounter them in one day's march. counsel me faithfully," he added, turning to malvin, in distrust of his own motives. "were your situation mine, would you desert me while life remained?" "it is now twenty years," replied roger malvin,--sighing, however, as he secretly acknowledged the wide dissimilarity between the two cases,-"it is now twenty years since i escaped with one dear friend from indian captivity near montreal. we journeyed many days through the woods, till at length overcome with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down and besought me to leave him; for he knew that, if i remained, we both must perish; and, with but little hope of obtaining succor, i heaped a pillow of dry leaves beneath his head and hastened on." "and did you return in time to save him?" asked reuben, hanging on malvin's words as if they were to be prophetic of his own success. "i did," answered the other. "i came upon the camp of a hunting party before sunset of the same day. i guided them to the spot where my comrade was expecting death; and he is now a hale and hearty man upon his own farm, far within the frontiers, while i lie wounded here in the depths of the wilderness." this example, powerful in affecting reuben's decision, was aided, unconsciously to himself, by the hidden strength of many another motive. roger malvin perceived that the victory was nearly won. "now, go, my son, and heaven prosper you!" he said. "turn not back with your friends when you meet them, lest your wounds and weariness overcome you; but send hitherward two or three, that may be spared, to search for me; and believe me, reuben, my heart will be lighter with every step you take towards home." yet there was, perhaps, a change both in his countenance and voice as he spoke thus; for, after all, it was a ghastly fate to be left expiring in the wilderness. reuben bourne, but half convinced that he was acting rightly, at length raised himself from the ground and prepared himself for his departure. and first, though contrary to malvin's wishes, he collected a stock of roots and herbs, which had been their only food during the last two days. this useless supply he placed within reach of the dying man, for whom, also, he swept together a bed of dry oak leaves. then climbing to the summit of the rock, which on one side was rough and broken, he bent the oak sapling downward, and bound his handkerchief to the topmost branch. this precaution was not unnecessary to direct any who might come in search of malvin; for every part of the rock, except its broad, smooth front, was concealed at a little distance by the dense undergrowth of the forest. the handkerchief had been the bandage of a wound upon reuben's arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he vowed by the blood that stained it that he would return, either to save his companion's life or to lay his body in the grave. he then descended, and stood, with downcast eyes, to receive roger malvin's parting words. the experience of the latter suggested much and minute advice respecting the youth's journey through the trackless forest. upon this subject he spoke with calm earnestness, as if he were sending reuben to the battle or the chase while he himself remained secure at home, and not as if the human countenance that was about to leave him were the last he would ever behold. but his firmness was shaken before he concluded. "carry my blessing to dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall be for her and you. bid her to have no hard thoughts because you left me here,"--reuben's heart smote him,--"for that your life would not have weighed with you if its sacrifice could have done me good. she will marry you after she has mourned a little while for her father; and heaven grant you long and happy days, and may your children's children stand round your death bed! and, reuben," added he, as the weakness of mortality made its way at last, "return, when your wounds are healed and your weariness refreshed,--return to this wild rock, and lay my bones in the grave, and say a prayer over them." an almost superstitious regard, arising perhaps from the customs of the indians, whose war was with the dead as well as the living, was paid by the frontier inhabitants to the rites of sepulture; and there are many instances of the sacrifice of life in the attempt to bury those who had fallen by the "sword of the wilderness." reuben, therefore, felt the full importance of the promise which he most solemnly made to return and perform roger malvin's obsequies. it was remarkable that the latter, speaking his whole heart in his parting words, no longer endeavored to persuade the youth that even the speediest succor might avail to the preservation of his life. reuben was internally convinced that he should see malvin's living face no more. his generous nature would fain have delayed him, at whatever risk, till the dying scene were past; but the desire of existence and the hope of happiness had strengthened in his heart, and he was unable to resist them. "it is enough," said roger malvin, having listened to reuben's promise. "go, and god speed you!" the youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and was departing. his slow and faltering steps, however, had borne him but a little way before malvin's voice recalled him. "reuben, reuben," said he, faintly; and reuben returned and knelt down by the dying man. "raise me, and let me lean against the rock," was his last request. "my face will be turned towards home, and i shall see you a moment longer as you pass among the trees." reuben, having made the desired alteration in his companion's posture, again began his solitary pilgrimage. he walked more hastily at first than was consistent with his strength; for a sort of guilty feeling, which sometimes torments men in their most justifiable acts, caused him to seek concealment from malvin's eyes; but after he had trodden far upon the rustling forest leaves he crept back, impelled by a wild and painful curiosity, and, sheltered by the earthy roots of an uptorn tree, gazed earnestly at the desolate man. the morning sun was unclouded, and the trees and shrubs imbibed the sweet air of the month of may; yet there seemed a gloom on nature's face, as if she sympathized with mortal pain and sorrow roger malvin's hands were uplifted in a fervent prayer, some of the words of which stole through the stillness of the woods and entered reuben's heart, torturing it with an unutterable pang. they were the broken accents of a petition for his own happiness and that of dorcas; and, as the youth listened, conscience, or something in its similitude, pleaded strongly with him to return and lie down again by the rock. he felt how hard was the doom of the kind and generous being whom he had deserted in his extremity. death would come like the slow approach of a corpse, stealing gradually towards him through the forest, and showing its ghastly and motionless features from behind a nearer and yet a nearer tree. but such must have been reuben's own fate had he tarried another sunset; and who shall impute blame to him if he shrink from so useless a sacrifice? as he gave a parting look, a breeze waved the little banner upon the sapling oak and reminded reuben of his vow. . . . . . . . . . . . many circumstances combined to retard the wounded traveller in his way to the frontiers. on the second day the clouds, gathering densely over the sky, precluded the possibility of regulating his course by the position of the sun; and he knew not but that every effort of his almost exhausted strength was removing him farther from the home he sought. his scanty sustenance was supplied by the berries and other spontaneous products of the forest. herds of deer, it is true, sometimes bounded past him, and partridges frequently whirred up before his footsteps; but his ammunition had been expended in the fight, and he had no means of slaying them. his wounds, irritated by the constant exertion in which lay the only hope of life, wore away his strength and at intervals confused his reason. but, even in the wanderings of intellect, reuben's young heart clung strongly to existence; and it was only through absolute incapacity of motion that he at last sank down beneath a tree, compelled there to await death. in this situation he was discovered by a party who, upon the first intelligence of the fight, had been despatched to the relief of the survivors. they conveyed him to the nearest settlement, which chanced to be that of his own residence. dorcas, in the simplicity of the olden time, watched by the bedside of her wounded lover, and administered all those comforts that are in the sole gift of woman's heart and hand. during several days reuben's recollection strayed drowsily among the perils and hardships through which he had passed, and he was incapable of returning definite answers to the inquiries with which many were eager to harass him. no authentic particulars of the battle had yet been circulated; nor could mothers, wives, and children tell whether their loved ones were detained by captivity or by the stronger chain of death. dorcas nourished her apprehensions in silence till one afternoon when reuben awoke from an unquiet sleep, and seemed to recognize her more perfectly than at any previous time. she saw that his intellect had become composed, and she could no longer restrain her filial anxiety. "my father, reuben?" she began; but the change in her lover's countenance made her pause. the youth shrank as if with a bitter pain, and the blood gushed vividly into his wan and hollow cheeks. his first impulse was to cover his face; but, apparently with a desperate effort, he half raised himself and spoke vehemently, defending himself against an imaginary accusation. "your father was sore wounded in the battle, dorcas; and he bade me not burden myself with him, but only to lead him to the lakeside, that he might quench his thirst and die. but i would not desert the old man in his extremity, and, though bleeding myself, i supported him; i gave him half my strength, and led him away with me. for three days we journeyed on together, and your father was sustained beyond my hopes, but, awaking at sunrise on the fourth day, i found him faint and exhausted; he was unable to proceed; his life had ebbed away fast; and--" "he died!" exclaimed dorcas, faintly. reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life had hurried him away before her father's fate was decided. he spoke not; he only bowed his head; and, between shame and exhaustion, sank back and hid his face in the pillow. dorcas wept when her fears were thus confirmed; but the shock, as it had been long anticipated, was on that account the less violent. "you dug a grave for my poor father in the wilderness, reuben?" was the question by which her filial piety manifested itself. "my hands were weak; but i did what i could," replied the youth in a smothered tone. "there stands a noble tombstone above his head; and i would to heaven i slept as soundly as he!" dorcas, perceiving the wildness of his latter words, inquired no further at the time; but her heart found ease in the thought that roger malvin had not lacked such funeral rites as it was possible to bestow. the tale of reuben's courage and fidelity lost nothing when she communicated it to her friends; and the poor youth, tottering from his sick chamber to breathe the sunny air, experienced from every tongue the miserable and humiliating torture of unmerited praise. all acknowledged that he might worthily demand the hand of the fair maiden to whose father he had been "faithful unto death;" and, as my tale is not of love, it shall suffice to say that in the space of a few months reuben became the husband of dorcas malvin. during the marriage ceremony the bride was covered with blushes, but the bridegroom's face was pale. there was now in the breast of reuben bourne an incommunicable thought--something which he was to conceal most heedfully from her whom he most loved and trusted. he regretted, deeply and bitterly, the moral cowardice that had restrained his words when he was about to disclose the truth to dorcas; but pride, the fear of losing her affection, the dread of universal scorn, forbade him to rectify this falsehood. he felt that for leaving roger malvin he deserved no censure. his presence, the gratuitous sacrifice of his own life, would have added only another and a needless agony to the last moments of the dying man; but concealment had imparted to a justifiable act much of the secret effect of guilt; and reuben, while reason told him that he had done right, experienced in no small degree the mental horrors which punish the perpetrator of undiscovered crime. by a certain association of ideas, he at times almost imagined himself a murderer. for years, also, a thought would occasionally recur, which, though he perceived all its folly and extravagance, he had not power to banish from his mind. it was a haunting and torturing fancy that his father-in-law was yet sitting at the foot of the rock, on the withered forest leaves, alive, and awaiting his pledged assistance. these mental deceptions, however, came and went, nor did he ever mistake them for realities: but in the calmest and clearest moods of his mind he was conscious that he had a deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse was calling to him out of the wilderness. yet such was the consequence of his prevarication that he could not obey the call. it was now too late to require the assistance of roger malvin's friends in performing his long-deferred sepulture; and superstitious fears, of which none were more susceptible than the people of the outward settlements, forbade reuben to go alone. neither did he know where in the pathless and illimitable forest to seek that smooth and lettered rock at the base of which the body lay: his remembrance of every portion of his travel thence was indistinct, and the latter part had left no impression upon his mind. there was, however, a continual impulse, a voice audible only to himself, commanding him to go forth and redeem his vow; and he had a strange impression that, were he to make the trial, he would be led straight to malvin's bones. but year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. his one secret thought became like a chain binding down his spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart; and he was transformed into a sad and downcast yet irritable man. in the course of a few years after their marriage changes began to be visible in the external prosperity of reuben and dorcas. the only riches of the former had been his stout heart and strong arm; but the latter, her father's sole heiress, had made her husband master of a farm, under older cultivation, larger, and better stocked than most of the frontier establishments. reuben bourne, however, was a neglectful husbandman; and, while the lands of the other settlers became annually more fruitful, his deteriorated in the same proportion. the discouragements to agriculture were greatly lessened by the cessation of indian war, during which men held the plough in one hand and the musket in the other, and were fortunate if the products of their dangerous labor were not destroyed, either in the field or in the barn, by the savage enemy. but reuben did not profit by the altered condition of the country; nor can it be denied that his intervals of industrious attention to his affairs were but scantily rewarded with success. the irritability by which he had recently become distinguished was another cause of his declining prosperity, as it occasioned frequent quarrels in his unavoidable intercourse with the neighboring settlers. the results of these were innumerable lawsuits; for the people of new england, in the earliest stages and wildest circumstances of the country, adopted, whenever attainable, the legal mode of deciding their differences. to be brief, the world did not go well with reuben bourne; and, though not till many years after his marriage, he was finally a ruined man, with but one remaining expedient against the evil fate that had pursued him. he was to throw sunlight into some deep recess of the forest, and seek subsistence from the virgin bosom of the wilderness. the only child of reuben and dorcas was a son, now arrived at the age of fifteen years, beautiful in youth, and giving promise of a glorious manhood. he was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel in, the wild accomplishments of frontier life. his foot was fleet, his aim true, his apprehension quick, his heart glad and high; and all who anticipated the return of indian war spoke of cyrus bourne as a future leader in the land. the boy was loved by his father with a deep and silent strength, as if whatever was good and happy in his own nature had been transferred to his child, carrying his affections with it. even dorcas, though loving and beloved, was far less dear to him; for reuben's secret thoughts and insulated emotions had gradually made him a selfish man, and he could no longer love deeply except where he saw or imagined some reflection or likeness of his own mind. in cyrus he recognized what he had himself been in other days; and at intervals he seemed to partake of the boy's spirit, and to be revived with a fresh and happy life. reuben was accompanied by his son in the expedition, for the purpose of selecting a tract of land and felling and burning the timber, which necessarily preceded the removal of the household gods. two months of autumn were thus occupied, after which reuben bourne and his young hunter returned to spend their last winter in the settlements. . . . . . . . . . . . it was early in the month of may that the little family snapped asunder whatever tendrils of affections had clung to inanimate objects, and bade farewell to the few who, in the blight of fortune, called themselves their friends. the sadness of the parting moment had, to each of the pilgrims, its peculiar alleviations. reuben, a moody man, and misanthropic because unhappy, strode onward with his usual stern brow and downcast eye, feeling few regrets and disdaining to acknowledge any. dorcas, while she wept abundantly over the broken ties by which her simple and affectionate nature had bound itself to everything, felt that the inhabitants of her inmost heart moved on with her, and that all else would be supplied wherever she might go. and the boy dashed one tear-drop from his eye, and thought of the adventurous pleasures of the untrodden forest. oh, who, in the enthusiasm of a daydream, has not wished that he were a wanderer in a world of summer wilderness, with one fair and gentle being hanging lightly on his arm? in youth his free and exulting step would know no barrier but the rolling ocean or the snow-topped mountains; calmer manhood would choose a home where nature had strewn a double wealth in the vale of some transparent stream; and when hoary age, after long, long years of that pure life, stole on and found him there, it would find him the father of a race, the patriarch of a people, the founder of a mighty nation yet to be. when death, like the sweet sleep which we welcome after a day of happiness, came over him, his far descendants would mourn over the venerated dust. enveloped by tradition in mysterious attributes, the men of future generations would call him godlike; and remote posterity would see him standing, dimly glorious, far up the valley of a hundred centuries. the tangled and gloomy forest through which the personages of my tale were wandering differed widely from the dreamer's land of fantasy; yet there was something in their way of life that nature asserted as her own, and the gnawing cares which went with them from the world were all that now obstructed their happiness. one stout and shaggy steed, the bearer of all their wealth, did not shrink from the added weight of dorcas; although her hardy breeding sustained her, during the latter part of each day's journey, by her husband's side. reuben and his son, their muskets on their shoulders and their axes slung behind them, kept an unwearied pace, each watching with a hunter's eye for the game that supplied their food. when hunger bade, they halted and prepared their meal on the bank of some unpolluted forest brook, which, as they knelt down with thirsty lips to drink, murmured a sweet unwillingness, like a maiden at love's first kiss. they slept beneath a hut of branches, and awoke at peep of light refreshed for the toils of another day. dorcas and the boy went on joyously, and even reuben's spirit shone at intervals with an outward gladness; but inwardly there was a cold cold sorrow, which he compared to the snowdrifts lying deep in the glens and hollows of the rivulets while the leaves were brightly green above. cyrus bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel of the woods to observe that his father did not adhere to the course they had pursued in their expedition of the preceding autumn. they were now keeping farther to the north, striking out more directly from the settlements, and into a region of which savage beasts and savage men were as yet the sole possessors. the boy sometimes hinted his opinions upon the subject, and reuben listened attentively, and once or twice altered the direction of their march in accordance with his son's counsel; but, having so done, he seemed ill at ease. his quick and wandering glances were sent forward apparently in search of enemies lurking behind the tree trunks, and, seeing nothing there, he would cast his eyes backwards as if in fear of some pursuer. cyrus, perceiving that his father gradually resumed the old direction, forbore to interfere; nor, though something began to weigh upon his heart, did his adventurous nature permit him to regret the increased length and the mystery of their way. on the afternoon of the fifth day they halted, and made their simple encampment nearly an hour before sunset. the face of the country, for the last few miles, had been diversified by swells of land resembling huge waves of a petrified sea; and in one of the corresponding hollows, a wild and romantic spot, had the family reared their hut and kindled their fire. there is something chilling, and yet heart-warming, in the thought of these three, united by strong bands of love and insulated from all that breathe beside. the dark and gloomy pines looked down upon them, and, as the wind swept through their tops, a pitying sound was heard in the forest; or did those old trees groan in fear that men were come to lay the axe to their roots at last? reuben and his son, while dorcas made ready their meal, proposed to wander out in search of game, of which that day's march had afforded no supply. the boy, promising not to quit the vicinity of the encampment, bounded off with a step as light and elastic as that of the deer he hoped to slay; while his father, feeling a transient happiness as he gazed after him, was about to pursue an opposite direction. dorcas in the meanwhile, had seated herself near their fire of fallen branches upon the mossgrown and mouldering trunk of a tree uprooted years before. her employment, diversified by an occasional glance at the pot, now beginning to simmer over the blaze, was the perusal of the current year's massachusetts almanac, which, with the exception of an old black-letter bible, comprised all the literary wealth of the family. none pay a greater regard to arbitrary divisions of time than those who are excluded from society; and dorcas mentioned, as if the information were of importance, that it was now the twelfth of may. her husband started. "the twelfth of may! i should remember it well," muttered he, while many thoughts occasioned a momentary confusion in his mind. "where am i? whither am i wandering? where did i leave him?" dorcas, too well accustomed to her husband's wayward moods to note any peculiarity of demeanor, now laid aside the almanac and addressed him in that mournful tone which the tender hearted appropriate to griefs long cold and dead. "it was near this time of the month, eighteen years ago, that my poor father left this world for a better. he had a kind arm to hold his head and a kind voice to cheer him, reuben, in his last moments; and the thought of the faithful care you took of him has comforted me many a time since. oh, death would have been awful to a solitary man in a wild place like this!" "pray heaven, dorcas," said reuben, in a broken voice,--"pray heaven that neither of us three dies solitary and lies unburied in this howling wilderness!" and he hastened away, leaving her to watch the fire beneath the gloomy pines. reuben bourne's rapid pace gradually slackened as the pang, unintentionally inflicted by the words of dorcas, became less acute. many strange reflections, however, thronged upon him; and, straying onward rather like a sleep walker than a hunter, it was attributable to no care of his own that his devious course kept him in the vicinity of the encampment. his steps were imperceptibly led almost in a circle; nor did he observe that he was on the verge of a tract of land heavily timbered, but not with pine-trees. the place of the latter was here supplied by oaks and other of the harder woods; and around their roots clustered a dense and bushy under-growth, leaving, however, barren spaces between the trees, thick strewn with withered leaves. whenever the rustling of the branches or the creaking of the trunks made a sound, as if the forest were waking from slumber, reuben instinctively raised the musket that rested on his arm, and cast a quick, sharp glance on every side; but, convinced by a partial observation that no animal was near, he would again give himself up to his thoughts. he was musing on the strange influence that had led him away from his premeditated course, and so far into the depths of the wilderness. unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat. he trusted that it was heaven's intent to afford him an opportunity of expiating his sin; he hoped that he might find the bones so long unburied; and that, having laid the earth over them, peace would throw its sunlight into the sepulchre of his heart. from these thoughts he was aroused by a rustling in the forest at some distance from the spot to which he had wandered. perceiving the motion of some object behind a thick veil of undergrowth, he fired, with the instinct of a hunter and the aim of a practised marksman. a low moan, which told his success, and by which even animals cars express their dying agony, was unheeded by reuben bourne. what were the recollections now breaking upon him? the thicket into which reuben had fired was near the summit of a swell of land, and was clustered around the base of a rock, which, in the shape and smoothness of one of its surfaces, was not unlike a gigantic gravestone. as if reflected in a mirror, its likeness was in reuben's memory. he even recognized the veins which seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters: everything remained the same, except that a thick covert of bushes shrouded the lowerpart of the rock, and would have hidden roger malvin had he still been sitting there. yet in the next moment reuben's eye was caught by another change that time had effected since he last stood where he was now standing again behind the earthy roots of the uptorn tree. the sapling to which he had bound the bloodstained symbol of his vow had increased and strengthened into an oak, far indeed from its maturity, but with no mean spread of shadowy branches. there was one singularity observable in this tree which made reuben tremble. the middle and lower branches were in luxuriant life, and an excess of vegetation had fringed the trunk almost to the ground; but a blight had apparently stricken the upper part of the oak, and the very topmost bough was withered, sapless, and utterly dead. reuben remembered how the little banner had fluttered on that topmost bough, when it was green and lovely, eighteen years before. whose guilt had blasted it? . . . . . . . . . . . dorcas, after the departure of the two hunters, continued her preparations for their evening repast. her sylvan table was the moss-covered trunk of a large fallen tree, on the broadest part of which she had spread a snow-white cloth and arranged what were left of the bright pewter vessels that had been her pride in the settlements. it had a strange aspect that one little spot of homely comfort in the desolate heart of nature. the sunshine yet lingered upon the higher branches of the trees that grew on rising ground; but the shadows of evening had deepened into the hollow where the encampment was made, and the firelight began to redden as it gleamed up the tall trunks of the pines or hovered on the dense and obscure mass of foliage that circled round the spot. the heart of dorcas was not sad; for she felt that it was better to journey in the wilderness with two whom she loved than to be a lonely woman in a crowd that cared not for her. as she busied herself in arranging seats of mouldering wood, covered with leaves, for reuben and her son, her voice danced through the gloomy forest in the measure of a song that she had learned in youth. the rude melody, the production of a bard who won no name, was descriptive of a winter evening in a frontier cottage, when, secured from savage inroad by the high-piled snow-drifts, the family rejoiced by their own fireside. the whole song possessed the nameless charm peculiar to unborrowed thought, but four continually-recurring lines shone out from the rest like the blaze of the hearth whose joys they celebrated. into them, working magic with a few simple words, the poet had instilled the very essence of domestic love and household happiness, and they were poetry and picture joined in one. as dorcas sang, the walls of her forsaken home seemed to encircle her; she no longer saw the gloomy pines, nor heard the wind which still, as she began each verse, sent a heavy breath through the branches, and died away in a hollow moan from the burden of the song. she was aroused by the report of a gun in the vicinity of the encampment; and either the sudden sound, or her loneliness by the glowing fire, caused her to tremble violently. the next moment she laughed in the pride of a mother's heart. "my beautiful young hunter! my boy has slain a deer!" she exclaimed, recollecting that in the direction whence the shot proceeded cyrus had gone to the chase. she waited a reasonable time to hear her son's light step bounding over the rustling leaves to tell of his success. but he did not immediately appear; and she sent her cheerful voice among the trees in search of him. "cyrus! cyrus!" his coming was still delayed; and she determined, as the report had apparently been very near, to seek for him in person. her assistance, also, might be necessary in bringing home the venison which she flattered herself he had obtained. she therefore set forward, directing her steps by the long-past sound, and singing as she went, in order that the boy might be aware of her approach and run to meet her. from behind the trunk of every tree, and from every hiding-place in the thick foliage of the undergrowth, she hoped to discover the countenance of her son, laughing with the sportive mischief that is born of affection. the sun was now beneath the horizon, and the light that came down among the leaves was sufficiently dim to create many illusions in her expecting fancy. several times she seemed indistinctly to see his face gazing out from among the leaves; and once she imagined that he stood beckoning to her at the base of a craggy rock. keeping her eyes on this object, however, it proved to be no more than the trunk of an oak fringed to the very ground with little branches, one of which, thrust out farther than the rest, was shaken by the breeze. making her way round the foot of the rock, she suddenly found herself close to her husband, who had approached in another direction. leaning upon the butt of his gun, the muzzle of which rested upon the withered leaves, he was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of some object at his feet. "how is this, reuben? have you slain the deer and fallen asleep over him?" exclaimed dorcas, laughing cheerfully, on her first slight observation of his posture and appearance. he stirred not, neither did he turn his eyes towards her; and a cold, shuddering fear, indefinite in its source and object, began to creep into her blood. she now perceived that her husband's face was ghastly pale, and his features were rigid, as if incapable of assuming any other expression than the strong despair which had hardened upon them. he gave not the slightest evidence that he was aware of her approach. "for the love of heaven, reuben, speak to me!" cried dorcas; and the strange sound of her own voice affrighted her even more than the dead silence. her husband started, stared into her face, drew her to the front of the rock, and pointed with his finger. oh, there lay the boy, asleep, but dreamless, upon the fallen forest leaves! his cheek rested upon his arm--his curled locks were thrown back from his brow--his limbs were slightly relaxed. had a sudden weariness overcome the youthful hunter? would his mother's voice arouse him? she knew that it was death. "this broad rock is the gravestone of your near kindred, dorcas," said her husband. "your tears will fall at once over your father and your son." she heard him not. with one wild shriek, that seemed to force its way from the sufferer's inmost soul, she sank insensible by the side of her dead boy. at that moment the withered topmost bough of the oak loosened itself in the stilly air, and fell in soft, light fragments upon the rock, upon the leaves, upon reuben, upon his wife and child, and upon roger malvin's bones. then reuben's heart was stricken, and the tears gushed out like water from a rock. the vow that the wounded youth had made the blighted man had come to redeem. his sin was expiated,--the curse was gone from him; and in the hour when he had shed blood dearer to him than his own, a prayer, the first for years, went up to heaven from the lips of reuben bourne. the artist of the beautiful an elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing along the street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy evening into the light that fell across the pavement from the window of a small shop. it was a projecting window; and on the inside were suspended a variety of watches, pinchbeck, silver, and one or two of gold, all with their faces turned from the streets, as if churlishly disinclined to inform the wayfarers what o'clock it was. seated within the shop, sidelong to the window with his pale face bent earnestly over some delicate piece of mechanism on which was thrown the concentrated lustre of a shade lamp, appeared a young man. "what can owen warland be about?" muttered old peter hovenden, himself a retired watchmaker, and the former master of this same young man whose occupation he was now wondering at. "what can the fellow be about? these six months past i have never come by his shop without seeing him just as steadily at work as now. it would be a flight beyond his usual foolery to seek for the perpetual motion; and yet i know enough of my old business to be certain that what he is now so busy with is no part of the machinery of a watch." "perhaps, father," said annie, without showing much interest in the question, "owen is inventing a new kind of timekeeper. i am sure he has ingenuity enough." "poh, child! he has not the sort of ingenuity to invent anything better than a dutch toy," answered her father, who had formerly been put to much vexation by owen warland's irregular genius. "a plague on such ingenuity! all the effect that ever i knew of it was to spoil the accuracy of some of the best watches in my shop. he would turn the sun out of its orbit and derange the whole course of time, if, as i said before, his ingenuity could grasp anything bigger than a child's toy!" "hush, father! he hears you!" whispered annie, pressing the old man's arm. "his ears are as delicate as his feelings; and you know how easily disturbed they are. do let us move on." so peter hovenden and his daughter annie plodded on without further conversation, until in a by-street of the town they found themselves passing the open door of a blacksmith's shop. within was seen the forge, now blazing up and illuminating the high and dusky roof, and now confining its lustre to a narrow precinct of the coal-strewn floor, according as the breath of the bellows was puffed forth or again inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. in the intervals of brightness it was easy to distinguish objects in remote corners of the shop and the horseshoes that hung upon the wall; in the momentary gloom the fire seemed to be glimmering amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. moving about in this red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the blacksmith, well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of light and shade, where the bright blaze struggled with the black night, as if each would have snatched his comely strength from the other. anon he drew a white-hot bar of iron from the coals, laid it on the anvil, uplifted his arm of might, and was soon enveloped in the myriads of sparks which the strokes of his hammer scattered into the surrounding gloom. "now, that is a pleasant sight," said the old watchmaker. "i know what it is to work in gold; but give me the worker in iron after all is said and done. he spends his labor upon a reality. what say you, daughter annie?" "pray don't speak so loud, father," whispered annie, "robert danforth will hear you." "and what if he should hear me?" said peter hovenden. "i say again, it is a good and a wholesome thing to depend upon main strength and reality, and to earn one's bread with the bare and brawny arm of a blacksmith. a watchmaker gets his brain puzzled by his wheels within a wheel, or loses his health or the nicety of his eyesight, as was my case, and finds himself at middle age, or a little after, past labor at his own trade and fit for nothing else, yet too poor to live at his ease. so i say once again, give me main strength for my money. and then, how it takes the nonsense out of a man! did you ever hear of a blacksmith being such a fool as owen warland yonder?" "well said, uncle hovenden!" shouted robert danforth from the forge, in a full, deep, merry voice, that made the roof re-echo. "and what says miss annie to that doctrine? she, i suppose, will think it a genteeler business to tinker up a lady's watch than to forge a horseshoe or make a gridiron." annie drew her father onward without giving him time for reply. but we must return to owen warland's shop, and spend more meditation upon his history and character than either peter hovenden, or probably his daughter annie, or owen's old school-fellow, robert danforth, would have thought due to so slight a subject. from the time that his little fingers could grasp a penknife, owen had been remarkable for a delicate ingenuity, which sometimes produced pretty shapes in wood, principally figures of flowers and birds, and sometimes seemed to aim at the hidden mysteries of mechanism. but it was always for purposes of grace, and never with any mockery of the useful. he did not, like the crowd of school-boy artisans, construct little windmills on the angle of a barn or watermills across the neighboring brook. those who discovered such peculiarity in the boy as to think it worth their while to observe him closely, sometimes saw reason to suppose that he was attempting to imitate the beautiful movements of nature as exemplified in the flight of birds or the activity of little animals. it seemed, in fact, a new development of the love of the beautiful, such as might have made him a poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and which was as completely refined from all utilitarian coarseness as it could have been in either of the fine arts. he looked with singular distaste at the stiff and regular processes of ordinary machinery. being once carried to see a steam-engine, in the expectation that his intuitive comprehension of mechanical principles would be gratified, he turned pale and grew sick, as if something monstrous and unnatural had been presented to him. this horror was partly owing to the size and terrible energy of the iron laborer; for the character of owen's mind was microscopic, and tended naturally to the minute, in accordance with his diminutive frame and the marvellous smallness and delicate power of his fingers. not that his sense of beauty was thereby diminished into a sense of prettiness. the beautiful idea has no relation to size, and may be as perfectly developed in a space too minute for any but microscopic investigation as within the ample verge that is measured by the arc of the rainbow. but, at all events, this characteristic minuteness in his objects and accomplishments made the world even more incapable than it might otherwise have been of appreciating owen warland's genius. the boy's relatives saw nothing better to be done--as perhaps there was not--than to bind him apprentice to a watchmaker, hoping that his strange ingenuity might thus be regulated and put to utilitarian purposes. peter hovenden's opinion of his apprentice has already been expressed. he could make nothing of the lad. owen's apprehension of the professional mysteries, it is true, was inconceivably quick; but he altogether forgot or despised the grand object of a watchmaker's business, and cared no more for the measurement of time than if it had been merged into eternity. so long, however, as he remained under his old master's care, owen's lack of sturdiness made it possible, by strict injunctions and sharp oversight, to restrain his creative eccentricity within bounds; but when his apprenticeship was served out, and he had taken the little shop which peter hovenden's failing eyesight compelled him to relinquish, then did people recognize how unfit a person was owen warland to lead old blind father time along his daily course. one of his most rational projects was to connect a musical operation with the machinery of his watches, so that all the harsh dissonances of life might be rendered tuneful, and each flitting moment fall into the abyss of the past in golden drops of harmony. if a family clock was intrusted to him for repair,--one of those tall, ancient clocks that have grown nearly allied to human nature by measuring out the lifetime of many generations,--he would take upon himself to arrange a dance or funeral procession of figures across its venerable face, representing twelve mirthful or melancholy hours. several freaks of this kind quite destroyed the young watchmaker's credit with that steady and matter-of-fact class of people who hold the opinion that time is not to be trifled with, whether considered as the medium of advancement and prosperity in this world or preparation for the next. his custom rapidly diminished--a misfortune, however, that was probably reckoned among his better accidents by owen warland, who was becoming more and more absorbed in a secret occupation which drew all his science and manual dexterity into itself, and likewise gave full employment to the characteristic tendencies of his genius. this pursuit had already consumed many months. after the old watchmaker and his pretty daughter had gazed at him out of the obscurity of the street, owen warland was seized with a fluttering of the nerves, which made his hand tremble too violently to proceed with such delicate labor as he was now engaged upon. "it was annie herself!" murmured he. "i should have known it, by this throbbing of my heart, before i heard her father's voice. ah, how it throbs! i shall scarcely be able to work again on this exquisite mechanism to-night. annie! dearest annie! thou shouldst give firmness to my heart and hand, and not shake them thus; for if i strive to put the very spirit of beauty into form and give it motion, it is for thy sake alone. o throbbing heart, be quiet! if my labor be thus thwarted, there will come vague and unsatisfied dreams which will leave me spiritless to-morrow." as he was endeavoring to settle himself again to his task, the shop door opened and gave admittance to no other than the stalwart figure which peter hovenden had paused to admire, as seen amid the light and shadow of the blacksmith's shop. robert danforth had brought a little anvil of his own manufacture, and peculiarly constructed, which the young artist had recently bespoken. owen examined the article and pronounced it fashioned according to his wish. "why, yes," said robert danforth, his strong voice filling the shop as with the sound of a bass viol, "i consider myself equal to anything in the way of my own trade; though i should have made but a poor figure at yours with such a fist as this," added he, laughing, as he laid his vast hand beside the delicate one of owen. "but what then? i put more main strength into one blow of my sledge hammer than all that you have expended since you were a 'prentice. is not that the truth?" "very probably," answered the low and slender voice of owen. "strength is an earthly monster. i make no pretensions to it. my force, whatever there may be of it, is altogether spiritual." "well, but, owen, what are you about?" asked his old school-fellow, still in such a hearty volume of tone that it made the artist shrink, especially as the question related to a subject so sacred as the absorbing dream of his imagination. "folks do say that you are trying to discover the perpetual motion." "the perpetual motion? nonsense!" replied owen warland, with a movement of disgust; for he was full of little petulances. "it can never be discovered. it is a dream that may delude men whose brains are mystified with matter, but not me. besides, if such a discovery were possible, it would not be worth my while to make it only to have the secret turned to such purposes as are now effected by steam and water power. i am not ambitious to be honored with the paternity of a new kind of cotton machine." "that would be droll enough!" cried the blacksmith, breaking out into such an uproar of laughter that owen himself and the bell glasses on his work-board quivered in unison. "no, no, owen! no child of yours will have iron joints and sinews. well, i won't hinder you any more. good night, owen, and success, and if you need any assistance, so far as a downright blow of hammer upon anvil will answer the purpose, i'm your man." and with another laugh the man of main strength left the shop. "how strange it is," whispered owen warland to himself, leaning his head upon his hand, "that all my musings, my purposes, my passion for the beautiful, my consciousness of power to create it,--a finer, more ethereal power, of which this earthly giant can have no conception,--all, all, look so vain and idle whenever my path is crossed by robert danforth! he would drive me mad were i to meet him often. his hard, brute force darkens and confuses the spiritual element within me; but i, too, will be strong in my own way. i will not yield to him." he took from beneath a glass a piece of minute machinery, which he set in the condensed light of his lamp, and, looking intently at it through a magnifying glass, proceeded to operate with a delicate instrument of steel. in an instant, however, he fell back in his chair and clasped his hands, with a look of horror on his face that made its small features as impressive as those of a giant would have been. "heaven! what have i done?" exclaimed he. "the vapor, the influence of that brute force,--it has bewildered me and obscured my perception. i have made the very stroke--the fatal stroke--that i have dreaded from the first. it is all over--the toil of months, the object of my life. i am ruined!" and there he sat, in strange despair, until his lamp flickered in the socket and left the artist of the beautiful in darkness. thus it is that ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear so lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call valuable, are exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical. it is requisite for the ideal artist to possess a force of character that seems hardly compatible with its delicacy; he must keep his faith in himself while the incredulous world assails him with its utter disbelief; he must stand up against mankind and be his own sole disciple, both as respects his genius and the objects to which it is directed. for a time owen warland succumbed to this severe but inevitable test. he spent a few sluggish weeks with his head so continually resting in his hands that the towns-people had scarcely an opportunity to see his countenance. when at last it was again uplifted to the light of day, a cold, dull, nameless change was perceptible upon it. in the opinion of peter hovenden, however, and that order of sagacious understandings who think that life should be regulated, like clockwork, with leaden weights, the alteration was entirely for the better. owen now, indeed, applied himself to business with dogged industry. it was marvellous to witness the obtuse gravity with which he would inspect the wheels of a great old silver watch thereby delighting the owner, in whose fob it had been worn till he deemed it a portion of his own life, and was accordingly jealous of its treatment. in consequence of the good report thus acquired, owen warland was invited by the proper authorities to regulate the clock in the church steeple. he succeeded so admirably in this matter of public interest that the merchants gruffly acknowledged his merits on 'change; the nurse whispered his praises as she gave the potion in the sick-chamber; the lover blessed him at the hour of appointed interview; and the town in general thanked owen for the punctuality of dinner time. in a word, the heavy weight upon his spirits kept everything in order, not merely within his own system, but wheresoever the iron accents of the church clock were audible. it was a circumstance, though minute, yet characteristic of his present state, that, when employed to engrave names or initials on silver spoons, he now wrote the requisite letters in the plainest possible style, omitting a variety of fanciful flourishes that had heretofore distinguished his work in this kind. one day, during the era of this happy transformation, old peter hovenden came to visit his former apprentice. "well, owen," said he, "i am glad to hear such good accounts of you from all quarters, and especially from the town clock yonder, which speaks in your commendation every hour of the twenty-four. only get rid altogether of your nonsensical trash about the beautiful, which i nor nobody else, nor yourself to boot, could ever understand,--only free yourself of that, and your success in life is as sure as daylight. why, if you go on in this way, i should even venture to let you doctor this precious old watch of mine; though, except my daughter annie, i have nothing else so valuable in the world." "i should hardly dare touch it, sir," replied owen, in a depressed tone; for he was weighed down by his old master's presence. "in time," said the latter,--"in time, you will be capable of it." the old watchmaker, with the freedom naturally consequent on his former authority, went on inspecting the work which owen had in hand at the moment, together with other matters that were in progress. the artist, meanwhile, could scarcely lift his head. there was nothing so antipodal to his nature as this man's cold, unimaginative sagacity, by contact with which everything was converted into a dream except the densest matter of the physical world. owen groaned in spirit and prayed fervently to be delivered from him. "but what is this?" cried peter hovenden abruptly, taking up a dusty bell glass, beneath which appeared a mechanical something, as delicate and minute as the system of a butterfly's anatomy. "what have we here? owen! owen! there is witchcraft in these little chains, and wheels, and paddles. see! with one pinch of my finger and thumb i am going to deliver you from all future peril." "for heaven's sake," screamed owen warland, springing up with wonderful energy, "as you would not drive me mad, do not touch it! the slightest pressure of your finger would ruin me forever." "aha, young man! and is it so?" said the old watchmaker, looking at him with just enough penetration to torture owen's soul with the bitterness of worldly criticism. "well, take your own course; but i warn you again that in this small piece of mechanism lives your evil spirit. shall i exorcise him?" "you are my evil spirit," answered owen, much excited,--"you and the hard, coarse world! the leaden thoughts and the despondency that you fling upon me are my clogs, else i should long ago have achieved the task that i was created for." peter hovenden shook his head, with the mixture of contempt and indignation which mankind, of whom he was partly a representative, deem themselves entitled to feel towards all simpletons who seek other prizes than the dusty one along the highway. he then took his leave, with an uplifted finger and a sneer upon his face that haunted the artist's dreams for many a night afterwards. at the time of his old master's visit, owen was probably on the point of taking up the relinquished task; but, by this sinister event, he was thrown back into the state whence he had been slowly emerging. but the innate tendency of his soul had only been accumulating fresh vigor during its apparent sluggishness. as the summer advanced he almost totally relinquished his business, and permitted father time, so far as the old gentleman was represented by the clocks and watches under his control, to stray at random through human life, making infinite confusion among the train of bewildered hours. he wasted the sunshine, as people said, in wandering through the woods and fields and along the banks of streams. there, like a child, he found amusement in chasing butterflies or watching the motions of water insects. there was something truly mysterious in the intentness with which he contemplated these living playthings as they sported on the breeze or examined the structure of an imperial insect whom he had imprisoned. the chase of butterflies was an apt emblem of the ideal pursuit in which he had spent so many golden hours; but would the beautiful idea ever be yielded to his hand like the butterfly that symbolized it? sweet, doubtless, were these days, and congenial to the artist's soul. they were full of bright conceptions, which gleamed through his intellectual world as the butterflies gleamed through the outward atmosphere, and were real to him, for the instant, without the toil, and perplexity, and many disappointments of attempting to make them visible to the sensual eye. alas that the artist, whether in poetry, or whatever other material, may not content himself with the inward enjoyment of the beautiful, but must chase the flitting mystery beyond the verge of his ethereal domain, and crush its frail being in seizing it with a material grasp. owen warland felt the impulse to give external reality to his ideas as irresistibly as any of the poets or painters who have arrayed the world in a dimmer and fainter beauty, imperfectly copied from the richness of their visions. the night was now his time for the slow progress of re-creating the one idea to which all his intellectual activity referred itself. always at the approach of dusk he stole into the town, locked himself within his shop, and wrought with patient delicacy of touch for many hours. sometimes he was startled by the rap of the watchman, who, when all the world should be asleep, had caught the gleam of lamplight through the crevices of owen warland's shutters. daylight, to the morbid sensibility of his mind, seemed to have an intrusiveness that interfered with his pursuits. on cloudy and inclement days, therefore, he sat with his head upon his hands, muffling, as it were, his sensitive brain in a mist of indefinite musings, for it was a relief to escape from the sharp distinctness with which he was compelled to shape out his thoughts during his nightly toil. from one of these fits of torpor he was aroused by the entrance of annie hovenden, who came into the shop with the freedom of a customer, and also with something of the familiarity of a childish friend. she had worn a hole through her silver thimble, and wanted owen to repair it. "but i don't know whether you will condescend to such a task," said she, laughing, "now that you are so taken up with the notion of putting spirit into machinery." "where did you get that idea, annie?" said owen, starting in surprise. "oh, out of my own head," answered she, "and from something that i heard you say, long ago, when you were but a boy and i a little child. but come, will you mend this poor thimble of mine?" "anything for your sake, annie," said owen warland,--"anything, even were it to work at robert danforth's forge." "and that would be a pretty sight!" retorted annie, glancing with imperceptible slightness at the artist's small and slender frame. "well; here is the thimble." "but that is a strange idea of yours," said owen, "about the spiritualization of matter." and then the thought stole into his mind that this young girl possessed the gift to comprehend him better than all the world besides. and what a help and strength would it be to him in his lonely toil if he could gain the sympathy of the only being whom he loved! to persons whose pursuits are insulated from the common business of life--who are either in advance of mankind or apart from it--there often comes a sensation of moral cold that makes the spirit shiver as if it had reached the frozen solitudes around the pole. what the prophet, the poet, the reformer, the criminal, or any other man with human yearnings, but separated from the multitude by a peculiar lot, might feel, poor owen felt. "annie," cried he, growing pale as death at the thought, "how gladly would i tell you the secret of my pursuit! you, methinks, would estimate it rightly. you, i know, would hear it with a reverence that i must not expect from the harsh, material world." "would i not? to be sure i would!" replied annie hovenden, lightly laughing. "come; explain to me quickly what is the meaning of this little whirligig, so delicately wrought that it might be a plaything for queen mab. see! i will put it in motion." "hold!" exclaimed owen, "hold!" annie had but given the slightest possible touch, with the point of a needle, to the same minute portion of complicated machinery which has been more than once mentioned, when the artist seized her by the wrist with a force that made her scream aloud. she was affrighted at the convulsion of intense rage and anguish that writhed across his features. the next instant he let his head sink upon his hands. "go, annie," murmured he; "i have deceived myself, and must suffer for it. i yearned for sympathy, and thought, and fancied, and dreamed that you might give it me; but you lack the talisman, annie, that should admit you into my secrets. that touch has undone the toil of months and the thought of a lifetime! it was not your fault, annie; but you have ruined me!" poor owen warland! he had indeed erred, yet pardonably; for if any human spirit could have sufficiently reverenced the processes so sacred in his eyes, it must have been a woman's. even annie hovenden, possibly might not have disappointed him had she been enlightened by the deep intelligence of love. the artist spent the ensuing winter in a way that satisfied any persons who had hitherto retained a hopeful opinion of him that he was, in truth, irrevocably doomed to unutility as regarded the world, and to an evil destiny on his own part. the decease of a relative had put him in possession of a small inheritance. thus freed from the necessity of toil, and having lost the steadfast influence of a great purpose,--great, at least, to him,--he abandoned himself to habits from which it might have been supposed the mere delicacy of his organization would have availed to secure him. but when the ethereal portion of a man of genius is obscured the earthly part assumes an influence the more uncontrollable, because the character is now thrown off the balance to which providence had so nicely adjusted it, and which, in coarser natures, is adjusted by some other method. owen warland made proof of whatever show of bliss may be found in riot. he looked at the world through the golden medium of wine, and contemplated the visions that bubble up so gayly around the brim of the glass, and that people the air with shapes of pleasant madness, which so soon grow ghostly and forlorn. even when this dismal and inevitable change had taken place, the young man might still have continued to quaff the cup of enchantments, though its vapor did but shroud life in gloom and fill the gloom with spectres that mocked at him. there was a certain irksomeness of spirit, which, being real, and the deepest sensation of which the artist was now conscious, was more intolerable than any fantastic miseries and horrors that the abuse of wine could summon up. in the latter case he could remember, even out of the midst of his trouble, that all was but a delusion; in the former, the heavy anguish was his actual life. from this perilous state he was redeemed by an incident which more than one person witnessed, but of which the shrewdest could not explain or conjecture the operation on owen warland's mind. it was very simple. on a warm afternoon of spring, as the artist sat among his riotous companions with a glass of wine before him, a splendid butterfly flew in at the open window and fluttered about his head. "ah," exclaimed owen, who had drank freely, "are you alive again, child of the sun and playmate of the summer breeze, after your dismal winter's nap? then it is time for me to be at work!" and, leaving his unemptied glass upon the table, he departed and was never known to sip another drop of wine. and now, again, he resumed his wanderings in the woods and fields. it might be fancied that the bright butterfly, which had come so spirit-like into the window as owen sat with the rude revellers, was indeed a spirit commissioned to recall him to the pure, ideal life that had so etheralized him among men. it might be fancied that he went forth to seek this spirit in its sunny haunts; for still, as in the summer time gone by, he was seen to steal gently up wherever a butterfly had alighted, and lose himself in contemplation of it. when it took flight his eyes followed the winged vision, as if its airy track would show the path to heaven. but what could be the purpose of the unseasonable toil, which was again resumed, as the watchman knew by the lines of lamplight through the crevices of owen warland's shutters? the towns-people had one comprehensive explanation of all these singularities. owen warland had gone mad! how universally efficacious--how satisfactory, too, and soothing to the injured sensibility of narrowness and dulness--is this easy method of accounting for whatever lies beyond the world's most ordinary scope! from st. paul's days down to our poor little artist of the beautiful, the same talisman had been applied to the elucidation of all mysteries in the words or deeds of men who spoke or acted too wisely or too well. in owen warland's case the judgment of his towns-people may have been correct. perhaps he was mad. the lack of sympathy--that contrast between himself and his neighbors which took away the restraint of example--was enough to make him so. or possibly he had caught just so much of ethereal radiance as served to bewilder him, in an earthly sense, by its intermixture with the common daylight. one evening, when the artist had returned from a customary ramble and had just thrown the lustre of his lamp on the delicate piece of work so often interrupted, but still taken up again, as if his fate were embodied in its mechanism, he was surprised by the entrance of old peter hovenden. owen never met this man without a shrinking of the heart. of all the world he was most terrible, by reason of a keen understanding which saw so distinctly what it did see, and disbelieved so uncompromisingly in what it could not see. on this occasion the old watchmaker had merely a gracious word or two to say. "owen, my lad," said he, "we must see you at my house to-morrow night." the artist began to mutter some excuse. "oh, but it must be so," quoth peter hovenden, "for the sake of the days when you were one of the household. what, my boy! don't you know that my daughter annie is engaged to robert danforth? we are making an entertainment, in our humble way, to celebrate the event." that little monosyllable was all he uttered; its tone seemed cold and unconcerned to an ear like peter hovenden's; and yet there was in it the stifled outcry of the poor artist's heart, which he compressed within him like a man holding down an evil spirit. one slight outbreak, however, imperceptible to the old watchmaker, he allowed himself. raising the instrument with which he was about to begin his work, he let it fall upon the little system of machinery that had, anew, cost him months of thought and toil. it was shattered by the stroke! owen warland's story would have been no tolerable representation of the troubled life of those who strive to create the beautiful, if, amid all other thwarting influences, love had not interposed to steal the cunning from his hand. outwardly he had been no ardent or enterprising lover; the career of his passion had confined its tumults and vicissitudes so entirely within the artist's imagination that annie herself had scarcely more than a woman's intuitive perception of it; but, in owen's view, it covered the whole field of his life. forgetful of the time when she had shown herself incapable of any deep response, he had persisted in connecting all his dreams of artistical success with annie's image; she was the visible shape in which the spiritual power that he worshipped, and on whose altar he hoped to lay a not unworthy offering, was made manifest to him. of course he had deceived himself; there were no such attributes in annie hovenden as his imagination had endowed her with. she, in the aspect which she wore to his inward vision, was as much a creature of his own as the mysterious piece of mechanism would be were it ever realized. had he become convinced of his mistake through the medium of successful love,--had he won annie to his bosom, and there beheld her fade from angel into ordinary woman,--the disappointment might have driven him back, with concentrated energy, upon his sole remaining object. on the other hand, had he found annie what he fancied, his lot would have been so rich in beauty that out of its mere redundancy he might have wrought the beautiful into many a worthier type than he had toiled for; but the guise in which his sorrow came to him, the sense that the angel of his life had been snatched away and given to a rude man of earth and iron, who could neither need nor appreciate her ministrations,--this was the very perversity of fate that makes human existence appear too absurd and contradictory to be the scene of one other hope or one other fear. there was nothing left for owen warland but to sit down like a man that had been stunned. he went through a fit of illness. after his recovery his small and slender frame assumed an obtuser garniture of flesh than it had ever before worn. his thin cheeks became round; his delicate little hand, so spiritually fashioned to achieve fairy task-work, grew plumper than the hand of a thriving infant. his aspect had a childishness such as might have induced a stranger to pat him on the head--pausing, however, in the act, to wonder what manner of child was here. it was as if the spirit had gone out of him, leaving the body to flourish in a sort of vegetable existence. not that owen warland was idiotic. he could talk, and not irrationally. somewhat of a babbler, indeed, did people begin to think him; for he was apt to discourse at wearisome length of marvels of mechanism that he had read about in books, but which he had learned to consider as absolutely fabulous. among them he enumerated the man of brass, constructed by albertus magnus, and the brazen head of friar bacon; and, coming down to later times, the automata of a little coach and horses, which it was pretended had been manufactured for the dauphin of france; together with an insect that buzzed about the ear like a living fly, and yet was but a contrivance of minute steel springs. there was a story, too, of a duck that waddled, and quacked, and ate; though, had any honest citizen purchased it for dinner, he would have found himself cheated with the mere mechanical apparition of a duck. "but all these accounts," said owen warland, "i am now satisfied are mere impositions." then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that he once thought differently. in his idle and dreamy days he had considered it possible, in a certain sense, to spiritualize machinery, and to combine with the new species of life and motion thus produced a beauty that should attain to the ideal which nature has proposed to herself in all her creatures, but has never taken pains to realize. he seemed, however, to retain no very distinct perception either of the process of achieving this object or of the design itself. "i have thrown it all aside now," he would say. "it was a dream such as young men are always mystifying themselves with. now that i have acquired a little common sense, it makes me laugh to think of it." poor, poor and fallen owen warland! these were the symptoms that he had ceased to be an inhabitant of the better sphere that lies unseen around us. he had lost his faith in the invisible, and now prided himself, as such unfortunates invariably do, in the wisdom which rejected much that even his eye could see, and trusted confidently in nothing but what his hand could touch. this is the calamity of men whose spiritual part dies out of them and leaves the grosser understanding to assimilate them more and more to the things of which alone it can take cognizance; but in owen warland the spirit was not dead nor passed away; it only slept. how it awoke again is not recorded. perhaps the torpid slumber was broken by a convulsive pain. perhaps, as in a former instance, the butterfly came and hovered about his head and reinspired him,--as indeed this creature of the sunshine had always a mysterious mission for the artist,--reinspired him with the former purpose of his life. whether it were pain or happiness that thrilled through his veins, his first impulse was to thank heaven for rendering him again the being of thought, imagination, and keenest sensibility that he had long ceased to be. "now for my task," said he. "never did i feel such strength for it as now." yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to toil the more diligently by an anxiety lest death should surprise him in the midst of his labors. this anxiety, perhaps, is common to all men who set their hearts upon anything so high, in their own view of it, that life becomes of importance only as conditional to its accomplishment. so long as we love life for itself, we seldom dread the losing it. when we desire life for the attainment of an object, we recognize the frailty of its texture. but, side by side with this sense of insecurity, there is a vital faith in our invulnerability to the shaft of death while engaged in any task that seems assigned by providence as our proper thing to do, and which the world would have cause to mourn for should we leave it unaccomplished. can the philosopher, big with the inspiration of an idea that is to reform mankind, believe that he is to be beckoned from this sensible existence at the very instant when he is mustering his breath to speak the word of light? should he perish so, the weary ages may pass away--the world's, whose life sand may fall, drop by drop--before another intellect is prepared to develop the truth that might have been uttered then. but history affords many an example where the most precious spirit, at any particular epoch manifested in human shape, has gone hence untimely, without space allowed him, so far as mortal judgment could discern, to perform his mission on the earth. the prophet dies, and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain lives on. the poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the scope of mortal ears, in a celestial choir. the painter--as allston did--leaves half his conception on the canvas to sadden us with its imperfect beauty, and goes to picture forth the whole, if it be no irreverence to say so, in the hues of heaven. but rather such incomplete designs of this life will be perfected nowhere. this so frequent abortion of man's dearest projects must be taken as a proof that the deeds of earth, however etherealized by piety or genius, are without value, except as exercises and manifestations of the spirit. in heaven, all ordinary thought is higher and more melodious than milton's song. then, would he add another verse to any strain that he had left unfinished here? but to return to owen warland. it was his fortune, good or ill, to achieve the purpose of his life. pass we over a long space of intense thought, yearning effort, minute toil, and wasting anxiety, succeeded by an instant of solitary triumph: let all this be imagined; and then behold the artist, on a winter evening, seeking admittance to robert danforth's fireside circle. there he found the man of iron, with his massive substance thoroughly warmed and attempered by domestic influences. and there was annie, too, now transformed into a matron, with much of her husband's plain and sturdy nature, but imbued, as owen warland still believed, with a finer grace, that might enable her to be the interpreter between strength and beauty. it happened, likewise, that old peter hovenden was a guest this evening at his daughter's fireside, and it was his well-remembered expression of keen, cold criticism that first encountered the artist's glance. "my old friend owen!" cried robert danforth, starting up, and compressing the artist's delicate fingers within a hand that was accustomed to gripe bars of iron. "this is kind and neighborly to come to us at last. i was afraid your perpetual motion had bewitched you out of the remembrance of old times." "we are glad to see you," said annie, while a blush reddened her matronly cheek. "it was not like a friend to stay from us so long." "well, owen," inquired the old watchmaker, as his first greeting, "how comes on the beautiful? have you created it at last?" the artist did not immediately reply, being startled by the apparition of a young child of strength that was tumbling about on the carpet,--a little personage who had come mysteriously out of the infinite, but with something so sturdy and real in his composition that he seemed moulded out of the densest substance which earth could supply. this hopeful infant crawled towards the new-comer, and setting himself on end, as robert danforth expressed the posture, stared at owen with a look of such sagacious observation that the mother could not help exchanging a proud glance with her husband. but the artist was disturbed by the child's look, as imagining a resemblance between it and peter hovenden's habitual expression. he could have fancied that the old watchmaker was compressed into this baby shape, and looking out of those baby eyes, and repeating, as he now did, the malicious question: "the beautiful, owen! how comes on the beautiful? have you succeeded in creating the beautiful?" "i have succeeded," replied the artist, with a momentary light of triumph in his eyes and a smile of sunshine, yet steeped in such depth of thought that it was almost sadness. "yes, my friends, it is the truth. i have succeeded." "indeed!" cried annie, a look of maiden mirthfulness peeping out of her face again. "and is it lawful, now, to inquire what the secret is?" "surely; it is to disclose it that i have come," answered owen warland. "you shall know, and see, and touch, and possess the secret! for, annie,--if by that name i may still address the friend of my boyish years,--annie, it is for your bridal gift that i have wrought this spiritualized mechanism, this harmony of motion, this mystery of beauty. it comes late, indeed; but it is as we go onward in life, when objects begin to lose their freshness of hue and our souls their delicacy of perception, that the spirit of beauty is most needed. if,--forgive me, annie,--if you know how--to value this gift, it can never come too late." he produced, as he spoke, what seemed a jewel box. it was carved richly out of ebony by his own hand, and inlaid with a fanciful tracery of pearl, representing a boy in pursuit of a butterfly, which, elsewhere, had become a winged spirit, and was flying heavenward; while the boy, or youth, had found such efficacy in his strong desire that he ascended from earth to cloud, and from cloud to celestial atmosphere, to win the beautiful. this case of ebony the artist opened, and bade annie place her fingers on its edge. she did so, but almost screamed as a butterfly fluttered forth, and, alighting on her finger's tip, sat waving the ample magnificence of its purple and gold-speckled wings, as if in prelude to a flight. it is impossible to express by words the glory, the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were softened into the beauty of this object. nature's ideal butterfly was here realized in all its perfection; not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit among earthly flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of paradise for child-angels and the spirits of departed infants to disport themselves with. the rich down was visible upon its wings; the lustre of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit. the firelight glimmered around this wonder--the candles gleamed upon it; but it glistened apparently by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and outstretched hand on which it rested with a white gleam like that of precious stones. in its perfect beauty, the consideration of size was entirely lost. had its wings overreached the firmament, the mind could not have been more filled or satisfied. "beautiful! beautiful!" exclaimed annie. "is it alive? is it alive?" "alive? to be sure it is," answered her husband. "do you suppose any mortal has skill enough to make a butterfly, or would put himself to the trouble of making one, when any child may catch a score of them in a summer's afternoon? alive? certainly! but this pretty box is undoubtedly of our friend owen's manufacture; and really it does him credit." at this moment the butterfly waved its wings anew, with a motion so absolutely lifelike that annie was startled, and even awestricken; for, in spite of her husband's opinion, she could not satisfy herself whether it was indeed a living creature or a piece of wondrous mechanism. "is it alive?" she repeated, more earnestly than before. "judge for yourself," said owen warland, who stood gazing in her face with fixed attention. the butterfly now flung itself upon the air, fluttered round annie's head, and soared into a distant region of the parlor, still making itself perceptible to sight by the starry gleam in which the motion of its wings enveloped it. the infant on the floor followed its course with his sagacious little eyes. after flying about the room, it returned in a spiral curve and settled again on annie's finger. "but is it alive?" exclaimed she again; and the finger on which the gorgeous mystery had alighted was so tremulous that the butterfly was forced to balance himself with his wings. "tell me if it be alive, or whether you created it." "wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful?" replied owen warland. "alive? yes, annie; it may well be said to possess life, for it has absorbed my own being into itself; and in the secret of that butterfly, and in its beauty,--which is not merely outward, but deep as its whole system,--is represented the intellect, the imagination, the sensibility, the soul of an artist of the beautiful! yes; i created it. but"--and here his countenance somewhat changed--"this butterfly is not now to me what it was when i beheld it afar off in the daydreams of my youth." "be it what it may, it is a pretty plaything," said the blacksmith, grinning with childlike delight. "i wonder whether it would condescend to alight on such a great clumsy finger as mine? hold it hither, annie." by the artist's direction, annie touched her finger's tip to that of her husband; and, after a momentary delay, the butterfly fluttered from one to the other. it preluded a second flight by a similar, yet not precisely the same, waving of wings as in the first experiment; then, ascending from the blacksmith's stalwart finger, it rose in a gradually enlarging curve to the ceiling, made one wide sweep around the room, and returned with an undulating movement to the point whence it had started. "well, that does beat all nature!" cried robert danforth, bestowing the heartiest praise that he could find expression for; and, indeed, had he paused there, a man of finer words and nicer perception could not easily have said more. "that goes beyond me, i confess. but what then? there is more real use in one downright blow of my sledge hammer than in the whole five years' labor that our friend owen has wasted on this butterfly." here the child clapped his hands and made a great babble of indistinct utterance, apparently demanding that the butterfly should be given him for a plaything. owen warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at annie, to discover whether she sympathized in her husband's estimate of the comparative value of the beautiful and the practical. there was, amid all her kindness towards himself, amid all the wonder and admiration with which she contemplated the marvellous work of his hands and incarnation of his idea, a secret scorn--too secret, perhaps, for her own consciousness, and perceptible only to such intuitive discernment as that of the artist. but owen, in the latter stages of his pursuit, had risen out of the region in which such a discovery might have been torture. he knew that the world, and annie as the representative of the world, whatever praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor feel the fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense of an artist who, symbolizing a lofty moral by a material trifle,--converting what was earthly to spiritual gold,--had won the beautiful into his handiwork. not at this latest moment was he to learn that the reward of all high performance must be sought within itself, or sought in vain. there was, however, a view of the matter which annie and her husband, and even peter hovenden, might fully have understood, and which would have satisfied them that the toil of years had here been worthily bestowed. owen warland might have told them that this butterfly, this plaything, this bridal gift of a poor watchmaker to a blacksmith's wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would have purchased with honors and abundant wealth, and have treasured it among the jewels of his kingdom as the most unique and wondrous of them all. but the artist smiled and kept the secret to himself. "father," said annie, thinking that a word of praise from the old watchmaker might gratify his former apprentice, "do come and admire this pretty butterfly." "let us see," said peter hovenden, rising from his chair, with a sneer upon his face that always made people doubt, as he himself did, in everything but a material existence. "here is my finger for it to alight upon. i shall understand it better when once i have touched it." but, to the increased astonishment of annie, when the tip of her father's finger was pressed against that of her husband, on which the butterfly still rested, the insect drooped its wings and seemed on the point of falling to the floor. even the bright spots of gold upon its wings and body, unless her eyes deceived her, grew dim, and the glowing purple took a dusky hue, and the starry lustre that gleamed around the blacksmith's hand became faint and vanished. "it is dying! it is dying!" cried annie, in alarm. "it has been delicately wrought," said the artist, calmly. "as i told you, it has imbibed a spiritual essence--call it magnetism, or what you will. in an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him who instilled his own life into it. it has already lost its beauty; in a few moments more its mechanism would be irreparably injured." "take away your hand, father!" entreated annie, turning pale. "here is my child; let it rest on his innocent hand. there, perhaps, its life will revive and its colors grow brighter than ever." her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his finger. the butterfly then appeared to recover the power of voluntary motion, while its hues assumed much of their original lustre, and the gleam of starlight, which was its most ethereal attribute, again formed a halo round about it. at first, when transferred from robert danforth's hand to the small finger of the child, this radiance grew so powerful that it positively threw the little fellow's shadow back against the wall. he, meanwhile, extended his plump hand as he had seen his father and mother do, and watched the waving of the insect's wings with infantine delight. nevertheless, there was a certain odd expression of sagacity that made owen warland feel as if here were old pete hovenden, partially, and but partially, redeemed from his hard scepticism into childish faith. "how wise the little monkey looks!" whispered robert danforth to his wife. "i never saw such a look on a child's face," answered annie, admiring her own infant, and with good reason, far more than the artistic butterfly. "the darling knows more of the mystery than we do." as if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not entirely congenial in the child's nature, it alternately sparkled and grew dim. at length it arose from the small hand of the infant with an airy motion that seemed to bear it upward without an effort, as if the ethereal instincts with which its master's spirit had endowed it impelled this fair vision involuntarily to a higher sphere. had there been no obstruction, it might have soared into the sky and grown immortal. but its lustre gleamed upon the ceiling; the exquisite texture of its wings brushed against that earthly medium; and a sparkle or two, as of stardust, floated downward and lay glimmering on the carpet. then the butterfly came fluttering down, and, instead of returning to the infant, was apparently attracted towards the artist's hand. "not so! not so!" murmured owen warland, as if his handiwork could have understood him. "thou has gone forth out of thy master's heart. there is no return for thee." with a wavering movement, and emitting a tremulous radiance, the butterfly struggled, as it were, towards the infant, and was about to alight upon his finger; but while it still hovered in the air, the little child of strength, with his grandsire's sharp and shrewd expression in his face, made a snatch at the marvellous insect and compressed it in his hand. annie screamed. old peter hovenden burst into a cold and scornful laugh. the blacksmith, by main force, unclosed the infant's hand, and found within the palm a small heap of glittering fragments, whence the mystery of beauty had fled forever. and as for owen warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life's labor, and which was yet no ruin. he had caught a far other butterfly than this. when the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality. the snow image by nathaniel hawthorne contents the snow image: a childish miracle the great stone face ethan brand the canterbury pilgrims the devil in manuscript my kinsman, major molineux the snow-image: a childish miracle one afternoon of a cold winter's day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow. the elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents, and other people who were familiar with her, used to call violet. but her brother was known by the style and title of peony, on account of the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. the father of these two children, a certain mr. lindsey, it is important to say, was an excellent but exceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer in hardware, and was sturdily accustomed to take what is called the common-sense view of all matters that came under his consideration. with a heart about as tender as other people's, he had a head as hard and impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as empty, as one of the iron pots which it was a part of his business to sell. the mother's character, on the other hand, had a strain of poetry in it, a trait of unworldly beauty,--a delicate and dewy flower, as it were, that had survived out of her imaginative youth, and still kept itself alive amid the dusty realities of matrimony and motherhood. so, violet and peony, as i began with saying, besought their mother to let them run out and play in the new snow; for, though it had looked so dreary and dismal, drifting downward out of the gray sky, it had a very cheerful aspect, now that the sun was shining on it. the children dwelt in a city, and had no wider play-place than a little garden before the house, divided by a white fence from the street, and with a pear-tree and two or three plum-trees overshadowing it, and some rose-bushes just in front of the parlor-windows. the trees and shrubs, however, were now leafless, and their twigs were enveloped in the light snow, which thus made a kind of wintry foliage, with here and there a pendent icicle for the fruit. "yes, violet,--yes, my little peony," said their kind mother, "you may go out and play in the new snow." accordingly, the good lady bundled up her darlings in woollen jackets and wadded sacks, and put comforters round their necks, and a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and worsted mittens on their hands, and gave them a kiss apiece, by way of a spell to keep away jack frost. forth sallied the two children, with a hop-skip-and-jump, that carried them at once into the very heart of a huge snow-drift, whence violet emerged like a snow-bunting, while little peony floundered out with his round face in full bloom. then what a merry time had they! to look at them, frolicking in the wintry garden, you would have thought that the dark and pitiless storm had been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for violet and peony; and that they themselves had beer created, as the snow-birds were, to take delight only in the tempest, and in the white mantle which it spread over the earth. at last, when they had frosted one another all over with handfuls of snow, violet, after laughing heartily at little peony's figure, was struck with a new idea. "you look exactly like a snow-image, peony," said she, "if your cheeks were not so red. and that puts me in mind! let us make an image out of snow,--an image of a little girl,--and it shall be our sister, and shall run about and play with us all winter long. won't it be nice?" "oh yes!" cried peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he was but a little boy. "that will be nice! and mamma shall see it!" "yes," answered violet; "mamma shall see the new little girl. but she must not make her come into the warm parlor; for, you know, our little snow-sister will not love the warmth." and forthwith the children began this great business of making a snow-image that should run about; while their mother, who was sitting at the window and overheard some of their talk, could not help smiling at the gravity with which they set about it. they really seemed to imagine that there would be no difficulty whatever in creating a live little girl out of the snow. and, to say the truth, if miracles are ever to be wrought, it will be by putting our hands to the work in precisely such a simple and undoubting frame of mind as that in which violet and peony now undertook to perform one, without so much as knowing that it was a miracle. so thought the mother; and thought, likewise, that the new snow, just fallen from heaven, would be excellent material to make new beings of, if it were not so very cold. she gazed at the children a moment longer, delighting to watch their little figures,--the girl, tall for her age, graceful and agile, and so delicately colored that she looked like a cheerful thought more than a physical reality; while peony expanded in breadth rather than height, and rolled along on his short and sturdy legs as substantial as an elephant, though not quite so big. then the mother resumed her work. what it was i forget; but she was either trimming a silken bonnet for violet, or darning a pair of stockings for little peony's short legs. again, however, and again, and yet other agains, she could not help turning her head to the window to see how the children got on with their snow-image. indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright little souls at their task! moreover, it was really wonderful to observe how knowingly and skilfully they managed the matter. violet assumed the chief direction, and told peony what to do, while, with her own delicate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts of the snow-figure. it seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and prattling about it. their mother was quite surprised at this; and the longer she looked, the more and more surprised she grew. "what remarkable children mine are!" thought she, smiling with a mother's pride; and, smiling at herself, too, for being so proud of them. "what other children could have made anything so like a little girl's figure out of snow at the first trial? well; but now i must finish peony's new frock, for his grandfather is coming to-morrow, and i want the little fellow to look handsome." so she took up the frock, and was soon as busily at work again with her needle as the two children with their snow-image. but still, as the needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the dress, the mother made her toil light and happy by listening to the airy voices of violet and peony. they kept talking to one another all the time, their tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands. except at intervals, she could not distinctly hear what was said, but had merely a sweet impression that they were in a most loving mood, and were enjoying themselves highly, and that the business of making the snow-image went prosperously on. now and then, however, when violet and peony happened to raise their voices, the words were as audible as if they had been spoken in the very parlor where the mother sat. oh how delightfully those words echoed in her heart, even though they meant nothing so very wise or wonderful, after all! but you must know a mother listens with her heart much more than with her ears; and thus she is often delighted with the trills of celestial music, when other people can hear nothing of the kind. "peony, peony!" cried violet to her brother, who had gone to another part of the garden, "bring me some of that fresh snow, peony, from the very farthest corner, where we have not been trampling. i want it to shape our little snow-sister's bosom with. you know that part must be quite pure, just as it came out of the sky!" "here it is, violet!" answered peony, in his bluff tone,--but a very sweet tone, too,--as he came floundering through the half-trodden drifts. "here is the snow for her little bosom. o violet, how beau-ti-ful she begins to look!" "yes," said violet, thoughtfully and quietly; "our snow-sister does look very lovely. i did not quite know, peony, that we could make such a sweet little girl as this." the mother, as she listened, thought how fit and delightful an incident it would be, if fairies, or still better, if angel-children were to come from paradise, and play invisibly with her own darlings, and help them to make their snow-image, giving it the features of celestial babyhood! violet and peony would not be aware of their immortal playmates,--only they would see that the image grew very beautiful while they worked at it, and would think that they themselves had done it all. "my little girl and boy deserve such playmates, if mortal children ever did!" said the mother to herself; and then she smiled again at her own motherly pride. nevertheless, the idea seized upon her imagination; and, ever and anon, she took a glimpse out of the window, half dreaming that she might see the golden-haired children of paradise sporting with her own golden-haired violet and bright-cheeked peony. now, for a few moments, there was a busy and earnest, but indistinct hum of the two children's voices, as violet and peony wrought together with one happy consent. violet still seemed to be the guiding spirit, while peony acted rather as a laborer, and brought her the snow from far and near. and yet the little urchin evidently had a proper understanding of the matter, too! "peony, peony!" cried violet; for her brother was again at the other side of the garden. "bring me those light wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the pear-tree. you can clamber on the snowdrift, peony, and reach them easily. i must have them to make some ringlets for our snow-sister's head!" "here they are, violet!" answered the little boy. "take care you do not break them. well done! well done! how pretty!" "does she not look sweetly?" said violet, with a very satisfied tone; "and now we must have some little shining bits of ice, to make the brightness of her eyes. she is not finished yet. mamma will see how very beautiful she is; but papa will say, 'tush! nonsense!--come in out of the cold!'" "let us call mamma to look out," said peony; and then he shouted lustily, "mamma! mamma!! mamma!!! look out, and see what a nice 'ittle girl we are making!" the mother put down her work for an instant, and looked out of the window. but it so happened that the sun--for this was one of the shortest days of the whole year--had sunken so nearly to the edge of the world that his setting shine came obliquely into the lady's eyes. so she was dazzled, you must understand, and could not very distinctly observe what was in the garden. still, however, through all that bright, blinding dazzle of the sun and the new snow, she beheld a small white figure in the garden, that seemed to have a wonderful deal of human likeness about it. and she saw violet and peony,--indeed, she looked more at them than at the image,--she saw the two children still at work; peony bringing fresh snow, and violet applying it to the figure as scientifically as a sculptor adds clay to his model. indistinctly as she discerned the snow-child, the mother thought to herself that never before was there a snow-figure so cunningly made, nor ever such a dear little girl and boy to make it. "they do everything better than other children," said she, very complacently. "no wonder they make better snow-images!" she sat down again to her work, and made as much haste with it as possible; because twilight would soon come, and peony's frock was not yet finished, and grandfather was expected, by railroad, pretty early in the morning. faster and faster, therefore, went her flying fingers. the children, likewise, kept busily at work in the garden, and still the mother listened, whenever she could catch a word. she was amused to observe how their little imaginations had got mixed up with what they were doing, and carried away by it. they seemed positively to think that the snow-child would run about and play with them. "what a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter long!" said violet. "i hope papa will not be afraid of her giving us a cold! sha'n't you love her dearly, peony?" "oh yes!" cried peony. "and i will hug her, and she shall sit down close by me and drink some of my warm milk!" "oh no, peony!" answered violet, with grave wisdom. "that will not do at all. warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister. little snow people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. no, no, peony; we must not give her anything warm to drink!" there was a minute or two of silence; for peony, whose short legs were never weary, had gone on a pilgrimage again to the other side of the garden. all of a sudden, violet cried out, loudly and joyfully,--"look here, peony! come quickly! a light has been shining on her cheek out of that rose-colored cloud! and the color does not go away! is not that beautiful!" "yes; it is beau-ti-ful," answered peony, pronouncing the three syllables with deliberate accuracy. "o violet, only look at her hair! it is all like gold!" "oh certainly," said violet, with tranquillity, as if it were very much a matter of course. "that color, you know, comes from the golden clouds, that we see up there in the sky. she is almost finished now. but her lips must be made very red,--redder than her cheeks. perhaps, peony, it will make them red if we both kiss them!" accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. but, as this did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, violet next proposed that the snow-child should be invited to kiss peony's scarlet cheek. "come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!" cried peony. "there! she has kissed you," added violet, "and now her lips are very red. and she blushed a little, too!" "oh, what a cold kiss!" cried peony. just then, there came a breeze of the pure west-wind, sweeping through the garden and rattling the parlor-windows. it sounded so wintry cold, that the mother was about to tap on the window-pane with her thimbled finger, to summon the two children in, when they both cried out to her with one voice. the tone was not a tone of surprise, although they were evidently a good deal excited; it appeared rather as if they were very much rejoiced at some event that had now happened, but which they had been looking for, and had reckoned upon all along. "mamma! mamma! we have finished our little snow-sister, and she is running about the garden with us!" "what imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother, putting the last few stitches into peony's frock. "and it is strange, too that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are! i can hardly help believing, now, that the snow-image has really come to life!" "dear mamma!" cried violet, "pray look out and see what a sweet playmate we have!" the mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to look forth from the window. the sun was now gone out of the sky, leaving, however, a rich inheritance of his brightness among those purple and golden clouds which make the sunsets of winter so magnificent. but there was not the slightest gleam or dazzle, either on the window or on the snow; so that the good lady could look all over the garden, and see everything and everybody in it. and what do you think she saw there? violet and peony, of course, her own two darling children. ah, but whom or what did she see besides? why, if you will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl, dressed all in white, with rose-tinged cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, playing about the garden with the two children! a stranger though she was, the child seemed to be on as familiar terms with violet and peony, and they with her, as if all the three had been playmates during the whole of their little lives. the mother thought to herself that it must certainly be the daughter of one of the neighbors, and that, seeing violet and peony in the garden, the child had run across the street to play with them. so this kind lady went to the door, intending to invite the little runaway into her comfortable parlor; for, now that the sunshine was withdrawn, the atmosphere, out of doors, was already growing very cold. but, after opening the house-door, she stood an instant on the threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask the child to come in, or whether she should even speak to her. indeed, she almost doubted whether it were a real child after all, or only a light wreath of the new-fallen snow, blown hither and thither about the garden by the intensely cold west-wind. there was certainly something very singular in the aspect of the little stranger. among all the children of the neighborhood, the lady could remember no such face, with its pure white, and delicate rose-color, and the golden ringlets tossing about the forehead and cheeks. and as for her dress, which was entirely of white, and fluttering in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable woman would put upon a little girl, when sending her out to play, in the depth of winter. it made this kind and careful mother shiver only to look at those small feet, with nothing in the world on them, except a very thin pair of white slippers. nevertheless, airily as she was clad, the child seemed to feel not the slightest inconvenience from the cold, but danced so lightly over the snow that the tips of her toes left hardly a print in its surface; while violet could but just keep pace with her, and peony's short legs compelled him to lag behind. once, in the course of their play, the strange child placed herself between violet and peony, and taking a hand of each, skipped merrily forward, and they along with her. almost immediately, however, peony pulled away his little fist, and began to rub it as if the fingers were tingling with cold; while violet also released herself, though with less abruptness, gravely remarking that it was better not to take hold of hands. the white-robed damsel said not a word, but danced about, just as merrily as before. if violet and peony did not choose to play with her, she could make just as good a playmate of the brisk and cold west-wind, which kept blowing her all about the garden, and took such liberties with her, that they seemed to have been friends for a long time. all this while, the mother stood on the threshold, wondering how a little girl could look so much like a flying snow-drift, or how a snow-drift could look so very like a little girl. she called violet, and whispered to her. "violet my darling, what is this child's name?" asked she. "does she live near us?" "why, dearest mamma," answered violet, laughing to think that her mother did not comprehend so very plain an affair, "this is our little snow-sister whom we have just been making!" "yes, dear mamma," cried peony, running to his mother, and looking up simply into her face. "this is our snow-image! is it not a nice 'ittle child?" at this instant a flock of snow-birds came flitting through the air. as was very natural, they avoided violet and peony. but--and this looked strange--they flew at once to the white-robed child, fluttered eagerly about her head, alighted on her shoulders, and seemed to claim her as an old acquaintance. she, on her part, was evidently as glad to see these little birds, old winter's grandchildren, as they were to see her, and welcomed them by holding out both her hands. hereupon, they each and all tried to alight on her two palms and ten small fingers and thumbs, crowding one another off, with an immense fluttering of their tiny wings. one dear little bird nestled tenderly in her bosom; another put its bill to her lips. they were as joyous, all the while, and seemed as much in their element, as you may have seen them when sporting with a snow-storm. violet and peony stood laughing at this pretty sight; for they enjoyed the merry time which their new playmate was having with these small-winged visitants, almost as much as if they themselves took part in it. "violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, "tell me the truth, without any jest. who is this little girl?" "my darling mamma," answered violet, looking seriously into her mother's face, and apparently surprised that she should need any further explanation, "i have told you truly who she is. it is our little snow-image, which peony and i have been making. peony will tell you so, as well as i." "yes, mamma," asseverated peony, with much gravity in his crimson little phiz; "this is 'ittle snow-child. is not she a nice one? but, mamma, her hand is, oh, so very cold!" while mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the street-gate was thrown open, and the father of violet and peony appeared, wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap drawn down over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his hands. mr. lindsey was a middle-aged man, with a weary and yet a happy look in his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if he had been busy all the day long, and was glad to get back to his quiet home. his eyes brightened at the sight of his wife and children, although he could not help uttering a word or two of surprise, at finding the whole family in the open air, on so bleak a day, and after sunset too. he soon perceived the little white stranger sporting to and fro in the garden, like a dancing snow-wreath, and the flock of snow-birds fluttering about her head. "pray, what little girl may that be?" inquired this very sensible man. "surely her mother must be crazy to let her go out in such bitter weather as it has been to-day, with only that flimsy white gown and those thin slippers!" "my dear husband," said his wife, "i know no more about the little thing than you do. some neighbor's child, i suppose. our violet and peony," she added, laughing at herself for repeating so absurd a story, "insist that she is nothing but a snow-image, which they have been busy about in the garden, almost all the afternoon." as she said this, the mother glanced her eyes toward the spot where the children's snow-image had been made. what was her surprise, on perceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so much labor!--no image at all!--no piled up heap of snow!--nothing whatever, save the prints of little footsteps around a vacant space! "this is very strange!" said she. "what is strange, dear mother?" asked violet. "dear father, do not you see how it is? this is our snow-image, which peony and i have made, because we wanted another playmate. did not we, peony?" "yes, papa," said crimson peony. "this be our 'ittle snow-sister. is she not beau-ti-ful? but she gave me such a cold kiss!" "poh, nonsense, children!" cried their good, honest father, who, as we have already intimated, had an exceedingly common-sensible way of looking at matters. "do not tell me of making live figures out of snow. come, wife; this little stranger must not stay out in the bleak air a moment longer. we will bring her into the parlor; and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk, and make her as comfortable as you can. meanwhile, i will inquire among the neighbors; or, if necessary, send the city-crier about the streets, to give notice of a lost child." so saying, this honest and very kind-hearted man was going toward the little white damsel, with the best intentions in the world. but violet and peony, each seizing their father by the hand, earnestly besought him not to make her come in. "dear father," cried violet, putting herself before him, "it is true what i have been telling you! this is our little snow-girl, and she cannot live any longer than while she breathes the cold west-wind. do not make her come into the hot room!" "yes, father," shouted peony, stamping his little foot, so mightily was he in earnest, "this be nothing but our 'ittle snow-child! she will not love the hot fire!" "nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!" cried the father, half vexed, half laughing at what he considered their foolish obstinacy. "run into the house, this moment! it is too late to play any longer, now. i must take care of this little girl immediately, or she will catch her death-a-cold!" "husband! dear husband!" said his wife, in a low voice,--for she had been looking narrowly at the snow-child, and was more perplexed than ever,--"there is something very singular in all this. you will think me foolish,--but--but--may it not be that some invisible angel has been attracted by the simplicity and good faith with which our children set about their undertaking? may he not have spent an hour of his immortality in playing with those dear little souls? and so the result is what we call a miracle. no, no! do not laugh at me; i see what a foolish thought it is!" "my dear wife," replied the husband, laughing heartily, "you are as much a child as violet and peony." and in one sense so she was, for all through life she had kept her heart full of childlike simplicity and faith, which was as pure and clear as crystal; and, looking at all matters through this transparent medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound that other people laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity. but now kind mr. lindsey had entered the garden, breaking away from his two children, who still sent their shrill voices after him, beseeching him to let the snow-child stay and enjoy herself in the cold west-wind. as he approached, the snow-birds took to flight. the little white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking her head, as if to say, "pray, do not touch me!" and roguishly, as it appeared, leading him through the deepest of the snow. once, the good man stumbled, and floundered down upon his face, so that, gathering himself up again, with the snow sticking to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he looked as white and wintry as a snow-image of the largest size. some of the neighbors, meanwhile, seeing him from their windows, wondered what could possess poor mr. lindsey to be running about his garden in pursuit of a snow-drift, which the west-wind was driving hither and thither! at length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the little stranger into a corner, where she could not possibly escape him. his wife had been looking on, and, it being nearly twilight, was wonder-struck to observe how the snow-child gleamed and sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her; and when driven into the corner, she positively glistened like a star! it was a frosty kind of brightness, too, like that of an icicle in the moonlight. the wife thought it strange that good mr. lindsey should see nothing remarkable in the snow-child's appearance. "come, you odd little thing!" cried the honest man, seizing her by the hand, "i have caught you at last, and will make you comfortable in spite of yourself. we will put a nice warm pair of worsted stockings on your frozen little feet, and you shall have a good thick shawl to wrap yourself in. your poor white nose, i am afraid, is actually frost-bitten. but we will make it all right. come along in." and so, with a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, all purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentleman took the snow-child by the hand and led her towards the house. she followed him, droopingly and reluctant; for all the glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure; and whereas just before she had resembled a bright, frosty, star-gemmed evening, with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now looked as dull and languid as a thaw. as kind mr. lindsey led her up the steps of the door, violet and peony looked into his face,--their eyes full of tears, which froze before they could run down their cheeks,--and again entreated him not to bring their snow-image into the house. "not bring her in!" exclaimed the kind-hearted man. "why, you are crazy, my little violet!--quite crazy, my small peony! she is so cold, already, that her hand has almost frozen mine, in spite of my thick gloves. would you have her freeze to death?" his wife, as he came up the steps, had been taking another long, earnest, almost awe-stricken gaze at the little white stranger. she hardly knew whether it was a dream or no; but she could not help fancying that she saw the delicate print of violet's fingers on the child's neck. it looked just as if, while violet was shaping out the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her hand, and had neglected to smooth the impression quite away. "after all, husband," said the mother, recurring to her idea that the angels would be as much delighted to play with violet and peony as she herself was,--"after all, she does look strangely like a snow-image! i do believe she is made of snow!" a puff of the west-wind blew against the snow-child, and again she sparkled like a star. "snow!" repeated good mr. lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest over his hospitable threshold. "no wonder she looks like snow. she is half frozen, poor little thing! but a good fire will put everything to rights!" without further talk, and always with the same best intentions, this highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the little white damsel--drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more out of the frosty air, and into his comfortable parlor. a heidenberg stove, filled to the brim with intensely burning anthracite, was sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of its iron door, and causing the vase of water on its top to fume and bubble with excitement. a warm, sultry smell was diffused throughout the room. a thermometer on the wall farthest from the stove stood at eighty degrees. the parlor was hung with red curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked just as warm as it felt. the difference betwixt the atmosphere here and the cold, wintry twilight out of doors, was like stepping at once from nova zembla to the hottest part of india, or from the north pole into an oven. oh, this was a fine place for the little white stranger! the common-sensible man placed the snow-child on the hearth-rug, right in front of the hissing and fuming stove. "now she will be comfortable!" cried mr. lindsey, rubbing his hands and looking about him, with the pleasantest smile you ever saw. "make yourself at home, my child." sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden, as she stood on the hearth-rug, with the hot blast of the stove striking through her like a pestilence. once, she threw a glance wistfully toward the windows, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all the delicious intensity of the cold night. the bleak wind rattled the window-panes, as if it were summoning her to come forth. but there stood the snow-child, drooping, before the hot stove! but the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss. "come wife," said he, "let her have a pair of thick stockings and a woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils. you, violet and peony, amuse your little friend. she is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place. for my part, i will go around among the neighbors, and find out where she belongs." the mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings; for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband. without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good mr. lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlor-door carefully behind him. turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate, when he was recalled by the screams of violet and peony, and the rapping of a thimbled finger against the parlor window. "husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face through the window-panes. "there is no need of going for the child's parents!" "we told you so, father!" screamed violet and peony, as he re-entered the parlor. "you would bring her in; and now our poor--dear-beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!" and their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might be going to thaw too! in the utmost perplexity, he demanded an explanation of his wife. she could only reply, that, being summoned to the parlor by the cries of violet and peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth-rug. "and there you see all that is left of it!" added she, pointing to a pool of water in front of the stove. "yes, father," said violet looking reproachfully at him, through her tears, "there is all that is left of our dear little snow-sister!" "naughty father!" cried peony, stamping his foot, and--i shudder to say--shaking his little fist at the common-sensible man. "we told you how it would be! what for did you bring her in?" and the heidenberg stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to glare at good mr. lindsey, like a red-eyed demon, triumphing in the mischief which it had done! this, you will observe, was one of those rare cases, which yet will occasionally happen, where common-sense finds itself at fault. the remarkable story of the snow-image, though to that sagacious class of people to whom good mr. lindsey belongs it may seem but a childish affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being moralized in various methods, greatly for their edification. one of its lessons, for instance, might be, that it behooves men, and especially men of benevolence, to consider well what they are about, and, before acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be quite sure that they comprehend the nature and all the relations of the business in hand. what has been established as an element of good to one being may prove absolute mischief to another; even as the warmth of the parlor was proper enough for children of flesh and blood, like violet and peony,--though by no means very wholesome, even for them,--but involved nothing short of annihilation to the unfortunate snow-image. but, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of good mr. lindsey's stamp. they know everything,--oh, to be sure!--everything that has been, and everything that is, and everything that, by any future possibility, can be. and, should some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend their system, they will not recognize it, even if it come to pass under their very noses. "wife," said mr. lindsey, after a fit of silence, "see what a quantity of snow the children have brought in on their feet! it has made quite a puddle here before the stove. pray tell dora to bring some towels and mop it up!" the great stone face one afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the great stone face. they had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features. and what was the great stone face? embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. some of these good people dwelt in log-huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hill-sides. others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. others, again, were congregated into populous villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper mountain region, had been caught and tamed by human cunning, and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. the inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. but all of them, grown people and children, had a kind of familiarity with the great stone face, although some possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neighbors. the great stone face, then, was a work of nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. it seemed as if an enormous giant, or a titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. there was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other. true it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. retracing his steps, however, the wondrous features would again be seen; and the farther he withdrew from them, the more like a human face, with all its original divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it, the great stone face seemed positively to be alive. it was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the great stone face before their eyes, for all the features were noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and had room for more. it was an education only to look at it. according to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine. as we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their cottage-door, gazing at the great stone face, and talking about it. the child's name was ernest. "mother," said he, while the titanic visage smiled on him, "i wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant. if i were to see a man with such a face, i should love him dearly." "if an old prophecy should come to pass," answered his mother, "we may see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that." "what prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired ernest. "pray tell me about it!" so his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when she herself was younger than little ernest; a story, not of things that were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very old, that even the indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree-tops. the purport was, that, at some future day, a child should be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblest personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the great stone face. not a few old-fashioned people, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. but others, who had seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. at all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared. "o mother, dear mother!" cried ernest, clapping his hands above his head, "i do hope that i shall live to see him!" his mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. so she only said to him, "perhaps you may." and ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. it was always in his mind, whenever he looked upon the great stone face. he spent his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and was dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. in this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in many lads who have been taught at famous schools. yet ernest had had no teacher, save only that the great stone face became one to him. when the toil of the day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration. we must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the face may have looked no more kindly at ernest than at all the world besides. but the secret was that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became his peculiar portion. about this time there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the great man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the great stone face, had appeared at last. it seems that, many years before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a distant seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. his name--but i could never learn whether it was his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in life--was gathergold. being shrewd and active, and endowed by providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. all the countries of the globe appeared to join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the mountainous accumulation of this one man's wealth. the cold regions of the north, almost within the gloom and shadow of the arctic circle, sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; hot africa sifted for him the golden sands of her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests; the east came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity of large pearls. the ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that mr. gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit of it. be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. it might be said of him, as of midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles of coin. and, when mr. gathergold had become so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go back thither, and end his days where he was born. with this purpose in view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such a palace as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in. as i have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that mr. gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long and vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable similitude of the great stone face. people were the more ready to believe that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father's old weatherbeaten farm-house. the exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly white that it seemed as though the whole structure might melt away in the sunshine, like those humbler ones which mr. gathergold, in his young play-days, before his fingers were gifted with the touch of transmutation, had been accustomed to build of snow. it had a richly ornamented portico, supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been brought from beyond the sea. the windows, from the floor to the ceiling of each stately apartment, were composed, respectively, of but one enormous pane of glass, so transparently pure that it was said to be a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere. hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this palace; but it was reported, and with good semblance of truth, to be far more gorgeous than the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or gold in this; and mr. gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made such a glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close his eyes there. but, on the other hand, mr. gathergold was now so inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his eyelids. in due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with magnificent furniture; then, a whole troop of black and white servants, the harbingers of mr. gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was expected to arrive at sunset. our friend ernest, meanwhile, had been deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to be made manifest to his native valley. he knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways in which mr. gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the great stone face. full of faith and hope, ernest doubted not that what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous features on the mountain-side. while the boy was still gazing up the valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the great stone face returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road. "here he comes!" cried a group of people who were assembled to witness the arrival. "here comes the great mr. gathergold!" a carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy of the old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own midas-hand had transmuted it. he had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly together. "the very image of the great stone face!" shouted the people. "sure enough, the old prophecy is true; and here we have the great man come, at last!" and, what greatly perplexed ernest, they seemed actually to believe that here was the likeness which they spoke of. by the roadside there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. a yellow claw--the very same that had clawed together so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed scattercopper. still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed, "he is the very image of the great stone face!" but ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had impressed themselves into his soul. their aspect cheered him. what did the benign lips seem to say? "he will come! fear not, ernest; the man will come!" the years went on, and ernest ceased to be a boy. he had grown to be a young man now. he attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life save that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the great stone face. according to their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as ernest was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this idle habit. they knew not that the great stone face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts. they knew not that thence would come a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than could be moulded on the defaced example of other human lives. neither did ernest know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, and wherever he communed with himself, were of a higher tone than those which all men shared with him. a simple soul,--simple as when his mother first taught him the old prophecy,--he beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his appearance. by this time poor mr. gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest part of the matter was, that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled yellow skin. since the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally conceded that there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain-side. so the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his decease. once in a while, it is true, his memory was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to visit that famous natural curiosity, the great stone face. thus, mr. gathergold being discredited and thrown into the shade, the man of prophecy was yet to come. it so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before, had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had now become an illustrious commander. whatever he may be called in history, he was known in camps and on the battle-field under the nickname of old blood-and-thunder. this war-worn veteran being now infirm with age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where he remembered to have left it. the inhabitants, his old neighbors and their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the renowned warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmed that now, at last, the likeness of the great stone face had actually appeared. an aid-de-camp of old blood-and-thunder, travelling through the valley, was said to have been struck with the resemblance. moreover the schoolmates and early acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to the best of their recollection, the aforesaid general had been exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a boy, only the idea had never occurred to them at that period. great, therefore, was the excitement throughout the valley; and many people, who had never once thought of glancing at the great stone face for years before, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how general blood-and-thunder looked. on the day of the great festival, ernest, with all the other people of the valley, left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan banquet was prepared. as he approached, the loud voice of the rev. dr. battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor they were assembled. the tables were arranged in a cleared space of the woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened eastward, and afforded a distant view of the great stone face. over the general's chair, which was a relic from the home of washington, there was an arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely intermixed, and surmounted by his country's banner, beneath which he had won his victories. our friend ernest raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person among the throng. so ernest, being of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into the background, where he could see no more of old blood-and-thunder's physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on the battle-field. to console himself, he turned towards the great stone face, which, like a faithful and long remembered friend, looked back and smiled upon him through the vista of the forest. meantime, however, he could overhear the remarks of various individuals, who were comparing the features of the hero with the face on the distant mountain-side. "'tis the same face, to a hair!" cried one man, cutting a caper for joy. "wonderfully like, that's a fact!" responded another. "like! why, i call it old blood-and-thunder himself, in a monstrous looking-glass!" cried a third. "and why not? he's the greatest man of this or any other age, beyond a doubt." and then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, which communicated electricity to the crowd, and called forth a roar from a thousand voices, that went reverberating for miles among the mountains, until you might have supposed that the great stone face had poured its thunderbreath into the cry. all these comments, and this vast enthusiasm, served the more to interest our friend; nor did he think of questioning that now, at length, the mountain-visage had found its human counterpart. it is true, ernest had imagined that this long-looked-for personage would appear in the character of a man of peace, uttering wisdom, and doing good, and making people happy. but, taking an habitual breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he contended that providence should choose its own method of blessing mankind, and could conceive that this great end might be effected even by a warrior and a bloody sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matters so. "the general! the general!" was now the cry. "hush! silence! old blood-and-thunder's going to make a speech." even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been drunk, amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank the company. ernest saw him. there he was, over the shoulders of the crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward, beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner drooping as if to shade his brow! and there, too, visible in the same glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the great stone face! and was there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had testified? alas, ernest could not recognize it! he beheld a war-worn and weatherbeaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies, were altogether wanting in old blood-and-thunder's visage; and even if the great stone face had assumed his look of stern command, the milder traits would still have tempered it. "this is not the man of prophecy," sighed ernest to himself, as he made his way out of the throng. "and must the world wait longer yet?" the mists had congregated about the distant mountain-side, and there were seen the grand and awful features of the great stone face, awful but benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of gold and purple. as he looked, ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of the lips. it was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting through the thinly diffused vapors that had swept between him and the object that he gazed at. but--as it always did--the aspect of his marvellous friend made ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain. "fear not, ernest," said his heart, even as if the great face were whispering him,--"fear not, ernest; he will come." more years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. ernest still dwelt in his native valley, and was now a man of middle age. by imperceptible degrees, he had become known among the people. now, as heretofore, he labored for his bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been. but he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that it seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed a portion of their wisdom unawares. it was visible in the calm and well-considered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide green margin all along its course. not a day passed by, that the world was not the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. he never stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing to his neighbor. almost involuntarily too, he had become a preacher. the pure and high simplicity of his thought, which, as one of its manifestations, took shape in the good deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowed also forth in speech. he uttered truths that wrought upon and moulded the lives of those who heard him. his auditors, it may be, never suspected that ernest, their own neighbor and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did ernest himself suspect it; but, inevitably as the murmur of a rivulet, came thoughts out of his mouth that no other human lips had spoken. when the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between general blood-and-thunder's truculent physiognomy and the benign visage on the mountain-side. but now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the great stone face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent statesman. he, like mr. gathergold and old blood-and-thunder, was a native of the valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of law and politics. instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword, he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. so wonderfully eloquent was he, that whatever he might choose to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and right like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural daylight with it. his tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. it was the blast of war, the song of peace; and it seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no such matter. in good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable success,--when it had been heard in halls of state, and in the courts of princes and potentates,--after it had made him known all over the world, even as a voice crying from shore to shore,--it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the presidency. before this time,--indeed, as soon as he began to grow celebrated,--his admirers had found out the resemblance between him and the great stone face; and so much were they struck by it, that throughout the country this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of old stony phiz. the phrase was considered as giving a highly favorable aspect to his political prospects; for, as is likewise the case with the popedom, nobody ever becomes president without taking a name other than his own. while his friends were doing their best to make him president, old stony phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he was born. of course, he had no other object than to shake hands with his fellow-citizens and neither thought nor cared about any effect which his progress through the country might have upon the election. magnificent preparations were made to receive the illustrious statesman; a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary line of the state, and all the people left their business and gathered along the wayside to see him pass. among these was ernest. though more than once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and confiding nature, that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed beautiful and good. he kept his heart continually open, and thus was sure to catch the blessing from on high when it should come. so now again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the great stone face. the cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high that the visage of the mountain-side was completely hidden from ernest's eyes. all the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback; militia officers, in uniform; the member of congress; the sheriff of the county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted his patient steed, with his sunday coat upon his back. it really was a very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits of the illustrious statesman and the great stone face, smiling familiarly at one another, like two brothers. if the pictures were to be trusted, the mutual resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvellous. we must not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the echoes of the mountains ring and reverberate with the loud triumph of its strains; so that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice, to welcome the distinguished guest. but the grandest effect was when the far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the great stone face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come. all this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting with enthusiasm so contagious that the heart of ernest kindled up, and he likewise threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loudest, "huzza for the great man! huzza for old stony phiz!" but as yet he had not seen him. "here he is, now!" cried those who stood near ernest. "there! there! look at old stony phiz and then at the old man of the mountain, and see if they are not as like as two twin-brothers!" in the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche, drawn by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, old stony phiz himself. "confess it," said one of ernest's neighbors to him, "the great stone face has met its match at last!" now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, ernest did fancy that there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the mountain-side. the brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all the other features, indeed, were boldly and strongly hewn, as if in emulation of a more than heroic, of a titanic model. but the sublimity and stateliness, the grand expression of a divine sympathy, that illuminated the mountain visage and etherealized its ponderous granite substance into spirit, might here be sought in vain. something had been originally left out, or had departed. and therefore the marvellously gifted statesman had always a weary gloom in the deep caverns of his eyes, as of a child that has outgrown its playthings or a man of mighty faculties and little aims, whose life, with all its high performances, was vague and empty, because no high purpose had endowed it with reality. still, ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and pressing him for an answer. "confess! confess! is not he the very picture of your old man of the mountain?" "no!" said ernest bluntly, "i see little or no likeness." "then so much the worse for the great stone face!" answered his neighbor; and again he set up a shout for old stony phiz. but ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent: for this was the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. meantime, the cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down, and the great stone face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it had worn for untold centuries. "lo, here i am, ernest!" the benign lips seemed to say. "i have waited longer than thou, and am not yet weary. fear not; the man will come." the years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's heels. and now they began to bring white hairs, and scatter them over the head of ernest; they made reverend wrinkles across his forehead, and furrows in his cheeks. he was an aged man. but not in vain had he grown old: more than the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that time had graved, and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. and ernest had ceased to be obscure. unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. college professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far to see and converse with ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple husbandman had ideas unlike those of other men, not gained from books, but of a higher tone,--a tranquil and familiar majesty, as if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. whether it were sage, statesman, or philanthropist, ernest received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had characterized him from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart or their own. while they talked together, his face would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light. pensive with the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave and went their way; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the great stone face, imagining that they had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but could not remember where. while ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful providence had granted a new poet to this earth. he likewise, was a native of the valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and din of cities. often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere of his poetry. neither was the great stone face forgotten, for the poet had celebrated it in an ode, which was grand enough to have been uttered by its own majestic lips. this man of genius, we may say, had come down from heaven with wonderful endowments. if he sang of a mountain, the eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast, or soaring to its summit, than had before been seen there. if his theme were a lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to gleam forever on its surface. if it were the vast old sea, even the deep immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by the emotions of the song. thus the world assumed another and a better aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. the creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork. creation was not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so complete it. the effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were the subject of his verse. the man or woman, sordid with the common dust of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in it, were glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic faith. he showed the golden links of the great chain that intertwined them with an angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial birth that made them worthy of such kin. some, indeed, there were, who thought to show the soundness of their judgment by affirming that all the beauty and dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet's fancy. let such men speak for themselves, who undoubtedly appear to have been spawned forth by nature with a contemptuous bitterness; she having plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were made. as respects all things else, the poet's ideal was the truest truth. the songs of this poet found their way to ernest. he read them after his customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage-door, where for such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing at the great stone face. and now as he read stanzas that caused the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance beaming on him so benignantly. "o majestic friend," he murmured, addressing the great stone face, "is not this man worthy to resemble thee?" the face seemed to smile, but answered not a word. now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only heard of ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wisdom walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. one summer morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from ernest's cottage. the great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of mr. gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on his arm, inquired at once where ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as his guest. approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the great stone face. "good evening," said the poet. "can you give a traveller a night's lodging?" "willingly," answered ernest; and then he added, smiling, "methinks i never saw the great stone face look so hospitably at a stranger." the poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and ernest talked together. often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never before with a man like ernest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. angels, as had been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and, dwelling with angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household words. so thought the poet. and ernest, on the other hand, was moved and agitated by the living images which the poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage-door with shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. the sympathies of these two men instructed them with a profounder sense than either could have attained alone. their minds accorded into one strain, and made delightful music which neither of them could have claimed as all his own, nor distinguished his own share from the other's. they led one another, as it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so dim, that they had never entered it before, and so beautiful that they desired to be there always. as ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the great stone face was bending forward to listen too. he gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing eyes. "who are you, my strangely gifted guest?" he said. the poet laid his finger on the volume that ernest had been reading. "you have read these poems," said he. "you know me, then,--for i wrote them." again, and still more earnestly than before, ernest examined the poet's features; then turned towards the great stone face; then back, with an uncertain aspect, to his guest. but his countenance fell; he shook his head, and sighed. "wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet. "because," replied ernest, "all through life i have awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when i read these poems, i hoped that it might be fulfilled in you." "you hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the likeness of the great stone face. and you are disappointed, as formerly with mr. gathergold, and old blood-and-thunder, and old stony phiz. yes, ernest, it is my doom. you must add my name to the illustrious three, and record another failure of your hopes. for--in shame and sadness do i speak it, ernest--i am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic image." "and why?" asked ernest. he pointed to the volume. "are not those thoughts divine?" "they have a strain of the divinity," replied the poet. "you can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. but my life, dear ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. i have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because i have lived--and that, too, by my own choice--among poor and mean realities. sometimes even--shall i dare to say it?--i lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness, which my own words are said to have made more evident in nature and in human life. why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me, in yonder image of the divine?" the poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. so, likewise, were those of ernest. at the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, ernest was to discourse to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open air. he and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went along, proceeded to the spot. it was a small nook among the hills, with a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. at a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure, there appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, with freedom for such gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest thought and genuine emotion. into this natural pulpit ernest ascended, and threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. they stood, or sat, or reclined upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. in another direction was seen the great stone face, with the same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect. ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and mind. his words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the life which he had always lived. it was not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into this precious draught. the poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he had ever written. his eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with the glory of white hair diffused about it. at a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun, appeared the great stone face, with hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of ernest. its look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world. at that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft and shouted, "behold! behold! ernest is himself the likeness of the great stone face!" then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said was true. the prophecy was fulfilled. but ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear, bearing a resemblance to the great stone face. ethan brand a chapter from an abortive romance bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with charcoal, sat watching his kiln at nightfall, while his little son played at building houses with the scattered fragments of marble, when, on the hill-side below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest. "father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and pressing betwixt his father's knees. "oh, some drunken man, i suppose," answered the lime-burner; "some merry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loud enough within doors lest he should blow the roof of the house off. so here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of graylock." "but, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse, middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. so the noise frightens me!" "don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "you will never make a man, i do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. i have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. hark! here comes the merry fellow now. you shall see that there is no harm in him." bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of ethan brand's solitary and meditative life, before he began his search for the unpardonable sin. many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since that portentous night when the idea was first developed. the kiln, however, on the mountain-side, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took possession of his life. it was a rude, round, tower-like structure about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circumference; so that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at the top. there was an opening at the bottom of the tower, like an over-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture, and provided with a massive iron door. with the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the hill-side, it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the delectable mountains were accustomed to show to pilgrims. there are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the purpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of the substance of the hills. some of them, built years ago, and long deserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the sky, and grass and wild-flowers rooting themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. others, where the limeburner still feeds his daily and night-long fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the solitary man. it is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful occupation; as it proved in the case of ethan brand, who had mused to such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning. the man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled himself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his business. at frequent intervals, he flung back the clashing weight of the iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands with a long pole. within the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, the spring beside its door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of the lime-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. and when, again, the iron door was closed, then reappeared the tender light of the half-full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago. the little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were heard ascending the hill-side, and a human form thrust aside the bushes that clustered beneath the trees. "halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. "come forward, and show yourself, like a man, or i'll fling this chunk of marble at your head!" "you offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man drew nigh. "yet i neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my own fireside." to obtain a distincter view, bartram threw open the iron door of the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote full upon the stranger's face and figure. to a careless eye there appeared nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man in a coarse brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. as he advanced, he fixed his eyes--which were very bright--intently upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy of note within it. "good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, so late in the day?" "i come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is finished." "drunk!--or crazy!" muttered bartram to himself. "i shall have trouble with the fellow. the sooner i drive him away, the better." the little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. and, indeed, even the lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by an indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunken eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysterious cavern. but, as he closed the door, the stranger turned towards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made bartram feel as if he were a sane and sensible man, after all. "your task draws to an end, i see," said he. "this marble has already been burning three days. a few hours more will convert the stone to lime." "why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "you seem as well acquainted with my business as i am myself." "and well i may be," said the stranger; "for i followed the same craft many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. but you are a newcomer in these parts. did you never hear of ethan brand?" "the man that went in search of the unpardonable sin?" asked bartram, with a laugh. "the same," answered the stranger. "he has found what he sought, and therefore he comes back again." "what! then you are ethan brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, in amazement. "i am a new-comer here, as you say, and they call it eighteen years since you left the foot of graylock. but, i can tell you, the good folks still talk about ethan brand, in the village yonder, and what a strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln. well, and so you have found the unpardonable sin?" "even so!" said the stranger, calmly. "if the question is a fair one," proceeded bartram, "where might it be?" ethan brand laid his finger on his own heart. "here!" replied he. and then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking throughout the world for what was the closest of all things to himself, and looking into every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. it was the same slow, heavy laugh, that had almost appalled the lime-burner when it heralded the wayfarer's approach. the solitary mountain-side was made dismal by it. laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. the laughter of one asleep, even if it be a little child,--the madman's laugh,--the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot,--are sounds that we sometimes tremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. poets have imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. and even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberated among the hills. "joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the village, and tell the jolly fellows there that ethan brand has come back, and that he has found the unpardonable sin!" the boy darted away on his errand, to which ethan brand made no objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. he sat on a log of wood, looking steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. when the child was out of sight, and his swift and light footsteps ceased to be heard treading first on the fallen leaves and then on the rocky mountain-path, the lime-burner began to regret his departure. he felt that the little fellow's presence had been a barrier between his guest and himself, and that he must now deal, heart to heart, with a man who, on his own confession, had committed the one only crime for which heaven could afford no mercy. that crime, in its indistinct blackness, seemed to overshadow him, and made his memory riotous with a throng of evil shapes that asserted their kindred with the master sin, whatever it might be, which it was within the scope of man's corrupted nature to conceive and cherish. they were all of one family; they went to and fro between his breast and ethan brand's, and carried dark greetings from one to the other. then bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary in reference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadow of the night, and was making himself at home in his old place, after so long absence, that the dead people, dead and buried for years, would have had more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he. ethan brand, it was said, had conversed with satan himself in the lurid blaze of this very kiln. the legend had been matter of mirth heretofore, but looked grisly now. according to this tale, before ethan brand departed on his search, he had been accustomed to evoke a fiend from the hot furnace of the lime-kiln, night after night, in order to confer with him about the unpardonable sin; the man and the fiend each laboring to frame the image of some mode of guilt which could neither be atoned for nor forgiven. and, with the first gleam of light upon the mountain-top, the fiend crept in at the iron door, there to abide the intensest element of fire until again summoned forth to share in the dreadful task of extending man's possible guilt beyond the scope of heaven's else infinite mercy. while the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts, ethan brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. the action was in such accordance with the idea in bartram's mind, that he almost expected to see the evil one issue forth, red-hot, from the raging furnace. "hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was ashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "don't, for mercy's sake, bring out your devil now!" "man!" sternly replied ethan brand, "what need have i of the devil? i have left him behind me, on my track. it is with such half-way sinners as you that he busies himself. fear not, because i open the door. i do but act by old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a lime-burner, as i was once." he stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the fierce glow that reddened upon his face. the lime-burner sat watching him, and half suspected this strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke a fiend, at least to plunge into the flames, and thus vanish from the sight of man. ethan brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed the door of the kiln. "i have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times hotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire. but i found not there what i sought. no, not the unpardonable sin!" "what is the unpardonable sin?" asked the lime-burner; and then he shrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question should be answered. "it is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied ethan brand, standing erect with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of his stamp. "a sin that grew nowhere else! the sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for god, and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims! the only sin that deserves a recompense of immortal agony! freely, were it to do again, would i incur the guilt. unshrinkingly i accept the retribution!" "the man's head is turned," muttered the lime-burner to himself. "he may be a sinner like the rest of us,--nothing more likely,--but, i'll be sworn, he is a madman too." nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with ethan brand on the wild mountain-side, and was right glad to hear the rough murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the underbrush. soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk flip beside the bar-room fire through all the winters, and smoked their pipes beneath the stoop through all the summers, since ethan brand's departure. laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voices together in unceremonious talk, they now burst into the moonshine and narrow streaks of firelight that illuminated the open space before the lime-kiln. bartram set the door ajar again, flooding the spot with light, that the whole company might get a fair view of ethan brand, and he of them. there, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous man, now almost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at the hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. it was the stage-agent. the present specimen of the genus was a wilted and smoke-dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, brown, bobtailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown, had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. he had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy-toddy and tobacco-smoke, which impregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well as his person. another well-remembered, though strangely altered, face was that of lawyer giles, as people still called him in courtesy; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiled shirtsleeves and tow-cloth trousers. this poor fellow had been an attorney, in what he called his better days, a sharp practitioner, and in great vogue among the village litigants; but flip, and sling, and toddy, and cocktails, imbibed at all hours, morning, noon, and night, had caused him to slide from intellectual to various kinds and degrees of bodily labor, till at last, to adopt his own phrase, he slid into a soap-vat. in other words, giles was now a soap-boiler, in a small way. he had come to be but the fragment of a human being, a part of one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn away by the devilish grip of a steam-engine. yet, though the corporeal hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump, giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers with as vivid a sensation as before the real ones were amputated. a maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom the world could not trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes, since he had still kept up the courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in charity, and with his one hand--and that the left one--fought a stern battle against want and hostile circumstances. among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain points of similarity to lawyer giles, had many more of difference. it was the village doctor; a man of some fifty years, whom, at an earlier period of his life, we introduced as paying a professional visit to ethan brand during the latter's supposed insanity. he was now a purple-visaged, rude, and brutal, yet half-gentlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and desperate in his talk, and in all the details of his gesture and manners. brandy possessed this man like an evil spirit, and made him as surly and savage as a wild beast, and as miserable as a lost soul; but there was supposed to be in him such wonderful skill, such native gifts of healing, beyond any which medical science could impart, that society caught hold of him, and would not let him sink out of its reach. so, swaying to and fro upon his horse, and grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he visited all the sick-chambers for miles about among the mountain towns, and sometimes raised a dying man, as it were, by miracle, or quite as often, no doubt, sent his patient to a grave that was dug many a year too soon. the doctor had an everlasting pipe in his mouth, and, as somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it was always alight with hell-fire. these three worthies pressed forward, and greeted ethan brand each after his own fashion, earnestly inviting him to partake of the contents of a certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he would find something far better worth seeking than the unpardonable sin. no mind, which has wrought itself by intense and solitary meditation into a high state of enthusiasm, can endure the kind of contact with low and vulgar modes of thought and feeling to which ethan brand was now subjected. it made him doubt--and, strange to say, it was a painful doubt--whether he had indeed found the unpardonable sin, and found it within himself. the whole question on which he had exhausted life, and more than life, looked like a delusion. "leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with fiery liquors! i have done with you. years and years ago, i groped into your hearts and found nothing there for my purpose. get ye gone!" "why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the way you respond to the kindness of your best friends? then let me tell you the truth. you have no more found the unpardonable sin than yonder boy joe has. you are but a crazy fellow,--i told you so twenty years ago,-neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and the fit companion of old humphrey, here!" he pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin visage, and unsteady eyes. for some years past this aged person had been wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom he met for his daughter. the girl, it seemed, had gone off with a company of circus-performers, and occasionally tidings of her came to the village, and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance as she rode on horseback in the ring, or performed marvellous feats on the tight-rope. the white-haired father now approached ethan brand, and gazed unsteadily into his face. "they tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing his hands with earnestness. "you must have seen my daughter, for she makes a grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. did she send any word to her old father, or say when she was coming back?" ethan brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. that daughter, from whom he so earnestly desired a word of greeting, was the esther of our tale, the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, ethan brand had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process. "yes," he murmured, turning away from the hoary wanderer, "it is no delusion. there is an unpardonable sin!" while these things were passing, a merry scene was going forward in the area of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of the hut. a number of the youth of the village, young men and girls, had hurried up the hill-side, impelled by curiosity to see ethan brand, the hero of so many a legend familiar to their childhood. finding nothing, however, very remarkable in his aspect,--nothing but a sunburnt wayfarer, in plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fire as if he fancied pictures among the coals,--these young people speedily grew tired of observing him. as it happened, there was other amusement at hand. an old german jew travelling with a diorama on his back, was passing down the mountain-road towards the village just as the party turned aside from it, and, in hopes of eking out the profits of the day, the showman had kept them company to the lime-kiln. "come, old dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your pictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!" "oh yes, captain," answered the jew,--whether as a matter of courtesy or craft, he styled everybody captain,--"i shall show you, indeed, some very superb pictures!" so, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and girls to look through the glass orifices of the machine, and proceeded to exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings, as specimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the face to impose upon his circle of spectators. the pictures were worn out, moreover, tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy with tobacco-smoke, and otherwise in a most pitiable condition. some purported to be cities, public edifices, and ruined castles in europe; others represented napoleon's battles and nelson's sea-fights; and in the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,--which might have been mistaken for the hand of destiny, though, in truth, it was only the showman's,--pointing its forefinger to various scenes of the conflict, while its owner gave historical illustrations. when, with much merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibition was concluded, the german bade little joe put his head into the box. viewed through the magnifying-glasses, the boy's round, rosy visage assumed the strangest imaginable aspect of an immense titanic child, the mouth grinning broadly, and the eyes and every other feature overflowing with fun at the joke. suddenly, however, that merry face turned pale, and its expression changed to horror, for this easily impressed and excitable child had become sensible that the eye of ethan brand was fixed upon him through the glass. "you make the little man to be afraid, captain," said the german jew, turning up the dark and strong outline of his visage from his stooping posture. "but look again, and, by chance, i shall cause you to see somewhat that is very fine, upon my word!" ethan brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back, looked fixedly at the german. what had he seen? nothing, apparently; for a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld only a vacant space of canvas. "i remember you now," muttered ethan brand to the showman. "ah, captain," whispered the jew of nuremberg, with a dark smile, "i find it to be a heavy matter in my show-box,--this unpardonable sin! by my faith, captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to carry it over the mountain." "peace," answered ethan brand, sternly, "or get thee into the furnace yonder!" the jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great, elderly dog--who seemed to be his own master, as no person in the company laid claim to him--saw fit to render himself the object of public notice. hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, well-disposed old dog, going round from one to another, and, by way of being sociable, offering his rough head to be patted by any kindly hand that would take so much trouble. but now, all of a sudden, this grave and venerable quadruped, of his own mere motion, and without the slightest suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after his tail, which, to heighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal shorter than it should have been. never was seen such headlong eagerness in pursuit of an object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard such a tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,--as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the other. faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. the next moment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his deportment, as when he first scraped acquaintance with the company. as may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine performer responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but appeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amuse the spectators. meanwhile, ethan brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved, as it might be, by a perception of some remote analogy between his own case and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh, which, more than any other token, expressed the condition of his inward being. from that moment, the merriment of the party was at an end; they stood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should be reverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to mountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their ears. then, whispering one to another that it was late,--that the moon was almost down,-that the august night was growing chill,--they hurried homewards, leaving the lime-burner and little joe to deal as they might with their unwelcome guest. save for these three human beings, the open space on the hill-side was a solitude, set in a vast gloom of forest. beyond that darksome verge, the firelight glimmered on the stately trunks and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the lighter verdure of sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there lay the gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil. and it seemed to little joe--a timorous and imaginative child--that the silent forest was holding its breath until some fearful thing should happen. ethan brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the kiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, he bade, rather than advised, them to retire to rest. "for myself, i cannot sleep," said he. "i have matters that it concerns me to meditate upon. i will watch the fire, as i used to do in the old time." "and call the devil out of the furnace to keep you company, i suppose," muttered bartram, who had been making intimate acquaintance with the black bottle above mentioned. "but watch, if you like, and call as many devils as you like! for my part, i shall be all the better for a snooze. come, joe!" as the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at the wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for his tender spirit had an intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man had enveloped himself. when they had gone, ethan brand sat listening to the crackling of the kindled wood, and looking at the little spirts of fire that issued through the chinks of the door. these trifles, however, once so familiar, had but the slightest hold of his attention, while deep within his mind he was reviewing the gradual but marvellous change that had been wrought upon him by the search to which he had devoted himself. he remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him,--how the dark forest had whispered to him,--how the stars had gleamed upon him,--a simple and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned. he remembered with what tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind and what pity for human guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; with what awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and prayed that the unpardonable sin might never be revealed to him. then ensued that vast intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart. the idea that possessed his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone on cultivating his powers to the highest point of which they were susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered laborer to stand on a star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth, laden with the lore of universities, might vainly strive to clamber after him. so much for the intellect! but where was the heart? that, indeed, had withered,--had contracted,--had hardened,--had perished! it had ceased to partake of the universal throb. he had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity. he was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers or the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holy sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his experiment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pulling the wires that moved them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for his study. thus ethan brand became a fiend. he began to be so from the moment that his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improvement with his intellect. and now, as his highest effort and inevitable development,--as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his life's labor,--he had produced the unpardonable sin! "what more have i to seek? what more to achieve?" said ethan brand to himself. "my task is done, and well done!" starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and ascending the hillock of earth that was raised against the stone circumference of the lime-kiln, he thus reached the top of the structure. it was a space of perhaps ten feet across, from edge to edge, presenting a view of the upper surface of the immense mass of broken marble with which the kiln was heaped. all these innumerable blocks and fragments of marble were redhot and vividly on fire, sending up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and danced madly, as within a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with continual and multitudinous activity. as the lonely man bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the blasting heat smote up against his person with a breath that, it might be supposed, would have scorched and shrivelled him up in a moment. ethan brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. the blue flames played upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light which alone could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on the verge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment. "o mother earth," cried he, "who art no more my mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be resolved! o mankind, whose brotherhood i have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! o stars of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward and upward!--farewell all, and forever. come, deadly element of fire,-henceforth my familiar friend! embrace me, as i do thee!" that night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavily through the sleep of the lime-burner and his little son; dim shapes of horror and anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present in the rude hovel, when they opened their eyes to the daylight. "up, boy, up!" cried the lime-burner, staring about him. "thank heaven, the night is gone, at last; and rather than pass such another, i would watch my lime-kiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. this ethan brand, with his humbug of an unpardonable sin, has done me no such mighty favor, in taking my place!" he issued from the hut, followed by little joe, who kept fast hold of his father's hand. the early sunshine was already pouring its gold upon the mountain-tops, and though the valleys were still in shadow, they smiled cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was hastening onward. the village, completely shut in by hills, which swelled away gently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully in the hollow of the great hand of providence. every dwelling was distinctly visible; the little spires of the two churches pointed upwards, and caught a fore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt skies upon their gilded weather-cocks. the tavern was astir, and the figure of the old, smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen beneath the stoop. old graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his head. scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down into the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of the same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper atmosphere. stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the heavenly regions. earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to look at it. to supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little share. the great hills played a concert among themselves, each contributing a strain of airy sweetness. little joe's face brightened at once. "dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strange man is gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!" "yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire go down, and no thanks to him if five hundred bushels of lime are not spoiled. if i catch the fellow hereabouts again, i shall feel like tossing him into the furnace!" with his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln. after a moment's pause, he called to his son. "come up here, joe!" said he. so little joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. the marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. but on its surface, in the midst of the circle,--snow-white too, and thoroughly converted into lime,--lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who, after long toil, lies down to long repose. within the ribs--strange to say--was the shape of a human heart. "was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried bartram, in some perplexity at this phenomenon. "at any rate, it is burnt into what looks like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my kiln is half a bushel the richer for him." so saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall upon the skeleton, the relics of ethan brand were crumbled into fragments. the canterbury pilgrims the summer moon, which shines in so many a tale, was beaming over a broad extent of uneven country. some of its brightest rays were flung into a spring of water, where no traveller, toiling, as the writer has, up the hilly road beside which it gushes, ever failed to quench his thirst. the work of neat hands and considerate art was visible about this blessed fountain. an open cistern, hewn and hollowed out of solid stone, was placed above the waters, which filled it to the brim, but by some invisible outlet were conveyed away without dripping down its sides. though the basin had not room for another drop, and the continual gush of water made a tremor on the surface, there was a secret charm that forbade it to overflow. i remember, that when i had slaked my summer thirst, and sat panting by the cistern, it was my fanciful theory that nature could not afford to lavish so pure a liquid, as she does the waters of all meaner fountains. while the moon was hanging almost perpendicularly over this spot, two figures appeared on the summit of the hill, and came with noiseless footsteps down towards the spring. they were then in the first freshness of youth; nor is there a wrinkle now on either of their brows, and yet they wore a strange, old-fashioned garb. one, a young man with ruddy cheeks, walked beneath the canopy of a broad-brimmed gray hat; he seemed to have inherited his great-grandsire's square-skirted coat, and a waistcoat that extended its immense flaps to his knees; his brown locks, also, hung down behind, in a mode unknown to our times. by his side was a sweet young damsel, her fair features sheltered by a prim little bonnet, within which appeared the vestal muslin of a cap; her close, long-waisted gown, and indeed her whole attire, might have been worn by some rustic beauty who had faded half a century before. but that there was something too warm and life-like in them, i would here have compared this couple to the ghosts of two young lovers who had died long since in the glow of passion, and now were straying out of their graves, to renew the old vows, and shadow forth the unforgotten kiss of their earthly lips, beside the moonlit spring. "thee and i will rest here a moment, miriam," said the young man, as they drew near the stone cistern, "for there is no fear that the elders know what we have done; and this may be the last time we shall ever taste this water." thus speaking, with a little sadness in his face, which was also visible in that of his companion, he made her sit down on a stone, and was about to place himself very close to her side; she, however, repelled him, though not unkindly. "nay, josiah," said she, giving him a timid push with her maiden hand, "thee must sit farther off, on that other stone, with the spring between us. what would the sisters say, if thee were to sit so close to me?" "but we are of the world's people now, miriam," answered josiah. the girl persisted in her prudery, nor did the youth, in fact, seem altogether free from a similar sort of shyness; so they sat apart from each other, gazing up the hill, where the moonlight discovered the tops of a group of buildings. while their attention was thus occupied, a party of travellers, who had come wearily up the long ascent, made a halt to refresh themselves at the spring. there were three men, a woman, and a little girl and boy. their attire was mean, covered with the dust of the summer's day, and damp with the night-dew; they all looked woebegone, as if the cares and sorrows of the world had made their steps heavier as they climbed the hill; even the two little children appeared older in evil days than the young man and maiden who had first approached the spring. "good evening to you, young folks," was the salutation of the travellers; and "good evening, friends," replied the youth and damsel. "is that white building the shaker meeting-house?" asked one of the strangers. "and are those the red roofs of the shaker village?" "friend, it is the shaker village," answered josiah, after some hesitation. the travellers, who, from the first, had looked suspiciously at the garb of these young people, now taxed them with an intention which all the circumstances, indeed, rendered too obvious to be mistaken. "it is true, friends," replied the young man, summoning up his courage. "miriam and i have a gift to love each other, and we are going among the world's people, to live after their fashion. and ye know that we do not transgress the law of the land; and neither ye, nor the elders themselves, have a right to hinder us." "yet you think it expedient to depart without leave-taking," remarked one of the travellers. "yea, ye-a," said josiah, reluctantly, "because father job is a very awful man to speak with; and being aged himself, he has but little charity for what he calls the iniquities of the flesh." "well," said the stranger, "we will neither use force to bring you back to the village, nor will we betray you to the elders. but sit you here awhile, and when you have heard what we shall tell you of the world which we have left, and into which you are going, perhaps you will turn back with us of your own accord. what say you?" added he, turning to his companions. "we have travelled thus far without becoming known to each other. shall we tell our stories, here by this pleasant spring, for our own pastime, and the benefit of these misguided young lovers?" in accordance with this proposal, the whole party stationed themselves round the stone cistern; the two children, being very weary, fell asleep upon the damp earth, and the pretty shaker girl, whose feelings were those of a nun or a turkish lady, crept as close as possible to the female traveller, and as far as she well could from the unknown men. the same person who had hitherto been the chief spokesman now stood up, waving his hat in his hand, and suffered the moonlight to fall full upon his front. "in me," said he, with a certain majesty of utterance,--"in me, you behold a poet." though a lithographic print of this gentleman is extant, it may be well to notice that he was now nearly forty, a thin and stooping figure, in a black coat, out at elbows; notwithstanding the ill condition of his attire, there were about him several tokens of a peculiar sort of foppery, unworthy of a mature man, particularly in the arrangement of his hair which was so disposed as to give all possible loftiness and breadth to his forehead. however, he had an intelligent eye, and, on the whole, a marked countenance. "a poet!" repeated the young shaker, a little puzzled how to understand such a designation, seldom heard in the utilitarian community where he had spent his life. "oh, ay, miriam, he means a varse-maker, thee must know." this remark jarred upon the susceptible nerves of the poet; nor could he help wondering what strange fatality had put into this young man's mouth an epithet, which ill-natured people had affirmed to be more proper to his merit than the one assumed by himself. "true, i am a verse-maker," he resumed, "but my verse is no more than the material body into which i breathe the celestial soul of thought. alas! how many a pang has it cost me, this same insensibility to the ethereal essence of poetry, with which you have here tortured me again, at the moment when i am to relinquish my profession forever! o fate! why hast thou warred with nature, turning all her higher and more perfect gifts to the ruin of me, their possessor? what is the voice of song, when the world lacks the ear of taste? how can i rejoice in my strength and delicacy of feeling, when they have but made great sorrows out of little ones? have i dreaded scorn like death, and yearned for fame as others pant for vital air, only to find myself in a middle state between obscurity and infamy? but i have my revenge! i could have given existence to a thousand bright creations. i crush them into my heart, and there let them putrefy! i shake off the dust of my feet against my countrymen! but posterity, tracing my footsteps up this weary hill, will cry shame upon the unworthy age that drove one of the fathers of american song to end his days in a shaker village!" during this harangue, the speaker gesticulated with great energy, and, as poetry is the natural language of passion, there appeared reason to apprehend his final explosion into an ode extempore. the reader must understand that, for all these bitter words, he was a kind, gentle, harmless, poor fellow enough, whom nature, tossing her ingredients together without looking at her recipe, had sent into the world with too much of one sort of brain, and hardly any of another. "friend," said the young shaker, in some perplexity, "thee seemest to have met with great troubles; and, doubtless, i should pity them, if--if i could but understand what they were." "happy in your ignorance!" replied the poet, with an air of sublime superiority. "to your coarser mind, perhaps, i may seem to speak of more important griefs when i add, what i had well-nigh forgotten, that i am out at elbows, and almost starved to death. at any rate, you have the advice and example of one individual to warn you back; for i am come hither, a disappointed man, flinging aside the fragments of my hopes, and seeking shelter in the calm retreat which you are so anxious to leave." "i thank thee, friend," rejoined the youth, "but i do not mean to be a poet, nor, heaven be praised! do i think miriam ever made a varse in her life. so we need not fear thy disappointments. but, miriam," he added, with real concern, "thee knowest that the elders admit nobody that has not a gift to be useful. now, what under the sun can they do with this poor varse-maker?" "nay, josiah, do not thee discourage the poor man," said the girl, in all simplicity and kindness. "our hymns are very rough, and perhaps they may trust him to smooth them." without noticing this hint of professional employment, the poet turned away, and gave himself up to a sort of vague reverie, which he called thought. sometimes he watched the moon, pouring a silvery liquid on the clouds, through which it slowly melted till they became all bright; then he saw the same sweet radiance dancing on the leafy trees which rustled as if to shake it off, or sleeping on the high tops of hills, or hovering down in distant valleys, like the material of unshaped dreams; lastly, he looked into the spring, and there the light was mingling with the water. in its crystal bosom, too, beholding all heaven reflected there, he found an emblem of a pure and tranquil breast. he listened to that most ethereal of all sounds, the song of crickets, coming in full choir upon the wind, and fancied that, if moonlight could be heard, it would sound just like that. finally, he took a draught at the shaker spring, and, as if it were the true castalia, was forthwith moved to compose a lyric, a farewell to his harp, which he swore should be its closing strain, the last verse that an ungrateful world should have from him. this effusion, with two or three other little pieces, subsequently written, he took the first opportunity to send, by one of the shaker brethren, to concord, where they were published in the new hampshire patriot. meantime, another of the canterbury pilgrims, one so different from the poet that the delicate fancy of the latter could hardly have conceived of him, began to relate his sad experience. he was a small man, of quick and unquiet gestures, about fifty years old, with a narrow forehead, all wrinkled and drawn together. he held in his hand a pencil, and a card of some commission-merchant in foreign parts, on the back of which, for there was light enough to read or write by, he seemed ready to figure out a calculation. "young man," said he, abruptly, "what quantity of land do the shakers own here, in canterbury?" "that is more than i can tell thee, friend," answered josiah, "but it is a very rich establishment, and for a long way by the roadside thee may guess the land to be ours, by the neatness of the fences." "and what may be the value of the whole," continued the stranger, "with all the buildings and improvements, pretty nearly, in round numbers?" "oh, a monstrous sum,--more than i can reckon," replied the young shaker. "well, sir," said the pilgrim, "there was a day, and not very long ago, neither, when i stood at my counting-room window, and watched the signal flags of three of my own ships entering the harbor, from the east indies, from liverpool, and from up the straits, and i would not have given the invoice of the least of them for the title-deeds of this whole shaker settlement. you stare. perhaps, now, you won't believe that i could have put more value on a little piece of paper, no bigger than the palm of your hand, than all these solid acres of grain, grass, and pasture-land would sell for?" "i won't dispute it, friend," answered josiah, "but i know i had rather have fifty acres of this good land than a whole sheet of thy paper." "you may say so now," said the ruined merchant, bitterly, "for my name would not be worth the paper i should write it on. of course, you must have heard of my failure?" and the stranger mentioned his name, which, however mighty it might have been in the commercial world, the young shaker had never heard of among the canterbury hills. "not heard of my failure!" exclaimed the merchant, considerably piqued. "why, it was spoken of on 'change in london, and from boston to new orleans men trembled in their shoes. at all events, i did fail, and you see me here on my road to the shaker village, where, doubtless (for the shakers are a shrewd sect), they will have a due respect for my experience, and give me the management of the trading part of the concern, in which case i think i can pledge myself to double their capital in four or five years. turn back with me, young man; for though you will never meet with my good luck, you can hardly escape my bad." "i will not turn back for this," replied josiah, calmly, "any more than for the advice of the varse-maker, between whom and thee, friend, i see a sort of likeness, though i can't justly say where it lies. but miriam and i can earn our daily bread among the world's people as well as in the shaker village. and do we want anything more, miriam?" "nothing more, josiah," said the girl, quietly. "yea, miriam, and daily bread for some other little mouths, if god send them," observed the simple shaker lad. miriam did not reply, but looked down into the spring, where she encountered the image of her own pretty face, blushing within the prim little bonnet. the third pilgrim now took up the conversation. he was a sunburnt countryman, of tall frame and bony strength, on whose rude and manly face there appeared a darker, more sullen and obstinate despondency, than on those of either the poet or the merchant. "well, now, youngster," he began, "these folks have had their say, so i'll take my turn. my story will cut but a poor figure by the side of theirs; for i never supposed that i could have a right to meat and drink, and great praise besides, only for tagging rhymes together, as it seems this man does; nor ever tried to get the substance of hundreds into my own hands, like the trader there. when i was about of your years, i married me a wife,--just such a neat and pretty young woman as miriam, if that's her name,--and all i asked of providence was an ordinary blessing on the sweat of my brow, so that we might be decent and comfortable, and have daily bread for ourselves, and for some other little mouths that we soon had to feed. we had no very great prospects before us; but i never wanted to be idle; and i thought it a matter of course that the lord would help me, because i was willing to help myself." "and didn't he help thee, friend?" demanded josiah, with some eagerness. "no," said the yeoman, sullenly; "for then you would not have seen me here. i have labored hard for years; and my means have been growing narrower, and my living poorer, and my heart colder and heavier, all the time; till at last i could bear it no longer. i set myself down to calculate whether i had best go on the oregon expedition, or come here to the shaker village; but i had not hope enough left in me to begin the world over again; and, to make my story short, here i am. and now, youngster, take my advice, and turn back; or else, some few years hence, you'll have to climb this hill, with as heavy a heart as mine." this simple story had a strong effect on the young fugitives. the misfortunes of the poet and merchant had won little sympathy from their plain good sense and unworldly feelings, qualities which made them such unprejudiced and inflexible judges, that few men would have chosen to take the opinion of this youth and maiden as to the wisdom or folly of their pursuits. but here was one whose simple wishes had resembled their own, and who, after efforts which almost gave him a right to claim success from fate, had failed in accomplishing them. "but thy wife, friend?" exclaimed the younger man. "what became of the pretty girl, like miriam? oh, i am afraid she is dead!" "yea, poor man, she must be dead,--she and the children, too," sobbed miriam. the female pilgrim had been leaning over the spring, wherein latterly a tear or two might have been seen to fall, and form its little circle on the surface of the water. she now looked up, disclosing features still comely, but which had acquired an expression of fretfulness, in the same long course of evil fortune that had thrown a sullen gloom over the temper of the unprosperous yeoman. "i am his wife," said she, a shade of irritability just perceptible in the sadness of her tone. "these poor little things, asleep on the ground, are two of our children. we had two more, but god has provided better for them than we could, by taking them to himself." "and what would thee advise josiah and me to do?" asked miriam, this being the first question which she had put to either of the strangers. "'tis a thing almost against nature for a woman to try to part true lovers," answered the yeoman's wife, after a pause; "but i'll speak as truly to you as if these were my dying words. though my husband told you some of our troubles, he didn't mention the greatest, and that which makes all the rest so hard to bear. if you and your sweetheart marry, you'll be kind and pleasant to each other for a year or two, and while that's the case, you never will repent; but, by and by, he'll grow gloomy, rough, and hard to please, and you'll be peevish, and full of little angry fits, and apt to be complaining by the fireside, when he comes to rest himself from his troubles out of doors; so your love will wear away by little and little, and leave you miserable at last. it has been so with us; and yet my husband and i were true lovers once, if ever two young folks were ." as she ceased, the yeoman and his wife exchanged a glance, in which there was more and warmer affection than they had supposed to have escaped the frost of a wintry fate, in either of their breasts. at that moment, when they stood on the utmost verge of married life, one word fitly spoken, or perhaps one peculiar look, had they had mutual confidence enough to reciprocate it, might have renewed all their old feelings, and sent them back, resolved to sustain each other amid the struggles of the world. but the crisis passed and never came again. just then, also, the children, roused by their mother's voice, looked up, and added their wailing accents to the testimony borne by all the canterbury pilgrims against the world from which they fled. "we are tired and hungry!" cried they. "is it far to the shaker village?" the shaker youth and maiden looked mournfully into each other's eyes. they had but stepped across the threshold of their homes, when lo! the dark array of cares and sorrows that rose up to warn them back. the varied narratives of the strangers had arranged themselves into a parable; they seemed not merely instances of woful fate that had befallen others, but shadowy omens of disappointed hope and unavailing toil, domestic grief and estranged affection, that would cloud the onward path of these poor fugitives. but after one instant's hesitation, they opened their arms, and sealed their resolve with as pure and fond an embrace as ever youthful love had hallowed. "we will not go back," said they. "the world never can be dark to us, for we will always love one another." then the canterbury pilgrims went up the hill, while the poet chanted a drear and desperate stanza of the farewell to his harp, fitting music for that melancholy band. they sought a home where all former ties of nature or society would be sundered, and all old distinctions levelled, and a cold and passionless security be substituted for mortal hope and fear, as in that other refuge of the world's weary outcasts, the grave. the lovers drank at the shaker spring, and then, with chastened hopes, but more confiding affections, went on to mingle in an untried life. the devil in manuscript on a bitter evening of december, i arrived by mail in a large town, which was then the residence of an intimate friend, one of those gifted youths who cultivate poetry and the belles-lettres, and call themselves students at law. my first business, after supper, was to visit him at the office of his distinguished instructor. as i have said, it was a bitter night, clear starlight, but cold as nova zembla,--the shop-windows along the street being frosted, so as almost to hide the lights, while the wheels of coaches thundered equally loud over frozen earth and pavements of stone. there was no snow, either on the ground or the roofs of the houses. the wind blew so violently, that i had but to spread my cloak like a main-sail, and scud along the street at the rate of ten knots, greatly envied by other navigators, who were beating slowly up, with the gale right in their teeth. one of these i capsized, but was gone on the wings of the wind before he could even vociferate an oath. after this picture of an inclement night, behold us seated by a great blazing fire, which looked so comfortable and delicious that i felt inclined to lie down and roll among the hot coals. the usual furniture of a lawyer's office was around us,--rows of volumes in sheepskin, and a multitude of writs, summonses, and other legal papers, scattered over the desks and tables. but there were certain objects which seemed to intimate that we had little dread of the intrusion of clients, or of the learned counsellor himself, who, indeed, was attending court in a distant town. a tall, decanter-shaped bottle stood on the table, between two tumblers, and beside a pile of blotted manuscripts, altogether dissimilar to any law documents recognized in our courts. my friend, whom i shall call oberon,--it was a name of fancy and friendship between him and me,--my friend oberon looked at these papers with a peculiar expression of disquietude. "i do believe," said he, soberly, "or, at least, i could believe, if i chose, that there is a devil in this pile of blotted papers. you have read them, and know what i mean,--that conception in which i endeavored to embody the character of a fiend, as represented in our traditions and the written records of witchcraft. oh, i have a horror of what was created in my own brain, and shudder at the manuscripts in which i gave that dark idea a sort of material existence! would they were out of my sight!" "and of mine, too," thought i. "you remember," continued oberon, "how the hellish thing used to suck away the happiness of those who, by a simple concession that seemed almost innocent, subjected themselves to his power. just so my peace is gone, and all by these accursed manuscripts. have you felt nothing of the same influence?" "nothing," replied i, "unless the spell be hid in a desire to turn novelist, after reading your delightful tales." "novelist!" exclaimed oberon, half seriously. "then, indeed, my devil has his claw on you! you are gone! you cannot even pray for deliverance! but we will be the last and only victims; for this night i mean to burn the manuscripts, and commit the fiend to his retribution in the flames." "burn your tales!" repeated i, startled at the desperation of the idea. "even so," said the author, despondingly. "you cannot conceive what an effect the composition of these tales has had on me. i have become ambitious of a bubble, and careless of solid reputation. i am surrounding myself with shadows, which bewilder me, by aping the realities of life. they have drawn me aside from the beaten path of the world, and led me into a strange sort of solitude,--a solitude in the midst of men,-where nobody wishes for what i do, nor thinks nor feels as i do. the tales have done all this. when they are ashes, perhaps i shall be as i was before they had existence. moreover, the sacrifice is less than you may suppose, since nobody will publish them." "that does make a difference, indeed," said i. "they have been offered, by letter," continued oberon, reddening with vexation, "to some seventeen booksellers. it would make you stare to read their answers; and read them you should, only that i burnt them as fast as they arrived. one man publishes nothing but school-books; another has five novels already under examination." "what a voluminous mass the unpublished literature of america must be!" cried i. "oh, the alexandrian manuscripts were nothing to it!" said my friend. "well, another gentleman is just giving up business, on purpose, i verily believe, to escape publishing my book. several, however, would not absolutely decline the agency, on my advancing half the cost of an edition, and giving bonds for the remainder, besides a high percentage to themselves, whether the book sells or not. another advises a subscription." "the villain!" exclaimed i. "a fact!" said oberon. "in short, of all the seventeen booksellers, only one has vouchsafed even to read my tales; and he--a literary dabbler himself, i should judge--has the impertinence to criticise them, proposing what he calls vast improvements, and concluding, after a general sentence of condemnation, with the definitive assurance that he will not be concerned on any terms." "it might not be amiss to pull that fellow's nose," remarked i. "if the whole 'trade' had one common nose, there would be some satisfaction in pulling it," answered the author. "but, there does seem to be one honest man among these seventeen unrighteous ones; and he tells me fairly, that no american publisher will meddle with an american work,--seldom if by a known writer, and never if by a new one,--unless at the writer's risk." "the paltry rogues!" cried i. "will they live by literature, and yet risk nothing for its sake? but, after all, you might publish on your own account." "and so i might," replied oberon. "but the devil of the business is this. these people have put me so out of conceit with the tales, that i loathe the very thought of them, and actually experience a physical sickness of the stomach, whenever i glance at them on the table. i tell you there is a demon in them! i anticipate a wild enjoyment in seeing them in the blaze; such as i should feel in taking vengeance on an enemy, or destroying something noxious." i did not very strenuously oppose this determination, being privately of opinion, in spite of my partiality for the author, that his tales would make a more brilliant appearance in the fire than anywhere else. before proceeding to execution, we broached the bottle of champagne, which oberon had provided for keeping up his spirits in this doleful business. we swallowed each a tumblerful, in sparkling commotion; it went bubbling down our throats, and brightened my eyes at once, but left my friend sad and heavy as before. he drew the tales towards him, with a mixture of natural affection and natural disgust, like a father taking a deformed infant into his arms. "pooh! pish! pshaw!" exclaimed he, holding them at arm's-length. "it was gray's idea of heaven, to lounge on a sofa and read new novels. now, what more appropriate torture would dante himself have contrived, for the sinner who perpetrates a bad book, than to be continually turning over the manuscript?" "it would fail of effect," said i, "because a bad author is always his own great admirer." "i lack that one characteristic of my tribe,--the only desirable one," observed oberon. "but how many recollections throng upon me, as i turn over these leaves! this scene came into my fancy as i walked along a hilly road, on a starlight october evening; in the pure and bracing air, i became all soul, and felt as if i could climb the sky, and run a race along the milky way. here is another tale, in which i wrapt myself during a dark and dreary night-ride in the month of march, till the rattling of the wheels and the voices of my companions seemed like faint sounds of a dream, and my visions a bright reality. that scribbled page describes shadows which i summoned to my bedside at midnight: they would not depart when i bade them; the gray dawn came, and found me wide awake and feverish, the victim of my own enchantments!" "there must have been a sort of happiness in all this," said i, smitten with a strange longing to make proof of it. "there may be happiness in a fever fit," replied the author. "and then the various moods in which i wrote! sometimes my ideas were like precious stones under the earth, requiring toil to dig them up, and care to polish and brighten them; but often a delicious stream of thought would gush out upon the page at once, like water sparkling up suddenly in the desert; and when it had passed, i gnawed my pen hopelessly, or blundered on with cold and miserable toil, as if there were a wall of ice between me and my subject." "do you now perceive a corresponding difference," inquired i, "between the passages which you wrote so coldly, and those fervid flashes of the mind?" "no," said oberon, tossing the manuscripts on the table. "i find no traces of the golden pen with which i wrote in characters of fire. my treasure of fairy coin is changed to worthless dross. my picture, painted in what seemed the loveliest hues, presents nothing but a faded and indistinguishable surface. i have been eloquent and poetical and humorous in a dream,--and behold! it is all nonsense, now that i am awake." my friend now threw sticks of wood and dry chips upon the fire, and seeing it blaze like nebuchadnezzar's furnace, seized the champagne bottle, and drank two or three brimming bumpers, successively. the heady liquor combined with his agitation to throw him into a species of rage. he laid violent hands on the tales. in one instant more, their faults and beauties would alike have vanished in a glowing purgatory. but, all at once, i remembered passages of high imagination, deep pathos, original thoughts, and points of such varied excellence, that the vastness of the sacrifice struck me most forcibly. i caught his arm. "surely, you do not mean to burn them!" i exclaimed. "let me alone!" cried oberon, his eyes flashing fire. "i will burn them! not a scorched syllable shall escape! would you have me a damned author?--to undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise, bestowed, for pity's sake, against the giver's conscience! a hissing and a laughing-stock to my own traitorous thoughts! an outlaw from the protection of the grave,--one whose ashes every careless foot might spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death! am i to bear all this, when yonder fire will insure me from the whole? no! there go the tales! may my hand wither when it would write another!" the deed was done. he had thrown the manuscripts into the hottest of the fire, which at first seemed to shrink away, but soon curled around them, and made them a part of its own fervent brightness. oberon stood gazing at the conflagration, and shortly began to soliloquize, in the wildest strain, as if fancy resisted and became riotous, at the moment when he would have compelled her to ascend that funeral pile. his words described objects which he appeared to discern in the fire, fed by his own precious thoughts; perhaps the thousand visions which the writer's magic had incorporated with these pages became visible to him in the dissolving heat, brightening forth ere they vanished forever; while the smoke, the vivid sheets of flame, the ruddy and whitening coals, caught the aspect of a varied scenery. "they blaze," said he, "as if i had steeped them in the intensest spirit of genius. there i see my lovers clasped in each other's arms. how pure the flame that bursts from their glowing hearts! and yonder the features of a villain writhing in the fire that shall torment him to eternity. my holy men, my pious and angelic women, stand like martyrs amid the flames, their mild eyes lifted heavenward. ring out the bells! a city is on fire. see!--destruction roars through my dark forests, while the lakes boil up in steaming billows, and the mountains are volcanoes, and the sky kindles with a lurid brightness! all elements are but one pervading flame! ha! the fiend!" i was somewhat startled by this latter exclamation. the tales were almost consumed, but just then threw forth a broad sheet of fire, which flickered as with laughter, making the whole room dance in its brightness, and then roared portentously up the chimney. "you saw him? you must have seen him!" cried oberon. "how he glared at me and laughed, in that last sheet of flame, with just the features that i imagined for him! well! the tales are gone." the papers were indeed reduced to a heap of black cinders, with a multitude of sparks hurrying confusedly among them, the traces of the pen being now represented by white lines, and the whole mass fluttering to and fro in the draughts of air. the destroyer knelt down to look at them. "what is more potent than fire!" said he, in his gloomiest tone. "even thought, invisible and incorporeal as it is, cannot escape it. in this little time, it has annihilated the creations of long nights and days, which i could no more reproduce, in their first glow and freshness, than cause ashes and whitened bones to rise up and live. there, too, i sacrificed the unborn children of my mind. all that i had accomplished--all that i planned for future years--has perished by one common ruin, and left only this heap of embers! the deed has been my fate. and what remains? a weary and aimless life,--a long repentance of this hour,--and at last an obscure grave, where they will bury and forget me!" as the author concluded his dolorous moan, the extinguished embers arose and settled down and arose again, and finally flew up the chimney, like a demon with sable wings. just as they disappeared, there was a loud and solitary cry in the street below us. "fire!" fire! other voices caught up that terrible word, and it speedily became the shout of a multitude. oberon started to his feet, in fresh excitement. "a fire on such a night!" cried he. "the wind blows a gale, and wherever it whirls the flames, the roofs will flash up like gunpowder. every pump is frozen up, and boiling water would turn to ice the moment it was flung from the engine. in an hour, this wooden town will be one great bonfire! what a glorious scene for my next--pshaw!" the street was now all alive with footsteps, and the air full of voices. we heard one engine thundering round a corner, and another rattling from a distance over the pavements. the bells of three steeples clanged out at once, spreading the alarm to many a neighboring town, and expressing hurry, confusion, and terror, so inimitably that i could almost distinguish in their peal the burden of the universal cry,--"fire! fire! fire!" "what is so eloquent as their iron tongues!" exclaimed oberon. "my heart leaps and trembles, but not with fear. and that other sound, too,--deep and awful as a mighty organ,--the roar and thunder of the multitude on the pavement below! come! we are losing time. i will cry out in the loudest of the uproar, and mingle my spirit with the wildest of the confusion, and be a bubble on the top of the ferment!" from the first outcry, my forebodings had warned me of the true object and centre of alarm. there was nothing now but uproar, above, beneath, and around us; footsteps stumbling pell-mell up the public staircase, eager shouts and heavy thumps at the door, the whiz and dash of water from the engines, and the crash of furniture thrown upon the pavement. at once, the truth flashed upon my friend. his frenzy took the hue of joy, and, with a wild gesture of exultation, he leaped almost to the ceiling of the chamber. "my tales!" cried oberon. "the chimney! the roof! the fiend has gone forth by night, and startled thousands in fear and wonder from their beds! here i stand,--a triumphant author! huzza! huzza! my brain has set the town on fire! huzza!" my kinsman, major molineux after the kings of great britain had assumed the right of appointing the colonial governors, the measures of the latter seldom met with the ready and generous approbation which had been paid to those of their predecessors, under the original charters. the people looked with most jealous scrutiny to the exercise of power which did not emanate from themselves, and they usually rewarded their rulers with slender gratitude for the compliances by which, in softening their instructions from beyond the sea, they had incurred the reprehension of those who gave them. the annals of massachusetts bay will inform us, that of six governors in the space of about forty years from the surrender of the old charter, under james ii, two were imprisoned by a popular insurrection; a third, as hutchinson inclines to believe, was driven from the province by the whizzing of a musket-ball; a fourth, in the opinion of the same historian, was hastened to his grave by continual bickerings with the house of representatives; and the remaining two, as well as their successors, till the revolution, were favored with few and brief intervals of peaceful sway. the inferior members of the court party, in times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable life. these remarks may serve as a preface to the following adventures, which chanced upon a summer night, not far from a hundred years ago. the reader, in order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial affairs, is requested to dispense with an account of the train of circumstances that had caused much temporary inflammation of the popular mind. it was near nine o'clock of a moonlight evening, when a boat crossed the ferry with a single passenger, who had obtained his conveyance at that unusual hour by the promise of an extra fare. while he stood on the landing-place, searching in either pocket for the means of fulfilling his agreement, the ferryman lifted a lantern, by the aid of which, and the newly risen moon, he took a very accurate survey of the stranger's figure. he was a youth of barely eighteen years, evidently country-bred, and now, as it should seem, upon his first visit to town. he was clad in a coarse gray coat, well worn, but in excellent repair; his under garments were durably constructed of leather, and fitted tight to a pair of serviceable and well-shaped limbs; his stockings of blue yarn were the incontrovertible work of a mother or a sister; and on his head was a three-cornered hat, which in its better days had perhaps sheltered the graver brow of the lad's father. under his left arm was a heavy cudgel formed of an oak sapling, and retaining a part of the hardened root; and his equipment was completed by a wallet, not so abundantly stocked as to incommode the vigorous shoulders on which it hung. brown, curly hair, well-shaped features, and bright, cheerful eyes were nature's gifts, and worth all that art could have done for his adornment. the youth, one of whose names was robin, finally drew from his pocket the half of a little province bill of five shillings, which, in the depreciation in that sort of currency, did but satisfy the ferryman's demand, with the surplus of a sexangular piece of parchment, valued at three pence. he then walked forward into the town, with as light a step as if his day's journey had not already exceeded thirty miles, and with as eager an eye as if he were entering london city, instead of the little metropolis of a new england colony. before robin had proceeded far, however, it occurred to him that he knew not whither to direct his steps; so he paused, and looked up and down the narrow street, scrutinizing the small and mean wooden buildings that were scattered on either side. "this low hovel cannot be my kinsman's dwelling," thought he, "nor yonder old house, where the moonlight enters at the broken casement; and truly i see none hereabouts that might be worthy of him. it would have been wise to inquire my way of the ferryman, and doubtless he would have gone with me, and earned a shilling from the major for his pains. but the next man i meet will do as well." he resumed his walk, and was glad to perceive that the street now became wider, and the houses more respectable in their appearance. he soon discerned a figure moving on moderately in advance, and hastened his steps to overtake it. as robin drew nigh, he saw that the passenger was a man in years, with a full periwig of gray hair, a wide-skirted coat of dark cloth, and silk stockings rolled above his knees. he carried a long and polished cane, which he struck down perpendicularly before him at every step; and at regular intervals he uttered two successive hems, of a peculiarly solemn and sepulchral intonation. having made these observations, robin laid hold of the skirt of the old man's coat just when the light from the open door and windows of a barber's shop fell upon both their figures. "good evening to you, honored sir," said he, making a low bow, and still retaining his hold of the skirt. "i pray you tell me whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, major molineux." the youth's question was uttered very loudly; and one of the barbers, whose razor was descending on a well-soaped chin, and another who was dressing a ramillies wig, left their occupations, and came to the door. the citizen, in the mean time, turned a long-favored countenance upon robin, and answered him in a tone of excessive anger and annoyance. his two sepulchral hems, however, broke into the very centre of his rebuke, with most singular effect, like a thought of the cold grave obtruding among wrathful passions. "let go my garment, fellow! i tell you, i know not the man you speak of. what! i have authority, i have--hem, hem--authority; and if this be the respect you show for your betters, your feet shall be brought acquainted with the stocks by daylight, tomorrow morning!" robin released the old man's skirt, and hastened away, pursued by an ill-mannered roar of laughter from the barber's shop. he was at first considerably surprised by the result of his question, but, being a shrewd youth, soon thought himself able to account for the mystery. "this is some country representative," was his conclusion, "who has never seen the inside of my kinsman's door, and lacks the breeding to answer a stranger civilly. the man is old, or verily--i might be tempted to turn back and smite him on the nose. ah, robin, robin! even the barber's boys laugh at you for choosing such a guide! you will be wiser in time, friend robin." he now became entangled in a succession of crooked and narrow streets, which crossed each other, and meandered at no great distance from the water-side. the smell of tar was obvious to his nostrils, the masts of vessels pierced the moonlight above the tops of the buildings, and the numerous signs, which robin paused to read, informed him that he was near the centre of business. but the streets were empty, the shops were closed, and lights were visible only in the second stories of a few dwelling-houses. at length, on the corner of a narrow lane, through which he was passing, he beheld the broad countenance of a british hero swinging before the door of an inn, whence proceeded the voices of many guests. the casement of one of the lower windows was thrown back, and a very thin curtain permitted robin to distinguish a party at supper, round a well-furnished table. the fragrance of the good cheer steamed forth into the outer air, and the youth could not fail to recollect that the last remnant of his travelling stock of provision had yielded to his morning appetite, and that noon had found and left him dinnerless. "oh, that a parchment three-penny might give me a right to sit down at yonder table!" said robin, with a sigh. "but the major will make me welcome to the best of his victuals; so i will even step boldly in, and inquire my way to his dwelling." he entered the tavern, and was guided by the murmur of voices and the fumes of tobacco to the public-room. it was a long and low apartment, with oaken walls, grown dark in the continual smoke, and a floor which was thickly sanded, but of no immaculate purity. a number of persons--the larger part of whom appeared to be mariners, or in some way connected with the sea--occupied the wooden benches, or leatherbottomed chairs, conversing on various matters, and occasionally lending their attention to some topic of general interest. three or four little groups were draining as many bowls of punch, which the west india trade had long since made a familiar drink in the colony. others, who had the appearance of men who lived by regular and laborious handicraft, preferred the insulated bliss of an unshared potation, and became more taciturn under its influence. nearly all, in short, evinced a predilection for the good creature in some of its various shapes, for this is a vice to which, as fast day sermons of a hundred years ago will testify, we have a long hereditary claim. the only guests to whom robin's sympathies inclined him were two or three sheepish countrymen, who were using the inn somewhat after the fashion of a turkish caravansary; they had gotten themselves into the darkest corner of the room, and heedless of the nicotian atmosphere, were supping on the bread of their own ovens, and the bacon cured in their own chimney-smoke. but though robin felt a sort of brotherhood with these strangers, his eyes were attracted from them to a person who stood near the door, holding whispered conversation with a group of ill-dressed associates. his features were separately striking almost to grotesqueness, and the whole face left a deep impression on the memory. the forehead bulged out into a double prominence, with a vale between; the nose came boldly forth in an irregular curve, and its bridge was of more than a finger's breadth; the eyebrows were deep and shaggy, and the eyes glowed beneath them like fire in a cave. while robin deliberated of whom to inquire respecting his kinsman's dwelling, he was accosted by the innkeeper, a little man in a stained white apron, who had come to pay his professional welcome to the stranger. being in the second generation from a french protestant, he seemed to have inherited the courtesy of his parent nation; but no variety of circumstances was ever known to change his voice from the one shrill note in which he now addressed robin. "from the country, i presume, sir?" said he, with a profound bow. "beg leave to congratulate you on your arrival, and trust you intend a long stay with us. fine town here, sir, beautiful buildings, and much that may interest a stranger. may i hope for the honor of your commands in respect to supper?" "the man sees a family likeness! the rogue has guessed that i am related to the major!" thought robin, who had hitherto experienced little superfluous civility. all eyes were now turned on the country lad, standing at the door, in his worn three-cornered hat, gray coat, leather breeches, and blue yarn stockings, leaning on an oaken cudgel, and bearing a wallet on his back. robin replied to the courteous innkeeper, with such an assumption of confidence as befitted the major's relative. "my honest friend," he said, "i shall make it a point to patronize your house on some occasion, when"--here he could not help lowering his voice--"when i may have more than a parchment three-pence in my pocket. my present business," continued he, speaking with lofty confidence, "is merely to inquire my way to the dwelling of my kinsman, major molineux." there was a sudden and general movement in the room, which robin interpreted as expressing the eagerness of each individual to become his guide. but the innkeeper turned his eyes to a written paper on the wall, which he read, or seemed to read, with occasional recurrences to the young man's figure. "what have we here?" said he, breaking his speech into little dry fragments. "'left the house of the subscriber, bounden servant, hezekiah mudge,--had on, when he went away, gray coat, leather breeches, master's third-best hat. one pound currency reward to whosoever shall lodge him in any jail of the providence.' better trudge, boy; better trudge!" robin had begun to draw his hand towards the lighter end of the oak cudgel, but a strange hostility in every countenance induced him to relinquish his purpose of breaking the courteous innkeeper's head. as he turned to leave the room, he encountered a sneering glance from the bold-featured personage whom he had before noticed; and no sooner was he beyond the door, than he heard a general laugh, in which the innkeeper's voice might be distinguished, like the dropping of small stones into a kettle. "now, is it not strange," thought robin, with his usual shrewdness, "is it not strange that the confession of an empty pocket should outweigh the name of my kinsman, major molineux? oh, if i had one of those grinning rascals in the woods, where i and my oak sapling grew up together, i would teach him that my arm is heavy though my purse be light!" on turning the corner of the narrow lane, robin found himself in a spacious street, with an unbroken line of lofty houses on each side, and a steepled building at the upper end, whence the ringing of a bell announced the hour of nine. the light of the moon, and the lamps from the numerous shop-windows, discovered people promenading on the pavement, and amongst them robin had hoped to recognize his hitherto inscrutable relative. the result of his former inquiries made him unwilling to hazard another, in a scene of such publicity, and he determined to walk slowly and silently up the street, thrusting his face close to that of every elderly gentleman, in search of the major's lineaments. in his progress, robin encountered many gay and gallant figures. embroidered garments of showy colors, enormous periwigs, gold-laced hats, and silver-hilted swords glided past him and dazzled his optics. travelled youths, imitators of the european fine gentlemen of the period, trod jauntily along, half dancing to the fashionable tunes which they hummed, and making poor robin ashamed of his quiet and natural gait. at length, after many pauses to examine the gorgeous display of goods in the shop-windows, and after suffering some rebukes for the impertinence of his scrutiny into people's faces, the major's kinsman found himself near the steepled building, still unsuccessful in his search. as yet, however, he had seen only one side of the thronged street; so robin crossed, and continued the same sort of inquisition down the opposite pavement, with stronger hopes than the philosopher seeking an honest man, but with no better fortune. he had arrived about midway towards the lower end, from which his course began, when he overheard the approach of some one who struck down a cane on the flag-stones at every step, uttering at regular intervals, two sepulchral hems. "mercy on us!" quoth robin, recognizing the sound. turning a corner, which chanced to be close at his right hand, he hastened to pursue his researches in some other part of the town. his patience now was wearing low, and he seemed to feel more fatigue from his rambles since he crossed the ferry, than from his journey of several days on the other side. hunger also pleaded loudly within him, and robin began to balance the propriety of demanding, violently, and with lifted cudgel, the necessary guidance from the first solitary passenger whom he should meet. while a resolution to this effect was gaining strength, he entered a street of mean appearance, on either side of which a row of ill-built houses was straggling towards the harbor. the moonlight fell upon no passenger along the whole extent, but in the third domicile which robin passed there was a half-opened door, and his keen glance detected a woman's garment within. "my luck may be better here," said he to himself. accordingly, he approached the doors and beheld it shut closer as he did so; yet an open space remained, sufficing for the fair occupant to observe the stranger, without a corresponding display on her part. all that robin could discern was a strip of scarlet petticoat, and the occasional sparkle of an eye, as if the moonbeams were trembling on some bright thing. "pretty mistress," for i may call her so with a good conscience thought the shrewd youth, since i know nothing to the contrary,--"my sweet pretty mistress, will you be kind enough to tell me whereabouts i must seek the dwelling of my kinsman, major molineux?" robin's voice was plaintive and winning, and the female, seeing nothing to be shunned in the handsome country youth, thrust open the door, and came forth into the moonlight. she was a dainty little figure with a white neck, round arms, and a slender waist, at the extremity of which her scarlet petticoat jutted out over a hoop, as if she were standing in a balloon. moreover, her face was oval and pretty, her hair dark beneath the little cap, and her bright eyes possessed a sly freedom, which triumphed over those of robin. "major molineux dwells here," said this fair woman. now, her voice was the sweetest robin had heard that night, yet he could not help doubting whether that sweet voice spoke gospel truth. he looked up and down the mean street, and then surveyed the house before which they stood. it was a small, dark edifice of two stories, the second of which projected over the lower floor, and the front apartment had the aspect of a shop for petty commodities. "now, truly, i am in luck," replied robin, cunningly, "and so indeed is my kinsman, the major, in having so pretty a housekeeper. but i prithee trouble him to step to the door; i will deliver him a message from his friends in the country, and then go back to my lodgings at the inn." "nay, the major has been abed this hour or more," said the lady of the scarlet petticoat; "and it would be to little purpose to disturb him to-night, seeing his evening draught was of the strongest. but he is a kind-hearted man, and it would be as much as my life's worth to let a kinsman of his turn away from the door. you are the good old gentleman's very picture, and i could swear that was his rainy-weather hat. also he has garments very much resembling those leather small-clothes. but come in, i pray, for i bid you hearty welcome in his name." so saying, the fair and hospitable dame took our hero by the hand; and the touch was light, and the force was gentleness, and though robin read in her eyes what he did not hear in her words, yet the slender-waisted woman in the scarlet petticoat proved stronger than the athletic country youth. she had drawn his half-willing footsteps nearly to the threshold, when the opening of a door in the neighborhood startled the major's housekeeper, and, leaving the major's kinsman, she vanished speedily into her own domicile. a heavy yawn preceded the appearance of a man, who, like the moonshine of pyramus and thisbe, carried a lantern, needlessly aiding his sister luminary in the heavens. as he walked sleepily up the street, he turned his broad, dull face on robin, and displayed a long staff, spiked at the end. "home, vagabond, home!" said the watchman, in accents that seemed to fall asleep as soon as they were uttered. "home, or we'll set you in the stocks by peep of day!" "this is the second hint of the kind," thought robin. "i wish they would end my difficulties, by setting me there to-night." nevertheless, the youth felt an instinctive antipathy towards the guardian of midnight order, which at first prevented him from asking his usual question. but just when the man was about to vanish behind the corner, robin resolved not to lose the opportunity, and shouted lustily after him, "i say, friend! will you guide me to the house of my kinsman, major molineux?" the watchman made no reply, but turned the corner and was gone; yet robin seemed to hear the sound of drowsy laughter stealing along the solitary street. at that moment, also, a pleasant titter saluted him from the open window above his head; he looked up, and caught the sparkle of a saucy eye; a round arm beckoned to him, and next he heard light footsteps descending the staircase within. but robin, being of the household of a new england clergyman, was a good youth, as well as a shrewd one; so he resisted temptation, and fled away. he now roamed desperately, and at random, through the town, almost ready to believe that a spell was on him, like that by which a wizard of his country had once kept three pursuers wandering, a whole winter night, within twenty paces of the cottage which they sought. the streets lay before him, strange and desolate, and the lights were extinguished in almost every house. twice, however, little parties of men, among whom robin distinguished individuals in outlandish attire, came hurrying along; but, though on both occasions, they paused to address him such intercourse did not at all enlighten his perplexity. they did but utter a few words in some language of which robin knew nothing, and perceiving his inability to answer, bestowed a curse upon him in plain english and hastened away. finally, the lad determined to knock at the door of every mansion that might appear worthy to be occupied by his kinsman, trusting that perseverance would overcome the fatality that had hitherto thwarted him. firm in this resolve, he was passing beneath the walls of a church, which formed the corner of two streets, when, as he turned into the shade of its steeple, he encountered a bulky stranger muffled in a cloak. the man was proceeding with the speed of earnest business, but robin planted himself full before him, holding the oak cudgel with both hands across his body as a bar to further passage. "halt, honest man, and answer me a question," said he, very resolutely. "tell me, this instant, whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, major molineux!" "keep your tongue between your teeth, fool, and let me pass!" said a deep, gruff voice, which robin partly remembered. "let me pass, or i'll strike you to the earth!" "no, no, neighbor!" cried robin, flourishing his cudgel, and then thrusting its larger end close to the man's muffled face. "no, no, i'm not the fool you take me for, nor do you pass till i have an answer to my question. whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, major molineux?" the stranger, instead of attempting to force his passage, stepped back into the moonlight, unmuffled his face, and stared full into that of robin. "watch here an hour, and major molineux will pass by," said he. robin gazed with dismay and astonishment on the unprecedented physiognomy of the speaker. the forehead with its double prominence the broad hooked nose, the shaggy eyebrows, and fiery eyes were those which he had noticed at the inn, but the man's complexion had undergone a singular, or, more properly, a twofold change. one side of the face blazed an intense red, while the other was black as midnight, the division line being in the broad bridge of the nose; and a mouth which seemed to extend from ear to ear was black or red, in contrast to the color of the cheek. the effect was as if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal visage. the stranger grinned in robin's face, muffled his party-colored features, and was out of sight in a moment. "strange things we travellers see!" ejaculated robin. he seated himself, however, upon the steps of the church-door, resolving to wait the appointed time for his kinsman. a few moments were consumed in philosophical speculations upon the species of man who had just left him; but having settled this point shrewdly, rationally, and satisfactorily, he was compelled to look elsewhere for his amusement. and first he threw his eyes along the street. it was of more respectable appearance than most of those into which he had wandered, and the moon, creating, like the imaginative power, a beautiful strangeness in familiar objects, gave something of romance to a scene that might not have possessed it in the light of day. the irregular and often quaint architecture of the houses, some of whose roofs were broken into numerous little peaks, while others ascended, steep and narrow, into a single point, and others again were square; the pure snow-white of some of their complexions, the aged darkness of others, and the thousand sparklings, reflected from bright substances in the walls of many; these matters engaged robin's attention for a while, and then began to grow wearisome. next he endeavored to define the forms of distant objects, starting away, with almost ghostly indistinctness, just as his eye appeared to grasp them, and finally he took a minute survey of an edifice which stood on the opposite side of the street, directly in front of the church-door, where he was stationed. it was a large, square mansion, distinguished from its neighbors by a balcony, which rested on tall pillars, and by an elaborate gothic window, communicating therewith. "perhaps this is the very house i have been seeking," thought robin. then he strove to speed away the time, by listening to a murmur which swept continually along the street, yet was scarcely audible, except to an unaccustomed ear like his; it was a low, dull, dreamy sound, compounded of many noises, each of which was at too great a distance to be separately heard. robin marvelled at this snore of a sleeping town, and marvelled more whenever its continuity was broken by now and then a distant shout, apparently loud where it originated. but altogether it was a sleep-inspiring sound, and, to shake off its drowsy influence, robin arose, and climbed a window-frame, that he might view the interior of the church. there the moonbeams came trembling in, and fell down upon the deserted pews, and extended along the quiet aisles. a fainter yet more awful radiance was hovering around the pulpit, and one solitary ray had dared to rest upon the open page of the great bible. had nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the house which man had builded? or was that heavenly light the visible sanctity of the place,--visible because no earthly and impure feet were within the walls? the scene made robin's heart shiver with a sensation of loneliness stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest depths of his native woods; so he turned away and sat down again before the door. there were graves around the church, and now an uneasy thought obtruded into robin's breast. what if the object of his search, which had been so often and so strangely thwarted, were all the time mouldering in his shroud? what if his kinsman should glide through yonder gate, and nod and smile to him in dimly passing by? "oh that any breathing thing were here with me!" said robin. recalling his thoughts from this uncomfortable track, he sent them over forest, hill, and stream, and attempted to imagine how that evening of ambiguity and weariness had been spent by his father's household. he pictured them assembled at the door, beneath the tree, the great old tree, which had been spared for its huge twisted trunk and venerable shade, when a thousand leafy brethren fell. there, at the going down of the summer sun, it was his father's custom to perform domestic worship that the neighbors might come and join with him like brothers of the family, and that the wayfaring man might pause to drink at that fountain, and keep his heart pure by freshening the memory of home. robin distinguished the seat of every individual of the little audience; he saw the good man in the midst, holding the scriptures in the golden light that fell from the western clouds; he beheld him close the book and all rise up to pray. he heard the old thanksgivings for daily mercies, the old supplications for their continuance to which he had so often listened in weariness, but which were now among his dear remembrances. he perceived the slight inequality of his father's voice when he came to speak of the absent one; he noted how his mother turned her face to the broad and knotted trunk; how his elder brother scorned, because the beard was rough upon his upper lip, to permit his features to be moved; how the younger sister drew down a low hanging branch before her eyes; and how the little one of all, whose sports had hitherto broken the decorum of the scene, understood the prayer for her playmate, and burst into clamorous grief. then he saw them go in at the door; and when robin would have entered also, the latch tinkled into its place, and he was excluded from his home. "am i here, or there?" cried robin, starting; for all at once, when his thoughts had become visible and audible in a dream, the long, wide, solitary street shone out before him. he aroused himself, and endeavored to fix his attention steadily upon the large edifice which he had surveyed before. but still his mind kept vibrating between fancy and reality; by turns, the pillars of the balcony lengthened into the tall, bare stems of pines, dwindled down to human figures, settled again into their true shape and size, and then commenced a new succession of changes. for a single moment, when he deemed himself awake, he could have sworn that a visage--one which he seemed to remember, yet could not absolutely name as his kinsman's--was looking towards him from the gothic window. a deeper sleep wrestled with and nearly overcame him, but fled at the sound of footsteps along the opposite pavement. robin rubbed his eyes, discerned a man passing at the foot of the balcony, and addressed him in a loud, peevish, and lamentable cry. "hallo, friend! must i wait here all night for my kinsman, major molineux?" the sleeping echoes awoke, and answered the voice; and the passenger, barely able to discern a figure sitting in the oblique shade of the steeple, traversed the street to obtain a nearer view. he was himself a gentleman in his prime, of open, intelligent, cheerful, and altogether prepossessing countenance. perceiving a country youth, apparently homeless and without friends, he accosted him in a tone of real kindness, which had become strange to robin's ears. "well, my good lad, why are you sitting here?" inquired he. "can i be of service to you in any way?" "i am afraid not, sir," replied robin, despondingly; "yet i shall take it kindly, if you'll answer me a single question. i've been searching, half the night, for one major molineux, now, sir, is there really such a person in these parts, or am i dreaming?" "major molineux! the name is not altogether strange to me," said the gentleman, smiling. "have you any objection to telling me the nature of your business with him?" then robin briefly related that his father was a clergyman, settled on a small salary, at a long distance back in the country, and that he and major molineux were brothers' children. the major, having inherited riches, and acquired civil and military rank, had visited his cousin, in great pomp, a year or two before; had manifested much interest in robin and an elder brother, and, being childless himself, had thrown out hints respecting the future establishment of one of them in life. the elder brother was destined to succeed to the farm which his father cultivated in the interval of sacred duties; it was therefore determined that robin should profit by his kinsman's generous intentions, especially as he seemed to be rather the favorite, and was thought to possess other necessary endowments. "for i have the name of being a shrewd youth," observed robin, in this part of his story. "i doubt not you deserve it," replied his new friend, good-naturedly; "but pray proceed." "well, sir, being nearly eighteen years old, and well grown, as you see," continued robin, drawing himself up to his full height, "i thought it high time to begin in the world. so my mother and sister put me in handsome trim, and my father gave me half the remnant of his last year's salary, and five days ago i started for this place, to pay the major a visit. but, would you believe it, sir! i crossed the ferry a little after dark, and have yet found nobody that would show me the way to his dwelling; only, an hour or two since, i was told to wait here, and major molineux would pass by." "can you describe the man who told you this?" inquired the gentleman. "oh, he was a very ill-favored fellow, sir," replied robin, "with two great bumps on his forehead, a hook nose, fiery eyes; and, what struck me as the strangest, his face was of two different colors. do you happen to know such a man, sir?" "not intimately," answered the stranger, "but i chanced to meet him a little time previous to your stopping me. i believe you may trust his word, and that the major will very shortly pass through this street. in the mean time, as i have a singular curiosity to witness your meeting, i will sit down here upon the steps and bear you company." he seated himself accordingly, and soon engaged his companion in animated discourse. it was but of brief continuance, however, for a noise of shouting, which had long been remotely audible, drew so much nearer that robin inquired its cause. "what may be the meaning of this uproar?" asked he. "truly, if your town be always as noisy, i shall find little sleep while i am an inhabitant." "why, indeed, friend robin, there do appear to be three or four riotous fellows abroad to-night," replied the gentleman. "you must not expect all the stillness of your native woods here in our streets. but the watch will shortly be at the heels of these lads and--" "ay, and set them in the stocks by peep of day," interrupted robin recollecting his own encounter with the drowsy lantern-bearer. "but, dear sir, if i may trust my ears, an army of watchmen would never make head against such a multitude of rioters. there were at least a thousand voices went up to make that one shout." "may not a man have several voices, robin, as well as two complexions?" said his friend. "perhaps a man may; but heaven forbid that a woman should!" responded the shrewd youth, thinking of the seductive tones of the major's housekeeper. the sounds of a trumpet in some neighboring street now became so evident and continual, that robin's curiosity was strongly excited. in addition to the shouts, he heard frequent bursts from many instruments of discord, and a wild and confused laughter filled up the intervals. robin rose from the steps, and looked wistfully towards a point whither people seemed to be hastening. "surely some prodigious merry-making is going on," exclaimed he "i have laughed very little since i left home, sir, and should be sorry to lose an opportunity. shall we step round the corner by that darkish house and take our share of the fun?" "sit down again, sit down, good robin," replied the gentleman, laying his hand on the skirt of the gray coat. "you forget that we must wait here for your kinsman; and there is reason to believe that he will pass by, in the course of a very few moments." the near approach of the uproar had now disturbed the neighborhood; windows flew open on all sides; and many heads, in the attire of the pillow, and confused by sleep suddenly broken, were protruded to the gaze of whoever had leisure to observe them. eager voices hailed each other from house to house, all demanding the explanation, which not a soul could give. half-dressed men hurried towards the unknown commotion stumbling as they went over the stone steps that thrust themselves into the narrow foot-walk. the shouts, the laughter, and the tuneless bray the antipodes of music, came onwards with increasing din, till scattered individuals, and then denser bodies, began to appear round a corner at the distance of a hundred yards. "will you recognize your kinsman, if he passes in this crowd?" inquired the gentleman. "indeed, i can't warrant it, sir; but i'll take my stand here, and keep a bright lookout," answered robin, descending to the outer edge of the pavement. a mighty stream of people now emptied into the street, and came rolling slowly towards the church. a single horseman wheeled the corner in the midst of them, and close behind him came a band of fearful wind instruments, sending forth a fresher discord now that no intervening buildings kept it from the ear. then a redder light disturbed the moonbeams, and a dense multitude of torches shone along the street, concealing, by their glare, whatever object they illuminated. the single horseman, clad in a military dress, and bearing a drawn sword, rode onward as the leader, and, by his fierce and variegated countenance, appeared like war personified; the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the mourning that attends them. in his train were wild figures in the indian dress, and many fantastic shapes without a model, giving the whole march a visionary air, as if a dream had broken forth from some feverish brain, and were sweeping visibly through the midnight streets. a mass of people, inactive, except as applauding spectators, hemmed the procession in; and several women ran along the sidewalk, piercing the confusion of heavier sounds with their shrill voices of mirth or terror. "the double-faced fellow has his eye upon me," muttered robin, with an indefinite but an uncomfortable idea that he was himself to bear a part in the pageantry. the leader turned himself in the saddle, and fixed his glance full upon the country youth, as the steed went slowly by. when robin had freed his eyes from those fiery ones, the musicians were passing before him, and the torches were close at hand; but the unsteady brightness of the latter formed a veil which he could not penetrate. the rattling of wheels over the stones sometimes found its way to his ear, and confused traces of a human form appeared at intervals, and then melted into the vivid light. a moment more, and the leader thundered a command to halt: the trumpets vomited a horrid breath, and then held their peace; the shouts and laughter of the people died away, and there remained only a universal hum, allied to silence. right before robin's eyes was an uncovered cart. there the torches blazed the brightest, there the moon shone out like day, and there, in tar-and-feathery dignity, sat his kinsman, major molineux! he was an elderly man, of large and majestic person, and strong, square features, betokening a steady soul; but steady as it was, his enemies had found means to shake it. his face was pale as death, and far more ghastly; the broad forehead was contracted in his agony, so that his eyebrows formed one grizzled line; his eyes were red and wild, and the foam hung white upon his quivering lip. his whole frame was agitated by a quick and continual tremor, which his pride strove to quell, even in those circumstances of overwhelming humiliation. but perhaps the bitterest pang of all was when his eyes met those of robin; for he evidently knew him on the instant, as the youth stood witnessing the foul disgrace of a head grown gray in honor. they stared at each other in silence, and robin's knees shook, and his hair bristled, with a mixture of pity and terror. soon, however, a bewildering excitement began to seize upon his mind; the preceding adventures of the night, the unexpected appearance of the crowd, the torches, the confused din and the hush that followed, the spectre of his kinsman reviled by that great multitude,--all this, and, more than all, a perception of tremendous ridicule in the whole scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety. at that moment a voice of sluggish merriment saluted robin's ears; he turned instinctively, and just behind the corner of the church stood the lantern-bearer, rubbing his eyes, and drowsily enjoying the lad's amazement. then he heard a peal of laughter like the ringing of silvery bells; a woman twitched his arm, a saucy eye met his, and he saw the lady of the scarlet petticoat. a sharp, dry cachinnation appealed to his memory, and, standing on tiptoe in the crowd, with his white apron over his head, he beheld the courteous little innkeeper. and lastly, there sailed over the heads of the multitude a great, broad laugh, broken in the midst by two sepulchral hems; thus, "haw, haw, haw,--hem, hem,--haw, haw, haw, haw!" the sound proceeded from the balcony of the opposite edifice, and thither robin turned his eyes. in front of the gothic window stood the old citizen, wrapped in a wide gown, his gray periwig exchanged for a nightcap, which was thrust back from his forehead, and his silk stockings hanging about his legs. he supported himself on his polished cane in a fit of convulsive merriment, which manifested itself on his solemn old features like a funny inscription on a tombstone. then robin seemed to hear the voices of the barbers, of the guests of the inn, and of all who had made sport of him that night. the contagion was spreading among the multitude, when all at once, it seized upon robin, and he sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the street,--every man shook his sides, every man emptied his lungs, but robin's shout was the loudest there. the cloud-spirits peeped from their silvery islands, as the congregated mirth went roaring up the sky! the man in the moon heard the far bellow. "oho," quoth he, "the old earth is frolicsome to-night!" when there was a momentary calm in that tempestuous sea of sound, the leader gave the sign, the procession resumed its march. on they went, like fiends that throng in mockery around some dead potentate, mighty no more, but majestic still in his agony. on they went, in counterfeited pomp, in senseless uproar, in frenzied merriment, trampling all on an old man's heart. on swept the tumult, and left a silent street behind. * * * * * "well, robin, are you dreaming?" inquired the gentleman, laying his hand on the youth's shoulder. robin started, and withdrew his arm from the stone post to which he had instinctively clung, as the living stream rolled by him. his cheek was somewhat pale, and his eye not quite as lively as in the earlier part of the evening. "will you be kind enough to show me the way to the ferry?" said he, after a moment's pause. "you have, then, adopted a new subject of inquiry?" observed his companion, with a smile. "why, yes, sir," replied robin, rather dryly. "thanks to you, and to my other friends, i have at last met my kinsman, and he will scarce desire to see my face again. i begin to grow weary of a town life, sir. will you show me the way to the ferry?" "no, my good friend robin,--not to-night, at least," said the gentleman. "some few days hence, if you wish it, i will speed you on your journey. or, if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd youth, you may rise in the world without the help of your kinsman, major molineux." tanglewood tales by nathaniel hawthorne the wayside. introductory. a short time ago, i was favored with a flying visit from my young friend eustace bright, whom i had not before met with since quitting the breezy mountains of berkshire. it being the winter vacation at his college, eustace was allowing himself a little relaxation, in the hope, he told me, of repairing the inroads which severe application to study had made upon his health; and i was happy to conclude, from the excellent physical condition in which i saw him, that the remedy had already been attended with very desirable success. he had now run up from boston by the noon train, partly impelled by the friendly regard with which he is pleased to honor me, and partly, as i soon found, on a matter of literary business. it delighted me to receive mr. bright, for the first time, under a roof, though a very humble one, which i could really call my own. nor did i fail (as is the custom of landed proprietors all about the world) to parade the poor fellow up and down over my half a dozen acres; secretly rejoicing, nevertheless, that the disarray of the inclement season, and particularly the six inches of snow then upon the ground, prevented him from observing the ragged neglect of soil and shrubbery into which the place had lapsed. it was idle, however, to imagine that an airy guest from monument mountain, bald summit, and old graylock, shaggy with primeval forests, could see anything to admire in my poor little hillside, with its growth of frail and insect-eaten locust trees. eustace very frankly called the view from my hill top tame; and so, no doubt, it was, after rough, broken, rugged, headlong berkshire, and especially the northern parts of the county, with which his college residence had made him familiar. but to me there is a peculiar, quiet charm in these broad meadows and gentle eminences. they are better than mountains, because they do not stamp and stereotype themselves into the brain, and thus grow wearisome with the same strong impression, repeated day after day. a few summer weeks among mountains, a lifetime among green meadows and placid slopes, with outlines forever new, because continually fading out of the memory--such would be my sober choice. i doubt whether eustace did not internally pronounce the whole thing a bore, until i led him to my predecessor's little ruined, rustic summer house, midway on the hillside. it is a mere skeleton of slender, decaying tree trunks, with neither walls nor a roof; nothing but a tracery of branches and twigs, which the next wintry blast will be very likely to scatter in fragments along the terrace. it looks, and is, as evanescent as a dream; and yet, in its rustic network of boughs, it has somehow enclosed a hint of spiritual beauty, and has become a true emblem of the subtile and ethereal mind that planned it. i made eustace bright sit down on a snow bank, which had heaped itself over the mossy seat, and gazing through the arched windows opposite, he acknowledged that the scene at once grew picturesque. "simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work of magic. it is full of suggestiveness, and, in its way, is as good as a cathedral. ah, it would be just the spot for one to sit in, of a summer afternoon, and tell the children some more of those wild stories from the classic myths!" "it would, indeed," answered i. "the summer house itself, so airy and so broken, is like one of those old tales, imperfectly remembered; and these living branches of the baldwin apple tree, thrusting so rudely in, are like your unwarrantable interpolations. but, by the by, have you added any more legends to the series, since the publication of the 'wonder-book'?" "many more," said eustace; "primrose, periwinkle, and the rest of them, allow me no comfort of my life unless i tell them a story every day or two. i have run away from home partly to escape the importunity of these little wretches! but i have written out six of the new stories, and have brought them for you to look over." "are they as good as the first?" i inquired. "better chosen, and better handled," replied eustace bright. "you will say so when you read them." "possibly not," i remarked. "i know from my own experience, that an author's last work is always his best one, in his own estimate, until it quite loses the red heat of composition. after that, it falls into its true place, quietly enough. but let us adjourn to my study, and examine these new stories. it would hardly be doing yourself justice, were you to bring me acquainted with them, sitting here on this snow bank!" so we descended the hill to my small, old cottage, and shut ourselves up in the south-eastern room, where the sunshine comes in, warmly and brightly, through the better half of a winter's day. eustace put his bundle of manuscript into my hands; and i skimmed through it pretty rapidly, trying to find out its merits and demerits by the touch of my fingers, as a veteran story-teller ought to know how to do. it will be remembered that mr. bright condescended to avail himself of my literary experience by constituting me editor of the "wonder-book." as he had no reason to complain of the reception of that erudite work by the public, he was now disposed to retain me in a similar position with respect to the present volume, which he entitled tanglewood tales. not, as eustace hinted, that there was any real necessity for my services as introducer, inasmuch as his own name had become established in some good degree of favor with the literary world. but the connection with myself, he was kind enough to say, had been highly agreeable; nor was he by any means desirous, as most people are, of kicking away the ladder that had perhaps helped him to reach his present elevation. my young friend was willing, in short, that the fresh verdure of his growing reputation should spread over my straggling and half-naked boughs; even as i have sometimes thought of training a vine, with its broad leafiness, and purple fruitage, over the worm-eaten posts and rafters of the rustic summer house. i was not insensible to the advantages of his proposal, and gladly assured him of my acceptance. merely from the title of the stories i saw at once that the subjects were not less rich than those of the former volume; nor did i at all doubt that mr. bright's audacity (so far as that endowment might avail) had enabled him to take full advantage of whatever capabilities they offered. yet, in spite of my experience of his free way of handling them, i did not quite see, i confess, how he could have obviated all the difficulties in the way of rendering them presentable to children. these old legends, so brimming over with everything that is most abhorrent to our christianized moral sense some of them so hideous, others so melancholy and miserable, amid which the greek tragedians sought their themes, and moulded them into the sternest forms of grief that ever the world saw; was such material the stuff that children's playthings should be made of! how were they to be purified? how was the blessed sunshine to be thrown into them? but eustace told me that these myths were the most singular things in the world, and that he was invariably astonished, whenever he began to relate one, by the readiness with which it adapted itself to the childish purity of his auditors. the objectionable characteristics seem to be a parasitical growth, having no essential connection with the original fable. they fall away, and are thought of no more, the instant he puts his imagination in sympathy with the innocent little circle, whose wide-open eyes are fixed so eagerly upon him. thus the stories (not by any strained effort of the narrator's, but in harmony with their inherent germ) transform themselves, and re-assume the shapes which they might be supposed to possess in the pure childhood of the world. when the first poet or romancer told these marvellous legends (such is eustace bright's opinion), it was still the golden age. evil had never yet existed; and sorrow, misfortune, crime, were mere shadows which the mind fancifully created for itself, as a shelter against too sunny realities; or, at most, but prophetic dreams to which the dreamer himself did not yield a waking credence. children are now the only representatives of the men and women of that happy era; and therefore it is that we must raise the intellect and fancy to the level of childhood, in order to re-create the original myths. i let the youthful author talk as much and as extravagantly as he pleased, and was glad to see him commencing life with such confidence in himself and his performances. a few years will do all that is necessary towards showing him the truth in both respects. meanwhile, it is but right to say, he does really appear to have overcome the moral objections against these fables, although at the expense of such liberties with their structure as must be left to plead their own excuse, without any help from me. indeed, except that there was a necessity for it--and that the inner life of the legends cannot be come at save by making them entirely one's own property--there is no defense to be made. eustace informed me that he had told his stories to the children in various situations--in the woods, on the shore of the lake, in the dell of shadow brook, in the playroom, at tanglewood fireside, and in a magnificent palace of snow, with ice windows, which he helped his little friends to build. his auditors were even more delighted with the contents of the present volume than with the specimens which have already been given to the world. the classically learned mr. pringle, too, had listened to two or three of the tales, and censured them even more bitterly than he did the three golden apples; so that, what with praise, and what with criticism, eustace bright thinks that there is good hope of at least as much success with the public as in the case of the "wonderbook." i made all sorts of inquiries about the children, not doubting that there would be great eagerness to hear of their welfare, among some good little folks who have written to me, to ask for another volume of myths. they are all, i am happy to say (unless we except clover), in excellent health and spirits. primrose is now almost a young lady, and, eustace tells me, is just as saucy as ever. she pretends to consider herself quite beyond the age to be interested by such idle stories as these; but, for all that, whenever a story is to be told, primrose never fails to be one of the listeners, and to make fun of it when finished. periwinkle is very much grown, and is expected to shut up her baby house and throw away her doll in a month or two more. sweet fern has learned to read and write, and has put on a jacket and pair of pantaloons--all of which improvements i am sorry for. squash blossom, blue eye, plantain, and buttercup have had the scarlet fever, but came easily through it. huckleberry, milkweed, and dandelion were attacked with the whooping cough, but bore it bravely, and kept out of doors whenever the sun shone. cowslip, during the autumn, had either the measles, or some eruption that looked very much like it, but was hardly sick a day. poor clover has been a good deal troubled with her second teeth, which have made her meagre in aspect and rather fractious in temper; nor, even when she smiles, is the matter much mended, since it discloses a gap just within her lips, almost as wide as the barn door. but all this will pass over, and it is predicted that she will turn out a very pretty girl. as for mr. bright himself, he is now in his senior year at williams college, and has a prospect of graduating with some degree of honorable distinction at the next commencement. in his oration for the bachelor's degree, he gives me to understand, he will treat of the classical myths, viewed in the aspect of baby stories, and has a great mind to discuss the expediency of using up the whole of ancient history, for the same purpose. i do not know what he means to do with himself after leaving college, but trust that, by dabbling so early with the dangerous and seductive business of authorship, he will not be tempted to become an author by profession. if so i shall be very sorry for the little that i have had to do with the matter, in encouraging these first beginnings. i wish there were any likelihood of my soon seeing primrose, periwinkle, dandelion, sweet fern, clover plantain, huckleberry, milkweed, cowslip, buttercup, blue eye, and squash blossom again. but as i do not know when i shall re-visit tanglewood, and as eustace bright probably will not ask me to edit a third "wonderbook," the public of little folks must not expect to hear any more about those dear children from me. heaven bless them, and everybody else, whether grown people or children! the minotaur. in the old city of troezene, at the foot of a lofty mountain, there lived, a very long time ago, a little boy named theseus. his grandfather, king pittheus, was the sovereign of that country, and was reckoned a very wise man; so that theseus, being brought up in the royal palace, and being naturally a bright lad, could hardly fail of profiting by the old king's instructions. his mother's name was aethra. as for his father, the boy had never seen him. but, from his earliest remembrance, aethra used to go with little theseus into a wood, and sit down upon a moss-grown rock, which was deeply sunken into the earth. here she often talked with her son about his father, and said that he was called aegeus, and that he was a great king, and ruled over attica, and dwelt at athens, which was as famous a city as any in the world. theseus was very fond of hearing about king aegeus, and often asked his good mother aethra why he did not come and live with them at troezene. "ah, my dear son," answered aethra, with a sigh, "a monarch has his people to take care of. the men and women over whom he rules are in the place of children to him; and he can seldom spare time to love his own children as other parents do. your father will never be able to leave his kingdom for the sake of seeing his little boy." "well, but, dear mother," asked the boy, "why cannot i go to this famous city of athens, and tell king aegeus that i am his son?" "that may happen by and by," said aethra. "be patient, and we shall see. you are not yet big and strong enough to set out on such an errand." "and how soon shall i be strong enough?" theseus persisted in inquiring. "you are but a tiny boy as yet," replied his mother. "see if you can lift this rock on which we are sitting?" the little fellow had a great opinion of his own strength. so, grasping the rough protuberances of the rock, he tugged and toiled amain, and got himself quite out of breath, without being able to stir the heavy stone. it seemed to be rooted into the ground. no wonder he could not move it; for it would have taken all the force of a very strong man to lift it out of its earthy bed. his mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of a smile on her lips and in her eyes, to see the zealous and yet puny efforts of her little boy. she could not help being sorrowful at finding him already so impatient to begin his adventures in the world. "you see how it is, my dear theseus," said she. "you must possess far more strength than now before i can trust you to go to athens, and tell king aegeus that you are his son. but when you can lift this rock, and show me what is hidden beneath it, i promise you my permission to depart." often and often, after this, did theseus ask his mother whether it was yet time for him to go to athens; and still his mother pointed to the rock, and told him that, for years to come, he could not be strong enough to move it. and again and again the rosy-checked and curly-headed boy would tug and strain at the huge mass of stone, striving, child as he was, to do what a giant could hardly have done without taking both of his great hands to the task. meanwhile the rock seemed to be sinking farther and farther into the ground. the moss grew over it thicker and thicker, until at last it looked almost like a soft green seat, with only a few gray knobs of granite peeping out. the overhanging trees, also, shed their brown leaves upon it, as often as the autumn came; and at its base grew ferns and wild flowers, some of which crept quite over its surface. to all appearance, the rock was as firmly fastened as any other portion of the earth's substance. but, difficult as the matter looked, theseus was now growing up to be such a vigorous youth, that, in his own opinion, the time would quickly come when he might hope to get the upper hand of this ponderous lump of stone. "mother, i do believe it has started!" cried he, after one of his attempts. "the earth around it is certainly a little cracked!" "no, no, child!" his mother hastily answered. "it is not possible you can have moved it, such a boy as you still are!" nor would she be convinced, although theseus showed her the place where he fancied that the stem of a flower had been partly uprooted by the movement of the rock. but aethra sighed, and looked disquieted; for, no doubt, she began to be conscious that her son was no longer a child, and that, in a little while hence, she must send him forth among the perils and troubles of the world. it was not more than a year afterwards when they were again sitting on the moss-covered stone. aethra had once more told him the oft-repeated story of his father, and how gladly he would receive theseus at his stately palace, and how he would present him to his courtiers and the people, and tell them that here was the heir of his dominions. the eyes of theseus glowed with enthusiasm, and he would hardly sit still to hear his mother speak. "dear mother aethra," he exclaimed, "i never felt half so strong as now! i am no longer a child, nor a boy, nor a mere youth! i feel myself a man! it is now time to make one earnest trial to remove the stone." "ah, my dearest theseus," replied his mother "not yet! not yet!" "yes, mother," said he, resolutely, "the time has come!" then theseus bent himself in good earnest to the task, and strained every sinew, with manly strength and resolution. he put his whole brave heart into the effort. he wrestled with the big and sluggish stone, as if it had been a living enemy. he heaved, he lifted, he resolved now to succeed, or else to perish there, and let the rock be his monument forever! aethra stood gazing at him, and clasped her hands, partly with a mother's pride, and partly with a mother's sorrow. the great rock stirred! yes, it was raised slowly from the bedded moss and earth, uprooting the shrubs and flowers along with it, and was turned upon its side. theseus had conquered! while taking breath, he looked joyfully at his mother, and she smiled upon him through her tears. "yes, theseus," she said, "the time has come, and you must stay no longer at my side! see what king aegeus, your royal father, left for you beneath the stone, when he lifted it in his mighty arms, and laid it on the spot whence you have now removed it." theseus looked, and saw that the rock had been placed over another slab of stone, containing a cavity within it; so that it somewhat resembled a roughly-made chest or coffer, of which the upper mass had served as the lid. within the cavity lay a sword, with a golden hilt, and a pair of sandals. "that was your father's sword," said aethra, "and those were his sandals. when he went to be king of athens, he bade me treat you as a child until you should prove yourself a man by lifting this heavy stone. that task being accomplished, you are to put on his sandals, in order to follow in your father's footsteps, and to gird on his sword, so that you may fight giants and dragons, as king aegeus did in his youth." "i will set out for athens this very day!" cried theseus. but his mother persuaded him to stay a day or two longer, while she got ready some necessary articles for his journey. when his grandfather, the wise king pittheus, heard that theseus intended to present himself at his father's palace, he earnestly advised him to get on board of a vessel, and go by sea; because he might thus arrive within fifteen miles of athens, without either fatigue or danger. "the roads are very bad by land," quoth the venerable king; "and they are terribly infested with robbers and monsters. a mere lad, like theseus, is not fit to be trusted on such a perilous journey, all by himself. no, no; let him go by sea." but when theseus heard of robbers and monsters, he pricked up his ears, and was so much the more eager to take the road along which they were to be met with. on the third day, therefore, he bade a respectful farewell to his grandfather, thanking him for all his kindness; and, after affectionately embracing his mother, he set forth with a good many of her tears glistening on his cheeks, and some, if the truth must be told, that had gushed out of his own eyes. but he let the sun and wind dry them, and walked stoutly on, playing with the golden hilt of his sword, and taking very manly strides in his father's sandals. i cannot stop to tell you hardly any of the adventures that befell theseus on the road to athens. it is enough to say, that he quite cleared that part of the country of the robbers about whom king pittheus had been so much alarmed. one of these bad people was named procrustes; and he was indeed a terrible fellow, and had an ugly way of making fun of the poor travelers who happened to fall into his clutches. in his cavern he had a bed, on which, with great pretense of hospitality, he invited his guests to lie down; but, if they happened to be shorter than the bed, this wicked villain stretched them out by main force; or, if they were too tall, he lopped off their heads or feet, and laughed at what he had done, as an excellent joke. thus, however weary a man might be, he never liked to lie in the bed of procrustes. another of these robbers, named scinis, must likewise have been a very great scoundrel. he was in the habit of flinging his victims off a high cliff into the sea; and, in order to give him exactly his deserts, theseus tossed him off the very same place. but if you will believe me, the sea would not pollute itself by receiving such a bad person into its bosom; neither would the earth, having once got rid of him, consent to take him back; so that, between the cliff and the sea, scinis stuck fast in the air, which was forced to bear the burden of his naughtiness. after these memorable deeds, theseus heard of an enormous sow, which ran wild, and was the terror of all the farmers round about; and, as he did not consider himself above doing any good thing that came in his way, he killed this monstrous creature, and gave the carcass to the poor people for bacon. the great sow had been an awful beast, while ramping about the woods and fields, but was a pleasant object enough when cut up into joints, and smoking on i know not how many dinner tables. thus, by the time he reached his journey's end, theseus had done many valiant feats with his father's golden-hilted sword, and had gained the renown of being one of the bravest young men of the day. his fame traveled faster than he did, and reached athens before him. as he entered the city, he heard the inhabitants talking at the street corners, and saying that hercules was brave, and jason too, and castor and pollux likewise, but that theseus, the son of their own king, would turn out as great a hero as the best of them. theseus took longer strides on hearing this, and fancied himself sure of a magnificent reception at his father's court, since he came thither with fame to blow her trumpet before him, and cry to king aegeus, "behold your son!" he little suspected, innocent youth that he was, that here, in this very athens, where his father reigned, a greater danger awaited him than any which he had encountered on the road. yet this was the truth. you must understand that the father of theseus, though not very old in years, was almost worn out with the cares of government, and had thus grown aged before his time. his nephews, not expecting him to live a very great while, intended to get all the power of the kingdom into their own hands. but when they heard that theseus had arrived in athens, and learned what a gallant young man he was, they saw that he would not be at all the kind of a person to let them steal away his father's crown and scepter, which ought to be his own by right of inheritance. thus these bad-hearted nephews of king aegeus, who were the own cousins of theseus, at once became his enemies. a still more dangerous enemy was medea, the wicked enchantress; for she was now the king's wife, and wanted to give the kingdom to her son medus, instead of letting it be given to the son of aethra, whom she hated. it so happened that the king's nephews met theseus, and found out who he was, just as he reached the entrance of the royal palace. with all their evil designs against him, they pretended to be their cousin's best friends, and expressed great joy at making his acquaintance. they proposed to him that he should come into the king's presence as a stranger, in order to try whether aegeus would discover in the young man's features any likeness either to himself or his mother aethra, and thus recognize him for a son. theseus consented; for he fancied that his father would know him in a moment, by the love that was in his heart. but, while he waited at the door, the nephews ran and told king aegeus that a young man had arrived in athens, who, to their certain knowledge, intended to put him to death, and get possession of his royal crown. "and he is now waiting for admission to your majesty's presence," added they. "aha!" cried the old king, on hearing this. "why, he must be a very wicked young fellow indeed! pray, what would you advise me to do with him?" in reply to this question, the wicked medea put in her word. as i have already told you, she was a famous enchantress. according to some stories, she was in the habit of boiling old people in a large caldron, under pretense of making them young again; but king aegeus, i suppose, did not fancy such an uncomfortable way of growing young, or perhaps was contented to be old, and therefore would never let himself be popped into the caldron. if there were time to spare from more important matters, i should be glad to tell you of medea's fiery chariot, drawn by winged dragons, in which the enchantress used often to take an airing among the clouds. this chariot, in fact, was the vehicle that first brought her to athens, where she had done nothing but mischief ever since her arrival. but these and many other wonders must be left untold; and it is enough to say, that medea, amongst a thousand other bad things, knew how to prepare a poison, that was instantly fatal to whomsoever might so much as touch it with his lips. so, when the king asked what he should do with theseus, this naughty woman had an answer ready at her tongue's end. "leave that to me, please your majesty," she replied. "only admit this evil-minded young man to your presence, treat him civilly, and invite him to drink a goblet of wine. your majesty is well aware that i sometimes amuse myself by distilling very powerful medicines. here is one of them in this small phial. as to what it is made of, that is one of my secrets of state. do but let me put a single drop into the goblet, and let the young man taste it; and i will answer for it, he shall quite lay aside the bad designs with which he comes hither." as she said this, medea smiled; but, for all her smiling face, she meant nothing less than to poison the poor innocent theseus, before his father's eyes. and king aegeus, like most other kings, thought any punishment mild enough for a person who was accused of plotting against his life. he therefore made little or no objection to medea's scheme, and as soon as the poisonous wine was ready, gave orders that the young stranger should be admitted into his presence. the goblet was set on a table beside the king's throne; and a fly, meaning just to sip a little from the brim, immediately tumbled into it, dead. observing this, medea looked round at the nephews, and smiled again. when theseus was ushered into the royal apartment, the only object that he seemed to behold was the white-bearded old king. there he sat on his magnificent throne, a dazzling crown on his head, and a scepter in his hand. his aspect was stately and majestic, although his years and infirmities weighed heavily upon him, as if each year were a lump of lead, and each infirmity a ponderous stone, and all were bundled up together, and laid upon his weary shoulders. the tears both of joy and sorrow sprang into the young man's eyes; for he thought how sad it was to see his dear father so infirm, and how sweet it would be to support him with his own youthful strength, and to cheer him up with the alacrity of his loving spirit. when a son takes a father into his warm heart it renews the old man's youth in a better way than by the heat of medea's magic caldron. and this was what theseus resolved to do. he could scarcely wait to see whether king aegeus would recognize him, so eager was he to throw himself into his arms. advancing to the foot of the throne, he attempted to make a little speech, which he had been thinking about, as he came up the stairs. but he was almost choked by a great many tender feelings that gushed out of his heart and swelled into his throat, all struggling to find utterance together. and therefore, unless he could have laid his full, over-brimming heart into the king's hand, poor theseus knew not what to do or say. the cunning medea observed what was passing in the young man's mind. she was more wicked at that moment than ever she had been before; for (and it makes me tremble to tell you of it) she did her worst to turn all this unspeakable love with which theseus was agitated to his own ruin and destruction. "does your majesty see his confusion?" she whispered in the king's ear. "he is so conscious of guilt, that he trembles and cannot speak. the wretch lives too long! quick! offer him the wine!" now king aegeus had been gazing earnestly at the young stranger, as he drew near the throne. there was something, he knew not what, either in his white brow, or in the fine expression of his mouth, or in his beautiful and tender eyes, that made him indistinctly feel as if he had seen this youth before; as if, indeed, he had trotted him on his knee when a baby, and had beheld him growing to be a stalwart man, while he himself grew old. but medea guessed how the king felt, and would not suffer him to yield to these natural sensibilities; although they were the voice of his deepest heart, telling him as plainly as it could speak, that here was our dear son, and aethra's son, coming to claim him for a father. the enchantress again whispered in the king's ear, and compelled him, by her witchcraft, to see everything under a false aspect. he made up his mind, therefore, to let theseus drink off the poisoned wine. "young man," said he, "you are welcome! i am proud to show hospitality to so heroic a youth. do me the favor to drink the contents of this goblet. it is brimming over, as you see, with delicious wine, such as i bestow only on those who are worthy of it! none is more worthy to quaff it than yourself!" so saying, king aegeus took the golden goblet from the table, and was about to offer it to theseus. but, partly through his infirmities, and partly because it seemed so sad a thing to take away this young man's life, however wicked he might be, and partly, no doubt, because his heart was wiser than his head, and quaked within him at the thought of what he was going to do--for all these reasons, the king's hand trembled so much that a great deal of the wine slopped over. in order to strengthen his purpose, and fearing lest the whole of the precious poison should be wasted, one of his nephews now whispered to him: "has your majesty any doubt of this stranger's guilt? this is the very sword with which he meant to slay you. how sharp, and bright, and terrible it is! quick!--let him taste the wine; or perhaps he may do the deed even yet." at these words, aegeus drove every thought and feeling out of his breast, except the one idea of how justly the young man deserved to be put to death. he sat erect on his throne, and held out the goblet of wine with a steady hand, and bent on theseus a frown of kingly severity; for, after all, he had too noble a spirit to murder even a treacherous enemy with a deceitful smile upon his face. "drink!" said he, in the stern tone with which he was wont to condemn a criminal to be beheaded. "you have well deserved of me such wine as this!" theseus held out his hand to take the wine. but, before he touched it, king aegeus trembled again. his eyes had fallen on the gold-hilted sword that hung at the young man's side. he drew back the goblet. "that sword!" he exclaimed: "how came you by it?" "it was my father's sword," replied theseus, with a tremulous voice. "these were his sandals. my dear mother (her name is aethra) told me his story while i was yet a little child. but it is only a month since i grew strong enough to lift the heavy stone, and take the sword and sandals from beneath it, and come to athens to seek my father." "my son! my son!" cried king aegeus, flinging away the fatal goblet, and tottering down from the throne to fall into the arms of theseus. "yes, these are aethra's eyes. it is my son." i have quite forgotten what became of the king's nephews. but when the wicked medea saw this new turn of affairs, she hurried out of the room, and going to her private chamber, lost no time to setting her enchantments to work. in a few moments, she heard a great noise of hissing snakes outside of the chamber window; and behold! there was her fiery chariot, and four huge winged serpents, wriggling and twisting in the air, flourishing their tails higher than the top of the palace, and all ready to set off on an aerial journey. medea staid only long enough to take her son with her, and to steal the crown jewels, together with the king's best robes, and whatever other valuable things she could lay hands on; and getting into the chariot, she whipped up the snakes, and ascended high over the city. the king, hearing the hiss of the serpents, scrambled as fast as he could to the window, and bawled out to the abominable enchantress never to come back. the whole people of athens, too, who had run out of doors to see this wonderful spectacle, set up a shout of joy at the prospect of getting rid of her. medea, almost bursting with rage, uttered precisely such a hiss as one of her own snakes, only ten times more venomous and spiteful; and glaring fiercely out of the blaze of the chariot, she shook her hands over the multitude below, as if she were scattering a million of curses among them. in so doing, however, she unintentionally let fall about five hundred diamonds of the first water, together with a thousand great pearls, and two thousand emeralds, rubies, sapphires, opals, and topazes, to which she had helped herself out of the king's strong box. all these came pelting down, like a shower of many-colored hailstones, upon the heads of grown people and children, who forthwith gathered them up, and carried them back to the palace. but king aegeus told them that they were welcome to the whole, and to twice as many more, if he had them, for the sake of his delight at finding his son, and losing the wicked medea. and, indeed, if you had seen how hateful was her last look, as the flaming chariot flew upward, you would not have wondered that both king and people should think her departure a good riddance. and now prince theseus was taken into great favor by his royal father. the old king was never weary of having him sit beside him on his throne (which was quite wide enough for two), and of hearing him tell about his dear mother, and his childhood, and his many boyish efforts to lift the ponderous stone. theseus, however, was much too brave and active a young man to be willing to spend all his time in relating things which had already happened. his ambition was to perform other and more heroic deeds, which should be better worth telling in prose and verse. nor had he been long in athens before he caught and chained a terrible mad bull, and made a public show of him, greatly to the wonder and admiration of good king aegeus and his subjects. but pretty soon, he undertook an affair that made all his foregone adventures seem like mere boy's play. the occasion of it was as follows: one morning, when prince theseus awoke, he fancied that he must have had a very sorrowful dream, and that it was still running in his mind, even now that his eyes were opened. for it appeared as if the air was full of a melancholy wail; and when he listened more attentively, he could hear sobs, and groans, and screams of woe, mingled with deep, quiet sighs, which came from the king's palace, and from the streets, and from the temples, and from every habitation in the city. and all these mournful noises, issuing out of thousands of separate hearts, united themselves into one great sound of affliction, which had startled theseus from slumber. he put on his clothes as quickly as he could (not forgetting his sandals and gold-hilted sword), and, hastening to the king, inquired what it all meant. "alas! my son," quoth king aegeus, heaving a long sigh, "here is a very lamentable matter in hand! this is the wofulest anniversary in the whole year. it is the day when we annually draw lots to see which of the youths and maids of athens shall go to be devoured by the horrible minotaur!" "the minotaur!" exclaimed prince theseus; and like a brave young prince as he was, he put his hand to the hilt of his sword. "what kind of a monster may that be? is it not possible, at the risk of one's life, to slay him?" but king aegeus shook his venerable head, and to convince theseus that it was quite a hopeless case, he gave him an explanation of the whole affair. it seems that in the island of crete there lived a certain dreadful monster, called a minotaur, which was shaped partly like a man and partly like a bull, and was altogether such a hideous sort of a creature that it is really disagreeable to think of him. if he were suffered to exist at all, it should have been on some desert island, or in the duskiness of some deep cavern, where nobody would ever be tormented by his abominable aspect. but king minos, who reigned over crete, laid out a vast deal of money in building a habitation for the minotaur, and took great care of his health and comfort, merely for mischief's sake. a few years before this time, there had been a war between the city of athens and the island of crete, in which the athenians were beaten, and compelled to beg for peace. no peace could they obtain, however, except on condition that they should send seven young men and seven maidens, every year, to be devoured by the pet monster of the cruel king minos. for three years past, this grievous calamity had been borne. and the sobs, and groans, and shrieks, with which the city was now filled, were caused by the people's woe, because the fatal day had come again, when the fourteen victims were to be chosen by lot; and the old people feared lest their sons or daughters might be taken, and the youths and damsels dreaded lest they themselves might be destined to glut the ravenous maw of that detestable man-brute. but when theseus heard the story, he straightened himself up, so that he seemed taller than ever before; and as for his face it was indignant, despiteful, bold, tender, and compassionate, all in one look. "let the people of athens this year draw lots for only six young men, instead of seven," said he, "i will myself be the seventh; and let the minotaur devour me if he can!" "o my dear son," cried king aegeus, "why should you expose yourself to this horrible fate? you are a royal prince, and have a right to hold yourself above the destinies of common men." "it is because i am a prince, your son, and the rightful heir of your kingdom, that i freely take upon me the calamity of your subjects," answered theseus, "and you, my father, being king over these people, and answerable to heaven for their welfare, are bound to sacrifice what is dearest to you, rather than that the son or daughter of the poorest citizen should come to any harm." the old king shed tears, and besought theseus not to leave him desolate in his old age, more especially as he had but just begun to know the happiness of possessing a good and valiant son. theseus, however, felt that he was in the right, and therefore would not give up his resolution. but he assured his father that he did not intend to be eaten up, unresistingly, like a sheep, and that, if the minotaur devoured him, it should not be without a battle for his dinner. and finally, since he could not help it, king aegeus consented to let him go. so a vessel was got ready, and rigged with black sails; and theseus, with six other young men, and seven tender and beautiful damsels, came down to the harbor to embark. a sorrowful multitude accompanied them to the shore. there was the poor old king, too, leaning on his son's arm, and looking as if his single heart held all the grief of athens. just as prince theseus was going on board, his father bethought himself of one last word to say. "my beloved son," said he, grasping the prince's hand, "you observe that the sails of this vessel are black; as indeed they ought to be, since it goes upon a voyage of sorrow and despair. now, being weighed down with infirmities, i know not whether i can survive till the vessel shall return. but, as long as i do live, i shall creep daily to the top of yonder cliff, to watch if there be a sail upon the sea. and, dearest theseus, if by some happy chance, you should escape the jaws of the minotaur, then tear down those dismal sails, and hoist others that shall be bright as the sunshine. beholding them on the horizon, myself and all the people will know that you are coming back victorious, and will welcome you with such a festal uproar as athens never heard before." theseus promised that he would do so. then going on board, the mariners trimmed the vessel's black sails to the wind, which blew faintly off the shore, being pretty much made up of the sighs that everybody kept pouring forth on this melancholy occasion. but by and by, when they had got fairly out to sea, there came a stiff breeze from the north-west, and drove them along as merrily over the white-capped waves as if they had been going on the most delightful errand imaginable. and though it was a sad business enough, i rather question whether fourteen young people, without any old persons to keep them in order, could continue to spend the whole time of the voyage in being miserable. there had been some few dances upon the undulating deck, i suspect, and some hearty bursts of laughter, and other such unseasonable merriment among the victims, before the high blue mountains of crete began to show themselves among the far-off clouds. that sight, to be sure, made them all very grave again. theseus stood among the sailors, gazing eagerly towards the land; although, as yet, it seemed hardly more substantial than the clouds, amidst which the mountains were looming up. once or twice, he fancied that he saw a glare of some bright object, a long way off, flinging a gleam across the waves. "did you see that flash of light?" he inquired of the master of the vessel. "no, prince; but i have seen it before," answered the master. "it came from talus, i suppose." as the breeze came fresher just then, the master was busy with trimming his sails, and had no more time to answer questions. but while the vessel flew faster and faster towards crete, theseus was astonished to behold a human figure, gigantic in size, which appeared to be striding, with a measured movement, along the margin of the island. it stepped from cliff to cliff, and sometimes from one headland to another, while the sea foamed and thundered on the shore beneath, and dashed its jets of spray over the giant's feet. what was still more remarkable, whenever the sun shone on this huge figure, it flickered and glimmered; its vast countenance, too, had a metallic lustre, and threw great flashes of splendor through the air. the folds of its garments, moreover, instead of waving in the wind, fell heavily over its limbs, as if woven of some kind of metal. the nigher the vessel came, the more theseus wondered what this immense giant could be, and whether it actually had life or no. for, though it walked, and made other lifelike motions, there yet was a kind of jerk in its gait, which, together with its brazen aspect, caused the young prince to suspect that it was no true giant, but only a wonderful piece of machinery. the figure looked all the more terrible because it carried an enormous brass club on its shoulder. "what is this wonder?" theseus asked of the master of the vessel, who was now at leisure to answer him. "it is talus, the man of brass," said the master. "and is he a live giant, or a brazen image?" asked theseus. "that, truly," replied the master, "is the point which has always perplexed me. some say, indeed, that this talus was hammered out for king minos by vulcan himself, the skilfullest of all workers in metal. but who ever saw a brazen image that had sense enough to walk round an island three times a day, as this giant walks round the island of crete, challenging every vessel that comes nigh the shore? and, on the other hand, what living thing, unless his sinews were made of brass, would not be weary of marching eighteen hundred miles in the twenty-four hours, as talus does, without ever sitting down to rest? he is a puzzler, take him how you will." still the vessel went bounding onward; and now theseus could hear the brazen clangor of the giant's footsteps, as he trod heavily upon the sea-beaten rocks, some of which were seen to crack and crumble into the foaming waves beneath his weight. as they approached the entrance of the port, the giant straddled clear across it, with a foot firmly planted on each headland, and uplifting his club to such a height that its butt-end was hidden in the cloud, he stood in that formidable posture, with the sun gleaming all over his metallic surface. there seemed nothing else to be expected but that, the next moment, he would fetch his great club down, slam bang, and smash the vessel into a thousand pieces, without heeding how many innocent people he might destroy; for there is seldom any mercy in a giant, you know, and quite as little in a piece of brass clockwork. but just when theseus and his companions thought the blow was coming, the brazen lips unclosed themselves, and the figure spoke. "whence come you, strangers?" and when the ringing voice ceased, there was just such a reverberation as you may have heard within a great church bell, for a moment or two after the stroke of the hammer. "from athens!" shouted the master in reply. "on what errand?" thundered the man of brass. and he whirled his club aloft more threateningly than ever, as if he were about to smite them with a thunderstroke right amidships, because athens, so little while ago, had been at war with crete. "we bring the seven youths and the seven maidens," answered the master, "to be devoured by the minotaur!" "pass!" cried the brazen giant. that one loud word rolled all about the sky, while again there was a booming reverberation within the figure's breast. the vessel glided between the headlands of the port, and the giant resumed his march. in a few moments, this wondrous sentinel was far away, flashing in the distant sunshine, and revolving with immense strides round the island of crete, as it was his never-ceasing task to do. no sooner had they entered the harbor than a party of the guards of king minos came down to the water side, and took charge of the fourteen young men and damsels. surrounded by these armed warriors, prince theseus and his companions were led to the king's palace, and ushered into his presence. now, minos was a stern and pitiless king. if the figure that guarded crete was made of brass, then the monarch, who ruled over it, might be thought to have a still harder metal in his breast, and might have been called a man of iron. he bent his shaggy brows upon the poor athenian victims. any other mortal, beholding their fresh and tender beauty, and their innocent looks, would have felt himself sitting on thorns until he had made every soul of them happy by bidding them go free as the summer wind. but this immitigable minos cared only to examine whether they were plump enough to satisfy the minotaur's appetite. for my part, i wish he himself had been the only victim; and the monster would have found him a pretty tough one. one after another, king minos called these pale, frightened youths and sobbing maidens to his footstool, gave them each a poke in the ribs with his sceptre (to try whether they were in good flesh or no), and dismissed them with a nod to his guards. but when his eyes rested on theseus, the king looked at him more attentively, because his face was calm and brave. "young man," asked he, with his stern voice, "are you not appalled at the certainty of being devoured by this terrible minotaur?" "i have offered my life in a good cause," answered theseus, "and therefore i give it freely and gladly. but thou, king minos, art thou not thyself appalled, who, year after year, hast perpetrated this dreadful wrong, by giving seven innocent youths and as many maidens to be devoured by a monster? dost thou not tremble, wicked king, to turn thine eyes inward on thine own heart? sitting there on thy golden throne, and in thy robes of majesty, i tell thee to thy face, king minos, thou art a more hideous monster than the minotaur himself!" "aha! do you think me so?" cried the king, laughing in his cruel way. "to-morrow, at breakfast time, you shall have an opportunity of judging which is the greater monster, the minotaur or the king! take them away, guards; and let this free-spoken youth be the minotaur's first morsel." near the king's throne (though i had no time to tell you so before) stood his daughter ariadne. she was a beautiful and tender-hearted maiden, and looked at these poor doomed captives with very different feelings from those of the iron-breasted king minos. she really wept indeed, at the idea of how much human happiness would be needlessly thrown away, by giving so many young people, in the first bloom and rose blossom of their lives, to be eaten up by a creature who, no doubt, would have preferred a fat ox, or even a large pig, to the plumpest of them. and when she beheld the brave, spirited figure of prince theseus bearing himself so calmly in his terrible peril, she grew a hundred times more pitiful than before. as the guards were taking him away, she flung herself at the king's feet, and besought him to set all the captives free, and especially this one young man. "peace, foolish girl!" answered king minos. "what hast thou to do with an affair like this? it is a matter of state policy, and therefore quite beyond thy weak comprehension. go water thy flowers, and think no more of these athenian caitiffs, whom the minotaur shall as certainly eat up for breakfast as i will eat a partridge for my supper." so saying, the king looked cruel enough to devour theseus and all the rest of the captives himself, had there been no minotaur to save him the trouble. as he would hear not another word in their favor, the prisoners were now led away, and clapped into a dungeon, where the jailer advised them to go to sleep as soon as possible, because the minotaur was in the habit of calling for breakfast early. the seven maidens and six of the young men soon sobbed themselves to slumber. but theseus was not like them. he felt conscious that he was wiser, and braver, and stronger than his companions, and that therefore he had the responsibility of all their lives upon him, and must consider whether there was no way to save them, even in this last extremity. so he kept himself awake, and paced to and fro across the gloomy dungeon in which they were shut up. just before midnight, the door was softly unbarred, and the gentle ariadne showed herself, with a torch in her hand. "are you awake, prince theseus?" she whispered. "yes," answered theseus. "with so little time to live, i do not choose to waste any of it in sleep." "then follow me," said ariadne, "and tread softly." what had become of the jailer and the guards, theseus never knew. but, however that might be, ariadne opened all the doors, and led him forth from the darksome prison into the pleasant moonlight. "theseus," said the maiden, "you can now get on board your vessel, and sail away for athens." "no," answered the young man; "i will never leave crete unless i can first slay the minotaur, and save my poor companions, and deliver athens from this cruel tribute." "i knew that this would be your resolution," said ariadne. "come, then, with me, brave theseus. here is your own sword, which the guards deprived you of. you will need it; and pray heaven you may use it well." then she led theseus along by the hand until they came to a dark, shadowy grove, where the moonlight wasted itself on the tops of the trees, without shedding hardly so much as a glimmering beam upon their pathway. after going a good way through this obscurity, they reached a high marble wall, which was overgrown with creeping plants, that made it shaggy with their verdure. the wall seemed to have no door, nor any windows, but rose up, lofty, and massive, and mysterious, and was neither to be clambered over, nor, as far as theseus could perceive, to be passed through. nevertheless, ariadne did but press one of her soft little fingers against a particular block of marble and, though it looked as solid as any other part of the wall, it yielded to her touch, disclosing an entrance just wide enough to admit them they crept through, and the marble stone swung back into its place. "we are now," said ariadne, "in the famous labyrinth which daedalus built before he made himself a pair of wings, and flew away from our island like a bird. that daedalus was a very cunning workman; but of all his artful contrivances, this labyrinth is the most wondrous. were we to take but a few steps from the doorway, we might wander about all our lifetime, and never find it again. yet in the very center of this labyrinth is the minotaur; and, theseus, you must go thither to seek him." "but how shall i ever find him," asked theseus, "if the labyrinth so bewilders me as you say it will?" just as he spoke, they heard a rough and very disagreeable roar, which greatly resembled the lowing of a fierce bull, but yet had some sort of sound like the human voice. theseus even fancied a rude articulation in it, as if the creature that uttered it were trying to shape his hoarse breath into words. it was at some distance, however, and he really could not tell whether it sounded most like a bull's roar or a man's harsh voice. "that is the minotaur's noise," whispered ariadne, closely grasping the hand of theseus, and pressing one of her own hands to her heart, which was all in a tremble. "you must follow that sound through the windings of the labyrinth, and, by and by, you will find him. stay! take the end of this silken string; i will hold the other end; and then, if you win the victory, it will lead you again to this spot. farewell, brave theseus." so the young man took the end of the silken string in his left hand, and his gold-hilted sword, ready drawn from its scabbard, in the other, and trod boldly into the inscrutable labyrinth. how this labyrinth was built is more than i can tell you. but so cunningly contrived a mizmaze was never seen in the world, before nor since. there can be nothing else so intricate, unless it were the brain of a man like daedalus, who planned it, or the heart of any ordinary man; which last, to be sure, is ten times as great a mystery as the labyrinth of crete. theseus had not taken five steps before he lost sight of ariadne; and in five more his head was growing dizzy. but still he went on, now creeping through a low arch, now ascending a flight of steps, now in one crooked passage and now in another, with here a door opening before him, and there one banging behind, until it really seemed as if the walls spun round, and whirled him round along with them. and all the while, through these hollow avenues, now nearer, now farther off again, resounded the cry of the minotaur; and the sound was so fierce, so cruel, so ugly, so like a bull's roar, and withal so like a human voice, and yet like neither of them, that the brave heart of theseus grew sterner and angrier at every step; for he felt it an insult to the moon and sky, and to our affectionate and simple mother earth, that such a monster should have the audacity to exist. as he passed onward, the clouds gathered over the moon, and the labyrinth grew so dusky that theseus could no longer discern the bewilderment through which he was passing. he would have left quite lost, and utterly hopeless of ever again walking in a straight path, if, every little while, he had not been conscious of a gentle twitch at the silken cord. then he knew that the tender-hearted ariadne was still holding the other end, and that she was fearing for him, and hoping for him, and giving him just as much of her sympathy as if she were close by his side. o, indeed, i can assure you, there was a vast deal of human sympathy running along that slender thread of silk. but still he followed the dreadful roar of the minotaur, which now grew louder and louder, and finally so very loud that theseus fully expected to come close upon him, at every new zizgag and wriggle of the path. and at last, in an open space, at the very center of the labyrinth, he did discern the hideous creature. sure enough, what an ugly monster it was! only his horned head belonged to a bull; and yet, somehow or other, he looked like a bull all over, preposterously waddling on his hind legs; or, if you happened to view him in another way, he seemed wholly a man, and all the more monstrous for being so. and there he was, the wretched thing, with no society, no companion, no kind of a mate, living only to do mischief, and incapable of knowing what affection means. theseus hated him, and shuddered at him, and yet could not but be sensible of some sort of pity; and all the more, the uglier and more detestable the creature was. for he kept striding to and fro, in a solitary frenzy of rage, continually emitting a hoarse roar, which was oddly mixed up with half-shaped words; and, after listening a while, theseus understood that the minotaur was saying to himself how miserable he was, and how hungry, and how he hated everybody, and how he longed to eat up the human race alive. ah! the bull-headed villain! and o, my good little people, you will perhaps see, one of these days, as i do now, that every human being who suffers any thing evil to get into his nature, or to remain there, is a kind of minotaur, an enemy of his fellow-creatures, and separated from all good companionship, as this poor monster was. was theseus afraid? by no means, my dear auditors. what! a hero like theseus afraid! not had the minotaur had twenty bull-heads instead of one. bold as he was, however, i rather fancy that it strengthened his valiant heart, just at this crisis, to feel a tremulous twitch at the silken cord, which he was still holding in his left hand. it was as if ariadne were giving him all her might and courage; and much as he already had, and little as she had to give, it made his own seem twice as much. and to confess the honest truth, he needed the whole; for now the minotaur, turning suddenly about, caught sight of theseus, and instantly lowered his horribly sharp horns, exactly as a mad bull does when he means to rush against an enemy. at the same time, he belched forth a tremendous roar, in which there was something like the words of human language, but all disjointed and shaken to pieces by passing through the gullet of a miserably enraged brute. theseus could only guess what the creature intended to say, and that rather by his gestures than his words; for the minotaur's horns were sharper than his wits, and of a great deal more service to him than his tongue. but probably this was the sense of what he uttered: "ah, wretch of a human being! i'll stick my horns through you, and toss you fifty feet high, and eat you up the moment you come down." "come on, then, and try it!" was all that theseus deigned to reply; for he was far too magnanimous to assault his enemy with insolent language. without more words on either side, there ensued the most awful fight between theseus and the minotaur that ever happened beneath the sun or moon. i really know not how it might have turned out, if the monster, in his first headlong rush against theseus, had not missed him, by a hair's breadth, and broken one of his horns short off against the stone wall. on this mishap, he bellowed so intolerably that a part of the labyrinth tumbled down, and all the inhabitants of crete mistook the noise for an uncommonly heavy thunder storm. smarting with the pain, he galloped around the open space in so ridiculous a way that theseus laughed at it, long afterwards, though not precisely at the moment. after this, the two antagonists stood valiantly up to one another, and fought, sword to horn, for a long while. at last, the minotaur made a run at theseus, grazed his left side with his horn, and flung him down; and thinking that he had stabbed him to the heart, he cut a great caper in the air, opened his bull mouth from ear to ear, and prepared to snap his head off. but theseus by this time had leaped up, and caught the monster off his guard. fetching a sword stroke at him with all his force, he hit him fair upon the neck, and made his bull head skip six yards from his human body, which fell down flat upon the ground. so now the battle was ended. immediately the moon shone out as brightly as if all the troubles of the world, and all the wickedness and the ugliness that infest human life, were past and gone forever. and theseus, as he leaned on his sword, taking breath, felt another twitch of the silken cord; for all through the terrible encounter, he had held it fast in his left hand. eager to let ariadne know of his success, he followed the guidance of the thread, and soon found himself at the entrance of the labyrinth. "thou hast slain the monster," cried ariadne, clasping her hands. "thanks to thee, dear ariadne," answered theseus, "i return victorious." "then," said ariadne, "we must quickly summon thy friends, and get them and thyself on board the vessel before dawn. if morning finds thee here, my father will avenge the minotaur." to make my story short, the poor captives were awakened, and, hardly knowing whether it was not a joyful dream, were told of what theseus had done, and that they must set sail for athens before daybreak. hastening down to the vessel, they all clambered on board, except prince theseus, who lingered behind them on the strand, holding ariadne's hand clasped in his own. "dear maiden," said he, "thou wilt surely go with us. thou art too gentle and sweet a child for such an iron-hearted father as king minos. he cares no more for thee than a granite rock cares for the little flower that grows in one of its crevices. but my father, king aegeus, and my dear mother, aethra, and all the fathers and mothers in athens, and all the sons and daughters too, will love and honor thee as their benefactress. come with us, then; for king minos will be very angry when he knows what thou hast done." now, some low-minded people, who pretend to tell the story of theseus and ariadne, have the face to say that this royal and honorable maiden did really flee away, under cover of the night, with the young stranger whose life she had preserved. they say, too, that prince theseus (who would have died sooner than wrong the meanest creature in the world) ungratefully deserted ariadne, on a solitary island, where the vessel touched on its voyage to athens. but, had the noble theseus heard these falsehoods, he would have served their slanderous authors as he served the minotaur! here is what ariadne answered, when the brave prince of athens besought her to accompany him: "no, theseus," the maiden said, pressing his hand, and then drawing back a step or two, "i cannot go with you. my father is old, and has nobody but myself to love him. hard as you think his heart is, it would break to lose me. at first, king minos will be angry; but he will soon forgive his only child; and, by and by, he will rejoice, i know, that no more youths and maidens must come from athens to be devoured by the minotaur. i have saved you, theseus, as much for my father's sake as for your own. farewell! heaven bless you!" all this was so true, and so maiden-like, and was spoken with so sweet a dignity, that theseus would have blushed to urge her any longer. nothing remained for him, therefore, but to bid ariadne an affectionate farewell, and to go on board the vessel, and set sail. in a few moments the white foam was boiling up before their prow, as prince theseus and his companions sailed out of the harbor, with a whistling breeze behind them. talus, the brazen giant, on his never-ceasing sentinel's march, happened to be approaching that part of the coast; and they saw him, by the glimmering of the moonbeams on his polished surface, while he was yet a great way off. as the figure moved like clockwork, however, and could neither hasten his enormous strides nor retard them, he arrived at the port when they were just beyond the reach of his club. nevertheless, straddling from headland to headland, as his custom was, talus attempted to strike a blow at the vessel, and, overreaching himself, tumbled at full length into the sea, which splashed high over his gigantic shape, as when an iceberg turns a somerset. there he lies yet; and whoever desires to enrich himself by means of brass had better go thither with a diving bell, and fish up talus. on the homeward voyage, the fourteen youths and damsels were in excellent spirits, as you will easily suppose. they spent most of their time in dancing, unless when the sidelong breeze made the deck slope too much. in due season, they came within sight of the coast of attica, which was their native country. but here, i am grieved to tell you, happened a sad misfortune. you will remember (what theseus unfortunately forgot) that his father, king aegeus, had enjoined it upon him to hoist sunshiny sails, instead of black ones, in case he should overcome the minotaur, and return victorious. in the joy of their success, however, and amidst the sports, dancing, and other merriment, with which these young folks wore away the time, they never once thought whether their sails were black, white, or rainbow colored, and, indeed, left it entirely to the mariners whether they had any sails at all. thus the vessel returned, like a raven, with the same sable wings that had wafted her away. but poor king aegeus, day after day, infirm as he was, had clambered to the summit of a cliff that overhung the sea, and there sat watching for prince theseus, homeward bound; and no sooner did he behold the fatal blackness of the sails, than he concluded that his dear son, whom he loved so much, and felt so proud of, had been eaten by the minotaur. he could not bear the thought of living any longer; so, first flinging his crown and sceptre into the sea (useless baubles that they were to him now), king aegeus merely stooped forward, and fell headlong over the cliff, and was drowned, poor soul, in the waves that foamed at its base! this was melancholy news for prince theseus, who, when he stepped ashore, found himself king of all the country, whether he would or no; and such a turn of fortune was enough to make any young man feel very much out of spirits. however, he sent for his dear mother to athens, and, by taking her advice in matters of state, became a very excellent monarch, and was greatly beloved by his people. the pygmies. a great while ago, when the world was full of wonders, there lived an earth-born giant, named antaeus, and a million or more of curious little earth-born people, who were called pygmies. this giant and these pygmies being children of the same mother (that is to say, our good old grandmother earth), were all brethren, and dwelt together in a very friendly and affectionate manner, far, far off, in the middle of hot africa. the pygmies were so small, and there were so many sandy deserts and such high mountains between them and the rest of mankind, that nobody could get a peep at them oftener than once in a hundred years. as for the giant, being of a very lofty stature, it was easy enough to see him, but safest to keep out of his sight. among the pygmies, i suppose, if one of them grew to the height of six or eight inches, he was reckoned a prodigiously tall man. it must have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with streets two or three feet wide, paved with the smallest pebbles, and bordered by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage. the king's palace attained to the stupendous magnitude of periwinkle's baby house, and stood in the center of a spacious square, which could hardly have been covered by our hearth-rug. their principal temple, or cathedral, was as lofty as yonder bureau, and was looked upon as a wonderfully sublime and magnificent edifice. all these structures were built neither of stone nor wood. they were neatly plastered together by the pygmy workmen, pretty much like birds' nests, out of straw, feathers, egg shells, and other small bits of stuff, with stiff clay instead of mortar; and when the hot sun had dried them, they were just as snug and comfortable as a pygmy could desire. the country round about was conveniently laid out in fields, the largest of which was nearly of the same extent as one of sweet fern's flower beds. here the pygmies used to plant wheat and other kinds of grain, which, when it grew up and ripened, overshadowed these tiny people as the pines, and the oaks, and the walnut and chestnut trees overshadow you and me, when we walk in our own tracts of woodland. at harvest time, they were forced to go with their little axes and cut down the grain, exactly as a woodcutter makes a clearing in the forest; and when a stalk of wheat, with its overburdened top, chanced to come crashing down upon an unfortunate pygmy, it was apt to be a very sad affair. if it did not smash him all to pieces, at least, i am sure, it must have made the poor little fellow's head ache. and o, my stars! if the fathers and mothers were so small, what must the children and babies have been? a whole family of them might have been put to bed in a shoe, or have crept into an old glove, and played at hide-and-seek in its thumb and fingers. you might have hidden a year-old baby under a thimble. now these funny pygmies, as i told you before, had a giant for their neighbor and brother, who was bigger, if possible, than they were little. he was so very tall that he carried a pine tree, which was eight feet through the butt, for a walking stick. it took a far-sighted pygmy, i can assure you, to discern his summit without the help of a telescope; and sometimes, in misty weather, they could not see his upper half, but only his long legs, which seemed to be striding about by themselves. but at noonday in a clear atmosphere, when the sun shone brightly over him, the giant antaeus presented a very grand spectacle. there he used to stand, a perfect mountain of a man, with his great countenance smiling down upon his little brothers, and his one vast eye (which was as big as a cart wheel, and placed right in the center of his forehead) giving a friendly wink to the whole nation at once. the pygmies loved to talk with antaeus; and fifty times a day, one or another of them would turn up his head, and shout through the hollow of his fists, "halloo, brother antaeus! how are you, my good fellow?" and when the small distant squeak of their voices reached his ear, the giant would make answer, "pretty well, brother pygmy, i thank you," in a thunderous roar that would have shaken down the walls of their strongest temple, only that it came from so far aloft. it was a happy circumstance that antaeus was the pygmy people's friend; for there was more strength in his little finger than in ten million of such bodies as this. if he had been as ill-natured to them as he was to everybody else, he might have beaten down their biggest city at one kick, and hardly have known that he did it. with the tornado of his breath, he could have stripped the roofs from a hundred dwellings and sent thousands of the inhabitants whirling through the air. he might have set his immense foot upon a multitude; and when he took it up again, there would have been a pitiful sight, to be sure. but, being the son of mother earth, as they likewise were, the giant gave them his brotherly kindness, and loved them with as big a love as it was possible to feel for creatures so very small. and, on their parts, the pygmies loved antaeus with as much affection as their tiny hearts could hold. he was always ready to do them any good offices that lay in his power; as for example, when they wanted a breeze to turn their windmills, the giant would set all the sails a-going with the mere natural respiration of his lungs. when the sun was too hot, he often sat himself down, and let his shadow fall over the kingdom, from one frontier to the other; and as for matters in general, he was wise enough to let them alone, and leave the pygmies to manage their own affairs--which, after all, is about the best thing that great people can do for little ones. in short, as i said before, antaeus loved the pygmies, and the pygmies loved antaeus. the giant's life being as long as his body was large, while the lifetime of a pygmy was but a span, this friendly intercourse had been going on for innumerable generations and ages. it was written about in the pygmy histories, and talked about in their ancient traditions. the most venerable and white-bearded pygmy had never heard of a time, even in his greatest of grandfathers' days, when the giant was not their enormous friend. once, to be sure (as was recorded on an obelisk, three feet high, erected on the place of the catastrophe), antaeus sat down upon about five thousand pygmies, who were assembled at a military review. but this was one of those unlucky accidents for which nobody is to blame; so that the small folks never took it to heart, and only requested the giant to be careful forever afterwards to examine the acre of ground where he intended to squat himself. it is a very pleasant picture to imagine antaeus standing among the pygmies, like the spire of the tallest cathedral that ever was built, while they ran about like pismires at his feet; and to think that, in spite of their difference in size, there were affection and sympathy between them and him! indeed, it has always seemed to me that the giant needed the little people more than the pygmies needed the giant. for, unless they had been his neighbors and well wishers, and, as we may say, his playfellows, antaeus would not have had a single friend in the world. no other being like himself had ever been created. no creature of his own size had ever talked with him, in thunder-like accents, face to face. when he stood with his head among the clouds, he was quite alone, and had been so for hundreds of years, and would be so forever. even if he had met another giant, antaeus would have fancied the world not big enough for two such vast personages, and, instead of being friends with him, would have fought him till one of the two was killed. but with the pygmies he was the most sportive and humorous, and merry-hearted, and sweet-tempered old giant that ever washed his face in a wet cloud. his little friends, like all other small people, had a great opinion of their own importance, and used to assume quite a patronizing air towards the giant. "poor creature!" they said one to another. "he has a very dull time of it, all by himself; and we ought not to grudge wasting a little of our precious time to amuse him. he is not half so bright as we are, to be sure; and, for that reason, he needs us to look after his comfort and happiness. let us be kind to the old fellow. why, if mother earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been giants too." on all their holidays, the pygmies had excellent sport with antaeus. he often stretched himself out at full length on the ground, where he looked like the long ridge of a hill; and it was a good hour's walk, no doubt, for a short-legged pygmy to journey from head to foot of the giant. he would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and challenge the tallest of them to clamber upon it, and straddle from finger to finger. so fearless were they, that they made nothing of creeping in among the folds of his garments. when his head lay sidewise on the earth, they would march boldly up, and peep into the great cavern of his mouth, and take it all as a joke (as indeed it was meant) when antaeus gave a sudden snap of his jaws, as if he were going to swallow fifty of them at once. you would have laughed to see the children dodging in and out among his hair, or swinging from his beard. it is impossible to tell half of the funny tricks that they played with their huge comrade; but i do not know that anything was more curious than when a party of boys were seen running races on his forehead, to try which of them could get first round the circle of his one great eye. it was another favorite feat with them to march along the bridge of his nose, and jump down upon his upper lip. if the truth must be told, they were sometimes as troublesome to the giant as a swarm of ants or mosquitoes, especially as they had a fondness for mischief, and liked to prick his skin with their little swords and lances, to see how thick and tough it was. but antaeus took it all kindly enough; although, once in a while, when he happened to be sleepy, he would grumble out a peevish word or two, like the muttering of a tempest, and ask them to have done with their nonsense. a great deal oftener, however, he watched their merriment and gambols until his huge, heavy, clumsy wits were completely stirred up by them; and then would he roar out such a tremendous volume of immeasurable laughter, that the whole nation of pygmies had to put their hands to their ears, else it would certainly have deafened them. "ho! ho! ho!" quoth the giant, shaking his mountainous sides. "what a funny thing it is to be little! if i were not antaeus, i should like to be a pygmy, just for the joke's sake." the pygmies had but one thing to trouble them in the world. they were constantly at war with the cranes, and had always been so, ever since the long-lived giant could remember. from time to time, very terrible battles had been fought in which sometimes the little men won the victory, and sometimes the cranes. according to some historians, the pygmies used to go to the battle, mounted on the backs of goats and rams; but such animals as these must have been far too big for pygmies to ride upon; so that, i rather suppose, they rode on squirrel-back, or rabbit-back, or rat-back, or perhaps got upon hedgehogs, whose prickly quills would be very terrible to the enemy. however this might be, and whatever creatures the pygmies rode upon, i do not doubt that they made a formidable appearance, armed with sword and spear, and bow and arrow, blowing their tiny trumpet, and shouting their little war cry. they never failed to exhort one another to fight bravely, and recollect that the world had its eyes upon them; although, in simple truth, the only spectator was the giant antaeus, with his one, great, stupid eye in the middle of his forehead. when the two armies joined battle, the cranes would rush forward, flapping their wings and stretching out their necks, and would perhaps snatch up some of the pygmies crosswise in their beaks. whenever this happened, it was truly an awful spectacle to see those little men of might kicking and sprawling in the air, and at last disappearing down the crane's long, crooked throat, swallowed up alive. a hero, you know, must hold himself in readiness for any kind of fate; and doubtless the glory of the thing was a consolation to him, even in the crane's gizzard. if antaeus observed that the battle was going hard against his little allies, he generally stopped laughing, and ran with mile-long strides to their assistance, flourishing his club aloft and shouting at the cranes, who quacked and croaked, and retreated as fast as they could. then the pygmy army would march homeward in triumph, attributing the victory entirely to their own valor, and to the warlike skill and strategy of whomsoever happened to be captain general; and for a tedious while afterwards, nothing would be heard of but grand processions, and public banquets, and brilliant illuminations, and shows of wax-work, with likenesses of the distinguished officers, as small as life. in the above-described warfare, if a pygmy chanced to pluck out a crane's tail feather, it proved a very great feather in his cap. once or twice, if you will believe me, a little man was made chief ruler of the nation for no other merit in the world than bringing home such a feather. but i have now said enough to let you see what a gallant little people these were, and how happily they and their forefathers, for nobody knows how many generations, had lived with the immeasurable giant antaeus. in the remaining part of the story, i shall tell you of a far more astonishing battle than any that was fought between the pygmies and the cranes. one day the mighty antaeus was lolling at full length among his little friends. his pine-tree walking stick lay on the ground, close by his side. his head was in one part of the kingdom, and his feet extended across the boundaries of another part; and he was taking whatever comfort he could get, while the pygmies scrambled over him, and peeped into his cavernous mouth, and played among his hair. sometimes, for a minute or two, the giant dropped asleep, and snored like the rush of a whirlwind. during one of these little bits of slumber, a pygmy chanced to climb upon his shoulder, and took a view around the horizon, as from the summit of a hill; and he beheld something, a long way off, which made him rub the bright specks of his eyes, and look sharper than before. at first he mistook it for a mountain, and wondered how it had grown up so suddenly out of the earth. but soon he saw the mountain move. as it came nearer and nearer, what should it turn out to be but a human shape, not so big as antaeus, it is true, although a very enormous figure, in comparison with pygmies, and a vast deal bigger than the men we see nowadays. when the pygmy was quite satisfied that his eyes had not deceived him, he scampered, as fast as his legs would carry him, to the giant's ear, and stooping over its cavity, shouted lustily into it: "halloo, brother antaeus! get up this minute, and take your pine-tree walking stick in your hand. here comes another giant to have a tussle with you." "poh, poh!" grumbled antaeus, only half awake. "none of your nonsense, my little fellow! don't you see i'm sleepy? there is not a giant on earth for whom i would take the trouble to get up." but the pygmy looked again, and now perceived that the stranger was coming directly towards the prostrate form of antaeus. with every step, he looked less like a blue mountain, and more like an immensely large man. he was soon so nigh, that there could be no possible mistake about the matter. there he was, with the sun flaming on his golden helmet, and flashing from his polished breastplate; he had a sword by his side, and a lion's skin over his back, and on his right shoulder he carried a club, which looked bulkier and heavier than the pine-tree walking stick of antaeus. by this time, the whole nation of the pygmies had seen the new wonder, and a million of them set up a shout all together; so that it really made quite an audible squeak. "get up, antaeus! bestir yourself, you lazy old giant! here comes another giant, as strong as you are, to fight with you." "nonsense, nonsense!" growled the sleepy giant. "i'll have my nap out, come who may." still the stranger drew nearer; and now the pygmies could plainly discern that, if his stature were less lofty than the giant's, yet his shoulders were even broader. and, in truth, what a pair of shoulders they must have been! as i told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky. the pygmies, being ten times as vivacious as their great numskull of a brother, could not abide the giant's slow movements, and were determined to have him on his feet. so they kept shouting to him, and even went so far as to prick him with their swords. "get up, get up, get up," they cried. "up with you, lazy bones! the strange giant's club is bigger than your own, his shoulders are the broadest, and we think him the stronger of the two." antaeus could not endure to have it said that any mortal was half so mighty as himself. this latter remark of the pygmies pricked him deeper than their swords; and, sitting up, in rather a sulky humor, he gave a gape of several yards wide, rubbed his eyes, and finally turned his stupid head in the direction whither his little friends were eagerly pointing. no sooner did he set eyes on the stranger, than, leaping on his feet, and seizing his walking stick, he strode a mile or two to meet him; all the while brandishing the sturdy pine tree, so that it whistled through the air. "who are you?" thundered the giant. "and what do you want in my dominions?" there was one strange thing about antaeus, of which i have not yet told you, lest, hearing of so many wonders all in a lump, you might not believe much more than half of them. you are to know, then, that whenever this redoubtable giant touched the ground, either with his hand, his foot, or any other part of his body, he grew stronger than ever he had been before. the earth, you remember, was his mother, and was very fond of him, as being almost the biggest of her children; and so she took this method of keeping him always in full vigor. some persons affirm that he grew ten times stronger at every touch; others say that it was only twice as strong. but only think of it! whenever antaeus took a walk, supposing it were but ten miles, and that he stepped a hundred yards at a stride, you may try to cipher out how much mightier he was, on sitting down again, than when he first started. and whenever he flung himself on the earth to take a little repose, even if he got up the very next instant, he would be as strong as exactly ten just such giants as his former self. it was well for the world that antaeus happened to be of a sluggish disposition and liked ease better than exercise; for, if he had frisked about like the pygmies, and touched the earth as often as they did, he would long ago have been strong enough to pull down the sky about people's ears. but these great lubberly fellows resemble mountains, not only in bulk, but in their disinclination to move. any other mortal man, except the very one whom antaeus had now encountered, would have been half frightened to death by the giant's ferocious aspect and terrible voice. but the stranger did not seem at all disturbed. he carelessly lifted his club, and balanced it in his hand, measuring antaeus with his eye, from head to foot, not as if wonder-smitten at his stature, but as if he had seen a great many giants before, and this was by no means the biggest of them. in fact, if the giant had been no bigger than the pygmies (who stood pricking up their ears, and looking and listening to what was going forward), the stranger could not have been less afraid of him. "who are you, i say?" roared antaeus again. "what's your name? why do you come hither? speak, you vagabond, or i'll try the thickness of your skull with my walking-stick!" "you are a very discourteous giant," answered the stranger quietly, "and i shall probably have to teach you a little civility, before we part. as for my name, it is hercules. i have come hither because this is my most convenient road to the garden of the hesperides, whither i am going to get three of the golden apples for king eurystheus." "caitiff, you shall go no farther!" bellowed antaeus, putting on a grimmer look than before; for he had heard of the mighty hercules, and hated him because he was said to be so strong. "neither shall you go back whence you came!" "how will you prevent me," asked hercules, "from going whither i please?" "by hitting you a rap with this pine tree here," shouted antaeus, scowling so that he made himself the ugliest monster in africa. "i am fifty times stronger than you; and now that i stamp my foot upon the ground, i am five hundred times stronger! i am ashamed to kill such a puny little dwarf as you seem to be. i will make a slave of you, and you shall likewise be the slave of my brethren here, the pygmies. so throw down your club and your other weapons; and as for that lion's skin, i intend to have a pair of gloves made of it." "come and take it off my shoulders, then," answered hercules, lifting his club. then the giant, grinning with rage, strode tower-like towards the stranger (ten times strengthened at every step), and fetched a monstrous blow at him with his pine tree, which hercules caught upon his club; and being more skilful than antaeus, he paid him back such a rap upon the sconce, that down tumbled the great lumbering man-mountain, flat upon the ground. the poor little pygmies (who really never dreamed that anybody in the world was half so strong as their brother antaeus) were a good deal dismayed at this. but no sooner was the giant down, than up he bounced again, with tenfold might, and such a furious visage as was horrible to behold. he aimed another blow at hercules, but struck awry, being blinded with wrath, and only hit his poor innocent mother earth, who groaned and trembled at the stroke. his pine tree went so deep into the ground, and stuck there so fast, that, before antaeus could get it out, hercules brought down his club across his shoulders with a mighty thwack, which made the giant roar as if all sorts of intolerable noises had come screeching and rumbling out of his immeasurable lungs in that one cry. away it went, over mountains and valleys, and, for aught i know, was heard on the other side of the african deserts. as for the pygmies, their capital city was laid in ruins by the concussion and vibration of the air; and, though there was uproar enough without their help, they all set up a shriek out of three millions of little throats, fancying, no doubt, that they swelled the giant's bellow by at least ten times as much. meanwhile, antaeus had scrambled upon his feet again, and pulled his pine tree out of the earth; and, all aflame with fury, and more outrageously strong than ever, he ran at hercules, and brought down another blow. "this time, rascal," shouted he, "you shall not escape me." but once more hercules warded off the stroke with his club, and the giant's pine tree was shattered into a thousand splinters, most of which flew among the pygmies, and did them more mischief than i like to think about. before antaeus could get out of the way, hercules let drive again, and gave him another knock-down blow, which sent him heels over head, but served only to increase his already enormous and insufferable strength. as for his rage, there is no telling what a fiery furnace it had now got to be. his one eye was nothing but a circle of red flame. having now no weapons but his fists, he doubled them up (each bigger than a hogshead), smote one against the other, and danced up and down with absolute frenzy, flourishing his immense arms about, as if he meant not merely to kill hercules, but to smash the whole world to pieces. "come on!" roared this thundering giant. "let me hit you but one box on the ear, and you'll never have the headache again." now hercules (though strong enough, as you already know, to hold the sky up) began to be sensible that he should never win the victory, if he kept on knocking antaeus down; for, by and by, if he hit him such hard blows, the giant would inevitably, by the help of his mother earth, become stronger than the mighty hercules himself. so, throwing down his club, with which he had fought so many dreadful battles, the hero stood ready to receive his antagonist with naked arms. "step forward," cried he. "since i've broken your pine tree, we'll try which is the better man at a wrestling match." "aha! then i'll soon satisfy you," shouted the giant; for, if there was one thing on which he prided himself more than another, it was his skill in wrestling. "villain, i'll fling you where you can never pick yourself up again." on came antaeus, hopping and capering with the scorching heat of his rage, and getting new vigor wherewith to wreak his passion, every time he hopped. but hercules, you must understand, was wiser than this numskull of a giant, and had thought of a way to fight him--huge, earth-born monster that he was--and to conquer him too, in spite of all that his mother earth could do for him. watching his opportunity, as the mad giant made a rush at him, hercules caught him round the middle with both hands, lifted him high into the air, and held him aloft overhead. just imagine it, my dear little friends. what a spectacle it must have been, to see this monstrous fellow sprawling in the air, face downwards, kicking out his long legs and wriggling his whole vast body, like a baby when its father holds it at arm's length towards the ceiling. but the most wonderful thing was, that, as soon as antaeus was fairly off the earth, he began to lose the vigor which he had gained by touching it. hercules very soon perceived that his troublesome enemy was growing weaker, both because he struggled and kicked with less violence, and because the thunder of his big voice subsided into a grumble. the truth was that unless the giant touched mother earth as often as once in five minutes, not only his overgrown strength, but the very breath of his life, would depart from him. hercules had guessed this secret; and it may be well for us all to remember it, in case we should ever have to fight a battle with a fellow like antaeus. for these earth-born creatures are only difficult to conquer on their own ground, but may easily be managed if we can contrive to lift them into a loftier and purer region. so it proved with the poor giant, whom i am really a little sorry for, notwithstanding his uncivil way of treating strangers who came to visit him. when his strength and breath were quite gone, hercules gave his huge body a toss, and flung it about a mile off, where it fell heavily, and lay with no more motion than a sand hill. it was too late for the giant's mother earth to help him now; and i should not wonder if his ponderous bones were lying on the same spot to this very day, and were mistaken for those of an uncommonly large elephant. but, alas me! what a wailing did the poor little pygmies set up when they saw their enormous brother treated in this terrible manner! if hercules heard their shrieks, however, he took no notice, and perhaps fancied them only the shrill, plaintive twittering of small birds that had been frightened from their nests by the uproar of the battle between himself and antaeus. indeed, his thoughts had been so much taken up with the giant, that he had never once looked at the pygmies, nor even knew that there was such a funny little nation in the world. and now, as he had traveled a good way, and was also rather weary with his exertions in the fight, he spread out his lion's skin on the ground, and, reclining himself upon it, fell fast asleep. as soon as the pygmies saw hercules preparing for a nap, they nodded their little heads at one another, and winked with their little eyes. and when his deep, regular breathing gave them notice that he was asleep, they assembled together in an immense crowd, spreading over a space of about twenty-seven feet square. one of their most eloquent orators (and a valiant warrior enough, besides, though hardly so good at any other weapon as he was with his tongue) climbed upon a toadstool, and, from that elevated position, addressed the multitude. his sentiments were pretty much as follows; or, at all events, something like this was probably the upshot of his speech: "tall pygmies and mighty little men! you and all of us have seen what a public calamity has been brought to pass, and what an insult has here been offered to the majesty of our nation. yonder lies antaeus, our great friend and brother, slain, within our territory, by a miscreant who took him at disadvantage, and fought him (if fighting it can be called) in a way that neither man, nor giant, nor pygmy ever dreamed of fighting, until this hour. and, adding a grievous contumely to the wrong already done us, the miscreant has now fallen asleep as quietly as if nothing were to be dreaded from our wrath! it behooves you, fellow-countrymen, to consider in what aspect we shall stand before the world, and what will be the verdict of impartial history, should we suffer these accumulated outrages to go unavenged. "antaeus was our brother, born of that same beloved parent to whom we owe the thews and sinews, as well as the courageous hearts, which made him proud of our relationship. he was our faithful ally, and fell fighting as much for our national rights and immunities as for his own personal ones. we and our forefathers have dwelt in friendship with him, and held affectionate intercourse as man to man, through immemorial generations. you remember how often our entire people have reposed in his great shadow, and how our little ones have played at hide-and-seek in the tangles of his hair, and how his mighty footsteps have familiarly gone to and fro among us, and never trodden upon any of our toes. and there lies this dear brother--this sweet and amiable friend--this brave and faithful ally---this virtuous giant--this blameless and excellent antaeus--dead! dead! silent! powerless! a mere mountain of clay! forgive my tears! nay, i behold your own. were we to drown the world with them, could the world blame us? "but to resume: shall we, my countrymen, suffer this wicked stranger to depart unharmed, and triumph in his treacherous victory, among distant communities of the earth? shall we not rather compel him to leave his bones here on our soil, by the side of our slain brother's bones? so that, while one skeleton shall remain as the everlasting monument of our sorrow, the other shall endure as long, exhibiting to the whole human race a terrible example of pygmy vengeance! such is the question. i put it to you in full confidence of a response that shall be worthy of our national character, and calculated to increase, rather than diminish, the glory which our ancestors have transmitted to us, and which we ourselves have proudly vindicated in our warfare with the cranes." the orator was here interrupted by a burst of irrepressible enthusiasm; every individual pygmy crying out that the national honor must be preserved at all hazards. he bowed, and, making a gesture for silence, wound up his harangue in the following admirable manner: "it only remains for us, then, to decide whether we shall carry on the war in our national capacity--one united people against a common enemy--or whether some champion, famous in former fights, shall be selected to defy the slayer of our brother antaeus to single combat. in the latter case, though not unconscious that there may be taller men among you, i hereby offer myself for that enviable duty. and believe me, dear countrymen, whether i live or die, the honor of this great country, and the fame bequeathed us by our heroic progenitors, shall suffer no diminution in my hands. never, while i can wield this sword, of which i now fling away the scabbard--never, never, never, even if the crimson hand that slew the great antaeus shall lay me prostrate, like him, on the soil which i give my life to defend." so saying, this valiant pygmy drew out his weapon (which was terrible to behold, being as long as the blade of a penknife), and sent the scabbard whirling over the heads of the multitude. his speech was followed by an uproar of applause, as its patriotism and self-devotion unquestionably deserved; and the shouts and clapping of hands would have been greatly prolonged, had they not been rendered quite inaudible by a deep respiration, vulgarly called a snore, from the sleeping hercules. it was finally decided that the whole nation of pygmies should set to work to destroy hercules; not, be it understood, from any doubt that a single champion would be capable of putting him to the sword, but because he was a public enemy, and all were desirous of sharing in the glory of his defeat. there was a debate whether the national honor did not demand that a herald should be sent with a trumpet, to stand over the ear of hercules, and after blowing a blast right into it, to defy him to the combat by formal proclamation. but two or three venerable and sagacious pygmies, well versed in state affairs, gave it as their opinion that war already existed, and that it was their rightful privilege to take the enemy by surprise. moreover, if awakened, and allowed to get upon his feet, hercules might happen to do them a mischief before he could be beaten down again. for, as these sage counselors remarked, the stranger's club was really very big, and had rattled like a thunderbolt against the skull of antaeus. so the pygmies resolved to set aside all foolish punctilios, and assail their antagonist at once. accordingly, all the fighting men of the nation took their weapons, and went boldly up to hercules, who still lay fast asleep, little dreaming of the harm which the pygmies meant to do him. a body of twenty thousand archers marched in front, with their little bows all ready, and the arrows on the string. the same number were ordered to clamber upon hercules, some with spades to dig his eyes out, and others with bundles of hay, and all manner of rubbish with which they intended to plug up his mouth and nostrils, so that he might perish for lack of breath. these last, however, could by no means perform their appointed duty; inasmuch as the enemy's breath rushed out of his nose in an obstreperous hurricane and whirlwind, which blew the pygmies away as fast as they came nigh. it was found necessary, therefore, to hit upon some other method of carrying on the war. after holding a council, the captains ordered their troops to collect sticks, straws, dry weeds, and whatever combustible stuff they could find, and make a pile of it, heaping it high around the head of hercules. as a great many thousand pygmies were employed in this task, they soon brought together several bushels of inflammatory matter, and raised so tall a heap, that, mounting on its summit, they were quite upon a level with the sleeper's face. the archers, meanwhile, were stationed within bow shot, with orders to let fly at hercules the instant that he stirred. everything being in readiness, a torch was applied to the pile, which immediately burst into flames, and soon waxed hot enough to roast the enemy, had he but chosen to lie still. a pygmy, you know, though so very small, might set the world on fire, just as easily as a giant could; so that this was certainly the very best way of dealing with their foe, provided they could have kept him quiet while the conflagration was going forward. but no sooner did hercules begin to be scorched, than up he started, with his hair in a red blaze. "what's all this?" he cried, bewildered with sleep, and staring about him as if he expected to see another giant. at that moment the twenty thousand archers twanged their bowstrings, and the arrows came whizzing, like so many winged mosquitoes, right into the face of hercules. but i doubt whether more than half a dozen of them punctured the skin, which was remarkably tough, as you know the skin of a hero has good need to be. "villain!" shouted all the pygmies at once. "you have killed the giant antaeus, our great brother, and the ally of our nation. we declare bloody war against you, and will slay you on the spot." surprised at the shrill piping of so many little voices, hercules, after putting out the conflagration of his hair, gazed all round about, but could see nothing. at last, however, looking narrowly on the ground, he espied the innumerable assemblage of pygmies at his feet. he stooped down, and taking up the nearest one between his thumb and finger, set him on the palm of his left hand, and held him at a proper distance for examination. it chanced to be the very identical pygmy who had spoken from the top of the toadstool, and had offered himself as a champion to meet hercules in single combat. "what in the world, my little fellow," ejaculated hercules, "may you be?" "i am your enemy," answered the valiant pygmy, in his mightiest squeak. "you have slain the enormous antaeus, our brother by the mother's side, and for ages the faithful ally of our illustrious nation. we are determined to put you to death; and for my own part, i challenge you to instant battle, on equal ground." hercules was so tickled with the pygmy's big words and warlike gestures, that he burst into a great explosion of laughter, and almost dropped the poor little mite of a creature off the palm of his hand, through the ecstasy and convulsion of his merriment. "upon my word," cried he, "i thought i had seen wonders before to-day--hydras with nine heads, stags with golden horns, six-legged men, three-headed dogs, giants with furnaces in their stomachs, and nobody knows what besides. but here, on the palm of my hand, stands a wonder that outdoes them all! your body, my little friend, is about the size of an ordinary man's finger. pray, how big may your soul be?" "as big as your own!" said the pygmy. hercules was touched with the little man's dauntless courage, and could not help acknowledging such a brotherhood with him as one hero feels for another. "my good little people," said he, making a low obeisance to the grand nation, "not for all the world would i do an intentional injury to such brave fellows as you! your hearts seem to me so exceedingly great, that, upon my honor, i marvel how your small bodies can contain them. i sue for peace, and, as a condition of it, will take five strides, and be out of your kingdom at the sixth. good-bye. i shall pick my steps carefully, for fear of treading upon some fifty of you, without knowing it. ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! for once, hercules acknowledges himself vanquished." some writers say, that hercules gathered up the whole race of pygmies in his lion's skin, and carried them home to greece, for the children of king eurystheus to play with. but this is a mistake. he left them, one and all, within their own territory, where, for aught i can tell, their descendants are alive to the present day, building their little houses, cultivating their little fields, spanking their little children, waging their little warfare with the cranes, doing their little business, whatever it may be, and reading their little histories of ancient times. in those histories, perhaps, it stands recorded, that, a great many centuries ago, the valiant pygmies avenged the death of the giant antaeus by scaring away the mighty hercules. the dragon's teeth. cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, the three sons of king agenor, and their little sister europa (who was a very beautiful child), were at play together near the seashore in their father's kingdom of phoenicia. they had rambled to some distance from the palace where their parents dwelt, and were now in a verdant meadow, on one side of which lay the sea, all sparkling and dimpling in the sunshine, and murmuring gently against the beach. the three boys were very happy, gathering flowers, and twining them into garlands, with which they adorned the little europa. seated on the grass, the child was almost hidden under an abundance of buds and blossoms, whence her rosy face peeped merrily out, and, as cadmus said, was the prettiest of all the flowers. just then, there came a splendid butterfly, fluttering along the meadow; and cadmus, phoenix, and cilix set off in pursuit of it, crying out that it was a flower with wings. europa, who was a little wearied with playing all day long, did not chase the butterfly with her brothers, but sat still where they had left her, and closed her eyes. for a while, she listened to the pleasant murmur of the sea, which was like a voice saying "hush!" and bidding her go to sleep. but the pretty child, if she slept at all, could not have slept more than a moment, when she heard something trample on the grass, not far from her, and, peeping out from the heap of flowers, beheld a snow-white bull. and whence could this bull have come? europa and her brothers had been a long time playing in the meadow, and had seen no cattle, nor other living thing, either there or on the neighboring hills. "brother cadmus!" cried europa, starting up out of the midst of the roses and lilies. "phoenix! cilix! where are you all? help! help! come and drive away this bull!" but her brothers were too far off to hear; especially as the fright took away europa's voice, and hindered her from calling very loudly. so there she stood, with her pretty mouth wide open, as pale as the white lilies that were twisted among the other flowers in her garlands. nevertheless, it was the suddenness with which she had perceived the bull, rather than anything frightful in his appearance, that caused europa so much alarm. on looking at him more attentively, she began to see that he was a beautiful animal, and even fancied a particularly amiable expression in his face. as for his breath--the breath of cattle, you know, is always sweet--it was as fragrant as if he had been grazing on no other food than rosebuds, or at least, the most delicate of clover blossoms. never before did a bull have such bright and tender eyes, and such smooth horns of ivory, as this one. and the bull ran little races, and capered sportively around the child; so that she quite forgot how big and strong he was, and, from the gentleness and playfulness of his actions, soon came to consider him as innocent a creature as a pet lamb. thus, frightened as she at first was, you might by and by have seen europa stroking the bull's forehead with her small white hand, and taking the garlands off her own head to hang them on his neck and ivory horns. then she pulled up some blades of grass, and he ate them out of her hand, not as if he were hungry, but because he wanted to be friends with the child, and took pleasure in eating what she had touched. well, my stars! was there ever such a gentle, sweet, pretty, and amiable creature as this bull, and ever such a nice playmate for a little girl? when the animal saw (for the bull had so much intelligence that it is really wonderful to think of), when he saw that europa was no longer afraid of him, he grew overjoyed, and could hardly contain himself for delight. he frisked about the meadow, now here, now there, making sprightly leaps, with as little effort as a bird expends in hopping from twig to twig. indeed, his motion was as light as if he were flying through the air, and his hoofs seemed hardly to leave their print in the grassy soil over which he trod. with his spotless hue, he resembled a snow drift, wafted along by the wind. once he galloped so far away that europa feared lest she might never see him again; so, setting up her childish voice, called him back. "come back, pretty creature!" she cried. "here is a nice clover blossom." and then it was delightful to witness the gratitude of this amiable bull, and how he was so full of joy and thankfulness that he capered higher than ever. he came running, and bowed his head before europa, as if he knew her to be a king's daughter, or else recognized the important truth that a little girl is everybody's queen. and not only did the bull bend his neck, he absolutely knelt down at her feet, and made such intelligent nods, and other inviting gestures, that europa understood what he meant just as well as if he had put it in so many words. "come, dear child," was what he wanted to say, "let me give you a ride on my back." at the first thought of such a thing, europa drew back. but then she considered in her wise little head that there could be no possible harm in taking just one gallop on the back of this docile and friendly animal, who would certainly set her down the very instant she desired it. and how it would surprise her brothers to see her riding across the green meadow! and what merry times they might have, either taking turns for a gallop, or clambering on the gentle creature, all four children together, and careering round the field with shouts of laughter that would be heard as far off as king agenor's palace! "i think i will do it," said the child to herself. and, indeed, why not? she cast a glance around, and caught a glimpse of cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, who were still in pursuit of the butterfly, almost at the other end of the meadow. it would be the quickest way of rejoining them, to get upon the white bull's back. she came a step nearer to him therefore; and--sociable creature that he was--he showed so much joy at this mark of her confidence, that the child could not find in her heart to hesitate any longer. making one bound (for this little princess was as active as a squirrel), there sat europa on the beautiful bull, holding an ivory horn in each hand, lest she should fall off. "softly, pretty bull, softly!" she said, rather frightened at what she had done. "do not gallop too fast." having got the child on his back, the animal gave a leap into the air, and came down so like a feather that europa did not know when his hoofs touched the ground. he then began a race to that part of the flowery plain where her three brothers were, and where they had just caught their splendid butterfly. europa screamed with delight; and phoenix, cilix, and cadmus stood gaping at the spectacle of their sister mounted on a white bull, not knowing whether to be frightened or to wish the same good luck for themselves. the gentle and innocent creature (for who could possibly doubt that he was so?) pranced round among the children as sportively as a kitten. europa all the while looked down upon her brothers, nodding and laughing, but yet with a sort of stateliness in her rosy little face. as the bull wheeled about to take another gallop across the meadow, the child waved her hand, and said, "good-bye," playfully pretending that she was now bound on a distant journey, and might not see her brothers again for nobody could tell how long. "good-bye," shouted cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, all in one breath. but, together with her enjoyment of the sport, there was still a little remnant of fear in the child's heart; so that her last look at the three boys was a troubled one, and made them feel as if their dear sister were really leaving them forever. and what do you think the snowy bull did next? why, he set off, as swift as the wind, straight down to the seashore, scampered across the sand, took an airy leap, and plunged right in among the foaming billows. the white spray rose in a shower over him and little europa, and fell spattering down upon the water. then what a scream of terror did the poor child send forth! the three brothers screamed manfully, likewise, and ran to the shore as fast as their legs would carry them, with cadmus at their head. but it was too late. when they reached the margin of the sand, the treacherous animal was already far away in the wide blue sea, with only his snowy head and tail emerging, and poor little europa between them, stretching out one hand towards her dear brothers, while she grasped the bull's ivory horn with the other. and there stood cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, gazing at this sad spectacle, through their tears, until they could no longer distinguish the bull's snowy head from the white-capped billows that seemed to boil up out of the sea's depths around him. nothing more was ever seen of the white bull--nothing more of the beautiful child. this was a mournful story, as you may well think, for the three boys to carry home to their parents. king agenor, their father, was the ruler of the whole country; but he loved his little daughter europa better than his kingdom, or than all his other children, or than anything else in the world. therefore, when cadmus and his two brothers came crying home, and told him how that a white bull had carried off their sister, and swam with her over the sea, the king was quite beside himself with grief and rage. although it was now twilight, and fast growing dark, he bade them set out instantly in search of her. "never shall you see my face again," he cried, "unless you bring me back my little europa, to gladden me with her smiles and her pretty ways. begone, and enter my presence no more, till you come leading her by the hand." as king agenor said this, his eyes flashed fire (for he was a very passionate king), and he looked so terribly angry that the poor boys did not even venture to ask for their suppers, but slunk away out of the palace, and only paused on the steps a moment to consult whither they should go first. while they were standing there, all in dismay, their mother, queen telephassa (who happened not to be by when they told the story to the king), came hurrying after them, and said that she too would go in quest of her daughter. "o, no, mother!" cried the boys. "the night is dark, and there is no knowing what troubles and perils we may meet with." "alas! my dear children," answered poor queen telephassa; weeping bitterly, "that is only another reason why i should go with you. if i should lose you, too, as well as my little europa, what would become of me!" "and let me go likewise!" said their playfellow thasus, who came running to join them. thasus was the son of a seafaring person in the neighborhood; he had been brought up with the young princes, and was their intimate friend, and loved europa very much; so they consented that he should accompany them. the whole party, therefore, set forth together. cadmus, phoenix, cilix, and thasus clustered round queen telephassa, grasping her skirts, and begging her to lean upon their shoulders whenever she felt weary. in this manner they went down the palace steps, and began a journey, which turned out to be a great deal longer than they dreamed of. the last that they saw of king agenor, he came to the door, with a servant holding a torch beside him, and called after them into the gathering darkness: "remember! never ascend these steps again without the child!" "never!" sobbed queen telephassa; and the three brothers and thasus answered, "never! never! never! never!" and they kept their word. year after year, king agenor sat in the solitude of his beautiful palace, listening in vain for their returning footsteps, hoping to hear the familiar voice of the queen, and the cheerful talk of his sons and their playfellow thasus, entering the door together, and the sweet, childish accents of little europa in the midst of them. but so long a time went by, that, at last, if they had really come, the king would not have known that this was the voice of telephassa, and these the younger voices that used to make such joyful echoes, when the children were playing about the palace. we must now leave king agenor to sit on his throne, and must go along with queen telephassa, and her four youthful companions. they went on and on, and traveled a long way, and passed over mountains and rivers, and sailed over seas. here, and there, and everywhere, they made continual inquiry if any person could tell them what had become of europa. the rustic people, of whom they asked this question, paused a little while from their labors in the field, and looked very much surprised. they thought it strange to behold a woman in the garb of a queen (for telephassa in her haste had forgotten to take off her crown and her royal robes), roaming about the country, with four lads around her, on such an errand as this seemed to be. but nobody could give them any tidings of europa; nobody had seen a little girl dressed like a princess, and mounted on a snow-white bull, which galloped as swiftly as the wind. i cannot tell you how long queen telephassa, and cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, her three sons, and thasus, their playfellow, went wandering along the highways and bypaths, or through the pathless wildernesses of the earth, in this manner. but certain it is, that, before they reached any place of rest, their splendid garments were quite worn out. they all looked very much travel-stained, and would have had the dust of many countries on their shoes, if the streams, through which they waded, had not washed it all away. when they had been gone a year, telephassa threw away her crown, because it chafed her forehead. "it has given me many a headache," said the poor queen, "and it cannot cure my heartache." as fast as their princely robes got torn and tattered, they exchanged them for such mean attire as ordinary people wore. by and by, they come to have a wild and homeless aspect; so that you would much sooner have taken them for a gypsy family than a queen and three princes, and a young nobleman, who had once a palace for a home, and a train of servants to do their bidding. the four boys grew up to be tall young men, with sunburnt faces. each of them girded on a sword, to defend themselves against the perils of the way. when the husbandmen, at whose farmhouses they sought hospitality, needed their assistance in the harvest field, they gave it willingly; and queen telephassa (who had done no work in her palace, save to braid silk threads with golden ones) came behind them to bind the sheaves. if payment was offered, they shook their heads, and only asked for tidings of europa. "there are bulls enough in my pasture," the old farmers would reply; "but i never heard of one like this you tell me of. a snow-white bull with a little princess on his back! ho! ho! i ask your pardon, good folks; but there never such a sight seen hereabouts." at last, when his upper lip began to have the down on it, phoenix grew weary of rambling hither and thither to no purpose. so one day, when they happened to be passing through a pleasant and solitary tract of country, he sat himself down on a heap of moss. "i can go no farther," said phoenix. "it is a mere foolish waste of life, to spend it as we do, always wandering up and down, and never coming to any home at nightfall. our sister is lost, and never will be found. she probably perished in the sea; or, to whatever shore the white bull may have carried her, it is now so many years ago, that there would be neither love nor acquaintance between us, should we meet again. my father has forbidden us to return to his palace, so i shall build me a hut of branches, and dwell here." "well, son phoenix," said telephassa, sorrowfully, "you have grown to be a man, and must do as you judge best. but, for my part, i will still go in quest of my poor child." "and we three will go along with you!" cried cadmus and cilix, and their faithful friend thasus. but, before setting out, they all helped phoenix to build a habitation. when completed, it was a sweet rural bower, roofed overhead with an arch of living boughs. inside there were two pleasant rooms, one of which had a soft heap of moss for a bed, while the other was furnished with a rustic seat or two, curiously fashioned out of the crooked roots of trees. so comfortable and home-like did it seem, that telephassa and her three companions could not help sighing, to think that they must still roam about the world, instead of spending the remainder of their lives in some such cheerful abode as they had here built for phoenix. but, when they bade him farewell, phoenix shed tears, and probably regretted that he was no longer to keep them company. however, he had fixed upon an admirable place to dwell in. and by and by there came other people, who chanced to have no homes; and, seeing how pleasant a spot it was, they built themselves huts in the neighborhood of phoenix's habitation. thus, before many years went by, a city had grown up there, in the center of which was seen a stately palace of marble, wherein dwelt phoenix, clothed in a purple robe, and wearing a golden crown upon his head. for the inhabitants of the new city, finding that he had royal blood in his veins, had chosen him to be their king. the very first decree of state which king phoenix issued was, that, if a maiden happened to arrive in the kingdom, mounted on a snow-white bull, and calling herself europa, his subjects should treat her with the greatest kindness and respect, and immediately bring her to the palace. you may see, by this, that phoenix's conscience never quite ceased to trouble him, for giving up the quest of his dear sister, and sitting himself down to be comfortable, while his mother and her companions went onward. but often and often, at the close of a weary day's journey, did telephassa and cadmus, cilix, and thasus, remember the pleasant spot in which they had left phoenix. it was a sorrowful prospect for these wanderers, that on the morrow they must again set forth, and that, after many nightfalls, they would perhaps be no nearer the close of their toilsome pilgrimage than now. these thoughts made them all melancholy at times, but appeared to torment cilix more than the rest of the party. at length, one morning, when they were taking their staffs in hand to set out, he thus addressed them: "my dear mother, and you, good brother cadmus, and my friend thasus, methinks we are like people in a dream. there is no substance in the life which we are leading. it is such a dreary length of time since the white bull carried off my sister europa, that i have quite forgotten how she looked, and the tones of her voice, and, indeed, almost doubt whether such a little girl ever lived in the world. and whether she once lived or no, i am convinced that she no longer survives, and that therefore it is the merest folly to waste our own lives and happiness in seeking her. were we to find her, she would now be a woman grown, and would look upon us all as strangers. so, to tell you the truth, i have resolved to take up my abode here; and i entreat you, mother, brother, and friend, to follow my example." "not i, for one," said telephassa; although the poor queen, firmly as she spoke, was so travel-worn that she could hardly put her foot to the ground. "not i, for one! in the depths of my heart, little europa is still the rosy child who ran to gather flowers so many years ago. she has not grown to womanhood, nor forgotten me. at noon, at night, journeying onward, sitting down to rest, her childish voice is always in my ears, calling, 'mother! mother!' stop here who may, there is no repose for me." "nor for me," said cadmus, "while my dear mother pleases to go onward." and the faithful thasus, too, was resolved to bear them company. they remained with cilix a few days, however, and helped him to build a rustic bower, resembling the one which they had formerly built for phoenix. when they were bidding him farewell cilix burst into tears, and told his mother that it seemed just as melancholy a dream to stay there, in solitude, as to go onward. if she really believed that they would ever find europa, he was willing to continue the search with them, even now. but telephassa bade him remain there, and be happy, if his own heart would let him. so the pilgrims took their leave of him, and departed, and were hardly out of sight before some other wandering people came along that way, and saw cilix's habitation, and were greatly delighted with the appearance of the place. there being abundance of unoccupied ground in the neighborhood, these strangers built huts for themselves, and were soon joined by a multitude of new settlers, who quickly formed a city. in the middle of it was seen a magnificent palace of colored marble, on the balcony of which, every noontide, appeared cilix, in a long purple robe, and with a jeweled crown upon his head; for the inhabitants, when they found out that he was a king's son, had considered him the fittest of all men to be a king himself. one of the first acts of king cilix's government was to send out an expedition, consisting of a grave ambassador, and an escort of bold and hardy young men, with orders to visit the principal kingdoms of the earth, and inquire whether a young maiden had passed through those regions, galloping swiftly on a white bull. it is, therefore, plain to my mind, that cilix secretly blamed himself for giving up the search for europa, as long as he was able to put one foot before the other. as for telephassa, and cadmus, and the good thasus, it grieves me to think of them, still keeping up that weary pilgrimage. the two young men did their best for the poor queen, helping her over the rough places, often carrying her across rivulets in their faithful arms and seeking to shelter her at nightfall, even when they themselves lay on the ground. sad, sad it was to hear them asking of every passer-by if he had seen europa, so long after the white bull had carried her away. but, though the gray years thrust themselves between, and made the child's figure dim in their remembrance, neither of these true-hearted three ever dreamed of giving up the search. one morning, however, poor thasus found that he had sprained his ankle, and could not possibly go a step farther. "after a few days, to be sure," said he, mournfully, "i might make shift to hobble along with a stick. but that would only delay you, and perhaps hinder you from finding dear little europa, after all your pains and trouble. do you go forward, therefore, my beloved companions, and leave me to follow as i may." "thou hast been a true friend, dear thasus," said queen telephassa, kissing his forehead. "being neither my son, nor the brother of our lost europa, thou hast shown thyself truer to me and her than phoenix and cilix did, whom we have left behind us. without thy loving help, and that of my son cadmus, my limbs could not have borne me half so far as this. now, take thy rest, and be at peace. for--and it is the first time i have owned it to myself--i begin to question whether we shall ever find my beloved daughter in this world." saying this, the poor queen shed tears, because it was a grievous trial to the mother's heart to confess that her hopes were growing faint. from that day forward, cadmus noticed that she never traveled with the same alacrity of spirit that had heretofore supported her. her weight was heavier upon his arm. before setting out, cadmus helped thasus build a bower; while telephassa, being too infirm to give any great assistance, advised them how to fit it up and furnish it, so that it might be as comfortable as a hut of branches could. thasus, however, did not spend all his days in this green bower. for it happened to him, as to phoenix and cilix, that other homeless people visited the spot, and liked it, and built themselves habitations in the neighborhood. so here, in the course of a few years, was another thriving city, with a red freestone palace in the center of it, where thasus sat upon a throne, doing justice to the people, with a purple robe over his shoulders, a sceptre in his hand, and a crown upon his head. the inhabitants had made him king, not for the sake of any royal blood (for none was in his veins), but because thasus was an upright, true-hearted, and courageous man, and therefore fit to rule. but when the affairs of his kingdom were all settled, king thasus laid aside his purple robe and crown, and sceptre, and bade his worthiest subjects distribute justice to the people in his stead. then, grasping the pilgrim's staff that had supported him so long, he set forth again, hoping still to discover some hoof-mark of the snow-white bull, some trace of the vanished child. he returned after a lengthened absence, and sat down wearily upon his throne. to his latest hour, nevertheless, king thasus showed his true-hearted remembrance of europa, by ordering that a fire should always be kept burning in his palace, and a bath steaming hot, and food ready to be served up, and a bed with snow-white sheets, in case the maiden should arrive, and require immediate refreshment. and, though europa never came, the good thasus had the blessings of many a poor traveler, who profited by the food and lodging which were meant for the little playmate of the king's boyhood. telephassa and cadmus were now pursuing their weary way, with no companion but each other. the queen leaned heavily upon her son's arm, and could walk only a few miles a day. but for all her weakness and weariness, she would not be persuaded to give up the search. it was enough to bring tears into the eyes of bearded men to hear the melancholy tone with which she inquired of every stranger whether he could not tell her any news of the lost child. "have you seen a little girl--no, no, i mean a young maiden of full growth--passing by this way, mounted on a snow-white bull, which gallops as swiftly as the wind?" "we have seen no such wondrous sight," the people would reply; and very often, taking cadmus aside, they whispered to him, "is this stately and sad-looking woman your mother? surely she is not in her right mind; and you ought to take her home, and make her comfortable, and do your best to get this dream out of her fancy." "it is no dream," said cadmus. "everything else is a dream, save that." but, one day, telephassa seemed feebler than usual, and leaned almost her whole weight on the arm of cadmus, and walked more slowly than ever before. at last they reached a solitary spot, where she told her son that she must needs lie down, and take a good long rest. "a good long rest!" she repeated, looking cadmus tenderly in the face. "a good long rest, thou dearest one!" "as long as you please, dear mother," answered cadmus. telephassa bade him sit down on the turf beside her, and then she took his hand. "my son," said she, fixing her dim eyes most lovingly upon him, "this rest that i speak of will be very long indeed! you must not wait till it is finished. dear cadmus, you do not comprehend me. you must make a grave here, and lay your mother's weary frame into it. my pilgrimage is over." cadmus burst into tears, and, for a long time, refused to believe that his dear mother was now to be taken from him. but telephassa reasoned with him, and kissed him, and at length made him discern that it was better for her spirit to pass away out of the toil, the weariness, and grief, and disappointment which had burdened her on earth, ever since the child was lost. he therefore repressed his sorrow, and listened to her last words. "dearest cadmus," said she, "thou hast been the truest son that ever mother had, and faithful to the very last. who else would have borne with my infirmities as thou hast! it is owing to thy care, thou tenderest child, that my grave was not dug long years ago, in some valley, or on some hillside, that lies far, far behind us. it is enough. thou shalt wander no more on this hopeless search. but, when thou hast laid thy mother in the earth, then go, my son, to delphi, and inquire of the oracle what thou shalt do next." "o mother, mother," cried cadmus, "couldst thou but have seen my sister before this hour!" "it matters little now," answered telephassa, and there was a smile upon her face. "i go now to the better world, and, sooner or later, shall find my daughter there." i will not sadden you, my little hearers, with telling how telephassa died and was buried, but will only say, that her dying smile grew brighter, instead of vanishing from her dead face; so that cadmus left convinced that, at her very first step into the better world, she had caught europa in her arms. he planted some flowers on his mother's grave, and left them to grow there, and make the place beautiful, when he should be far away. after performing this last sorrowful duty, he set forth alone, and took the road towards the famous oracle of delphi, as telephassa had advised him. on his way thither, he still inquired of most people whom he met whether they had seen europa; for, to say the truth, cadmus had grown so accustomed to ask the question, that it came to his lips as readily as a remark about the weather. he received various answers. some told him one thing, and some another. among the rest, a mariner affirmed, that, many years before, in a distant country, he had heard a rumor about a white bull, which came swimming across the sea with a child on his back, dressed up in flowers that were blighted by the sea water. he did not know what had become of the child or the bull; and cadmus suspected, indeed, by a queer twinkle in the mariner's eyes, that he was putting a joke upon him, and had never really heard anything about the matter. poor cadmus found it more wearisome to travel alone than to bear all his dear mother's weight, while she had kept him company. his heart, you will understand, was now so heavy that it seemed impossible, sometimes, to carry it any farther. but his limbs were strong and active, and well accustomed to exercise. he walked swiftly along, thinking of king agenor and queen telephassa, and his brothers, and the friendly thasus, all of whom he had left behind him, at one point of his pilgrimage or another, and never expected to see them any more. full of these remembrances, he came within sight of a lofty mountain, which the people thereabouts told him was called parnassus. on the slope of mount parnassus was the famous delphi, whither cadmus was going. this delphi was supposed to be the very midmost spot of the whole world. the place of the oracle was a certain cavity in the mountain side, over which, when cadmus came thither, he found a rude bower of branches. it reminded him of those which he had helped to build for phoenix and cilix, and afterwards for thasus. in later times, when multitudes of people came from great distances to put questions to the oracle, a spacious temple of marble was erected over the spot. but in the days of cadmus, as i have told you, there was only this rustic bower, with its abundance of green foliage, and a tuft of shrubbery, that ran wild over the mysterious hole in the hillside. when cadmus had thrust a passage through the tangled boughs, and made his way into the bower, he did not at first discern the half-hidden cavity. but soon he felt a cold stream of air rushing out of it, with so much force that it shook the ringlets on his cheek. pulling away the shrubbery which clustered over the hole, he bent forward, and spoke in a distinct but reverential tone, as if addressing some unseen personage inside of the mountain. "sacred oracle of delphi," said he, "whither shall i go next in quest of my dear sister europa?" there was at first a deep silence, and then a rushing sound, or a noise like a long sigh, proceeding out of the interior of the earth. this cavity, you must know, was looked upon as a sort of fountain of truth, which sometimes gushed out in audible words; although, for the most part, these words were such a riddle that they might just as well have staid at the bottom of the hole. but cadmus was more fortunate than many others who went to delphi in search of truth. by and by, the rushing noise began to sound like articulate language. it repeated, over and over again, the following sentence, which, after all, was so like the vague whistle of a blast of air, that cadmus really did not quite know whether it meant anything or not: "seek her no more! seek her no more! seek her no more!" "what, then, shall i do?" asked cadmus. for, ever since he was a child, you know, it had been the great object of his life to find his sister. from the very hour that he left following the butterfly in the meadow, near his father's palace, he had done his best to follow europa, over land and sea. and now, if he must give up the search, he seemed to have no more business in the world. but again the sighing gust of air grew into something like a hoarse voice. "follow the cow!" it said. "follow the cow! follow the cow!" and when these words had been repeated until cadmus was tired of hearing them (especially as he could not imagine what cow it was, or why he was to follow her), the gusty hole gave vent to another sentence. "where the stray cow lies down, there is your home." these words were pronounced but a single time, and died away into a whisper before cadmus was fully satisfied that he had caught the meaning. he put other questions, but received no answer; only the gust of wind sighed continually out of the cavity, and blew the withered leaves rustling along the ground before it. "did there really come any words out of the hole?" thought cadmus; "or have i been dreaming all this while?" he turned away from the oracle, and thought himself no wiser than when he came thither. caring little what might happen to him, he took the first path that offered itself, and went along at a sluggish pace; for, having no object in view, nor any reason to go one way more than another, it would certainly have been foolish to make haste. whenever he met anybody, the old question was at his tongue's end. "have you seen a beautiful maiden, dressed like a king's daughter, and mounted on a snow-white bull, that gallops as swiftly as the wind?" but, remembering what the oracle had said, he only half uttered the words, and then mumbled the rest indistinctly; and from his confusion, people must have imagined that this handsome young man had lost his wits. i know not how far cadmus had gone, nor could he himself have told you, when at no great distance before him, he beheld a brindled cow. she was lying down by the wayside, and quietly chewing her cud; nor did she take any notice of the young man until he had approached pretty nigh. then, getting leisurely upon her feet, and giving her head a gentle toss, she began to move along at a moderate pace, often pausing just long enough to crop a mouthful of grass. cadmus loitered behind, whistling idly to himself, and scarcely noticing the cow; until the thought occurred to him, whether this could possibly be the animal which, according to the oracle's response, was to serve him for a guide. but he smiled at himself for fancying such a thing. he could not seriously think that this was the cow, because she went along so quietly, behaving just like any other cow. evidently she neither knew nor cared so much as a wisp of hay about cadmus, and was only thinking how to get her living along the wayside, where the herbage was green and fresh. perhaps she was going home to be milked. "cow, cow, cow!" cried cadmus. "hey, brindle, hey! stop, my good cow!" he wanted to come up with the cow, so as to examine her, and see if she would appear to know him, or whether there were any peculiarities to distinguish her from a thousand other cows, whose only business is to fill the milk-pail, and sometimes kick it over. but still the brindled cow trudged on, whisking her tail to keep the flies away, and taking as little notice of cadmus as she well could. if he walked slowly, so did the cow, and seized the opportunity to graze. if he quickened his pace, the cow went just so much the faster; and once, when cadmus tried to catch her by running, she threw out her heels, stuck her tail straight on end, and set off at a gallop, looking as queerly as cows generally do, while putting themselves to their speed. when cadmus saw that it was impossible to come up with her, he walked on moderately, as before. the cow, too, went leisurely on, without looking behind. wherever the grass was greenest, there she nibbled a mouthful or two. where a brook glistened brightly across the path, there the cow drank, and breathed a comfortable sigh, and drank again, and trudged onward at the pace that best suited herself and cadmus. "i do believe," thought cadmus, "that this may be the cow that was foretold me. if it be the one, i suppose she will lie down somewhere hereabouts." whether it were the oracular cow or some other one, it did not seem reasonable that she should travel a great way farther. so, whenever they reached a particularly pleasant spot on a breezy hillside, or in a sheltered vale, or flowery meadow, on the shore of a calm lake, or along the bank of a clear stream, cadmus looked eagerly around to see if the situation would suit him for a home. but still, whether he liked the place or no, the brindled cow never offered to lie down. on she went at the quiet pace of a cow going homeward to the barn yard; and, every moment, cadmus expected to see a milkmaid approaching with a pail, or a herdsman running to head the stray animal, and turn her back towards the pasture. but no milkmaid came; no herdsman drove her back; and cadmus followed the stray brindle till he was almost ready to drop down with fatigue. "o brindled cow," cried he, in a tone of despair, "do you never mean to stop?" he had now grown too intent on following her to think of lagging behind, however long the way, and whatever might be his fatigue. indeed, it seemed as if there were something about the animal that bewitched people. several persons who happened to see the brindled cow, and cadmus following behind, began to trudge after her, precisely as he did. cadmus was glad of somebody to converse with, and therefore talked very freely to these good people. he told them all his adventures, and how he had left king agenor in his palace, and phoenix at one place, and cilix at another, and thasus at a third, and his dear mother, queen telephassa, under a flowery sod; so that now he was quite alone, both friendless and homeless. he mentioned, likewise, that the oracle had bidden him be guided by a cow, and inquired of the strangers whether they supposed that this brindled animal could be the one. "why, 'tis a very wonderful affair," answered one of his new companions. "i am pretty well acquainted with the ways of cattle, and i never knew a cow, of her own accord, to go so far without stopping. if my legs will let me, i'll never leave following the beast till she lies down." "nor i!" said a second. "nor i!" cried a third. "if she goes a hundred miles farther, i am determined to see the end of it." the secret of it was, you must know, that the cow was an enchanted cow, and that, without their being conscious of it, she threw some of her enchantment over everybody that took so much as half a dozen steps behind her. they could not possibly help following her, though all the time they fancied themselves doing it of their own accord. the cow was by no means very nice in choosing her path; so that sometimes they had to scramble over rocks, or wade through mud and mire, and all in a terribly bedraggled condition, and tired to death, and very hungry, into the bargain. what a weary business it was! but still they kept trudging stoutly forward, and talking as they went. the strangers grew very fond of cadmus, and resolved never to leave him, but to help him build a city wherever the cow might lie down. in the center of it there should be a noble palace, in which cadmus might dwell, and be their king, with a throne, a crown, a sceptre, a purple robe, and everything else that a king ought to have; for in him there was the royal blood, and the royal heart, and the head that knew how to rule. while they were talking of these schemes, and beguiling the tediousness of the way with laying out the plan of the new city, one of the company happened to look at the cow. "joy! joy!" cried he, clapping his hands. "brindle is going to lie down." they all looked; and, sure enough, the cow had stopped, and was staring leisurely about her, as other cows do when on the point of lying down. and slowly, slowly did she recline herself on the soft grass, first bending her forelegs, and then crouching her hind ones. when cadmus and his companions came up with her, there was the brindled cow taking her ease, chewing her cud, and looking them quietly in the face; as if this was just the spot she had been seeking for, and as if it were all a matter of course. "this, then," said cadmus, gazing around him, "this is to be my home." it was a fertile and lovely plain, with great trees flinging their sun-speckled shadows over it, and hills fencing it in from the rough weather. at no great distance, they beheld a river gleaming in the sunshine. a home feeling stole into the heart of poor cadmus. he was very glad to know that here he might awake in the morning without the necessity of putting on his dusty sandals to travel farther and farther. the days and the years would pass over him, and find him still in this pleasant spot. if he could have had his brothers with him, and his friend thasus, and could have seen his dear mother under a roof of his own, he might here have been happy after all their disappointments. some day or other, too, his sister europa might have come quietly to the door of his home, and smiled round upon the familiar faces. but, indeed, since there was no hope of regaining the friends of his boyhood, or ever seeing his dear sister again, cadmus resolved to make himself happy with these new companions, who had grown so fond of him while following the cow. "yes, my friends," said he to them, "this is to be our home. here we will build our habitations. the brindled cow, which has led us hither, will supply us with milk. we will cultivate the neighboring soil and lead an innocent and happy life." his companions joyfully assented to this plan; and, in the first place, being very hungry and thirsty, they looked about them for the means of providing a comfortable meal. not far off they saw a tuft of trees, which appeared as if there might be a spring of water beneath them. they went thither to fetch some, leaving cadmus stretched on the ground along with the brindled cow; for, now that he had found a place of rest, it seemed as if all the weariness of his pilgrimage, ever since he left king agenor's palace, had fallen upon him at once. but his new friends had not long been gone, when he was suddenly startled by cries, shouts, and screams, and the noise of a terrible struggle, and in the midst of it all, a most awful hissing, which went right through his ears like a rough saw. running towards the tuft of trees, he beheld the head and fiery eyes of an immense serpent or dragon, with the widest jaws that ever a dragon had, and a vast many rows of horribly sharp teeth. before cadmus could reach the spot, this pitiless reptile had killed his poor companions, and was busily devouring them, making but a mouthful of each man. it appears that the fountain of water was enchanted, and that the dragon had been set to guard it, so that no mortal might ever quench his thirst there. as the neighboring inhabitants carefully avoided the spot, it was now a long time (not less than a hundred years or thereabouts) since the monster had broken his fast; and, as was natural enough, his appetite had grown to be enormous, and was not half satisfied by the poor people whom he had just eaten up. when he caught sight of cadmus, therefore, he set up another abominable hiss, and flung back his immense jaws, until his mouth looked like a great red cavern, at the farther end of which were seen the legs of his last victim, whom he had hardly had time to swallow. but cadmus was so enraged at the destruction of his friends that he cared neither for the size of the dragon's jaws nor for his hundreds of sharp teeth. drawing his sword, he rushed at the monster, and flung himself right into his cavernous mouth. this bold method of attacking him took the dragon by surprise; for, in fact, cadmus had leaped so far down into his throat, that the rows of terrible teeth could not close upon him, nor do him the least harm in the world. thus, though the struggle was a tremendous one, and though the dragon shattered the tuft of trees into small splinters by the lashing of his tail, yet, as cadmus was all the while slashing and stabbing at his very vitals, it was not long before the scaly wretch bethought himself of slipping away. he had not gone his length, however, when the brave cadmus gave him a sword thrust that finished the battle; and creeping out of the gateway of the creature's jaws, there he beheld him still wriggling his vast bulk, although there was no longer life enough in him to harm a little child. but do not you suppose that it made cadmus sorrowful to think of the melancholy fate which had befallen those poor, friendly people, who had followed the cow along with him? it seemed as if he were doomed to lose everybody whom he loved, or to see them perish in one way or another. and here he was, after all his toils and troubles, in a solitary place, with not a single human being to help him build a hut. "what shall i do?" cried he aloud. "it were better for me to have been devoured by the dragon, as my poor companions were." "cadmus," said a voice but whether it came from above or below him, or whether it spoke within his own breast, the young man could not tell--"cadmus, pluck out the dragon's teeth, and plant them in the earth." this was a strange thing to do; nor was it very easy, i should imagine, to dig out all those deep-rooted fangs from the dead dragon's jaws. but cadmus toiled and tugged, and after pounding the monstrous head almost to pieces with a great stone, he at last collected as many teeth as might have filled a bushel or two. the next thing was to plant them. this, likewise, was a tedious piece of work, especially as cadmus was already exhausted with killing the dragon and knocking his head to pieces, and had nothing to dig the earth with, that i know of, unless it were his sword blade. finally, however, a sufficiently large tract of ground was turned up, and sown with this new kind of seed; although half of the dragon's teeth still remained to be planted some other day. cadmus, quite out of breath, stood leaning upon his sword, and wondering what was to happen next. he had waited but a few moments, when he began to see a sight, which was as great a marvel as the most marvelous thing i ever told you about. the sun was shining slantwise over the field, and showed all the moist, dark soil just like any other newly-planted piece of ground. all at once, cadmus fancied he saw something glisten very brightly, first at one spot, then at another, and then at a hundred and a thousand spots together. soon he perceived them to be the steel heads of spears, sprouting up everywhere like so many stalks of grain, and continually growing taller and taller. next appeared a vast number of bright sword blades, thrusting themselves up in the same way. a moment afterwards, the whole surface of the ground was broken by a multitude of polished brass helmets, coming up like a crop of enormous beans. so rapidly did they grow, that cadmus now discerned the fierce countenance of a man beneath every one. in short, before he had time to think what a wonderful affair it was, he beheld an abundant harvest of what looked like human beings, armed with helmets and breastplates, shields, swords, and spears; and before they were well out of the earth, they brandished their weapons, and clashed them one against another, seeming to think, little while as they had yet lived, that they had wasted too much of life without a battle. every tooth of the dragon had produced one of these sons of deadly mischief. up sprouted also a great many trumpeters; and with the first breath that they drew, they put their brazen trumpets to their lips, and sounded a tremendous and ear-shattering blast, so that the whole space, just now so quiet and solitary, reverberated with the clash and clang of arms, the bray of warlike music, and the shouts of angry men. so enraged did they all look, that cadmus fully expected them to put the whole world to the sword. how fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could get a bushel of the dragon's teeth to sow! "cadmus," said the same voice which he had before heard, "throw a stone into the midst of the armed men." so cadmus seized a large stone, and flinging it into the middle of the earth army, saw it strike the breastplate of a gigantic and fierce-looking warrior. immediately on feeling the blow, he seemed to take it for granted that somebody had struck him; and, uplifting his weapon, he smote his next neighbor a blow that cleft his helmet asunder, and stretched him on the ground. in an instant, those nearest the fallen warrior began to strike at one another with their swords, and stab with their spears. the confusion spread wider and wider. each man smote down his brother, and was himself smitten down before he had time to exult in his victory. the trumpeters, all the while, blew their blasts shriller and shriller; each soldier shouted a battle cry, and often fell with it on his lips. it was the strangest spectacle of causeless wrath, and of mischief for no good end, that had ever been witnessed; but, after all, it was neither more foolish nor more wicked than a thousand battles that have since been fought, in which men have slain their brothers with just as little reason as these children of the dragon's teeth. it ought to be considered, too, that the dragon people were made for nothing else; whereas other mortals were born to love and help one another. well, this memorable battle continued to rage until the ground was strewn with helmeted heads that had been cut off. of all the thousands that began the fight, there were only five left standing. these now rushed from different parts of the field, and, meeting in the middle of it, clashed their swords, and struck at each other's hearts as fiercely as ever. "cadmus," said the voice again, "bid those five warriors sheathe their swords. they will help you to build the city." without hesitating an instant, cadmus stepped forward, with the aspect of a king and a leader, and extending his drawn sword amongst them, spoke to the warriors in a stern and commanding voice. "sheathe your weapons!" said he. and forthwith, feeling themselves bound to obey him, the five remaining sons of the dragon's teeth made him a military salute with their swords, returned them to the scabbards, and stood before cadmus in a rank, eyeing him as soldiers eye their captain, while awaiting the word of command. these five men had probably sprung from the biggest of the dragon's teeth, and were the boldest and strongest of the whole army. they were almost giants indeed, and had good need to be so, else they never could have lived through so terrible a fight. they still had a very furious look, and, if cadmus happened to glance aside, would glare at one another, with fire flashing out of their eyes. it was strange, too, to observe how the earth, out of which they had so lately grown, was incrusted, here and there, on their bright breastplates, and even, begrimed their faces; just as you may have seen it clinging to beets and carrots, when pulled out of their native soil. cadmus hardly knew whether to consider them as men, or some odd kind of vegetable; although, on the whole, he concluded that there was human nature in them, because they were so fond of trumpets and weapons, and so ready to shed blood. they looked him earnestly in the face, waiting for his next order, and evidently desiring no other employment than to follow him from one battlefield to another, all over the wide world. but cadmus was wiser than these earth-born creatures, with the dragon's fierceness in them, and knew better how to use their strength and hardihood. "come!" said he. "you are sturdy fellows. make yourselves useful! quarry some stones with those great swords of yours, and help me to build a city." the five soldiers grumbled a little, and muttered that it was their business to overthrow cities, not to build them up. but cadmus looked at them with a stern eye, and spoke to them in a tone of authority, so that they knew him for their master, and never again thought of disobeying his commands. they set to work in good earnest, and toiled so diligently, that, in a very short time, a city began to make its appearance. at first, to be sure, the workmen showed a quarrelsome disposition. like savage beasts, they would doubtless have done one another a mischief, if cadmus had not kept watch over them, and quelled the fierce old serpent that lurked in their hearts, when he saw it gleaming out of their wild eyes. but, in course of time, they got accustomed to honest labor, and had sense enough to feel that there was more true enjoyment in living at peace, and doing good to one's neighbor, than in striking at him with a two-edged sword. it may not be too much to hope that the rest of mankind will by and by grow as wise and peaceable as these five earth-begrimed warriors, who sprang from the dragon's teeth. and now the city was built, and there was a home in it for each of the workmen. but the palace of cadmus was not yet erected, because they had left it till the last, meaning to introduce all the new improvements of architecture, and make it very commodious, as well as stately and beautiful. after finishing the rest of their labors, they all went to bed betimes, in order to rise in the gray of the morning, and get at least the foundation of the edifice laid before nightfall. but, when cadmus arose, and took his way towards the site where the palace was to be built, followed by his five sturdy workmen marching all in a row, what do you think he saw? what should it be but the most magnificent palace that had ever been seen in the world. it was built of marble and other beautiful kinds of stone, and rose high into the air, with a splendid dome and a portico along the front, and carved pillars, and everything else that befitted the habitation of a mighty king. it had grown up out of the earth in almost as short a time as it had taken the armed host to spring from the dragon's teeth; and what made the matter more strange, no seed of this stately edifice ever had been planted. when the five workmen beheld the dome, with the morning sunshine making it look golden and glorious, they gave a great shout. "long live king cadmus," they cried, "in his beautiful palace." and the new king, with his five faithful followers at his heels, shouldering their pickaxes and marching in a rank (for they still had a soldier-like sort of behavior, as their nature was), ascended the palace steps. halting at the entrance, they gazed through a long vista of lofty pillars, that were ranged from end to end of a great hall. at the farther extremity of this hall, approaching slowly towards him, cadmus beheld a female figure, wonderfully beautiful, and adorned with a royal robe, and a crown of diamonds over her golden ringlets, and the richest necklace that ever a queen wore. his heart thrilled with delight. he fancied it his long-lost sister europa, now grown to womanhood, coming to make him happy, and to repay him with her sweet sisterly affection, for all those weary wonderings in quest of her since he left king agenor's palace--for the tears that he had shed, on parting with phoenix, and cilix, and thasus--for the heart-breakings that had made the whole world seem dismal to him over his dear mother's grave. but, as cadmus advanced to meet the beautiful stranger, he saw that her features were unknown to him, although, in the little time that it required to tread along the hall, he had already felt a sympathy betwixt himself and her. "no, cadmus," said the same voice that had spoken to him in the field of the armed men, "this is not that dear sister europa whom you have sought so faithfully all over the wide world. this is harmonia, a daughter of the sky, who is given you instead of sister, and brothers, and friend, and mother. you will find all those dear ones in her alone." so king cadmus dwelt in the palace, with his new friend harmonia, and found a great deal of comfort in his magnificent abode, but would doubtless have found as much, if not more, in the humblest cottage by the wayside. before many years went by, there was a group of rosy little children (but how they came thither has always been a mystery to me) sporting in the great hall, and on the marble steps of the palace, and running joyfully to meet king cadmus when affairs of state left him at leisure to play with them. they called him father, and queen harmonia mother. the five old soldiers of the dragon's teeth grew very fond of these small urchins, and were never weary of showing them how to shoulder sticks, flourish wooden swords, and march in military order, blowing a penny trumpet, or beating an abominable rub-a-dub upon a little drum. but king cadmus, lest there should be too much of the dragon's tooth in his children's disposition, used to find time from his kingly duties to teach them their a b c--which he invented for their benefit, and for which many little people, i am afraid, are not half so grateful to him as they ought to be. circe's palace. some of you have heard, no doubt, of the wise king ulysses, and how he went to the siege of troy, and how, after that famous city was taken and burned, he spent ten long years in trying to get back again to his own little kingdom of ithaca. at one time in the course of this weary voyage, he arrived at an island that looked very green and pleasant, but the name of which was unknown to him. for, only a little while before he came thither, he had met with a terrible hurricane, or rather a great many hurricanes at once, which drove his fleet of vessels into a strange part of the sea, where neither himself nor any of his mariners had ever sailed. this misfortune was entirely owing to the foolish curiosity of his shipmates, who, while ulysses lay asleep, had untied some very bulky leathern bags, in which they supposed a valuable treasure to be concealed. but in each of these stout bags, king aeolus, the ruler of the winds, had tied up a tempest, and had given it to ulysses to keep in order that he might be sure of a favorable passage homeward to ithaca; and when the strings were loosened, forth rushed the whistling blasts, like air out of a blown bladder, whitening the sea with foam, and scattering the vessels nobody could tell whither. immediately after escaping from this peril, a still greater one had befallen him. scudding before the hurricane, he reached a place, which, as he afterwards found, was called laestrygonia, where some monstrous giants had eaten up many of his companions, and had sunk every one of his vessels, except that in which he himself sailed, by flinging great masses of rock at them, from the cliffs along the shore. after going through such troubles as these, you cannot wonder that king ulysses was glad to moor his tempest-beaten bark in a quiet cove of the green island, which i began with telling you about. but he had encountered so many dangers from giants, and one-eyed cyclops, and monsters of the sea and land, that he could not help dreading some mischief, even in this pleasant and seemingly solitary spot. for two days, therefore, the poor weather-worn voyagers kept quiet, and either staid on board of their vessel, or merely crept along under the cliffs that bordered the shore; and to keep themselves alive, they dug shellfish out of the sand, and sought for any little rill of fresh water that might be running towards the sea. before the two days were spent, they grew very weary of this kind of life; for the followers of king ulysses, as you will find it important to remember, were terrible gormandizers, and pretty sure to grumble if they missed their regulars meals, and their irregular ones besides. their stock of provisions was quite exhausted, and even the shellfish began to get scarce, so that they had now to choose between starving to death or venturing into the interior of the island, where perhaps some huge three-headed dragon, or other horrible monster, had his den. such misshapen creatures were very numerous in those days; and nobody ever expected to make a voyage, or take a journey, without running more or less risk of being devoured by them. but king ulysses was a bold man as well as a prudent one; and on the third morning he determined to discover what sort of a place the island was, and whether it were possible to obtain a supply of food for the hungry mouths of his companions. so, taking a spear in his hand, he clambered to the summit of a cliff, and gazed round about him. at a distance, towards the center of the island, he beheld the stately towers of what seemed to be a palace, built of snow-white marble, and rising in the midst of a grove of lofty trees. the thick branches of these trees stretched across the front of the edifice, and more than half concealed it, although, from the portion which he saw, ulysses judged it to be spacious and exceedingly beautiful, and probably the residence of some great nobleman or prince. a blue smoke went curling up from the chimney, and was almost the pleasantest part of the spectacle to ulysses. for, from the abundance of this smoke, it was reasonable to conclude that there was a good fire in the kitchen, and that, at dinner-time, a plentiful banquet would be served up to the inhabitants of the palace, and to whatever guests might happen to drop in. with so agreeable a prospect before him, ulysses fancied that he could not do better than go straight to the palace gate, and tell the master of it that there was a crew of poor shipwrecked mariners, not far off, who had eaten nothing for a day or two, save a few clams and oysters, and would therefore be thankful for a little food. and the prince or nobleman must be a very stingy curmudgeon, to be sure, if, at least, when his own dinner was over, he would not bid them welcome to the broken victuals from the table. pleasing himself with this idea, king ulysses had made a few steps in the direction of the palace, when there was a great twittering and chirping from the branch of a neighboring tree. a moment afterwards, a bird came flying towards him, and hovered in the air, so as almost to brush his face with its wings. it was a very pretty little bird, with purple wings and body, and yellow legs, and a circle of golden feathers round its neck, and on its head a golden tuft, which looked like a king's crown in miniature. ulysses tried to catch the bird. but it fluttered nimbly out of his reach, still chirping in a piteous tone, as if it could have told a lamentable story, had it only been gifted with human language. and when he attempted to drive it away, the bird flew no farther than the bough of the next tree, and again came fluttering about his head, with its doleful chirp, as soon as he showed a purpose of going forward. "have you anything to tell me, little bird?" asked ulysses. and he was ready to listen attentively to whatever the bird might communicate; for, at the siege of troy, and elsewhere, he had known such odd things to happen, that he would not have considered it much out of the common run had this little feathered creature talked as plainly as himself. "peep!" said the bird, "peep, peep, pe--weep!" and nothing else would it say, but only, "peep, peep, pe--weep!" in a melancholy cadence, and over and over and over again. as often as ulysses moved forward, however, the bird showed the greatest alarm, and did its best to drive him back, with the anxious flutter of its purple wings. its unaccountable behavior made him conclude, at last, that the bird knew of some danger that awaited him, and which must needs be very terrible, beyond all question, since it moved even a little fowl to feel compassion for a human being. so he resolved, for the present, to return to the vessel, and tell his companions what he had seen. this appeared to satisfy the bird. as soon as ulysses turned back, it ran up the trunk of a tree, and began to pick insects out of the bark with its long, sharp bill; for it was a kind of woodpecker, you must know, and had to get its living in the same manner as other birds of that species. but every little while, as it pecked at the bark of the tree, the purple bird bethought itself of some secret sorrow, and repeated its plaintive note of "peep, peep, pe--weep!" on his way to the shore, ulysses had the good luck to kill a large stag by thrusting his spear into his back. taking it on his shoulders (for he was a remarkably strong man), he lugged it along with him, and flung it down before his hungry companions. i have already hinted to you what gormandizers some of the comrades of king ulysses were. from what is related of them, i reckon that their favorite diet was pork, and that they had lived upon it until a good part of their physical substance was swine's flesh, and their tempers and dispositions were very much akin to the hog. a dish of venison, however, was no unacceptable meal to them, especially after feeding so long on oysters and clams. so, beholding the dead stag, they felt of its ribs, in a knowing way, and lost no time in kindling a fire of driftwood, to cook it. the rest of the day was spent in feasting; and if these enormous eaters got up from table at sunset, it was only because they could not scrape another morsel off the poor animal's bones. the next morning, their appetites were as sharp as ever. they looked at ulysses, as if they expected him to clamber up the cliff again, and come back with another fat deer upon his shoulders. instead of setting out, however, he summoned the whole crew together, and told them it was in vain to hope that he could kill a stag every day for their dinner, and therefore it was advisable to think of some other mode of satisfying their hunger. "now," said he, "when i was on the cliff, yesterday, i discovered that this island is inhabited. at a considerable distance from the shore stood a marble palace, which appeared to be very spacious, and had a great deal of smoke curling out of one of its chimneys." "aha!" muttered some of his companions, smacking their lips. "that smoke must have come from the kitchen fire. there was a good dinner on the spit; and no doubt there will be as good a one to-day." "but," continued the wise ulysses, "you must remember, my good friends, our misadventure in the cavern of one-eyed polyphemus, the cyclops! instead of his ordinary milk diet, did he not eat up two of our comrades for his supper, and a couple more for breakfast, and two at his supper again? methinks i see him yet, the hideous monster, scanning us with that great red eye, in the middle of his forehead, to single out the fattest. and then, again, only a few days ago, did we not fall into the hands of the king of the laestrygons, and those other horrible giants, his subjects, who devoured a great many more of us than are now left? to tell you the truth, if we go to yonder palace, there can be no question that we shall make our appearance at the dinner table; but whether seated as guests, or served up as food, is a point to be seriously considered." "either way," murmured some of the hungriest of the crew; "it will be better than starvation; particularly if one could be sure of being well fattened beforehand, and daintily cooked afterwards." "that is a matter of taste," said king ulysses, "and, for my own part, neither the most careful fattening nor the daintiest of cookery would reconcile me to being dished at last. my proposal is, therefore, that we divide ourselves into two equal parties, and ascertain, by drawing lots, which of the two shall go to the palace, and beg for food and assistance. if these can be obtained, all is well. if not, and if the inhabitants prove as inhospitable as polyphemus, or the laestrygons, then there will but half of us perish, and the remainder may set sail and escape." as nobody objected to this scheme, ulysses proceeded to count the whole band, and found that there were forty-six men, including himself. he then numbered off twenty-two of them, and put eurylochus (who was one of his chief officers, and second only to himself in sagacity) at their head. ulysses took command of the remaining twenty-two men, in person. then, taking off his helmet, he put two shells into it, on one of which was written, "go," and on the other "stay." another person now held the helmet, while ulysses and eurylochus drew out each a shell; and the word "go" was found written on that which eurylochus had drawn. in this manner, it was decided that ulysses and his twenty-two men were to remain at the seaside until the other party should have found out what sort of treatment they might expect at the mysterious palace. as there was no help for it, eurylochus immediately set forth at the head of his twenty-two followers, who went off in a very melancholy state of mind, leaving their friends in hardly better spirits than themselves. no sooner had they clambered up the cliff, than they discerned the tall marble towers of the palace, ascending, as white as snow, out of the lovely green shadow of the trees which surrounded it. a gush of smoke came from a chimney in the rear of the edifice. this vapor rose high in the air, and, meeting with a breeze, was wafted seaward, and made to pass over the heads of the hungry mariners. when people's appetites are keen, they have a very quick scent for anything savory in the wind. "that smoke comes from the kitchen!" cried one of them, turning up his nose as high as he could, and snuffing eagerly. "and, as sure as i'm a half-starved vagabond, i smell roast meat in it." "pig, roast pig!" said another. "ah, the dainty little porker. my mouth waters for him." "let us make haste," cried the others, "or we shall be too late for the good cheer!" but scarcely had they made half a dozen steps from the edge of the cliff, when a bird came fluttering to meet them. it was the same pretty little bird, with the purple wings and body, the yellow legs, the golden collar round its neck, and the crown-like tuft upon its head, whose behavior had so much surprised ulysses. it hovered about eurylochus, and almost brushed his face with its wings. "peep, peep, pe--weep!" chirped the bird. so plaintively intelligent was the sound, that it seemed as if the little creature were going to break its heart with some mighty secret that it had to tell, and only this one poor note to tell it with. "my pretty bird," said eurylochus--for he was a wary person, and let no token of harm escape his notice--"my pretty bird, who sent you hither? and what is the message which you bring?" "peep, peep, pe--weep!" replied the bird, very sorrowfully. then it flew towards the edge of the cliff, and looked around at them, as if exceedingly anxious that they should return whence they came. eurylochus and a few of the others were inclined to turn back. they could not help suspecting that the purple bird must be aware of something mischievous that would befall them at the palace, and the knowledge of which affected its airy spirit with a human sympathy and sorrow. but the rest of the voyagers, snuffing up the smoke from the palace kitchen, ridiculed the idea of returning to the vessel. one of them (more brutal than his fellows, and the most notorious gormandizer in the crew) said such a cruel and wicked thing, that i wonder the mere thought did not turn him into a wild beast, in shape, as he already was in his nature. "this troublesome and impertinent little fowl," said he, "would make a delicate titbit to begin dinner with. just one plump morsel, melting away between the teeth. if he comes within my reach, i'll catch him, and give him to the palace cook to be roasted on a skewer." the words were hardly out of his mouth, before the purple bird flew away, crying, "peep, peep, pe--weep," more dolorously than ever. "that bird," remarked eurylochus, "knows more than we do about what awaits us at the palace." "come on, then," cried his comrades, "and we'll soon know as much as he does." the party, accordingly, went onward through the green and pleasant wood. every little while they caught new glimpses of the marble palace, which looked more and more beautiful the nearer they approached it. they soon entered a broad pathway, which seemed to be very neatly kept, and which went winding along, with streaks of sunshine falling across it and specks of light quivering among the deepest shadows that fell from the lofty trees. it was bordered, too, with a great many sweet-smelling flowers, such as the mariners had never seen before. so rich and beautiful they were, that, if the shrubs grew wild here, and were native in the soil, then this island was surely the flower garden of the whole earth; or, if transplanted from some other clime, it must have been from the happy islands that lay towards the golden sunset. "there has been a great deal of pains foolishly wasted on these flowers," observed one of the company; and i tell you what he said, that you may keep in mind what gormandizers they were. "for my part, if i were the owner of the palace, i would bid my gardener cultivate nothing but savory pot herbs to make a stuffing for roast meat, or to flavor a stew with." "well said!" cried the others. "but i'll warrant you there's a kitchen garden in the rear of the palace." at one place they came to a crystal spring, and paused to drink at it for want of liquor which they liked better. looking into its bosom, they beheld their own faces dimly reflected, but so extravagantly distorted by the gush and motion of the water, that each one of them appeared to be laughing at himself and all his companions. so ridiculous were these images of themselves, indeed, that they did really laugh aloud, and could hardly be grave again as soon as they wished. and after they had drank, they grew still merrier than before. "it has a twang of the wine cask in it," said one, smacking his lips. "make haste!" cried his fellows: "we'll find the wine cask itself at the palace, and that will be better than a hundred crystal fountains." then they quickened their pace, and capered for joy at the thought of the savory banquet at which they hoped to be guests. but eurylochus told them that he felt as if he were walking in a dream. "if i am really awake," continued he, "then, in my opinion, we are on the point of meeting with some stranger adventure than any that befell us in the cave of polyphemus, or among the gigantic man-eating laestrygons, or in the windy palace of king aeolus, which stands on a brazen-walled island. this kind of dreamy feeling always comes over me before any wonderful occurrence. if you take my advice, you will turn back." "no, no," answered his comrades, snuffing the air, in which the scent from the palace kitchen was now very perceptible. "we would not turn back, though we were certain that the king of the laestrygons, as big as a mountain, would sit at the head of the table, and huge polyphemus, the one-eyed cyclops, at its foot." at length they came within full sight of the palace, which proved to be very large and lofty, with a great number of airy pinnacles upon its roof. though it was midday, and the sun shone brightly over the marble front, yet its snowy whiteness, and its fantastic style of architecture, made it look unreal, like the frost work on a window pane, or like the shapes of castles which one sees among the clouds by moonlight. but, just then, a puff of wind brought down the smoke of the kitchen chimney among them, and caused each man to smell the odor of the dish that he liked best; and, after scenting it, they thought everything else moonshine, and nothing real save this palace, and save the banquet that was evidently ready to be served up in it. so they hastened their steps towards the portal, but had not got half way across the wide lawn, when a pack of lions, tigers, and wolves came bounding to meet them. the terrified mariners started back, expecting no better fate than to be torn to pieces and devoured. to their surprise and joy, however, these wild beasts merely capered around them, wagging their tails, offering their heads to be stroked and patted, and behaving just like so many well-bred house dogs, when they wish to express their delight at meeting their master, or their master's friends. the biggest lion licked the feet of eurylochus; and every other lion, and every wolf and tiger, singled out one of his two and twenty followers, whom the beast fondled as if he loved him better than a beef bone. but, for all that, eurylochus imagined that he saw something fierce and savage in their eyes; nor would he have been surprised, at any moment, to feel the big lion's terrible claws, or to see each of the tigers make a deadly spring, or each wolf leap at the throat of the man whom he had fondled. their mildness seemed unreal, and a mere freak; but their savage nature was as true as their teeth and claws. nevertheless, the men went safely across the lawn with the wild beasts frisking about them, and doing no manner of harm; although, as they mounted the steps of the palace, you might possibly have heard a low growl, particularly from the wolves; as if they thought it a pity, after all, to let the strangers pass without so much as tasting what they were made of. eurylochus and his followers now passed under a lofty portal, and looked through the open doorway into the interior of the palace. the first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a continual plash. the water of this fountain, as it spouted upward, was constantly taking new shapes, not very distinctly, but plainly enough for a nimble fancy to recognize what they were. now it was the shape of a man in a long robe, the fleecy whiteness of which was made out of the fountain's spray; now it was a lion, or a tiger, or a wolf, or an ass, or, as often as anything else, a hog, wallowing in the marble basin as if it were his sty. it was either magic or some very curious machinery that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all these forms. but, before the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a very sweet and agreeable sound. a woman's voice was singing melodiously in another room of the palace, and with her voice was mingled the noise of a loom, at which she was probably seated, weaving a rich texture of cloth, and intertwining the high and low sweetness of her voice into a rich tissue of harmony. by and by, the song came to an end; and then, all at once, there were several feminine voices, talking airily and cheerfully, with now and then a merry burst of laughter, such as you may always hear when three or four young women sit at work together. "what a sweet song that was!" exclaimed one of the voyagers. "too sweet, indeed," answered eurylochus, shaking his head. "yet it was not so sweet as the song of the sirens, those bird-like damsels who wanted to tempt us on the rocks, so that our vessel might be wrecked, and our bones left whitening along the shore." "but just listen to the pleasant voices of those maidens, and that buzz of the loom, as the shuttle passes to and fro," said another comrade. "what a domestic, household, home-like sound it is! ah, before that weary siege of troy, i used to hear the buzzing loom and the women's voices under my own roof. shall i never hear them again? nor taste those nice little savory dishes which my dearest wife knew how to serve up?" "tush! we shall fare better here," said another. "but how innocently those women are babbling together, without guessing that we overhear them! and mark that richest voice of all, so pleasant and so familiar, but which yet seems to have the authority of a mistress among them. let us show ourselves at once. what harm can the lady of the palace and her maidens do to mariners and warriors like us?" "remember," said eurylochus, "that it was a young maiden who beguiled three of our friends into the palace of the king of the laestrygons, who ate up one of them in the twinkling of an eye." no warning or persuasion, however, had any effect on his companions. they went up to a pair of folding doors at the farther end of the hall, and throwing them wide open, passed into the next room. eurylochus, meanwhile, had stepped behind a pillar. in the short moment while the folding doors opened and closed again, he caught a glimpse of a very beautiful woman rising from the loom, and coming to meet the poor weather-beaten wanderers, with a hospitable smile, and her hand stretched out in welcome. there were four other young women, who joined their hands and danced merrily forward, making gestures of obeisance to the strangers. they were only less beautiful than the lady who seemed to be their mistress. yet eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green hair, and that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the bark of a tree, and that both the others had something odd in their aspect, although he could not quite determine what it was, in the little while that he had to examine them. the folding doors swung quickly back, and left him standing behind the pillar, in the solitude of the outer hall. there eurylochus waited until he was quite weary, and listened eagerly to every sound, but without hearing anything that could help him to guess what had become of his friends. footsteps, it is true, seemed to be passing and repassing, in other parts of the palace. then there was a clatter of silver dishes, or golden ones, which made him imagine a rich feast in a splendid banqueting hall. but by and by he heard a tremendous grunting and squealing, and then a sudden scampering, like that of small, hard hoofs over a marble floor, while the voices of the mistress and her four handmaidens were screaming all together, in tones of anger and derision. eurylochus could not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of swine had broken into the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast. chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift its shape, as formerly, nor looked either like a long-robed man, or a lion, a tiger, a wolf, or an ass. it looked like nothing but a hog, which lay wallowing in the marble basin, and filled it from brim to brim. but we must leave the prudent eurylochus waiting in the outer hall, and follow his friends into the inner secrecy of the palace. as soon as the beautiful woman saw them, she arose from the loom, as i have told you, and came forward, smiling, and stretching out her hand. she took the hand of the foremost among them, and bade him and the whole party welcome. "you have been long expected, my good friends," said she. "i and my maidens are well acquainted with you, although you do not appear to recognize us. look at this piece of tapestry, and judge if your faces must not have been familiar to us." so the voyagers examined the web of cloth which the beautiful woman had been weaving in her loom; and, to their vast astonishment, they saw their own figures perfectly represented in different colored threads. it was a life-like picture of their recent adventures, showing them in the cave of polyphemus, and how they had put out his one great moony eye; while in another part of the tapestry they were untying the leathern bags, puffed out with contrary winds; and farther on, they beheld themselves scampering away from the gigantic king of the laestrygons, who had caught one of them by the leg. lastly, there they were, sitting on the desolate shore of this very island, hungry and downcast, and looking ruefully at the bare bones of the stag which they devoured yesterday. this was as far as the work had yet proceeded; but when the beautiful woman should again sit down at her loom, she would probably make a picture of what had since happened to the strangers, and of what was now going to happen. "you see," she said, "that i know all about your troubles; and you cannot doubt that i desire to make you happy for as long a time as you may remain with me. for this purpose, my honored guests, i have ordered a banquet to be prepared. fish, fowl, and flesh, roasted, and in luscious stews, and seasoned, i trust, to all your tastes, are ready to be served up. if your appetites tell you it is dinner time, then come with me to the festal saloon." at this kind invitation, the hungry mariners were quite overjoyed; and one of them, taking upon himself to be spokesman, assured their hospitable hostess that any hour of the day was dinner time with them, whenever they could get flesh to put in the pot, and fire to boil it with. so the beautiful woman led the way; and the four maidens (one of them had sea-green hair, another a bodice of oak bark, a third sprinkled a shower of water drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth had some other oddity, which i have forgotten), all these followed behind, and hurried the guests along, until they entered a magnificent saloon. it was built in a perfect oval, and lighted from a crystal dome above. around the walls were ranged two and twenty thrones, overhung by canopies of crimson and gold, and provided with the softest of cushions, which were tasselled and fringed with gold cord. each of the strangers was invited to sit down; and there they were, two and twenty storm-beaten mariners, in worn and tattered garb, sitting on two and twenty cushioned and canopied thrones, so rich and gorgeous that the proudest monarch had nothing more splendid in his stateliest hall. then you might have seen the guests nodding, winking with one eye, and leaning from one throne to another, to communicate their satisfaction in hoarse whispers. "our good hostess has made kings of us all," said one. "ha! do you smell the feast? i'll engage it will be fit to set before two and twenty kings." "i hope," said another, "it will be, mainly, good substantial joints, sirloins, spareribs, and hinder quarters, without too many kickshaws. if i thought the good lady would not take it amiss, i should call for a fat slice of fried bacon to begin with." ah, the gluttons and gormandizers! you see how it was with them. in the loftiest seats of dignity, on royal thrones, they could think of nothing but their greedy appetite, which was the portion of their nature that they shared with wolves and swine; so that they resembled those vilest of animals far more than they did kings--if, indeed, kings were what they ought to be. but the beautiful woman now clapped her hands; and immediately there entered a train of two and twenty serving men, bringing dishes of the richest food, all hot from the kitchen fire, and sending up such a steam that it hung like a cloud below the crystal dome of the saloon. an equal number of attendants brought great flagons of wine, of various kinds, some of which sparkled as it was poured out, and went bubbling down the throat; while, of other sorts, the purple liquor was so clear that you could see the wrought figures at the bottom of the goblet. while the servants supplied the two and twenty guests with food and drink, the hostess and her four maidens went from one throne to another, exhorting them to eat their fill, and to quaff wine abundantly, and thus to recompense themselves, at this one banquet, for the many days when they had gone without a dinner. but whenever the mariners were not looking at them (which was pretty often, as they looked chiefly into the basins and platters), the beautiful woman and her damsels turned aside, and laughed. even the servants, as they knelt down to present the dishes, might be seen to grin and sneer, while the guests were helping themselves to the offered dainties. and, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they did not like. "here is an odd kind of spice in this dish," said one. "i can't say it quite suits my palate. down it goes, however." "send a good draught of wine down your throat," said his comrade on the next throne. "that is the stuff to make this sort of cookery relish well. though i must needs say, the wine has a queer taste too. but the more i drink of it, the better i like the flavor." whatever little fault they might find with the dishes, they sat at dinner a prodigiously long while; and it would really have made you ashamed to see how they swilled down the liquor and gobbled up the food. they sat on golden thrones, to be sure; but they behaved like pigs in a sty; and, if they had had their wits about them, they might have guessed that this was the opinion of their beautiful hostess and her maidens. it brings a blush into my face to reckon up, in my own mind, what mountains of meat and pudding, and what gallons of wine, these two and twenty guzzlers and gormandizers ate and drank. they forgot all about their homes, and their wives and children, and all about ulysses, and everything else, except this banquet, at which they wanted to keep feasting forever. but at length they began to give over, from mere incapacity to hold any more. "that last bit of fat is too much for me," said one. "and i have not room for another morsel," said his next neighbor, heaving a sigh. "what a pity! my appetite is as sharp as ever." in short, they all left off eating, and leaned back on their thrones, with such a stupid and helpless aspect as made them ridiculous to behold. when their hostess saw this, she laughed aloud; so did her four damsels; so did the two and twenty serving men that bore the dishes, and their two and twenty fellows that poured out the wine. and the louder they all laughed, the more stupid and helpless did the two and twenty gormandizers look. then the beautiful woman took her stand in the middle of the saloon, and stretching out a slender rod (it had been all the while in her hand, although they never noticed it till this moment), she turned it from one guest to another, until each had felt it pointed at himself. beautiful as her face was, and though there was a smile on it, it looked just as wicked and mischievous as the ugliest serpent that ever was seen; and fat-witted as the voyagers had made themselves, they began to suspect that they had fallen into the power of an evil-minded enchantress. "wretches," cried she, "you have abused a lady's hospitality; and in this princely saloon your behavior has been suited to a hog-pen. you are already swine in everything but the human form, which you disgrace, and which i myself should be ashamed to keep a moment longer, were you to share it with me. but it will require only the slightest exercise of magic to make the exterior conform to the hoggish disposition. assume your proper shapes, gormandizers, and begone to the sty!" uttering these last words, she waved her wand; and stamping her foot imperiously, each of the guests was struck aghast at beholding, instead of his comrades in human shape, one and twenty hogs sitting on the same number of golden thrones. each man (as he still supposed himself to be) essayed to give a cry of surprise, but found that he could merely grunt, and that, in a word, he was just such another beast as his companions. it looked so intolerably absurd to see hogs on cushioned thrones, that they made haste to wallow down upon all fours, like other swine. they tried to groan and beg for mercy, but forthwith emitted the most awful grunting and squealing that ever came out of swinish throats. they would have wrung their hands in despair, but, attempting to do so, grew all the more desperate for seeing themselves squatted on their hams, and pawing the air with their fore trotters. dear me! what pendulous ears they had! what little red eyes, half buried in fat! and what long snouts, instead of grecian noses! but brutes as they certainly were, they yet had enough of human nature in them to be shocked at their own hideousness; and still intending to groan, they uttered a viler grunt and squeal than before. so harsh and ear-piercing it was, that you would have fancied a butcher was sticking his knife into each of their throats, or, at the very least, that somebody was pulling every hog by his funny little twist of a tail. "begone to your sty!" cried the enchantress, giving them some smart strokes with her wand; and then she turned to the serving men--"drive out these swine, and throw down some acorns for them to eat." the door of the saloon being flung open, the drove of hogs ran in all directions save the right one, in accordance with their hoggish perversity, but were finally driven into the back yard of the palace. it was a sight to bring tears into one's eyes (and i hope none of you will be cruel enough to laugh at it), to see the poor creatures go snuffing along, picking up here a cabbage leaf and there a turnip top, and rooting their noses in the earth for whatever they could find. in their sty, moreover, they behaved more piggishly than the pigs that had been born so; for they bit and snorted at one another, put their feet in the trough, and gobbled up their victuals in a ridiculous hurry; and, when there was nothing more to be had, they made a great pile of themselves among some unclean straw, and fell fast asleep. if they had any human reason left, it was just enough to keep them wondering when they should be slaughtered, and what quality of bacon they should make. meantime, as i told you before, eurylochus had waited, and waited, and waited, in the entrance hall of the palace, without being able to comprehend what had befallen his friends. at last, when the swinish uproar resounded through the palace, and when he saw the image of a hog in the marble basin, he thought it best to hasten back to the vessel, and inform the wise ulysses of these marvelous occurrences. so he ran as fast as he could down the steps, and never stopped to draw breath till he reached the shore. "why do you come alone?" asked king ulysses, as soon as he saw him. "where are your two and twenty comrades?" at these questions, eurylochus burst into tears. "alas!" he cried, "i greatly fear that we shall never see one of their faces again." then he told ulysses all that had happened, as far as he knew it, and added that he suspected the beautiful woman to be a vile enchantress, and the marble palace, magnificent as it looked, to be only a dismal cavern in reality. as for his companions, he could not imagine what had become of them, unless they had been given to the swine to be devoured alive. at this intelligence, all the voyagers were greatly affrighted. but ulysses lost no time in girding on his sword, and hanging his bow and quiver over his shoulders, and taking a spear in his right hand. when his followers saw their wise leader making these preparations, they inquired whither he was going, and earnestly besought him not to leave them. "you are our king," cried they; "and what is more, you are the wisest man in the whole world, and nothing but your wisdom and courage can get us out of this danger. if you desert us, and go to the enchanted palace, you will suffer the same fate as our poor companions, and not a soul of us will ever see our dear ithaca again." "as i am your king," answered ulysses, "and wiser than any of you, it is therefore the more my duty to see what has befallen our comrades, and whether anything can yet be done to rescue them. wait for me here until tomorrow. if i do not then return, you must hoist sail, and endeavor to find your way to our native land. for my part, i am answerable for the fate of these poor mariners, who have stood by my side in battle, and been so often drenched to the skin, along with me, by the same tempestuous surges. i will either bring them back with me, or perish." had his followers dared, they would have detained him by force. but king ulysses frowned sternly on them, and shook his spear, and bade them stop him at their peril. seeing him so determined, they let him go, and sat down on the sand, as disconsolate a set of people as could be, waiting and praying for his return. it happened to ulysses, just as before, that, when he had gone a few steps from the edge of the cliff, the purple bird came fluttering towards him, crying, "peep, peep, pe--weep!" and using all the art it could to persuade him to go no farther. "what mean you, little bird?" cried ulysses. "you are arrayed like a king in purple and gold, and wear a golden crown upon your head. is it because i too am a king, that you desire so earnestly to speak with me? if you can talk in human language, say what you would have me do." "peep!" answered the purple bird, very dolorously. "peep, peep, pe--we--e!" certainly there lay some heavy anguish at the little bird's heart; and it was a sorrowful predicament that he could not, at least, have the consolation of telling what it was. but ulysses had no time to waste in trying to get at the mystery. he therefore quickened his pace, and had gone a good way along the pleasant wood path, when there met him a young man of very brisk and intelligent aspect, and clad in a rather singular garb. he wore a short cloak and a sort of cap that seemed to be furnished with a pair of wings; and from the lightness of his step, you would have supposed that there might likewise be wings on his feet. to enable him to walk still better (for he was always on one journey or another) he carried a winged staff, around which two serpents were wriggling and twisting. in short, i have said enough to make you guess that it was quicksilver; and ulysses (who knew him of old, and had learned a great deal of his wisdom from him) recognized him in a moment. "whither are you going in such a hurry, wise ulysses?" asked quicksilver. "do you not know that this island is enchanted? the wicked enchantress (whose name is circe, the sister of king aetes) dwells in the marble palace which you see yonder among the trees. by her magic arts she changes every human being into the brute, beast, or fowl whom he happens most to resemble." "that little bird, which met me at the edge of the cliff," exclaimed ulysses; "was he a human being once?" "yes," answered quicksilver. "he was once a king, named picus, and a pretty good sort of a king, too, only rather too proud of his purple robe, and his crown, and the golden chain about his neck; so he was forced to take the shape of a gaudy-feathered bird. the lions, and wolves, and tigers, who will come running to meet you, in front of the palace, were formerly fierce and cruel men, resembling in their disposition the wild beasts whose forms they now rightfully wear." "and my poor companions," said ulysses. "have they undergone a similar change, through the arts of this wicked circe?" "you well know what gormandizers they were," replied quicksilver; and rogue that he was, he could not help laughing at the joke. "so you will not be surprised to hear that they have all taken the shapes of swine! if circe had never done anything worse, i really should not think her so very much to blame." "but can i do nothing to help them?" inquired ulysses. "it will require all your wisdom," said quicksilver, "and a little of my own into the bargain, to keep your royal and sagacious self from being transformed into a fox. but do as i bid you; and the matter may end better than it has begun." while he was speaking, quicksilver seemed to be in search of something; he went stooping along the ground, and soon laid his hand on a little plant with a snow-white flower, which he plucked and smelt of. ulysses had been looking at that very spot only just before; and it appeared to him that the plant had burst into full flower the instant when quicksilver touched it with his fingers. "take this flower, king ulysses," said he. "guard it as you do your eyesight; for i can assure you it is exceedingly rare and precious, and you might seek the whole earth over without ever finding another like it. keep it in your hand, and smell of it frequently after you enter the palace, and while you are talking with the enchantress. especially when she offers you food, or a draught of wine out of her goblet, be careful to fill your nostrils with the flower's fragrance. follow these directions, and you may defy her magic arts to change you into a fox." quicksilver then gave him some further advice how to behave, and bidding him be bold and prudent, again assured him that, powerful as circe was, he would have a fair prospect of coming safely out of her enchanted palace. after listening attentively, ulysses thanked his good friend, and resumed his way. but he had taken only a few steps, when, recollecting some other questions which he wished to ask, he turned round again, and beheld nobody on the spot where quicksilver had stood; for that winged cap of his, and those winged shoes, with the help of the winged staff, had carried him quickly out of sight. when ulysses reached the lawn, in front of the palace, the lions and other savage animals came bounding to meet him, and would have fawned upon him and licked his feet. but the wise king struck at them with his long spear, and sternly bade them begone out of his path; for he knew that they had once been bloodthirsty men, and would now tear him limb from limb, instead of fawning upon him, could they do the mischief that was in their hearts. the wild beasts yelped and glared at him, and stood at a distance, while he ascended the palace steps. on entering the hall, ulysses saw the magic fountain in the center of it. the up-gushing water had now again taken the shape of a man in a long, white, fleecy robe, who appeared to be making gestures of welcome. the king likewise heard the noise of the shuttle in the loom and the sweet melody of the beautiful woman's song, and then the pleasant voices of herself and the four maidens talking together, with peals of merry laughter intermixed. but ulysses did not waste much time in listening to the laughter or the song. he leaned his spear against one of the pillars of the hall, and then, after loosening his sword in the scabbard, stepped boldly forward, and threw the folding doors wide open. the moment she beheld his stately figure standing in the doorway, the beautiful woman rose from the loom, and ran to meet him with a glad smile throwing its sunshine over her face, and both her hands extended. "welcome, brave stranger!" cried she. "we were expecting you." and the nymph with the sea-green hair made a courtesy down to the ground, and likewise bade him welcome; so did her sister with the bodice of oaken bark, and she that sprinkled dew-drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth one with some oddity which i cannot remember. and circe, as the beautiful enchantress was called (who had deluded so many persons that she did not doubt of being able to delude ulysses, not imagining how wise he was), again addressed him: "your companions," said she, "have already been received into my palace, and have enjoyed the hospitable treatment to which the propriety of their behavior so well entitles them. if such be your pleasure, you shall first take some refreshment, and then join them in the elegant apartment which they now occupy. see, i and my maidens have been weaving their figures into this piece of tapestry." she pointed to the web of beautifully-woven cloth in the loom. circe and the four nymphs must have been very diligently at work since the arrival of the mariners; for a great many yards of tapestry had now been wrought, in addition to what i before described. in this new part, ulysses saw his two and twenty friends represented as sitting on cushions and canopied thrones, greedily devouring dainties, and quaffing deep draughts of wine. the work had not yet gone any further. o, no, indeed. the enchantress was far too cunning to let ulysses see the mischief which her magic arts had since brought upon the gormandizers. "as for yourself, valiant sir," said circe, "judging by the dignity of your aspect, i take you to be nothing less than a king. deign to follow me, and you shall be treated as befits your rank." so ulysses followed her into the oval saloon, where his two and twenty comrades had devoured the banquet, which ended so disastrously for themselves. but, all this while, he had held the snow-white flower in his hand, and had constantly smelt of it while circe was speaking; and as he crossed the threshold of the saloon, he took good care to inhale several long and deep snuffs of its fragrance. instead of two and twenty thrones, which had before been ranged around the wall, there was now only a single throne, in the center of the apartment. but this was surely the most magnificent seat that ever a king or an emperor reposed himself upon, all made of chased gold, studded with precious stones, with a cushion that looked like a soft heap of living roses, and overhung by a canopy of sunlight which circe knew how to weave into drapery. the enchantress took ulysses by the hand, and made him sit down upon this dazzling throne. then, clapping her hands, she summoned the chief butler. "bring hither," said she, "the goblet that is set apart for kings to drink out of. and fill it with the same delicious wine which my royal brother, king aetes, praised so highly, when he last visited me with my fair daughter medea. that good and amiable child! were she now here, it would delight her to see me offering this wine to my honored guest." but ulysses, while the butler was gone for the wine, held the snow-white flower to his nose. "is it a wholesome wine?" he asked. at this the four maidens tittered; whereupon the enchantress looked round at them, with an aspect of severity. "it is the wholesomest juice that ever was squeezed out of the grape," said she; "for, instead of disguising a man, as other liquor is apt to do, it brings him to his true self, and shows him as he ought to be." the chief butler liked nothing better than to see people turned into swine, or making any kind of a beast of themselves; so he made haste to bring the royal goblet, filled with a liquid as bright as gold, and which kept sparkling upward, and throwing a sunny spray over the brim. but, delightfully as the wine looked, it was mingled with the most potent enchantments that circe knew how to concoct. for every drop of the pure grape juice there were two drops of the pure mischief; and the danger of the thing was, that the mischief made it taste all the better. the mere smell of the bubbles, which effervesced at the brim, was enough to turn a man's beard into pig's bristles, or make a lion's claws grow out of his fingers, or a fox's brush behind him. "drink, my noble guest," said circe, smiling, as she presented him with the goblet. "you will find in this draught a solace for all your troubles." king ulysses took the goblet with his right hand, while with his left he held the snow-white flower to his nostrils, and drew in so long a breath that his lungs were quite filled with its pure and simple fragrance. then, drinking off all the wine, he looked the enchantress calmly in the face. "wretch," cried circe, giving him a smart stroke with her wand, "how dare you keep your human shape a moment longer! take the form of the brute whom you most resemble. if a hog, go join your fellow-swine in the sty; if a lion, a wolf, a tiger, go howl with the wild beasts on the lawn; if a fox, go exercise your craft in stealing poultry. thou hast quaffed off my wine, and canst be man no longer." but, such was the virtue of the snow-white flower, instead of wallowing down from his throne in swinish shape, or taking any other brutal form, ulysses looked even more manly and king-like than before. he gave the magic goblet a toss, and sent it clashing over the marble floor to the farthest end of the saloon. then, drawing his sword, he seized the enchantress by her beautiful ringlets, and made a gesture as if he meant to strike off her head at one blow. "wicked circe," cried he, in a terrible voice, "this sword shall put an end to thy enchantments. thou shalt die, vile wretch, and do no more mischief in the world, by tempting human beings into the vices which make beasts of them." the tone and countenance of ulysses were so awful, and his sword gleamed so brightly, and seemed to have so intolerably keen an edge, that circe was almost killed by the mere fright, without waiting for a blow. the chief butler scrambled out of the saloon, picking up the golden goblet as he went; and the enchantress and the four maidens fell on their knees, wringing their hands, and screaming for mercy. "spare me!" cried circe. "spare me, royal and wise ulysses. for now i know that thou art he of whom quicksilver forewarned me, the most prudent of mortals, against whom no enchantments can prevail. thou only couldst have conquered circe. spare me, wisest of men. i will show thee true hospitality, and even give myself to be thy slave, and this magnificent palace to be henceforth thy home." the four nymphs, meanwhile, were making a most piteous ado; and especially the ocean nymph, with the sea-green hair, wept a great deal of salt water, and the fountain nymph, besides scattering dewdrops from her fingers' ends, nearly melted away into tears. but ulysses would not be pacified until circe had taken a solemn oath to change back his companions, and as many others as he should direct, from their present forms of beast or bird into their former shapes of men. "on these conditions," said he, "i consent to spare your life. otherwise you must die upon the spot." with a drawn sword hanging over her, the enchantress would readily have consented to do as much good as she had hitherto done mischief, however little she might like such employment. she therefore led ulysses out of the back entrance of the palace, and showed him the swine in their sty. there were about fifty of these unclean beasts in the whole herd; and though the greater part were hogs by birth and education, there was wonderfully little difference to be seen betwixt them and their new brethren, who had so recently worn the human shape. to speak critically, indeed, the latter rather carried the thing to excess, and seemed to make it a point to wallow in the miriest part of the sty, and otherwise to outdo the original swine in their own natural vocation. when men once turn to brutes, the trifle of man's wit that remains in them adds tenfold to their brutality. the comrades of ulysses, however, had not quite lost the remembrance of having formerly stood erect. when he approached the sty, two and twenty enormous swine separated themselves from the herd, and scampered towards him, with such a chorus of horrible squealing as made him clap both hands to his ears. and yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they were merely hungry, or miserable from some other cause. it was curious, in the midst of their distress, to observe them thrusting their noses into the mire, in quest of something to eat. the nymph with the bodice of oaken bark (she was the hamadryad of an oak) threw a handful of acorns among them; and the two and twenty hogs scrambled and fought for the prize, as if they had tasted not so much as a noggin of sour milk for a twelvemonth. "these must certainly be my comrades," said ulysses. "i recognize their dispositions. they are hardly worth the trouble of changing them into the human form again. nevertheless, we will have it done, lest their bad example should corrupt the other hogs. let them take their original shapes, therefore, dame circe, if your skill is equal to the task. it will require greater magic, i trow, than it did to make swine of them." so circe waved her wand again, and repeated a few magic words, at the sound of which the two and twenty hogs pricked up their pendulous ears. it was a wonder to behold how their snouts grew shorter and shorter, and their mouths (which they seemed to be sorry for, because they could not gobble so expeditiously) smaller and smaller, and how one and another began to stand upon his hind legs, and scratch his nose with his fore trotters. at first the spectators hardly knew whether to call them hogs or men, but by and by came to the conclusion that they rather resembled the latter. finally, there stood the twenty-two comrades of ulysses, looking pretty much the same as when they left the vessel. you must not imagine, however, that the swinish quality had entirely gone out of them. when once it fastens itself into a person's character, it is very difficult getting rid of it. this was proved by the hamadryad, who, being exceedingly fond of mischief, threw another handful of acorns before the twenty-two newly-restored people; whereupon down they wallowed in a moment, and gobbled them up in a very shameful way. then, recollecting themselves, they scrambled to their feet, and looked more than commonly foolish. "thanks, noble ulysses!" they cried. "from brute beasts you have restored us to the condition of men again." "do not put yourselves to the trouble of thanking me," said the wise king. "i fear i have done but little for you." to say the truth, there was a suspicious kind of a grunt in their voices, and, for a long time afterwards, they spoke gruffly, and were apt to set up a squeal. "it must depend on your own future behavior," added ulysses, "whether you do not find your way back to the sty." at this moment, the note of a bird sounded from the branch of a neighboring tree. "peep, peep, pe--wee--e!" it was the purple bird, who, all this while, had been sitting over their heads, watching what was going forward, and hoping that ulysses would remember how he had done his utmost to keep him and his followers out of harm's way. ulysses ordered circe instantly to make a king of this good little fowl, and leave him exactly as she found him. hardly were the words spoken, and before the bird had time to utter another "pe--weep," king picus leaped down from the bough of a tree, as majestic a sovereign as any in the world, dressed in a long purple robe and gorgeous yellow stockings, with a splendidly wrought collar about his neck, and a golden crown upon his head. he and king ulysses exchanged with one another the courtesies which belong to their elevated rank. but from that time forth, king picus was no longer proud of his crown and his trappings of royalty, nor of the fact of his being a king; he felt himself merely the upper servant of his people, and that it must be his life-long labor to make them better and happier. as for the lions, tigers, and wolves (though circe would have restored them to their former shapes at his slightest word), ulysses thought it advisable that they should remain as they now were, and thus give warning of their cruel dispositions, instead of going about under the guise of men, and pretending to human sympathies, while their hearts had the blood-thirstiness of wild beasts. so he let them howl as much as they liked, but never troubled his head about them. and, when everything was settled according to his pleasure, he sent to summon the remainder of his comrades, whom he had left at the sea-shore. these being arrived, with the prudent eurylochus at their head, they all made themselves comfortable in circe's enchanted palace, until quite rested and refreshed from the toils and hardships of their voyage. the pomegranate seeds. mother ceres was exceedingly fond of her daughter proserpina, and seldom let her go alone into the fields. but, just at the time when my story begins, the good lady was very busy, because she had the care of the wheat, and the indian corn, and the rye and barley and, in short, of the crops of every kind, all over the earth; and as the season had thus far been uncommonly backward, it was necessary to make the harvest ripen more speedily than usual. so she put on her turban, made of poppies (a kind of flower which she was always noted for wearing), and got into her car drawn by a pair of winged dragons, and was just ready to set off. "dear mother," said proserpina, "i shall be very lonely while you are away. may i not run down to the shore, and ask some of the sea nymphs to come up out of the waves and play with me?" "yes, child," answered mother ceres. "the sea nymphs are good creatures, and will never lead you into any harm. but you must take care not to stray away from them, nor go wandering about the fields by yourself. young girls, without their mothers to take care of them, are very apt to get into mischief." the child promised to be as prudent as if she were a grown-up woman; and, by the time the winged dragons had whirled the car out of sight, she was already on the shore, calling to the sea nymphs to come and play with her. they knew proserpina's voice, and were not long in showing their glistening faces and sea-green hair above the water, at the bottom of which was their home. they brought along with them a great many beautiful shells; and sitting down on the moist sand, where the surf wave broke over them, they busied themselves in making a necklace, which they hung round proserpina's neck. by way of showing her gratitude, the child besought them to go with her a little way into the fields, so that they might gather abundance of flowers, with which she would make each of her kind playmates a wreath. "o no, dear proserpina," cried the sea nymphs; "we dare not go with you upon the dry land. we are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean. and don't you see how careful we are to let the surf wave break over us every moment or two, so as to keep ourselves comfortably moist? if it were not for that, we should look like bunches of uprooted seaweed dried in the sun. "it is a great pity," said proserpina. "but do you wait for me here, and i will run and gather my apron full of flowers, and be back again before the surf wave has broken ten times over you. i long to make you some wreaths that shall be as lovely as this necklace of many colored shells." "we will wait, then," answered the sea nymphs. "but while you are gone, we may as well lie down on a bank of soft sponge under the water. the air to-day is a little too dry for our comfort. but we will pop up our heads every few minutes to see if you are coming." the young proserpina ran quickly to a spot where, only the day before, she had seen a great many flowers. these, however, were now a little past their bloom; and wishing to give her friends the freshest and loveliest blossoms, she strayed farther into the fields, and found some that made her scream with delight. never had she met with such exquisite flowers before--violets so large and fragrant--roses with so rich and delicate a blush--such superb hyacinths and such aromatic pinks--and many others, some of which seemed to be of new shapes and colors. two or three times, moreover, she could not help thinking that a tuft of most splendid flowers had suddenly sprouted out of the earth before her very eyes, as if on purpose to tempt her a few steps farther. proserpina's apron was soon filled, and brimming over with delightful blossoms. she was on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the sea nymphs, and sit with them on the moist sands, all twining wreaths together. but, a little farther on, what should she behold? it was a large shrub, completely covered with the most magnificent flowers in the world. "the darlings!" cried proserpina; and then she thought to herself, "i was looking at that spot only a moment ago. how strange it is that i did not see the flowers!" the nearer she approached the shrub, the more attractive it looked, until she came quite close to it; and then, although its beauty was richer than words can tell, she hardly knew whether to like it or not. it bore above a hundred flowers of the most brilliant hues, and each different from the others, but all having a kind of resemblance among themselves, which showed them to be sister blossoms. but there was a deep, glossy luster on the leaves of the shrub, and on the petals of the flowers, that made proserpina doubt whether they might not be poisonous. to tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half inclined to turn round and run away. "what a silly child i am!" thought she, taking courage. "it is really the most beautiful shrub that ever sprang out of the earth. i will pull it up by the roots, and carry it home, and plant it in my mother's garden." holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, proserpina seized the large shrub with the other, and pulled, and pulled, but was hardly able to loosen the soil about its roots. what a deep-rooted plant it was! again the girl pulled with all her might, and observed that the earth began to stir and crack to some distance around the stem. she gave another pull, but relaxed her hold, fancying that there was a rumbling sound right beneath her feet. did the roots extend down into some enchanted cavern? then laughing at herself for so childish a notion, she made another effort: up came the shrub, and proserpina staggered back, holding the stem triumphantly in her hand, and gazing at the deep hole which its roots had left in the soil. much to her astonishment, this hole kept spreading wider and wider, and growing deeper and deeper, until it really seemed to have no bottom; and all the while, there came a rumbling noise out of its depths, louder and louder, and nearer and nearer, and sounding like the tramp of horses' hoofs and the rattling of wheels. too much frightened to run away, she stood straining her eyes into this wonderful cavity, and soon saw a team of four sable horses, snorting smoke out of their nostrils, and tearing their way out of the earth with a splendid golden chariot whirling at their heels. they leaped out of the bottomless hole, chariot and all; and there they were, tossing their black manes, flourishing their black tails, and curvetting with every one of their hoofs off the ground at once, close by the spot where proserpina stood. in the chariot sat the figure of a man, richly dressed, with a crown on his head, all flaming with diamonds. he was of a noble aspect, and rather handsome, but looked sullen and discontented; and he kept rubbing his eyes and shading them with his hand, as if he did not live enough in the sunshine to be very fond of its light. as soon as this personage saw the affrighted proserpina, he beckoned her to come a little nearer. "do not be afraid," said he, with as cheerful a smile as he knew how to put on. "come! will you not like to ride a little way with me, in my beautiful chariot?" but proserpina was so alarmed, that she wished for nothing but to get out of his reach. and no wonder. the stranger did not look remarkably good-natured, in spite of his smile; and as for his voice, its tones were deep and stern, and sounded as much like the rumbling of an earthquake underground than anything else. as is always the case with children in trouble, proserpina's first thought was to call for her mother. "mother, mother ceres!" cried she, all in a tremble. "come quickly and save me." but her voice was too faint for her mother to hear. indeed, it is most probable that ceres was then a thousand miles off, making the corn grow in some far distant country. nor could it have availed her poor daughter, even had she been within hearing; for no sooner did proserpina begin to cry out, than the stranger leaped to the ground, caught the child in his arms, and again mounted the chariot, shook the reins, and shouted to the four black horses to set off. they immediately broke into so swift a gallop, that it seemed rather like flying through the air than running along the earth. in a moment, proserpina lost sight of the pleasant vale of enna, in which she had always dwelt. another instant, and even the summit of mount aetna had become so blue in the distance, that she could scarcely distinguish it from the smoke that gushed out of its crater. but still the poor child screamed, and scattered her apron full of flowers along the way, and left a long cry trailing behind the chariot; and many mothers, to whose ears it came, ran quickly to see if any mischief had befallen their children. but mother ceres was a great way off, and could not hear the cry. as they rode on, the stranger did his best to soothe her. "why should you be so frightened, my pretty child?" said he, trying to soften his rough voice. "i promise not to do you any harm. what! you have been gathering flowers? wait till we come to my palace, and i will give you a garden full of prettier flowers than those, all made of pearls, and diamonds, and rubies. can you guess who i am? they call my name pluto; and i am the king of diamonds and all other precious stones. every atom of the gold and silver that lies under the earth belongs to me, to say nothing of the copper and iron, and of the coal mines, which supply me with abundance of fuel. do you see this splendid crown upon my head? you may have it for a plaything. o, we shall be very good friends, and you will find me more agreeable than you expect, when once we get out of this troublesome sunshine." "let me go home!" cried proserpina. "let me go home!" "my home is better than your mother's," answered king pluto. "it is a palace, all made of gold, with crystal windows; and because there is little or no sunshine thereabouts, the apartments are illuminated with diamond lamps. you never saw anything half so magnificent as my throne. if you like, you may sit down on it, and be my little queen, and i will sit on the footstool." "i don't care for golden palaces and thrones," sobbed proserpina. "oh, my mother, my mother! carry me back to my mother!" but king pluto, as he called himself, only shouted to his steeds to go faster. "pray do not be foolish, proserpina," said he, in rather a sullen tone. "i offer you my palace and my crown, and all the riches that are under the earth; and you treat me as if i were doing you an injury. the one thing which my palace needs is a merry little maid, to run upstairs and down, and cheer up the rooms with her smile. and this is what you must do for king pluto." "never!" answered proserpina, looking as miserable as she could. "i shall never smile again till you set me down at my mother's door." but she might just as well have talked to the wind that whistled past them, for pluto urged on his horses, and went faster than ever. proserpina continued to cry out, and screamed so long and so loudly that her poor little voice was almost screamed away; and when it was nothing but a whisper, she happened to cast her eyes over a great broad field of waving grain--and whom do you think she saw? who, but mother ceres, making the corn grow, and too busy to notice the golden chariot as it went rattling along. the child mustered all her strength, and gave one more scream, but was out of sight before ceres had time to turn her head. king pluto had taken a road which now began to grow excessively gloomy. it was bordered on each side with rocks and precipices, between which the rumbling of the chariot wheels was reverberated with a noise like rolling thunder. the trees and bushes that grew in the crevices of the rocks had very dismal foliage; and by and by, although it was hardly noon, the air became obscured with a gray twilight. the black horses had rushed along so swiftly, that they were already beyond the limits of the sunshine. but the duskier it grew, the more did pluto's visage assume an air of satisfaction. after all, he was not an ill-looking person, especially when he left off twisting his features into a smile that did not belong to them. proserpina peeped at his face through the gathering dusk, and hoped that he might not be so very wicked as she at first thought him. "ah, this twilight is truly refreshing," said king pluto, "after being so tormented with that ugly and impertinent glare of the sun. how much more agreeable is lamplight or torchlight, more particularly when reflected from diamonds! it will be a magnificent sight, when we get to my palace." "is it much farther?" asked proserpina. "and will you carry me back when i have seen it?" "we will talk of that by and by," answered pluto. "we are just entering my dominions. do you see that tall gateway before us? when we pass those gates, we are at home. and there lies my faithful mastiff at the threshold. cerberus! cerberus! come hither, my good dog!" so saying, pluto pulled at the reins, and stopped the chariot right between the tall, massive pillars of the gateway. the mastiff of which he had spoken got up from the threshold, and stood on his hinder legs, so as to put his fore paws on the chariot wheel. but, my stars, what a strange dog it was! why, he was a big, rough, ugly-looking monster, with three separate heads, and each of them fiercer than the two others; but fierce as they were, king pluto patted them all. he seemed as fond of his three-headed dog as if it had been a sweet little spaniel, with silken ears and curly hair. cerberus, on the other hand, was evidently rejoiced to see his master, and expressed his attachment, as other dogs do, by wagging his tail at a great rate. proserpina's eyes being drawn to it by its brisk motion, she saw that this tail was neither more nor less than a live dragon, with fiery eyes, and fangs that had a very poisonous aspect. and while the three-headed cerberus was fawning so lovingly on king pluto, there was the dragon tail wagging against its will, and looking as cross and ill-natured as you can imagine, on its own separate account. "will the dog bite me?" asked proserpina, shrinking closer to pluto. "what an ugly creature he is!" "o, never fear," answered her companion. "he never harms people, unless they try to enter my dominions without being sent for, or to get away when i wish to keep them here. down, cerberus! now, my pretty proserpina, we will drive on." on went the chariot, and king pluto seemed greatly pleased to find himself once more in his own kingdom. he drew proserpina's attention to the rich veins of gold that were to be seen among the rocks, and pointed to several places where one stroke of a pickaxe would loosen a bushel of diamonds. all along the road, indeed, there were sparkling gems, which would have been of inestimable value above ground, but which here were reckoned of the meaner sort and hardly worth a beggar's stooping for. not far from the gateway, they came to a bridge, which seemed to be built of iron. pluto stopped the chariot, and bade proserpina look at the stream which was gliding so lazily beneath it. never in her life had she beheld so torpid, so black, so muddy-looking a stream; its waters reflected no images of anything that was on the banks, and it moved as sluggishly as if it had quite forgotten which way it ought to flow, and had rather stagnate than flow either one way or the other. "this is the river lethe," observed king pluto. "is it not a very pleasant stream?" "i think it a very dismal one," answered proserpina. "it suits my taste, however," answered pluto, who was apt to be sullen when anybody disagreed with him. "at all events, its water has one excellent quality; for a single draught of it makes people forget every care and sorrow that has hitherto tormented them. only sip a little of it, my dear proserpina, and you will instantly cease to grieve for your mother, and will have nothing in your memory that can prevent your being perfectly happy in my palace. i will send for some, in a golden goblet, the moment we arrive." "o, no, no, no!" cried proserpina, weeping afresh. "i had a thousand times rather be miserable with remembering my mother, than be happy in forgetting her. that dear, dear mother! i never, never will forget her." "we shall see," said king pluto. "you do not know what fine times we will have in my palace. here we are just at the portal. these pillars are solid gold, i assure you." he alighted from the chariot, and taking proserpina in his arms, carried her up a lofty flight of steps into the great hall of the palace. it was splendidly illuminated by means of large precious stones, of various hues, which seemed to burn like so many lamps, and glowed with a hundred-fold radiance all through the vast apartment. and yet there was a kind of gloom in the midst of this enchanted light; nor was there a single object in the hall that was really agreeable to behold, except the little proserpina herself, a lovely child, with one earthly flower which she had not let fall from her hand. it is my opinion that even king pluto had never been happy in his palace, and that this was the true reason why he had stolen away proserpina, in order that he might have something to love, instead of cheating his heart any longer with this tiresome magnificence. and, though he pretended to dislike the sunshine of the upper world, yet the effect of the child's presence, bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a faint and watery sunbeam had somehow or other found its way into the enchanted hall. pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not to fail of setting a golden beaker of the water of lethe by proserpina's plate. "i will neither drink that nor anything else," said proserpina. "nor will i taste a morsel of food, even if you keep me forever in your palace." "i should be sorry for that," replied king pluto, patting her cheek; for he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how. "you are a spoiled child, i perceive, my little proserpina; but when you see the nice things which my cook will make for you, your appetite will quickly come again." then, sending for the head cook, he gave strict orders that all sorts of delicacies, such as young people are usually fond of, should be set before proserpina. he had a secret motive in this; for, you are to understand, it is a fixed law, that when persons are carried off to the land of magic, if they once taste any food there, they can never get back to their friends. now, if king pluto had been cunning enough to offer proserpina some fruit, or bread and milk (which was the simple fare to which the child had always been accustomed), it is very probable that she would soon have been tempted to eat it. but he left the matter entirely to his cook, who, like all other cooks, considered nothing fit to eat unless it were rich pastry, or highly-seasoned meat, or spiced sweet cakes--things which proserpina's mother had never given her, and the smell of which quite took away her appetite, instead of sharpening it. but my story must now clamber out of king pluto's dominions, and see what mother ceres had been about, since she was bereft of her daughter. we had a glimpse of her, as you remember, half hidden among the waving grain, while the four black steeds were swiftly whirling along the chariot, in which her beloved proserpina was so unwillingly borne away. you recollect, too, the loud scream which proserpina gave, just when the chariot was out of sight. of all the child's outcries, this last shriek was the only one that reached the ears of mother ceres. she had mistaken the rumbling of the chariot wheels for a peal of thunder, and imagined that a shower was coming up, and that it would assist her in making the corn grow. but, at the sound of proserpina's shriek, she started, and looked about in every direction, not knowing whence it came, but feeling almost certain that it was her daughter's voice. it seemed so unaccountable, however, that the girl should have strayed over so many lands and seas (which she herself could not have traversed without the aid of her winged dragons), that the good ceres tried to believe that it must be the child of some other parent, and not her own darling proserpina, who had uttered this lamentable cry. nevertheless, it troubled her with a vast many tender fears, such as are ready to bestir themselves in every mother's heart, when she finds it necessary to go away from her dear children without leaving them under the care of some maiden aunt, or other such faithful guardian. so she quickly left the field in which she had been so busy; and, as her work was not half done, the grain looked, next day, as if it needed both sun and rain, and as if it were blighted in the ear, and had something the matter with its roots. the pair of dragons must have had very nimble wings; for, in less than an hour, mother ceres had alighted at the door of her home, and found it empty. knowing, however, that the child was fond of sporting on the sea-shore, she hastened thither as fast as she could, and there beheld the wet faces of the poor sea nymphs peeping over a wave. all this while, the good creatures had been waiting on the bank of sponge, and once, every half minute or so, had popped up their four heads above water, to see if their playmate were yet coming back. when they saw mother ceres, they sat down on the crest of the surf wave, and let it toss them ashore at her feet. "where is proserpina?" cried ceres. "where is my child? tell me, you naughty sea nymphs, have you enticed her under the sea?" "o, no, good mother ceres," said the innocent sea nymphs, tossing back their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. "we never should dream of such a thing. proserpina has been at play with us, it is true; but she left us a long while ago, meaning only to run a little way upon the dry land, and gather some flowers for a wreath. this was early in the day, and we have seen nothing of her since." ceres scarcely waited to hear what the nymphs had to say, before she hurried off to make inquiries all through the neighborhood. but nobody told her anything that would enable the poor mother to guess what had become of proserpina. a fisherman, it is true, had noticed her little footprints in the sand, as he went homeward along the beach with a basket of fish; a rustic had seen the child stooping to gather flowers; several persons had heard either the rattling of chariot wheels, or the rumbling of distant thunder; and one old woman, while plucking vervain and catnip, had heard a scream, but supposed it to be some childish nonsense, and therefore did not take the trouble to look up. the stupid people! it took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that they knew, that it was dark night before mother ceres found out that she must seek her daughter elsewhere. so she lighted a torch, and set forth, resolving never to come back until proserpina was discovered. in her haste and trouble of mind, she quite forgot her car and the winged dragons; or, it may be, she thought that she could follow up the search more thoroughly on foot. at all events, this was the way in which she began her sorrowful journey, holding her torch before her, and looking carefully at every object along the path. and as it happened, she had not gone far before she found one of the magnificent flowers which grew on the shrub that proserpina had pulled up. "ha!" thought mother ceres, examining it by torchlight. "here is mischief in this flower! the earth did not produce it by any help of mine, nor of its own accord. it is the work of enchantment, and is therefore poisonous; and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child." but she put the poisonous flower in her bosom, not knowing whether she might ever find any other memorial of proserpina. all night long, at the door of every cottage and farm-house, ceres knocked, and called up the weary laborers to inquire if they had seen her child; and they stood, gaping and half-asleep, at the threshold, and answered her pityingly, and besought her to come in and rest. at the portal of every palace, too, she made so loud a summons that the menials hurried to throw open the gate, thinking that it must be some great king or queen, who would demand a banquet for supper and a stately chamber to repose in. and when they saw only a sad and anxious woman, with a torch in her hand and a wreath of withered poppies on her head, they spoke rudely, and sometimes threatened to set the dogs upon her. but nobody had seen proserpina, nor could give mother ceres the least hint which way to seek her. thus passed the night; and still she continued her search without sitting down to rest, or stopping to take food, or even remembering to put out the torch although first the rosy dawn, and then the glad light of the morning sun, made its red flame look thin and pale. but i wonder what sort of stuff this torch was made of; for it burned dimly through the day, and, at night, was as bright as ever, and never was extinguished by the rain or wind, in all the weary days and nights while ceres was seeking for proserpina. it was not merely of human beings that she asked tidings of her daughter. in the woods and by the streams, she met creatures of another nature, who used, in those old times, to haunt the pleasant and solitary places, and were very sociable with persons who understood their language and customs, as mother ceres did. sometimes, for instance, she tapped with her finger against the knotted trunk of a majestic oak; and immediately its rude bark would cleave asunder, and forth would step a beautiful maiden, who was the hamadryad of the oak, dwelling inside of it, and sharing its long life, and rejoicing when its green leaves sported with the breeze. but not one of these leafy damsels had seen proserpina. then, going a little farther, ceres would, perhaps, come to a fountain, gushing out of a pebbly hollow in the earth, and would dabble with her hand in the water. behold, up through its sandy and pebbly bed, along with the fountain's gush, a young woman with dripping hair would arise, and stand gazing at mother ceres, half out of the water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless motion. but when the mother asked whether her poor lost child had stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with weeping eyes (for these water-nymphs had tears to spare for everybody's grief), would answer "no!" in a murmuring voice, which was just like the murmur of the stream. often, likewise, she encountered fauns, who looked like sunburnt country people, except that they had hairy ears, and little horns upon their foreheads, and the hinder legs of goats, on which they gamboled merrily about the woods and fields. they were a frolicsome kind of creature but grew as sad as their cheerful dispositions would allow, when ceres inquired for her daughter, and they had no good news to tell. but sometimes she same suddenly upon a rude gang of satyrs, who had faces like monkeys, and horses' tails behind them, and who were generally dancing in a very boisterous manner, with shouts of noisy laughter. when she stopped to question them, they would only laugh the louder, and make new merriment out of the lone woman's distress. how unkind of those ugly satyrs! and once, while crossing a solitary sheep pasture, she saw a personage named pan, seated at the foot of a tall rock, and making music on a shepherd's flute. he, too, had horns, and hairy ears, and goats' feet; but, being acquainted with mother ceres, he answered her question as civilly as he knew how, and invited her to taste some milk and honey out of a wooden bowl. but neither could pan tell her what had become of proserpina, any better than the rest of these wild people. and thus mother ceres went wandering about for nine long days and nights, finding no trace of proserpina, unless it were now and then a withered flower; and these she picked up and put in her bosom, because she fancied that they might have fallen from her poor child's hand. all day she traveled onward through the hot sun; and, at night again, the flame of the torch would redden and gleam along the pathway, and she continued her search by its light, without ever sitting down to rest. on the tenth day, she chanced to espy the mouth of a cavern within which (though it was bright noon everywhere else) there would have been only a dusky twilight; but it so happened that a torch was burning there. it flickered, and struggled with the duskiness, but could not half light up the gloomy cavern with all its melancholy glimmer. ceres was resolved to leave no spot without a search; so she peeped into the entrance of the cave, and lighted it up a little more, by holding her own torch before her. in so doing, she caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a woman, sitting on the brown leaves of the last autumn, a great heap of which had been swept into the cave by the wind. this woman (if woman it were) was by no means so beautiful as many of her sex; for her head, they tell me, was shaped very much like a dog's, and, by way of ornament, she wore a wreath of snakes around it. but mother ceres, the moment she saw her, knew that this was an odd kind of a person, who put all her enjoyment in being miserable, and never would have a word to say to other people, unless they were as melancholy and wretched as she herself delighted to be. "i am wretched enough now," thought poor ceres, "to talk with this melancholy hecate, were she ten times sadder than ever she was yet." so she stepped into the cave, and sat down on the withered leaves by the dog-headed woman's side. in all the world, since her daughter's loss, she had found no other companion. "o hecate," said she, "if ever you lose a daughter, you will know what sorrow is. tell me, for pity's sake, have you seen my poor child proserpina pass by the mouth of your cavern?" "no," answered hecate, in a cracked voice, and sighing betwixt every word or two; "no, mother ceres, i have seen nothing of your daughter. but my ears, you must know, are made in such a way, that all cries of distress and affright all over the world are pretty sure to find their way to them; and nine days ago, as i sat in my cave, making myself very miserable, i heard the voice of a young girl, shrieking as if in great distress. something terrible has happened to the child, you may rest assured. as well as i could judge, a dragon, or some other cruel monster, was carrying her away." "you kill me by saying so," cried ceres, almost ready to faint. "where was the sound, and which way did it seem to go?" "it passed very swiftly along," said hecate, "and, at the same time, there was a heavy rumbling of wheels towards the eastward. i can tell you nothing more, except that, in my honest opinion, you will never see your daughter again. the best advice i can give you is, to take up your abode in this cavern, where we will be the two most wretched women in the world." "not yet, dark hecate," replied ceres. "but do you first come with your torch, and help me to seek for my lost child. and when there shall be no more hope of finding her (if that black day is ordained to come), then, if you will give me room to fling myself down, either on these withered leaves or on the naked rock, i will show what it is to be miserable. but, until i know that she has perished from the face of the earth, i will not allow myself space even to grieve." the dismal hecate did not much like the idea of going abroad into the sunny world. but then she reflected that the sorrow of the disconsolate ceres would be like a gloomy twilight round about them both, let the sun shine ever so brightly, and that therefore she might enjoy her bad spirits quite as well as if she were to stay in the cave. so she finally consented to go, and they set out together, both carrying torches, although it was broad daylight and clear sunshine. the torchlight seemed to make a gloom; so that the people whom they met, along the road, could not very distinctly see their figures; and, indeed, if they once caught a glimpse of hecate, with the wreath of snakes round her forehead, they generally thought it prudent to run away, without waiting for a second glance. as the pair traveled along in this woe-begone manner, a thought struck ceres. "there is one person," she exclaimed, "who must have seen my poor child, and can doubtless tell what has become of her. why did not i think of him before? it is phoebus." "what," said hecate, "the young man that always sits in the sunshine? o, pray do not think of going near him. he is a gay, light, frivolous young fellow, and will only smile in your face. and besides, there is such a glare of the sun about him, that he will quite blind my poor eyes, which i have almost wept away already." "you have promised to be my companion," answered ceres. "come, let us make haste, or the sunshine will be gone, and phoebus along with it." accordingly, they went along in quest of phoebus, both of them sighing grievously, and hecate, to say the truth, making a great deal worse lamentation than ceres; for all the pleasure she had, you know, lay in being miserable, and therefore she made the most of it. by and by, after a pretty long journey, they arrived at the sunniest spot in the whole world. there they beheld a beautiful young man, with long, curling ringlets, which seemed to be made of golden sunbeams; his garments were like light summer clouds; and the expression of his face was so exceedingly vivid, that hecate held her hands before her eyes, muttering that he ought to wear a black veil. phoebus (for this was the very person whom they were seeking) had a lyre in his hands, and was making its chords tremble with sweet music; at the same time singing a most exquisite song, which he had recently composed. for, beside a great many other accomplishments, this young man was renowned for his admirable poetry. as ceres and her dismal companion approached him, phoebus smiled on them so cheerfully that hecate's wreath of snakes gave a spiteful hiss, and hecate heartily wished herself back in her cave. but as for ceres, she was too earnest in her grief either to know or care whether phoebus smiled or frowned. "phoebus!" exclaimed she, "i am in great trouble, and have come to you for assistance. can you tell me what has become of my dear child proserpina?" "proserpina! proserpina, did you call her name?" answered phoebus, endeavoring to recollect; for there was such a continual flow of pleasant ideas in his mind, that he was apt to forget what had happened no longer ago than yesterday. "ah, yes, i remember her now. a very lovely child, indeed. i am happy to tell you, my dear madam, that i did see the little proserpina not many days ago. you may make yourself perfectly easy about her. she is safe, and in excellent hands." "o, where is my dear child?" cried ceres, clasping her hands, and flinging herself at his feet. "why," said phoebus--and as he spoke he kept touching his lyre so as to make a thread of music run in and out among his words--"as the little damsel was gathering flowers (and she has really a very exquisite taste for flowers), she was suddenly snatched up by king pluto, and carried off to his dominions. i have never been in that part of the universe; but the royal palace, i am told, is built in a very noble style of architecture, and of the most splendid and costly materials. gold, diamonds, pearls, and all manner of precious stones will be your daughter's ordinary playthings. i recommend to you, my dear lady, to give yourself no uneasiness. proserpina's sense of beauty will be duly gratified, and even in spite of the lack of sunshine, she will lead a very enviable life." "hush! say not such a word!" answered ceres, indignantly. "what is there to gratify her heart? what are all the splendors you speak of without affection? i must have her back again. will you go with me you go with me, phoebus, to demand my daughter of this wicked pluto?" "pray excuse me," replied phoebus, with an elegant obeisance. "i certainly wish you success, and regret that my own affairs are so immediately pressing that i cannot have the pleasure of attending you. besides, i am not upon the best of terms with king pluto. to tell you the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass the gateway; for i should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me, and those, you know, are forbidden things in pluto's kingdom." "ah, phoebus," said ceres, with bitter meaning in her words, "you have a harp instead of a heart. farewell." "will not you stay a moment," asked phoebus, "and hear me turn the pretty and touching story of proserpina into extemporary verses?" but ceres shook her head, and hastened away, along with hecate. phoebus (who, as i have told you, was an exquisite poet) forthwith began to make an ode about the poor mother's grief; and, if we were to judge of his sensibility by this beautiful production, he must have been endowed with a very tender heart. but when a poet gets into the habit of using his heartstrings to make chords for his lyre, he may thrum upon them as much as he will, without any great pain to himself. accordingly, though phoebus sang a very sad song, he was as merry all the while as were the sunbeams amid which he dwelt. poor mother ceres had now found out what had become of her daughter, but was not a whit happier than before. her case, on the contrary, looked more desperate than ever. as long as proserpina was above ground, there might have been hopes of regaining her. but now that the poor child was shut up within the iron gates of the king of the mines, at the threshold of which lay the three-headed cerberus, there seemed no possibility of her ever making her escape. the dismal hecate, who loved to take the darkest view of things, told ceres that she had better come with her to the cavern, and spend the rest of her life in being miserable. ceres answered, that hecate was welcome to go back thither herself, but that, for her part, she would wander about the earth in quest of the entrance to king pluto's dominions. and hecate took her at her word, and hurried back to her beloved cave, frightening a great many little children with a glimpse of her dog's face as she went. poor mother ceres! it is melancholy to think of her, pursuing her toilsome way, all alone, and holding up that never-dying torch, the flame of which seemed an emblem of the grief and hope that burned together in her heart. so much did she suffer, that, though her aspect had been quite youthful when her troubles began, she grew to look like an elderly person in a very brief time. she cared not how she was dressed, nor had she ever thought of flinging away the wreath of withered poppies, which she put on the very morning of proserpina's disappearance. she roamed about in so wild a way, and with her hair so disheveled, that people took her for some distracted creature, and never dreamed that this was mother ceres, who had the oversight of every seed which the husbandman planted. nowadays, however, she gave herself no trouble about seed time nor harvest, but left the farmers to take care of their own affairs, and the crops to fade or flourish, as the case might be. there was nothing, now, in which ceres seemed to feel an interest, unless when she saw children at play, or gathering flowers along the wayside. then, indeed, she would stand and gaze at them with tears in her eyes. the children, too, appeared to have a sympathy with her grief, and would cluster themselves in a little group about her knees, and look up wistfully in her face; and ceres, after giving them a kiss all round, would lead them to their homes, and advise their mothers never to let them stray out of sight. "for if they do," said she, "it may happen to you, as it has to me, that the iron-hearted king pluto will take a liking to your darlings, and snatch them up in his chariot, and carry them away." one day, during her pilgrimage in quest of the entrance to pluto's kingdom, she came to the palace of king cereus, who reigned at eleusis. ascending a lofty flight of steps, she entered the portal, and found the royal household in very great alarm about the queen's baby. the infant, it seems, was sickly (being troubled with its teeth, i suppose), and would take no food, and was all the time moaning with pain. the queen--her name was metanira--was desirous of funding a nurse; and when she beheld a woman of matronly aspect coming up the palace steps, she thought, in her own mind, that here was the very person whom she needed. so queen metanira ran to the door, with the poor wailing baby in her arms, and besought ceres to take charge of it, or, at least, to tell her what would do it good. "will you trust the child entirely to me?" asked ceres. "yes, and gladly, too," answered the queen, "if you will devote all your time to him. for i can see that you have been a mother." "you are right," said ceres. "i once had a child of my own. well; i will be the nurse of this poor, sickly boy. but beware, i warn you, that you do not interfere with any kind of treatment which i may judge proper for him. if you do so, the poor infant must suffer for his mother's folly." then she kissed the child, and it seemed to do him good; for he smiled and nestled closely into her bosom. so mother ceres set her torch in a corner (where it kept burning all the while), and took up her abode in the palace of king cereus, as nurse to the little prince demophoon. she treated him as if he were her own child, and allowed neither the king nor the queen to say whether he should be bathed in warm or cold water, or what he should eat, or how often he should take the air, or when he should be put to bed. you would hardly believe me, if i were to tell how quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since. instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother confessed him to be, when ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other. all the good women of the neighborhood crowded to the palace, and held up their hands, in unutterable amazement, at the beauty and wholesomeness of this darling little prince. their wonder was the greater, because he was never seen to taste any food; not even so much as a cup of milk. "pray, nurse," the queen kept saying, "how is it that you make the child thrive so?" "i was a mother once," ceres always replied; "and having nursed my own child, i know what other children need." but queen metanira, as was very natural, had a great curiosity to know precisely what the nurse did to her child. one night, therefore, she hid herself in the chamber where ceres and the little prince were accustomed to sleep. there was a fire in the chimney, and it had now crumbled into great coals and embers, which lay glowing on the hearth, with a blaze flickering up now and then, and flinging a warm and ruddy light upon the walls. ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the firelight making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead. she undressed the little prince, and bathed him all over with some fragrant liquid out of a vase. the next thing she did was to rake back the red embers, and make a hollow place among them, just where the backlog had been. at last, while the baby was crowing, and clapping its fat little hands, and laughing in the nurse's face (just as you may have seen your little brother or sister do before going into its warm bath), ceres suddenly laid him, all naked as he was, in the hollow among the red-hot embers. she then raked the ashes over him, and turned quietly away. you may imagine, if you can, how queen metanira shrieked, thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a cinder. she burst forth from her hiding-place, and running to the hearth, raked open the fire, and snatched up poor little prince demophoon out of his bed of live coals, one of which he was gripping in each of his fists. he immediately set up a grievous cry, as babies are apt to do, when rudely startled out of a sound sleep. to the queen's astonishment and joy, she could perceive no token of the child's being injured by the hot fire in which he had lain. she now turned to mother ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery. "foolish woman," answered ceres, "did you not promise to intrust this poor infant entirely to me? you little know the mischief you have done him. had you left him to my care, he would have grown up like a child of celestial birth, endowed with superhuman strength and intelligence, and would have lived forever. do you imagine that earthly children are to become immortal without being tempered to it in the fiercest heat of the fire? but you have ruined your own son. for though he will be a strong man and a hero in his day, yet, on account of your folly, he will grow old, and finally die, like the sons of other women. the weak tenderness of his mother has cost the poor boy an immortality. farewell." saying these words, she kissed the little prince demophoon, and sighed to think what he had lost, and took her departure without heeding queen metanira, who entreated her to remain, and cover up the child among the hot embers as often as she pleased. poor baby! he never slept so warmly again. while she dwelt in the king's palace, mother ceres had been so continually occupied with taking care of the young prince, that her heart was a little lightened of its grief for proserpina. but now, having nothing else to busy herself about, she became just as wretched as before. at length, in her despair, she came to the dreadful resolution that not a stalk of grain, nor a blade of grass, not a potato, nor a turnip, nor any other vegetable that was good for man or beast to eat, should be suffered to grow until her daughter were restored. she even forbade the flowers to bloom, lest somebody's heart should be cheered by their beauty. now, as not so much as a head of asparagus ever presumed to poke itself out of the ground, without the especial permission of ceres, you may conceive what a terrible calamity had here fallen upon the earth. the husbandmen plowed and planted as usual; but there lay the rich black furrows, all as barren as a desert of sand. the pastures looked as brown in the sweet month of june as ever they did in chill november. the rich man's broad acres and the cottager's small garden patch were equally blighted. every little girl's flower bed showed nothing but dry stalks. the old people shook their white heads, and said that the earth had grown aged like themselves, and was no longer capable of wearing the warm smile of summer on its face. it was really piteous to see the poor, starving cattle and sheep, how they followed behind ceres, lowing and bleating, as if their instinct taught them to expect help from her; and everybody that was acquainted with her power besought her to have mercy on the human race, and, at all events, to let the grass grow. but mother ceres, though naturally of an affectionate disposition, was now inexorable. "never," said she. "if the earth is ever again to see any verdure, it must first grow along the path which my daughter will tread in coming back to me." finally, as there seemed to be no other remedy, our old friend quicksilver was sent post-haste to king pluto, in hopes that he might be persuaded to undo the mischief he had done, and to set everything right again, by giving up proserpina. quicksilver accordingly made the best of his way to the great gate, took a flying leap right over the three-headed mastiff, and stood at the door of the palace in an inconceivably short time. the servants knew him both by his face and garb; for his short cloak, and his winged cap and shoes, and his snaky staff had often been seen thereabouts in times gone by. he requested to be shown immediately into the king's presence; and pluto, who heard his voice from the top of the stairs, and who loved to recreate himself with quicksilver's merry talk, called out to him to come up. and while they settle their business together, we must inquire what proserpina had been doing ever since we saw her last. the child had declared, as you may remember, that she would not taste a mouthful of food as long as she should be compelled to remain in king pluto's palace. how she contrived to maintain her resolution, and at the same time to keep herself tolerably plump and rosy, is more than i can explain; but some young ladies, i am given to understand, possess the faculty of living on air, and proserpina seems to have possessed it too. at any rate, it was now six months since she left the outside of the earth; and not a morsel, so far as the attendants were able to testify, had yet passed between her teeth. this was the more creditable to proserpina, inasmuch as king pluto had caused her to be tempted day by day, with all manner of sweetmeats, and richly-preserved fruits, and delicacies of every sort, such as young people are generally most fond of. but her good mother had often told her of the hurtfulness of these things; and for that reason alone, if there had been no other, she would have resolutely refused to taste them. all this time, being of a cheerful and active disposition, the little damsel was not quite so unhappy as you may have supposed. the immense palace had a thousand rooms, and was full of beautiful and wonderful objects. there was a never-ceasing gloom, it is true, which half hid itself among the innumerable pillars, gliding before the child as she wandered among them, and treading stealthily behind her in the echo of her footsteps. neither was all the dazzle of the precious stones, which flamed with their own light, worth one gleam of natural sunshine; nor could the most brilliant of the many-colored gems, which proserpina had for playthings, vie with the simple beauty of the flowers she used to gather. but still, whenever the girl went among those gilded halls and chambers, it seemed as if she carried nature and sunshine along with her, and as if she scattered dewy blossoms on her right hand and on her left. after proserpina came, the palace was no longer the same abode of stately artifice and dismal magnificence that it had before been. the inhabitants all felt this, and king pluto more than any of them. "my own little proserpina," he used to say. "i wish you could like me a little better. we gloomy and cloudy-natured persons have often as warm hearts, at bottom, as those of a more cheerful character. if you would only stay with me of your own accord, it would make me happier than the possession of a hundred such palaces as this." "ah," said proserpina, "you should have tried to make me like you before carrying me off. and the best thing you can now do is, to let me go again. then i might remember you sometimes, and think that you were as kind as you knew how to be. perhaps, too, one day or other, i might come back, and pay you a visit." "no, no," answered pluto, with his gloomy smile, "i will not trust you for that. you are too fond of living in the broad daylight, and gathering flowers. what an idle and childish taste that is! are not these gems, which i have ordered to be dug for you, and which are richer than any in my crown--are they not prettier than a violet?" "not half so pretty," said proserpina, snatching the gems from pluto's hand, and flinging them to the other end of the hall. "o my sweet violets, shall i never see you again?" and then she burst into tears. but young people's tears have very little saltness or acidity in them, and do not inflame the eyes so much as those of grown persons; so that it is not to be wondered at, if, a few moments afterwards, proserpina was sporting through the hall almost as merrily as she and the four sea nymphs had sported along the edge of the surf wave. king pluto gazed after her, and wished that he, too, was a child. and little proserpina, when she turned about, and beheld this great king standing in his splendid hall, and looking so grand, and so melancholy, and so lonesome, was smitten with a kind of pity. she ran back to him, and, for the first time in all her life, put her small, soft hand in his. "i love you a little," whispered she, looking up in his face. "do you, indeed, my dear child?" cried pluto, bending his dark face down to kiss her; but proserpina shrank away from the kiss, for, though his features were noble, they were very dusky and grim. "well, i have not deserved it of you, after keeping you a prisoner for so many months, and starving you besides. are you not terribly hungry? is there nothing which i can get you to eat?" in asking this question, the king of the mines had a very cunning purpose; for, you will recollect, if proserpina tasted a morsel of food in his dominions, she would never afterwards be at liberty to quit them. "no indeed," said proserpina. "your head cook is always baking, and stewing, and roasting, and rolling out paste, and contriving one dish or another, which he imagines may be to my liking. but he might just as well save himself the trouble, poor, fat little man that he is. i have no appetite for anything in the world, unless it were a slice of bread, of my mother's own baking, or a little fruit out of her garden." when pluto heard this, he began to see that he had mistaken the best method of tempting proserpina to eat. the cook's made dishes and artificial dainties were not half so delicious, in the good child's opinion, as the simple fare to which mother ceres had accustomed her. wondering that he had never thought of it before, the king now sent one of his trusty attendants with a large basket, to get some of the finest and juiciest pears, peaches, and plums which could anywhere be found in the upper world. unfortunately, however, this was during the time when ceres had forbidden any fruits or vegetables to grow; and, after seeking all over the earth, king pluto's servant found only a single pomegranate, and that so dried up as not to be worth eating. nevertheless, since there was no better to be had, he brought this dry, old withered pomegranate home to the palace, put it on a magnificent golden salver, and carried it up to proserpina. now, it happened, curiously enough, that, just as the servant was bringing the pomegranate into the back door of the palace, our friend quicksilver had gone up the front steps, on his errand to get proserpina away from king pluto. as soon as proserpina saw the pomegranate on the golden salver, she told the servant he had better take it away again. "i shall not touch it, i assure you," said she. "if i were ever so hungry, i should never think of eating such a miserable, dry pomegranate as that." "it is the only one in the world," said the servant. he set down the golden salver, with the wizened pomegranate upon it, and left the room. when he was gone, proserpina could not help coming close to the table, and looking at this poor specimen of dried fruit with a great deal of eagerness; for, to say the truth, on seeing something that suited her taste, she felt all the six months' appetite taking possession of her at once. to be sure, it was a very wretched-looking pomegranate, and seemed to have no more juice in it than an oyster shell. but there was no choice of such things in king pluto's palace. this was the first fruit she had seen there, and the last she was ever likely to see; and unless she ate it up immediately, it would grow drier than it already was, and be wholly unfit to eat. "at least, i may smell it," thought proserpina. so she took up the pomegranate, and applied it to her nose; and, somehow or other, being in such close neighborhood to her mouth, the fruit found its way into that little red cave. dear me! what an everlasting pity! before proserpina knew what she was about, her teeth had actually bitten it, of their own accord. just as this fatal deed was done, the door of the apartment opened, and in came king pluto, followed by quicksilver, who had been urging him to let his little prisoner go. at the first noise of their entrance, proserpina withdrew the pomegranate from her mouth. but quicksilver (whose eyes were very keen, and his wits the sharpest that ever anybody had) perceived that the child was a little confused; and seeing the empty salver, he suspected that she had been taking a sly nibble of something or other. as for honest pluto, he never guessed at the secret. "my little proserpina," said the king, sitting down, and affectionately drawing her between his knees, "here is quicksilver, who tells me that a great many misfortunes have befallen innocent people on account of my detaining you in my dominions. to confess the truth, i myself had already reflected that it was an unjustifiable act to take you away from your good mother. but, then, you must consider, my dear child, that this vast palace is apt to be gloomy (although the precious stones certainly shine very bright), and that i am not of the most cheerful disposition, and that therefore it was a natural thing enough to seek for the society of some merrier creature than myself. i hoped you would take my crown for a plaything, and me--ah, you laugh, naughty proserpina--me, grim as i am, for a playmate. it was a silly expectation." "not so extremely silly," whispered proserpina. "you have really amused me very much, sometimes." "thank you," said king pluto, rather dryly. "but i can see plainly enough, that you think my palace a dusky prison, and me the iron-hearted keeper of it. and an iron heart i should surely have, if i could detain you here any longer, my poor child, when it is now six months since you tasted food. i give you your liberty. go with quicksilver. hasten home to your dear mother." now, although you may not have supposed it, proserpina found it impossible to take leave of poor king pluto without some regrets, and a good deal of compunction for not telling him about the pomegranate. she even shed a tear or two, thinking how lonely and cheerless the great palace would seem to him, with all its ugly glare of artificial light, after she herself--his one little ray of natural sunshine, whom he had stolen, to be sure, but only because he valued her so much--after she should have departed. i know not how many kind things she might have said to the disconsolate king of the mines, had not quicksilver hurried her way. "come along quickly," whispered he in her ear, "or his majesty may change his royal mind. and take care, above all things, that you say nothing of what was brought you on the golden salver." in a very short time, they had passed the great gateway (leaving the three-headed cerberus, barking, and yelping, and growling, with threefold din, behind them), and emerged upon the surface of the earth. it was delightful to behold, as proserpina hastened along, how the path grew verdant behind and on either side of her. wherever she set her blessed foot, there was at once a dewy flower. the violets gushed up along the wayside. the grass and the grain began to sprout with tenfold vigor and luxuriance, to make up for the dreary months that had been wasted in barrenness. the starved cattle immediately set to work grazing, after their long fast, and ate enormously, all day, and got up at midnight to eat more. but i can assure you it was a busy time of year with the farmers, when they found the summer coming upon them with such a rush. nor must i forget to say, that all the birds in the whole world hopped about upon the newly-blossoming trees, and sang together, in a prodigious ecstasy of joy. mother ceres had returned to her deserted home, and was sitting disconsolately on the doorstep, with her torch burning in her hand. she had been idly watching the flame for some moments past, when, all at once, it flickered and went out. "what does this mean?" thought she. "it was an enchanted torch, and should have kept burning till my child came back." lifting her eyes, she was surprised to see a sudden verdure flashing over the brown and barren fields, exactly as you may have observed a golden hue gleaming far and wide across the landscape, from the just risen sun. "does the earth disobey me?" exclaimed mother ceres, indignantly. "does it presume to be green, when i have bidden it be barren, until my daughter shall be restored to my arms?" "then open your arms, dear mother," cried a well-known voice, "and take your little daughter into them." and proserpina came running, and flung herself upon her mother's bosom. their mutual transport is not to be described. the grief of their separation had caused both of them to shed a great many tears; and now they shed a great many more, because their joy could not so well express itself in any other way. when their hearts had grown a little more quiet, mother ceres looked anxiously at proserpina. "my child," said she, "did you taste any food while you were in king pluto's palace?" "dearest mother," exclaimed proserpina, "i will tell you the whole truth. until this very morning, not a morsel of food had passed my lips. but to-day, they brought me a pomegranate (a very dry one it was, and all shriveled up, till there was little left of it but seeds and skin), and having seen no fruit for so long a time, and being faint with hunger, i was tempted just to bite it. the instant i tasted it, king pluto and quicksilver came into the room. i had not swallowed a morsel; but--dear mother, i hope it was no harm--but six of the pomegranate seeds, i am afraid, remained in my mouth." "ah, unfortunate child, and miserable me!" exclaimed ceres. "for each of those six pomegranate seeds you must spend one month of every year in king pluto's palace. you are but half restored to your mother. only six months with me, and six with that good-for-nothing king of darkness!" "do not speak so harshly of poor king pluto," said prosperina, kissing her mother. "he has some very good qualities; and i really think i can bear to spend six months in his palace, if he will only let me spend the other six with you. he certainly did very wrong to carry me off; but then, as he says, it was but a dismal sort of life for him, to live in that great gloomy place, all alone; and it has made a wonderful change in his spirits to have a little girl to run up stairs and down. there is some comfort in making him so happy; and so, upon the whole, dearest mother, let us be thankful that he is not to keep me the whole year round." the golden fleece. when jason, the son of the dethroned king of iolchos, was a little boy, he was sent away from his parents, and placed under the queerest schoolmaster that ever you heard of. this learned person was one of the people, or quadrupeds, called centaurs. he lived in a cavern, and had the body and legs of a white horse, with the head and shoulders of a man. his name was chiron; and, in spite of his odd appearance, he was a very excellent teacher, and had several scholars, who afterwards did him credit by making a great figure in the world. the famous hercules was one, and so was achilles, and philoctetes likewise, and aesculapius, who acquired immense repute as a doctor. the good chiron taught his pupils how to play upon the harp, and how to cure diseases, and how to use the sword and shield, together with various other branches of education, in which the lads of those days used to be instructed, instead of writing and arithmetic. i have sometimes suspected that master chiron was not really very different from other people, but that, being a kind-hearted and merry old fellow, he was in the habit of making believe that he was a horse, and scrambling about the schoolroom on all fours, and letting the little boys ride upon his back. and so, when his scholars had grown up, and grown old, and were trotting their grandchildren on their knees, they told them about the sports of their school days; and these young folks took the idea that their grandfathers had been taught their letters by a centaur, half man and half horse. little children, not quite understanding what is said to them, often get such absurd notions into their heads, you know. be that as it may, it has always been told for a fact (and always will be told, as long as the world lasts), that chiron, with the head of a schoolmaster, had the body and legs of a horse. just imagine the grave old gentleman clattering and stamping into the schoolroom on his four hoofs, perhaps treading on some little fellow's toes, flourishing his switch tail instead of a rod, and, now and then, trotting out of doors to eat a mouthful of grass! i wonder what the blacksmith charged him for a set of iron shoes? so jason dwelt in the cave, with this four-footed chiron, from the time that he was an infant, only a few months old, until he had grown to the full height of a man. he became a very good harper, i suppose, and skilful in the use of weapons, and tolerably acquainted with herbs and other doctor's stuff, and, above all, an admirable horseman; for, in teaching young people to ride, the good chiron must have been without a rival among schoolmasters. at length, being now a tall and athletic youth, jason resolved to seek his fortune in the world, without asking chiron's advice, or telling him anything about the matter. this was very unwise, to be sure; and i hope none of you, my little hearers, will ever follow jason's example. but, you are to understand, he had heard how that he himself was a prince royal, and how his father, king jason, had been deprived of the kingdom of iolchos by a certain pelias, who would also have killed jason, had he not been hidden in the centaur's cave. and, being come to the strength of a man, jason determined to set all this business to rights, and to punish the wicked pelias for wronging his dear father, and to cast him down from the throne, and seat himself there instead. with this intention, he took a spear in each hand, and threw a leopard's skin over his shoulders, to keep off the rain, and set forth on his travels, with his long yellow ringlets waving in the wind. the part of his dress on which he most prided himself was a pair of sandals, that had been his father's. they were handsomely embroidered, and were tied upon his feet with strings of gold. but his whole attire was such as people did not very often see; and as he passed along, the women and children ran to the doors and windows, wondering whither this beautiful youth was journeying, with his leopard's skin and his golden-tied sandals, and what heroic deeds he meant to perform, with a spear in his right hand and another in his left. i know not how far jason had traveled, when he came to a turbulent river, which rushed right across his pathway, with specks of white foam among its black eddies, hurrying tumultuously onward, and roaring angrily as it went. though not a very broad river in the dry seasons of the year, it was now swollen by heavy rains and by the melting of the snow on the sides of mount olympus; and it thundered so loudly, and looked so wild and dangerous, that jason, bold as he was, thought it prudent to pause upon the brink. the bed of the stream seemed to be strewn with sharp and rugged rocks, some of which thrust themselves above the water. by and by, an uprooted tree, with shattered branches, came drifting along the current, and got entangled among the rocks. now and then, a drowned sheep, and once the carcass of a cow, floated past. in short, the swollen river had already done a great deal of mischief. it was evidently too deep for jason to wade, and too boisterous for him to swim; he could see no bridge; and as for a boat, had there been any, the rocks would have broken it to pieces in an instant. "see the poor lad," said a cracked voice close to his side. "he must have had but a poor education, since he does not know how to cross a little stream like this. or is he afraid of wetting his fine golden-stringed sandals? it is a pity his four-footed schoolmaster is not here to carry him safely across on his back!" jason looked round greatly surprised, for he did not know that anybody was near. but beside him stood an old woman, with a ragged mantle over her head, leaning on a staff, the top of which was carved into the shape of a cuckoo. she looked very aged, and wrinkled, and infirm; and yet her eyes, which were as brown as those of an ox, were so extremely large and beautiful, that, when they were fixed on jason's eyes, he could see nothing else but them. the old woman had a pomegranate in her hand, although the fruit was then quite out of season. "whither are you going, jason?" she now asked. she seemed to know his name, you will observe; and, indeed, those great brown eyes looked as if they had a knowledge of everything, whether past or to come. while jason was gazing at her, a peacock strutted forward, and took his stand at the old woman's side. "i am going to iolchos," answered the young man, "to bid the wicked king pelias come down from my father's throne, and let me reign in his stead." "ah, well, then," said the old woman, still with the same cracked voice, "if that is all your business, you need not be in a very great hurry. just take me on your back, there's a good youth, and carry me across the river. i and my peacock have something to do on the other side, as well as yourself." "good mother," replied jason, "your business can hardly be so important as the pulling down a king from his throne. besides, as you may see for yourself, the river is very boisterous; and if i should chance to stumble, it would sweep both of us away more easily than it has carried off yonder uprooted tree. i would gladly help you if i could; but i doubt whether i am strong enough to carry you across." "then," said she, very scornfully, "neither are you strong enough to pull king pelias off his throne. and, jason, unless you will help an old woman at her need, you ought not to be a king. what are kings made for, save to succor the feeble and distressed? but do as you please. either take me on your back, or with my poor old limbs i shall try my best to struggle across the stream." saying this, the old woman poked with her staff in the river, as if to find the safest place in its rocky bed where she might make the first step. but jason, by this time, had grown ashamed of his reluctance to help her. he felt that he could never forgive himself, if this poor feeble creature should come to any harm in attempting to wrestle against the headlong current. the good chiron, whether half horse or no, had taught him that the noblest use of his strength was to assist the weak; and also that he must treat every young woman as if she were his sister, and every old one like a mother. remembering these maxims, the vigorous and beautiful young man knelt down, and requested the good dame to mount upon his back. "the passage seems to me not very safe," he remarked. "but as your business is so urgent, i will try to carry you across. if the river sweeps you away, it shall take me too." "that, no doubt, will be a great comfort to both of us," quoth the old woman. "but never fear. we shall get safely across." so she threw her arms around jason's neck; and lifting her from the ground, he stepped boldly into the raging and foaming current, and began to stagger away from the shore. as for the peacock, it alighted on the old dame's shoulder. jason's two spears, one in each hand, kept him from stumbling, and enabled him to feel his way among the hidden rocks; although every instant, he expected that his companion and himself would go down the stream, together with the driftwood of shattered trees, and the carcasses of the sheep and cow. down came the cold, snowy torrent from the steep side of olympus, raging and thundering as if it had a real spite against jason, or, at all events, were determined to snatch off his living burden from his shoulders. when he was half way across, the uprooted tree (which i have already told you about) broke loose from among the rocks, and bore down upon him, with all its splintered branches sticking out like the hundred arms of the giant briareus. it rushed past, however, without touching him. but the next moment his foot was caught in a crevice between two rocks, and stuck there so fast, that, in the effort to get free, he lost one of his golden-stringed sandals. at this accident jason could not help uttering a cry of vexation. "what is the matter, jason?" asked the old woman. "matter enough," said the young man. "i have lost a sandal here among the rocks. and what sort of a figure shall i cut, at the court of king pelias, with a golden-stringed sandal on one foot, and the other foot bare!" "do not take it to heart," answered his companion cheerily. "you never met with better fortune than in losing that sandal. it satisfies me that you are the very person whom the speaking oak has been talking about." there was no time, just then, to inquire what the speaking oak had said. but the briskness of her tone encouraged the young man; and, besides, he had never in his life felt so vigorous and mighty as since taking this old woman on his back. instead of being exhausted, he gathered strength as he went on; and, struggling up against the torrent, he at last gained the opposite shore, clambered up the bank, and set down the old dame and her peacock safely on the grass. as soon as this was done, however, he could not help looking rather despondently at his bare foot, with only a remnant of the golden string of the sandal clinging round his ankle. "you will get a handsomer pair of sandals by and by," said the old woman, with a kindly look out of her beautiful brown eyes. "only let king pelias get a glimpse of that bare foot, and you shall see him turn as pale as ashes, i promise you. there is your path. go along, my good jason, and my blessing go with you. and when you sit on your throne remember the old woman whom you helped over the river." with these words, she hobbled away, giving him a smile over her shoulder as she departed. whether the light of her beautiful brown eyes threw a glory round about her, or whatever the cause might be, jason fancied that there was something very noble and majestic in her figure, after all, and that, though her gait seemed to be a rheumatic hobble, yet she moved with as much grace and dignity as any queen on earth. her peacock, which had now fluttered down from her shoulder, strutted behind her in a prodigious pomp, and spread out its magnificent tail on purpose for jason to admire it. when the old dame and her peacock were out of sight, jason set forward on his journey. after traveling a pretty long distance, he came to a town situated at the foot of a mountain, and not a great way from the shore of the sea. on the outside of the town there was an immense crowd of people, not only men and women, but children too, all in their best clothes, and evidently enjoying a holiday. the crowd was thickest towards the sea-shore; and in that direction, over the people's heads, jason saw a wreath of smoke curling upward to the blue sky. he inquired of one of the multitude what town it was near by, and why so many persons were here assembled together. "this is the kingdom of iolchos," answered the man, "and we are the subjects of king pelias. our monarch has summoned us together, that we may see him sacrifice a black bull to neptune, who, they say, is his majesty's father. yonder is the king, where you see the smoke going up from the altar." while the man spoke he eyed jason with great curiosity; for his garb was quite unlike that of the iolchians, and it looked very odd to see a youth with a leopard's skin over his shoulders, and each hand grasping a spear. jason perceived, too, that the man stared particularly at his feet, one of which, you remember, was bare, while the other was decorated with his father's golden-stringed sandal. "look at him! only look at him!" said the man to his next neighbor. "do you see? he wears but one sandal!" upon this, first one person, and then another, began to stare at jason, and everybody seemed to be greatly struck with something in his aspect; though they turned their eyes much oftener towards his feet than to any other part of his figure. besides, he could hear them whispering to one another. "one sandal! one sandal!" they kept saying. "the man with one sandal! here he is at last! whence has he come? what does he mean to do? what will the king say to the one-sandaled man?" poor jason was greatly abashed, and made up his mind that the people of iolchos were exceedingly ill-bred, to take such public notice of an accidental deficiency in his dress. meanwhile, whether it were that they hustled him forward, or that jason, of his own accord, thrust a passage through the crowd, it so happened that he soon found himself close to the smoking altar, where king pelias was sacrificing the black bull. the murmur and hum of the multitude, in their surprise at the spectacle of jason with his one bare foot, grew so loud that it disturbed the ceremonies; and the king, holding the great knife with which he was just going to cut the bull's throat, turned angrily about, and fixed his eyes on jason. the people had now withdrawn from around him, so that the youth stood in an open space, near the smoking altar, front to front with the angry king pelias. "who are you?" cried the king, with a terrible frown. "and how dare you make this disturbance, while i am sacrificing a black bull to my father neptune?" "it is no fault of mine," answered jason. "your majesty must blame the rudeness of your subjects, who have raised all this tumult because one of my feet happens to be bare." when jason said this, the king gave a quick startled glance down at his feet. "ha!" muttered he, "here is the one-sandaled fellow, sure enough! what can i do with him?" and he clutched more closely the great knife in his hand, as if he were half a mind to slay jason, instead of the black bull. the people round about caught up the king's words, indistinctly as they were uttered; and first there was a murmur amongst them, and then a loud shout. "the one-sandaled man has come! the prophecy must be fulfilled!" for you are to know, that, many years before, king pelias had been told by the speaking oak of dodona, that a man with one sandal should cast him down from his throne. on this account, he had given strict orders that nobody should ever come into his presence, unless both sandals were securely tied upon his feet; and he kept an officer in his palace, whose sole business it was to examine people's sandals, and to supply them with a new pair, at the expense of the royal treasury, as soon as the old ones began to wear out. in the whole course of the king's reign, he had never been thrown into such a fright and agitation as by the spectacle of poor jason's bare foot. but, as he was naturally a bold and hard-hearted man, he soon took courage, and began to consider in what way he might rid himself of this terrible one-sandaled stranger. "my good young man," said king pelias, taking the softest tone imaginable, in order to throw jason off his guard, "you are excessively welcome to my kingdom. judging by your dress, you must have traveled a long distance, for it is not the fashion to wear leopard skins in this part of the world. pray what may i call your name? and where did you receive your education?" "my name is jason," answered the young stranger. "ever since my infancy, i have dwelt in the cave of chiron the centaur. he was my instructor, and taught me music, and horsemanship, and how to cure wounds, and likewise how to inflict wounds with my weapons!" "i have heard of chiron the schoolmaster," replied king pelias, "and how that there is an immense deal of learning and wisdom in his head, although it happens to be set on a horse's body. it gives me great delight to see one of his scholars at my court. but to test how much you have profited under so excellent a teacher, will you allow me to ask you a single question?" "i do not pretend to be very wise," said jason. "but ask me what you please, and i will answer to the best of my ability." now king pelias meant cunningly to entrap the young man, and to make him say something that should be the cause of mischief and distraction to himself. so, with a crafty and evil smile upon his face, he spoke as follows: "what would you do, brave jason," asked he, "if there were a man in the world, by whom, as you had reason to believe, you were doomed to be ruined and slain--what would you do, i say, if that man stood before you, and in your power?" when jason saw the malice and wickedness which king pelias could not prevent from gleaming out of his eyes, he probably guessed that the king had discovered what he came for, and that he intended to turn his own words against himself. still he scorned to tell a falsehood. like an upright and honorable prince as he was, he determined to speak out the real truth. since the king had chosen to ask him the question, and since jason had promised him an answer, there was no right way save to tell him precisely what would be the most prudent thing to do, if he had his worst enemy in his power. therefore, after a moment's consideration, he spoke up, with a firm and manly voice. "i would send such a man," said he, "in quest of the golden fleece!" this enterprise, you will understand, was, of all others, the most difficult and dangerous in the world. in the first place it would be necessary to make a long voyage through unknown seas. there was hardly a hope, or a possibility, that any young man who should undertake this voyage would either succeed in obtaining the golden fleece, or would survive to return home, and tell of the perils he had run. the eyes of king pelias sparkled with joy, therefore, when he heard jason's reply. "well said, wise man with the one sandal!" cried he. "go, then, and at the peril of your life, bring me back the golden fleece." "i go," answered jason, composedly. "if i fail, you need not fear that i will ever come back to trouble you again. but if i return to iolchos with the prize, then, king pelias, you must hasten down from your lofty throne, and give me your crown and sceptre." "that i will," said the king, with a sneer. "meantime, i will keep them very safely for you." the first thing that jason thought of doing, after he left the king's presence, was to go to dodona, and inquire of the talking oak what course it was best to pursue. this wonderful tree stood in the center of an ancient wood. its stately trunk rose up a hundred feet into the air, and threw a broad and dense shadow over more than an acre of ground. standing beneath it, jason looked up among the knotted branches and green leaves, and into the mysterious heart of the old tree, and spoke aloud, as if he were addressing some person who was hidden in the depths of the foliage. "what shall i do," said he, "in order to win the golden fleece?" at first there was a deep silence, not only within the shadow of the talking oak, but all through the solitary wood. in a moment or two, however, the leaves of the oak began to stir and rustle, as if a gentle breeze were wandering amongst them, although the other trees of the wood were perfectly still. the sound grew louder, and became like the roar of a high wind. by and by, jason imagined that he could distinguish words, but very confusedly, because each separate leaf of the tree seemed to be a tongue, and the whole myriad of tongues were babbling at once. but the noise waxed broader and deeper, until it resembled a tornado sweeping through the oak, and making one great utterance out of the thousand and thousand of little murmurs which each leafy tongue had caused by its rustling. and now, though it still had the tone of a mighty wind roaring among the branches, it was also like a deep bass voice, speaking as distinctly as a tree could be expected to speak, the following words: "go to argus, the shipbuilder, and bid him build a galley with fifty oars." then the voice melted again into the indistinct murmur of the rustling leaves, and died gradually away. when it was quite gone, jason felt inclined to doubt whether he had actually heard the words, or whether his fancy had not shaped them out of the ordinary sound made by a breeze, while passing through the thick foliage of the tree. but on inquiry among the people of iolchos, he found that there was really a man in the city, by the name of argus, who was a very skilful builder of vessels. this showed some intelligence in the oak; else how should it have known that any such person existed? at jason's request, argus readily consented to build him a galley so big that it should require fifty strong men to row it; although no vessel of such a size and burden had heretofore been seen in the world. so the head carpenter and all his journeymen and apprentices began their work; and for a good while afterwards, there they were, busily employed, hewing out the timbers, and making a great clatter with their hammers; until the new ship, which was called the argo, seemed to be quite ready for sea. and, as the talking oak had already given him such good advice, jason thought that it would not be amiss to ask for a little more. he visited it again, therefore, and standing beside its huge, rough trunk, inquired what he should do next. this time, there was no such universal quivering of the leaves, throughout the whole tree, as there had been before. but after a while, jason observed that the foliage of a great branch which stretched above his head had begun to rustle, as if the wind were stirring that one bough, while all the other boughs of the oak were at rest. "cut me off!" said the branch, as soon as it could speak distinctly; "cut me off! cut me off! and carve me into a figure-head for your galley." accordingly, jason took the branch at its word, and lopped it off the tree. a carver in the neighborhood engaged to make the figurehead. he was a tolerably good workman, and had already carved several figure-heads, in what he intended for feminine shapes, and looking pretty much like those which we see nowadays stuck up under a vessel's bowsprit, with great staring eyes, that never wink at the dash of the spray. but (what was very strange) the carver found that his hand was guided by some unseen power, and by a skill beyond his own, and that his tools shaped out an image which he had never dreamed of. when the work was finished, it turned out to be the figure of a beautiful woman, with a helmet on her head, from beneath which the long ringlets fell down upon her shoulders. on the left arm was a shield, and in its center appeared a lifelike representation of the head of medusa with the snaky locks. the right arm was extended, as if pointing onward. the face of this wonderful statue, though not angry or forbidding, was so grave and majestic, that perhaps you might call it severe; and as for the mouth, it seemed just ready to unclose its lips, and utter words of the deepest wisdom. jason was delighted with the oaken image, and gave the carver no rest until it was completed, and set up where a figure-head has always stood, from that time to this, in the vessel's prow. "and now," cried he, as he stood gazing at the calm, majestic face of the statue, "i must go to the talking oak and inquire what next to do." "there is no need of that, jason," said a voice which, though it was far lower, reminded him of the mighty tones of the great oak. "when you desire good advice, you can seek it of me." jason had been looking straight into the face of the image when these words were spoken. but he could hardly believe either his ears or his eyes. the truth was, however, that the oaken lips had moved, and, to all appearance, the voice had proceeded from the statue's mouth. recovering a little from his surprise, jason bethought himself that the image had been carved out of the wood of the talking oak, and that, therefore, it was really no great wonder, but on the contrary, the most natural thing in the world, that it should possess the faculty of speech. it would have been very odd, indeed, if it had not. but certainly it was a great piece of good fortune that he should be able to carry so wise a block of wood along with him in his perilous voyage. "tell me, wondrous image," exclaimed jason,--"since you inherit the wisdom of the speaking oak of dodona, whose daughter you are,--tell me, where shall i find fifty bold youths, who will take each of them an oar of my galley? they must have sturdy arms to row, and brave hearts to encounter perils, or we shall never win the golden fleece." "go," replied the oaken image, "go, summon all the heroes of greece." and, in fact, considering what a great deed was to be done, could any advice be wiser than this which jason received from the figure-head of his vessel? he lost no time in sending messengers to all the cities, and making known to the whole people of greece, that prince jason, the son of king jason, was going in quest of the fleece of gold, and that he desired the help of forty-nine of the bravest and strongest young men alive, to row his vessel and share his dangers. and jason himself would be the fiftieth. at this news, the adventurous youths, all over the country, began to bestir themselves. some of them had already fought with giants, and slain dragons; and the younger ones, who had not yet met with such good fortune, thought it a shame to have lived so long without getting astride of a flying serpent, or sticking their spears into a chimaera, or, at least, thrusting their right arms down a monstrous lion's throat. there was a fair prospect that they would meet with plenty of such adventures before finding the golden fleece. as soon as they could furbish up their helmets and shields, therefore, and gird on their trusty swords, they came thronging to iolchos, and clambered on board the new galley. shaking hands with jason, they assured him that they did not care a pin for their lives, but would help row the vessel to the remotest edge of the world, and as much farther as he might think it best to go. many of these brave fellows had been educated by chiron, the four-footed pedagogue, and were therefore old schoolmates of jason, and knew him to be a lad of spirit. the mighty hercules, whose shoulders afterwards upheld the sky, was one of them. and there were castor and pollux, the twin brothers, who were never accused of being chicken-hearted, although they had been hatched out of an egg; and theseus, who was so renowned for killing the minotaur, and lynceus, with his wonderfully sharp eyes, which could see through a millstone, or look right down into the depths of the earth, and discover the treasures that were there; and orpheus, the very best of harpers, who sang and played upon his lyre so sweetly, that the brute beasts stood upon their hind legs, and capered merrily to the music. yes, and at some of his more moving tunes, the rocks bestirred their moss-grown bulk out of the ground, and a grove of forest trees uprooted themselves, and, nodding their tops to one another, performed a country dance. one of the rowers was a beautiful young woman, named atalanta, who had been nursed among the mountains by a bear. so light of foot was this fair damsel, that she could step from one foamy crest of a wave to the foamy crest of another, without wetting more than the sole of her sandal. she had grown up in a very wild way, and talked much about the rights of women, and loved hunting and war far better than her needle. but in my opinion, the most remarkable of this famous company were two sons of the north wind (airy youngsters, and of rather a blustering disposition) who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a calm, could puff out their cheeks, and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their father. i ought not to forget the prophets and conjurors, of whom there were several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen to-morrow or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally quite unconscious of what was passing at the moment. jason appointed tiphys to be helmsman because he was a star-gazer, and knew the points of the compass. lynceus, on account of his sharp sight, was stationed as a look-out in the prow, where he saw a whole day's sail ahead, but was rather apt to overlook things that lay directly under his nose. if the sea only happened to be deep enough, however, lynceus could tell you exactly what kind of rocks or sands were at the bottom of it; and he often cried out to his companions, that they were sailing over heaps of sunken treasure, which yet he was none the richer for beholding. to confess the truth, few people believed him when he said it. well! but when the argonauts, as these fifty brave adventurers were called, had prepared everything for the voyage, an unforeseen difficulty threatened to end it before it was begun. the vessel, you must understand, was so long, and broad, and ponderous, that the united force of all the fifty was insufficient to shove her into the water. hercules, i suppose, had not grown to his full strength, else he might have set her afloat as easily as a little boy launches his boat upon a puddle. but here were these fifty heroes, pushing, and straining, and growing red in the face, without making the argo start an inch. at last, quite wearied out, they sat themselves down on the shore exceedingly disconsolate, and thinking that the vessel must be left to rot and fall in pieces, and that they must either swim across the sea or lose the golden fleece. all at once, jason bethought himself of the galley's miraculous figure-head. "o, daughter of the talking oak," cried he, "how shall we set to work to get our vessel into the water?" "seat yourselves," answered the image (for it had known what had ought to be done from the very first, and was only waiting for the question to be put),--"seat yourselves, and handle your oars, and let orpheus play upon his harp." immediately the fifty heroes got on board, and seizing their oars, held them perpendicularly in the air, while orpheus (who liked such a task far better than rowing) swept his fingers across the harp. at the first ringing note of the music, they felt the vessel stir. orpheus thrummed away briskly, and the galley slid at once into the sea, dipping her prow so deeply that the figure-head drank the wave with its marvelous lips, and rising again as buoyant as a swan. the rowers plied their fifty oars; the white foam boiled up before the prow; the water gurgled and bubbled in their wake; while orpheus continued to play so lively a strain of music, that the vessel seemed to dance over the billows by way of keeping time to it. thus triumphantly did the argo sail out of the harbor, amidst the huzzas and good wishes of everybody except the wicked old pelias, who stood on a promontory, scowling at her, and wishing that he could blow out of his lungs the tempest of wrath that was in his heart, and so sink the galley with all on board. when they had sailed above fifty miles over the sea, lynceus happened to cast his sharp eyes behind, and said that there was this bad-hearted king, still perched upon the promontory, and scowling so gloomily that it looked like a black thunder-cloud in that quarter of the horizon. in order to make the time pass away more pleasantly during the voyage, the heroes talked about the golden fleece. it originally belonged, it appears, to a boeotian ram, who had taken on his back two children, when in danger of their lives, and fled with them over land and sea as far as colchis. one of the children, whose name was helle, fell into the sea and was drowned. but the other (a little boy, named phrixus) was brought safe ashore by the faithful ram, who, however, was so exhausted that he immediately lay down and died. in memory of this good deed, and as a token of his true heart, the fleece of the poor dead ram was miraculously changed to gold, and became one of the most beautiful objects ever seen on earth. it was hung upon a tree in a sacred grove, where it had now been kept i know not how many years, and was the envy of mighty kings, who had nothing so magnificent in any of their palaces. if i were to tell you all the adventures of the argonauts, it would take me till nightfall, and perhaps a great deal longer. there was no lack of wonderful events, as you may judge from what you have already heard. at a certain island, they were hospitably received by king cyzicus, its sovereign, who made a feast for them, and treated them like brothers. but the argonauts saw that this good king looked downcast and very much troubled, and they therefore inquired of him what was the matter. king cyzicus hereupon informed them that he and his subjects were greatly abused and incommoded by the inhabitants of a neighboring mountain, who made war upon them, and killed many people, and ravaged the country. and while they were talking about it, cyzicus pointed to the mountain, and asked jason and his companions what they saw there. "i see some very tall objects," answered jason; "but they are at such a distance that i cannot distinctly make out what they are. to tell your majesty the truth, they look so very strangely that i am inclined to think them clouds, which have chanced to take something like human shapes." "i see them very plainly," remarked lynceus, whose eyes, you know, were as far-sighted as a telescope. "they are a band of enormous giants, all of whom have six arms apiece, and a club, a sword, or some other weapon in each of their hands." "you have excellent eyes," said king cyzicus. "yes; they are six-armed giants, as you say, and these are the enemies whom i and my subjects have to contend with." the next day, when the argonauts were about setting sail, down came these terrible giants, stepping a hundred yards at a stride, brandishing their six arms apiece, and looking formidable, so far aloft in the air. each of these monsters was able to carry on a whole war by himself, for with one arm he could fling immense stones, and wield a club with another, and a sword with a third, while the fourth was poking a long spear at the enemy, and the fifth and sixth were shooting him with a bow and arrow. but, luckily, though the giants were so huge, and had so many arms, they had each but one heart, and that no bigger nor braver than the heart of an ordinary man. besides, if they had been like the hundred-armed briareus, the brave argonauts would have given them their hands full of fight. jason and his friends went boldly to meet them, slew a great many, and made the rest take to their heels, so that if the giants had had six legs apiece instead of six arms, it would have served them better to run away with. another strange adventure happened when the voyagers came to thrace, where they found a poor blind king, named phineus, deserted by his subjects, and living in a very sorrowful way, all by himself. on jason's inquiring whether they could do him any service, the king answered that he was terribly tormented by three great winged creatures, called harpies, which had the faces of women, and the wings, bodies, and claws of vultures. these ugly wretches were in the habit of snatching away his dinner, and allowed him no peace of his life. upon hearing this, the argonauts spread a plentiful feast on the sea-shore, well knowing, from what the blind king said of their greediness, that the harpies would snuff up the scent of the victuals, and quickly come to steal them away. and so it turned out; for, hardly was the table set, before the three hideous vulture women came flapping their wings, seized the food in their talons, and flew off as fast as they could. but the two sons of the north wind drew their swords, spread their pinions, and set off through the air in pursuit of the thieves, whom they at last overtook among some islands, after a chase of hundreds of miles. the two winged youths blustered terribly at the harpies (for they had the rough temper of their father), and so frightened them with their drawn swords, that they solemnly promised never to trouble king phineus again. then the argonauts sailed onward and met with many other marvelous incidents, any one of which would make a story by itself. at one time they landed on an island, and were reposing on the grass, when they suddenly found themselves assailed by what seemed a shower of steel-headed arrows. some of them stuck in the ground, while others hit against their shields, and several penetrated their flesh. the fifty heroes started up, and looked about them for the hidden enemy, but could find none, nor see any spot, on the whole island, where even a single archer could lie concealed. still, however, the steel-headed arrows came whizzing among them; and, at last, happening to look upward, they beheld a large flock of birds, hovering and wheeling aloft, and shooting their feathers down upon the argonauts. these feathers were the steel-headed arrows that had so tormented them. there was no possibility of making any resistance; and the fifty heroic argonauts might all have been killed or wounded by a flock of troublesome birds, without ever setting eyes on the golden fleece, if jason had not thought of asking the advice of the oaken image. so he ran to the galley as fast as his legs would carry him. "o, daughter of the speaking oak," cried he, all out of breath, "we need your wisdom more than ever before! we are in great peril from a flock of birds, who are shooting us with their steel-pointed feathers. what can we do to drive them away?" "make a clatter on your shields," said the image. on receiving this excellent counsel, jason hurried back to his companions (who were far more dismayed than when they fought with the six-armed giants), and bade them strike with their swords upon their brazen shields. forthwith the fifty heroes set heartily to work, banging with might and main, and raised such a terrible clatter, that the birds made what haste they could to get away; and though they had shot half the feathers out of their wings, they were soon seen skimming among the clouds, a long distance off, and looking like a flock of wild geese. orpheus celebrated this victory by playing a triumphant anthem on his harp, and sang so melodiously that jason begged him to desist, lest, as the steel-feathered birds had been driven away by an ugly sound, they might be enticed back again by a sweet one. while the argonauts remained on this island, they saw a small vessel approaching the shore, in which were two young men of princely demeanor, and exceedingly handsome, as young princes generally were, in those days. now, who do you imagine these two voyagers turned out to be? why, if you will believe me, they were the sons of that very phrixus, who, in his childhood, had been carried to colchis on the back of the golden-fleeced ram. since that time, phrixus had married the king's daughter; and the two young princes had been born and brought up at colchis, and had spent their play-days in the outskirts of the grove, in the center of which the golden fleece was hanging upon a tree. they were now on their way to greece, in hopes of getting back a kingdom that had been wrongfully taken from their father. when the princes understood whither the argonauts were going, they offered to turn back, and guide them to colchis. at the same time, however, they spoke as if it were very doubtful whether jason would succeed in getting the golden fleece. according to their account, the tree on which it hung was guarded by a terrible dragon, who never failed to devour, at one mouthful, every person who might venture within his reach. "there are other difficulties in the way," continued the young princes. "but is not this enough? ah, brave jason, turn back before it is too late. it would grieve us to the heart, if you and your nine and forty brave companions should be eaten up, at fifty mouthfuls, by this execrable dragon." "my young friends," quietly replied jason, "i do not wonder that you think the dragon very terrible. you have grown up from infancy in the fear of this monster, and therefore still regard him with the awe that children feel for the bugbears and hobgoblins which their nurses have talked to them about. but, in my view of the matter, the dragon is merely a pretty large serpent, who is not half so likely to snap me up at one mouthful as i am to cut off his ugly head, and strip the skin from his body. at all events, turn back who may, i will never see greece again, unless i carry with me the golden fleece." "we will none of us turn back!" cried his nine and forty brave comrades. "let us get on board the galley this instant; and if the dragon is to make a breakfast of us, much good may it do him." and orpheus (whose custom it was to set everything to music) began to harp and sing most gloriously, and made every mother's son of them feel as if nothing in this world were so delectable as to fight dragons, and nothing so truly honorable as to be eaten up at one mouthful, in case of the worst. after this (being now under the guidance of the two princes, who were well acquainted with the way), they quickly sailed to colchis. when the king of the country, whose name was aetes, heard of their arrival, he instantly summoned jason to court. the king was a stern and cruel looking potentate; and though he put on as polite and hospitable an expression as he could, jason did not like his face a whit better than that of the wicked king pelias, who dethroned his father. "you are welcome, brave jason," said king aetes. "pray, are you on a pleasure voyage?--or do you meditate the discovery of unknown islands?--or what other cause has procured me the happiness of seeing you at my court?" "great sir," replied jason, with an obeisance--for chiron had taught him how to behave with propriety, whether to kings or beggars--"i have come hither with a purpose which i now beg your majesty's permission to execute. king pelias, who sits on my father's throne (to which he has no more right than to the one on which your excellent majesty is now seated), has engaged to come down from it, and to give me his crown and sceptre, provided i bring him the golden fleece. this, as your majesty is aware, is now hanging on a tree here at colchis; and i humbly solicit your gracious leave to take it away." in spite of himself, the king's face twisted itself into an angry frown; for, above all things else in the world, he prized the golden fleece, and was even suspected of having done a very wicked act, in order to get it into his own possession. it put him into the worst possible humor, therefore, to hear that the gallant prince jason, and forty-nine of the bravest young warriors of greece, had come to colchis with the sole purpose of taking away his chief treasure. "do you know," asked king aetes, eyeing jason very sternly, "what are the conditions which you must fulfill before getting possession of the golden fleece?" "i have heard," rejoined the youth, "that a dragon lies beneath the tree on which the prize hangs, and that whoever approaches him runs the risk of being devoured at a mouthful." "true," said the king, with a smile that did not look particularly good-natured. "very true, young man. but there are other things as hard, or perhaps a little harder, to be done before you can even have the privilege of being devoured by the dragon. for example, you must first tame my two brazen-footed and brazen-lunged bulls, which vulcan, the wonderful blacksmith, made for me. there is a furnace in each of their stomachs; and they breathe such hot fire out of their mouths and nostrils, that nobody has hitherto gone nigh them without being instantly burned to a small, black cinder. what do you think of this, my brave jason?" "i must encounter the peril," answered jason, composedly, "since it stands in the way of my purpose." "after taming the fiery bulls," continued king aetes, who was determined to scare jason if possible, "you must yoke them to a plow, and must plow the sacred earth in the grove of mars, and sow some of the same dragon's teeth from which cadmus raised a crop of armed men. they are an unruly set of reprobates, those sons of the dragon's teeth; and unless you treat them suitably, they will fall upon you sword in hand. you and your nine and forty argonauts, my bold jason, are hardly numerous or strong enough to fight with such a host as will spring up." "my master chiron," replied jason, "taught me, long ago, the story of cadmus. perhaps i can manage the quarrelsome sons of the dragon's teeth as well as cadmus did." "i wish the dragon had him," muttered king aetes to himself, "and the four-footed pedant, his schoolmaster, into the bargain. why, what a foolhardy, self-conceited coxcomb he is! we'll see what my fire-breathing bulls will do for him. well, prince jason," he continued, aloud, and as complaisantly as he could, "make yourself comfortable for to-day, and to-morrow morning, since you insist upon it, you shall try your skill at the plow." while the king talked with jason, a beautiful young woman was standing behind the throne. she fixed her eyes earnestly upon the youthful stranger, and listened attentively to every word that was spoken; and when jason withdrew from the king's presence, this young woman followed him out of the room. "i am the king's daughter," she said to him, "and my name is medea. i know a great deal of which other young princesses are ignorant, and can do many things which they would be afraid so much as to dream of. if you will trust to me, i can instruct you how to tame the fiery bulls, and sow the dragon's teeth, and get the golden fleece." "indeed, beautiful princess," answered jason, "if you will do me this service, i promise to be grateful to you my whole life long." gazing at medea, he beheld a wonderful intelligence in her face. she was one of those persons whose eyes are full of mystery; so that, while looking into them, you seem to see a very great way, as into a deep well, yet can never be certain whether you see into the farthest depths, or whether there be not something else hidden at the bottom. if jason had been capable of fearing anything, he would have been afraid of making this young princess his enemy; for, beautiful as she now looked, she might, the very next instant, become as terrible as the dragon that kept watch over the golden fleece. "princess," he exclaimed, "you seem indeed very wise and very powerful. but how can you help me to do the things of which you speak? are you an enchantress?" "yes, prince jason," answered medea, with a smile, "you have hit upon the truth. i am an enchantress. circe, my father's sister, taught me to be one, and i could tell you, if i pleased, who was the old woman with the peacock, the pomegranate, and the cuckoo staff, whom you carried over the river; and, likewise, who it is that speaks through the lips of the oaken image, that stands in the prow of your galley. i am acquainted with some of your secrets, you perceive. it is well for you that i am favorably inclined; for, otherwise, you would hardly escape being snapped up by the dragon." "i should not so much care for the dragon," replied jason, "if i only knew how to manage the brazen-footed and fiery-lunged bulls." "if you are as brave as i think you, and as you have need to be," said medea, "your own bold heart will teach you that there is but one way of dealing with a mad bull. what it is i leave you to find out in the moment of peril. as for the fiery breath of these animals, i have a charmed ointment here, which will prevent you from being burned up, and cure you if you chance to be a little scorched." so she put a golden box into his hand, and directed him how to apply the perfumed unguent which it contained, and where to meet her at midnight. "only be brave," added she, "and before daybreak the brazen bulls shall be tamed." the young man assured her that his heart would not fail him. he then rejoined his comrades, and told them what had passed between the princess and himself, and warned them to be in readiness in case there might be need of their help. at the appointed hour he met the beautiful medea on the marble steps of the king's palace. she gave him a basket, in which were the dragon's teeth, just as they had been pulled out of the monster's jaws by cadmus, long ago. medea then led jason down the palace steps, and through the silent streets of the city, and into the royal pasture ground, where the two brazen-footed bulls were kept. it was a starry night, with a bright gleam along the eastern edge of the sky, where the moon was soon going to show herself. after entering the pasture, the princess paused and looked around. "there they are," said she, "reposing themselves and chewing their fiery cuds in that farthest corner of the field. it will be excellent sport, i assure you, when they catch a glimpse of your figure. my father and all his court delight in nothing so much as to see a stranger trying to yoke them, in order to come at the golden fleece. it makes a holiday in colchis whenever such a thing happens. for my part, i enjoy it immensely. you cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder." "are you sure, beautiful medea," asked jason, "quite sure, that the unguent in the gold box will prove a remedy against those terrible burns?" "if you doubt, if you are in the least afraid," said the princess, looking him in the face by the dim starlight, "you had better never have been born than to go a step nigher to the bulls." but jason had set his heart steadfastly on getting the golden fleece; and i positively doubt whether he would have gone back without it, even had he been certain of finding himself turned into a red-hot cinder, or a handful of white ashes, the instant he made a step farther. he therefore let go medea's hand, and walked boldly forward in the direction whither she had pointed. at some distance before him he perceived four streams of fiery vapor, regularly appearing and again vanishing, after dimly lighting up the surrounding obscurity. these, you will understand, were caused by the breath of the brazen bulls, which was quietly stealing out of their four nostrils, as they lay chewing their cuds. at the first two or three steps which jason made, the four fiery streams appeared to gush out somewhat more plentifully; for the two brazen bulls had heard his foot tramp, and were lifting up their hot noses to snuff the air. he went a little farther, and by the way in which the red vapor now spouted forth, he judged that the creatures had got upon their feet. now he could see glowing sparks, and vivid jets of flame. at the next step, each of the bulls made the pasture echo with a terrible roar, while the burning breath, which they thus belched forth, lit up the whole field with a momentary flash. one other stride did bold jason make; and, suddenly as a streak of lightning, on came these fiery animals, roaring like thunder, and sending out sheets of white flame, which so kindled up the scene that the young man could discern every object more distinctly than by daylight. most distinctly of all he saw the two horrible creatures galloping right down upon him, their brazen hoofs rattling and ringing over the ground, and their tails sticking up stiffly into the air, as has always been the fashion with angry bulls. their breath scorched the herbage before them. so intensely hot it was, indeed, that it caught a dry tree under which jason was now standing, and set it all in a light blaze. but as for jason himself (thanks to medea's enchanted ointment), the white flame curled around his body, without injuring him a jot more than if he had been made of asbestos. greatly encouraged at finding himself not yet turned into a cinder, the young man awaited the attack of the bulls. just as the brazen brutes fancied themselves sure of tossing him into the air, he caught one of them by the horn, and the other by his screwed-up tail, and held them in a gripe like that of an iron vice, one with his right hand, the other with his left. well, he must have been wonderfully strong in his arms, to be sure. but the secret of the matter was, that the brazen bulls were enchanted creatures, and that jason had broken the spell of their fiery fierceness by his bold way of handling them. and, ever since that time, it has been the favorite method of brave men, when danger assails them, to do what they call "taking the bull by the horns"; and to gripe him by the tail is pretty much the same thing--that is, to throw aside fear, and overcome the peril by despising it. it was now easy to yoke the bulls, and to harness them to the plow, which had lain rusting on the ground for a great many years gone by; so long was it before anybody could be found capable of plowing that piece of land. jason, i suppose, had been taught how to draw a furrow by the good old chiron, who, perhaps, used to allow himself to be harnessed to the plow. at any rate, our hero succeeded perfectly well in breaking up the greensward; and, by the time that the moon was a quarter of her journey up the sky, the plowed field lay before him, a large tract of black earth, ready to be sown with the dragon's teeth. so jason scattered them broadcast, and harrowed them into the soil with a brush-harrow, and took his stand on the edge of the field, anxious to see what would happen next. "must we wait long for harvest time?" he inquired of medea, who was now standing by his side. "whether sooner or later, it will be sure to come," answered the princess. "a crop of armed men never fails to spring up, when the dragon's teeth have been sown." the moon was now high aloft in the heavens, and threw its bright beams over the plowed field, where as yet there was nothing to be seen. any farmer, on viewing it, would have said that jason must wait weeks before the green blades would peep from among the clods, and whole months before the yellow grain would be ripened for the sickle. but by and by, all over the field, there was something that glistened in the moonbeams, like sparkling drops of dew. these bright objects sprouted higher, and proved to be the steel heads of spears. then there was a dazzling gleam from a vast number of polished brass helmets, beneath which, as they grew farther out of the soil, appeared the dark and bearded visages of warriors, struggling to free themselves from the imprisoning earth. the first look that they gave at the upper world was a glare of wrath and defiance. next were seen their bright breastplates; in every right hand there was a sword or a spear, and on each left arm a shield; and when this strange crop of warriors had but half grown out of the earth, they struggled--such was their impatience of restraint--and, as it were, tore themselves up by the roots. wherever a dragon's tooth had fallen, there stood a man armed for battle. they made a clangor with their swords against their shields, and eyed one another fiercely; for they had come into this beautiful world, and into the peaceful moonlight, full of rage and stormy passions, and ready to take the life of every human brother, in recompense of the boon of their own existence. there have been many other armies in the world that seemed to possess the same fierce nature with the one which had now sprouted from the dragon's teeth; but these, in the moonlit field, were the more excusable, because they never had women for their mothers. and how it would have rejoiced any great captain, who was bent on conquering the world, like alexander or napoleon, to raise a crop of armed soldiers as easily as jason did! for a while, the warriors stood flourishing their weapons, clashing their swords against their shields, and boiling over with the red-hot thirst for battle. then they began to shout--"show us the enemy! lead us to the charge! death or victory!" "come on, brave comrades! conquer or die!" and a hundred other outcries, such as men always bellow forth on a battle field, and which these dragon people seemed to have at their tongues' ends. at last, the front rank caught sight of jason, who, beholding the flash of so many weapons in the moonlight, had thought it best to draw his sword. in a moment all the sons of the dragon's teeth appeared to take jason for an enemy; and crying with one voice, "guard the golden fleece!" they ran at him with uplifted swords and protruded spears. jason knew that it would be impossible to withstand this blood-thirsty battalion with his single arm, but determined, since there was nothing better to be done, to die as valiantly as if he himself had sprung from a dragon's tooth. medea, however, bade him snatch up a stone from the ground. "throw it among them quickly!" cried she. "it is the only way to save yourself." the armed men were now so nigh that jason could discern the fire flashing out of their enraged eyes, when he let fly the stone, and saw it strike the helmet of a tall warrior, who was rushing upon him with his blade aloft. the stone glanced from this man's helmet to the shield of his nearest comrade, and thence flew right into the angry face of another, hitting him smartly between the eyes. each of the three who had been struck by the stone took it for granted that his next neighbor had given him a blow; and instead of running any farther towards jason, they began to fight among themselves. the confusion spread through the host, so that it seemed scarcely a moment before they were all hacking, hewing, and stabbing at one another, lopping off arms, heads, and legs and doing such memorable deeds that jason was filled with immense admiration; although, at the same time, he could not help laughing to behold these mighty men punishing each other for an offense which he himself had committed. in an incredibly short space of time (almost as short, indeed, as it had taken them to grow up), all but one of the heroes of the dragon's teeth were stretched lifeless on the field. the last survivor, the bravest and strongest of the whole, had just force enough to wave his crimson sword over his head and give a shout of exultation, crying, "victory! victory! immortal fame!" when he himself fell down, and lay quietly among his slain brethren. and there was the end of the army that had sprouted from the dragon's teeth. that fierce and feverish fight was the only enjoyment which they had tasted on this beautiful earth. "let them sleep in the bed of honor," said the princess medea, with a sly smile at jason. "the world will always have simpletons enough, just like them, fighting and dying for they know not what, and fancying that posterity will take the trouble to put laurel wreaths on their rusty and battered helmets. could you help smiling, prince jason, to see the self-conceit of that last fellow, just as he tumbled down?" "it made me very sad," answered jason, gravely. "and, to tell you the truth, princess, the golden fleece does not appear so well worth the winning, after what i have here beheld!" "you will think differently in the morning," said medea. "true, the golden fleece may not be so valuable as you have thought it; but then there is nothing better in the world; and one must needs have an object, you know. come! your night's work has been well performed; and to-morrow you can inform king aetes that the first part of your allotted task is fulfilled." agreeably to medea's advice, jason went betimes in the morning to the palace of king aetes. entering the presence chamber, he stood at the foot of the throne, and made a low obeisance. "your eyes look heavy, prince jason," observed the king; "you appear to have spent a sleepless night. i hope you have been considering the matter a little more wisely, and have concluded not to get yourself scorched to a cinder, in attempting to tame my brazen-lunged bulls." "that is already accomplished, may it please your majesty," replied jason. "the bulls have been tamed and yoked; the field has been plowed; the dragon's teeth have been sown broadcast, and harrowed into the soil; the crop of armed warriors have sprung up, and they have slain one another, to the last man. and now i solicit your majesty's permission to encounter the dragon, that i may take down the golden fleece from the tree, and depart, with my nine and forty comrades." king aetes scowled, and looked very angry and excessively disturbed; for he knew that, in accordance with his kingly promise, he ought now to permit jason to win the fleece, if his courage and skill should enable him to do so. but, since the young man had met with such good luck in the matter of the brazen bulls and the dragon's teeth, the king feared that he would be equally successful in slaying the dragon. and therefore, though he would gladly have seen jason snapped up at a mouthful, he was resolved (and it was a very wrong thing of this wicked potentate) not to run any further risk of losing his beloved fleece. "you never would have succeeded in this business, young man," said he, "if my undutiful daughter medea had not helped you with her enchantments. had you acted fairly, you would have been, at this instant, a black cinder, or a handful of white ashes. i forbid you, on pain of death, to make any more attempts to get the golden fleece. to speak my mind plainly, you shall never set eyes on so much as one of its glistening locks." jason left the king's presence in great sorrow and anger. he could think of nothing better to be done than to summon together his forty-nine brave argonauts, march at once to the grove of mars, slay the dragon, take possession of the golden fleece, get on board the argo, and spread all sail for iolchos. the success of this scheme depended, it is true, on the doubtful point whether all the fifty heroes might not be snapped up, at so many mouthfuls, by the dragon. but, as jason was hastening down the palace steps, the princess medea called after him, and beckoned him to return. her black eyes shone upon him with such a keen intelligence, that he felt as if there were a serpent peeping out of them; and, although she had done him so much service only the night before, he was by no means very certain that she would not do him an equally great mischief before sunset. these enchantresses, you must know, are never to be depended upon. "what says king aetes, my royal and upright father?" inquired medea, slightly smiling. "will he give you the golden fleece, without any further risk or trouble?" "on the contrary," answered jason, "he is very angry with me for taming the brazen bulls and sowing the dragon's teeth. and he forbids me to make any more attempts, and positively refuses to give up the golden fleece, whether i slay the dragon or no." "yes, jason," said the princess, "and i can tell you more. unless you set sail from colchis before to-morrow's sunrise, the king means to burn your fifty-oared galley, and put yourself and your forty-nine brave comrades to the sword. but be of good courage. the golden fleece you shall have, if it lies within the power of my enchantments to get it for you. wait for me here an hour before midnight." at the appointed hour you might again have seen prince jason and the princess medea, side by side, stealing through the streets of colchis, on their way to the sacred grove, in the center of which the golden fleece was suspended to a tree. while they were crossing the pasture ground, the brazen bulls came towards jason, lowing, nodding their heads, and thrusting forth their snouts, which, as other cattle do, they loved to have rubbed and caressed by a friendly hand. their fierce nature was thoroughly tamed; and, with their fierceness, the two furnaces in their stomachs had likewise been extinguished, insomuch that they probably enjoyed far more comfort in grazing and chewing their cuds than ever before. indeed, it had heretofore been a great inconvenience to these poor animals, that, whenever they wished to eat a mouthful of grass, the fire out of their nostrils had shriveled it up, before they could manage to crop it. how they contrived to keep themselves alive is more than i can imagine. but now, instead of emitting jets of flame and streams of sulphurous vapor, they breathed the very sweetest of cow breath. after kindly patting the bulls, jason followed medea's guidance into the grove of mars, where the great oak trees, that had been growing for centuries, threw so thick a shade that the moonbeams struggled vainly to find their way through it. only here and there a glimmer fell upon the leaf-strewn earth, or now and then a breeze stirred the boughs aside, and gave jason a glimpse of the sky, lest, in that deep obscurity, he might forget that there was one, overhead. at length, when they had gone farther and farther into the heart of the duskiness, medea squeezed jason's hand. "look yonder," she whispered. "do you see it?" gleaming among the venerable oaks, there was a radiance, not like the moonbeams, but rather resembling the golden glory of the setting sun. it proceeded from an object, which appeared to be suspended at about a man's height from the ground, a little farther within the wood. "what is it?" asked jason. "have you come so far to seek it," exclaimed medea, "and do you not recognize the meed of all your toils and perils, when it glitters before your eyes? it is the golden fleece." jason went onward a few steps farther, and then stopped to gaze. o, how beautiful it looked, shining with a marvelous light of its own, that inestimable prize which so many heroes had longed to behold, but had perished in the quest of it, either by the perils of their voyage, or by the fiery breath of the brazen-lunged bulls. "how gloriously it shines!" cried jason, in a rapture. "it has surely been dipped in the richest gold of sunset. let me hasten onward, and take it to my bosom." "stay," said medea, holding him back. "have you forgotten what guards it?" to say the truth, in the joy of beholding the object of his desires, the terrible dragon had quite slipped out of jason's memory. soon, however, something came to pass, that reminded him what perils were still to be encountered. an antelope, that probably mistook the yellow radiance for sunrise, came bounding fleetly through the grove. he was rushing straight towards the golden fleece, when suddenly there was a frightful hiss, and the immense head and half the scaly body of the dragon was thrust forth (for he was twisted round the trunk of the tree on which the fleece hung), and seizing the poor antelope, swallowed him with one snap of his jaws. after this feat, the dragon seemed sensible that some other living creature was within reach, on which he felt inclined to finish his meal. in various directions he kept poking his ugly snout among the trees, stretching out his neck a terrible long way, now here, now there, and now close to the spot where jason and the princess were hiding behind an oak. upon my word, as the head came waving and undulating through the air, and reaching almost within arm's length of prince jason, it was a very hideous and uncomfortable sight. the gape of his enormous jaws was nearly as wide as the gateway of the king's palace. "well, jason," whispered medea (for she was ill natured, as all enchantresses are, and wanted to make the bold youth tremble), "what do you think now of your prospect of winning the golden fleece?" jason answered only by drawing his sword, and making a step forward. "stay, foolish youth," said medea, grasping his arm. "do not you see you are lost, without me as your good angel? in this gold box i have a magic potion, which will do the dragon's business far more effectually than your sword." the dragon had probably heard the voices; for swift as lightning, his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. as it approached, medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide-open throat. immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle--flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree, and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again--the dragon fell at full length upon the ground, and lay quite motionless. "it is only a sleeping potion," said the enchantress to prince jason. "one always finds a use for these mischievous creatures, sooner or later; so i did not wish to kill him outright. quick! snatch the prize, and let us begone. you have won the golden fleece." jason caught the fleece from the tree, and hurried through the grove, the deep shadows of which were illuminated as he passed by the golden glory of the precious object that he bore along. a little way before him, he beheld the old woman whom he had helped over the stream, with her peacock beside her. she clapped her hands for joy, and beckoning him to make haste, disappeared among the duskiness of the trees. espying the two winged sons of the north wind (who were disporting themselves in the moonlight, a few hundred feet aloft), jason bade them tell the rest of the argonauts to embark as speedily as possible. but lynceus, with his sharp eyes, had already caught a glimpse of him, bringing the golden fleece, although several stone walls, a hill, and the black shadows of the grove of mars, intervened between. by his advice, the heroes had seated themselves on the benches of the galley, with their oars held perpendicularly, ready to let fall into the water. as jason drew near, he heard the talking image calling to him with more than ordinary eagerness, in its grave, sweet voice: "make haste, prince jason! for your life, make haste!" with one bound, he leaped aboard. at sight of the glorious radiance of the golden fleece, the nine and forty heroes gave a mighty shout, and orpheus, striking his harp, sang a song of triumph, to the cadence of which the galley flew over the water, homeward bound, as if careering along with wings! *********************************************************************** there is an improved edition of this title which may be viewed at ebook (# ) which contains an illustrated html file *********************************************************************** the scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne editor's note nathaniel hawthorne was already a man of forty-six, and a tale writer of some twenty-four years' standing, when "the scarlet letter" appeared. he was born at salem, mass., on july th, , son of a sea-captain. he led there a shy and rather sombre life; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. its colours and shadows are marvelously reflected in his "twice-told tales" and other short stories, the product of his first literary period. even his college days at bowdoin did not quite break through his acquired and inherited reserve; but beneath it all, his faculty of divining men and women was exercised with almost uncanny prescience and subtlety. "the scarlet letter," which explains as much of this unique imaginative art, as is to be gathered from reading his highest single achievement, yet needs to be ranged with his other writings, early and late, to have its last effect. in the year that saw it published, he began "the house of the seven gables," a later romance or prose-tragedy of the puritan-american community as he had himself known it-- defrauded of art and the joy of life, "starving for symbols" as emerson has it. nathaniel hawthorne died at plymouth, new hampshire, on may th, . the following is the table of his romances, stories, and other works: fanshawe, published anonymously, ; twice-told tales, st series, ; nd series, ; grandfather's chair, a history for youth, : famous old people (grandfather's chair), liberty tree: with the last words of grandfather's chair, ; biographical stories for children, ; mosses from an old manse, ; the scarlet letter, ; the house of the seven gables, : true stories from history and biography (the whole history of grandfather's chair), a wonder book for girls and boys, ; the snow image and other tales, : the blithedale romance, ; life of franklin pierce, ; tanglewood tales ( nd series of the wonder book), ; a rill from the town-pump, with remarks, by telba, ; the marble faun; or, the romance of monte beni ( editor's note) (published in england under the title of "transformation"), , our old home, ; dolliver romance ( st part in "atlantic monthly"), ; in parts, ; pansie, a fragment, hawthorne' last literary effort, ; american note-books, ; english note books, edited by sophia hawthorne, ; french and italian note books, ; septimius felton; or, the elixir of life (from the "atlantic monthly"), ; doctor grimshawe's secret, with preface and notes by julian hawthorne, . tales of the white hills, legends of new england, legends of the province house, , contain tales which had already been printed in book form in "twice-told tales" and the "mosses" "sketched and studies," . hawthorne's contributions to magazines were numerous, and most of his tales appeared first in periodicals, chiefly in "the token," - , "new england magazine," , ; "knickerbocker," - ; "democratic review," - ; "atlantic monthly," - (scenes from the dolliver romance, septimius felton, and passages from hawthorne's note-books). works: in volumes, ; in volumes, with introductory notes by lathrop, riverside edition, . biography, etc.; a. h. japp (pseud. h. a. page), memoir of n. hawthorne, ; j. t. field's "yesterdays with authors," g. p. lathrop, "a study of hawthorne," ; henry james english men of letters, ; julian hawthorne, "nathaniel hawthorne and his wife," ; moncure d. conway, life of nathaniel hawthorne, ; analytical index of hawthorne's works, by e. m. o'connor . contents introductory. the custom-house chapter i. the prison-door chapter ii. the market-place chapter iii. the recognition chapter iv. the interview chapter v. hester at her needle chapter vi. pearl chapter vii. the governor's hall chapter viii. the elf-child and the minister chapter ix. the leech chapter x. the leech and his patient chapter xi. the interior of a heart chapter xii. the minister's vigil chapter xiii. another view of hester chapter xiv. hester and the physician chapter xv. hester and pearl chapter xvi. a forest walk chapter xvii. the pastor and his parishioner chapter xviii. a flood of sunshine chapter xix. the child at the brook-side chapter xx. the minister in a maze chapter xxi. the new england holiday chapter xxii. the procession chapter xxiii. the revelation of the scarlet letter chapter xxiv. conclusion the custom-house introductory to "the scarlet letter" it is a little remarkable, that--though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends--an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. the first time was three or four years since, when i favoured the reader--inexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine--with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an old manse. and now--because, beyond my deserts, i was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion--i again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience in a custom-house. the example of the famous "p. p., clerk of this parish," was never more faithfully followed. the truth seems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. it is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. but, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost me behind its veil. to this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights or his own. it will be seen, likewise, that this custom-house sketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, as explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained. this, in fact--a desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among the tales that make up my volume--this, and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personal relation with the public. in accomplishing the main purpose, it has appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint representation of a mode of life not heretofore described, together with some of the characters that move in it, among whom the author happened to make one. in my native town of salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old king derby, was a bustling wharf--but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a nova scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood--at the head, i say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass--here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick. from the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military, post of uncle sam's government is here established. its front is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the american eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if i recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. with the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, i presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. but she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later--oftener soon than late--is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows. the pavement round about the above-described edifice--which we may as well name at once as the custom-house of the port--has grass enough growing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn by any multitudinous resort of business. in some months of the year, however, there often chances a forenoon when affairs move onward with a livelier tread. such occasions might remind the elderly citizen of that period, before the last war with england, when salem was a port by itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and ship-owners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin while their ventures go to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood of commerce at new york or boston. on some such morning, when three or four vessels happen to have arrived at once usually from africa or south america--or to be on the verge of their departure thitherward, there is a sound of frequent feet passing briskly up and down the granite steps. here, before his own wife has greeted him, you may greet the sea-flushed ship-master, just in port, with his vessel's papers under his arm in a tarnished tin box. here, too, comes his owner, cheerful, sombre, gracious or in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme of the now accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise that will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him under a bulk of incommodities such as nobody will care to rid him of. here, likewise--the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, careworn merchant--we have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his master's ships, when he had better be sailing mimic boats upon a mill-pond. another figure in the scene is the outward-bound sailor, in quest of a protection; or the recently arrived one, pale and feeble, seeking a passport to the hospital. nor must we forget the captains of the rusty little schooners that bring firewood from the british provinces; a rough-looking set of tarpaulins, without the alertness of the yankee aspect, but contributing an item of no slight importance to our decaying trade. cluster all these individuals together, as they sometimes were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for the time being, it made the custom-house a stirring scene. more frequently, however, on ascending the steps, you would discern-- in the entry if it were summer time, or in their appropriate rooms if wintry or inclement weathers--a row of venerable figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs, which were tipped on their hind legs back against the wall. oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labour, or anything else but their own independent exertions. these old gentlemen--seated, like matthew at the receipt of custom, but not very liable to be summoned thence, like him, for apostolic errands--were custom-house officers. furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the front door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a lofty height, with two of its arched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of derby street. all three give glimpses of the shops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers, around the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the wapping of a seaport. the room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. in the way of furniture, there is a stove with a voluminous funnel; an old pine desk with a three-legged stool beside it; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and--not to forget the library--on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the acts of congress, and a bulky digest of the revenue laws. a tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication with other parts of the edifice. and here, some six months ago--pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wandering up and down the columns of the morning newspaper--you might have recognised, honoured reader, the same individual who welcomed you into his cheery little study, where the sunshine glimmered so pleasantly through the willow branches on the western side of the old manse. but now, should you go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the locofoco surveyor. the besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a worthier successor wears his dignity and pockets his emoluments. this old town of salem--my native place, though i have dwelt much away from it both in boyhood and maturer years--possesses, or did possess, a hold on my affection, the force of which i have never realized during my seasons of actual residence here. indeed, so far as its physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend to architectural beauty--its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tame--its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with gallows hill and new guinea at one end, and a view of the alms-house at the other--such being the features of my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. and yet, though invariably happiest elsewhere, there is within me a feeling for old salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, i must be content to call affection. the sentiment is probably assignable to the deep and aged roots which my family has stuck into the soil. it is now nearly two centuries and a quarter since the original briton, the earliest emigrant of my name, made his appearance in the wild and forest-bordered settlement which has since become a city. and here his descendants have been born and died, and have mingled their earthly substance with the soil, until no small portion of it must necessarily be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little while, i walk the streets. in part, therefore, the attachment which i speak of is the mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust. few of my countrymen can know what it is; nor, as frequent transplantation is perhaps better for the stock, need they consider it desirable to know. but the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. the figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination as far back as i can remember. it still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which i scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of the town. i seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned progenitor--who came so early, with his bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and peace--a stronger claim than for myself, whose name is seldom heard and my face hardly known. he was a soldier, legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the church; he had all the puritanic traits, both good and evil. he was likewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. his son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. so deep a stain, indeed, that his dry old bones, in the charter-street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust! i know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of heaven for their cruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them in another state of being. at all events, i, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them--as i have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist--may be now and henceforth removed. doubtless, however, either of these stern and black-browed puritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for his sins that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. no aim that i have ever cherished would they recognise as laudable; no success of mine--if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success--would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. "what is he?" murmurs one grey shadow of my forefathers to the other. "a writer of story books! what kind of business in life--what mode of glorifying god, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation--may that be? why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!" such are the compliments bandied between my great grandsires and myself, across the gulf of time! and yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine. planted deep, in the town's earliest infancy and childhood, by these two earnest and energetic men, the race has ever since subsisted here; always, too, in respectability; never, so far as i have known, disgraced by a single unworthy member; but seldom or never, on the other hand, after the first two generations, performing any memorable deed, or so much as putting forward a claim to public notice. gradually, they have sunk almost out of sight; as old houses, here and there about the streets, get covered half-way to the eaves by the accumulation of new soil. from father to son, for above a hundred years, they followed the sea; a grey-headed shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale which had blustered against his sire and grandsire. the boy, also in due time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal earth. this long connexion of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him. it is not love but instinct. the new inhabitant--who came himself from a foreign land, or whose father or grandfather came--has little claim to be called a salemite; he has no conception of the oyster-like tenacity with which an old settler, over whom his third century is creeping, clings to the spot where his successive generations have been embedded. it is no matter that the place is joyless for him; that he is weary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres;--all these, and whatever faults besides he may see or imagine, are nothing to the purpose. the spell survives, and just as powerfully as if the natal spot were an earthly paradise. so has it been in my case. i felt it almost as a destiny to make salem my home; so that the mould of features and cast of character which had all along been familiar here--ever, as one representative of the race lay down in the grave, another assuming, as it were, his sentry-march along the main street--might still in my little day be seen and recognised in the old town. nevertheless, this very sentiment is an evidence that the connexion, which has become an unhealthy one, should at last be severed. human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and re-planted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. my children have had other birth-places, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth. on emerging from the old manse, it was chiefly this strange, indolent, unjoyous attachment for my native town that brought me to fill a place in uncle sam's brick edifice, when i might as well, or better, have gone somewhere else. my doom was on me. it was not the first time, nor the second, that i had gone away--as it seemed, permanently--but yet returned, like the bad halfpenny, or as if salem were for me the inevitable centre of the universe. so, one fine morning i ascended the flight of granite steps, with the president's commission in my pocket, and was introduced to the corps of gentlemen who were to aid me in my weighty responsibility as chief executive officer of the custom-house. i doubt greatly--or, rather, i do not doubt at all--whether any public functionary of the united states, either in the civil or military line, has ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as myself. the whereabouts of the oldest inhabitant was at once settled when i looked at them. for upwards of twenty years before this epoch, the independent position of the collector had kept the salem custom-house out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude, which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile. a soldier--new england's most distinguished soldier--he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of the successive administrations through which he had held office, he had been the safety of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heart-quake. general miller was radically conservative; a man over whose kindly nature habit had no slight influence; attaching himself strongly to familiar faces, and with difficulty moved to change, even when change might have brought unquestionable improvement. thus, on taking charge of my department, i found few but aged men. they were ancient sea-captains, for the most part, who, after being tossed on every sea, and standing up sturdily against life's tempestuous blast, had finally drifted into this quiet nook, where, with little to disturb them, except the periodical terrors of a presidential election, they one and all acquired a new lease of existence. though by no means less liable than their fellow-men to age and infirmity, they had evidently some talisman or other that kept death at bay. two or three of their number, as i was assured, being gouty and rheumatic, or perhaps bed-ridden, never dreamed of making their appearance at the custom-house during a large part of the year; but, after a torpid winter, would creep out into the warm sunshine of may or june, go lazily about what they termed duty, and, at their own leisure and convenience, betake themselves to bed again. i must plead guilty to the charge of abbreviating the official breath of more than one of these venerable servants of the republic. they were allowed, on my representation, to rest from their arduous labours, and soon afterwards--as if their sole principle of life had been zeal for their country's service--as i verily believe it was--withdrew to a better world. it is a pious consolation to me that, through my interference, a sufficient space was allowed them for repentance of the evil and corrupt practices into which, as a matter of course, every custom-house officer must be supposed to fall. neither the front nor the back entrance of the custom-house opens on the road to paradise. the greater part of my officers were whigs. it was well for their venerable brotherhood that the new surveyor was not a politician, and though a faithful democrat in principle, neither received nor held his office with any reference to political services. had it been otherwise--had an active politician been put into this influential post, to assume the easy task of making head against a whig collector, whose infirmities withheld him from the personal administration of his office--hardly a man of the old corps would have drawn the breath of official life within a month after the exterminating angel had come up the custom-house steps. according to the received code in such matters, it would have been nothing short of duty, in a politician, to bring every one of those white heads under the axe of the guillotine. it was plain enough to discern that the old fellows dreaded some such discourtesy at my hands. it pained, and at the same time amused me, to behold the terrors that attended my advent, to see a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten by half a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless an individual as myself; to detect, as one or another addressed me, the tremor of a voice which, in long-past days, had been wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet, hoarsely enough to frighten boreas himself to silence. they knew, these excellent old persons, that, by all established rule--and, as regarded some of them, weighed by their own lack of efficiency for business--they ought to have given place to younger men, more orthodox in politics, and altogether fitter than themselves to serve our common uncle. i knew it, too, but could never quite find in my heart to act upon the knowledge. much and deservedly to my own discredit, therefore, and considerably to the detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my incumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down the custom-house steps. they spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back against the walls; awaking, however, once or twice in the forenoon, to bore one another with the several thousandth repetition of old sea-stories and mouldy jokes, that had grown to be passwords and countersigns among them. the discovery was soon made, i imagine, that the new surveyor had no great harm in him. so, with lightsome hearts and the happy consciousness of being usefully employed--in their own behalf at least, if not for our beloved country--these good old gentlemen went through the various formalities of office. sagaciously under their spectacles, did they peep into the holds of vessels. mighty was their fuss about little matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness that allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers whenever such a mischance occurred--when a waggon-load of valuable merchandise had been smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their unsuspicious noses--nothing could exceed the vigilance and alacrity with which they proceeded to lock, and double-lock, and secure with tape and sealing-wax, all the avenues of the delinquent vessel. instead of a reprimand for their previous negligence, the case seemed rather to require an eulogium on their praiseworthy caution after the mischief had happened; a grateful recognition of the promptitude of their zeal the moment that there was no longer any remedy. unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, it is my foolish habit to contract a kindness for them. the better part of my companion's character, if it have a better part, is that which usually comes uppermost in my regard, and forms the type whereby i recognise the man. as most of these old custom-house officers had good traits, and as my position in reference to them, being paternal and protective, was favourable to the growth of friendly sentiments, i soon grew to like them all. it was pleasant in the summer forenoons--when the fervent heat, that almost liquefied the rest of the human family, merely communicated a genial warmth to their half torpid systems--it was pleasant to hear them chatting in the back entry, a row of them all tipped against the wall, as usual; while the frozen witticisms of past generations were thawed out, and came bubbling with laughter from their lips. externally, the jollity of aged men has much in common with the mirth of children; the intellect, any more than a deep sense of humour, has little to do with the matter; it is, with both, a gleam that plays upon the surface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch and grey, mouldering trunk. in one case, however, it is real sunshine; in the other, it more resembles the phosphorescent glow of decaying wood. it would be sad injustice, the reader must understand, to represent all my excellent old friends as in their dotage. in the first place, my coadjutors were not invariably old; there were men among them in their strength and prime, of marked ability and energy, and altogether superior to the sluggish and dependent mode of life on which their evil stars had cast them. then, moreover, the white locks of age were sometimes found to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good repair. but, as respects the majority of my corps of veterans, there will be no wrong done if i characterize them generally as a set of wearisome old souls, who had gathered nothing worth preservation from their varied experience of life. they seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most carefully to have stored their memory with the husks. they spoke with far more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or yesterday's, to-day's, or tomorrow's dinner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's wonders which they had witnessed with their youthful eyes. the father of the custom-house--the patriarch, not only of this little squad of officials, but, i am bold to say, of the respectable body of tide-waiters all over the united states--was a certain permanent inspector. he might truly be termed a legitimate son of the revenue system, dyed in the wool, or rather born in the purple; since his sire, a revolutionary colonel, and formerly collector of the port, had created an office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the early ages which few living men can now remember. this inspector, when i first knew him, was a man of fourscore years, or thereabouts, and certainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter-green that you would be likely to discover in a lifetime's search. with his florid cheek, his compact figure smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat, his brisk and vigorous step, and his hale and hearty aspect, altogether he seemed--not young, indeed--but a kind of new contrivance of mother nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. his voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the custom-house, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. looking at him merely as an animal--and there was very little else to look at--he was a most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and wholesomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that extreme age, to enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights which he had ever aimed at or conceived of. the careless security of his life in the custom-house, on a regular income, and with but slight and infrequent apprehensions of removal, had no doubt contributed to make time pass lightly over him. the original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients; these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep the old gentleman from walking on all-fours. he possessed no power of thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities: nothing, in short, but a few commonplace instincts, which, aided by the cheerful temper which grew inevitably out of his physical well-being, did duty very respectably, and to general acceptance, in lieu of a heart. he had been the husband of three wives, all long since dead; the father of twenty children, most of whom, at every age of childhood or maturity, had likewise returned to dust. here, one would suppose, might have been sorrow enough to imbue the sunniest disposition through and through with a sable tinge. not so with our old inspector. one brief sigh sufficed to carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminiscences. the next moment he was as ready for sport as any unbreeched infant: far readier than the collector's junior clerk, who at nineteen years was much the elder and graver man of the two. i used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, i think, livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity there presented to my notice. he was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; so perfect, in one point of view; so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable such an absolute nonentity, in every other. my conclusion was that he had no soul, no heart, no mind; nothing, as i have already said, but instincts; and yet, withal, so cunningly had the few materials of his character been put together that there was no painful perception of deficiency, but, on my part, an entire contentment with what i found in him. it might be difficult--and it was so--to conceive how he should exist hereafter, so earthly and sensuous did he seem; but surely his existence here, admitting that it was to terminate with his last breath, had been not unkindly given; with no higher moral responsibilities than the beasts of the field, but with a larger scope of enjoyment than theirs, and with all their blessed immunity from the dreariness and duskiness of age. one point in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footed brethren was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it had made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. his gourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk of roast meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster. as he possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual endowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table. his reminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savour of pig or turkey under one's very nostrils. there were flavours on his palate that had lingered there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of the mutton chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast. i have heard him smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, except himself, had long been food for worms. it was marvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals were continually rising up before him--not in anger or retribution, but as if grateful for his former appreciation, and seeking to reduplicate an endless series of enjoyment, at once shadowy and sensual: a tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, a particular chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey, which had perhaps adorned his board in the days of the elder adams, would be remembered; while all the subsequent experience of our race, and all the events that brightened or darkened his individual career, had gone over him with as little permanent effect as the passing breeze. the chief tragic event of the old man's life, so far as i could judge, was his mishap with a certain goose, which lived and died some twenty or forty years ago: a goose of most promising figure, but which, at table, proved so inveterately tough, that the carving-knife would make no impression on its carcase, and it could only be divided with an axe and handsaw. but it is time to quit this sketch; on which, however, i should be glad to dwell at considerably more length, because of all men whom i have ever known, this individual was fittest to be a custom-house officer. most persons, owing to causes which i may not have space to hint at, suffer moral detriment from this peculiar mode of life. the old inspector was incapable of it; and, were he to continue in office to the end of time, would be just as good as he was then, and sit down to dinner with just as good an appetite. there is one likeness, without which my gallery of custom-house portraits would be strangely incomplete, but which my comparatively few opportunities for observation enable me to sketch only in the merest outline. it is that of the collector, our gallant old general, who, after his brilliant military service, subsequently to which he had ruled over a wild western territory, had come hither, twenty years before, to spend the decline of his varied and honourable life. the brave soldier had already numbered, nearly or quite, his three-score years and ten, and was pursuing the remainder of his earthly march, burdened with infirmities which even the martial music of his own spirit-stirring recollections could do little towards lightening. the step was palsied now, that had been foremost in the charge. it was only with the assistance of a servant, and by leaning his hand heavily on the iron balustrade, that he could slowly and painfully ascend the custom-house steps, and, with a toilsome progress across the floor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace. there he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim serenity of aspect at the figures that came and went, amid the rustle of papers, the administering of oaths, the discussion of business, and the casual talk of the office; all which sounds and circumstances seemed but indistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly to make their way into his inner sphere of contemplation. his countenance, in this repose, was mild and kindly. if his notice was sought, an expression of courtesy and interest gleamed out upon his features, proving that there was light within him, and that it was only the outward medium of the intellectual lamp that obstructed the rays in their passage. the closer you penetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder it appeared. when no longer called upon to speak or listen--either of which operations cost him an evident effort--his face would briefly subside into its former not uncheerful quietude. it was not painful to behold this look; for, though dim, it had not the imbecility of decaying age. the framework of his nature, originally strong and massive, was not yet crumpled into ruin. to observe and define his character, however, under such disadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace out and build up anew, in imagination, an old fortress, like ticonderoga, from a view of its grey and broken ruins. here and there, perchance, the walls may remain almost complete; but elsewhere may be only a shapeless mound, cumbrous with its very strength, and overgrown, through long years of peace and neglect, with grass and alien weeds. nevertheless, looking at the old warrior with affection--for, slight as was the communication between us, my feeling towards him, like that of all bipeds and quadrupeds who knew him, might not improperly be termed so,--i could discern the main points of his portrait. it was marked with the noble and heroic qualities which showed it to be not a mere accident, but of good right, that he had won a distinguished name. his spirit could never, i conceive, have been characterized by an uneasy activity; it must, at any period of his life, have required an impulse to set him in motion; but once stirred up, with obstacles to overcome, and an adequate object to be attained, it was not in the man to give out or fail. the heat that had formerly pervaded his nature, and which was not yet extinct, was never of the kind that flashes and flickers in a blaze; but rather a deep red glow, as of iron in a furnace. weight, solidity, firmness--this was the expression of his repose, even in such decay as had crept untimely over him at the period of which i speak. but i could imagine, even then, that, under some excitement which should go deeply into his consciousness--roused by a trumpet's peal, loud enough to awaken all of his energies that were not dead, but only slumbering--he was yet capable of flinging off his infirmities like a sick man's gown, dropping the staff of age to seize a battle-sword, and starting up once more a warrior. and, in so intense a moment his demeanour would have still been calm. such an exhibition, however, was but to be pictured in fancy; not to be anticipated, nor desired. what i saw in him--as evidently as the indestructible ramparts of old ticonderoga, already cited as the most appropriate simile--was the features of stubborn and ponderous endurance, which might well have amounted to obstinacy in his earlier days; of integrity, that, like most of his other endowments, lay in a somewhat heavy mass, and was just as unmalleable or unmanageable as a ton of iron ore; and of benevolence which, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at chippewa or fort erie, i take to be of quite as genuine a stamp as what actuates any or all the polemical philanthropists of the age. he had slain men with his own hand, for aught i know--certainly, they had fallen like blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe before the charge to which his spirit imparted its triumphant energy--but, be that as it might, there was never in his heart so much cruelty as would have brushed the down off a butterfly's wing. i have not known the man to whose innate kindliness i would more confidently make an appeal. many characteristics--and those, too, which contribute not the least forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch--must have vanished, or been obscured, before i met the general. all merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent; nor does nature adorn the human ruin with blossoms of new beauty, that have their roots and proper nutriment only in the chinks and crevices of decay, as she sows wall-flowers over the ruined fortress of ticonderoga. still, even in respect of grace and beauty, there were points well worth noting. a ray of humour, now and then, would make its way through the veil of dim obstruction, and glimmer pleasantly upon our faces. a trait of native elegance, seldom seen in the masculine character after childhood or early youth, was shown in the general's fondness for the sight and fragrance of flowers. an old soldier might be supposed to prize only the bloody laurel on his brow; but here was one who seemed to have a young girl's appreciation of the floral tribe. there, beside the fireplace, the brave old general used to sit; while the surveyor--though seldom, when it could be avoided, taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation--was fond of standing at a distance, and watching his quiet and almost slumberous countenance. he seemed away from us, although we saw him but a few yards off; remote, though we passed close beside his chair; unattainable, though we might have stretched forth our hands and touched his own. it might be that he lived a more real life within his thoughts than amid the unappropriate environment of the collector's office. the evolutions of the parade; the tumult of the battle; the flourish of old heroic music, heard thirty years before--such scenes and sounds, perhaps, were all alive before his intellectual sense. meanwhile, the merchants and ship-masters, the spruce clerks and uncouth sailors, entered and departed; the bustle of his commercial and custom-house life kept up its little murmur round about him; and neither with the men nor their affairs did the general appear to sustain the most distant relation. he was as much out of place as an old sword--now rusty, but which had flashed once in the battle's front, and showed still a bright gleam along its blade--would have been among the inkstands, paper-folders, and mahogany rulers on the deputy collector's desk. there was one thing that much aided me in renewing and re-creating the stalwart soldier of the niagara frontier--the man of true and simple energy. it was the recollection of those memorable words of his--"i'll try, sir"--spoken on the very verge of a desperate and heroic enterprise, and breathing the soul and spirit of new england hardihood, comprehending all perils, and encountering all. if, in our country, valour were rewarded by heraldic honour, this phrase--which it seems so easy to speak, but which only he, with such a task of danger and glory before him, has ever spoken--would be the best and fittest of all mottoes for the general's shield of arms. it contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate. the accidents of my life have often afforded me this advantage, but never with more fulness and variety than during my continuance in office. there was one man, especially, the observation of whose character gave me a new idea of talent. his gifts were emphatically those of a man of business; prompt, acute, clear-minded; with an eye that saw through all perplexities, and a faculty of arrangement that made them vanish as by the waving of an enchanter's wand. bred up from boyhood in the custom-house, it was his proper field of activity; and the many intricacies of business, so harassing to the interloper, presented themselves before him with the regularity of a perfectly comprehended system. in my contemplation, he stood as the ideal of his class. he was, indeed, the custom-house in himself; or, at all events, the mainspring that kept its variously revolving wheels in motion; for, in an institution like this, where its officers are appointed to subserve their own profit and convenience, and seldom with a leading reference to their fitness for the duty to be performed, they must perforce seek elsewhere the dexterity which is not in them. thus, by an inevitable necessity, as a magnet attracts steel-filings, so did our man of business draw to himself the difficulties which everybody met with. with an easy condescension, and kind forbearance towards our stupidity--which, to his order of mind, must have seemed little short of crime--would he forth-with, by the merest touch of his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear as daylight. the merchants valued him not less than we, his esoteric friends. his integrity was perfect; it was a law of nature with him, rather than a choice or a principle; nor can it be otherwise than the main condition of an intellect so remarkably clear and accurate as his to be honest and regular in the administration of affairs. a stain on his conscience, as to anything that came within the range of his vocation, would trouble such a man very much in the same way, though to a far greater degree, than an error in the balance of an account, or an ink-blot on the fair page of a book of record. here, in a word--and it is a rare instance in my life--i had met with a person thoroughly adapted to the situation which he held. such were some of the people with whom i now found myself connected. i took it in good part, at the hands of providence, that i was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. after my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of brook farm; after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like emerson's; after those wild, free days on the assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with ellery channing; after talking with thoreau about pine-trees and indian relics in his hermitage at walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of hillard's culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at longfellow's hearthstone--it was time, at length, that i should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which i had hitherto had little appetite. even the old inspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known alcott. i looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, i could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change. literature, its exertions and objects, were now of little moment in my regard. i cared not at this period for books; they were apart from me. nature--except it were human nature--the nature that is developed in earth and sky, was, in one sense, hidden from me; and all the imaginative delight wherewith it had been spiritualized passed away out of my mind. a gift, a faculty, if it had not been departed, was suspended and inanimate within me. there would have been something sad, unutterably dreary, in all this, had i not been conscious that it lay at my own option to recall whatever was valuable in the past. it might be true, indeed, that this was a life which could not, with impunity, be lived too long; else, it might make me permanently other than i had been, without transforming me into any shape which it would be worth my while to take. but i never considered it as other than a transitory life. there was always a prophetic instinct, a low whisper in my ear, that within no long period, and whenever a new change of custom should be essential to my good, change would come. meanwhile, there i was, a surveyor of the revenue and, so far as i have been able to understand, as good a surveyor as need be. a man of thought, fancy, and sensibility (had he ten times the surveyor's proportion of those qualities), may, at any time, be a man of affairs, if he will only choose to give himself the trouble. my fellow-officers, and the merchants and sea-captains with whom my official duties brought me into any manner of connection, viewed me in no other light, and probably knew me in no other character. none of them, i presume, had ever read a page of my inditing, or would have cared a fig the more for me if they had read them all; nor would it have mended the matter, in the least, had those same unprofitable pages been written with a pen like that of burns or of chaucer, each of whom was a custom-house officer in his day, as well as i. it is a good lesson--though it may often be a hard one--for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world's dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at. i know not that i especially needed the lesson, either in the way of warning or rebuke; but at any rate, i learned it thoroughly: nor, it gives me pleasure to reflect, did the truth, as it came home to my perception, ever cost me a pang, or require to be thrown off in a sigh. in the way of literary talk, it is true, the naval officer--an excellent fellow, who came into the office with me, and went out only a little later--would often engage me in a discussion about one or the other of his favourite topics, napoleon or shakespeare. the collector's junior clerk, too a young gentleman who, it was whispered occasionally covered a sheet of uncle sam's letter paper with what (at the distance of a few yards) looked very much like poetry--used now and then to speak to me of books, as matters with which i might possibly be conversant. this was my all of lettered intercourse; and it was quite sufficient for my necessities. no longer seeking nor caring that my name should be blasoned abroad on title-pages, i smiled to think that it had now another kind of vogue. the custom-house marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint, on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony that these commodities had paid the impost, and gone regularly through the office. borne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, i hope, will never go again. but the past was not dead. once in a great while, the thoughts that had seemed so vital and so active, yet had been put to rest so quietly, revived again. one of the most remarkable occasions, when the habit of bygone days awoke in me, was that which brings it within the law of literary propriety to offer the public the sketch which i am now writing. in the second storey of the custom-house there is a large room, in which the brick-work and naked rafters have never been covered with panelling and plaster. the edifice--originally projected on a scale adapted to the old commercial enterprise of the port, and with an idea of subsequent prosperity destined never to be realized--contains far more space than its occupants know what to do with. this airy hall, therefore, over the collector's apartments, remains unfinished to this day, and, in spite of the aged cobwebs that festoon its dusky beams, appears still to await the labour of the carpenter and mason. at one end of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrels piled one upon another, containing bundles of official documents. large quantities of similar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. it was sorrowful to think how many days, and weeks, and months, and years of toil had been wasted on these musty papers, which were now only an encumbrance on earth, and were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never more to be glanced at by human eyes. but then, what reams of other manuscripts--filled, not with the dulness of official formalities, but with the thought of inventive brains and the rich effusion of deep hearts--had gone equally to oblivion; and that, moreover, without serving a purpose in their day, as these heaped-up papers had, and--saddest of all--without purchasing for their writers the comfortable livelihood which the clerks of the custom-house had gained by these worthless scratchings of the pen. yet not altogether worthless, perhaps, as materials of local history. here, no doubt, statistics of the former commerce of salem might be discovered, and memorials of her princely merchants--old king derby--old billy gray--old simon forrester--and many another magnate in his day, whose powdered head, however, was scarcely in the tomb before his mountain pile of wealth began to dwindle. the founders of the greater part of the families which now compose the aristocracy of salem might here be traced, from the petty and obscure beginnings of their traffic, at periods generally much posterior to the revolution, upward to what their children look upon as long-established rank. prior to the revolution there is a dearth of records; the earlier documents and archives of the custom-house having, probably, been carried off to halifax, when all the king's officials accompanied the british army in its flight from boston. it has often been a matter of regret with me; for, going back, perhaps, to the days of the protectorate, those papers must have contained many references to forgotten or remembered men, and to antique customs, which would have affected me with the same pleasure as when i used to pick up indian arrow-heads in the field near the old manse. but, one idle and rainy day, it was my fortune to make a discovery of some little interest. poking and burrowing into the heaped-up rubbish in the corner, unfolding one and another document, and reading the names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or rotted at the wharves, and those of merchants never heard of now on 'change, nor very readily decipherable on their mossy tombstones; glancing at such matters with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest which we bestow on the corpse of dead activity--and exerting my fancy, sluggish with little use, to raise up from these dry bones an image of the old town's brighter aspect, when india was a new region, and only salem knew the way thither--i chanced to lay my hand on a small package, carefully done up in a piece of ancient yellow parchment. this envelope had the air of an official record of some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on more substantial materials than at present. there was something about it that quickened an instinctive curiosity, and made me undo the faded red tape that tied up the package, with the sense that a treasure would here be brought to light. unbending the rigid folds of the parchment cover, i found it to be a commission, under the hand and seal of governor shirley, in favour of one jonathan pue, as surveyor of his majesty's customs for the port of salem, in the province of massachusetts bay. i remembered to have read (probably in felt's "annals") a notice of the decease of mr. surveyor pue, about fourscore years ago; and likewise, in a newspaper of recent times, an account of the digging up of his remains in the little graveyard of st. peter's church, during the renewal of that edifice. nothing, if i rightly call to mind, was left of my respected predecessor, save an imperfect skeleton, and some fragments of apparel, and a wig of majestic frizzle, which, unlike the head that it once adorned, was in very satisfactory preservation. but, on examining the papers which the parchment commission served to envelop, i found more traces of mr. pue's mental part, and the internal operations of his head, than the frizzled wig had contained of the venerable skull itself. they were documents, in short, not official, but of a private nature, or, at least, written in his private capacity, and apparently with his own hand. i could account for their being included in the heap of custom-house lumber only by the fact that mr. pue's death had happened suddenly, and that these papers, which he probably kept in his official desk, had never come to the knowledge of his heirs, or were supposed to relate to the business of the revenue. on the transfer of the archives to halifax, this package, proving to be of no public concern, was left behind, and had remained ever since unopened. the ancient surveyor--being little molested, i suppose, at that early day with business pertaining to his office--seems to have devoted some of his many leisure hours to researches as a local antiquarian, and other inquisitions of a similar nature. these supplied material for petty activity to a mind that would otherwise have been eaten up with rust. a portion of his facts, by-the-by, did me good service in the preparation of the article entitled "main street," included in the present volume. the remainder may perhaps be applied to purposes equally valuable hereafter, or not impossibly may be worked up, so far as they go, into a regular history of salem, should my veneration for the natal soil ever impel me to so pious a task. meanwhile, they shall be at the command of any gentleman, inclined and competent, to take the unprofitable labour off my hands. as a final disposition i contemplate depositing them with the essex historical society. but the object that most drew my attention to the mysterious package was a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded, there were traces about it of gold embroidery, which, however, was greatly frayed and defaced, so that none, or very little, of the glitter was left. it had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as i am assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be discovered even by the process of picking out the threads. this rag of scarlet cloth--for time, and wear, and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little other than a rag--on careful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. it was the capital letter a. by an accurate measurement, each limb proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter in length. it had been intended, there could be no doubt, as an ornamental article of dress; but how it was to be worn, or what rank, honour, and dignity, in by-past times, were signified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are the fashions of the world in these particulars) i saw little hope of solving. and yet it strangely interested me. my eyes fastened themselves upon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside. certainly there was some deep meaning in it most worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the analysis of my mind. when thus perplexed--and cogitating, among other hypotheses, whether the letter might not have been one of those decorations which the white men used to contrive in order to take the eyes of indians--i happened to place it on my breast. it seemed to me--the reader may smile, but must not doubt my word--it seemed to me, then, that i experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat, and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. i shuddered, and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor. in the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, i had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which it had been twisted. this i now opened, and had the satisfaction to find recorded by the old surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair. there were several foolscap sheets, containing many particulars respecting the life and conversation of one hester prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors. she had flourished during the period between the early days of massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth century. aged persons, alive in the time of mr. surveyor pue, and from whose oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, in their youth, as a very old, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn aspect. it had been her habit, from an almost immemorial date, to go about the country as a kind of voluntary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might; taking upon herself, likewise, to give advice in all matters, especially those of the heart, by which means--as a person of such propensities inevitably must--she gained from many people the reverence due to an angel, but, i should imagine, was looked upon by others as an intruder and a nuisance. prying further into the manuscript, i found the record of other doings and sufferings of this singular woman, for most of which the reader is referred to the story entitled "the scarlet letter"; and it should be borne carefully in mind that the main facts of that story are authorized and authenticated by the document of mr. surveyor pue. the original papers, together with the scarlet letter itself--a most curious relic--are still in my possession, and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great interest of the narrative, may desire a sight of them. i must not be understood affirming that, in the dressing up of the tale, and imagining the motives and modes of passion that influenced the characters who figure in it, i have invariably confined myself within the limits of the old surveyor's half-a-dozen sheets of foolscap. on the contrary, i have allowed myself, as to such points, nearly, or altogether, as much license as if the facts had been entirely of my own invention. what i contend for is the authenticity of the outline. this incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to its old track. there seemed to be here the groundwork of a tale. it impressed me as if the ancient surveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing his immortal wig--which was buried with him, but did not perish in the grave--had met me in the deserted chamber of the custom-house. in his port was the dignity of one who had borne his majesty's commission, and who was therefore illuminated by a ray of the splendour that shone so dazzlingly about the throne. how unlike alas the hangdog look of a republican official, who, as the servant of the people, feels himself less than the least, and below the lowest of his masters. with his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen, but majestic, figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol and the little roll of explanatory manuscript. with his own ghostly voice he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him--who might reasonably regard himself as my official ancestor--to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public. "do this," said the ghost of mr. surveyor pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within its memorable wig; "do this, and the profit shall be all your own. you will shortly need it; for it is not in your days as it was in mine, when a man's office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom. but i charge you, in this matter of old mistress prynne, give to your predecessor's memory the credit which will be rightfully due" and i said to the ghost of mr. surveyor pue--"i will". on hester prynne's story, therefore, i bestowed much thought. it was the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and fro across my room, or traversing, with a hundredfold repetition, the long extent from the front door of the custom-house to the side entrance, and back again. great were the weariness and annoyance of the old inspector and the weighers and gaugers, whose slumbers were disturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of my passing and returning footsteps. remembering their own former habits, they used to say that the surveyor was walking the quarter-deck. they probably fancied that my sole object--and, indeed, the sole object for which a sane man could ever put himself into voluntary motion--was to get an appetite for dinner. and, to say the truth, an appetite, sharpened by the east wind that generally blew along the passage, was the only valuable result of so much indefatigable exercise. so little adapted is the atmosphere of a custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that, had i remained there through ten presidencies yet to come, i doubt whether the tale of "the scarlet letter" would ever have been brought before the public eye. my imagination was a tarnished mirror. it would not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, the figures with which i did my best to people it. the characters of the narrative would not be warmed and rendered malleable by any heat that i could kindle at my intellectual forge. they would take neither the glow of passion nor the tenderness of sentiment, but retained all the rigidity of dead corpses, and stared me in the face with a fixed and ghastly grin of contemptuous defiance. "what have you to do with us?" that expression seemed to say. "the little power you might have once possessed over the tribe of unrealities is gone! you have bartered it for a pittance of the public gold. go then, and earn your wages!" in short, the almost torpid creatures of my own fancy twitted me with imbecility, and not without fair occasion. it was not merely during the three hours and a half which uncle sam claimed as his share of my daily life that this wretched numbness held possession of me. it went with me on my sea-shore walks and rambles into the country, whenever--which was seldom and reluctantly--i bestirred myself to seek that invigorating charm of nature which used to give me such freshness and activity of thought, the moment that i stepped across the threshold of the old manse. the same torpor, as regarded the capacity for intellectual effort, accompanied me home, and weighed upon me in the chamber which i most absurdly termed my study. nor did it quit me when, late at night, i sat in the deserted parlour, lighted only by the glimmering coal-fire and the moon, striving to picture forth imaginary scenes, which, the next day, might flow out on the brightening page in many-hued description. if the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an hour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly--making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility--is a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. there is the little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs, with each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sustaining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the book-case; the picture on the wall--all these details, so completely seen, are so spiritualised by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect. nothing is too small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity thereby. a child's shoe; the doll, seated in her little wicker carriage; the hobby-horse--whatever, in a word, has been used or played with during the day is now invested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though still almost as vividly present as by daylight. thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has become a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the actual and the imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other. ghosts might enter here without affrighting us. it would be too much in keeping with the scene to excite surprise, were we to look about us and discover a form, beloved, but gone hence, now sitting quietly in a streak of this magic moonshine, with an aspect that would make us doubt whether it had returned from afar, or had never once stirred from our fireside. the somewhat dim coal fire has an essential influence in producing the effect which i would describe. it throws its unobtrusive tinge throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and a reflected gleam upon the polish of the furniture. this warmer light mingles itself with the cold spirituality of the moon-beams, and communicates, as it were, a heart and sensibilities of human tenderness to the forms which fancy summons up. it converts them from snow-images into men and women. glancing at the looking-glass, we behold--deep within its haunted verge--the smouldering glow of the half-extinguished anthracite, the white moon-beams on the floor, and a repetition of all the gleam and shadow of the picture, with one remove further from the actual, and nearer to the imaginative. then, at such an hour, and with this scene before him, if a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances. but, for myself, during the whole of my custom-house experience, moonlight and sunshine, and the glow of firelight, were just alike in my regard; and neither of them was of one whit more avail than the twinkle of a tallow-candle. an entire class of susceptibilities, and a gift connected with them--of no great richness or value, but the best i had--was gone from me. it is my belief, however, that had i attempted a different order of composition, my faculties would not have been found so pointless and inefficacious. i might, for instance, have contented myself with writing out the narratives of a veteran shipmaster, one of the inspectors, whom i should be most ungrateful not to mention, since scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter and admiration by his marvelous gifts as a story-teller. could i have preserved the picturesque force of his style, and the humourous colouring which nature taught him how to throw over his descriptions, the result, i honestly believe, would have been something new in literature. or i might readily have found a more serious task. it was a folly, with the materiality of this daily life pressing so intrusively upon me, to attempt to fling myself back into another age, or to insist on creating the semblance of a world out of airy matter, when, at every moment, the impalpable beauty of my soap-bubble was broken by the rude contact of some actual circumstance. the wiser effort would have been to diffuse thought and imagination through the opaque substance of to-day, and thus to make it a bright transparency; to spiritualise the burden that began to weigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the true and indestructible value that lay hidden in the petty and wearisome incidents, and ordinary characters with which i was now conversant. the fault was mine. the page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace only because i had not fathomed its deeper import. a better book than i shall ever write was there; leaf after leaf presenting itself to me, just as it was written out by the reality of the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only because my brain wanted the insight, and my hand the cunning, to transcribe it. at some future day, it may be, i shall remember a few scattered fragments and broken paragraphs, and write them down, and find the letters turn to gold upon the page. these perceptions had come too late. at the instant, i was only conscious that what would have been a pleasure once was now a hopeless toil. there was no occasion to make much moan about this state of affairs. i had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor tales and essays, and had become a tolerably good surveyor of the customs. that was all. but, nevertheless, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away, or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. of the fact there could be no doubt and, examining myself and others, i was led to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office on the character, not very favourable to the mode of life in question. in some other form, perhaps, i may hereafter develop these effects. suffice it here to say that a custom-house officer of long continuance can hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for many reasons; one of them, the tenure by which he holds his situation, and another, the very nature of his business, which--though, i trust, an honest one--is of such a sort that he does not share in the united effort of mankind. an effect--which i believe to be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position--is, that while he leans on the mighty arm of the republic, his own proper strength departs from him. he loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original nature, the capability of self-support. if he possesses an unusual share of native energy, or the enervating magic of place do not operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. the ejected officer--fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes, to struggle amid a struggling world--may return to himself, and become all that he has ever been. but this seldom happens. he usually keeps his ground just long enough for his own ruin, and is then thrust out, with sinews all unstrung, to totter along the difficult footpath of life as he best may. conscious of his own infirmity--that his tempered steel and elasticity are lost--he for ever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself. his pervading and continual hope--a hallucination, which, in the face of all discouragement, and making light of impossibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, i fancy, like the convulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for a brief space after death--is, that finally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. this faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking. why should he toil and moil, and be at so much trouble to pick himself up out of the mud, when, in a little while hence, the strong arm of his uncle will raise and support him? why should he work for his living here, or go to dig gold in california, when he is so soon to be made happy, at monthly intervals, with a little pile of glittering coin out of his uncle's pocket? it is sadly curious to observe how slight a taste of office suffices to infect a poor fellow with this singular disease. uncle sam's gold--meaning no disrespect to the worthy old gentleman--has, in this respect, a quality of enchantment like that of the devil's wages. whoever touches it should look well to himself, or he may find the bargain to go hard against him, involving, if not his soul, yet many of its better attributes; its sturdy force, its courage and constancy, its truth, its self-reliance, and all that gives the emphasis to manly character. here was a fine prospect in the distance. not that the surveyor brought the lesson home to himself, or admitted that he could be so utterly undone, either by continuance in office or ejectment. yet my reflections were not the most comfortable. i began to grow melancholy and restless; continually prying into my mind, to discover which of its poor properties were gone, and what degree of detriment had already accrued to the remainder. i endeavoured to calculate how much longer i could stay in the custom-house, and yet go forth a man. to confess the truth, it was my greatest apprehension--as it would never be a measure of policy to turn out so quiet an individual as myself; and it being hardly in the nature of a public officer to resign--it was my chief trouble, therefore, that i was likely to grow grey and decrepit in the surveyorship, and become much such another animal as the old inspector. might it not, in the tedious lapse of official life that lay before me, finally be with me as it was with this venerable friend--to make the dinner-hour the nucleus of the day, and to spend the rest of it, as an old dog spends it, asleep in the sunshine or in the shade? a dreary look-forward, this, for a man who felt it to be the best definition of happiness to live throughout the whole range of his faculties and sensibilities. but, all this while, i was giving myself very unnecessary alarm. providence had meditated better things for me than i could possibly imagine for myself. a remarkable event of the third year of my surveyorship--to adopt the tone of "p. p. "--was the election of general taylor to the presidency. it is essential, in order to form a complete estimate of the advantages of official life, to view the incumbent at the in-coming of a hostile administration. his position is then one of the most singularly irksome, and, in every contingency, disagreeable, that a wretched mortal can possibly occupy; with seldom an alternative of good on either hand, although what presents itself to him as the worst event may very probably be the best. but it is a strange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are within the control of individuals who neither love nor understand him, and by whom, since one or the other must needs happen, he would rather be injured than obliged. strange, too, for one who has kept his calmness throughout the contest, to observe the bloodthirstiness that is developed in the hour of triumph, and to be conscious that he is himself among its objects! there are few uglier traits of human nature than this tendency--which i now witnessed in men no worse than their neighbours--to grow cruel, merely because they possessed the power of inflicting harm. if the guillotine, as applied to office-holders, were a literal fact, instead of one of the most apt of metaphors, it is my sincere belief that the active members of the victorious party were sufficiently excited to have chopped off all our heads, and have thanked heaven for the opportunity! it appears to me--who have been a calm and curious observer, as well in victory as defeat--that this fierce and bitter spirit of malice and revenge has never distinguished the many triumphs of my own party as it now did that of the whigs. the democrats take the offices, as a general rule, because they need them, and because the practice of many years has made it the law of political warfare, which unless a different system be proclaimed, it was weakness and cowardice to murmur at. but the long habit of victory has made them generous. they know how to spare when they see occasion; and when they strike, the axe may be sharp indeed, but its edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will; nor is it their custom ignominiously to kick the head which they have just struck off. in short, unpleasant as was my predicament, at best, i saw much reason to congratulate myself that i was on the losing side rather than the triumphant one. if, heretofore, i had been none of the warmest of partisans i began now, at this season of peril and adversity, to be pretty acutely sensible with which party my predilections lay; nor was it without something like regret and shame that, according to a reasonable calculation of chances, i saw my own prospect of retaining office to be better than those of my democratic brethren. but who can see an inch into futurity beyond his nose? my own head was the first that fell. the moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, i am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him. in my particular case the consolatory topics were close at hand, and, indeed, had suggested themselves to my meditations a considerable time before it was requisite to use them. in view of my previous weariness of office, and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and although beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered. in the custom-house, as before in the old manse, i had spent three years--a term long enough to rest a weary brain: long enough to break off old intellectual habits, and make room for new ones: long enough, and too long, to have lived in an unnatural state, doing what was really of no advantage nor delight to any human being, and withholding myself from toil that would, at least, have stilled an unquiet impulse in me. then, moreover, as regarded his unceremonious ejectment, the late surveyor was not altogether ill-pleased to be recognised by the whigs as an enemy; since his inactivity in political affairs--his tendency to roam, at will, in that broad and quiet field where all mankind may meet, rather than confine himself to those narrow paths where brethren of the same household must diverge from one another--had sometimes made it questionable with his brother democrats whether he was a friend. now, after he had won the crown of martyrdom (though with no longer a head to wear it on), the point might be looked upon as settled. finally, little heroic as he was, it seemed more decorous to be overthrown in the downfall of the party with which he had been content to stand than to remain a forlorn survivor, when so many worthier men were falling: and at last, after subsisting for four years on the mercy of a hostile administration, to be compelled then to define his position anew, and claim the yet more humiliating mercy of a friendly one. meanwhile, the press had taken up my affair, and kept me for a week or two careering through the public prints, in my decapitated state, like irving's headless horseman, ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried, as a political dead man ought. so much for my figurative self. the real human being all this time, with his head safely on his shoulders, had brought himself to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best; and making an investment in ink, paper, and steel pens, had opened his long-disused writing desk, and was again a literary man. now it was that the lucubrations of my ancient predecessor, mr. surveyor pue, came into play. rusty through long idleness, some little space was requisite before my intellectual machinery could be brought to work upon the tale with an effect in any degree satisfactory. even yet, though my thoughts were ultimately much absorbed in the task, it wears, to my eye, a stern and sombre aspect: too much ungladdened by genial sunshine; too little relieved by the tender and familiar influences which soften almost every scene of nature and real life, and undoubtedly should soften every picture of them. this uncaptivating effect is perhaps due to the period of hardly accomplished revolution, and still seething turmoil, in which the story shaped itself. it is no indication, however, of a lack of cheerfulness in the writer's mind: for he was happier while straying through the gloom of these sunless fantasies than at any time since he had quitted the old manse. some of the briefer articles, which contribute to make up the volume, have likewise been written since my involuntary withdrawal from the toils and honours of public life, and the remainder are gleaned from annuals and magazines, of such antique date, that they have gone round the circle, and come back to novelty again. keeping up the metaphor of the political guillotine, the whole may be considered as the posthumous papers of a decapitated surveyor: and the sketch which i am now bringing to a close, if too autobiographical for a modest person to publish in his lifetime, will readily be excused in a gentleman who writes from beyond the grave. peace be with all the world! my blessing on my friends! my forgiveness to my enemies! for i am in the realm of quiet! the life of the custom-house lies like a dream behind me. the old inspector--who, by-the-bye, i regret to say, was overthrown and killed by a horse some time ago, else he would certainly have lived for ever--he, and all those other venerable personages who sat with him at the receipt of custom, are but shadows in my view: white-headed and wrinkled images, which my fancy used to sport with, and has now flung aside for ever. the merchants--pingree, phillips, shepard, upton, kimball, bertram, hunt--these and many other names, which had such classic familiarity for my ear six months ago,--these men of traffic, who seemed to occupy so important a position in the world--how little time has it required to disconnect me from them all, not merely in act, but recollection! it is with an effort that i recall the figures and appellations of these few. soon, likewise, my old native town will loom upon me through the haze of memory, a mist brooding over and around it; as if it were no portion of the real earth, but an overgrown village in cloud-land, with only imaginary inhabitants to people its wooden houses and walk its homely lanes, and the unpicturesque prolixity of its main street. henceforth it ceases to be a reality of my life; i am a citizen of somewhere else. my good townspeople will not much regret me, for--though it has been as dear an object as any, in my literary efforts, to be of some importance in their eyes, and to win myself a pleasant memory in this abode and burial-place of so many of my forefathers--there has never been, for me, the genial atmosphere which a literary man requires in order to ripen the best harvest of his mind. i shall do better amongst other faces; and these familiar ones, it need hardly be said, will do just as well without me. it may be, however--oh, transporting and triumphant thought--that the great-grandchildren of the present race may sometimes think kindly of the scribbler of bygone days, when the antiquary of days to come, among the sites memorable in the town's history, shall point out the locality of the town pump. the scarlet letter i. the prison door a throng of bearded men, in sad-coloured garments and grey steeple-crowned hats, inter-mixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes. the founders of a new colony, whatever utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognised it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. in accordance with this rule it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the vicinity of cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on isaac johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of king's chapel. certain it is that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. the rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the new world. like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-pern, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilised society, a prison. but on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of june, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of nature could pity and be kind to him. this rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it, or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted ann hutchinson as she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon us to determine. finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. it may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow. ii. the market-place the grass-plot before the jail, in prison lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of new england, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand. it could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. but, in that early severity of the puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. it might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be corrected at the whipping-post. it might be that an antinomian, a quaker, or other heterodox religionist, was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle or vagrant indian, whom the white man's firewater had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. it might be, too, that a witch, like old mistress hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. in either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on the part of the spectators, as befitted a people among whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold. on the other hand, a penalty which, in our days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself. it was a circumstance to be noted on the summer morning when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue. the age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old english birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive mother had transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not character of less force and solidity than her own. the women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man-like elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable representative of the sex. they were her countrywomen: and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition. the bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of new england. there was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone. "goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "i'll tell ye a piece of my mind. it would be greatly for the public behoof if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this hester prynne. what think ye, gossips? if the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? marry, i trow not." "people say," said another, "that the reverend master dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation." "the magistrates are god-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch--that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "at the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on hester prynne's forehead. madame hester would have winced at that, i warrant me. but she--the naughty baggage--little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!" "ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart." "what do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "this woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; is there not law for it? truly there is, both in the scripture and the statute-book. then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray." "mercy on us, goodwife!" exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? that is the hardest word yet! hush now, gossips for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes mistress prynne herself." the door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. this personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will. she bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison. when the young woman--the mother of this child--stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. in a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. on the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter a. it was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony. the young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. she had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. she was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterised by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognised as its indication. and never had hester prynne appeared more ladylike, in the antique interpretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. it may be true that, to a sensitive observer, there was some thing exquisitely painful in it. her attire, which indeed, she had wrought for the occasion in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. but the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer--so that both men and women who had been familiarly acquainted with hester prynne were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time--was that scarlet letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. it had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. "she hath good skill at her needle, that's certain," remarked one of her female spectators; "but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it? why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?" "it were well," muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, "if we stripped madame hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter which she hath stitched so curiously, i'll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel to make a fitter one!" "oh, peace, neighbours--peace!" whispered their youngest companion; "do not let her hear you! not a stitch in that embroidered letter but she has felt it in her heart." the grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff. "make way, good people--make way, in the king's name!" cried he. "open a passage; and i promise ye, mistress prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel from this time till an hour past meridian. a blessing on the righteous colony of the massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine! come along, madame hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place!" a lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, hester prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. a crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. it was no great distance, in those days, from the prison door to the market-place. measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length; for haughty as her demeanour was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. in our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. with almost a serene deportment, therefore, hester prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. it stood nearly beneath the eaves of boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there. in fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of france. it was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it up to the public gaze. the very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. there can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature--whatever be the delinquencies of the individual--no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. in hester prynne's instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street. had there been a papist among the crowd of puritans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of divine maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by contrast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. the scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of shuddering at it. the witnesses of hester prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. they were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the governor, and several of his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town, all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. when such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty, or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. the unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. it was almost intolerable to be borne. of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. had a roar of laughter burst from the multitude--each man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts--hester prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. but, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once. yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the western wilderness: other faces than were lowering upon her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit to relieve itself by the exhibition of these phantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality. be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to hester prynne the entire track along which she had been treading, since her happy infancy. standing on that miserable eminence, she saw again her native village, in old england, and her paternal home: a decayed house of grey stone, with a poverty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half obliterated shield of arms over the portal, in token of antique gentility. she saw her father's face, with its bold brow, and reverend white beard that flowed over the old-fashioned elizabethan ruff; her mother's, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway. she saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. there she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner's purpose to read the human soul. this figure of the study and the cloister, as hester prynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. next rose before her in memory's picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, grey houses, the huge cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a continental city; where new life had awaited her, still in connexion with the misshapen scholar: a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled, and levelling their stern regards at hester prynne--yes, at herself--who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter a, in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom. could it be true? she clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. yes these were her realities--all else had vanished! iii. the recognition from this intense consciousness of being the object of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved, by discerning, on the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistibly took possession of her thoughts. an indian in his native garb was standing there; but the red men were not so infrequent visitors of the english settlements that one of them would have attracted any notice from hester prynne at such a time; much less would he have excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. by the indian's side, and evidently sustaining a companionship with him, stood a white man, clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume. he was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which as yet could hardly be termed aged. there was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens. although, by a seemingly careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavoured to conceal or abate the peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to hester prynne that one of this man's shoulders rose higher than the other. again, at the first instant of perceiving that thin visage, and the slight deformity of the figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsive a force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain. but the mother did not seem to hear it. at his arrival in the market-place, and some time before she saw him, the stranger had bent his eyes on hester prynne. it was carelessly at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind. very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. a writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. his face darkened with some powerful emotion, which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that, save at a single moment, its expression might have passed for calmness. after a brief space, the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of his nature. when he found the eyes of hester prynne fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and laid it on his lips. then touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood near to him, he addressed him in a formal and courteous manner: "i pray you, good sir," said he, "who is this woman?--and wherefore is she here set up to public shame?" "you must needs be a stranger in this region, friend," answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion, "else you would surely have heard of mistress hester prynne and her evil doings. she hath raised a great scandal, i promise you, in godly master dimmesdale's church." "you say truly," replied the other; "i am a stranger, and have been a wanderer, sorely against my will. i have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk to the southward; and am now brought hither by this indian to be redeemed out of my captivity. will it please you, therefore, to tell me of hester prynne's--have i her name rightly?--of this woman's offences, and what has brought her to yonder scaffold?" "truly, friend; and methinks it must gladden your heart, after your troubles and sojourn in the wilderness," said the townsman, "to find yourself at length in a land where iniquity is searched out and punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here in our godly new england. yonder woman, sir, you must know, was the wife of a certain learned man, english by birth, but who had long ago dwelt in amsterdam, whence some good time agone he was minded to cross over and cast in his lot with us of the massachusetts. to this purpose he sent his wife before him, remaining himself to look after some necessary affairs. marry, good sir, in some two years, or less, that the woman has been a dweller here in boston, no tidings have come of this learned gentleman, master prynne; and his young wife, look you, being left to her own misguidance--" "ah!--aha!--i conceive you," said the stranger with a bitter smile. "so learned a man as you speak of should have learned this too in his books. and who, by your favour, sir, may be the father of yonder babe--it is some three or four months old, i should judge--which mistress prynne is holding in her arms?" "of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and the daniel who shall expound it is yet a-wanting," answered the townsman. "madame hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their heads together in vain. peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that god sees him." "the learned man," observed the stranger with another smile, "should come himself to look into the mystery." "it behoves him well if he be still in life," responded the townsman. "now, good sir, our massachusetts magistracy, bethinking themselves that this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to her fall, and that, moreover, as is most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of the sea, they have not been bold to put in force the extremity of our righteous law against her. the penalty thereof is death. but in their great mercy and tenderness of heart they have doomed mistress prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom." "a wise sentence," remarked the stranger, gravely, bowing his head. "thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. it irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. but he will be known--he will be known!--he will be known!" he bowed courteously to the communicative townsman, and whispering a few words to his indian attendant, they both made their way through the crowd. while this passed, hester prynne had been standing on her pedestal, still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger--so fixed a gaze that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her. such an interview, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot mid-day sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast; with the sin-born infant in her arms; with a whole people, drawn forth as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil at church. dreadful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the presence of these thousand witnesses. it was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him face to face--they two alone. she fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her. involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude. "hearken unto me, hester prynne!" said the voice. it has already been noticed that directly over the platform on which hester prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting-house. it was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in those days. here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat governor bellingham himself with four sergeants about his chair, bearing halberds, as a guard of honour. he wore a dark feather in his hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath--a gentleman advanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinkles. he was not ill-fitted to be the head and representative of a community which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tempered energies of manhood and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and hoped so little. the other eminent characters by whom the chief ruler was surrounded were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of divine institutions. they were, doubtless, good men, just and sage. but, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom hester prynne now turned her face. she seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale, and trembled. the voice which had called her attention was that of the reverend and famous john wilson, the eldest clergyman of boston, a great scholar, like most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. this last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his intellectual gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-congratulation with him. there he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skull-cap, while his grey eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. he looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old volumes of sermons, and had no more right than one of those portraits would have to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, passion, and anguish. "hester prynne," said the clergyman, "i have striven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the word you have been privileged to sit"--here mr. wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him--"i have sought, i say, to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in the face of heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all the people, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. knowing your natural temper better than i, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy, insomuch that you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. but he opposes to me--with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years--that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a multitude. truly, as i sought to convince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. what say you to it, once again, brother dimmesdale? must it be thou, or i, that shall deal with this poor sinner's soul?" there was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants of the balcony; and governor bellingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed: "good master dimmesdale," said he, "the responsibility of this woman's soul lies greatly with you. it behoves you; therefore, to exhort her to repentance and to confession, as a proof and consequence thereof." the directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the reverend mr. dimmesdale--young clergyman, who had come from one of the great english universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest land. his eloquence and religious fervour had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. he was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self restraint. notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister--an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look--as of a being who felt himself quite astray, and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike, coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel. such was the young man whom the reverend mr. wilson and the governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak, in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman's soul, so sacred even in its pollution. the trying nature of his position drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous. "speak to the woman, my brother," said mr. wilson. "it is of moment to her soul, and, therefore, as the worshipful governor says, momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. exhort her to confess the truth!" the reverend mr. dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward. "hester prynne," said he, leaning over the balcony and looking down steadfastly into her eyes, "thou hearest what this good man says, and seest the accountability under which i labour. if thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, i charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so than to hide a guilty heart through life. what can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin? heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee and the sorrow without. take heed how thou deniest to him--who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself--the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!" the young pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken. the feeling that it so evidently manifested, rather than the direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy. even the poor baby at hester's bosom was affected by the same influence, for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards mr. dimmesdale, and held up its little arms with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur. so powerful seemed the minister's appeal that the people could not believe but that hester prynne would speak out the guilty name, or else that the guilty one himself in whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold. hester shook her head. "woman, transgress not beyond the limits of heaven's mercy!" cried the reverend mr. wilson, more harshly than before. "that little babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard. speak out the name! that, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast." "never," replied hester prynne, looking, not at mr. wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "it is too deeply branded. ye cannot take it off. and would that i might endure his agony as well as mine!" "speak, woman!" said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold, "speak; and give your child a father!" "i will not speak!" answered hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognised. "and my child must seek a heavenly father; she shall never know an earthly one!" "she will not speak!" murmured mr. dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. he now drew back with a long respiration. "wondrous strength and generosity of a woman's heart! she will not speak!" discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit's mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. so forcibly did he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. hester prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. she had borne that morning all that nature could endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire. in this state, the voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. the infant, during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams; she strove to hush it mechanically, but seemed scarcely to sympathise with its trouble. with the same hard demeanour, she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron-clamped portal. it was whispered by those who peered after her that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way of the interior. iv. the interview after her return to the prison, hester prynne was found to be in a state of nervous excitement, that demanded constant watchfulness, lest she should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief to the poor babe. as night approached, it proving impossible to quell her insubordination by rebuke or threats of punishment, master brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician. he described him as a man of skill in all christian modes of physical science, and likewise familiar with whatever the savage people could teach in respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew in the forest. to say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance, not merely for hester herself, but still more urgently for the child--who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system. it now writhed in convulsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which hester prynne had borne throughout the day. closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment, appeared that individual, of singular aspect whose presence in the crowd had been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter. he was lodged in the prison, not as suspected of any offence, but as the most convenient and suitable mode of disposing of him, until the magistrates should have conferred with the indian sagamores respecting his ransom. his name was announced as roger chillingworth. the jailer, after ushering him into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the comparative quiet that followed his entrance; for hester prynne had immediately become as still as death, although the child continued to moan. "prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient," said the practitioner. "trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have peace in your house; and, i promise you, mistress prynne shall hereafter be more amenable to just authority than you may have found her heretofore." "nay, if your worship can accomplish that," answered master brackett, "i shall own you for a man of skill, indeed! verily, the woman hath been like a possessed one; and there lacks little that i should take in hand, to drive satan out of her with stripes." the stranger had entered the room with the characteristic quietude of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging. nor did his demeanour change when the withdrawal of the prison keeper left him face to face with the woman, whose absorbed notice of him, in the crowd, had intimated so close a relation between himself and her. his first care was given to the child, whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. he examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. it appeared to contain medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup of water. "my old studies in alchemy," observed he, "and my sojourn, for above a year past, among a people well versed in the kindly properties of simples, have made a better physician of me than many that claim the medical degree. here, woman! the child is yours--she is none of mine--neither will she recognise my voice or aspect as a father's. administer this draught, therefore, with thine own hand." hester repelled the offered medicine, at the same time gazing with strongly marked apprehension into his face. "wouldst thou avenge thyself on the innocent babe?" whispered she. "foolish woman!" responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. "what should ail me to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? the medicine is potent for good, and were it my child--yea, mine own, as well as thine! i could do no better for it." as she still hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasonable state of mind, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered the draught. it soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech's pledge. the moans of the little patient subsided; its convulsive tossings gradually ceased; and in a few moments, as is the custom of young children after relief from pain, it sank into a profound and dewy slumber. the physician, as he had a fair right to be termed, next bestowed his attention on the mother. with calm and intent scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyes--a gaze that made her heart shrink and shudder, because so familiar, and yet so strange and cold--and, finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to mingle another draught. "i know not lethe nor nepenthe," remarked he; "but i have learned many new secrets in the wilderness, and here is one of them--a recipe that an indian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my own, that were as old as paracelsus. drink it! it may be less soothing than a sinless conscience. that i cannot give thee. but it will calm the swell and heaving of thy passion, like oil thrown on the waves of a tempestuous sea." he presented the cup to hester, who received it with a slow, earnest look into his face; not precisely a look of fear, yet full of doubt and questioning as to what his purposes might be. she looked also at her slumbering child. "i have thought of death," said she--"have wished for it--would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as i should pray for anything. yet, if death be in this cup, i bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. see! it is even now at my lips." "drink, then," replied he, still with the same cold composure. "dost thou know me so little, hester prynne? are my purposes wont to be so shallow? even if i imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could i do better for my object than to let thee live--than to give thee medicines against all harm and peril of life--so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?" as he spoke, he laid his long fore-finger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into hester's breast, as if it had been red hot. he noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. "live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women--in the eyes of him whom thou didst call thy husband--in the eyes of yonder child! and, that thou mayest live, take off this draught." without further expostulation or delay, hester prynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed, where the child was sleeping; while he drew the only chair which the room afforded, and took his own seat beside her. she could not but tremble at these preparations; for she felt that--having now done all that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, a refined cruelty, impelled him to do for the relief of physical suffering--he was next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured. "hester," said he, "i ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy on which i found thee. the reason is not far to seek. it was my folly, and thy weakness. i--a man of thought--the book-worm of great libraries--a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge--what had i to do with youth and beauty like thine own? misshapen from my birth-hour, how could i delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl's fantasy? men call me wise. if sages were ever wise in their own behoof, i might have foreseen all this. i might have known that, as i came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settlement of christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, hester prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. nay, from the moment when we came down the old church-steps together, a married pair, i might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!" "thou knowest," said hester--for, depressed as she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame--"thou knowest that i was frank with thee. i felt no love, nor feigned any." "true," replied he. "it was my folly! i have said it. but, up to that epoch of my life, i had lived in vain. the world had been so cheerless! my heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. i longed to kindle one! it seemed not so wild a dream--old as i was, and sombre as i was, and misshapen as i was--that the simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for all mankind to gather up, might yet be mine. and so, hester, i drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there!" "i have greatly wronged thee," murmured hester. "we have wronged each other," answered he. "mine was the first wrong, when i betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophised in vain, i seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced. but, hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! who is he?" "ask me not!" replied hester prynne, looking firmly into his face. "that thou shalt never know!" "never, sayest thou?" rejoined he, with a smile of dark and self-relying intelligence. "never know him! believe me, hester, there are few things whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought--few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery. thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude. thou mayest conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates, even as thou didst this day, when they sought to wrench the name out of thy heart, and give thee a partner on thy pedestal. but, as for me, i come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. i shall seek this man, as i have sought truth in books: as i have sought gold in alchemy. there is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. i shall see him tremble. i shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. sooner or later, he must needs be mine." the eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely upon her, that hester prynne clasped her hand over her heart, dreading lest he should read the secret there at once. "thou wilt not reveal his name? not the less he is mine," resumed he, with a look of confidence, as if destiny were at one with him. "he bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but i shall read it on his heart. yet fear not for him! think not that i shall interfere with heaven's own method of retribution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. neither do thou imagine that i shall contrive aught against his life; no, nor against his fame, if as i judge, he be a man of fair repute. let him live! let him hide himself in outward honour, if he may! not the less he shall be mine!" "thy acts are like mercy," said hester, bewildered and appalled; "but thy words interpret thee as a terror!" "one thing, thou that wast my wife, i would enjoin upon thee," continued the scholar. "thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. keep, likewise, mine! there are none in this land that know me. breathe not to any human soul that thou didst ever call me husband! here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, i shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, i find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. no matter whether of love or hate: no matter whether of right or wrong! thou and thine, hester prynne, belong to me. my home is where thou art and where he is. but betray me not!" "wherefore dost thou desire it?" inquired hester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. "why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at once?" "it may be," he replied, "because i will not encounter the dishonour that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. it may be for other reasons. enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown. let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come. recognise me not, by word, by sign, by look! breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of. shouldst thou fail me in this, beware! his fame, his position, his life will be in my hands. beware!" "i will keep thy secret, as i have his," said hester. "swear it!" rejoined he. and she took the oath. "and now, mistress prynne," said old roger chillingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, "i leave thee alone: alone with thy infant and the scarlet letter! how is it, hester? doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the token in thy sleep? art thou not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams?" "why dost thou smile so at me?" inquired hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes. "art thou like the black man that haunts the forest round about us? hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?" "not thy soul," he answered, with another smile. "no, not thine!" v. hester at her needle hester prynne's term of confinement was now at an end. her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. it was, moreover, a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many quiet years. the very law that condemned her--a giant of stern features but with vigour to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm--had held her up through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy. but now, with this unattended walk from her prison door, began the daily custom; and she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it. she could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief. tomorrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next: each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. the days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days and added years would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast--at her, the child of honourable parents--at her, the mother of a babe that would hereafter be a woman--at her, who had once been innocent--as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. and over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument. it may seem marvellous that, with the world before her--kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure--free to return to her birth-place, or to any other european land, and there hide her character and identity under a new exterior, as completely as if emerging into another state of being--and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her--it may seem marvellous that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, she must needs be the type of shame. but there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the colour to their lifetime; and, still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. it was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into hester prynne's wild and dreary, but life-long home. all other scenes of earth--even that village of rural england, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother's keeping, like garments put off long ago--were foreign to her, in comparison. the chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken. it might be, too--doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret from herself, and grew pale whenever it struggled out of her heart, like a serpent from its hole--it might be that another feeling kept her within the scene and pathway that had been so fatal. there dwelt, there trode, the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union that, unrecognised on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution. over and over again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon hester's contemplation, and laughed at the passionate and desperate joy with which she seized, and then strove to cast it from her. she barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dungeon. what she compelled herself to believe--what, finally, she reasoned upon as her motive for continuing a resident of new england--was half a truth, and half a self-delusion. here, she said to herself had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost: more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom. hester prynne, therefore, did not flee. on the outskirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other habitation, there was a small thatched cottage. it had been built by an earlier settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants. it stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west. a clump of scrubby trees, such as alone grew on the peninsula, did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed. in this little lonesome dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and by the licence of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, hester established herself, with her infant child. a mystic shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. children, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities, would creep nigh enough to behold her plying her needle at the cottage-window, or standing in the doorway, or labouring in her little garden, or coming forth along the pathway that led townward, and, discerning the scarlet letter on her breast, would scamper off with a strange contagious fear. lonely as was hester's situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred no risk of want. she possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself. it was the art, then, as now, almost the only one within a woman's grasp--of needle-work. she bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. here, indeed, in the sable simplicity that generally characterised the puritanic modes of dress, there might be an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handiwork. yet the taste of the age, demanding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this kind, did not fail to extend its influence over our stern progenitors, who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem harder to dispense with. public ceremonies, such as ordinations, the installation of magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in which a new government manifested itself to the people, were, as a matter of policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted ceremonial, and a sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. deep ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power, and were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian order. in the array of funerals, too--whether for the apparel of the dead body, or to typify, by manifold emblematic devices of sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the survivors--there was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labour as hester prynne could supply. baby-linen--for babies then wore robes of state--afforded still another possibility of toil and emolument. by degrees, not very slowly, her handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion. whether from commiseration for a woman of so miserable a destiny; or from the morbid curiosity that gives a fictitious value even to common or worthless things; or by whatever other intangible circumstance was then, as now, sufficient to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in vain; or because hester really filled a gap which must otherwise have remained vacant; it is certain that she had ready and fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy with her needle. vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. her needle-work was seen on the ruff of the governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his band; it decked the baby's little cap; it was shut up, to be mildewed and moulder away, in the coffins of the dead. but it is not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill was called in to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride. the exception indicated the ever relentless vigour with which society frowned upon her sin. hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple abundance for her child. her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue, with only that one ornament--the scarlet letter--which it was her doom to wear. the child's attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a fanciful, or, we may rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to have also a deeper meaning. we may speak further of it hereafter. except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them. much of the time, which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in making coarse garments for the poor. it is probable that there was an idea of penance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. she had in her nature a rich, voluptuous, oriental characteristic--a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. women derive a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. to hester prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life. like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. this morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong beneath. in this manner, hester prynne came to have a part to perform in the world. with her native energy of character and rare capacity, it could not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman's heart than that which branded the brow of cain. in all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. she stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance. these emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart. it was not an age of delicacy; and her position, although she understood it well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought before her vivid self-perception, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. the poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succour them. dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expression, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound. hester had schooled herself long and well; and she never responded to these attacks, save by a flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek, and again subsided into the depths of her bosom. she was patient--a martyr, indeed--but she forebore to pray for enemies, lest, in spite of her forgiving aspirations, the words of the blessing should stubbornly twist themselves into a curse. continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the puritan tribunal. clergymen paused in the streets, to address words of exhortation, that brought a crowd, with its mingled grin and frown, around the poor, sinful woman. if she entered a church, trusting to share the sabbath smile of the universal father, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse. she grew to have a dread of children; for they had imbibed from their parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary woman gliding silently through the town, with never any companion but one only child. therefore, first allowing her to pass, they pursued her at a distance with shrill cries, and the utterances of a word that had no distinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously. it seemed to argue so wide a diffusion of her shame, that all nature knew of it; it could have caused her no deeper pang had the leaves of the trees whispered the dark story among themselves--had the summer breeze murmured about it--had the wintry blast shrieked it aloud! another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. when strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter--and none ever failed to do so--they branded it afresh in hester's soul; so that, oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand. but then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict. its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. from first to last, in short, hester prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture. but sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye--a human eye--upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were shared. the next instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper throb of pain; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. (had hester sinned alone?) her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps, in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to hester--if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted--she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. she shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. she was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. what were they? could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides hester prynne's? or, must she receive those intimations--so obscure, yet so distinct--as truth? in all her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful and so loathsome as this sense. it perplexed, as well as shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the occasions that brought it into vivid action. sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels. "what evil thing is at hand?" would hester say to herself. lifting her reluctant eyes, there would be nothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint! again a mystic sisterhood would contumaciously assert itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughout life. that unsunned snow in the matron's bosom, and the burning shame on hester prynne's--what had the two in common? or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning--"behold hester, here is a companion!" and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance. o fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere?--such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own frailty, and man's hard law, that hester prynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself. the vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. they averred that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight whenever hester prynne walked abroad in the night-time. and we must needs say it seared hester's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumour than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit. vi. pearl we have as yet hardly spoken of the infant; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. how strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child! her pearl--for so had hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison. but she named the infant "pearl," as being of great price--purchased with all she had--her mother's only treasure! how strange, indeed! man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself. god, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven! yet these thoughts affected hester prynne less with hope than apprehension. she knew that her deed had been evil; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be good. day after day she looked fearfully into the child's expanding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity that should correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being. certainly there was no physical defect. by its perfect shape, its vigour, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in eden: worthy to have been left there to be the plaything of the angels after the world's first parents were driven out. the child had a native grace which does not invariably co-exist with faultless beauty; its attire, however simple, always impressed the beholder as if it were the very garb that precisely became it best. but little pearl was not clad in rustic weeds. her mother, with a morbid purpose that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore before the public eye. so magnificent was the small figure when thus arrayed, and such was the splendour of pearl's own proper beauty, shining through the gorgeous robes which might have extinguished a paler loveliness, that there was an absolute circle of radiance around her on the darksome cottage floor. and yet a russet gown, torn and soiled with the child's rude play, made a picture of her just as perfect. pearl's aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety; in this one child there were many children, comprehending the full scope between the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant-baby, and the pomp, in little, of an infant princess. throughout all, however, there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost; and if in any of her changes, she had grown fainter or paler, she would have ceased to be herself--it would have been no longer pearl! this outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairly express, the various properties of her inner life. her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but--or else hester's fears deceived her--it lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. the child could not be made amenable to rules. in giving her existence a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder, or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered. hester could only account for the child's character--and even then most vaguely and imperfectly--by recalling what she herself had been during that momentous period while pearl was imbibing her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its material of earth. the mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance. above all, the warfare of hester's spirit at that epoch was perpetuated in pearl. she could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. they were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind. the discipline of the family in those days was of a far more rigid kind than now. the frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all childish virtues. hester prynne, nevertheless, the loving mother of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of undue severity. mindful, however, of her own errors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed to her charge. but the task was beyond her skill. after testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. as to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little pearl might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. her mother, while pearl was yet an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist, persuade or plead. it was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that hester could not help questioning at such moments whether pearl was a human child. she seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility: it was as if she were hovering in the air, and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence and goes we know not whither. beholding it, hester was constrained to rush towards the child--to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began--to snatch her to her bosom with a close pressure and earnest kisses--not so much from overflowing love as to assure herself that pearl was flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. but pearl's laugh, when she was caught, though full of merriment and music, made her mother more doubtful than before. heart-smitten at this bewildering and baffling spell, that so often came between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her world, hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. then, perhaps--for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her--pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathising look of discontent. not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. or--but this more rarely happened--she would be convulsed with rage of grief and sob out her love for her mother in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart by breaking it. yet hester was hardly safe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness: it passed as suddenly as it came. brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win the master-word that should control this new and incomprehensible intelligence. her only real comfort was when the child lay in the placidity of sleep. then she was sure of her, and tasted hours of quiet, sad, delicious happiness; until--perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from beneath her opening lids--little pearl awoke! how soon--with what strange rapidity, indeed--did pearl arrive at an age that was capable of social intercourse beyond the mother's ever-ready smile and nonsense-words! and then what a happiness would it have been could hester prynne have heard her clear, bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other childish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children. but this could never be. pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. an imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants. nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny that had drawn an inviolable circle round about her: the whole peculiarity, in short, of her position in respect to other children. never since her release from prison had hester met the public gaze without her. in all her walks about the town, pearl, too, was there: first as the babe in arms, and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother, holding a forefinger with her whole grasp, and tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one of hester's. she saw the children of the settlement on the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashions as the puritanic nurture would permit; playing at going to church, perchance, or at scourging quakers; or taking scalps in a sham fight with the indians, or scaring one another with freaks of imitative witchcraft. pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. if spoken to, she would not speak again. if the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue. the truth was, that the little puritans, being of the most intolerant brood that ever lived, had got a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the mother and child, and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and not unfrequently reviled them with their tongues. pearl felt the sentiment, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle in a childish bosom. these outbreaks of a fierce temper had a kind of value, and even comfort for the mother; because there was at least an intelligible earnestness in the mood, instead of the fitful caprice that so often thwarted her in the child's manifestations. it appalled her, nevertheless, to discern here, again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself. all this enmity and passion had pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of hester's heart. mother and daughter stood together in the same circle of seclusion from human society; and in the nature of the child seemed to be perpetuated those unquiet elements that had distracted hester prynne before pearl's birth, but had since begun to be soothed away by the softening influences of maternity. at home, within and around her mother's cottage, pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaintance. the spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. the unlikeliest materials--a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower--were the puppets of pearl's witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner world. her one baby-voice served a multitude of imaginary personages, old and young, to talk withal. the pine-trees, aged, black, and solemn, and flinging groans and other melancholy utterances on the breeze, needed little transformation to figure as puritan elders; the ugliest weeds of the garden were their children, whom pearl smote down and uprooted most unmercifully. it was wonderful, the vast variety of forms into which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed, but darting up and dancing, always in a state of preternatural activity--soon sinking down, as if exhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of life--and succeeded by other shapes of a similar wild energy. it was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the northern lights. in the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be a little more than was observable in other children of bright faculties; except as pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng which she created. the singularity lay in the hostile feelings with which the child regarded all these offsprings of her own heart and mind. she never created a friend, but seemed always to be sowing broadcast the dragon's teeth, whence sprung a harvest of armed enemies, against whom she rushed to battle. it was inexpressibly sad--then what depth of sorrow to a mother, who felt in her own heart the cause--to observe, in one so young, this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce a training of the energies that were to make good her cause in the contest that must ensue. gazing at pearl, hester prynne often dropped her work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, but which made utterance for itself betwixt speech and a groan--"o father in heaven--if thou art still my father--what is this being which i have brought into the world?" and pearl, overhearing the ejaculation, or aware through some more subtile channel, of those throbs of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face upon her mother, smile with sprite-like intelligence, and resume her play. one peculiarity of the child's deportment remains yet to be told. the very first thing which she had noticed in her life, was--what?--not the mother's smile, responding to it, as other babies do, by that faint, embryo smile of the little mouth, remembered so doubtfully afterwards, and with such fond discussion whether it were indeed a smile. by no means! but that first object of which pearl seemed to become aware was--shall we say it?--the scarlet letter on hester's bosom! one day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and putting up her little hand she grasped at it, smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child. then, gasping for breath, did hester prynne clutch the fatal token, instinctively endeavouring to tear it away, so infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of pearl's baby-hand. again, as if her mother's agonised gesture were meant only to make sport for her, did little pearl look into her eyes, and smile. from that epoch, except when the child was asleep, hester had never felt a moment's safety: not a moment's calm enjoyment of her. weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which pearl's gaze might never once be fixed upon the scarlet letter; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile and odd expression of the eyes. once this freakish, elvish cast came into the child's eyes while hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing; and suddenly--for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions--she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face in the small black mirror of pearl's eye. it was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice in them. it was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had just then peeped forth in mockery. many a time afterwards had hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion. in the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls of wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother's bosom; dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter. hester's first motion had been to cover her bosom with her clasped hands. but whether from pride or resignation, or a feeling that her penance might best be wrought out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little pearl's wild eyes. still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably hitting the mark, and covering the mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knew how to seek it in another. at last, her shot being all expended, the child stood still and gazed at hester, with that little laughing image of a fiend peeping out--or, whether it peeped or no, her mother so imagined it--from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes. "child, what art thou?" cried the mother. "oh, i am your little pearl!" answered the child. but while she said it, pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down with the humoursome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the chimney. "art thou my child, in very truth?" asked hester. nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for the moment, with a portion of genuine earnestness; for, such was pearl's wonderful intelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were not acquainted with the secret spell of her existence, and might not now reveal herself. "yes; i am little pearl!" repeated the child, continuing her antics. "thou art not my child! thou art no pearl of mine!" said the mother half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse came over her in the midst of her deepest suffering. "tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither?" "tell me, mother!" said the child, seriously, coming up to hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. "do thou tell me!" "thy heavenly father sent thee!" answered hester prynne. but she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness of the child. whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness, or because an evil spirit prompted her, she put up her small forefinger and touched the scarlet letter. "he did not send me!" cried she, positively. "i have no heavenly father!" "hush, pearl, hush! thou must not talk so!" answered the mother, suppressing a groan. "he sent us all into the world. he sent even me, thy mother. then, much more thee! or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come?" "tell me! tell me!" repeated pearl, no longer seriously, but laughing and capering about the floor. "it is thou that must tell me!" but hester could not resolve the query, being herself in a dismal labyrinth of doubt. she remembered--betwixt a smile and a shudder--the talk of the neighbouring townspeople, who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child's paternity, and observing some of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little pearl was a demon offspring: such as, ever since old catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother's sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose. luther, according to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed; nor was pearl the only child to whom this inauspicious origin was assigned among the new england puritans. vii. the governor's hall hester prynne went one day to the mansion of governor bellingham, with a pair of gloves which she had fringed and embroidered to his order, and which were to be worn on some great occasion of state; for, though the chances of a popular election had caused this former ruler to descend a step or two from the highest rank, he still held an honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy. another and far more important reason than the delivery of a pair of embroidered gloves, impelled hester, at this time, to seek an interview with a personage of so much power and activity in the affairs of the settlement. it had reached her ears that there was a design on the part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid order of principles in religion and government, to deprive her of her child. on the supposition that pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good people not unreasonably argued that a christian interest in the mother's soul required them to remove such a stumbling-block from her path. if the child, on the other hand, were really capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than hester prynne's. among those who promoted the design, governor bellingham was said to be one of the most busy. it may appear singular, and, indeed, not a little ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which in later days would have been referred to no higher jurisdiction than that of the select men of the town, should then have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took sides. at that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters of even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight than the welfare of hester and her child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of legislators and acts of state. the period was hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story, when a dispute concerning the right of property in a pig not only caused a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the colony, but resulted in an important modification of the framework itself of the legislature. full of concern, therefore--but so conscious of her own right that it seemed scarcely an unequal match between the public on the one side, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies of nature, on the other--hester prynne set forth from her solitary cottage. little pearl, of course, was her companion. she was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother's side, and, constantly in motion from morn till sunset, could have accomplished a much longer journey than that before her. often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she demanded to be taken up in arms; but was soon as imperious to be let down again, and frisked onward before hester on the grassy pathway, with many a harmless trip and tumble. we have spoken of pearl's rich and luxuriant beauty--a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints, a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown, and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black. there was fire in her and throughout her: she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passionate moment. her mother, in contriving the child's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play, arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered in fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. so much strength of colouring, which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admirably adapted to pearl's beauty, and made her the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth. but it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and indeed, of the child's whole appearance, that it irresistibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which hester prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. it was the scarlet letter in another form: the scarlet letter endowed with life! the mother herself--as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form--had carefully wrought out the similitude, lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity to create an analogy between the object of her affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture. but, in truth, pearl was the one as well as the other; and only in consequence of that identity had hester contrived so perfectly to represent the scarlet letter in her appearance. as the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the children of the puritans looked up from their play,--or what passed for play with those sombre little urchins--and spoke gravely one to another. "behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter: and of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side! come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!" but pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight. she resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence--the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged angel of judgment--whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation. she screamed and shouted, too, with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless, caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. the victory accomplished, pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked up, smiling, into her face. without further adventure, they reached the dwelling of governor bellingham. this was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets of our older towns now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remembered or forgotten, that have happened and passed away within their dusky chambers. then, however, there was the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human habitation, into which death had never entered. it had, indeed, a very cheery aspect, the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were plentifully intermixed; so that, when the sunshine fell aslant-wise over the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung against it by the double handful. the brilliancy might have be fitted aladdin's palace rather than the mansion of a grave old puritan ruler. it was further decorated with strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the quaint taste of the age which had been drawn in the stucco, when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable, for the admiration of after times. pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given her to play with. "no, my little pearl!" said her mother; "thou must gather thine own sunshine. i have none to give thee!" they approached the door, which was of an arched form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice-windows, the wooden shutters to close over them at need. lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal, hester prynne gave a summons, which was answered by one of the governor's bond servant--a free-born englishman, but now a seven years' slave. during that term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool. the serf wore the customary garb of serving-men at that period, and long before, in the old hereditary halls of england. "is the worshipful governor bellingham within?" inquired hester. "yea, forsooth," replied the bond-servant, staring with wide-open eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a new-comer in the country, he had never before seen. "yea, his honourable worship is within. but he hath a godly minister or two with him, and likewise a leech. ye may not see his worship now." "nevertheless, i will enter," answered hester prynne; and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air, and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no opposition. so the mother and little pearl were admitted into the hall of entrance. with many variations, suggested by the nature of his building materials, diversity of climate, and a different mode of social life, governor bellingham had planned his new habitation after the residences of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land. here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium of general communication, more or less directly, with all the other apartments. at one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. at the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat. here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the chronicles of england, or other such substantial literature; even as, in our own days, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre table, to be turned over by the casual guest. the furniture of the hall consisted of some ponderous chairs, the backs of which were elaborately carved with wreaths of oaken flowers; and likewise a table in the same taste, the whole being of the elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, and heirlooms, transferred hither from the governor's paternal home. on the table--in token that the sentiment of old english hospitality had not been left behind--stood a large pewter tankard, at the bottom of which, had hester or pearl peeped into it, they might have seen the frothy remnant of a recent draught of ale. on the wall hung a row of portraits, representing the forefathers of the bellingham lineage, some with armour on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes of peace. all were characterised by the sternness and severity which old portraits so invariably put on, as if they were the ghosts, rather than the pictures, of departed worthies, and were gazing with harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and enjoyments of living men. at about the centre of the oaken panels that lined the hall was suspended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date; for it had been manufactured by a skilful armourer in london, the same year in which governor bellingham came over to new england. there was a steel head-piece, a cuirass, a gorget and greaves, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and especially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumination everywhere about upon the floor. this bright panoply was not meant for mere idle show, but had been worn by the governor on many a solemn muster and training field, and had glittered, moreover, at the head of a regiment in the pequod war. for, though bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of bacon, coke, noye, and finch, as his professional associates, the exigencies of this new country had transformed governor bellingham into a soldier, as well as a statesman and ruler. little pearl, who was as greatly pleased with the gleaming armour as she had been with the glittering frontispiece of the house, spent some time looking into the polished mirror of the breastplate. "mother," cried she, "i see you here. look! look!" hester looked by way of humouring the child; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. in truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it. pearl pointed upwards also, at a similar picture in the head-piece; smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelligence that was so familiar an expression on her small physiognomy. that look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected in the mirror, with so much breadth and intensity of effect, that it made hester prynne feel as if it could not be the image of her own child, but of an imp who was seeking to mould itself into pearl's shape. "come along, pearl," said she, drawing her away, "come and look into this fair garden. it may be we shall see flowers there; more beautiful ones than we find in the woods." pearl accordingly ran to the bow-window, at the further end of the hall, and looked along the vista of a garden walk, carpeted with closely-shaven grass, and bordered with some rude and immature attempt at shrubbery. but the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this side of the atlantic, in a hard soil, and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native english taste for ornamental gardening. cabbages grew in plain sight; and a pumpkin-vine, rooted at some distance, had run across the intervening space, and deposited one of its gigantic products directly beneath the hall window, as if to warn the governor that this great lump of vegetable gold was as rich an ornament as new england earth would offer him. there were a few rose-bushes, however, and a number of apple-trees, probably the descendants of those planted by the reverend mr. blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula; that half mythological personage who rides through our early annals, seated on the back of a bull. pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified. "hush, child--hush!" said her mother, earnestly. "do not cry, dear little pearl! i hear voices in the garden. the governor is coming, and gentlemen along with him." in fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue, a number of persons were seen approaching towards the house. pearl, in utter scorn of her mother's attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch scream, and then became silent, not from any notion of obedience, but because the quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition was excited by the appearance of those new personages. viii. the elf-child and the minister governor bellingham, in a loose gown and easy cap--such as elderly gentlemen loved to endue themselves with, in their domestic privacy--walked foremost, and appeared to be showing off his estate, and expatiating on his projected improvements. the wide circumference of an elaborate ruff, beneath his grey beard, in the antiquated fashion of king james's reign, caused his head to look not a little like that of john the baptist in a charger. the impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment wherewith he had evidently done his utmost to surround himself. but it is an error to suppose that our great forefathers--though accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty--made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp. this creed was never taught, for instance, by the venerable pastor, john wilson, whose beard, white as a snow-drift, was seen over governor bellingham's shoulders, while its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalised in the new england climate, and that purple grapes might possibly be compelled to flourish against the sunny garden-wall. the old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom of the english church, had a long established and legitimate taste for all good and comfortable things, and however stern he might show himself in the pulpit, or in his public reproof of such transgressions as that of hester prynne, still, the genial benevolence of his private life had won him warmer affection than was accorded to any of his professional contemporaries. behind the governor and mr. wilson came two other guests--one, the reverend arthur dimmesdale, whom the reader may remember as having taken a brief and reluctant part in the scene of hester prynne's disgrace; and, in close companionship with him, old roger chillingworth, a person of great skill in physic, who for two or three years past had been settled in the town. it was understood that this learned man was the physician as well as friend of the young minister, whose health had severely suffered of late by his too unreserved self-sacrifice to the labours and duties of the pastoral relation. the governor, in advance of his visitors, ascended one or two steps, and, throwing open the leaves of the great hall window, found himself close to little pearl. the shadow of the curtain fell on hester prynne, and partially concealed her. "what have we here?" said governor bellingham, looking with surprise at the scarlet little figure before him. "i profess, i have never seen the like since my days of vanity, in old king james's time, when i was wont to esteem it a high favour to be admitted to a court mask! there used to be a swarm of these small apparitions in holiday time, and we called them children of the lord of misrule. but how gat such a guest into my hall?" "ay, indeed!" cried good old mr. wilson. "what little bird of scarlet plumage may this be? methinks i have seen just such figures when the sun has been shining through a richly painted window, and tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor. but that was in the old land. prithee, young one, who art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion? art thou a christian child--ha? dost know thy catechism? or art thou one of those naughty elfs or fairies whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of papistry, in merry old england?" "i am mother's child," answered the scarlet vision, "and my name is pearl!" "pearl?--ruby, rather--or coral!--or red rose, at the very least, judging from thy hue!" responded the old minister, putting forth his hand in a vain attempt to pat little pearl on the cheek. "but where is this mother of thine? ah! i see," he added; and, turning to governor bellingham, whispered, "this is the selfsame child of whom we have held speech together; and behold here the unhappy woman, hester prynne, her mother!" "sayest thou so?" cried the governor. "nay, we might have judged that such a child's mother must needs be a scarlet woman, and a worthy type of her of babylon! but she comes at a good time, and we will look into this matter forthwith." governor bellingham stepped through the window into the hall, followed by his three guests. "hester prynne," said he, fixing his naturally stern regard on the wearer of the scarlet letter, "there hath been much question concerning thee of late. the point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that are of authority and influence, do well discharge our consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen amid the pitfalls of this world. speak thou, the child's own mother! were it not, thinkest thou, for thy little one's temporal and eternal welfare that she be taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly, and instructed in the truths of heaven and earth? what canst thou do for the child in this kind?" "i can teach my little pearl what i have learned from this!" answered hester prynne, laying her finger on the red token. "woman, it is thy badge of shame!" replied the stern magistrate. "it is because of the stain which that letter indicates that we would transfer thy child to other hands." "nevertheless," said the mother, calmly, though growing more pale, "this badge hath taught me--it daily teaches me--it is teaching me at this moment--lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself." "we will judge warily," said bellingham, "and look well what we are about to do. good master wilson, i pray you, examine this pearl--since that is her name--and see whether she hath had such christian nurture as befits a child of her age." the old minister seated himself in an arm-chair and made an effort to draw pearl betwixt his knees. but the child, unaccustomed to the touch or familiarity of any but her mother, escaped through the open window, and stood on the upper step, looking like a wild tropical bird of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air. mr. wilson, not a little astonished at this outbreak--for he was a grandfatherly sort of personage, and usually a vast favourite with children--essayed, however, to proceed with the examination. "pearl," said he, with great solemnity, "thou must take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom the pearl of great price. canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee?" now pearl knew well enough who made her, for hester prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child about her heavenly father, had begun to inform her of those truths which the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes with such eager interest. pearl, therefore--so large were the attainments of her three years' lifetime--could have borne a fair examination in the new england primer, or the first column of the westminster catechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works. but that perversity, which all children have more or less of, and of which little pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. after putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good mr. wilson's question, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door. this phantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of the governor's red roses, as pearl stood outside of the window, together with her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed in coming hither. old roger chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered something in the young clergyman's ear. hester prynne looked at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what a change had come over his features--how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen--since the days when she had familiarly known him. she met his eyes for an instant, but was immediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene now going forward. "this is awful!" cried the governor, slowly recovering from the astonishment into which pearl's response had thrown him. "here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! without question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny! methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further." hester caught hold of pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death. "god gave me the child!" cried she. "he gave her in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me. she is my happiness--she is my torture, none the less! pearl keeps me here in life! pearl punishes me, too! see ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a millionfold the power of retribution for my sin? ye shall not take her! i will die first!" "my poor woman," said the not unkind old minister, "the child shall be well cared for--far better than thou canst do for it." "god gave her into my keeping!" repeated hester prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. "i will not give her up!" and here by a sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, mr. dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct her eyes. "speak thou for me!" cried she. "thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these men can. i will not lose the child! speak for me! thou knowest--for thou hast sympathies which these men lack--thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother's rights, and how much the stronger they are when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! look thou to it! i will not lose the child! look to it!" at this wild and singular appeal, which indicated that hester prynne's situation had provoked her to little less than madness, the young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over his heart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament was thrown into agitation. he looked now more careworn and emaciated than as we described him at the scene of hester's public ignominy; and whether it were his failing health, or whatever the cause might be, his large dark eyes had a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depth. "there is truth in what she says," began the minister, with a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful, insomuch that the hall re-echoed and the hollow armour rang with it--"truth in what hester says, and in the feeling which inspires her! god gave her the child, and gave her, too, an instinctive knowledge of its nature and requirements--both seemingly so peculiar--which no other mortal being can possess. and, moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacredness in the relation between this mother and this child?" "ay--how is that, good master dimmesdale?" interrupted the governor. "make that plain, i pray you!" "it must be even so," resumed the minister. "for, if we deem it otherwise, do we not thereby say that the heavenly father, the creator of all flesh, hath lightly recognised a deed of sin, and made of no account the distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love? this child of its father's guilt and its mother's shame has come from the hand of god, to work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads so earnestly and with such bitterness of spirit the right to keep her. it was meant for a blessing--for the one blessing of her life! it was meant, doubtless, the mother herself hath told us, for a retribution, too; a torture to be felt at many an unthought-of moment; a pang, a sting, an ever-recurring agony, in the midst of a troubled joy! hath she not expressed this thought in the garb of the poor child, so forcibly reminding us of that red symbol which sears her bosom?" "well said again!" cried good mr. wilson. "i feared the woman had no better thought than to make a mountebank of her child!" "oh, not so!--not so!" continued mr. dimmesdale. "she recognises, believe me, the solemn miracle which god hath wrought in the existence of that child. and may she feel, too--what, methinks, is the very truth--that this boon was meant, above all things else, to keep the mother's soul alive, and to preserve her from blacker depths of sin into which satan might else have sought to plunge her! therefore it is good for this poor, sinful woman, that she hath an infant immortality, a being capable of eternal joy or sorrow, confided to her care--to be trained up by her to righteousness, to remind her, at every moment, of her fall, but yet to teach her, as if it were by the creator's sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also will bring its parents thither! herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father. for hester prynne's sake, then, and no less for the poor child's sake, let us leave them as providence hath seen fit to place them!" "you speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness," said old roger chillingworth, smiling at him. "and there is a weighty import in what my young brother hath spoken," added the rev. mr. wilson. "what say you, worshipful master bellingham? hath he not pleaded well for the poor woman?" "indeed hath he," answered the magistrate; "and hath adduced such arguments, that we will even leave the matter as it now stands; so long, at least, as there shall be no further scandal in the woman. care must be had nevertheless, to put the child to due and stated examination in the catechism, at thy hands or master dimmesdale's. moreover, at a proper season, the tithing-men must take heed that she go both to school and to meeting." the young minister, on ceasing to speak had withdrawn a few steps from the group, and stood with his face partially concealed in the heavy folds of the window-curtain; while the shadow of his figure, which the sunlight cast upon the floor, was tremulous with the vehemence of his appeal. pearl, that wild and flighty little elf stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself--"is that my pearl?" yet she knew that there was love in the child's heart, although it mostly revealed itself in passion, and hardly twice in her lifetime had been softened by such gentleness as now. the minister--for, save the long-sought regards of woman, nothing is sweeter than these marks of childish preference, accorded spontaneously by a spiritual instinct, and therefore seeming to imply in us something truly worthy to be loved--the minister looked round, laid his hand on the child's head, hesitated an instant, and then kissed her brow. little pearl's unwonted mood of sentiment lasted no longer; she laughed, and went capering down the hall so airily, that old mr. wilson raised a question whether even her tiptoes touched the floor. "the little baggage hath witchcraft in her, i profess," said he to mr. dimmesdale. "she needs no old woman's broomstick to fly withal!" "a strange child!" remarked old roger chillingworth. "it is easy to see the mother's part in her. would it be beyond a philosopher's research, think ye, gentlemen, to analyse that child's nature, and, from it make a mould, to give a shrewd guess at the father?" "nay; it would be sinful, in such a question, to follow the clue of profane philosophy," said mr. wilson. "better to fast and pray upon it; and still better, it may be, to leave the mystery as we find it, unless providence reveal it of its own accord. thereby, every good christian man hath a title to show a father's kindness towards the poor, deserted babe." the affair being so satisfactorily concluded, hester prynne, with pearl, departed from the house. as they descended the steps, it is averred that the lattice of a chamber-window was thrown open, and forth into the sunny day was thrust the face of mistress hibbins, governor bellingham's bitter-tempered sister, and the same who, a few years later, was executed as a witch. "hist, hist!" said she, while her ill-omened physiognomy seemed to cast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. "wilt thou go with us to-night? there will be a merry company in the forest; and i well-nigh promised the black man that comely hester prynne should make one." "make my excuse to him, so please you!" answered hester, with a triumphant smile. "i must tarry at home, and keep watch over my little pearl. had they taken her from me, i would willingly have gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the black man's book too, and that with mine own blood!" "we shall have thee there anon!" said the witch-lady, frowning, as she drew back her head. but here--if we suppose this interview betwixt mistress hibbins and hester prynne to be authentic, and not a parable--was already an illustration of the young minister's argument against sundering the relation of a fallen mother to the offspring of her frailty. even thus early had the child saved her from satan's snare. ix. the leech under the appellation of roger chillingworth, the reader will remember, was hidden another name, which its former wearer had resolved should never more be spoken. it has been related, how, in the crowd that witnessed hester prynne's ignominious exposure, stood a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home, set up as a type of sin before the people. her matronly fame was trodden under all men's feet. infamy was babbling around her in the public market-place. for her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonour; which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship. then why--since the choice was with himself--should the individual, whose connexion with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable? he resolved not to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of shame. unknown to all but hester prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and interest, to vanish out of life as completely as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumour had long ago consigned him. this purpose once effected, new interests would immediately spring up, and likewise a new purpose; dark, it is true, if not guilty, but of force enough to engage the full strength of his faculties. in pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence in the puritan town as roger chillingworth, without other introduction than the learning and intelligence of which he possessed more than a common measure. as his studies, at a previous period of his life, had made him extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day, it was as a physician that he presented himself and as such was cordially received. skilful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony. they seldom, it would appear, partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the atlantic. in their researches into the human frame, it may be that the higher and more subtle faculties of such men were materialised, and that they lost the spiritual view of existence amid the intricacies of that wondrous mechanism, which seemed to involve art enough to comprise all of life within itself. at all events, the health of the good town of boston, so far as medicine had aught to do with it, had hitherto lain in the guardianship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose piety and godly deportment were stronger testimonials in his favour than any that he could have produced in the shape of a diploma. the only surgeon was one who combined the occasional exercise of that noble art with the daily and habitual flourish of a razor. to such a professional body roger chillingworth was a brilliant acquisition. he soon manifested his familiarity with the ponderous and imposing machinery of antique physic; in which every remedy contained a multitude of far-fetched and heterogeneous ingredients, as elaborately compounded as if the proposed result had been the elixir of life. in his indian captivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal from his patients that these simple medicines, nature's boon to the untutored savage, had quite as large a share of his own confidence as the european pharmacopoeia, which so many learned doctors had spent centuries in elaborating. this learned stranger was exemplary as regarded at least the outward forms of a religious life; and early after his arrival, had chosen for his spiritual guide the reverend mr. dimmesdale. the young divine, whose scholar-like renown still lived in oxford, was considered by his more fervent admirers as little less than a heavenly ordained apostle, destined, should he live and labour for the ordinary term of life, to do as great deeds, for the now feeble new england church, as the early fathers had achieved for the infancy of the christian faith. about this period, however, the health of mr. dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail. by those best acquainted with his habits, the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted for by his too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous fulfilment of parochial duty, and more than all, to the fasts and vigils of which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. some declared, that if mr. dimmesdale were really going to die, it was cause enough that the world was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet. he himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief that if providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. with all this difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact. his form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain. such was the young clergyman's condition, and so imminent the prospect that his dawning light would be extinguished, all untimely, when roger chillingworth made his advent to the town. his first entry on the scene, few people could tell whence, dropping down as it were out of the sky or starting from the nether earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily heightened to the miraculous. he was now known to be a man of skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. he was heard to speak of sir kenelm digby and other famous men--whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural--as having been his correspondents or associates. why, with such rank in the learned world, had he come hither? what, could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness? in answer to this query, a rumour gained ground--and however absurd, was entertained by some very sensible people--that heaven had wrought an absolute miracle, by transporting an eminent doctor of physic from a german university bodily through the air and setting him down at the door of mr. dimmesdale's study! individuals of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that heaven promotes its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of what is called miraculous interposition, were inclined to see a providential hand in roger chillingworth's so opportune arrival. this idea was countenanced by the strong interest which the physician ever manifested in the young clergyman; he attached himself to him as a parishioner, and sought to win a friendly regard and confidence from his naturally reserved sensibility. he expressed great alarm at his pastor's state of health, but was anxious to attempt the cure, and, if early undertaken, seemed not despondent of a favourable result. the elders, the deacons, the motherly dames, and the young and fair maidens of mr. dimmesdale's flock, were alike importunate that he should make trial of the physician's frankly offered skill. mr. dimmesdale gently repelled their entreaties. "i need no medicine," said he. but how could the young minister say so, when, with every successive sabbath, his cheek was paler and thinner, and his voice more tremulous than before--when it had now become a constant habit, rather than a casual gesture, to press his hand over his heart? was he weary of his labours? did he wish to die? these questions were solemnly propounded to mr. dimmesdale by the elder ministers of boston, and the deacons of his church, who, to use their own phrase, "dealt with him," on the sin of rejecting the aid which providence so manifestly held out. he listened in silence, and finally promised to confer with the physician. "were it god's will," said the reverend mr. dimmesdale, when, in fulfilment of this pledge, he requested old roger chillingworth's professional advice, "i could be well content that my labours, and my sorrows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritual go with me to my eternal state, rather than that you should put your skill to the proof in my behalf." "ah," replied roger chillingworth, with that quietness, which, whether imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, "it is thus that a young clergyman is apt to speak. youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily! and saintly men, who walk with god on earth, would fain be away, to walk with him on the golden pavements of the new jerusalem." "nay," rejoined the young minister, putting his hand to his heart, with a flush of pain flitting over his brow, "were i worthier to walk there, i could be better content to toil here." "good men ever interpret themselves too meanly," said the physician. in this manner, the mysterious old roger chillingworth became the medical adviser of the reverend mr. dimmesdale. as not only the disease interested the physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of the patient, these two men, so different in age, came gradually to spend much time together. for the sake of the minister's health, and to enable the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them, they took long walks on the sea-shore, or in the forest; mingling various walks with the splash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind-anthem among the tree-tops. often, likewise, one was the guest of the other in his place of study and retirement. there was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of science, in whom he recognised an intellectual cultivation of no moderate depth or scope; together with a range and freedom of ideas, that he would have vainly looked for among the members of his own profession. in truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this attribute in the physician. mr. dimmesdale was a true priest, a true religionist, with the reverential sentiment largely developed, and an order of mind that impelled itself powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its passage continually deeper with the lapse of time. in no state of society would he have been what is called a man of liberal views; it would always be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him, supporting, while it confined him within its iron framework. not the less, however, though with a tremulous enjoyment, did he feel the occasional relief of looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of intellect than those with which he habitually held converse. it was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books. but the air was too fresh and chill to be long breathed with comfort. so the minister, and the physician with him, withdrew again within the limits of what their church defined as orthodox. thus roger chillingworth scrutinised his patient carefully, both as he saw him in his ordinary life, keeping an accustomed pathway in the range of thoughts familiar to him, and as he appeared when thrown amidst other moral scenery, the novelty of which might call out something new to the surface of his character. he deemed it essential, it would seem, to know the man, before attempting to do him good. wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities of these. in arthur dimmesdale, thought and imagination were so active, and sensibility so intense, that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have its groundwork there. so roger chillingworth--the man of skill, the kind and friendly physician--strove to go deep into his patient's bosom, delving among his principles, prying into his recollections, and probing everything with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern. few secrets can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and licence to undertake such a quest, and skill to follow it up. a man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician. if the latter possess native sagacity, and a nameless something more,--let us call it intuition; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor disagreeable prominent characteristics of his own; if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bring his mind into such affinity with his patient's, that this last shall unawares have spoken what he imagines himself only to have thought; if such revelations be received without tumult, and acknowledged not so often by an uttered sympathy as by silence, an inarticulate breath, and here and there a word to indicate that all is understood; if to these qualifications of a confidant be joined the advantages afforded by his recognised character as a physician;--then, at some inevitable moment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and flow forth in a dark but transparent stream, bringing all its mysteries into the daylight. roger chillingworth possessed all, or most, of the attributes above enumerated. nevertheless, time went on; a kind of intimacy, as we have said, grew up between these two cultivated minds, which had as wide a field as the whole sphere of human thought and study to meet upon; they discussed every topic of ethics and religion, of public affairs, and private character; they talked much, on both sides, of matters that seemed personal to themselves; and yet no secret, such as the physician fancied must exist there, ever stole out of the minister's consciousness into his companion's ear. the latter had his suspicions, indeed, that even the nature of mr. dimmesdale's bodily disease had never fairly been revealed to him. it was a strange reserve! after a time, at a hint from roger chillingworth, the friends of mr. dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician. there was much joy throughout the town when this greatly desirable object was attained. it was held to be the best possible measure for the young clergyman's welfare; unless, indeed, as often urged by such as felt authorised to do so, he had selected some one of the many blooming damsels, spiritually devoted to him, to become his devoted wife. this latter step, however, there was no present prospect that arthur dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take; he rejected all suggestions of the kind, as if priestly celibacy were one of his articles of church discipline. doomed by his own choice, therefore, as mr. dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavoury morsel always at another's board, and endure the life-long chill which must be his lot who seeks to warm himself only at another's fireside, it truly seemed that this sagacious, experienced, benevolent old physician, with his concord of paternal and reverential love for the young pastor, was the very man, of all mankind, to be constantly within reach of his voice. the new abode of the two friends was with a pious widow, of good social rank, who dwelt in a house covering pretty nearly the site on which the venerable structure of king's chapel has since been built. it had the graveyard, originally isaac johnson's home-field, on one side, and so was well adapted to call up serious reflections, suited to their respective employments, in both minister and man of physic. the motherly care of the good widow assigned to mr. dimmesdale a front apartment, with a sunny exposure, and heavy window-curtains, to create a noontide shadow when desirable. the walls were hung round with tapestry, said to be from the gobelin looms, and, at all events, representing the scriptural story of david and bathsheba, and nathan the prophet, in colours still unfaded, but which made the fair woman of the scene almost as grimly picturesque as the woe-denouncing seer. here the pale clergyman piled up his library, rich with parchment-bound folios of the fathers, and the lore of rabbis, and monkish erudition, of which the protestant divines, even while they vilified and decried that class of writers, were yet constrained often to avail themselves. on the other side of the house, old roger chillingworth arranged his study and laboratory: not such as a modern man of science would reckon even tolerably complete, but provided with a distilling apparatus and the means of compounding drugs and chemicals, which the practised alchemist knew well how to turn to purpose. with such commodiousness of situation, these two learned persons sat themselves down, each in his own domain, yet familiarly passing from one apartment to the other, and bestowing a mutual and not incurious inspection into one another's business. and the reverend arthur dimmesdale's best discerning friends, as we have intimated, very reasonably imagined that the hand of providence had done all this for the purpose--besought in so many public and domestic and secret prayers--of restoring the young minister to health. but, it must now be said, another portion of the community had latterly begun to take its own view of the relation betwixt mr. dimmesdale and the mysterious old physician. when an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived. when, however, it forms its judgment, as it usually does, on the intuitions of its great and warm heart, the conclusions thus attained are often so profound and so unerring as to possess the character of truth supernaturally revealed. the people, in the case of which we speak, could justify its prejudice against roger chillingworth by no fact or argument worthy of serious refutation. there was an aged handicraftsman, it is true, who had been a citizen of london at the period of sir thomas overbury's murder, now some thirty years agone; he testified to having seen the physician, under some other name, which the narrator of the story had now forgotten, in company with dr. forman, the famous old conjurer, who was implicated in the affair of overbury. two or three individuals hinted that the man of skill, during his indian captivity, had enlarged his medical attainments by joining in the incantations of the savage priests, who were universally acknowledged to be powerful enchanters, often performing seemingly miraculous cures by their skill in the black art. a large number--and many of these were persons of such sober sense and practical observation that their opinions would have been valuable in other matters--affirmed that roger chillingworth's aspect had undergone a remarkable change while he had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with mr. dimmesdale. at first, his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. now there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him. according to the vulgar idea, the fire in his laboratory had been brought from the lower regions, and was fed with infernal fuel; and so, as might be expected, his visage was getting sooty with the smoke. to sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion that the rev. arthur dimmesdale, like many other personages of special sanctity, in all ages of the christian world, was haunted either by satan himself or satan's emissary, in the guise of old roger chillingworth. this diabolical agent had the divine permission, for a season, to burrow into the clergyman's intimacy, and plot against his soul. no sensible man, it was confessed, could doubt on which side the victory would turn. the people looked, with an unshaken hope, to see the minister come forth out of the conflict transfigured with the glory which he would unquestionably win. meanwhile, nevertheless, it was sad to think of the perchance mortal agony through which he must struggle towards his triumph. alas! to judge from the gloom and terror in the depth of the poor minister's eyes, the battle was a sore one, and the victory anything but secure. x. the leech and his patient old roger chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a pure and upright man. he had begun an investigation, as he imagined, with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth, even as if the question involved no more than the air-drawn lines and figures of a geometrical problem, instead of human passions, and wrongs inflicted on himself. but, as he proceeded, a terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still calm, necessity, seized the old man within its gripe, and never set him free again until he had done all its bidding. he now dug into the poor clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold; or, rather, like a sexton delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man's bosom, but likely to find nothing save mortality and corruption. alas, for his own soul, if these were what he sought! sometimes a light glimmered out of the physician's eyes, burning blue and ominous, like the reflection of a furnace, or, let us say, like one of those gleams of ghastly fire that darted from bunyan's awful doorway in the hillside, and quivered on the pilgrim's face. the soil where this dark miner was working had perchance shown indications that encouraged him. "this man," said he, at one such moment, to himself, "pure as they deem him--all spiritual as he seems--hath inherited a strong animal nature from his father or his mother. let us dig a little further in the direction of this vein!" then after long search into the minister's dim interior, and turning over many precious materials, in the shape of high aspirations for the welfare of his race, warm love of souls, pure sentiments, natural piety, strengthened by thought and study, and illuminated by revelation--all of which invaluable gold was perhaps no better than rubbish to the seeker--he would turn back, discouraged, and begin his quest towards another point. he groped along as stealthily, with as cautious a tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep--or, it may be, broad awake--with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. in spite of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak; his garments would rustle; the shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would be thrown across his victim. in other words, mr. dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition, would become vaguely aware that something inimical to his peace had thrust itself into relation with him. but old roger chillingworth, too, had perceptions that were almost intuitive; and when the minister threw his startled eyes towards him, there the physician sat; his kind, watchful, sympathising, but never intrusive friend. yet mr. dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual's character more perfectly, if a certain morbidness, to which sick hearts are liable, had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind. trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared. he therefore still kept up a familiar intercourse with him, daily receiving the old physician in his study, or visiting the laboratory, and, for recreation's sake, watching the processes by which weeds were converted into drugs of potency. one day, leaning his forehead on his hand, and his elbow on the sill of the open window, that looked towards the grave-yard, he talked with roger chillingworth, while the old man was examining a bundle of unsightly plants. "where," asked he, with a look askance at them--for it was the clergyman's peculiarity that he seldom, now-a-days, looked straight forth at any object, whether human or inanimate, "where, my kind doctor, did you gather those herbs, with such a dark, flabby leaf?" "even in the graveyard here at hand," answered the physician, continuing his employment. "they are new to me. i found them growing on a grave, which bore no tombstone, no other memorial of the dead man, save these ugly weeds, that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance. they grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime." "perchance," said mr. dimmesdale, "he earnestly desired it, but could not." "and wherefore?" rejoined the physician. "wherefore not; since all the powers of nature call so earnestly for the confession of sin, that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make manifest, an outspoken crime?" "that, good sir, is but a phantasy of yours," replied the minister. "there can be, if i forbode aright, no power, short of the divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be buried in the human heart. the heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. nor have i so read or interpreted holy writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made, is intended as a part of the retribution. that, surely, were a shallow view of it. no; these revelations, unless i greatly err, are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the dark problem of this life made plain. a knowledge of men's hearts will be needful to the completest solution of that problem. and, i conceive moreover, that the hearts holding such miserable secrets as you speak of, will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable." "then why not reveal it here?" asked roger chillingworth, glancing quietly aside at the minister. "why should not the guilty ones sooner avail themselves of this unutterable solace?" "they mostly do," said the clergyman, griping hard at his breast, as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain. "many, many a poor soul hath given its confidence to me, not only on the death-bed, but while strong in life, and fair in reputation. and ever, after such an outpouring, oh, what a relief have i witnessed in those sinful brethren! even as in one who at last draws free air, after a long stifling with his own polluted breath. how can it be otherwise? why should a wretched man--guilty, we will say, of murder--prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it!" "yet some men bury their secrets thus," observed the calm physician. "true; there are such men," answered mr. dimmesdale. "but not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by the very constitution of their nature. or--can we not suppose it?--guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for god's glory and man's welfare, they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service. so, to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow, while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves." "these men deceive themselves," said roger chillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. "they fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. their love for man, their zeal for god's service--these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them. but, if they seek to glorify god, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands! if they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement! would thou have me to believe, o wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better--can be more for god's glory, or man' welfare--than god's own truth? trust me, such men deceive themselves!" "it may be so," said the young clergyman, indifferently, as waiving a discussion that he considered irrelevant or unseasonable. he had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament.--"but, now, i would ask of my well-skilled physician, whether, in good sooth, he deems me to have profited by his kindly care of this weak frame of mine?" before roger chillingworth could answer, they heard the clear, wild laughter of a young child's voice, proceeding from the adjacent burial-ground. looking instinctively from the open window--for it was summer-time--the minister beheld hester prynne and little pearl passing along the footpath that traversed the enclosure. pearl looked as beautiful as the day, but was in one of those moods of perverse merriment which, whenever they occurred, seemed to remove her entirely out of the sphere of sympathy or human contact. she now skipped irreverently from one grave to another; until coming to the broad, flat, armorial tombstone of a departed worthy--perhaps of isaac johnson himself--she began to dance upon it. in reply to her mother's command and entreaty that she would behave more decorously, little pearl paused to gather the prickly burrs from a tall burdock which grew beside the tomb. taking a handful of these, she arranged them along the lines of the scarlet letter that decorated the maternal bosom, to which the burrs, as their nature was, tenaciously adhered. hester did not pluck them off. roger chillingworth had by this time approached the window and smiled grimly down. "there is no law, nor reverence for authority, no regard for human ordinances or opinions, right or wrong, mixed up with that child's composition," remarked he, as much to himself as to his companion. "i saw her, the other day, bespatter the governor himself with water at the cattle-trough in spring lane. what, in heaven's name, is she? is the imp altogether evil? hath she affections? hath she any discoverable principle of being?" "none, save the freedom of a broken law," answered mr. dimmesdale, in a quiet way, as if he had been discussing the point within himself, "whether capable of good, i know not." the child probably overheard their voices, for, looking up to the window with a bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence, she threw one of the prickly burrs at the rev. mr. dimmesdale. the sensitive clergyman shrank, with nervous dread, from the light missile. detecting his emotion, pearl clapped her little hands in the most extravagant ecstacy. hester prynne, likewise, had involuntarily looked up, and all these four persons, old and young, regarded one another in silence, till the child laughed aloud, and shouted--"come away, mother! come away, or yonder old black man will catch you! he hath got hold of the minister already. come away, mother or he will catch you! but he cannot catch little pearl!" so she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, and frisking fantastically among the hillocks of the dead people, like a creature that had nothing in common with a bygone and buried generation, nor owned herself akin to it. it was as if she had been made afresh out of new elements, and must perforce be permitted to live her own life, and be a law unto herself without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime. "there goes a woman," resumed roger chillingworth, after a pause, "who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that mystery of hidden sinfulness which you deem so grievous to be borne. is hester prynne the less miserable, think you, for that scarlet letter on her breast?" "i do verily believe it," answered the clergyman. "nevertheless, i cannot answer for her. there was a look of pain in her face which i would gladly have been spared the sight of. but still, methinks, it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman hester is, than to cover it up in his heart." there was another pause, and the physician began anew to examine and arrange the plants which he had gathered. "you inquired of me, a little time agone," said he, at length, "my judgment as touching your health." "i did," answered the clergyman, "and would gladly learn it. speak frankly, i pray you, be it for life or death." "freely then, and plainly," said the physician, still busy with his plants, but keeping a wary eye on mr. dimmesdale, "the disorder is a strange one; not so much in itself nor as outwardly manifested,--in so far, at least as the symptoms have been laid open to my observation. looking daily at you, my good sir, and watching the tokens of your aspect now for months gone by, i should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but that an instructed and watchful physician might well hope to cure you. but i know not what to say, the disease is what i seem to know, yet know it not." "you speak in riddles, learned sir," said the pale minister, glancing aside out of the window. "then, to speak more plainly," continued the physician, "and i crave pardon, sir, should it seem to require pardon, for this needful plainness of my speech. let me ask as your friend, as one having charge, under providence, of your life and physical well being, hath all the operations of this disorder been fairly laid open and recounted to me?" "how can you question it?" asked the minister. "surely it were child's play to call in a physician and then hide the sore!" "you would tell me, then, that i know all?" said roger chillingworth, deliberately, and fixing an eye, bright with intense and concentrated intelligence, on the minister's face. "be it so! but again! he to whom only the outward and physical evil is laid open, knoweth, oftentimes, but half the evil which he is called upon to cure. a bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part. your pardon once again, good sir, if my speech give the shadow of offence. you, sir, of all men whom i have known, are he whose body is the closest conjoined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it is the instrument." "then i need ask no further," said the clergyman, somewhat hastily rising from his chair. "you deal not, i take it, in medicine for the soul!" "thus, a sickness," continued roger chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,--"a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil? how may this be unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?" "no, not to thee! not to an earthly physician!" cried mr. dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on old roger chillingworth. "not to thee! but, if it be the soul's disease, then do i commit myself to the one physician of the soul! he, if it stand with his good pleasure, can cure, or he can kill. let him do with me as, in his justice and wisdom, he shall see good. but who art thou, that meddlest in this matter? that dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his god?" with a frantic gesture he rushed out of the room. "it is as well to have made this step," said roger chillingworth to himself, looking after the minister, with a grave smile. "there is nothing lost. we shall be friends again anon. but see, now, how passion takes hold upon this man, and hurrieth him out of himself! as with one passion so with another. he hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious master dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart." it proved not difficult to re-establish the intimacy of the two companions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore. the young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate. he marvelled, indeed, at the violence with which he had thrust back the kind old man, when merely proffering the advice which it was his duty to bestow, and which the minister himself had expressly sought. with these remorseful feelings, he lost no time in making the amplest apologies, and besought his friend still to continue the care which, if not successful in restoring him to health, had, in all probability, been the means of prolonging his feeble existence to that hour. roger chillingworth readily assented, and went on with his medical supervision of the minister; doing his best for him, in all good faith, but always quitting the patient's apartment, at the close of the professional interview, with a mysterious and puzzled smile upon his lips. this expression was invisible in mr. dimmesdale's presence, but grew strongly evident as the physician crossed the threshold. "a rare case," he muttered. "i must needs look deeper into it. a strange sympathy betwixt soul and body! were it only for the art's sake, i must search this matter to the bottom." it came to pass, not long after the scene above recorded, that the reverend mr. dimmesdale, noon-day, and entirely unawares, fell into a deep, deep slumber, sitting in his chair, with a large black-letter volume open before him on the table. it must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature. the profound depth of the minister's repose was the more remarkable, inasmuch as he was one of those persons whose sleep ordinarily is as light as fitful, and as easily scared away, as a small bird hopping on a twig. to such an unwonted remoteness, however, had his spirit now withdrawn into itself that he stirred not in his chair when old roger chillingworth, without any extraordinary precaution, came into the room. the physician advanced directly in front of his patient, laid his hand upon his bosom, and thrust aside the vestment, that hitherto had always covered it even from the professional eye. then, indeed, mr. dimmesdale shuddered, and slightly stirred. after a brief pause, the physician turned away. but with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror! with what a ghastly rapture, as it were, too mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features, and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugliness of his figure, and making itself even riotously manifest by the extravagant gestures with which he threw up his arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon the floor! had a man seen old roger chillingworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom. but what distinguished the physician's ecstasy from satan's was the trait of wonder in it! xi. the interior of a heart after the incident last described, the intercourse between the clergyman and the physician, though externally the same, was really of another character than it had previously been. the intellect of roger chillingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it. it was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread. calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy. to make himself the one trusted friend, to whom should be confided all the fear, the remorse, the agony, the ineffectual repentance, the backward rush of sinful thoughts, expelled in vain! all that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the pitiless--to him, the unforgiving! all that dark treasure to be lavished on the very man, to whom nothing else could so adequately pay the debt of vengeance! the clergyman's shy and sensitive reserve had balked this scheme. roger chillingworth, however, was inclined to be hardly, if at all, less satisfied with the aspect of affairs, which providence--using the avenger and his victim for its own purposes, and, perchance, pardoning, where it seemed most to punish--had substituted for his black devices. a revelation, he could almost say, had been granted to him. it mattered little for his object, whether celestial or from what other region. by its aid, in all the subsequent relations betwixt him and mr. dimmesdale, not merely the external presence, but the very inmost soul of the latter, seemed to be brought out before his eyes, so that he could see and comprehend its every movement. he became, thenceforth, not a spectator only, but a chief actor in the poor minister's interior world. he could play upon him as he chose. would he arouse him with a throb of agony? the victim was for ever on the rack; it needed only to know the spring that controlled the engine: and the physician knew it well. would he startle him with sudden fear? as at the waving of a magician's wand, up rose a grisly phantom--up rose a thousand phantoms--in many shapes, of death, or more awful shame, all flocking round about the clergyman, and pointing with their fingers at his breast! all this was accomplished with a subtlety so perfect, that the minister, though he had constantly a dim perception of some evil influence watching over him, could never gain a knowledge of its actual nature. true, he looked doubtfully, fearfully--even, at times, with horror and the bitterness of hatred--at the deformed figure of the old physician. his gestures, his gait, his grizzled beard, his slightest and most indifferent acts, the very fashion of his garments, were odious in the clergyman's sight; a token implicitly to be relied on of a deeper antipathy in the breast of the latter than he was willing to acknowledge to himself. for, as it was impossible to assign a reason for such distrust and abhorrence, so mr. dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one morbid spot was infecting his heart's entire substance, attributed all his presentiments to no other cause. he took himself to task for his bad sympathies in reference to roger chillingworth, disregarded the lesson that he should have drawn from them, and did his best to root them out. unable to accomplish this, he nevertheless, as a matter of principle, continued his habits of social familiarity with the old man, and thus gave him constant opportunities for perfecting the purpose to which--poor forlorn creature that he was, and more wretched than his victim--the avenger had devoted himself. while thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the reverend mr. dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office. he won it indeed, in great part, by his sorrows. his intellectual gifts, his moral perceptions, his power of experiencing and communicating emotion, were kept in a state of preternatural activity by the prick and anguish of his daily life. his fame, though still on its upward slope, already overshadowed the soberer reputations of his fellow-clergymen, eminent as several of them were. there are scholars among them, who had spent more years in acquiring abstruse lore, connected with the divine profession, than mr. dimmesdale had lived; and who might well, therefore, be more profoundly versed in such solid and valuable attainments than their youthful brother. there were men, too, of a sturdier texture of mind than his, and endowed with a far greater share of shrewd, hard iron, or granite understanding; which, duly mingled with a fair proportion of doctrinal ingredient, constitutes a highly respectable, efficacious, and unamiable variety of the clerical species. there were others again, true saintly fathers, whose faculties had been elaborated by weary toil among their books, and by patient thought, and etherealised, moreover, by spiritual communications with the better world, into which their purity of life had almost introduced these holy personages, with their garments of mortality still clinging to them. all that they lacked was, the gift that descended upon the chosen disciples at pentecost, in tongues of flame; symbolising, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's native language. these fathers, otherwise so apostolic, lacked heaven's last and rarest attestation of their office, the tongue of flame. they would have vainly sought--had they ever dreamed of seeking--to express the highest truths through the humblest medium of familiar words and images. their voices came down, afar and indistinctly, from the upper heights where they habitually dwelt. not improbably, it was to this latter class of men that mr. dimmesdale, by many of his traits of character, naturally belonged. to the high mountain peaks of faith and sanctity he would have climbed, had not the tendency been thwarted by the burden, whatever it might be, of crime or anguish, beneath which it was his doom to totter. it kept him down on a level with the lowest; him, the man of ethereal attributes, whose voice the angels might else have listened to and answered! but this very burden it was that gave him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind; so that his heart vibrated in unison with theirs, and received their pain into itself and sent its own throb of pain through a thousand other hearts, in gushes of sad, persuasive eloquence. oftenest persuasive, but sometimes terrible! the people knew not the power that moved them thus. they deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness. they fancied him the mouth-piece of heaven's messages of wisdom, and rebuke, and love. in their eyes, the very ground on which he trod was sanctified. the virgins of his church grew pale around him, victims of a passion so imbued with religious sentiment, that they imagined it to be all religion, and brought it openly, in their white bosoms, as their most acceptable sacrifice before the altar. the aged members of his flock, beholding mr. dimmesdale's frame so feeble, while they were themselves so rugged in their infirmity, believed that he would go heavenward before them, and enjoined it upon their children that their old bones should be buried close to their young pastor's holy grave. and all this time, perchance, when poor mr. dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried! it is inconceivable, the agony with which this public veneration tortured him. it was his genuine impulse to adore the truth, and to reckon all things shadow-like, and utterly devoid of weight or value, that had not its divine essence as the life within their life. then what was he?--a substance?--or the dimmest of all shadows? he longed to speak out from his own pulpit at the full height of his voice, and tell the people what he was. "i, whom you behold in these black garments of the priesthood--i, who ascend the sacred desk, and turn my pale face heavenward, taking upon myself to hold communion in your behalf with the most high omniscience--i, in whose daily life you discern the sanctity of enoch--i, whose footsteps, as you suppose, leave a gleam along my earthly track, whereby the pilgrims that shall come after me may be guided to the regions of the blest--i, who have laid the hand of baptism upon your children--i, who have breathed the parting prayer over your dying friends, to whom the amen sounded faintly from a world which they had quitted--i, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!" more than once, mr. dimmesdale had gone into the pulpit, with a purpose never to come down its steps until he should have spoken words like the above. more than once he had cleared his throat, and drawn in the long, deep, and tremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, would come burdened with the black secret of his soul. more than once--nay, more than a hundred times--he had actually spoken! spoken! but how? he had told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler companion of the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity, and that the only wonder was that they did not see his wretched body shrivelled up before their eyes by the burning wrath of the almighty! could there be plainer speech than this? would not the people start up in their seats, by a simultaneous impulse, and tear him down out of the pulpit which he defiled? not so, indeed! they heard it all, and did but reverence him the more. they little guessed what deadly purport lurked in those self-condemning words. "the godly youth!" said they among themselves. "the saint on earth! alas! if he discern such sinfulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold in thine or mine!" the minister well knew--subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that he was!--the light in which his vague confession would be viewed. he had striven to put a cheat upon himself by making the avowal of a guilty conscience, but had gained only one other sin, and a self-acknowledged shame, without the momentary relief of being self-deceived. he had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood. and yet, by the constitution of his nature, he loved the truth, and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. therefore, above all things else, he loathed his miserable self! his inward trouble drove him to practices more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of rome than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred. in mr. dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. oftentimes, this protestant and puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders, laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh. it was his custom, too, as it has been that of many other pious puritans, to fast--not however, like them, in order to purify the body, and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination--but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance. he kept vigils, likewise, night after night, sometimes in utter darkness, sometimes with a glimmering lamp, and sometimes, viewing his own face in a looking-glass, by the most powerful light which he could throw upon it. he thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify himself. in these lengthened vigils, his brain often reeled, and visions seemed to flit before him; perhaps seen doubtfully, and by a faint light of their own, in the remote dimness of the chamber, or more vividly and close beside him, within the looking-glass. now it was a herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the pale minister, and beckoned him away with them; now a group of shining angels, who flew upward heavily, as sorrow-laden, but grew more ethereal as they rose. now came the dead friends of his youth, and his white-bearded father, with a saint-like frown, and his mother turning her face away as she passed by. ghost of a mother--thinnest fantasy of a mother--methinks she might yet have thrown a pitying glance towards her son! and now, through the chamber which these spectral thoughts had made so ghastly, glided hester prynne leading along little pearl, in her scarlet garb, and pointing her forefinger, first at the scarlet letter on her bosom, and then at the clergyman's own breast. none of these visions ever quite deluded him. at any moment, by an effort of his will, he could discern substances through their misty lack of substance, and convince himself that they were not solid in their nature, like yonder table of carved oak, or that big, square, leather-bound and brazen-clasped volume of divinity. but, for all that, they were, in one sense, the truest and most substantial things which the poor minister now dealt with. it is the unspeakable misery of a life so false as his, that it steals the pith and substance out of whatever realities there are around us, and which were meant by heaven to be the spirit's joy and nutriment. to the untrue man, the whole universe is false--it is impalpable--it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. and he himself in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist. the only truth that continued to give mr. dimmesdale a real existence on this earth was the anguish in his inmost soul, and the undissembled expression of it in his aspect. had he once found power to smile, and wear a face of gaiety, there would have been no such man! on one of those ugly nights, which we have faintly hinted at, but forborne to picture forth, the minister started from his chair. a new thought had struck him. there might be a moment's peace in it. attiring himself with as much care as if it had been for public worship, and precisely in the same manner, he stole softly down the staircase, undid the door, and issued forth. xii. the minister's vigil walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism, mr. dimmesdale reached the spot where, now so long since, hester prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy. the same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. the minister went up the steps. it was an obscure night in early may. an unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. if the same multitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while hester prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark grey of the midnight. but the town was all asleep. there was no peril of discovery. the minister might stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank and chill night air would creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, and clog his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the expectant audience of to-morrow's prayer and sermon. no eye could see him, save that ever-wakeful one which had seen him in his closet, wielding the bloody scourge. why, then, had he come hither? was it but the mockery of penitence? a mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! a mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced with jeering laughter! he had been driven hither by the impulse of that remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose, and fling it off at once! this feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance. and thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, mr. dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. on that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. without any effort of his will, or power to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud: an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another, and reverberated from the hills in the background; as if a company of devils, detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound, and were bandying it to and fro. "it is done!" muttered the minister, covering his face with his hands. "the whole town will awake and hurry forth, and find me here!" but it was not so. the shriek had perhaps sounded with a far greater power, to his own startled ears, than it actually possessed. the town did not awake; or, if it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream, or for the noise of witches, whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with satan through the air. the clergyman, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance, uncovered his eyes and looked about him. at one of the chamber-windows of governor bellingham's mansion, which stood at some distance, on the line of another street, he beheld the appearance of the old magistrate himself with a lamp in his hand a white night-cap on his head, and a long white gown enveloping his figure. he looked like a ghost evoked unseasonably from the grave. the cry had evidently startled him. at another window of the same house, moreover appeared old mistress hibbins, the governor's sister, also with a lamp, which even thus far off revealed the expression of her sour and discontented face. she thrust forth her head from the lattice, and looked anxiously upward. beyond the shadow of a doubt, this venerable witch-lady had heard mr. dimmesdale's outcry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinous echoes and reverberations, as the clamour of the fiends and night-hags, with whom she was well known to make excursions in the forest. detecting the gleam of governor bellingham's lamp, the old lady quickly extinguished her own, and vanished. possibly, she went up among the clouds. the minister saw nothing further of her motions. the magistrate, after a wary observation of the darkness--into which, nevertheless, he could see but little further than he might into a mill-stone--retired from the window. the minister grew comparatively calm. his eyes, however, were soon greeted by a little glimmering light, which, at first a long way off was approaching up the street. it threw a gleam of recognition, on here a post, and there a garden fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here again an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the door-step. the reverend mr. dimmesdale noted all these minute particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard; and that the gleam of the lantern would fall upon him in a few moments more, and reveal his long-hidden secret. as the light drew nearer, he beheld, within its illuminated circle, his brother clergyman--or, to speak more accurately, his professional father, as well as highly valued friend--the reverend mr. wilson, who, as mr. dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at the bedside of some dying man. and so he had. the good old minister came freshly from the death-chamber of governor winthrop, who had passed from earth to heaven within that very hour. and now surrounded, like the saint-like personage of olden times, with a radiant halo, that glorified him amid this gloomy night of sin--as if the departed governor had left him an inheritance of his glory, or as if he had caught upon himself the distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to see the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates--now, in short, good father wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern! the glimmer of this luminary suggested the above conceits to mr. dimmesdale, who smiled--nay, almost laughed at them--and then wondered if he was going mad. as the reverend mr. wilson passed beside the scaffold, closely muffling his geneva cloak about him with one arm, and holding the lantern before his breast with the other, the minister could hardly restrain himself from speaking-- "a good evening to you, venerable father wilson. come up hither, i pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me!" good heavens! had mr. dimmesdale actually spoken? for one instant he believed that these words had passed his lips. but they were uttered only within his imagination. the venerable father wilson continued to step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet, and never once turning his head towards the guilty platform. when the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away, the minister discovered, by the faintness which came over him, that the last few moments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety, although his mind had made an involuntary effort to relieve itself by a kind of lurid playfulness. shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the humorous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. he felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold. morning would break and find him there. the neighbourhood would begin to rouse itself. the earliest riser, coming forth in the dim twilight, would perceive a vaguely-defined figure aloft on the place of shame; and half-crazed betwixt alarm and curiosity, would go knocking from door to door, summoning all the people to behold the ghost--as he needs must think it--of some defunct transgressor. a dusky tumult would flap its wings from one house to another. then--the morning light still waxing stronger--old patriarchs would rise up in great haste, each in his flannel gown, and matronly dames, without pausing to put off their night-gear. the whole tribe of decorous personages, who had never heretofore been seen with a single hair of their heads awry, would start into public view with the disorder of a nightmare in their aspects. old governor bellingham would come grimly forth, with his king james' ruff fastened askew, and mistress hibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride; and good father wilson too, after spending half the night at a death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early, out of his dreams about the glorified saints. hither, likewise, would come the elders and deacons of mr. dimmesdale's church, and the young virgins who so idolized their minister, and had made a shrine for him in their white bosoms, which now, by-the-bye, in their hurry and confusion, they would scantly have given themselves time to cover with their kerchiefs. all people, in a word, would come stumbling over their thresholds, and turning up their amazed and horror-stricken visages around the scaffold. whom would they discern there, with the red eastern light upon his brow? whom, but the reverend arthur dimmesdale, half-frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where hester prynne had stood! carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal of laughter. it was immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thrill of the heart--but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute--he recognised the tones of little pearl. "pearl! little pearl!" cried he, after a moment's pause; then, suppressing his voice--"hester! hester prynne! are you there?" "yes; it is hester prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the side-walk, along which she had been passing. "it is i, and my little pearl." "whence come you, hester?" asked the minister. "what sent you hither?" "i have been watching at a death-bed," answered hester prynne "at governor winthrop's death-bed, and have taken his measure for a robe, and am now going homeward to my dwelling." "come up hither, hester, thou and little pearl," said the reverend mr. dimmesdale. "ye have both been here before, but i was not with you. come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together." she silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding little pearl by the hand. the minister felt for the child's other hand, and took it. the moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system. the three formed an electric chain. "minister!" whispered little pearl. "what wouldst thou say, child?" asked mr. dimmesdale. "wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?" inquired pearl. "nay; not so, my little pearl," answered the minister; for, with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him; and he was already trembling at the conjunction in which--with a strange joy, nevertheless--he now found himself--"not so, my child. i shall, indeed, stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow." pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. but the minister held it fast. "a moment longer, my child!" said he. "but wilt thou promise," asked pearl, "to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide?" "not then, pearl," said the minister; "but another time." "and what other time?" persisted the child. "at the great judgment day," whispered the minister; and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelled him to answer the child so. "then, and there, before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and i must stand together. but the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!" pearl laughed again. but before mr. dimmesdale had done speaking, a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. it was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. so powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. the great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. it showed the familiar scene of the street with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. the wooden houses, with their jutting storeys and quaint gable-peaks; the doorsteps and thresholds with the early grass springing up about them; the garden-plots, black with freshly-turned earth; the wheel-track, little worn, and even in the market-place margined with green on either side--all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before. and there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and hester prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. they stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendour, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another. there was witchcraft in little pearl's eyes; and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish. she withdrew her hand from mr. dimmesdale's, and pointed across the street. but he clasped both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes towards the zenith. nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source. thus, a blazing spear, a sword of flame, a bow, or a sheaf of arrows seen in the midnight sky, prefigured indian warfare. pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light. we doubt whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befell new england, from its settlement down to revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of its nature. not seldom, it had been seen by multitudes. oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the wonder through the coloured, magnifying, and distorted medium of his imagination, and shaped it more distinctly in his after-thought. it was, indeed, a majestic idea that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. a scroll so wide might not be deemed too expensive for providence to write a people's doom upon. the belief was a favourite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. but what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record. in such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate. we impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter--the letter a--marked out in lines of dull red light. not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskily through a veil of cloud, but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it, or, at least, with so little definiteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it. there was a singular circumstance that characterised mr. dimmesdale's psychological state at this moment. all the time that he gazed upward to the zenith, he was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that little pearl was pointing her finger towards old roger chillingworth, who stood at no great distance from the scaffold. the minister appeared to see him, with the same glance that discerned the miraculous letter. to his feature as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new expression; or it might well be that the physician was not careful then, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim. certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky, and disclosed the earth, with an awfulness that admonished hester prynne and the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might roger chillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, standing there with a smile and scowl, to claim his own. so vivid was the expression, or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness after the meteor had vanished, with an effect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated. "who is that man, hester?" gasped mr. dimmesdale, overcome with terror. "i shiver at him! dost thou know the man? i hate him, hester!" she remembered her oath, and was silent. "i tell thee, my soul shivers at him!" muttered the minister again. "who is he? who is he? canst thou do nothing for me? i have a nameless horror of the man!" "minister," said little pearl, "i can tell thee who he is!" "quickly, then, child!" said the minister, bending his ear close to her lips. "quickly, and as low as thou canst whisper." pearl mumbled something into his ear that sounded, indeed, like human language, but was only such gibberish as children may be heard amusing themselves with by the hour together. at all events, if it involved any secret information in regard to old roger chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. the elvish child then laughed aloud. "dost thou mock me now?" said the minister. "thou wast not bold!--thou wast not true!" answered the child. "thou wouldst not promise to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noon-tide!" "worthy sir," answered the physician, who had now advanced to the foot of the platform--"pious master dimmesdale! can this be you? well, well, indeed! we men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straitly looked after! we dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep. come, good sir, and my dear friend, i pray you let me lead you home!" "how knewest thou that i was here?" asked the minister, fearfully. "verily, and in good faith," answered roger chillingworth, "i knew nothing of the matter. i had spent the better part of the night at the bedside of the worshipful governor winthrop, doing what my poor skill might to give him ease. he, going home to a better world, i, likewise, was on my way homeward, when this light shone out. come with me, i beseech you, reverend sir, else you will be poorly able to do sabbath duty to-morrow. aha! see now how they trouble the brain--these books!--these books! you should study less, good sir, and take a little pastime, or these night whimsies will grow upon you." "i will go home with you," said mr. dimmesdale. with a chill despondency, like one awakening, all nerveless, from an ugly dream, he yielded himself to the physician, and was led away. the next day, however, being the sabbath, he preached a discourse which was held to be the richest and most powerful, and the most replete with heavenly influences, that had ever proceeded from his lips. souls, it is said, more souls than one, were brought to the truth by the efficacy of that sermon, and vowed within themselves to cherish a holy gratitude towards mr. dimmesdale throughout the long hereafter. but as he came down the pulpit steps, the grey-bearded sexton met him, holding up a black glove, which the minister recognised as his own. "it was found," said the sexton, "this morning on the scaffold where evil-doers are set up to public shame. satan dropped it there, i take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence. but, indeed, he was blind and foolish, as he ever and always is. a pure hand needs no glove to cover it!" "thank you, my good friend," said the minister, gravely, but startled at heart; for so confused was his remembrance, that he had almost brought himself to look at the events of the past night as visionary. "yes, it seems to be my glove, indeed!" "and, since satan saw fit to steal it, your reverence must needs handle him without gloves henceforward," remarked the old sexton, grimly smiling. "but did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night? a great red letter in the sky--the letter a, which we interpret to stand for angel. for, as our good governor winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof!" "no," answered the minister; "i had not heard of it." xiii. another view of hester in her late singular interview with mr. dimmesdale, hester prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced. his nerve seemed absolutely destroyed. his moral force was abased into more than childish weakness. it grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given them. with her knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden from all others, she could readily infer that, besides the legitimate action of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been brought to bear, and was still operating, on mr. dimmesdale's well-being and repose. knowing what this poor fallen man had once been, her whole soul was moved by the shuddering terror with which he had appealed to her--the outcast woman--for support against his instinctively discovered enemy. she decided, moreover, that he had a right to her utmost aid. little accustomed, in her long seclusion from society, to measure her ideas of right and wrong by any standard external to herself, hester saw--or seemed to see--that there lay a responsibility upon her in reference to the clergyman, which she owned to no other, nor to the whole world besides. the links that united her to the rest of humankind--links of flowers, or silk, or gold, or whatever the material--had all been broken. here was the iron link of mutual crime, which neither he nor she could break. like all other ties, it brought along with it its obligations. hester prynne did not now occupy precisely the same position in which we beheld her during the earlier periods of her ignominy. years had come and gone. pearl was now seven years old. her mother, with the scarlet letter on her breast, glittering in its fantastic embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the townspeople. as is apt to be the case when a person stands out in any prominence before the community, and, at the same time, interferes neither with public nor individual interests and convenience, a species of general regard had ultimately grown up in reference to hester prynne. it is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. in this matter of hester prynne there was neither irritation nor irksomeness. she never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it in requital for what she suffered; she did not weigh upon its sympathies. then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy was reckoned largely in her favour. with nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly no wish, of gaining anything, it could only be a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back the poor wanderer to its paths. it was perceived, too, that while hester never put forward even the humblest title to share in the world's privileges--further than to breathe the common air and earn daily bread for little pearl and herself by the faithful labour of her hands--she was quick to acknowledge her sisterhood with the race of man whenever benefits were to be conferred. none so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty, even though the bitter-hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requital of the food brought regularly to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could have embroidered a monarch's robe. none so self-devoted as hester when pestilence stalked through the town. in all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals, the outcast of society at once found her place. she came, not as a guest, but as a rightful inmate, into the household that was darkened by trouble, as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in which she was entitled to hold intercourse with her fellow-creature. there glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper of the sick chamber. it had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer's hard extremity, across the verge of time. it had shown him where to set his foot, while the light of earth was fast becoming dim, and ere the light of futurity could reach him. in such emergencies hester's nature showed itself warm and rich--a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. she was self-ordained a sister of mercy, or, we may rather say, the world's heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. the letter was the symbol of her calling. such helpfulness was found in her--so much power to do, and power to sympathise--that many people refused to interpret the scarlet a by its original signification. they said that it meant able, so strong was hester prynne, with a woman's strength. it was only the darkened house that could contain her. when sunshine came again, she was not there. her shadow had faded across the threshold. the helpful inmate had departed, without one backward glance to gather up the meed of gratitude, if any were in the hearts of those whom she had served so zealously. meeting them in the street, she never raised her head to receive their greeting. if they were resolute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter, and passed on. this might be pride, but was so like humility, that it produced all the softening influence of the latter quality on the public mind. the public is despotic in its temper; it is capable of denying common justice when too strenuously demanded as a right; but quite as frequently it awards more than justice, when the appeal is made, as despots love to have it made, entirely to its generosity. interpreting hester prynne's deportment as an appeal of this nature, society was inclined to show its former victim a more benign countenance than she cared to be favoured with, or, perchance, than she deserved. the rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were longer in acknowledging the influence of hester's good qualities than the people. the prejudices which they shared in common with the latter were fortified in themselves by an iron frame-work of reasoning, that made it a far tougher labour to expel them. day by day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid wrinkles were relaxing into something which, in the due course of years, might grow to be an expression of almost benevolence. thus it was with the men of rank, on whom their eminent position imposed the guardianship of the public morals. individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven hester prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. "do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?" they would say to strangers. "it is our hester--the town's own hester--who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!" then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years. it was none the less a fact, however, that in the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. it imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her safe. it was reported, and believed by many, that an indian had drawn his arrow against the badge, and that the missile struck it, and fell harmless to the ground. the effect of the symbol--or rather, of the position in respect to society that was indicated by it--on the mind of hester prynne herself was powerful and peculiar. all the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, which might have been repulsive had she possessed friends or companions to be repelled by it. even the attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change. it might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, and partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. it was a sad transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine. it was due in part to all these causes, but still more to something else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in hester's face for love to dwell upon; nothing in hester's form, though majestic and statue like, that passion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace; nothing in hester's bosom to make it ever again the pillow of affection. some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. if she be all tenderness, she will die. if she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or--and the outward semblance is the same--crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more. the latter is perhaps the truest theory. she who has once been a woman, and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touch to effect the transformation. we shall see whether hester prynne were ever afterwards so touched and so transfigured. much of the marble coldness of hester's impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling to thought. standing alone in the world--alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little pearl to be guided and protected--alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned to consider it desirable--she cast away the fragment of a broken chain. the world's law was no law for her mind. it was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged--not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode--the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. hester prynne imbibed this spirit. she assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatised by the scarlet letter. in her lonesome cottage, by the seashore, thoughts visited her such as dared to enter no other dwelling in new england; shadowy guests, that would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking at her door. it is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. the thought suffices them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action. so it seemed to be with hester. yet, had little pearl never come to her from the spiritual world, it might have been far otherwise. then she might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with ann hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. she might, in one of her phases, have been a prophetess. she might, and not improbably would, have suffered death from the stern tribunals of the period, for attempting to undermine the foundations of the puritan establishment. but, in the education of her child, the mother's enthusiasm of thought had something to wreak itself upon. providence, in the person of this little girl, had assigned to hester's charge, the germ and blossom of womanhood, to be cherished and developed amid a host of difficulties. everything was against her. the world was hostile. the child's own nature had something wrong in it which continually betokened that she had been born amiss--the effluence of her mother's lawless passion--and often impelled hester to ask, in bitterness of heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor little creature had been born at all. indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind with reference to the whole race of womanhood. was existence worth accepting even to the happiest among them? as concerned her own individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. a tendency to speculation, though it may keep women quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. she discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her. as a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down and built up anew. then the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified before woman can be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position. finally, all other difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary reforms until she herself shall have undergone a still mightier change, in which, perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to have evaporated. a woman never overcomes these problems by any exercise of thought. they are not to be solved, or only in one way. if her heart chance to come uppermost, they vanish. thus hester prynne, whose heart had lost its regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clue in the dark labyrinth of mind; now turned aside by an insurmountable precipice; now starting back from a deep chasm. there was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a home and comfort nowhere. at times a fearful doubt strove to possess her soul, whether it were not better to send pearl at once to heaven, and go herself to such futurity as eternal justice should provide. the scarlet letter had not done its office. now, however, her interview with the reverend mr. dimmesdale, on the night of his vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to her an object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrifice for its attainment. she had witnessed the intense misery beneath which the minister struggled, or, to speak more accurately, had ceased to struggle. she saw that he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not already stepped across it. it was impossible to doubt that, whatever painful efficacy there might be in the secret sting of remorse, a deadlier venom had been infused into it by the hand that proffered relief. a secret enemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of a friend and helper, and had availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded for tampering with the delicate springs of mr. dimmesdale's nature. hester could not but ask herself whether there had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, and loyalty on her own part, in allowing the minister to be thrown into a position where so much evil was to be foreboded and nothing auspicious to be hoped. her only justification lay in the fact that she had been able to discern no method of rescuing him from a blacker ruin than had overwhelmed herself except by acquiescing in roger chillingworth's scheme of disguise. under that impulse she had made her choice, and had chosen, as it now appeared, the more wretched alternative of the two. she determined to redeem her error so far as it might yet be possible. strengthened by years of hard and solemn trial, she felt herself no longer so inadequate to cope with roger chillingworth as on that night, abased by sin and half-maddened by the ignominy that was still new, when they had talked together in the prison-chamber. she had climbed her way since then to a higher point. the old man, on the other hand, had brought himself nearer to her level, or, perhaps, below it, by the revenge which he had stooped for. in fine, hester prynne resolved to meet her former husband, and do what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim on whom he had so evidently set his gripe. the occasion was not long to seek. one afternoon, walking with pearl in a retired part of the peninsula, she beheld the old physician with a basket on one arm and a staff in the other hand, stooping along the ground in quest of roots and herbs to concoct his medicine withal. xiv. hester and the physician hester bade little pearl run down to the margin of the water, and play with the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talked awhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. so the child flew away like a bird, and, making bare her small white feet went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. here and there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirror for pearl to see her face in. forth peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image of a little maid whom pearl, having no other playmate, invited to take her hand and run a race with her. but the visionary little maid on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to say--"this is a better place; come thou into the pool." and pearl, stepping in mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom; while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water. meanwhile her mother had accosted the physician. "i would speak a word with you," said she--"a word that concerns us much." "aha! and is it mistress hester that has a word for old roger chillingworth?" answered he, raising himself from his stooping posture. "with all my heart! why, mistress, i hear good tidings of you on all hands! no longer ago than yester-eve, a magistrate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your affairs, mistress hester, and whispered me that there had been question concerning you in the council. it was debated whether or no, with safety to the commonweal, yonder scarlet letter might be taken off your bosom. on my life, hester, i made my intreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it might be done forthwith." "it lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off the badge," calmly replied hester. "were i worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport." "nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better," rejoined he, "a woman must needs follow her own fancy touching the adornment of her person. the letter is gaily embroidered, and shows right bravely on your bosom!" all this while hester had been looking steadily at the old man, and was shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a change had been wrought upon him within the past seven years. it was not so much that he had grown older; for though the traces of advancing life were visible he bore his age well, and seemed to retain a wiry vigour and alertness. but the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished, and been succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look. it seemed to be his wish and purpose to mask this expression with a smile, but the latter played him false, and flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectator could see his blackness all the better for it. ever and anon, too, there came a glare of red light out of his eyes, as if the old man's soul were on fire and kept on smouldering duskily within his breast, until by some casual puff of passion it was blown into a momentary flame. this he repressed as speedily as possible, and strove to look as if nothing of the kind had happened. in a word, old roger chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office. this unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself for seven years to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analysed and gloated over. the scarlet letter burned on hester prynne's bosom. here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her. "what see you in my face," asked the physician, "that you look at it so earnestly?" "something that would make me weep, if there were any tears bitter enough for it," answered she. "but let it pass! it is of yonder miserable man that i would speak." "and what of him?" cried roger chillingworth, eagerly, as if he loved the topic, and were glad of an opportunity to discuss it with the only person of whom he could make a confidant. "not to hide the truth, mistress hester, my thoughts happen just now to be busy with the gentleman. so speak freely and i will make answer." "when we last spake together," said hester, "now seven years ago, it was your pleasure to extort a promise of secrecy as touching the former relation betwixt yourself and me. as the life and good fame of yonder man were in your hands there seemed no choice to me, save to be silent in accordance with your behest. yet it was not without heavy misgivings that i thus bound myself, for, having cast off all duty towards other human beings, there remained a duty towards him, and something whispered me that i was betraying it in pledging myself to keep your counsel. since that day no man is so near to him as you. you tread behind his every footstep. you are beside him, sleeping and waking. you search his thoughts. you burrow and rankle in his heart! your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to die daily a living death, and still he knows you not. in permitting this i have surely acted a false part by the only man to whom the power was left me to be true!" "what choice had you?" asked roger chillingworth. "my finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, thence, peradventure, to the gallows!" "it had been better so!" said hester prynne. "what evil have i done the man?" asked roger chillingworth again. "i tell thee, hester prynne, the richest fee that ever physician earned from monarch could not have bought such care as i have wasted on this miserable priest! but for my aid his life would have burned away in torments within the first two years after the perpetration of his crime and thine. for, hester, his spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter. oh, i could reveal a goodly secret! but enough. what art can do, i have exhausted on him. that he now breathes and creeps about on earth is owing all to me!" "better he had died at once!" said hester prynne. "yea, woman, thou sayest truly!" cried old roger chillingworth, letting the lurid fire of his heart blaze out before her eyes. "better had he died at once! never did mortal suffer what this man has suffered. and all, all, in the sight of his worst enemy! he has been conscious of me. he has felt an influence dwelling always upon him like a curse. he knew, by some spiritual sense--for the creator never made another being so sensitive as this--he knew that no friendly hand was pulling at his heartstrings, and that an eye was looking curiously into him, which sought only evil, and found it. but he knew not that the eye and hand were mine! with the superstition common to his brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful dreams and desperate thoughts, the sting of remorse and despair of pardon, as a foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave. but it was the constant shadow of my presence, the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged, and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge! yea, indeed, he did not err, there was a fiend at his elbow! a mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment." the unfortunate physician, while uttering these words, lifted his hands with a look of horror, as if he had beheld some frightful shape, which he could not recognise, usurping the place of his own image in a glass. it was one of those moments--which sometimes occur only at the interval of years--when a man's moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind's eye. not improbably he had never before viewed himself as he did now. "hast thou not tortured him enough?" said hester, noticing the old man's look. "has he not paid thee all?" "no, no! he has but increased the debt!" answered the physician, and as he proceeded, his manner lost its fiercer characteristics, and subsided into gloom. "dost thou remember me, hester, as i was nine years agone? even then i was in the autumn of my days, nor was it the early autumn. but all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, thoughtful, quiet years, bestowed faithfully for the increase of mine own knowledge, and faithfully, too, though this latter object was but casual to the other--faithfully for the advancement of human welfare. no life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine; few lives so rich with benefits conferred. dost thou remember me? was i not, though you might deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others, craving little for himself--kind, true, just and of constant, if not warm affections? was i not all this?" "all this, and more," said hester. "and what am i now?" demanded he, looking into her face, and permitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. "i have already told thee what i am--a fiend! who made me so?" "it was myself," cried hester, shuddering. "it was i, not less than he. why hast thou not avenged thyself on me?" "i have left thee to the scarlet letter," replied roger chillingworth. "if that has not avenged me, i can do no more!" he laid his finger on it with a smile. "it has avenged thee," answered hester prynne. "i judged no less," said the physician. "and now what wouldst thou with me touching this man?" "i must reveal the secret," answered hester, firmly. "he must discern thee in thy true character. what may be the result i know not. but this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin i have been, shall at length be paid. so far as concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in my hands. nor do i--whom the scarlet letter has disciplined to truth, though it be the truth of red-hot iron entering into the soul--nor do i perceive such advantage in his living any longer a life of ghastly emptiness, that i shall stoop to implore thy mercy. do with him as thou wilt! there is no good for him, no good for me, no good for thee. there is no good for little pearl. there is no path to guide us out of this dismal maze." "woman, i could well-nigh pity thee," said roger chillingworth, unable to restrain a thrill of admiration too, for there was a quality almost majestic in the despair which she expressed. "thou hadst great elements. peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this evil had not been. i pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy nature." "and i thee," answered hester prynne, "for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! wilt thou yet purge it out of thee, and be once more human? if not for his sake, then doubly for thine own! forgive, and leave his further retribution to the power that claims it! i said, but now, that there could be no good event for him, or thee, or me, who are here wandering together in this gloomy maze of evil, and stumbling at every step over the guilt wherewith we have strewn our path. it is not so! there might be good for thee, and thee alone, since thou hast been deeply wronged and hast it at thy will to pardon. wilt thou give up that only privilege? wilt thou reject that priceless benefit?" "peace, hester--peace!" replied the old man, with gloomy sternness--"it is not granted me to pardon. i have no such power as thou tellest me of. my old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains all that we do, and all we suffer. by thy first step awry, thou didst plant the germ of evil; but since that moment it has all been a dark necessity. ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illusion; neither am i fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend's office from his hands. it is our fate. let the black flower blossom as it may! now, go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man." he waved his hand, and betook himself again to his employment of gathering herbs. xv. hester and pearl so roger chillingworth--a deformed old figure with a face that haunted men's memories longer than they liked--took leave of hester prynne, and went stooping away along the earth. he gathered here and there a herb, or grubbed up a root and put it into the basket on his arm. his gray beard almost touched the ground as he crept onward. hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure. she wondered what sort of herbs they were which the old man was so sedulous to gather. would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs of species hitherto unknown, that would start up under his fingers? or might it suffice him that every wholesome growth should be converted into something deleterious and malignant at his touch? did the sun, which shone so brightly everywhere else, really fall upon him? or was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous shadow moving along with his deformity whichever way he turned himself? and whither was he now going? would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance? or would he spread bat's wings and flee away, looking so much the uglier the higher he rose towards heaven? "be it sin or no," said hester prynne, bitterly, as still she gazed after him, "i hate the man!" she upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or lessen it. attempting to do so, she thought of those long-past days in a distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study and sit down in the firelight of their home, and in the light of her nuptial smile. he needed to bask himself in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonely hours among his books might be taken off the scholar's heart. such scenes had once appeared not otherwise than happy, but now, as viewed through the dismal medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves among her ugliest remembrances. she marvelled how such scenes could have been! she marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him! she deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had ever endured and reciprocated the lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own. and it seemed a fouler offence committed by roger chillingworth than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side. "yes, i hate him!" repeated hester more bitterly than before. "he betrayed me! he has done me worse wrong than i did him!" let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was roger chillingworth's, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. but hester ought long ago to have done with this injustice. what did it betoken? had seven long years, under the torture of the scarlet letter, inflicted so much of misery and wrought out no repentance? the emotion of that brief space, while she stood gazing after the crooked figure of old roger chillingworth, threw a dark light on hester's state of mind, revealing much that she might not otherwise have acknowledged to herself. he being gone, she summoned back her child. "pearl! little pearl! where are you?" pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. at first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom forth, and--as it declined to venture--seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky. soon finding, however, that either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime. she made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snailshells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than any merchant in new england; but the larger part of them foundered near the shore. she seized a live horse-shoe by the tail, and made prize of several five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun. then she took up the white foam that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scampering after it with winged footsteps to catch the great snowflakes ere they fell. perceiving a flock of beach-birds that fed and fluttered along the shore, the naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock after these small sea-fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. one little gray bird, with a white breast, pearl was almost sure had been hit by a pebble, and fluttered away with a broken wing. but then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her sport, because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as pearl herself. her final employment was to gather seaweed of various kinds, and make herself a scarf or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mermaid. she inherited her mother's gift for devising drapery and costume. as the last touch to her mermaid's garb, pearl took some eel-grass and imitated, as best she could, on her own bosom the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mother's. a letter--the letter a--but freshly green instead of scarlet. the child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with strange interest, even as if the one only thing for which she had been sent into the world was to make out its hidden import. "i wonder if mother will ask me what it means?" thought pearl. just then she heard her mother's voice, and, flitting along as lightly as one of the little sea-birds, appeared before hester prynne dancing, laughing, and pointing her finger to the ornament upon her bosom. "my little pearl," said hester, after a moment's silence, "the green letter, and on thy childish bosom, has no purport. but dost thou know, my child, what this letter means which thy mother is doomed to wear?" "yes, mother," said the child. "it is the great letter a. thou hast taught me in the horn-book." hester looked steadily into her little face; but though there was that singular expression which she had so often remarked in her black eyes, she could not satisfy herself whether pearl really attached any meaning to the symbol. she felt a morbid desire to ascertain the point. "dost thou know, child, wherefore thy mother wears this letter?" "truly do i!" answered pearl, looking brightly into her mother's face. "it is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart!" "and what reason is that?" asked hester, half smiling at the absurd incongruity of the child's observation; but on second thoughts turning pale. "what has the letter to do with any heart save mine?" "nay, mother, i have told all i know," said pearl, more seriously than she was wont to speak. "ask yonder old man whom thou hast been talking with,--it may be he can tell. but in good earnest now, mother dear, what does this scarlet letter mean?--and why dost thou wear it on thy bosom?--and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?" she took her mother's hand in both her own, and gazed into her eyes with an earnestness that was seldom seen in her wild and capricious character. the thought occurred to hester, that the child might really be seeking to approach her with childlike confidence, and doing what she could, and as intelligently as she knew how, to establish a meeting-point of sympathy. it showed pearl in an unwonted aspect. heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the intensity of a sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an april breeze, which spends its time in airy sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take it to your bosom; in requital of which misdemeanours it will sometimes, of its own vague purpose, kiss your cheek with a kind of doubtful tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then be gone about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleasure at your heart. and this, moreover, was a mother's estimate of the child's disposition. any other observer might have seen few but unamiable traits, and have given them a far darker colouring. but now the idea came strongly into hester's mind, that pearl, with her remarkable precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when she could have been made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's sorrows as could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent or the child. in the little chaos of pearl's character there might be seen emerging and could have been from the very first--the steadfast principles of an unflinching courage--an uncontrollable will--sturdy pride, which might be disciplined into self-respect--and a bitter scorn of many things which, when examined, might be found to have the taint of falsehood in them. she possessed affections, too, though hitherto acrid and disagreeable, as are the richest flavours of unripe fruit. with all these sterling attributes, thought hester, the evil which she inherited from her mother must be great indeed, if a noble woman do not grow out of this elfish child. pearl's inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet letter seemed an innate quality of her being. from the earliest epoch of her conscious life, she had entered upon this as her appointed mission. hester had often fancied that providence had a design of justice and retribution, in endowing the child with this marked propensity; but never, until now, had she bethought herself to ask, whether, linked with that design, there might not likewise be a purpose of mercy and beneficence. if little pearl were entertained with faith and trust, as a spirit messenger no less than an earthly child, might it not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart, and converted it into a tomb?--and to help her to overcome the passion, once so wild, and even yet neither dead nor asleep, but only imprisoned within the same tomb-like heart? such were some of the thoughts that now stirred in hester's mind, with as much vivacity of impression as if they had actually been whispered into her ear. and there was little pearl, all this while, holding her mother's hand in both her own, and turning her face upward, while she put these searching questions, once and again, and still a third time. "what does the letter mean, mother? and why dost thou wear it? and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?" "what shall i say?" thought hester to herself. "no! if this be the price of the child's sympathy, i cannot pay it." then she spoke aloud-- "silly pearl," said she, "what questions are these? there are many things in this world that a child must not ask about. what know i of the minister's heart? and as for the scarlet letter, i wear it for the sake of its gold thread." in all the seven bygone years, hester prynne had never before been false to the symbol on her bosom. it may be that it was the talisman of a stern and severe, but yet a guardian spirit, who now forsook her; as recognising that, in spite of his strict watch over her heart, some new evil had crept into it, or some old one had never been expelled. as for little pearl, the earnestness soon passed out of her face. but the child did not see fit to let the matter drop. two or three times, as her mother and she went homeward, and as often at supper-time, and while hester was putting her to bed, and once after she seemed to be fairly asleep, pearl looked up, with mischief gleaming in her black eyes. "mother," said she, "what does the scarlet letter mean?" and the next morning, the first indication the child gave of being awake was by popping up her head from the pillow, and making that other enquiry, which she had so unaccountably connected with her investigations about the scarlet letter-- "mother!--mother!--why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?" "hold thy tongue, naughty child!" answered her mother, with an asperity that she had never permitted to herself before. "do not tease me; else i shall put thee into the dark closet!" xvi. a forest walk hester prynne remained constant in her resolve to make known to mr. dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present pain or ulterior consequences, the true character of the man who had crept into his intimacy. for several days, however, she vainly sought an opportunity of addressing him in some of the meditative walks which she knew him to be in the habit of taking along the shores of the peninsula, or on the wooded hills of the neighbouring country. there would have been no scandal, indeed, nor peril to the holy whiteness of the clergyman's good fame, had she visited him in his own study, where many a penitent, ere now, had confessed sins of perhaps as deep a dye as the one betokened by the scarlet letter. but, partly that she dreaded the secret or undisguised interference of old roger chillingworth, and partly that her conscious heart imparted suspicion where none could have been felt, and partly that both the minister and she would need the whole wide world to breathe in, while they talked together--for all these reasons hester never thought of meeting him in any narrower privacy than beneath the open sky. at last, while attending a sick chamber, whither the rev. mr. dimmesdale had been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that he had gone, the day before, to visit the apostle eliot, among his indian converts. he would probably return by a certain hour in the afternoon of the morrow. betimes, therefore, the next day, hester took little pearl--who was necessarily the companion of all her mother's expeditions, however inconvenient her presence--and set forth. the road, after the two wayfarers had crossed from the peninsula to the mainland, was no other than a foot-path. it straggled onward into the mystery of the primeval forest. this hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that, to hester's mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering. the day was chill and sombre. overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however, by a breeze; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine might now and then be seen at its solitary play along the path. this flitting cheerfulness was always at the further extremity of some long vista through the forest. the sportive sunlight--feebly sportive, at best, in the predominant pensiveness of the day and scene--withdrew itself as they came nigh, and left the spots where it had danced the drearier, because they had hoped to find them bright. "mother," said little pearl, "the sunshine does not love you. it runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. now, see! there it is, playing a good way off. stand you here, and let me run and catch it. i am but a child. it will not flee from me--for i wear nothing on my bosom yet!" "nor ever will, my child, i hope," said hester. "and why not, mother?" asked pearl, stopping short, just at the beginning of her race. "will not it come of its own accord when i am a woman grown?" "run away, child," answered her mother, "and catch the sunshine. it will soon be gone." pearl set forth at a great pace, and as hester smiled to perceive, did actually catch the sunshine, and stood laughing in the midst of it, all brightened by its splendour, and scintillating with the vivacity excited by rapid motion. the light lingered about the lonely child, as if glad of such a playmate, until her mother had drawn almost nigh enough to step into the magic circle too. "it will go now," said pearl, shaking her head. "see!" answered hester, smiling; "now i can stretch out my hand and grasp some of it." as she attempted to do so, the sunshine vanished; or, to judge from the bright expression that was dancing on pearl's features, her mother could have fancied that the child had absorbed it into herself, and would give it forth again, with a gleam about her path, as they should plunge into some gloomier shade. there was no other attribute that so much impressed her with a sense of new and untransmitted vigour in pearl's nature, as this never failing vivacity of spirits: she had not the disease of sadness, which almost all children, in these latter days, inherit, with the scrofula, from the troubles of their ancestors. perhaps this, too, was a disease, and but the reflex of the wild energy with which hester had fought against her sorrows before pearl's birth. it was certainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard, metallic lustre to the child's character. she wanted--what some people want throughout life--a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanise and make her capable of sympathy. but there was time enough yet for little pearl. "come, my child!" said hester, looking about her from the spot where pearl had stood still in the sunshine--"we will sit down a little way within the wood, and rest ourselves." "i am not aweary, mother," replied the little girl. "but you may sit down, if you will tell me a story meanwhile." "a story, child!" said hester. "and about what?" "oh, a story about the black man," answered pearl, taking hold of her mother's gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half mischievously, into her face. "how he haunts this forest, and carries a book with him a big, heavy book, with iron clasps; and how this ugly black man offers his book and an iron pen to everybody that meets him here among the trees; and they are to write their names with their own blood; and then he sets his mark on their bosoms. didst thou ever meet the black man, mother?" "and who told you this story, pearl," asked her mother, recognising a common superstition of the period. "it was the old dame in the chimney corner, at the house where you watched last night," said the child. "but she fancied me asleep while she was talking of it. she said that a thousand and a thousand people had met him here, and had written in his book, and have his mark on them. and that ugly tempered lady, old mistress hibbins, was one. and, mother, the old dame said that this scarlet letter was the black man's mark on thee, and that it glows like a red flame when thou meetest him at midnight, here in the dark wood. is it true, mother? and dost thou go to meet him in the nighttime?" "didst thou ever awake and find thy mother gone?" asked hester. "not that i remember," said the child. "if thou fearest to leave me in our cottage, thou mightest take me along with thee. i would very gladly go! but, mother, tell me now! is there such a black man? and didst thou ever meet him? and is this his mark?" "wilt thou let me be at peace, if i once tell thee?" asked her mother. "yes, if thou tellest me all," answered pearl. "once in my life i met the black man!" said her mother. "this scarlet letter is his mark!" thus conversing, they entered sufficiently deep into the wood to secure themselves from the observation of any casual passenger along the forest track. here they sat down on a luxuriant heap of moss; which at some epoch of the preceding century, had been a gigantic pine, with its roots and trunk in the darksome shade, and its head aloft in the upper atmosphere. it was a little dell where they had seated themselves, with a leaf-strewn bank rising gently on either side, and a brook flowing through the midst, over a bed of fallen and drowned leaves. the trees impending over it had flung down great branches from time to time, which choked up the current, and compelled it to form eddies and black depths at some points; while, in its swifter and livelier passages there appeared a channel-way of pebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. letting the eyes follow along the course of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from its water, at some short distance within the forest, but soon lost all traces of it amid the bewilderment of tree-trunks and underbrush, and here and there a huge rock covered over with gray lichens. all these giant trees and boulders of granite seemed intent on making a mystery of the course of this small brook; fearing, perhaps, that, with its never-ceasing loquacity, it should whisper tales out of the heart of the old forest whence it flowed, or mirror its revelations on the smooth surface of a pool. continually, indeed, as it stole onward, the streamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young child that was spending its infancy without playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintance and events of sombre hue. "oh, brook! oh, foolish and tiresome little brook!" cried pearl, after listening awhile to its talk, "why art thou so sad? pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring!" but the brook, in the course of its little lifetime among the forest trees, had gone through so solemn an experience that it could not help talking about it, and seemed to have nothing else to say. pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed from a well-spring as mysterious, and had flowed through scenes shadowed as heavily with gloom. but, unlike the little stream, she danced and sparkled, and prattled airily along her course. "what does this sad little brook say, mother?" inquired she. "if thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell thee of it," answered her mother, "even as it is telling me of mine. but now, pearl, i hear a footstep along the path, and the noise of one putting aside the branches. i would have thee betake thyself to play, and leave me to speak with him that comes yonder." "is it the black man?" asked pearl. "wilt thou go and play, child?" repeated her mother, "but do not stray far into the wood. and take heed that thou come at my first call." "yes, mother," answered pearl, "but if it be the black man, wilt thou not let me stay a moment, and look at him, with his big book under his arm?" "go, silly child!" said her mother impatiently. "it is no black man! thou canst see him now, through the trees. it is the minister!" "and so it is!" said the child. "and, mother, he has his hand over his heart! is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book, the black man set his mark in that place? but why does he not wear it outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother?" "go now, child, and thou shalt tease me as thou wilt another time," cried hester prynne. "but do not stray far. keep where thou canst hear the babble of the brook." the child went singing away, following up the current of the brook, and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholy voice. but the little stream would not be comforted, and still kept telling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that had happened--or making a prophetic lamentation about something that was yet to happen--within the verge of the dismal forest. so pearl, who had enough of shadow in her own little life, chose to break off all acquaintance with this repining brook. she set herself, therefore, to gathering violets and wood-anemones, and some scarlet columbines that she found growing in the crevice of a high rock. when her elf-child had departed, hester prynne made a step or two towards the track that led through the forest, but still remained under the deep shadow of the trees. she beheld the minister advancing along the path entirely alone, and leaning on a staff which he had cut by the wayside. he looked haggard and feeble, and betrayed a nerveless despondency in his air, which had never so remarkably characterised him in his walks about the settlement, nor in any other situation where he deemed himself liable to notice. here it was wofully visible, in this intense seclusion of the forest, which of itself would have been a heavy trial to the spirits. there was a listlessness in his gait, as if he saw no reason for taking one step further, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, could he be glad of anything, to fling himself down at the root of the nearest tree, and lie there passive for evermore. the leaves might bestrew him, and the soil gradually accumulate and form a little hillock over his frame, no matter whether there were life in it or no. death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided. to hester's eye, the reverend mr. dimmesdale exhibited no symptom of positive and vivacious suffering, except that, as little pearl had remarked, he kept his hand over his heart. xvii. the pastor and his parishioner slowly as the minister walked, he had almost gone by before hester prynne could gather voice enough to attract his observation. at length she succeeded. "arthur dimmesdale!" she said, faintly at first, then louder, but hoarsely--"arthur dimmesdale!" "who speaks?" answered the minister. gathering himself quickly up, he stood more erect, like a man taken by surprise in a mood to which he was reluctant to have witnesses. throwing his eyes anxiously in the direction of the voice, he indistinctly beheld a form under the trees, clad in garments so sombre, and so little relieved from the gray twilight into which the clouded sky and the heavy foliage had darkened the noontide, that he knew not whether it were a woman or a shadow. it may be that his pathway through life was haunted thus by a spectre that had stolen out from among his thoughts. he made a step nigher, and discovered the scarlet letter. "hester! hester prynne!", said he; "is it thou? art thou in life?" "even so." she answered. "in such life as has been mine these seven years past! and thou, arthur dimmesdale, dost thou yet live?" it was no wonder that they thus questioned one another's actual and bodily existence, and even doubted of their own. so strangely did they meet in the dim wood that it was like the first encounter in the world beyond the grave of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering in mutual dread, as not yet familiar with their state, nor wonted to the companionship of disembodied beings. each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost. they were awe-stricken likewise at themselves, because the crisis flung back to them their consciousness, and revealed to each heart its history and experience, as life never does, except at such breathless epochs. the soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment. it was with fear, and tremulously, and, as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that arthur dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death, and touched the chill hand of hester prynne. the grasp, cold as it was, took away what was dreariest in the interview. they now felt themselves, at least, inhabitants of the same sphere. without a word more spoken--neither he nor she assuming the guidance, but with an unexpressed consent--they glided back into the shadow of the woods whence hester had emerged, and sat down on the heap of moss where she and pearl had before been sitting. when they found voice to speak, it was at first only to utter remarks and inquiries such as any two acquaintances might have made, about the gloomy sky, the threatening storm, and, next, the health of each. thus they went onward, not boldly, but step by step, into the themes that were brooding deepest in their hearts. so long estranged by fate and circumstances, they needed something slight and casual to run before and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughts might be led across the threshold. after awhile, the minister fixed his eyes on hester prynne's. "hester," said he, "hast thou found peace?" she smiled drearily, looking down upon her bosom. "hast thou?" she asked. "none--nothing but despair!" he answered. "what else could i look for, being what i am, and leading such a life as mine? were i an atheist--a man devoid of conscience--a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts--i might have found peace long ere now. nay, i never should have lost it. but, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of god's gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. hester, i am most miserable!" "the people reverence thee," said hester. "and surely thou workest good among them! doth this bring thee no comfort?" "more misery, hester!--only the more misery!" answered the clergyman with a bitter smile. "as concerns the good which i may appear to do, i have no faith in it. it must needs be a delusion. what can a ruined soul like mine effect towards the redemption of other souls?--or a polluted soul towards their purification? and as for the people's reverence, would that it were turned to scorn and hatred! canst thou deem it, hester, a consolation that i must stand up in my pulpit, and meet so many eyes turned upward to my face, as if the light of heaven were beaming from it!--must see my flock hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as if a tongue of pentecost were speaking!--and then look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolise? i have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what i seem and what i am! and satan laughs at it!" "you wrong yourself in this," said hester gently. "you have deeply and sorely repented. your sin is left behind you in the days long past. your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seems in people's eyes. is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works? and wherefore should it not bring you peace?" "no, hester--no!" replied the clergyman. "there is no substance in it! it is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me! of penance, i have had enough! of penitence, there has been none! else, i should long ago have thrown off these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myself to mankind as they will see me at the judgment-seat. happy are you, hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! mine burns in secret! thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognises me for what i am! had i one friend--or were it my worst enemy!--to whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, i could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. even thus much of truth would save me! but now, it is all falsehood!--all emptiness!--all death!" hester prynne looked into his face, but hesitated to speak. yet, uttering his long-restrained emotions so vehemently as he did, his words here offered her the very point of circumstances in which to interpose what she came to say. she conquered her fears, and spoke: "such a friend as thou hast even now wished for," said she, "with whom to weep over thy sin, thou hast in me, the partner of it!" again she hesitated, but brought out the words with an effort.--"thou hast long had such an enemy, and dwellest with him, under the same roof!" the minister started to his feet, gasping for breath, and clutching at his heart, as if he would have torn it out of his bosom. "ha! what sayest thou?" cried he. "an enemy! and under mine own roof! what mean you?" hester prynne was now fully sensible of the deep injury for which she was responsible to this unhappy man, in permitting him to lie for so many years, or, indeed, for a single moment, at the mercy of one whose purposes could not be other than malevolent. the very contiguity of his enemy, beneath whatever mask the latter might conceal himself, was enough to disturb the magnetic sphere of a being so sensitive as arthur dimmesdale. there had been a period when hester was less alive to this consideration; or, perhaps, in the misanthropy of her own trouble, she left the minister to bear what she might picture to herself as a more tolerable doom. but of late, since the night of his vigil, all her sympathies towards him had been both softened and invigorated. she now read his heart more accurately. she doubted not that the continual presence of roger chillingworth--the secret poison of his malignity, infecting all the air about him--and his authorised interference, as a physician, with the minister's physical and spiritual infirmities--that these bad opportunities had been turned to a cruel purpose. by means of them, the sufferer's conscience had been kept in an irritated state, the tendency of which was, not to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritual being. its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be insanity, and hereafter, that eternal alienation from the good and true, of which madness is perhaps the earthly type. such was the ruin to which she had brought the man, once--nay, why should we not speak it?--still so passionately loved! hester felt that the sacrifice of the clergyman's good name, and death itself, as she had already told roger chillingworth, would have been infinitely preferable to the alternative which she had taken upon herself to choose. and now, rather than have had this grievous wrong to confess, she would gladly have laid down on the forest leaves, and died there, at arthur dimmesdale's feet. "oh, arthur!" cried she, "forgive me! in all things else, i have striven to be true! truth was the one virtue which i might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good--thy life--thy fame--were put in question! then i consented to a deception. but a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side! dost thou not see what i would say? that old man!--the physician!--he whom they call roger chillingworth!--he was my husband!" the minister looked at her for an instant, with all that violence of passion, which--intermixed in more shapes than one with his higher, purer, softer qualities--was, in fact, the portion of him which the devil claimed, and through which he sought to win the rest. never was there a blacker or a fiercer frown than hester now encountered. for the brief space that it lasted, it was a dark transfiguration. but his character had been so much enfeebled by suffering, that even its lower energies were incapable of more than a temporary struggle. he sank down on the ground, and buried his face in his hands. "i might have known it," murmured he--"i did know it! was not the secret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart at the first sight of him, and as often as i have seen him since? why did i not understand? oh, hester prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing! and the shame!--the indelicacy!--the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! woman, woman, thou art accountable for this!--i cannot forgive thee!" "thou shalt forgive me!" cried hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside him. "let god punish! thou shalt forgive!" with sudden and desperate tenderness she threw her arms around him, and pressed his head against her bosom, little caring though his cheek rested on the scarlet letter. he would have released himself, but strove in vain to do so. hester would not set him free, lest he should look her sternly in the face. all the world had frowned on her--for seven long years had it frowned upon this lonely woman--and still she bore it all, nor ever once turned away her firm, sad eyes. heaven, likewise, had frowned upon her, and she had not died. but the frown of this pale, weak, sinful, and sorrow-stricken man was what hester could not bear, and live! "wilt thou yet forgive me?" she repeated, over and over again. "wilt thou not frown? wilt thou forgive?" "i do forgive you, hester," replied the minister at length, with a deep utterance, out of an abyss of sadness, but no anger. "i freely forgive you now. may god forgive us both. we are not, hester, the worst sinners in the world. there is one worse than even the polluted priest! that old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin. he has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. thou and i, hester, never did so!" "never, never!" whispered she. "what we did had a consecration of its own. we felt it so! we said so to each other. hast thou forgotten it?" "hush, hester!" said arthur dimmesdale, rising from the ground. "no; i have not forgotten!" they sat down again, side by side, and hand clasped in hand, on the mossy trunk of the fallen tree. life had never brought them a gloomier hour; it was the point whither their pathway had so long been tending, and darkening ever, as it stole along--and yet it unclosed a charm that made them linger upon it, and claim another, and another, and, after all, another moment. the forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a blast that was passing through it. the boughs were tossing heavily above their heads; while one solemn old tree groaned dolefully to another, as if telling the sad story of the pair that sat beneath, or constrained to forbode evil to come. and yet they lingered. how dreary looked the forest-track that led backward to the settlement, where hester prynne must take up again the burden of her ignominy and the minister the hollow mockery of his good name! so they lingered an instant longer. no golden light had ever been so precious as the gloom of this dark forest. here seen only by his eyes, the scarlet letter need not burn into the bosom of the fallen woman! here seen only by her eyes, arthur dimmesdale, false to god and man, might be, for one moment true! he started at a thought that suddenly occurred to him. "hester!" cried he, "here is a new horror! roger chillingworth knows your purpose to reveal his true character. will he continue, then, to keep our secret? what will now be the course of his revenge?" "there is a strange secrecy in his nature," replied hester, thoughtfully; "and it has grown upon him by the hidden practices of his revenge. i deem it not likely that he will betray the secret. he will doubtless seek other means of satiating his dark passion." "and i!--how am i to live longer, breathing the same air with this deadly enemy?" exclaimed arthur dimmesdale, shrinking within himself, and pressing his hand nervously against his heart--a gesture that had grown involuntary with him. "think for me, hester! thou art strong. resolve for me!" "thou must dwell no longer with this man," said hester, slowly and firmly. "thy heart must be no longer under his evil eye!" "it were far worse than death!" replied the minister. "but how to avoid it? what choice remains to me? shall i lie down again on these withered leaves, where i cast myself when thou didst tell me what he was? must i sink down there, and die at once?" "alas! what a ruin has befallen thee!" said hester, with the tears gushing into her eyes. "wilt thou die for very weakness? there is no other cause!" "the judgment of god is on me," answered the conscience-stricken priest. "it is too mighty for me to struggle with!" "heaven would show mercy," rejoined hester, "hadst thou but the strength to take advantage of it." "be thou strong for me!" answered he. "advise me what to do." "is the world, then, so narrow?" exclaimed hester prynne, fixing her deep eyes on the minister's, and instinctively exercising a magnetic power over a spirit so shattered and subdued that it could hardly hold itself erect. "doth the universe lie within the compass of yonder town, which only a little time ago was but a leaf-strewn desert, as lonely as this around us? whither leads yonder forest-track? backward to the settlement, thou sayest! yes; but, onward, too! deeper it goes, and deeper into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at every step; until some few miles hence the yellow leaves will show no vestige of the white man's tread. there thou art free! so brief a journey would bring thee from a world where thou hast been most wretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy! is there not shade enough in all this boundless forest to hide thy heart from the gaze of roger chillingworth?" "yes, hester; but only under the fallen leaves!" replied the minister, with a sad smile. "then there is the broad pathway of the sea!" continued hester. "it brought thee hither. if thou so choose, it will bear thee back again. in our native land, whether in some remote rural village, or in vast london--or, surely, in germany, in france, in pleasant italy--thou wouldst be beyond his power and knowledge! and what hast thou to do with all these iron men, and their opinions? they have kept thy better part in bondage too long already!" "it cannot be!" answered the minister, listening as if he were called upon to realise a dream. "i am powerless to go. wretched and sinful as i am, i have had no other thought than to drag on my earthly existence in the sphere where providence hath placed me. lost as my own soul is, i would still do what i may for other human souls! i dare not quit my post, though an unfaithful sentinel, whose sure reward is death and dishonour, when his dreary watch shall come to an end!" "thou art crushed under this seven years' weight of misery," replied hester, fervently resolved to buoy him up with her own energy. "but thou shalt leave it all behind thee! it shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadest along the forest-path: neither shalt thou freight the ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea. leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened. meddle no more with it! begin all anew! hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial? not so! the future is yet full of trial and success. there is happiness to be enjoyed! there is good to be done! exchange this false life of thine for a true one. be, if thy spirit summon thee to such a mission, the teacher and apostle of the red men. or, as is more thy nature, be a scholar and a sage among the wisest and the most renowned of the cultivated world. preach! write! act! do anything, save to lie down and die! give up this name of arthur dimmesdale, and make thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear without fear or shame. why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that have so gnawed into thy life? that have made thee feeble to will and to do? that will leave thee powerless even to repent? up, and away!" "oh, hester!" cried arthur dimmesdale, in whose eyes a fitful light, kindled by her enthusiasm, flashed up and died away, "thou tellest of running a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath him! i must die here! there is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world alone!" it was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit. he lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within his reach. he repeated the word--"alone, hester!" "thou shall not go alone!" answered she, in a deep whisper. then, all was spoken! xviii. a flood of sunshine arthur dimmesdale gazed into hester's face with a look in which hope and joy shone out, indeed, but with fear betwixt them, and a kind of horror at her boldness, who had spoken what he vaguely hinted at, but dared not speak. but hester prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to the clergyman. she had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness, as vast, as intricate, and shadowy as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a colloquy that was to decide their fate. her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild indian in his woods. for years past she had looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or legislators had established; criticising all with hardly more reverence than the indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside, or the church. the tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. the scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. shame, despair, solitude! these had been her teachers--stern and wild ones--and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss. the minister, on the other hand, had never gone through an experience calculated to lead him beyond the scope of generally received laws; although, in a single instance, he had so fearfully transgressed one of the most sacred of them. but this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose. since that wretched epoch, he had watched with morbid zeal and minuteness, not his acts--for those it was easy to arrange--but each breath of emotion, and his every thought. at the head of the social system, as the clergymen of that day stood, he was only the more trammelled by its regulations, its principles, and even its prejudices. as a priest, the framework of his order inevitably hemmed him in. as a man who had once sinned, but who kept his conscience all alive and painfully sensitive by the fretting of an unhealed wound, he might have been supposed safer within the line of virtue than if he had never sinned at all. thus we seem to see that, as regarded hester prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a preparation for this very hour. but arthur dimmesdale! were such a man once more to fall, what plea could be urged in extenuation of his crime? none; unless it avail him somewhat that he was broken down by long and exquisite suffering; that his mind was darkened and confused by the very remorse which harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating. and be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired. it may be watched and guarded, so that the enemy shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might even in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. but there is still the ruined wall, and near it the stealthy tread of the foe that would win over again his unforgotten triumph. the struggle, if there were one, need not be described. let it suffice that the clergyman resolved to flee, and not alone. "if in all these past seven years," thought he, "i could recall one instant of peace or hope, i would yet endure, for the sake of that earnest of heaven's mercy. but now--since i am irrevocably doomed--wherefore should i not snatch the solace allowed to the condemned culprit before his execution? or, if this be the path to a better life, as hester would persuade me, i surely give up no fairer prospect by pursuing it! neither can i any longer live without her companionship; so powerful is she to sustain--so tender to soothe! o thou to whom i dare not lift mine eyes, wilt thou yet pardon me?" "thou wilt go!" said hester calmly, as he met her glance. the decision once made, a glow of strange enjoyment threw its flickering brightness over the trouble of his breast. it was the exhilarating effect--upon a prisoner just escaped from the dungeon of his own heart--of breathing the wild, free atmosphere of an unredeemed, unchristianised, lawless region. his spirit rose, as it were, with a bound, and attained a nearer prospect of the sky, than throughout all the misery which had kept him grovelling on the earth. of a deeply religious temperament, there was inevitably a tinge of the devotional in his mood. "do i feel joy again?" cried he, wondering at himself. "methought the germ of it was dead in me! oh, hester, thou art my better angel! i seem to have flung myself--sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened--down upon these forest leaves, and to have risen up all made anew, and with new powers to glorify him that hath been merciful! this is already the better life! why did we not find it sooner?" "let us not look back," answered hester prynne. "the past is gone! wherefore should we linger upon it now? see! with this symbol i undo it all, and make it as if it had never been!" so speaking, she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves. the mystic token alighted on the hither verge of the stream. with a hand's-breadth further flight, it would have fallen into the water, and have given the little brook another woe to carry onward, besides the unintelligible tale which it still kept murmuring about. but there lay the embroidered letter, glittering like a lost jewel, which some ill-fated wanderer might pick up, and thenceforth be haunted by strange phantoms of guilt, sinkings of the heart, and unaccountable misfortune. the stigma gone, hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit. o exquisite relief! she had not known the weight until she felt the freedom! by another impulse, she took off the formal cap that confined her hair, and down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with at once a shadow and a light in its abundance, and imparting the charm of softness to her features. there played around her mouth, and beamed out of her eyes, a radiant and tender smile, that seemed gushing from the very heart of womanhood. a crimson flush was glowing on her cheek, that had been long so pale. her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty, came back from what men call the irrevocable past, and clustered themselves with her maiden hope, and a happiness before unknown, within the magic circle of this hour. and, as if the gloom of the earth and sky had been but the effluence of these two mortal hearts, it vanished with their sorrow. all at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. the objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. the course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood's heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy. such was the sympathy of nature--that wild, heathen nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth--with the bliss of these two spirits! love, whether newly-born, or aroused from a death-like slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world. had the forest still kept its gloom, it would have been bright in hester's eyes, and bright in arthur dimmesdale's! hester looked at him with a thrill of another joy. "thou must know pearl!" said she. "our little pearl! thou hast seen her--yes, i know it!--but thou wilt see her now with other eyes. she is a strange child! i hardly comprehend her! but thou wilt love her dearly, as i do, and wilt advise me how to deal with her!" "dost thou think the child will be glad to know me?" asked the minister, somewhat uneasily. "i have long shrunk from children, because they often show a distrust--a backwardness to be familiar with me. i have even been afraid of little pearl!" "ah, that was sad!" answered the mother. "but she will love thee dearly, and thou her. she is not far off. i will call her. pearl! pearl!" "i see the child," observed the minister. "yonder she is, standing in a streak of sunshine, a good way off, on the other side of the brook. so thou thinkest the child will love me?" hester smiled, and again called to pearl, who was visible at some distance, as the minister had described her, like a bright-apparelled vision in a sunbeam, which fell down upon her through an arch of boughs. the ray quivered to and fro, making her figure dim or distinct--now like a real child, now like a child's spirit--as the splendour went and came again. she heard her mother's voice, and approached slowly through the forest. pearl had not found the hour pass wearisomely while her mother sat talking with the clergyman. the great black forest--stern as it showed itself to those who brought the guilt and troubles of the world into its bosom--became the playmate of the lonely infant, as well as it knew how. sombre as it was, it put on the kindest of its moods to welcome her. it offered her the partridge-berries, the growth of the preceding autumn, but ripening only in the spring, and now red as drops of blood upon the withered leaves. these pearl gathered, and was pleased with their wild flavour. the small denizens of the wilderness hardly took pains to move out of her path. a partridge, indeed, with a brood of ten behind her, ran forward threateningly, but soon repented of her fierceness, and clucked to her young ones not to be afraid. a pigeon, alone on a low branch, allowed pearl to come beneath, and uttered a sound as much of greeting as alarm. a squirrel, from the lofty depths of his domestic tree, chattered either in anger or merriment--for the squirrel is such a choleric and humorous little personage, that it is hard to distinguish between his moods--so he chattered at the child, and flung down a nut upon her head. it was a last year's nut, and already gnawed by his sharp tooth. a fox, startled from his sleep by her light footstep on the leaves, looked inquisitively at pearl, as doubting whether it were better to steal off, or renew his nap on the same spot. a wolf, it is said--but here the tale has surely lapsed into the improbable--came up and smelt of pearl's robe, and offered his savage head to be patted by her hand. the truth seems to be, however, that the mother-forest, and these wild things which it nourished, all recognised a kindred wilderness in the human child. and she was gentler here than in the grassy-margined streets of the settlement, or in her mother's cottage. the bowers appeared to know it, and one and another whispered as she passed, "adorn thyself with me, thou beautiful child, adorn thyself with me!"--and, to please them, pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines, and some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes. with these she decorated her hair and her young waist, and became a nymph child, or an infant dryad, or whatever else was in closest sympathy with the antique wood. in such guise had pearl adorned herself, when she heard her mother's voice, and came slowly back. slowly--for she saw the clergyman! xix. the child at the brookside "thou wilt love her dearly," repeated hester prynne, as she and the minister sat watching little pearl. "dost thou not think her beautiful? and see with what natural skill she has made those simple flowers adorn her! had she gathered pearls, and diamonds, and rubies in the wood, they could not have become her better! she is a splendid child! but i know whose brow she has!" "dost thou know, hester," said arthur dimmesdale, with an unquiet smile, "that this dear child, tripping about always at thy side, hath caused me many an alarm? methought--oh, hester, what a thought is that, and how terrible to dread it!--that my own features were partly repeated in her face, and so strikingly that the world might see them! but she is mostly thine!" "no, no! not mostly!" answered the mother, with a tender smile. "a little longer, and thou needest not to be afraid to trace whose child she is. but how strangely beautiful she looks with those wild flowers in her hair! it is as if one of the fairies, whom we left in dear old england, had decked her out to meet us." it was with a feeling which neither of them had ever before experienced, that they sat and watched pearl's slow advance. in her was visible the tie that united them. she had been offered to the world, these seven past years, as the living hieroglyphic, in which was revealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide--all written in this symbol--all plainly manifest--had there been a prophet or magician skilled to read the character of flame! and pearl was the oneness of their being. be the foregone evil what it might, how could they doubt that their earthly lives and future destinies were conjoined when they beheld at once the material union, and the spiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to dwell immortally together; thoughts like these--and perhaps other thoughts, which they did not acknowledge or define--threw an awe about the child as she came onward. "let her see nothing strange--no passion or eagerness--in thy way of accosting her," whispered hester. "our pearl is a fitful and fantastic little elf sometimes. especially she is generally intolerant of emotion, when she does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. but the child hath strong affections! she loves me, and will love thee!" "thou canst not think," said the minister, glancing aside at hester prynne, "how my heart dreads this interview, and yearns for it! but, in truth, as i already told thee, children are not readily won to be familiar with me. they will not climb my knee, nor prattle in my ear, nor answer to my smile, but stand apart, and eye me strangely. even little babes, when i take them in my arms, weep bitterly. yet pearl, twice in her little lifetime, hath been kind to me! the first time--thou knowest it well! the last was when thou ledst her with thee to the house of yonder stern old governor." "and thou didst plead so bravely in her behalf and mine!" answered the mother. "i remember it; and so shall little pearl. fear nothing. she may be strange and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee!" by this time pearl had reached the margin of the brook, and stood on the further side, gazing silently at hester and the clergyman, who still sat together on the mossy tree-trunk waiting to receive her. just where she had paused, the brook chanced to form a pool so smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfect image of her little figure, with all the brilliant picturesqueness of her beauty, in its adornment of flowers and wreathed foliage, but more refined and spiritualized than the reality. this image, so nearly identical with the living pearl, seemed to communicate somewhat of its own shadowy and intangible quality to the child herself. it was strange, the way in which pearl stood, looking so steadfastly at them through the dim medium of the forest gloom, herself, meanwhile, all glorified with a ray of sunshine, that was attracted thitherward as by a certain sympathy. in the brook beneath stood another child--another and the same--with likewise its ray of golden light. hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizing manner, estranged from pearl, as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it. there were both truth and error in the impression; the child and mother were estranged, but through hester's fault, not pearl's. since the latter rambled from her side, another inmate had been admitted within the circle of the mother's feelings, and so modified the aspect of them all, that pearl, the returning wanderer, could not find her wonted place, and hardly knew where she was. "i have a strange fancy," observed the sensitive minister, "that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy pearl again. or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a running stream? pray hasten her, for this delay has already imparted a tremor to my nerves." "come, dearest child!" said hester encouragingly, and stretching out both her arms. "how slow thou art! when hast thou been so sluggish before now? here is a friend of mine, who must be thy friend also. thou wilt have twice as much love henceforward as thy mother alone could give thee! leap across the brook and come to us. thou canst leap like a young deer!" pearl, without responding in any manner to these honey-sweet expressions, remained on the other side of the brook. now she fixed her bright wild eyes on her mother, now on the minister, and now included them both in the same glance, as if to detect and explain to herself the relation which they bore to one another. for some unaccountable reason, as arthur dimmesdale felt the child's eyes upon himself, his hand--with that gesture so habitual as to have become involuntary--stole over his heart. at length, assuming a singular air of authority, pearl stretched out her hand, with the small forefinger extended, and pointing evidently towards her mother's breast. and beneath, in the mirror of the brook, there was the flower-girdled and sunny image of little pearl, pointing her small forefinger too. "thou strange child! why dost thou not come to me?" exclaimed hester. pearl still pointed with her forefinger, and a frown gathered on her brow--the more impressive from the childish, the almost baby-like aspect of the features that conveyed it. as her mother still kept beckoning to her, and arraying her face in a holiday suit of unaccustomed smiles, the child stamped her foot with a yet more imperious look and gesture. in the brook, again, was the fantastic beauty of the image, with its reflected frown, its pointed finger, and imperious gesture, giving emphasis to the aspect of little pearl. "hasten, pearl, or i shall be angry with thee!" cried hester prynne, who, however, inured to such behaviour on the elf-child's part at other seasons, was naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now. "leap across the brook, naughty child, and run hither! else i must come to thee!" but pearl, not a whit startled at her mother's threats any more than mollified by her entreaties, now suddenly burst into a fit of passion, gesticulating violently, and throwing her small figure into the most extravagant contortions. she accompanied this wild outbreak with piercing shrieks, which the woods reverberated on all sides, so that, alone as she was in her childish and unreasonable wrath, it seemed as if a hidden multitude were lending her their sympathy and encouragement. seen in the brook once more was the shadowy wrath of pearl's image, crowned and girdled with flowers, but stamping its foot, wildly gesticulating, and, in the midst of all, still pointing its small forefinger at hester's bosom. "i see what ails the child," whispered hester to the clergyman, and turning pale in spite of a strong effort to conceal her trouble and annoyance, "children will not abide any, the slightest, change in the accustomed aspect of things that are daily before their eyes. pearl misses something that she has always seen me wear!" "i pray you," answered the minister, "if thou hast any means of pacifying the child, do it forthwith! save it were the cankered wrath of an old witch like mistress hibbins," added he, attempting to smile, "i know nothing that i would not sooner encounter than this passion in a child. in pearl's young beauty, as in the wrinkled witch, it has a preternatural effect. pacify her if thou lovest me!" hester turned again towards pearl with a crimson blush upon her cheek, a conscious glance aside clergyman, and then a heavy sigh, while, even before she had time to speak, the blush yielded to a deadly pallor. "pearl," said she sadly, "look down at thy feet! there!--before thee!--on the hither side of the brook!" the child turned her eyes to the point indicated, and there lay the scarlet letter so close upon the margin of the stream that the gold embroidery was reflected in it. "bring it hither!" said hester. "come thou and take it up!" answered pearl. "was ever such a child!" observed hester aside to the minister. "oh, i have much to tell thee about her! but, in very truth, she is right as regards this hateful token. i must bear its torture yet a little longer--only a few days longer--until we shall have left this region, and look back hither as to a land which we have dreamed of. the forest cannot hide it! the mid-ocean shall take it from my hand, and swallow it up for ever!" with these words she advanced to the margin of the brook, took up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom. hopefully, but a moment ago, as hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep sea, there was a sense of inevitable doom upon her as she thus received back this deadly symbol from the hand of fate. she had flung it into infinite space! she had drawn an hour's free breath! and here again was the scarlet misery glittering on the old spot! so it ever is, whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of doom. hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of her hair and confined them beneath her cap. as if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed like fading sunshine, and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her. when the dreary change was wrought, she extended her hand to pearl. "dost thou know thy mother now, child?", asked she, reproachfully, but with a subdued tone. "wilt thou come across the brook, and own thy mother, now that she has her shame upon her--now that she is sad?" "yes; now i will!" answered the child, bounding across the brook, and clasping hester in her arms "now thou art my mother indeed! and i am thy little pearl!" in a mood of tenderness that was not usual with her, she drew down her mother's head, and kissed her brow and both her cheeks. but then--by a kind of necessity that always impelled this child to alloy whatever comfort she might chance to give with a throb of anguish--pearl put up her mouth and kissed the scarlet letter, too. "that was not kind!" said hester. "when thou hast shown me a little love, thou mockest me!" "why doth the minister sit yonder?" asked pearl. "he waits to welcome thee," replied her mother. "come thou, and entreat his blessing! he loves thee, my little pearl, and loves thy mother, too. wilt thou not love him? come he longs to greet thee!" "doth he love us?" said pearl, looking up with acute intelligence into her mother's face. "will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?" "not now, my child," answered hester. "but in days to come he will walk hand in hand with us. we will have a home and fireside of our own; and thou shalt sit upon his knee; and he will teach thee many things, and love thee dearly. thou wilt love him--wilt thou not?" "and will he always keep his hand over his heart?" inquired pearl. "foolish child, what a question is that!" exclaimed her mother. "come, and ask his blessing!" but, whether influenced by the jealousy that seems instinctive with every petted child towards a dangerous rival, or from whatever caprice of her freakish nature, pearl would show no favour to the clergyman. it was only by an exertion of force that her mother brought her up to him, hanging back, and manifesting her reluctance by odd grimaces; of which, ever since her babyhood, she had possessed a singular variety, and could transform her mobile physiognomy into a series of different aspects, with a new mischief in them, each and all. the minister--painfully embarrassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a talisman to admit him into the child's kindlier regards--bent forward, and impressed one on her brow. hereupon, pearl broke away from her mother, and, running to the brook, stooped over it, and bathed her forehead, until the unwelcome kiss was quite washed off and diffused through a long lapse of the gliding water. she then remained apart, silently watching hester and the clergyman; while they talked together and made such arrangements as were suggested by their new position and the purposes soon to be fulfilled. and now this fateful interview had come to a close. the dell was to be left in solitude among its dark, old trees, which, with their multitudinous tongues, would whisper long of what had passed there, and no mortal be the wiser. and the melancholy brook would add this other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already overburdened, and whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble, with not a whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore. xx. the minister in a maze as the minister departed, in advance of hester prynne and little pearl, he threw a backward glance, half expecting that he should discover only some faintly traced features or outline of the mother and the child, slowly fading into the twilight of the woods. so great a vicissitude in his life could not at once be received as real. but there was hester, clad in her gray robe, still standing beside the tree-trunk, which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago, and which time had ever since been covering with moss, so that these two fated ones, with earth's heaviest burden on them, might there sit down together, and find a single hour's rest and solace. and there was pearl, too, lightly dancing from the margin of the brook--now that the intrusive third person was gone--and taking her old place by her mother's side. so the minister had not fallen asleep and dreamed! in order to free his mind from this indistinctness and duplicity of impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he recalled and more thoroughly defined the plans which hester and himself had sketched for their departure. it had been determined between them that the old world, with its crowds and cities, offered them a more eligible shelter and concealment than the wilds of new england or all america, with its alternatives of an indian wigwam, or the few settlements of europeans scattered thinly along the sea-board. not to speak of the clergyman's health, so inadequate to sustain the hardships of a forest life, his native gifts, his culture, and his entire development would secure him a home only in the midst of civilization and refinement; the higher the state the more delicately adapted to it the man. in furtherance of this choice, it so happened that a ship lay in the harbour; one of those unquestionable cruisers, frequent at that day, which, without being absolutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surface with a remarkable irresponsibility of character. this vessel had recently arrived from the spanish main, and within three days' time would sail for bristol. hester prynne--whose vocation, as a self-enlisted sister of charity, had brought her acquainted with the captain and crew--could take upon herself to secure the passage of two individuals and a child with all the secrecy which circumstances rendered more than desirable. the minister had inquired of hester, with no little interest, the precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart. it would probably be on the fourth day from the present. "this is most fortunate!" he had then said to himself. now, why the reverend mr. dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate we hesitate to reveal. nevertheless--to hold nothing back from the reader--it was because, on the third day from the present, he was to preach the election sermon; and, as such an occasion formed an honourable epoch in the life of a new england clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a more suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career. "at least, they shall say of me," thought this exemplary man, "that i leave no public duty unperformed or ill-performed!" sad, indeed, that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor minister's should be so miserably deceived! we have had, and may still have, worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak; no evidence, at once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle disease that had long since begun to eat into the real substance of his character. no man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true. the excitement of mr. dimmesdale's feelings as he returned from his interview with hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy, and hurried him townward at a rapid pace. the pathway among the woods seemed wilder, more uncouth with its rude natural obstacles, and less trodden by the foot of man, than he remembered it on his outward journey. but he leaped across the plashy places, thrust himself through the clinging underbrush, climbed the ascent, plunged into the hollow, and overcame, in short, all the difficulties of the track, with an unweariable activity that astonished him. he could not but recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath he had toiled over the same ground, only two days before. as he drew near the town, he took an impression of change from the series of familiar objects that presented themselves. it seemed not yesterday, not one, not two, but many days, or even years ago, since he had quitted them. there, indeed, was each former trace of the street, as he remembered it, and all the peculiarities of the houses, with the due multitude of gable-peaks, and a weather-cock at every point where his memory suggested one. not the less, however, came this importunately obtrusive sense of change. the same was true as regarded the acquaintances whom he met, and all the well-known shapes of human life, about the little town. they looked neither older nor younger now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day; it was impossible to describe in what respect they differed from the individuals on whom he had so recently bestowed a parting glance; and yet the minister's deepest sense seemed to inform him of their mutability. a similar impression struck him most remarkably as he passed under the walls of his own church. the edifice had so very strange, and yet so familiar an aspect, that mr. dimmesdale's mind vibrated between two ideas; either that he had seen it only in a dream hitherto, or that he was merely dreaming about it now. this phenomenon, in the various shapes which it assumed, indicated no external change, but so sudden and important a change in the spectator of the familiar scene, that the intervening space of a single day had operated on his consciousness like the lapse of years. the minister's own will, and hester's will, and the fate that grew between them, had wrought this transformation. it was the same town as heretofore, but the same minister returned not from the forest. he might have said to the friends who greeted him--"i am not the man for whom you take me! i left him yonder in the forest, withdrawn into a secret dell, by a mossy tree trunk, and near a melancholy brook! go, seek your minister, and see if his emaciated figure, his thin cheek, his white, heavy, pain-wrinkled brow, be not flung down there, like a cast-off garment!" his friends, no doubt, would still have insisted with him--"thou art thyself the man!" but the error would have been their own, not his. before mr. dimmesdale reached home, his inner man gave him other evidences of a revolution in the sphere of thought and feeling. in truth, nothing short of a total change of dynasty and moral code, in that interior kingdom, was adequate to account for the impulses now communicated to the unfortunate and startled minister. at every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other, with a sense that it would be at once involuntary and intentional, in spite of himself, yet growing out of a profounder self than that which opposed the impulse. for instance, he met one of his own deacons. the good old man addressed him with the paternal affection and patriarchal privilege which his venerable age, his upright and holy character, and his station in the church, entitled him to use and, conjoined with this, the deep, almost worshipping respect, which the minister's professional and private claims alike demanded. never was there a more beautiful example of how the majesty of age and wisdom may comport with the obeisance and respect enjoined upon it, as from a lower social rank, and inferior order of endowment, towards a higher. now, during a conversation of some two or three moments between the reverend mr. dimmesdale and this excellent and hoary-bearded deacon, it was only by the most careful self-control that the former could refrain from uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind, respecting the communion-supper. he absolutely trembled and turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should wag itself in utterance of these horrible matters, and plead his own consent for so doing, without his having fairly given it. and, even with this terror in his heart, he could hardly avoid laughing, to imagine how the sanctified old patriarchal deacon would have been petrified by his minister's impiety. again, another incident of the same nature. hurrying along the street, the reverend mr. dimmesdale encountered the eldest female member of his church, a most pious and exemplary old dame, poor, widowed, lonely, and with a heart as full of reminiscences about her dead husband and children, and her dead friends of long ago, as a burial-ground is full of storied gravestones. yet all this, which would else have been such heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy to her devout old soul, by religious consolations and the truths of scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continually for more than thirty years. and since mr. dimmesdale had taken her in charge, the good grandam's chief earthly comfort--which, unless it had been likewise a heavenly comfort, could have been none at all--was to meet her pastor, whether casually, or of set purpose, and be refreshed with a word of warm, fragrant, heaven-breathing gospel truth, from his beloved lips, into her dulled, but rapturously attentive ear. but, on this occasion, up to the moment of putting his lips to the old woman's ear, mr. dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls would have it, could recall no text of scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the immortality of the human soul. the instilment thereof into her mind would probably have caused this aged sister to drop down dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely poisonous infusion. what he really did whisper, the minister could never afterwards recollect. there was, perhaps, a fortunate disorder in his utterance, which failed to impart any distinct idea to the good widows comprehension, or which providence interpreted after a method of its own. assuredly, as the minister looked back, he beheld an expression of divine gratitude and ecstasy that seemed like the shine of the celestial city on her face, so wrinkled and ashy pale. again, a third instance. after parting from the old church member, he met the youngest sister of them all. it was a maiden newly-won--and won by the reverend mr. dimmesdale's own sermon, on the sabbath after his vigil--to barter the transitory pleasures of the world for the heavenly hope that was to assume brighter substance as life grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter gloom with final glory. she was fair and pure as a lily that had bloomed in paradise. the minister knew well that he was himself enshrined within the stainless sanctity of her heart, which hung its snowy curtains about his image, imparting to religion the warmth of love, and to love a religious purity. satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor young girl away from her mother's side, and thrown her into the pathway of this sorely tempted, or--shall we not rather say?--this lost and desperate man. as she drew nigh, the arch-fiend whispered him to condense into small compass, and drop into her tender bosom a germ of evil that would be sure to blossom darkly soon, and bear black fruit betimes. such was his sense of power over this virgin soul, trusting him as she did, that the minister felt potent to blight all the field of innocence with but one wicked look, and develop all its opposite with but a word. so--with a mightier struggle than he had yet sustained--he held his geneva cloak before his face, and hurried onward, making no sign of recognition, and leaving the young sister to digest his rudeness as she might. she ransacked her conscience--which was full of harmless little matters, like her pocket or her work-bag--and took herself to task, poor thing! for a thousand imaginary faults, and went about her household duties with swollen eyelids the next morning. before the minister had time to celebrate his victory over this last temptation, he was conscious of another impulse, more ludicrous, and almost as horrible. it was--we blush to tell it--it was to stop short in the road, and teach some very wicked words to a knot of little puritan children who were playing there, and had but just begun to talk. denying himself this freak, as unworthy of his cloth, he met a drunken seaman, one of the ship's crew from the spanish main. and here, since he had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness, poor mr. dimmesdale longed at least to shake hands with the tarry black-guard, and recreate himself with a few improper jests, such as dissolute sailors so abound with, and a volley of good, round, solid, satisfactory, and heaven-defying oaths! it was not so much a better principle, as partly his natural good taste, and still more his buckramed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him safely through the latter crisis. "what is it that haunts and tempts me thus?" cried the minister to himself, at length, pausing in the street, and striking his hand against his forehead. "am i mad? or am i given over utterly to the fiend? did i make a contract with him in the forest, and sign it with my blood? and does he now summon me to its fulfilment, by suggesting the performance of every wickedness which his most foul imagination can conceive?" at the moment when the reverend mr. dimmesdale thus communed with himself, and struck his forehead with his hand, old mistress hibbins, the reputed witch-lady, is said to have been passing by. she made a very grand appearance, having on a high head-dress, a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch, of which anne turner, her especial friend, had taught her the secret, before this last good lady had been hanged for sir thomas overbury's murder. whether the witch had read the minister's thoughts or no, she came to a full stop, looked shrewdly into his face, smiled craftily, and--though little given to converse with clergymen--began a conversation. "so, reverend sir, you have made a visit into the forest," observed the witch-lady, nodding her high head-dress at him. "the next time i pray you to allow me only a fair warning, and i shall be proud to bear you company. without taking overmuch upon myself my good word will go far towards gaining any strange gentleman a fair reception from yonder potentate you wot of." "i profess, madam," answered the clergyman, with a grave obeisance, such as the lady's rank demanded, and his own good breeding made imperative--"i profess, on my conscience and character, that i am utterly bewildered as touching the purport of your words! i went not into the forest to seek a potentate, neither do i, at any future time, design a visit thither, with a view to gaining the favour of such personage. my one sufficient object was to greet that pious friend of mine, the apostle eliot, and rejoice with him over the many precious souls he hath won from heathendom!" "ha, ha, ha!" cackled the old witch-lady, still nodding her high head-dress at the minister. "well, well! we must needs talk thus in the daytime! you carry it off like an old hand! but at midnight, and in the forest, we shall have other talk together!" she passed on with her aged stateliness, but often turning back her head and smiling at him, like one willing to recognise a secret intimacy of connexion. "have i then sold myself," thought the minister, "to the fiend whom, if men say true, this yellow-starched and velveted old hag has chosen for her prince and master?" the wretched minister! he had made a bargain very like it! tempted by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself with deliberate choice, as he had never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin. and the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. it had stupefied all blessed impulses, and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke to tempt, even while they frightened him. and his encounter with old mistress hibbins, if it were a real incident, did but show its sympathy and fellowship with wicked mortals, and the world of perverted spirits. he had by this time reached his dwelling on the edge of the burial ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study. the minister was glad to have reached this shelter, without first betraying himself to the world by any of those strange and wicked eccentricities to which he had been continually impelled while passing through the streets. he entered the accustomed room, and looked around him on its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of the walls, with the same perception of strangeness that had haunted him throughout his walk from the forest dell into the town and thitherward. here he had studied and written; here gone through fast and vigil, and come forth half alive; here striven to pray; here borne a hundred thousand agonies! there was the bible, in its rich old hebrew, with moses and the prophets speaking to him, and god's voice through all. there on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was an unfinished sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, where his thoughts had ceased to gush out upon the page two days before. he knew that it was himself, the thin and white-cheeked minister, who had done and suffered these things, and written thus far into the election sermon! but he seemed to stand apart, and eye this former self with scornful pitying, but half-envious curiosity. that self was gone. another man had returned out of the forest--a wiser one--with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former never could have reached. a bitter kind of knowledge that! while occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door of the study, and the minister said, "come in!"--not wholly devoid of an idea that he might behold an evil spirit. and so he did! it was old roger chillingworth that entered. the minister stood white and speechless, with one hand on the hebrew scriptures, and the other spread upon his breast. "welcome home, reverend sir," said the physician "and how found you that godly man, the apostle eliot? but methinks, dear sir, you look pale, as if the travel through the wilderness had been too sore for you. will not my aid be requisite to put you in heart and strength to preach your election sermon?" "nay, i think not so," rejoined the reverend mr. dimmesdale. "my journey, and the sight of the holy apostle yonder, and the free air which i have breathed have done me good, after so long confinement in my study. i think to need no more of your drugs, my kind physician, good though they be, and administered by a friendly hand." all this time roger chillingworth was looking at the minister with the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his patient. but, in spite of this outward show, the latter was almost convinced of the old man's knowledge, or, at least, his confident suspicion, with respect to his own interview with hester prynne. the physician knew then that in the minister's regard he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy. so much being known, it would appear natural that a part of it should be expressed. it is singular, however, how long a time often passes before words embody things; and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it. thus the minister felt no apprehension that roger chillingworth would touch, in express words, upon the real position which they sustained towards one another. yet did the physician, in his dark way, creep frightfully near the secret. "were it not better," said he, "that you use my poor skill tonight? verily, dear sir, we must take pains to make you strong and vigorous for this occasion of the election discourse. the people look for great things from you, apprehending that another year may come about and find their pastor gone." "yes, to another world," replied the minister with pious resignation. "heaven grant it be a better one; for, in good sooth, i hardly think to tarry with my flock through the flitting seasons of another year! but touching your medicine, kind sir, in my present frame of body i need it not." "i joy to hear it," answered the physician. "it may be that my remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due effect. happy man were i, and well deserving of new england's gratitude, could i achieve this cure!" "i thank you from my heart, most watchful friend," said the reverend mr. dimmesdale with a solemn smile. "i thank you, and can but requite your good deeds with my prayers." "a good man's prayers are golden recompense!" rejoined old roger chillingworth, as he took his leave. "yea, they are the current gold coin of the new jerusalem, with the king's own mint mark on them!" left alone, the minister summoned a servant of the house, and requested food, which, being set before him, he ate with ravenous appetite. then flinging the already written pages of the election sermon into the fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote with such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, that he fancied himself inspired; and only wondered that heaven should see fit to transmit the grand and solemn music of its oracles through so foul an organ pipe as he. however, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or go unsolved for ever, he drove his task onward with earnest haste and ecstasy. thus the night fled away, as if it were a winged steed, and he careering on it; morning came, and peeped, blushing, through the curtains; and at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study, and laid it right across the minister's bedazzled eyes. there he was, with the pen still between his fingers, and a vast, immeasurable tract of written space behind him! xxi. the new england holiday betimes in the morning of the day on which the new governor was to receive his office at the hands of the people, hester prynne and little pearl came into the market-place. it was already thronged with the craftsmen and other plebeian inhabitants of the town, in considerable numbers, among whom, likewise, were many rough figures, whose attire of deer-skins marked them as belonging to some of the forest settlements, which surrounded the little metropolis of the colony. on this public holiday, as on all other occasions for seven years past, hester was clad in a garment of coarse gray cloth. not more by its hue than by some indescribable peculiarity in its fashion, it had the effect of making her fade personally out of sight and outline; while again the scarlet letter brought her back from this twilight indistinctness, and revealed her under the moral aspect of its own illumination. her face, so long familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude which they were accustomed to behold there. it was like a mask; or, rather like the frozen calmness of a dead woman's features; owing this dreary resemblance to the fact that hester was actually dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy, and had departed out of the world with which she still seemed to mingle. it might be, on this one day, that there was an expression unseen before, nor, indeed, vivid enough to be detected now; unless some preternaturally gifted observer should have first read the heart, and have afterwards sought a corresponding development in the countenance and mien. such a spiritual seer might have conceived, that, after sustaining the gaze of the multitude through several miserable years as a necessity, a penance, and something which it was a stern religion to endure, she now, for one last time more, encountered it freely and voluntarily, in order to convert what had so long been agony into a kind of triumph. "look your last on the scarlet letter and its wearer!"--the people's victim and lifelong bond-slave, as they fancied her, might say to them. "yet a little while, and she will be beyond your reach! a few hours longer and the deep, mysterious ocean will quench and hide for ever the symbol which ye have caused to burn on her bosom!" nor were it an inconsistency too improbable to be assigned to human nature, should we suppose a feeling of regret in hester's mind, at the moment when she was about to win her freedom from the pain which had been thus deeply incorporated with her being. might there not be an irresistible desire to quaff a last, long, breathless draught of the cup of wormwood and aloes, with which nearly all her years of womanhood had been perpetually flavoured. the wine of life, henceforth to be presented to her lips, must be indeed rich, delicious, and exhilarating, in its chased and golden beaker, or else leave an inevitable and weary languor, after the lees of bitterness wherewith she had been drugged, as with a cordial of intensest potency. pearl was decked out with airy gaiety. it would have been impossible to guess that this bright and sunny apparition owed its existence to the shape of gloomy gray; or that a fancy, at once so gorgeous and so delicate as must have been requisite to contrive the child's apparel, was the same that had achieved a task perhaps more difficult, in imparting so distinct a peculiarity to hester's simple robe. the dress, so proper was it to little pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitable development and outward manifestation of her character, no more to be separated from her than the many-hued brilliancy from a butterfly's wing, or the painted glory from the leaf of a bright flower. as with these, so with the child; her garb was all of one idea with her nature. on this eventful day, moreover, there was a certain singular inquietude and excitement in her mood, resembling nothing so much as the shimmer of a diamond, that sparkles and flashes with the varied throbbings of the breast on which it is displayed. children have always a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with them: always, especially, a sense of any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic circumstances; and therefore pearl, who was the gem on her mother's unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the very dance of her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness of hester's brow. this effervescence made her flit with a bird-like movement, rather than walk by her mother's side. she broke continually into shouts of a wild, inarticulate, and sometimes piercing music. when they reached the market-place, she became still more restless, on perceiving the stir and bustle that enlivened the spot; for it was usually more like the broad and lonesome green before a village meeting-house, than the centre of a town's business. "why, what is this, mother?" cried she. "wherefore have all the people left their work to-day? is it a play-day for the whole world? see, there is the blacksmith! he has washed his sooty face, and put on his sabbath-day clothes, and looks as if he would gladly be merry, if any kind body would only teach him how! and there is master brackett, the old jailer, nodding and smiling at me. why does he do so, mother?" "he remembers thee a little babe, my child," answered hester. "he should not nod and smile at me, for all that--the black, grim, ugly-eyed old man!" said pearl. "he may nod at thee, if he will; for thou art clad in gray, and wearest the scarlet letter. but see, mother, how many faces of strange people, and indians among them, and sailors! what have they all come to do, here in the market-place?" "they wait to see the procession pass," said hester. "for the governor and the magistrates are to go by, and the ministers, and all the great people and good people, with the music and the soldiers marching before them." "and will the minister be there?" asked pearl. "and will he hold out both his hands to me, as when thou ledst me to him from the brook-side?" "he will be there, child," answered her mother, "but he will not greet thee to-day, nor must thou greet him." "what a strange, sad man is he!" said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. "in the dark nighttime he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder! and in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! and he kisses my forehead, too, so that the little brook would hardly wash it off! but, here, in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him! a strange, sad man is he, with his hand always over his heart!" "be quiet, pearl--thou understandest not these things," said her mother. "think not now of the minister, but look about thee, and see how cheery is everybody's face to-day. the children have come from their schools, and the grown people from their workshops and their fields, on purpose to be happy, for, to-day, a new man is beginning to rule over them; and so--as has been the custom of mankind ever since a nation was first gathered--they make merry and rejoice: as if a good and golden year were at length to pass over the poor old world!" it was as hester said, in regard to the unwonted jollity that brightened the faces of the people. into this festal season of the year--as it already was, and continued to be during the greater part of two centuries--the puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity; thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction. but we perhaps exaggerate the gray or sable tinge, which undoubtedly characterized the mood and manners of the age. the persons now in the market-place of boston had not been born to an inheritance of puritanic gloom. they were native englishmen, whose fathers had lived in the sunny richness of the elizabethan epoch; a time when the life of england, viewed as one great mass, would appear to have been as stately, magnificent, and joyous, as the world has ever witnessed. had they followed their hereditary taste, the new england settlers would have illustrated all events of public importance by bonfires, banquets, pageantries, and processions. nor would it have been impracticable, in the observance of majestic ceremonies, to combine mirthful recreation with solemnity, and give, as it were, a grotesque and brilliant embroidery to the great robe of state, which a nation, at such festivals, puts on. there was some shadow of an attempt of this kind in the mode of celebrating the day on which the political year of the colony commenced. the dim reflection of a remembered splendour, a colourless and manifold diluted repetition of what they had beheld in proud old london--we will not say at a royal coronation, but at a lord mayor's show--might be traced in the customs which our forefathers instituted, with reference to the annual installation of magistrates. the fathers and founders of the commonwealth--the statesman, the priest, and the soldier--seemed it a duty then to assume the outward state and majesty, which, in accordance with antique style, was looked upon as the proper garb of public and social eminence. all came forth to move in procession before the people's eye, and thus impart a needed dignity to the simple framework of a government so newly constructed. then, too, the people were countenanced, if not encouraged, in relaxing the severe and close application to their various modes of rugged industry, which at all other times, seemed of the same piece and material with their religion. here, it is true, were none of the appliances which popular merriment would so readily have found in the england of elizabeth's time, or that of james--no rude shows of a theatrical kind; no minstrel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor gleeman with an ape dancing to his music; no juggler, with his tricks of mimic witchcraft; no merry andrew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps a hundred years old, but still effective, by their appeals to the very broadest sources of mirthful sympathy. all such professors of the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid discipline of law, but by the general sentiment which give law its vitality. not the less, however, the great, honest face of the people smiled--grimly, perhaps, but widely too. nor were sports wanting, such as the colonists had witnessed, and shared in, long ago, at the country fairs and on the village-greens of england; and which it was thought well to keep alive on this new soil, for the sake of the courage and manliness that were essential in them. wrestling matches, in the different fashions of cornwall and devonshire, were seen here and there about the market-place; in one corner, there was a friendly bout at quarterstaff; and--what attracted most interest of all--on the platform of the pillory, already so noted in our pages, two masters of defence were commencing an exhibition with the buckler and broadsword. but, much to the disappointment of the crowd, this latter business was broken off by the interposition of the town beadle, who had no idea of permitting the majesty of the law to be violated by such an abuse of one of its consecrated places. it may not be too much to affirm, on the whole, (the people being then in the first stages of joyless deportment, and the offspring of sires who had known how to be merry, in their day), that they would compare favourably, in point of holiday keeping, with their descendants, even at so long an interval as ourselves. their immediate posterity, the generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackest shade of puritanism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all the subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it up. we have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gaiety. the picture of human life in the market-place, though its general tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the english emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue. a party of indians--in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deerskin robes, wampum-belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear--stood apart with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the puritan aspect could attain. nor, wild as were these painted barbarians, were they the wildest feature of the scene. this distinction could more justly be claimed by some mariners--a part of the crew of the vessel from the spanish main--who had come ashore to see the humours of election day. they were rough-looking desperadoes, with sun-blackened faces, and an immensity of beard; their wide short trousers were confined about the waist by belts, often clasped with a rough plate of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and in some instances, a sword. from beneath their broad-brimmed hats of palm-leaf, gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity. they transgressed without fear or scruple, the rules of behaviour that were binding on all others: smoking tobacco under the beadle's very nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling; and quaffing at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitae from pocket flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping crowd around them. it remarkably characterised the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as we call it, that a licence was allowed the seafaring class, not merely for their freaks on shore, but for far more desperate deeds on their proper element. the sailor of that day would go near to be arraigned as a pirate in our own. there could be little doubt, for instance, that this very ship's crew, though no unfavourable specimens of the nautical brotherhood, had been guilty, as we should phrase it, of depredations on the spanish commerce, such as would have perilled all their necks in a modern court of justice. but the sea in those old times heaved, swelled, and foamed very much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts at regulation by human law. the buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling and become at once if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land; nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regarded as a personage with whom it was disreputable to traffic or casually associate. thus the puritan elders in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, smiled not unbenignantly at the clamour and rude deportment of these jolly seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversion when so reputable a citizen as old roger chillingworth, the physician, was seen to enter the market-place in close and familiar talk with the commander of the questionable vessel. the latter was by far the most showy and gallant figure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. he wore a profusion of ribbons on his garment, and gold lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain, and surmounted with a feather. there was a sword at his side and a sword-cut on his forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair, he seemed anxious rather to display than hide. a landsman could hardly have worn this garb and shown this face, and worn and shown them both with such a galliard air, without undergoing stern question before a magistrate, and probably incurring a fine or imprisonment, or perhaps an exhibition in the stocks. as regarded the shipmaster, however, all was looked upon as pertaining to the character, as to a fish his glistening scales. after parting from the physician, the commander of the bristol ship strolled idly through the market-place; until happening to approach the spot where hester prynne was standing, he appeared to recognise, and did not hesitate to address her. as was usually the case wherever hester stood, a small vacant area--a sort of magic circle--had formed itself about her, into which, though the people were elbowing one another at a little distance, none ventured or felt disposed to intrude. it was a forcible type of the moral solitude in which the scarlet letter enveloped its fated wearer; partly by her own reserve, and partly by the instinctive, though no longer so unkindly, withdrawal of her fellow-creatures. now, if never before, it answered a good purpose by enabling hester and the seaman to speak together without risk of being overheard; and so changed was hester prynne's repute before the public, that the matron in town, most eminent for rigid morality, could not have held such intercourse with less result of scandal than herself. "so, mistress," said the mariner, "i must bid the steward make ready one more berth than you bargained for! no fear of scurvy or ship fever this voyage. what with the ship's surgeon and this other doctor, our only danger will be from drug or pill; more by token, as there is a lot of apothecary's stuff aboard, which i traded for with a spanish vessel." "what mean you?" inquired hester, startled more than she permitted to appear. "have you another passenger?" "why, know you not," cried the shipmaster, "that this physician here--chillingworth he calls himself--is minded to try my cabin-fare with you? ay, ay, you must have known it; for he tells me he is of your party, and a close friend to the gentleman you spoke of--he that is in peril from these sour old puritan rulers." "they know each other well, indeed," replied hester, with a mien of calmness, though in the utmost consternation. "they have long dwelt together." nothing further passed between the mariner and hester prynne. but at that instant she beheld old roger chillingworth himself, standing in the remotest corner of the market-place and smiling on her; a smile which--across the wide and bustling square, and through all the talk and laughter, and various thoughts, moods, and interests of the crowd--conveyed secret and fearful meaning. xxii. the procession before hester prynne could call together her thoughts, and consider what was practicable to be done in this new and startling aspect of affairs, the sound of military music was heard approaching along a contiguous street. it denoted the advance of the procession of magistrates and citizens on its way towards the meeting-house: where, in compliance with a custom thus early established, and ever since observed, the reverend mr. dimmesdale was to deliver an election sermon. soon the head of the procession showed itself, with a slow and stately march, turning a corner, and making its way across the market-place. first came the music. it comprised a variety of instruments, perhaps imperfectly adapted to one another, and played with no great skill; but yet attaining the great object for which the harmony of drum and clarion addresses itself to the multitude--that of imparting a higher and more heroic air to the scene of life that passes before the eye. little pearl at first clapped her hands, but then lost for an instant the restless agitation that had kept her in a continual effervescence throughout the morning; she gazed silently, and seemed to be borne upward like a floating sea-bird on the long heaves and swells of sound. but she was brought back to her former mood by the shimmer of the sunshine on the weapons and bright armour of the military company, which followed after the music, and formed the honorary escort of the procession. this body of soldiery--which still sustains a corporate existence, and marches down from past ages with an ancient and honourable fame--was composed of no mercenary materials. its ranks were filled with gentlemen who felt the stirrings of martial impulse, and sought to establish a kind of college of arms, where, as in an association of knights templars, they might learn the science, and, so far as peaceful exercise would teach them, the practices of war. the high estimation then placed upon the military character might be seen in the lofty port of each individual member of the company. some of them, indeed, by their services in the low countries and on other fields of european warfare, had fairly won their title to assume the name and pomp of soldiership. the entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel, and with plumage nodding over their bright morions, had a brilliancy of effect which no modern display can aspire to equal. and yet the men of civil eminence, who came immediately behind the military escort, were better worth a thoughtful observer's eye. even in outward demeanour they showed a stamp of majesty that made the warrior's haughty stride look vulgar, if not absurd. it was an age when what we call talent had far less consideration than now, but the massive materials which produce stability and dignity of character a great deal more. the people possessed by hereditary right the quality of reverence, which, in their descendants, if it survive at all, exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished force in the selection and estimate of public men. the change may be for good or ill, and is partly, perhaps, for both. in that old day the english settler on these rude shores--having left king, nobles, and all degrees of awful rank behind, while still the faculty and necessity of reverence was strong in him--bestowed it on the white hair and venerable brow of age--on long-tried integrity--on solid wisdom and sad-coloured experience--on endowments of that grave and weighty order which gave the idea of permanence, and comes under the general definition of respectability. these primitive statesmen, therefore--bradstreet, endicott, dudley, bellingham, and their compeers--who were elevated to power by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant, but distinguished by a ponderous sobriety, rather than activity of intellect. they had fortitude and self-reliance, and in time of difficulty or peril stood up for the welfare of the state like a line of cliffs against a tempestuous tide. the traits of character here indicated were well represented in the square cast of countenance and large physical development of the new colonial magistrates. so far as a demeanour of natural authority was concerned, the mother country need not have been ashamed to see these foremost men of an actual democracy adopted into the house of peers, or make the privy council of the sovereign. next in order to the magistrates came the young and eminently distinguished divine, from whose lips the religious discourse of the anniversary was expected. his was the profession at that era in which intellectual ability displayed itself far more than in political life; for--leaving a higher motive out of the question it offered inducements powerful enough in the almost worshipping respect of the community, to win the most aspiring ambition into its service. even political power--as in the case of increase mather--was within the grasp of a successful priest. it was the observation of those who beheld him now, that never, since mr. dimmesdale first set his foot on the new england shore, had he exhibited such energy as was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pace in the procession. there was no feebleness of step as at other times; his frame was not bent, nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart. yet, if the clergyman were rightly viewed, his strength seemed not of the body. it might be spiritual and imparted to him by angelical ministrations. it might be the exhilaration of that potent cordial which is distilled only in the furnace-glow of earnest and long-continued thought. or perchance his sensitive temperament was invigorated by the loud and piercing music that swelled heaven-ward, and uplifted him on its ascending wave. nevertheless, so abstracted was his look, it might be questioned whether mr. dimmesdale even heard the music. there was his body, moving onward, and with an unaccustomed force. but where was his mind? far and deep in its own region, busying itself, with preternatural activity, to marshal a procession of stately thoughts that were soon to issue thence; and so he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing of what was around him; but the spiritual element took up the feeble frame and carried it along, unconscious of the burden, and converting it to spirit like itself. men of uncommon intellect, who have grown morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, into which they throw the life of many days and then are lifeless for as many more. hester prynne, gazing steadfastly at the clergyman, felt a dreary influence come over her, but wherefore or whence she knew not, unless that he seemed so remote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach. one glance of recognition she had imagined must needs pass between them. she thought of the dim forest, with its little dell of solitude, and love, and anguish, and the mossy tree-trunk, where, sitting hand-in-hand, they had mingled their sad and passionate talk with the melancholy murmur of the brook. how deeply had they known each other then! and was this the man? she hardly knew him now! he, moving proudly past, enveloped as it were, in the rich music, with the procession of majestic and venerable fathers; he, so unattainable in his worldly position, and still more so in that far vista of his unsympathizing thoughts, through which she now beheld him! her spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that, vividly as she had dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixt the clergyman and herself. and thus much of woman was there in hester, that she could scarcely forgive him--least of all now, when the heavy footstep of their approaching fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer!--for being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world--while she groped darkly, and stretched forth her cold hands, and found him not. pearl either saw and responded to her mother's feelings, or herself felt the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the minister. while the procession passed, the child was uneasy, fluttering up and down, like a bird on the point of taking flight. when the whole had gone by, she looked up into hester's face-- "mother," said she, "was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?" "hold thy peace, dear little pearl!" whispered her mother. "we must not always talk in the marketplace of what happens to us in the forest." "i could not be sure that it was he--so strange he looked," continued the child. "else i would have run to him, and bid him kiss me now, before all the people, even as he did yonder among the dark old trees. what would the minister have said, mother? would he have clapped his hand over his heart, and scowled on me, and bid me begone?" "what should he say, pearl," answered hester, "save that it was no time to kiss, and that kisses are not to be given in the market-place? well for thee, foolish child, that thou didst not speak to him!" another shade of the same sentiment, in reference to mr. dimmesdale, was expressed by a person whose eccentricities--insanity, as we should term it--led her to do what few of the townspeople would have ventured on--to begin a conversation with the wearer of the scarlet letter in public. it was mistress hibbins, who, arrayed in great magnificence, with a triple ruff, a broidered stomacher, a gown of rich velvet, and a gold-headed cane, had come forth to see the procession. as this ancient lady had the renown (which subsequently cost her no less a price than her life) of being a principal actor in all the works of necromancy that were continually going forward, the crowd gave way before her, and seemed to fear the touch of her garment, as if it carried the plague among its gorgeous folds. seen in conjunction with hester prynne--kindly as so many now felt towards the latter--the dread inspired by mistress hibbins had doubled, and caused a general movement from that part of the market-place in which the two women stood. "now, what mortal imagination could conceive it?" whispered the old lady confidentially to hester. "yonder divine man! that saint on earth, as the people uphold him to be, and as--i must needs say--he really looks! who, now, that saw him pass in the procession, would think how little while it is since he went forth out of his study--chewing a hebrew text of scripture in his mouth, i warrant--to take an airing in the forest! aha! we know what that means, hester prynne! but truly, forsooth, i find it hard to believe him the same man. many a church member saw i, walking behind the music, that has danced in the same measure with me, when somebody was fiddler, and, it might be, an indian powwow or a lapland wizard changing hands with us! that is but a trifle, when a woman knows the world. but this minister. couldst thou surely tell, hester, whether he was the same man that encountered thee on the forest path?" "madam, i know not of what you speak," answered hester prynne, feeling mistress hibbins to be of infirm mind; yet strangely startled and awe-stricken by the confidence with which she affirmed a personal connexion between so many persons (herself among them) and the evil one. "it is not for me to talk lightly of a learned and pious minister of the word, like the reverend mr. dimmesdale." "fie, woman--fie!" cried the old lady, shaking her finger at hester. "dost thou think i have been to the forest so many times, and have yet no skill to judge who else has been there? yea, though no leaf of the wild garlands which they wore while they danced be left in their hair! i know thee, hester, for i behold the token. we may all see it in the sunshine! and it glows like a red flame in the dark. thou wearest it openly, so there need be no question about that. but this minister! let me tell thee in thine ear! when the black man sees one of his own servants, signed and sealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is the reverend mr. dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters so that the mark shall be disclosed, in open daylight, to the eyes of all the world! what is that the minister seeks to hide, with his hand always over his heart? ha, hester prynne?" "what is it, good mistress hibbins?" eagerly asked little pearl. "hast thou seen it?" "no matter, darling!" responded mistress hibbins, making pearl a profound reverence. "thou thyself wilt see it, one time or another. they say, child, thou art of the lineage of the prince of air! wilt thou ride with me some fine night to see thy father? then thou shalt know wherefore the minister keeps his hand over his heart!" laughing so shrilly that all the market-place could hear her, the weird old gentlewoman took her departure. by this time the preliminary prayer had been offered in the meeting-house, and the accents of the reverend mr. dimmesdale were heard commencing his discourse. an irresistible feeling kept hester near the spot. as the sacred edifice was too much thronged to admit another auditor, she took up her position close beside the scaffold of the pillory. it was in sufficient proximity to bring the whole sermon to her ears, in the shape of an indistinct but varied murmur and flow of the minister's very peculiar voice. this vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment, insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence. like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated. muffled as the sound was by its passage through the church walls, hester prynne listened with such intenseness, and sympathized so intimately, that the sermon had throughout a meaning for her, entirely apart from its indistinguishable words. these, perhaps, if more distinctly heard, might have been only a grosser medium, and have clogged the spiritual sense. now she caught the low undertone, as of the wind sinking down to repose itself; then ascended with it, as it rose through progressive gradations of sweetness and power, until its volume seemed to envelop her with an atmosphere of awe and solemn grandeur. and yet, majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was for ever in it an essential character of plaintiveness. a loud or low expression of anguish--the whisper, or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity, that touched a sensibility in every bosom! at times this deep strain of pathos was all that could be heard, and scarcely heard sighing amid a desolate silence. but even when the minister's voice grew high and commanding--when it gushed irrepressibly upward--when it assumed its utmost breadth and power, so overfilling the church as to burst its way through the solid walls, and diffuse itself in the open air--still, if the auditor listened intently, and for the purpose, he could detect the same cry of pain. what was it? the complaint of a human heart, sorrow-laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, whether of guilt or sorrow, to the great heart of mankind; beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness,--at every moment,--in each accent,--and never in vain! it was this profound and continual undertone that gave the clergyman his most appropriate power. during all this time, hester stood, statue-like, at the foot of the scaffold. if the minister's voice had not kept her there, there would, nevertheless, have been an inevitable magnetism in that spot, whence she dated the first hour of her life of ignominy. there was a sense within her--too ill-defined to be made a thought, but weighing heavily on her mind--that her whole orb of life, both before and after, was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave it unity. little pearl, meanwhile, had quitted her mother's side, and was playing at her own will about the market-place. she made the sombre crowd cheerful by her erratic and glistening ray, even as a bird of bright plumage illuminates a whole tree of dusky foliage by darting to and fro, half seen and half concealed amid the twilight of the clustering leaves. she had an undulating, but oftentimes a sharp and irregular movement. it indicated the restless vivacity of her spirit, which to-day was doubly indefatigable in its tip-toe dance, because it was played upon and vibrated with her mother's disquietude. whenever pearl saw anything to excite her ever active and wandering curiosity, she flew thitherward, and, as we might say, seized upon that man or thing as her own property, so far as she desired it, but without yielding the minutest degree of control over her motions in requital. the puritans looked on, and, if they smiled, were none the less inclined to pronounce the child a demon offspring, from the indescribable charm of beauty and eccentricity that shone through her little figure, and sparkled with its activity. she ran and looked the wild indian in the face, and he grew conscious of a nature wilder than his own. thence, with native audacity, but still with a reserve as characteristic, she flew into the midst of a group of mariners, the swarthy-cheeked wild men of the ocean, as the indians were of the land; and they gazed wonderingly and admiringly at pearl, as if a flake of the sea-foam had taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted with a soul of the sea-fire, that flashes beneath the prow in the night-time. one of these seafaring men the shipmaster, indeed, who had spoken to hester prynne was so smitten with pearl's aspect, that he attempted to lay hands upon her, with purpose to snatch a kiss. finding it as impossible to touch her as to catch a humming-bird in the air, he took from his hat the gold chain that was twisted about it, and threw it to the child. pearl immediately twined it around her neck and waist with such happy skill, that, once seen there, it became a part of her, and it was difficult to imagine her without it. "thy mother is yonder woman with the scarlet letter," said the seaman, "wilt thou carry her a message from me?" "if the message pleases me, i will," answered pearl. "then tell her," rejoined he, "that i spake again with the black-a-visaged, hump shouldered old doctor, and he engages to bring his friend, the gentleman she wots of, aboard with him. so let thy mother take no thought, save for herself and thee. wilt thou tell her this, thou witch-baby?" "mistress hibbins says my father is the prince of the air!" cried pearl, with a naughty smile. "if thou callest me that ill-name, i shall tell him of thee, and he will chase thy ship with a tempest!" pursuing a zigzag course across the marketplace, the child returned to her mother, and communicated what the mariner had said. hester's strong, calm steadfastly-enduring spirit almost sank, at last, on beholding this dark and grim countenance of an inevitable doom, which at the moment when a passage seemed to open for the minister and herself out of their labyrinth of misery--showed itself with an unrelenting smile, right in the midst of their path. with her mind harassed by the terrible perplexity in which the shipmaster's intelligence involved her, she was also subjected to another trial. there were many people present from the country round about, who had often heard of the scarlet letter, and to whom it had been made terrific by a hundred false or exaggerated rumours, but who had never beheld it with their own bodily eyes. these, after exhausting other modes of amusement, now thronged about hester prynne with rude and boorish intrusiveness. unscrupulous as it was, however, it could not bring them nearer than a circuit of several yards. at that distance they accordingly stood, fixed there by the centrifugal force of the repugnance which the mystic symbol inspired. the whole gang of sailors, likewise, observing the press of spectators, and learning the purport of the scarlet letter, came and thrust their sunburnt and desperado-looking faces into the ring. even the indians were affected by a sort of cold shadow of the white man's curiosity and, gliding through the crowd, fastened their snake-like black eyes on hester's bosom, conceiving, perhaps, that the wearer of this brilliantly embroidered badge must needs be a personage of high dignity among her people. lastly, the inhabitants of the town (their own interest in this worn-out subject languidly reviving itself, by sympathy with what they saw others feel) lounged idly to the same quarter, and tormented hester prynne, perhaps more than all the rest, with their cool, well-acquainted gaze at her familiar shame. hester saw and recognized the selfsame faces of that group of matrons, who had awaited her forthcoming from the prison-door seven years ago; all save one, the youngest and only compassionate among them, whose burial-robe she had since made. at the final hour, when she was so soon to fling aside the burning letter, it had strangely become the centre of more remark and excitement, and was thus made to sear her breast more painfully, than at any time since the first day she put it on. while hester stood in that magic circle of ignominy, where the cunning cruelty of her sentence seemed to have fixed her for ever, the admirable preacher was looking down from the sacred pulpit upon an audience whose very inmost spirits had yielded to his control. the sainted minister in the church! the woman of the scarlet letter in the marketplace! what imagination would have been irreverent enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both! xxiii. the revelation of the scarlet letter the eloquent voice, on which the souls of the listening audience had been borne aloft as on the swelling waves of the sea, at length came to a pause. there was a momentary silence, profound as what should follow the utterance of oracles. then ensued a murmur and half-hushed tumult, as if the auditors, released from the high spell that had transported them into the region of another's mind, were returning into themselves, with all their awe and wonder still heavy on them. in a moment more the crowd began to gush forth from the doors of the church. now that there was an end, they needed more breath, more fit to support the gross and earthly life into which they relapsed, than that atmosphere which the preacher had converted into words of flame, and had burdened with the rich fragrance of his thought. in the open air their rapture broke into speech. the street and the market-place absolutely babbled, from side to side, with applauses of the minister. his hearers could not rest until they had told one another of what each knew better than he could tell or hear. according to their united testimony, never had man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this day; nor had inspiration ever breathed through mortal lips more evidently than it did through his. its influence could be seen, as it were, descending upon him, and possessing him, and continually lifting him out of the written discourse that lay before him, and filling him with ideas that must have been as marvellous to himself as to his audience. his subject, it appeared, had been the relation between the deity and the communities of mankind, with a special reference to the new england which they were here planting in the wilderness. and, as he drew towards the close, a spirit as of prophecy had come upon him, constraining him to its purpose as mightily as the old prophets of israel were constrained, only with this difference, that, whereas the jewish seers had denounced judgments and ruin on their country, it was his mission to foretell a high and glorious destiny for the newly gathered people of the lord. but, throughout it all, and through the whole discourse, there had been a certain deep, sad undertone of pathos, which could not be interpreted otherwise than as the natural regret of one soon to pass away. yes; their minister whom they so loved--and who so loved them all, that he could not depart heavenward without a sigh--had the foreboding of untimely death upon him, and would soon leave them in their tears. this idea of his transitory stay on earth gave the last emphasis to the effect which the preacher had produced; it was as if an angel, in his passage to the skies, had shaken his bright wings over the people for an instant--at once a shadow and a splendour--and had shed down a shower of golden truths upon them. thus, there had come to the reverend mr. dimmesdale--as to most men, in their various spheres, though seldom recognised until they see it far behind them--an epoch of life more brilliant and full of triumph than any previous one, or than any which could hereafter be. he stood, at this moment, on the very proudest eminence of superiority, to which the gifts or intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloquence, and a reputation of whitest sanctity, could exalt a clergyman in new england's earliest days, when the professional character was of itself a lofty pedestal. such was the position which the minister occupied, as he bowed his head forward on the cushions of the pulpit at the close of his election sermon. meanwhile hester prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillory, with the scarlet letter still burning on her breast! now was heard again the clamour of the music, and the measured tramp of the military escort issuing from the church door. the procession was to be marshalled thence to the town hall, where a solemn banquet would complete the ceremonies of the day. once more, therefore, the train of venerable and majestic fathers were seen moving through a broad pathway of the people, who drew back reverently, on either side, as the governor and magistrates, the old and wise men, the holy ministers, and all that were eminent and renowned, advanced into the midst of them. when they were fairly in the marketplace, their presence was greeted by a shout. this--though doubtless it might acquire additional force and volume from the child-like loyalty which the age awarded to its rulers--was felt to be an irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm kindled in the auditors by that high strain of eloquence which was yet reverberating in their ears. each felt the impulse in himself, and in the same breath, caught it from his neighbour. within the church, it had hardly been kept down; beneath the sky it pealed upward to the zenith. there were human beings enough, and enough of highly wrought and symphonious feeling to produce that more impressive sound than the organ tones of the blast, or the thunder, or the roar of the sea; even that mighty swell of many voices, blended into one great voice by the universal impulse which makes likewise one vast heart out of the many. never, from the soil of new england had gone up such a shout! never, on new england soil had stood the man so honoured by his mortal brethren as the preacher! how fared it with him, then? were there not the brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head? so etherealised by spirit as he was, and so apotheosised by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in the procession, really tread upon the dust of earth? as the ranks of military men and civil fathers moved onward, all eyes were turned towards the point where the minister was seen to approach among them. the shout died into a murmur, as one portion of the crowd after another obtained a glimpse of him. how feeble and pale he looked, amid all his triumph! the energy--or say, rather, the inspiration which had held him up, until he should have delivered the sacred message that had brought its own strength along with it from heaven--was withdrawn, now that it had so faithfully performed its office. the glow, which they had just before beheld burning on his cheek, was extinguished, like a flame that sinks down hopelessly among the late decaying embers. it seemed hardly the face of a man alive, with such a death-like hue: it was hardly a man with life in him, that tottered on his path so nervously, yet tottered, and did not fall! one of his clerical brethren--it was the venerable john wilson--observing the state in which mr. dimmesdale was left by the retiring wave of intellect and sensibility, stepped forward hastily to offer his support. the minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the old man's arm. he still walked onward, if that movement could be so described, which rather resembled the wavering effort of an infant, with its mother's arms in view, outstretched to tempt him forward. and now, almost imperceptible as were the latter steps of his progress, he had come opposite the well-remembered and weather-darkened scaffold, where, long since, with all that dreary lapse of time between, hester prynne had encountered the world's ignominious stare. there stood hester, holding little pearl by the hand! and there was the scarlet letter on her breast! the minister here made a pause; although the music still played the stately and rejoicing march to which the procession moved. it summoned him onward--inward to the festival!--but here he made a pause. bellingham, for the last few moments, had kept an anxious eye upon him. he now left his own place in the procession, and advanced to give assistance judging, from mr. dimmesdale's aspect that he must otherwise inevitably fall. but there was something in the latter's expression that warned back the magistrate, although a man not readily obeying the vague intimations that pass from one spirit to another. the crowd, meanwhile, looked on with awe and wonder. this earthly faintness, was, in their view, only another phase of the minister's celestial strength; nor would it have seemed a miracle too high to be wrought for one so holy, had he ascended before their eyes, waxing dimmer and brighter, and fading at last into the light of heaven! he turned towards the scaffold, and stretched forth his arms. "hester," said he, "come hither! come, my little pearl!" it was a ghastly look with which he regarded them; but there was something at once tender and strangely triumphant in it. the child, with the bird-like motion, which was one of her characteristics, flew to him, and clasped her arms about his knees. hester prynne--slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, and against her strongest will--likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. at this instant old roger chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd--or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed, and evil was his look, he rose up out of some nether region--to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do! be that as it might, the old man rushed forward, and caught the minister by the arm. "madman, hold! what is your purpose?" whispered he. "wave back that woman! cast off this child! all shall be well! do not blacken your fame, and perish in dishonour! i can yet save you! would you bring infamy on your sacred profession?" "ha, tempter! methinks thou art too late!" answered the minister, encountering his eye, fearfully, but firmly. "thy power is not what it was! with god's help, i shall escape thee now!" he again extended his hand to the woman of the scarlet letter. "hester prynne," cried he, with a piercing earnestness, "in the name of him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what--for my own heavy sin and miserable agony--i withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! thy strength, hester; but let it be guided by the will which god hath granted me! this wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might!--with all his own might, and the fiend's! come, hester--come! support me up yonder scaffold." the crowd was in a tumult. the men of rank and dignity, who stood more immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by surprise, and so perplexed as to the purport of what they saw--unable to receive the explanation which most readily presented itself, or to imagine any other--that they remained silent and inactive spectators of the judgement which providence seemed about to work. they beheld the minister, leaning on hester's shoulder, and supported by her arm around him, approach the scaffold, and ascend its steps; while still the little hand of the sin-born child was clasped in his. old roger chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore to be present at its closing scene. "hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret--no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me--save on this very scaffold!" "thanks be to him who hath led me hither!" answered the minister. yet he trembled, and turned to hester, with an expression of doubt and anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed, that there was a feeble smile upon his lips. "is not this better," murmured he, "than what we dreamed of in the forest?" "i know not! i know not!" she hurriedly replied. "better? yea; so we may both die, and little pearl die with us!" "for thee and pearl, be it as god shall order," said the minister; "and god is merciful! let me now do the will which he hath made plain before my sight. for, hester, i am a dying man. so let me make haste to take my shame upon me!" partly supported by hester prynne, and holding one hand of little pearl's, the reverend mr. dimmesdale turned to the dignified and venerable rulers; to the holy ministers, who were his brethren; to the people, whose great heart was thoroughly appalled yet overflowing with tearful sympathy, as knowing that some deep life-matter--which, if full of sin, was full of anguish and repentance likewise--was now to be laid open to them. the sun, but little past its meridian, shone down upon the clergyman, and gave a distinctness to his figure, as he stood out from all the earth, to put in his plea of guilty at the bar of eternal justice. "people of new england!" cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic--yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe--"ye, that have loved me!--ye, that have deemed me holy!--behold me here, the one sinner of the world! at last--at last!--i stand upon the spot where, seven years since, i should have stood, here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith i have crept hitherward, sustains me at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face! lo, the scarlet letter which hester wears! ye have all shuddered at it! wherever her walk hath been--wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose--it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round about her. but there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!" it seemed, at this point, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. but he fought back the bodily weakness--and, still more, the faintness of heart--that was striving for the mastery with him. he threw off all assistance, and stepped passionately forward a pace before the woman and the children. "it was on him!" he continued, with a kind of fierceness; so determined was he to speak out the whole. "god's eye beheld it! the angels were for ever pointing at it! (the devil knew it well, and fretted it continually with the touch of his burning finger!) but he hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you with the mien of a spirit, mournful, because so pure in a sinful world!--and sad, because he missed his heavenly kindred! now, at the death-hour, he stands up before you! he bids you look again at hester's scarlet letter! he tells you, that, with all its mysterious horror, it is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his own red stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost heart! stand any here that question god's judgment on a sinner! behold! behold, a dreadful witness of it!" with a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. it was revealed! but it were irreverent to describe that revelation. for an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentrated on the ghastly miracle; while the minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. then, down he sank upon the scaffold! hester partly raised him, and supported his head against her bosom. old roger chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which the life seemed to have departed. "thou hast escaped me!" he repeated more than once. "thou hast escaped me!" "may god forgive thee!" said the minister. "thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" he withdrew his dying eyes from the old man, and fixed them on the woman and the child. "my little pearl," said he, feebly and there was a sweet and gentle smile over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose; nay, now that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be sportive with the child--"dear little pearl, wilt thou kiss me now? thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest! but now thou wilt?" pearl kissed his lips. a spell was broken. the great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. towards her mother, too, pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was fulfilled. "hester," said the clergyman, "farewell!" "shall we not meet again?" whispered she, bending her face down close to his. "shall we not spend our immortal life together? surely, surely, we have ransomed one another, with all this woe! thou lookest far into eternity, with those bright dying eyes! then tell me what thou seest!" "hush, hester--hush!" said he, with tremulous solemnity. "the law we broke!--the sin here awfully revealed!--let these alone be in thy thoughts! i fear! i fear! it may be, that, when we forgot our god--when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul--it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion. god knows; and he is merciful! he hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. by giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! by sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat! by bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people! had either of these agonies been wanting, i had been lost for ever! praised be his name! his will be done! farewell!" that final word came forth with the minister's expiring breath. the multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder, which could not as yet find utterance, save in this murmur that rolled so heavily after the departed spirit. xxiv. conclusion after many days, when time sufficed for the people to arrange their thoughts in reference to the foregoing scene, there was more than one account of what had been witnessed on the scaffold. most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the unhappy minister, a scarlet letter--the very semblance of that worn by hester prynne--imprinted in the flesh. as regarded its origin there were various explanations, all of which must necessarily have been conjectural. some affirmed that the reverend mr. dimmesdale, on the very day when hester prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance--which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, followed out--by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. others contended that the stigma had not been produced until a long time subsequent, when old roger chillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs. others, again and those best able to appreciate the minister's peculiar sensibility, and the wonderful operation of his spirit upon the body--whispered their belief, that the awful symbol was the effect of the ever-active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost heart outwardly, and at last manifesting heaven's dreadful judgment by the visible presence of the letter. the reader may choose among these theories. we have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain, where long meditation has fixed it in very undesirable distinctness. it is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, who were spectators of the whole scene, and professed never once to have removed their eyes from the reverend mr. dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast, more than on a new-born infant's. neither, by their report, had his dying words acknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any--the slightest--connexion on his part, with the guilt for which hester prynne had so long worn the scarlet letter. according to these highly-respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying--conscious, also, that the reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels--had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man's own righteousness. after exhausting life in his efforts for mankind's spiritual good, he had made the manner of his death a parable, in order to impress on his admirers the mighty and mournful lesson, that, in the view of infinite purity, we are sinners all alike. it was to teach them, that the holiest amongst us has but attained so far above his fellows as to discern more clearly the mercy which looks down, and repudiate more utterly the phantom of human merit, which would look aspiringly upward. without disputing a truth so momentous, we must be allowed to consider this version of mr. dimmesdale's story as only an instance of that stubborn fidelity with which a man's friends--and especially a clergyman's--will sometimes uphold his character, when proofs, clear as the mid-day sunshine on the scarlet letter, establish him a false and sin-stained creature of the dust. the authority which we have chiefly followed--a manuscript of old date, drawn up from the verbal testimony of individuals, some of whom had known hester prynne, while others had heard the tale from contemporary witnesses fully confirms the view taken in the foregoing pages. among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable experience, we put only this into a sentence:--"be true! be true! be true! show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!" nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place, almost immediately after mr. dimmesdale's death, in the appearance and demeanour of the old man known as roger chillingworth. all his strength and energy--all his vital and intellectual force--seemed at once to desert him, insomuch that he positively withered up, shrivelled away and almost vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun. this unhappy man had made the very principle of his life to consist in the pursuit and systematic exercise of revenge; and when, by its completest triumph consummation that evil principle was left with no further material to support it--when, in short, there was no more devil's work on earth for him to do, it only remained for the unhumanised mortal to betake himself whither his master would find him tasks enough, and pay him his wages duly. but, to all these shadowy beings, so long our near acquaintances--as well roger chillingworth as his companions we would fain be merciful. it is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual fife upon another: each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject. philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. in the spiritual world, the old physician and the minister--mutual victims as they have been--may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love. leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business to communicate to the reader. at old roger chillingworth's decease, (which took place within the year), and by his last will and testament, of which governor bellingham and the reverend mr. wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here and in england to little pearl, the daughter of hester prynne. so pearl--the elf child--the demon offspring, as some people up to that epoch persisted in considering her--became the richest heiress of her day in the new world. not improbably this circumstance wrought a very material change in the public estimation; and had the mother and child remained here, little pearl at a marriageable period of life might have mingled her wild blood with the lineage of the devoutest puritan among them all. but, in no long time after the physician's death, the wearer of the scarlet letter disappeared, and pearl along with her. for many years, though a vague report would now and then find its way across the sea--like a shapeless piece of driftwood tossed ashore with the initials of a name upon it--yet no tidings of them unquestionably authentic were received. the story of the scarlet letter grew into a legend. its spell, however, was still potent, and kept the scaffold awful where the poor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by the sea-shore where hester prynne had dwelt. near this latter spot, one afternoon some children were at play, when they beheld a tall woman in a gray robe approach the cottage-door. in all those years it had never once been opened; but either she unlocked it or the decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand, or she glided shadow-like through these impediments--and, at all events, went in. on the threshold she paused--turned partly round--for perchance the idea of entering alone and all so changed, the home of so intense a former life, was more dreary and desolate than even she could bear. but her hesitation was only for an instant, though long enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast. and hester prynne had returned, and taken up her long-forsaken shame! but where was little pearl? if still alive she must now have been in the flush and bloom of early womanhood. none knew--nor ever learned with the fulness of perfect certainty--whether the elf-child had gone thus untimely to a maiden grave; or whether her wild, rich nature had been softened and subdued and made capable of a woman's gentle happiness. but through the remainder of hester's life there were indications that the recluse of the scarlet letter was the object of love and interest with some inhabitant of another land. letters came, with armorial seals upon them, though of bearings unknown to english heraldry. in the cottage there were articles of comfort and luxury such as hester never cared to use, but which only wealth could have purchased and affection have imagined for her. there were trifles too, little ornaments, beautiful tokens of a continual remembrance, that must have been wrought by delicate fingers at the impulse of a fond heart. and once hester was seen embroidering a baby-garment with such a lavish richness of golden fancy as would have raised a public tumult had any infant thus apparelled, been shown to our sober-hued community. in fine, the gossips of that day believed--and mr. surveyor pue, who made investigations a century later, believed--and one of his recent successors in office, moreover, faithfully believes--that pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother; and that she would most joyfully have entertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside. but there was a more real life for hester prynne, here, in new england, than in that unknown region where pearl had found a home. here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. she had returned, therefore, and resumed--of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period would have imposed it--resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale. never afterwards did it quit her bosom. but, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up hester's life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too. and, as hester prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. women, more especially--in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion--or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought came to hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! hester comforted and counselled them, as best she might. she assured them, too, of her firm belief that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness. earlier in life, hester had vainly imagined that she herself might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognised the impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a life-long sorrow. the angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman, indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful, and wise; moreover, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing how sacred love should make us happy, by the truest test of a life successful to such an end. so said hester prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the scarlet letter. and, after many, many years, a new grave was delved, near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which king's chapel has since been built. it was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. yet one tomb-stone served for both. all around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab of slate--as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport--there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. it bore a device, a herald's wording of which may serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow:-- "on a field, sable, the letter a, gules" passages from the english note-books of nathaniel hawthorne vol. i. to francis bennoch, esq., the dear and valued friend, who, by his generous and genial hospitality and unfailing sympathy, contributed so largely (as is attested by the book itself) to render mr. hawthorne's residence in england agreeable and homelike, these english notes are dedicated, with sincere respect and regard, by the editor. preface it seems justly due to mr. hawthorne that the occasion of any portion of his private journals being brought before the public should be made known, since they were originally designed for his own reference only. there had been a constant and an urgent demand for a life or memoir of mr. hawthorne; yet, from the extreme delicacy and difficulty of the subject, the editor felt obliged to refuse compliance with this demand. moreover, mr. hawthorne had frequently and emphatically expressed the hope that no one would attempt to write his biography; and the editor perceived that it would be impossible for any person, outside of his own domestic circle, to succeed in doing it, on account of his extreme reserve. but it was ungracious to do nothing, and therefore the editor, believing that mr. hawthorne himself was alone capable of satisfactorily answering the affectionate call for some sketch of his life, concluded to publish as much as possible of his private records, and even extracts from his private letters, in order to gratify the desire of his friends and of literary artists to become more intimately acquainted with him. the editor has been severely blamed and wondered at, in some instances, for allowing many things now published to see the light; but it has been a matter both of conscience and courtesy to withhold nothing that could be given up. many of the journals were doubtless destroyed; for the earliest date found in his american papers was that of . the editor has transcribed the manuscripts just as they were left, without making any new arrangement or altering any sequence,--merely omitting some passages, and being especially careful to preserve whatever could throw any light upon his character. to persons on a quest for characteristics, however, each of his books reveals a great many, and it is believed that with the aid of the notes (both american and english) the tales and romances will make out a very complete and true picture of his individuality; and the notes are often an open sesame to the artistic works. several thickly written pages of observations--fine and accurate etchings--have been omitted, sometimes because too personal with regard to himself or others, and sometimes because they were afterwards absorbed into one or another of the romances or papers in our old home. it seemed a pity not to give these original cartoons fresh from his mind, because they are so carefully finished at the first stroke. yet, as mr. hawthorne chose his own way of presenting them to the public, it was thought better not to exhibit what he himself withheld. besides, to any other than a fellow-artist they might seem mere repetitions. it is very earnestly hoped that these volumes of notes--american, english, and presently italian--will dispel an often-expressed opinion that mr. hawthorne was gloomy and morbid. he had the inevitable pensiveness and gravity of a person who possessed what a friend of his called "the awful power of insight"; but his mood was always cheerful and equal, and his mind peculiarly healthful, and the airy splendor of his wit and humor was the light of his home. he saw too far to be despondent, though his vivid sympathies and shaping imagination often made him sad in behalf of others. he also perceived morbidness, wherever it existed, instantly, as if by the illumination of his own steady cheer; and he had the plastic power of putting himself into each person's situation, and of looking from every point of view, which made his charity most comprehensive. from this cause he necessarily attracted confidences, and became confessor to very many sinning and suffering souls, to whom he gave tender sympathy and help, while resigning judgment to the omniscient and all-wise. throughout his journals it will be seen that mr. hawthorne is entertaining, and not asserting, opinions and ideas. he questions, doubts, and reflects with his pen, and, as it were, instructs himself. so that these note-books should be read, not as definitive conclusions of his mind, but merely as passing impressions often. whatever conclusions be arrived at are condensed in the works given to the world by his own hand, in which will never be found a careless word. he was so extremely scrupulous about the value and effect of every expression that the editor has felt great compunction in allowing a single sentence to be printed. unrevised by himself; but, with the consideration of the above remarks always kept in mind, these volumes are intrusted to the generous interpretation of the reader. if any one must be harshly criticised, it ought certainly to be the editor. when a person breaks in, unannounced, upon the morning hours of an artist, and finds him not in full dress, the intruder, and not the surprised artist, is doubtless at fault. s. h. dresden, april, . passages from hawthorne's english note-books liverpool, august th, .--a month lacking two days since we left america,--a fortnight and some odd days since we arrived in england. i began my services, such as they are, on monday last, august st, and here i sit in my private room at the consulate, while the vice-consul and clerk are carrying on affairs in the outer office. the pleasantest incident of the morning is when mr. pearce (the vice-consul) makes his appearance with the account-books, containing the receipts and expenditures of the preceding day, and deposits on my desk a little rouleau of the queen's coin, wrapped up in a piece of paper. this morning there were eight sovereigns, four half-crowns, and a shilling,--a pretty fair day's work, though not more than the average ought to be. this forenoon, thus far, i have had two calls, not of business,--one from an american captain and his son, another from mr. h---- b----, whom i met in america, and who has showed us great attention here. he has arranged for us to go to the theatre with some of his family this evening. since i have been in liverpool we have hardly had a day, until yesterday, without more or less of rain, and so cold and shivery that life was miserable. i am not warm enough even now, but am gradually getting acclimated in that respect. just now i have been fooled out of half a crown by a young woman, who represents herself as an american and destitute, having come over to see an uncle whom she found dead, and she has no means of getting back again. her accent is not that of an american, and her appearance is not particularly prepossessing, though not decidedly otherwise. she is decently dressed and modest in deportment, but i do not quite trust her face. she has been separated from her husband, as i understand her, by course of law, has had two children, both now dead. what she wants is to get back to america, and perhaps arrangements may be made with some shipmaster to take her as stewardess or in some subordinate capacity. my judgment, on the whole, is that she is an english woman, married to and separated from an american husband,--of no very decided virtue. i might as well have kept my half-crown, and yet i might have bestowed it worse. she is very decent in manner, cheerful, at least not despondent. at two o'clock i went over to the royal rock hotel, about fifteen or twenty minutes' steaming from this side of the river. we are going there on saturday to reside for a while. returning, i found that, mr. b., from the american chamber of commerce, had called to arrange the time and place of a visit to the consul from a delegation of that body. settled for to-morrow at quarter past one at mr. blodgett's. august th.--an invitation this morning from the mayor to dine at the town hall on friday next. heaven knows i had rather dine at the humblest inn in the city, inasmuch as a speech will doubtless be expected from me. however, things must be as they may. at a quarter past one i was duly on hand at mr. blodgett's to receive the deputation from the chamber of commerce. they arrived pretty seasonably, in two or three carriages, and were ushered into the drawing-room,--seven or eight gentlemen, some of whom i had met before. hereupon ensued a speech from mr. b., the chairman of the delegation, short and sweet, alluding to my literary reputation and other laudatory matters, and occupying only a minute or two. the speaker was rather embarrassed, which encouraged me a little, and yet i felt more diffidence on this occasion than in my effort at mr. crittenden's lunch, where, indeed, i was perfectly self-possessed. but here, there being less formality, and more of a conversational character in what was said, my usual diffidence could not so well be kept in abeyance. however, i did not break down to an intolerable extent, and, winding up my eloquence as briefly as possible, we had a social talk. their whole stay could not have been much more than a quarter of an hour. a call, this morning, at the consulate, from dr. bowrug, who is british minister, or something of the kind, in china, and now absent on a twelvemonth's leave. the doctor is a brisk person, with the address of a man of the world,--free, quick to smile, and of agreeable manners. he has a good face, rather american than english in aspect, and does not look much above fifty, though he says he is between sixty and seventy. i should take him rather for an active lawyer or a man of business than for a scholar and a literary man. he talked in a lively way for ten or fifteen minutes, and then took his leave, offering me any service in his power in london,--as, for instance, to introduce me to the athenaeum club. august th.--day before yesterday i escorted my family to rock ferry, two miles either up or down the mersey (and i really don't know which) by steamer, which runs every half-hour. there are steamers going continually to birkenhead and other landings, and almost always a great many passengers on the transit. at this time the boat was crowded so as to afford scanty standing-room; it being saturday, and therefore a kind of gala-day. i think i have never seen a populace before coming to england; but this crowd afforded a specimen of one, both male and female. the women were the most remarkable; though they seemed not disreputable, there was in them a coarseness, a freedom, an--i don't know what, that was purely english. in fact, men and women here do things that would at least make them ridiculous in america. they are not afraid to enjoy themselves in their own way, and have no pseudo-gentility to support. some girls danced upon the crowded deck, to the miserable music of a little fragment of a band which goes up and down the river on each trip of the boat. just before the termination of the voyage a man goes round with a bugle turned upwards to receive the eleemosynary pence and half-pence of the passengers. i gave one of them, the other day, a silver fourpence, which fell into the vitals of the instrument, and compelled the man to take it to pieces. at rock ferry there was a great throng, forming a scene not unlike one of our muster-days or a fourth of july, and there were bands of music and banners, and small processions after them, and a school of charity children, i believe, enjoying a festival. and there was a club of respectable persons, playing at bowls on the bowling-green of the hotel, and there were children, infants, riding on donkeys at a penny a ride, while their mothers walked alongside to prevent a fall. yesterday, while we were at dinner, mr. b. came in his carriage to take us to his residence, poulton hall. he had invited us to dine; but i misunderstood him, and thought he only intended to give us a drive. poulton hall is about three miles from rock ferry, the road passing through some pleasant rural scenery, and one or two villages, with houses standing close together, and old stone or brick cottages, with thatched roofs, and now and then a better mansion, apart among trees. we passed an old church, with a tower and spire, and, half-way up, a patch of ivy, dark green, and some yellow wall-flowers, in full bloom, growing out of the crevices of the stone. mr. b. told us that the tower was formerly quite clothed with ivy from bottom to top, but that it had fallen away for lack of the nourishment that it used to find in the lime between the stones. this old church answered to my transatlantic fancies of england better than anything i have yet seen. not far from it was the rectory, behind a deep grove of ancient trees; and there lives the rector, enjoying a thousand pounds a year and his nothing-to-do, while a curate performs the real duty on a stipend of eighty pounds. we passed through a considerable extent of private road, and finally drove over a lawn, studded with trees and closely shaven, till we reached the door of poulton hall. part of the mansion is three or four hundred years old; another portion is about a hundred and fifty, and still another has been built during the present generation. the house is two stories high, with a sort of beetle-browed roof in front. it is not very striking, and does not look older than many wooden houses which i have seen in america. there is a curious stately staircase, with a twisted balustrade much like that of the old province house in boston. the drawing-room is a handsome modern apartment, being beautifully painted and gilded and paper-hung, with a white marble fireplace and rich furniture, so that the impression is that of newness, not of age. it is the same with the dining-room, and all the rest of the interior so far as i saw it. mr. b. did not inherit this old hall, nor, indeed, is he the owner, but only the tenant of it. he is a merchant of liverpool, a bachelor, with two sisters residing with him. in the entrance-hall, there was a stuffed fox with glass eyes, which i never should have doubted to be an actual live fox except for his keeping so quiet; also some grouse and other game. mr. b. seems to be a sportsman, and is setting out this week on an excursion to scotland, moor-fowl shooting. while the family and two or three guests went to dinner, we walked out to see the place. the gardener, an irishman, showed us through the garden, which is large and well cared for. they certainly get everything from nature which she can possibly be persuaded to give them, here in england. there were peaches and pears growing against the high brick southern walls,--the trunk and branches of the trees being spread out perfectly flat against the wall, very much like the skin of a dead animal nailed up to dry, and not a single branch protruding. figs were growing in the same way. the brick wall, very probably, was heated within, by means of pipes, in order to re-enforce the insufficient heat of the sun. it seems as if there must be something unreal and unsatisfactory in fruit that owes its existence to such artificial methods. squashes were growing under glass, poor things! there were immensely large gooseberries in the garden; and in this particular berry, the english, i believe, have decidedly the advantage over ourselves. the raspberries, too, were large and good. i espied one gigantic hog-weed in the garden; and, really, my heart warmed to it, being strongly reminded of the principal product of my own garden at concord. after viewing the garden sufficiently, the gardener led us to other parts of the estate, and we had glimpses of a delightful valley, its sides shady with beautiful trees, and a rich, grassy meadow at the bottom. by means of a steam-engine and subterranean pipes and hydrants, the liquid manure from the barn-yard is distributed wherever it is wanted over the estate, being spouted in rich showers from the hydrants. under this influence, the meadow at the bottom of the valley had already been made to produce three crops of grass during the present season, and would produce another. the lawn around poulton hall, like thousands of other lawns in england, is very beautiful, but requires great care to keep it so, being shorn every three or four days. no other country will ever have this charm, nor the charm of lovely verdure, which almost makes up for the absence of sunshine. without the constant rain and shadow which strikes us as so dismal, these lawns would be as brown as an autumn leaf. i have not, thus far, found any such magnificent trees as i expected. mr. b. told me that three oaks, standing in a row on his lawn, were the largest in the county. they were very good trees, to be sure, and perhaps four feet in diameter near the ground, but with no very noble spread of foliage. in concord there are, if not oaks, yet certainly elms, a great deal more stately and beautiful. but, on the whole, this lawn, and the old hall in the midst of it, went a good way towards realizing some of my fancies of english life. by and by a footman, looking very quaint and queer in his livery coat, drab breeches, and white stockings, came to invite me to the table, where i found mr. b. and his sisters and guests sitting at the fruit and wine. there were port, sherry, madeira, and one bottle of claret, all very good; but they take here much heavier wines than we drink now in america. after a tolerably long session we went to the tea-room, where i drank some coffee, and at about the edge of dusk the carriage drew up to the door to take us home. mr. b. and his sisters have shown us genuine kindness, and they gave us a hearty invitation to come and ramble over the house whenever we pleased, during their absence in scotland. they say that there are many legends and ghost-stories connected with the house; and there is an attic chamber, with a skylight, which is called the martyr's chamber, from the fact of its having, in old times, been tenanted by a lady, who was imprisoned there, and persecuted to death for her religion. there is an old black-letter library, but the room containing it is shut, barred, and padlocked,--the owner of the house refusing to let it be opened, lest some of the books should be stolen. meanwhile the rats are devouring them, and the damps destroying them. august th.--a pretty comfortable day, as to warmth, and i believe there is sunshine overhead; but a sea-cloud, composed of fog and coal-smoke, envelops liverpool. at rock ferry, when i left it at half past nine, there was promise of a cheerful day. a good many gentlemen (or, rather, respectable business people) came in the boat, and it is not unpleasant, on these fine mornings, to take the breezy atmosphere of the river. the huge steamer great britain, bound for australia, lies right off the rock ferry landing; and at a little distance are two old hulks of ships of war, dismantled, roofed over, and anchored in the river, formerly for quarantine purposes, but now used chiefly or solely as homes for old seamen, whose light labor it is to take care of these condemned ships. there are a great many steamers plying up and down the river to various landings in the vicinity; and a good many steam-tugs; also, many boats, most of which have dark-red or tan-colored sails, being oiled to resist the wet; also, here and there, a yacht or pleasure-boat, and a few ships riding stately at their anchors, probably on the point of sailing. the river, however, is by no means crowded; because the immense multitude of ships are ensconced in the docks, where their masts make an intricate forest for miles up and down the liverpool shore. the small black steamers, whizzing industriously along, many of them crowded with passengers, snake up the chief life of the scene. the mersey has the color of a mud-puddle, and no atmospheric effect, as far as i have seen, ever gives it a more agreeable tinge. visitors to-day, thus far, have been h. a. b., with whom i have arranged to dine with us at rock ferry, and then he is to take us on board the great britain, of which his father is owner (in great part). secondly, monsieur h., the french consul, who can speak hardly any english, and who was more powerfully scented with cigar-smoke than any man i ever encountered; a polite, gray-haired, red-nosed gentleman, very courteous and formal. heaven keep him from me! at one o'clock, or thereabouts, i walked into the city, down through lord street, church street, and back to the consulate through various untraceable crookednesses. coming to chapel street, i crossed the graveyard of the old church of st. nicholas. this is, i suppose, the oldest sacred site in liverpool, a church having stood here ever since the conquest, though, probably, there is little or nothing of the old edifice in the present one, either the whole of the edifice or else the steeple, being thereto shaken by a chime of bells,-- perhaps both, at different times,--has tumbled down; but the present church is what we americans should call venerable. when the first church was built, and long afterwards, it must have stood on the grassy verge of the mersey; but now there are pavements and warehouses, and the thronged prince's and george's docks, between it and the river; and all around it is the very busiest bustle of commerce, rumbling wheels, hurrying men, porter-shops, everything that pertains to the grossest and most practical life. and, notwithstanding, there is the broad churchyard extending on three sides of it, just as it used to be a thousand years ago. it is absolutely paved from border to border with flat tombstones, on a level with the soil and with each other, so that it is one floor of stone over the whole space, with grass here and there sprouting between the crevices. all these stones, no doubt, formerly had inscriptions; but as many people continually pass, in various directions, across the churchyard, and as the tombstones are not of a very hard material, the records on many of them are effaced. i saw none very old. a quarter of a century is sufficient to obliterate the letters, and make all smooth, where the direct pathway from gate to gate lies over the stones. the climate and casual footsteps rub out any inscription in less than a hundred years. some of the monuments are cracked. on many is merely cut "the burial place of" so and so; on others there is a long list of half-readable names; on some few a laudatory epitaph, out of which, however, it were far too tedious to pick the meaning. but it really is interesting and suggestive to think of this old church, first built when liverpool was a small village, and remaining, with its successive dead of ten centuries around it, now that the greatest commercial city in the world has its busiest centre there. i suppose people still continue to be buried in the cemetery. the greatest upholders of burials in cities are those whose progenitors have been deposited around or within the city churches. if this spacious churchyard stood in a similar position in one of our american cities, i rather suspect that long ere now it would have run the risk of being laid out in building-lots, and covered with warehouses; even if the church itself escaped,--but it would not escape longer than till its disrepair afforded excuse for tearing it down. and why should it, when its purposes might be better served in another spot? we went on board the great britain before dinner, between five and six o'clock,--a great structure, as to convenient arrangement and adaptation, but giving me a strong impression of the tedium and misery of the long voyage to australia. by way of amusement, she takes over fifty pounds' worth of playing-cards, at two shillings per pack, for the use of passengers; also, a small, well-selected library. after a considerable time spent on board, we returned to the hotel and dined, and mr. b. took his leave at nine o'clock. august th.--i left rock ferry for the city at half past nine. in the boat which arrived thence, there were several men and women with baskets on their heads, for this is a favorite way of carrying burdens; and they trudge onward beneath them, without any apparent fear of an overturn, and seldom putting up a hand to steady them. one woman, this morning, had a heavy load of crockery; another, an immense basket of turnips, freshly gathered, that seemed to me as much as a man could well carry on his back. these must be a stiff-necked people. the women step sturdily and freely, and with not ungraceful strength. the trip over to town was pleasant, it being a fair morning, only with a low-hanging fog. had it been in america, i should have anticipated a day of burning heat. visitors this morning. mr. ogden of chicago, or somewhere in the western states, who arrived in england a fortnight ago, and who called on me at that time. he has since been in scotland, and is now going to london and the continent; secondly, the captain of the collins steamer pacific, which sails to-day; thirdly, an american shipmaster, who complained that he had never, in his heretofore voyages, been able to get sight of the american consul. mr. pearce's customary matutinal visit was unusually agreeable to-day, inasmuch as he laid on my desk nineteen golden sovereigns and thirteen shillings. it being the day of the steamer's departure, an unusual number of invoice certificates had been required,--my signature to each of which brings me two dollars. the autograph of a living author has seldom been so much in request at so respectable a price. colonel crittenden told me that he had received as much as fifty pounds on a single day. heaven prosper the trade between america and liverpool! august th.--many scenes which i should have liked to record have occurred; but the pressure of business has prevented me from recording them from day to day. on thursday i went, on invitation from mr. b., to the prodigious steamer great britain, down the harbor, and some miles into the sea, to escort her off a little way on her voyage to australia. there is an immense enthusiasm among the english people about this ship, on account of its being the largest in the world. the shores were lined with people to see her sail, and there were innumerable small steamers, crowded with men, all the way out into the ocean. nothing seems to touch the english nearer than this question of nautical superiority; and if we wish to hit them to the quick, we must hit them there. on friday, at p.m., i went to dine with the mayor. it was a dinner given to the judges and the grand jury. the judges of england, during the time of holding an assize, are the persons first in rank in the kingdom. they take precedence of everybody else,--of the highest military officers, of the lord lieutenants, of the archbishops,--of the prince of wales,--of all except the sovereign, whose authority and dignity they represent. in case of a royal dinner, the judge would lead the queen to the table. the dinner was at the town hall, and the rooms and the whole affair were all in the most splendid style. nothing struck me more than the footmen in the city livery. they really looked more magnificent in their gold-lace and breeches and white silk stockings than any officers of state. the rooms were beautiful; gorgeously painted and gilded, gorgeously lighted, gorgeously hung with paintings,--the plate was gorgeous, and the dinner gorgeous in the english fashion. after the removal of the cloth the mayor gave various toasts, prefacing each with some remarks,--the first, of course, the sovereign, after which "god save the queen" was sung, the company standing up and joining in the chorus, their ample faces glowing with wine, enthusiasm, and loyalty. afterwards the bar, and various other dignities and institutions were toasted; and by and by came the toast to the united states, and to me, as their representative. hereupon either "hail columbia," or "yankee doodle," or some other of our national tunes (but heaven knows which), was played; and at the conclusion, being at bay, and with no alternative, i got upon my legs, and made a response. they received me and listened to my nonsense with a good deal of rapping, and my speech seemed to give great satisfaction; my chief difficulty being in not knowing how to pitch my voice to the size of the room. as for the matter, it is not of the slightest consequence. anybody may make an after-dinner speech who will be content to talk onward without saying anything. my speech was not more than two or three inches long; and, considering that i did not know a soul there, except the mayor himself, and that i am wholly unpractised in all sorts of oratory, and that i had nothing to say, it was quite successful. i hardly thought it was in me, but, being once started, i felt no embarrassment, and went through it as coolly as if i were going to be hanged. yesterday, after dinner, i took a walk with my family. we went through by-ways and private roads, and saw more of rural england, with its hedge-rows, its grassy fields, and its whitewashed old stone cottages, than we have before seen since our arrival. august th.--this being saturday, there early commenced a throng of visitants to rock ferry. the boat in which i came over brought from the city a multitude of factory-people. they had bands of music, and banners inscribed with the names of the mills they belong to, and other devices: pale-looking people, but not looking exactly as if they were underfed. they are brought on reduced terms by the railways and steamers, and come from great distances in the interior. these, i believe, were from preston. i have not yet had an opportunity of observing how they amuse themselves during these excursions. at the dock, the other day, the steamer arrived from rock ferry with a countless multitude of little girls, in coarse blue gowns, who, as they landed, formed in procession, and walked up the dock. these girls had been taken from the workhouses and educated at a charity-school, and would by and by be apprenticed as servants. i should not have conceived it possible that so many children could have been collected together, without a single trace of beauty or scarcely of intelligence in so much as one individual; such mean, coarse, vulgar features and figures betraying unmistakably a low origin, and ignorant and brutal parents. they did not appear wicked, but only stupid, animal, and soulless. it must require many generations of better life to wake the soul in them. all america could not show the like. august d.--a captain auld, an american, having died here yesterday, i went with my clerk and an american shipmaster to take the inventory of his effects. his boarding-house was in a mean street, an old dingy house, with narrow entrance,--the class of boarding-house frequented by mates of vessels, and inferior to those generally patronized by masters. a fat elderly landlady, of respectable and honest aspect, and her daughter, a pleasing young woman enough, received us, and ushered us into the deceased's bedchamber. it was a dusky back room, plastered and painted yellow; its one window looking into the very narrowest of back-yards or courts, and out on a confused multitude of back buildings, appertaining to other houses, most of them old, with rude chimneys of wash-rooms and kitchens, the bricks of which seemed half loose. the chattels of the dead man were contained in two trunks, a chest, a sail-cloth bag, and a barrel, and consisted of clothing, suggesting a thickset, middle-sized man; papers relative to ships and business, a spyglass, a loaded iron pistol, some books of navigation, some charts, several great pieces of tobacco, and a few cigars; some little plaster images, that he had probably bought for his children, a cotton umbrella, and other trumpery of no great value. in one of the trunks we found about twenty pounds' worth of english and american gold and silver, and some notes of hand, due in america. of all these things the clerk made an inventory; after which we took possession of the money and affixed the consular seal to the trunks, bag, and chest. while this was going on, we heard a great noise of men quarrelling in an adjoining court; and, altogether, it seemed a squalid and ugly place to live in, and a most undesirable one to die in. at the conclusion of our labors, the young woman asked us if we would not go into another chamber, and look at the corpse, and appeared to think that we should be rather glad than otherwise of the privilege. but, never having seen the man during his lifetime, i declined to commence his acquaintance now. his bills for board and nursing amount to about the sum which we found in his trunk; his funeral expenses will be ten pounds more; the surgeon has sent in a bill of eight pounds, odd shillings; and the account of another medical man is still to be rendered. as his executor, i shall pay his landlady and nurse; and for the rest of the expenses, a subscription must be made (according to the custom in such cases) among the shipmasters, headed by myself. the funeral pomp will consist of a hearse, one coach, four men, with crape hatbands, and a few other items, together with a grave at five pounds, over which his friends will be entitled to place a stone, if they choose to do so, within twelve months. as we left the house, we looked into the dark and squalid dining-room, where a lunch of cold meat was set out; but having no associations with the house except through this one dead man, it seemed as if his presence and attributes pervaded it wholly. he appears to have been a man of reprehensible habits, though well advanced in years. i ought not to forget a brandy-flask (empty) among his other effects. the landlady and daughter made a good impression on me, as honest and respectable persons. august th.--yesterday, in the forenoon, i received a note, and shortly afterwards a call at the consulate from miss h----, whom i apprehend to be a lady of literary tendencies. she said that miss l. had promised her an introduction, but that, happening to pass through liverpool, she had snatched the opportunity to make my acquaintance. she seems to be a mature lady, rather plain, but with an honest and intelligent face. it was rather a singular freedom, methinks, to come down upon a perfect stranger in this way,--to sit with him in his private office an hour or two, and then walk about the streets with him, as she did; for i did the honors of liverpool, and showed her the public buildings. her talk was sensible, but not particularly brilliant nor interesting; a good, solid personage, physically and intellectually. she is an english woman. in the afternoon, at three o'clock, i attended the funeral of captain auld. being ushered into the dining-room of his boarding-house, i found brandy, gin, and wine set out on a tray, together with some little spicecakes. by and by came in a woman, who asked if i were going to the funeral; and then proceeded to put a mourning-band on my hat,--a black-silk band, covering the whole hat, and streaming nearly a yard behind. after waiting the better part of an hour, nobody else appeared, although several shipmasters had promised to attend. hereupon, the undertaker was anxious to set forth; but the landlady, who was arrayed in shining black silk, thought it a shame that the poor man should be buried with such small attendance. so we waited a little longer, during which interval i heard the landlady's daughter sobbing and wailing in the entry; and but for this tender-heartedness there would have been no tears at all. finally we set forth,--the undertaker, a friend of his, and a young man, perhaps the landlady's son, and myself, in the black-plumed coach, and the landlady, her daughter, and a female friend, in the coach behind. previous to this, however, everybody had taken some wine or spirits; for it seemed to be considered disrespectful not to do so. before us went the plumed hearse, a stately affair, with a bas-relief of funereal figures upon its sides. we proceeded quite across the city to the necropolis, where the coffin was carried into a chapel, in which we found already another coffin, and another set of mourners, awaiting the clergyman. anon he appeared,--a stern, broad-framed, large, and bald-headed man, in a black-silk gown. he mounted his desk, and read the service in quite a feeble and unimpressive way, though with no lack of solemnity. this done, our four bearers took up the coffin, and carried it out of the chapel; but, descending the steps, and, perhaps, having taken a little too much brandy, one of them stumbled, and down came the coffin,--not quite to the ground, however; for they grappled with it, and contrived, with a great struggle, to prevent the misadventure. but i really expected to see poor captain auld burst forth among us in his grave-clothes. the necropolis is quite a handsome burial-place, shut in by high walls, so overrun with shrubbery that no part of the brick or stone is visible. part of the space within is an ornamental garden, with flowers and green turf; the rest is strewn with flat gravestones, and a few raised monuments; and straight avenues run to and fro between. captain auld's grave was dug nine feet deep. it is his own for twelve months; but, if his friends do not choose to give him a stone, it will become a common grave at the end of that time; and four or five more bodies may then be piled upon his. every one seemed greatly to admire the grave; the undertaker praised it, and also the dryness of its site, which he took credit to himself for having chosen. the grave-digger, too, was very proud of its depth, and the neatness of his handiwork. the clergyman, who had marched in advance of us from the chapel, now took his stand at the head of the grave, and, lifting his hat, proceeded with what remained of the service, while we stood bareheaded around. when he came to a particular part, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," the undertaker lifted a handful of earth, and threw it rattling on the coffin,--so did the landlady's son, and so did i. after the funeral the undertaker's friend, an elderly, coarse-looking man, looked round him, and remarked that "the grass had never grown on the parties who died in the cholera year"; but at this the undertaker laughed in scorn. as we returned to the gate of the cemetery, the sexton met us, and pointed to a small office, on entering which we found the clergyman, who was waiting for his burial-fees. there was now a dispute between the clergyman and the undertaker; the former wishing to receive the whole amount for the gravestone, which the undertaker, of course, refused to pay. i explained how the matter stood; on which the clergyman acquiesced, civilly enough; but it was very strange to see the worldly, business-like way in which he entered into this squabble, so soon after burying poor captain auld. during our drive back in the mourning-coach, the undertaker, his friend, and the landlady's son still kept descanting on the excellence of the grave,--"such a fine grave,"--"such a nice grave,"--"such a splendid grave,"--and, really, they seemed almost to think it worth while to die, for the sake of being buried there. they deemed it an especial pity that such a grave should ever become a common grave. "why," said they to me, "by paying the extra price you may have it for your own grave, or for your family!" meaning that we should have a right to pile ourselves over the defunct captain. i wonder how the english ever attain to any conception of a future existence, since they so overburden themselves with earth and mortality in their ideas of funerals. a drive with an undertaker, in a sable-plumed coach!--talking about graves!--and yet he was a jolly old fellow, wonderfully corpulent, with a smile breaking out easily all over his face,--although, once in a while, he looked professionally lugubrious. all the time the scent of that horrible mourning-coach is in my nostrils, and i breathe nothing but a funeral atmosphere. saturday, august th.--this being the gala-day of the manufacturing people about liverpool, the steamboats to rock ferry were seasonably crowded with large parties of both sexes. they were accompanied with two bands of music, in uniform; and these bands, before i left the hotel, were playing, in competition and rivalry with each other in the coach-yard, loud martial strains from shining brass instruments. a prize is to be assigned to one or to the other of these bands, and i suppose this was a part of the competition. meanwhile the merry-making people who thronged the courtyard were quaffing coffee from blue earthen mugs, which they brought with them,--as likewise they brought the coffee, and had it made in the hotel. it had poured with rain about the time of their arrival, notwithstanding which they did not seem disheartened; for, of course, in this climate, it enters into all their calculations to be drenched through and through. by and by the sun shone out, and it has continued to shine and shade every ten minutes ever since. all these people were decently dressed; the men generally in dark clothes, not so smartly as americans on a festal day, but so as not to be greatly different as regards dress. they were paler, smaller, less wholesome-looking and less intelligent, and, i think, less noisy, than so many yankees would have been. the women and girls differed much more from what american girls and women would be on a pleasure-excursion, being so shabbily dressed, with no kind of smartness, no silks, nothing but cotton gowns, i believe, and ill-looking bonnets,-- which, however, was the only part of their attire that they seemed to care about guarding from the rain. as to their persons, they generally looked better developed and healthier than the men; but there was a woful lack of beauty and grace, not a pretty girl among them, all coarse and vulgar. their bodies, it seems to me, are apt to be very long in proportion to their limbs,--in truth, this kind of make is rather characteristic of both sexes in england. the speech of these folks, in some instances, was so broad lancashire that i could not well understand it. a walk to bebbington. rock ferry, august th.--yesterday we all took a walk into the country. it was a fine afternoon, with clouds, of course, in different parts of the sky, but a clear atmosphere, bright sunshine, and altogether a septembrish feeling. the ramble was very pleasant, along the hedge-lined roads in which there were flowers blooming, and the varnished holly, certainly one of the most beautiful shrubs in the world, so far as foliage goes. we saw one cottage which i suppose was several hundred years old. it was of stone, filled into a wooden frame, the black-oak of which was visible like an external skeleton; it had a thatched roof, and was whitewashed. we passed through a village,--higher bebbington, i believe,--with narrow streets and mean houses all of brick or stone, and not standing wide apart from each other as in american country villages, but conjoined. there was an immense almshouse in the midst; at least, i took it to be so. in the centre of the village, too, we saw a moderate-sized brick house, built in imitation of a castle with a tower and turret, in which an upper and an under row of small cannon were mounted,--now green with moss. there were also battlements along the roof of the house, which looked as if it might have been built eighty or a hundred years ago. in the centre of it there was the dial of a clock, but the inner machinery had been removed, and the hands, hanging listlessly, moved to and fro in the wind. it was quite a novel symbol of decay and neglect. on the wall, close to the street, there were certain eccentric inscriptions cut into slabs of stone, but i could make no sense of them. at the end of the house opposite the turret, we peeped through the bars of an iron gate and beheld a little paved court-yard, and at the farther side of it a small piazza, beneath which seemed to stand the figure of a man. he appeared well advanced in years, and was dressed in a blue coat and buff breeches, with a white or straw hat on his head. behold, too, in a kennel beside the porch, a large dog sitting on his hind legs, chained! also, close beside the gateway, another man, seated in a kind of arbor! all these were wooden images; and the whole castellated, small, village-dwelling, with the inscriptions and the queer statuary, was probably the whim of some half-crazy person, who has now, no doubt, been long asleep in bebbington churchyard. the bell of the old church was ringing as we went along, and many respectable-looking people and cleanly dressed children were moving towards the sound. soon we reached the church, and i have seen nothing yet in england that so completely answered my idea of what such a thing was, as this old village church of bebbington. it is quite a large edifice, built in the form of a cross, a low peaked porch in the side, over which, rudely cut in stone, is the date and something. the steeple has ivy on it, and looks old, old, old; so does the whole church, though portions of it have been renewed, but not so as to impair the aspect of heavy, substantial endurance, and long, long decay, which may go on hundreds of years longer before the church is a ruin. there it stands, among the surrounding graves, looking just the same as it did in bloody mary's days; just as it did in cromwell's time. a bird (and perhaps many birds) had its nest in the steeple, and flew in and out of the loopholes that were opened into it. the stone framework of the windows looked particularly old. there were monuments about the church, some lying flat on the ground, others elevated on low pillars, or on cross slabs of stone, and almost all looking dark, moss-grown, and very antique. but on reading some of the inscriptions, i was surprised to find them very recent; for, in fact, twenty years of this climate suffices to give as much or more antiquity of aspect, whether to gravestone or edifice, than a hundred years of our own,--so soon do lichens creep over the surface, so soon does it blacken, so soon do the edges lose their sharpness, so soon does time gnaw away the records. the only really old monuments (and those not very old) were two, standing close together, and raised on low rude arches, the dates on which were and . on one a cross was rudely cut into the stone. but there may have been hundreds older than this, the records on which had been quite obliterated, and the stones removed, and the graves dug over anew. none of the monuments commemorate people of rank; on only one the buried person was recorded as "gent." while we sat on the flat slabs resting ourselves, several little girls, healthy-looking and prettily dressed enough, came into the churchyard, and began to talk and laugh, and to skip merrily from one tombstone to another. they stared very broadly at us, and one of them, by and by, ran up to u. and j., and gave each of them a green apple, then they skipped upon the tombstones again, while, within the church, we heard them singing, sounding pretty much as i have heard it in our pine-built new england meeting-houses. meantime the rector had detected the voices of these naughty little girls, and perhaps had caught glimpses of them through the windows; for, anon, out came the sexton, and, addressing himself to us, asked whether there had been any noise or disturbance in the churchyard. i should not have borne testimony against these little villagers, but s. was so anxious to exonerate our own children that she pointed out these poor little sinners to the sexton, who forthwith turned them out. he would have done the same to us, no doubt, had my coat been worse than it was; but, as the matter stood, his demeanor was rather apologetic than menacing, when he informed us that the rector had sent him. we stayed a little longer, looking at the graves, some of which were between the buttresses of the church and quite close to the wall, as if the sleepers anticipated greater comfort and security the nearer they could get to the sacred edifice. as we went out of the churchyard, we passed the aforesaid little girls, who were sitting behind the mound of a tomb, and busily babbling together. they called after us, expressing their discontent that we had betrayed them to the sexton, and saying that it was not they who made the noise. going homeward, we went astray in a green lane, that terminated in the midst of a field, without outlet, so that we had to retrace a good many of our footsteps. close to the wall of the church, beside the door, there was an ancient baptismal font of stone. in fact, it was a pile of roughly hewn stone steps, five or six feet high, with a block of stone at the summit, in which was a hollow about as big as a wash-bowl. it was full of rainwater. the church seems to be st. andrew's church, lower bebbington, built in . september st.--to-day we leave the rock ferry hotel, where we have spent nearly four weeks. it is a comfortable place, and we have had a good table and have been kindly treated. we occupied a large parlor, extending through the whole breadth of the house, with a bow-window, looking towards liverpool, and adown the intervening river, and to birkenhead, on the hither side. the river would be a pleasanter object, if it were blue and transparent, instead of such a mud-puddly hue; also, if it were always full to its brine; whereas it generally presents a margin, and sometimes a very broad one, of glistening mud, with here and there a small vessel aground on it. nevertheless, the parlor-window has given us a pretty good idea of the nautical business of liverpool; the constant objects being the little black steamers puffing unquietly along, sometimes to our own ferry, sometimes beyond it to eastham, and sometimes towing a long string of boats from runcorn or otherwhere up the river, laden with goods, and sometimes gallanting a tall ship in or out. some of these ships lie for days together in the river, very majestic and stately objects, often with the flag of the stars and stripes waving over them. now and then, after a gale at sea, a vessel comes in with her masts broken short off in the midst, and with marks of rough handling about the hull. once a week comes a cunard steamer, with its red funnel pipe whitened by the salt spray; and, firing off cannon to announce her arrival, she moors to a large iron buoy in the middle of the river, and a few hundred yards from the stone pier of our ferry. immediately comes poring towards her a little mail-steamer, to take away her mail-bags and such of the passengers as choose to land; and for several hours afterwards the cunard lies with the smoke and steam coming out of her, as if she were smoking her pipe after her toilsome passage across the atlantic. once a fortnight comes an american steamer of the collins line; and then the cunard salutes her with cannon, to which the collins responds, and moors herself to another iron buoy, not far from the cunard. when they go to sea, it is with similar salutes; the two vessels paying each other the more ceremonious respect, because they are inimical and jealous of each other. besides these, there are other steamers of all sorts and sizes, for pleasure-excursions, for regular trips to dublin, the isle of man, and elsewhither; and vessels which are stationary, as floating lights, but which seem to relieve one another at intervals; and small vessels, with sails looking as if made of tanned leather; and schooners, and yachts, and all manner of odd-looking craft, but none so odd as the chinese junk. this junk lies by our own pier, and looks as if it were copied from some picture on an old teacup. beyond all these objects we see the other side of the mersey, with the delectably green fields opposite to us, while the shore becomes more and more thickly populated, until about two miles off we see the dense centre of the city, with the dome of the custom house, and steeples and towers; and, close to the water, the spire of st. nicholas; and above, and intermingled with the whole city scene, the duskiness of the coal-smoke gushing upward. along the bank we perceive the warehouses of the albert dock, and the queen's tobacco warehouses, and other docks, and, nigher, to us, a shipyard or two. in the evening all this sombre picture gradually darkens out of sight, and in its place appear only the lights of the city, kindling into a galaxy of earthly stars, for a long distance, up and down the shore; and, in one or two spots, the bright red gleam of a furnace, like the "red planet mars"; and once in a while a bright, wandering beam gliding along the river, as a steamer cones or goes between us and liverpool. rock park. september d.--we got into our new house in rock park yesterday. it is quite a good house, with three apartments, beside kitchen and pantry on the lower floor; and it is three stories high, with four good chambers in each story. it is a stone edifice, like almost all the english houses, and handsome in its design. the rent, without furniture, would probably have been one hundred pounds; furnished, it is one hundred and sixty pounds. rock park, as the locality is called, is private property, and is now nearly covered with residences for professional people, merchants, and others of the upper middling class; the houses being mostly built, i suppose, on speculation, and let to those who occupy them. it is the quietest place imaginable, there being a police station at the entrance, and the officer on duty allows no ragged or ill-looking person to pass. there being a toll, it precludes all unnecessary passage of carriages; and never were there more noiseless streets than those that give access to these pretty residences. on either side there is thick shrubbery, with glimpses through it of the ornamented portals, or into the trim gardens with smooth-shaven lawns, of no large extent, but still affording reasonable breathing-space. they are really an improvement on anything, save what the very rich can enjoy, in america. the former occupants of our house (mrs. campbell and family) having been fond of flowers, there are many rare varieties in the garden, and we are told that there is scarcely a month in the year when a flower will not be found there. the house is respectably, though not very elegantly, furnished. it was a dismal, rainy day yesterday, and we had a coal-fire in the sitting-room, beside which i sat last evening as twilight came on, and thought, rather sadly, how many times we have changed our home since we were married. in the first place, our three years at the old manse; then a brief residence at salem, then at boston, then two or three years at salem again; then at lenox, then at west newton, and then again at concord, where we imagined that we were fixed for life, but spent only a year. then this farther flight to england, where we expect to spend four years, and afterwards another year or two in italy, during all which time we shall have no real home. for, as i sat in this english house, with the chill, rainy english twilight brooding over the lawn, and a coal-fire to keep me comfortable on the first evening of september, and the picture of a stranger--the dead husband of mrs. campbell--gazing down at me from above the mantel-piece,--i felt that i never should be quite at home here. nevertheless, the fire was very comfortable to look at, and the shape of the fireplace--an arch, with a deep cavity--was an improvement on the square, shallow opening of an american coal-grate. september th.--it appears by the annals of liverpool, contained in gore's directory, that in there was a baronial castle built by roger de poictiers on the site of the present st. george's church. it was taken down in . the church now stands at one of the busiest points of the principal street of the city. the old church of st. nicholas, founded about the time of the conquest, and more recently rebuilt, stood within a quarter of a mile of the castle. in , birkenhead priory was founded on the cheshire side of the mersey. the monks used to ferry passengers across to liverpool until , when woodside ferry was established,--twopence for a horseman, and a farthing for a foot-passenger. steam ferry-boats now cross to birkenhead, monk's ferry, and woodside every ten minutes; and i believe there are large hotels at all these places, and many of the business men of liverpool have residences in them. in a tower was built by sir john stanley, which continued to be a castle of defence to the stanley family for many hundred years, and was not finally taken down till , when its site had become the present water street, in the densest commercial centre of the city. there appear to have been other baronial castles and residences in different parts of the city, as a hall in old hall street, built by sir john de la more, on the site of which a counting-house now stands. this knightly family of de la more sometimes supplied mayors to the city, as did the family of the earls of derby. about , edward, earl of derby, maintained two hundred and fifty citizens of liverpool, fed sixty aged persons twice a day, and provided twenty-seven hundred persons with meat, drink, and money every good friday. in , prince rupert besieged the town for twenty-four days, and finally took it by storm. this was june th, and the parliamentarians, under sir john meldrum, repossessed it the following october. in the mayor of liverpool kept an inn. in there was only one carriage in town, and no stage-coach came nearer than warrington, the roads being impassable. in the earl of derby gave a great entertainment in the tower. in the mayor was george norton, a saddler, who frequently took, the chair with his leather apron on. his immediate predecessor seems to have been the earl of derby, who gave the above-mentioned entertainment during his mayoralty. where george's dock now is, there used to be a battery of fourteen eighteen-pounders for the defence of the town, and the old sport of bull-baiting was carried on in that vicinity, close to the church of st. nicholas. september th.--on saturday a young man was found wandering about in west derby, a suburb of liverpool, in a state of insanity, and, being taken before a magistrate, he proved to be an american. as he seemed to be in a respectable station of life, the magistrate sent the master of the workhouse to me, in order to find out whether i would take the responsibility of his expenses, rather than have him put in the workhouse. my clerk went to investigate the matter, and brought me his papers. his name proves to be ---- ------, belonging to ------, twenty-five years of age. one of the papers was a passport from our legation in naples; likewise there was a power of attorney from his mother (who seems to have been married a second time) to dispose of some property of hers abroad; a hotel bill, also, of some length, in which were various charges for wine; and, among other evidences of low funds, a pawnbroker's receipt for a watch, which he had pledged at five pounds. there was also a ticket for his passage to america, by the screw steamer andes, which sailed on wednesday last. the clerk found him to the last degree incommunicative; and nothing could be discovered from him but what the papers disclosed. there were about a dozen utterly unintelligible notes among the papers, written by himself since his derangement. i decided to put him into the insane hospital, where he now accordingly is, and to-morrow (by which time he may be in a more conversable mood) i mean to pay him a visit. the clerk tells me that there is now, and has been for three years, an american lady in the liverpool almshouse, in a state of insanity. she is very accomplished, especially in music; but in all this time it has been impossible to find out who she is, or anything about her connections or previous life. she calls herself jenny lind, and as for any other name or identity she keeps her own secret. september th.--it appears that mr. ------ (the insane young gentleman) being unable to pay his bill at the inn where he was latterly staying, the landlord had taken possession of his luggage, and satisfied himself in that way. my clerk, at my request, has taken his watch out of pawn. it proves to be not a very good one, though doubtless worth more than five pounds, for which it was pledged. the governor of the lunatic asylum wrote me yesterday, stating that the patient was in want of a change of clothes, and that, according to his own account, he had left his luggage at the american hotel. after office-hours, i took a cab, and set out with my clerk, to pay a visit to the asylum, taking the american hotel in our way. the american hotel is a small house, not at all such a one as american travellers of any pretension would think of stopping at, but still very respectable, cleanly, and with a neat sitting-room, where the guests might assemble, after the american fashion. we asked for the landlady, and anon down she came, a round, rosy, comfortable-looking english dame of fifty or thereabouts. on being asked whether she knew a mr. ------, she readily responded that he had been there, but, had left no luggage, having taken it away before paying his bill; and that she had suspected him of meaning to take his departure without paying her at all. hereupon she had traced him to the hotel before mentioned, where she had found that he had stayed two nights,--but was then, i think, gone from thence. afterwards she encountered him again, and, demanding her due, went with him to a pawnbroker's, where he pledged his watch and paid her. this was about the extent of the landlady's knowledge of the matter. i liked the woman very well, with her shrewd, good-humored, worldly, kindly disposition. then we proceeded to the lunatic asylum, to which we were admitted by a porter at the gate. within doors we found some neat and comely servant-women, one of whom showed us into a handsome parlor, and took my card to the governor. there was a large bookcase, with a glass front, containing handsomely bound books, many of which, i observed, were of a religious character. in a few minutes the governor came in, a middle-aged man, tall, and thin for an englishman, kindly and agreeable enough in aspect, but not with the marked look of a man of force and ability. i should not judge from his conversation that he was an educated man, or that he had any scientific acquaintance with the subject of insanity. he said that mr. ------ was still quite incommunicative, and not in a very promising state; that i had perhaps better defer seeing him for a few days; that it would not be safe, at present, to send him home to america without an attendant, and this was about all. but on returning home i learned from my wife, who had had a call from mrs. blodgett, that mrs. blodgett knew mr. ------ and his mother, who has recently been remarried to a young husband, and is now somewhere in italy. they seemed to have boarded at mrs. blodgett's house on their way to the continent, and within a week or two, an acquaintance and pastor of mr. ------, the rev. dr. ------, has sailed for america. if i could only have caught him, i could have transferred the care, expense, and responsibility of the patient to him. the governor of the asylum mentioned, by the way, that mr. ------ describes himself as having been formerly a midshipman in the navy. i walked through the st. james's cemetery yesterday. it is a very pretty place, dug out of the rock, having formerly, i believe, been a stone-quarry. it is now a deep and spacious valley, with graves and monuments on its level and grassy floor, through which run gravel-paths, and where grows luxuriant shrubbery. on one of the steep sides of the valley, hewn out of the rock, are tombs, rising in tiers, to the height of fifty feet or more; some of them cut directly into the rock with arched portals, and others built with stone. on the other side the bank is of earth, and rises abruptly, quite covered with trees, and looking very pleasant with their green shades. it was a warm and sunny day, and the cemetery really had a most agreeable aspect. i saw several gravestones of americans; but what struck me most was one line of an epitaph on an english woman, "here rests in peace a virtuous wife." the statue of huskisson stands in the midst of the valley, in a kind of mausoleum, with a door of plate-glass, through which you look at the dead statesman's effigy. september d.--. . . . some days ago an american captain came to the office, and said he had shot one of his men, shortly after sailing from new orleans, and while the ship was still in the river. as he described the event, he was in peril of his life from this man, who was an irishman; and he fired his pistol only when the man was coming upon him, with a knife in one hand, and some other weapon of offence in the other, while he himself was struggling with one or two more of the crew. he was weak at the time, having just recovered from the yellow fever. the shots struck the man in the pit of the stomach, and he lived only about a quarter of an hour. no magistrate in england has a right to arrest or examine the captain, unless by a warrant from the secretary of state, on the charge of murder. after his statement to me, the mother of the slain man went to the police officer, and accused him of killing her son. two or three days since, moreover, two of the sailors came before me, and gave their account of the matter; and it looked very differently from that of the captain. according to them, the man had no idea of attacking the captain, and was so drunk that he could not keep himself upright without assistance. one of these two men was actually holding him up when the captain fired two barrels of his pistol, one immediately after the other, and lodged two balls in the pit of his stomach. the man sank down at once, saying, "jack, i am killed,"--and died very shortly. meanwhile the captain drove this man away, under threats of shooting him likewise. both the seamen described the captain's conduct, both then and during the whole voyage, as outrageous, and i do not much doubt that it was so. they gave their evidence like men who wished to tell the truth, and were moved by no more than a natural indignation at the captain's wrong. i did not much like the captain from the first,--a hard, rough man, with little education, and nothing of the gentleman about him, a red face and a loud voice. he seemed a good deal excited, and talked fast and much about the event, but yet not as if it had sunk deeply into him. he observed that he "would not have had it happen for a thousand dollars," that being the amount of detriment which he conceives himself to suffer by the ineffaceable blood-stain on his hand. in my opinion it is little short of murder, if at all; but what would be murder on shore is almost a natural occurrence when done in such a hell on earth as one of these ships, in the first hours of the voyage. the men are then all drunk,-- some of them often in delirium tremens; and the captain feels no safety for his life except in making himself as terrible as a fiend. it is the universal testimony that there is a worse set of sailors in these short voyages between liverpool and america than in any other trade whatever. there is no probability that the captain will ever be called to account for this deed. he gave, at the time, his own version of the affair in his log-book; and this was signed by the entire crew, with the exception of one man, who had hidden himself in the hold in terror of the captain. his mates will sustain his side of the question; and none of the sailors would be within reach of the american courts, even should they be sought for. october st.--on thursday i went with mr. ticknor to chester by railway. it is quite an indescribable old town, and i feel at last as if i had had a glimpse of old england. the wall encloses a large space within the town, but there are numerous houses and streets not included within its precincts. some of the principal streets pass under the ancient gateways; and at the side there are flights of steps, giving access to the summit. around the top of the whole wall, a circuit of about two miles, there runs a walk, well paved with flagstones, and broad enough for three persons to walk abreast. on one side--that towards the country--there is a parapet of red freestone three or four feet high. on the other side there are houses, rising up immediately from the wall, so that they seem a part of it. the height of it, i suppose, may be thirty or forty feet, and, in some parts, you look down from the parapet into orchards, where there are tall apple-trees, and men on the branches, gathering fruit, and women and children among the grass, filling bags or baskets. there are prospects of the surrounding country among the buildings outside the wall; at one point, a view of the river dee, with an old bridge of arches. it is all very strange, very quaint, very curious to see how the town has overflowed its barrier, and how, like many institutions here, the ancient wall still exists, but is turned to quite another purpose than what it was meant for,--so far as it serves any purpose at all. there are three or four towers in the course of the circuit; the most interesting being one from the top of which king charles the first is said to have seen the rout of his army by the parliamentarians. we ascended the short flight of steps that led up into the tower, where an old man pointed out the site of the battle-field, now thickly studded with buildings, and told us what we had already learned from the guide-book. after this we went into the cathedral, which i will perhaps describe on some other occasion, when i shall have seen more of it, and to better advantage. the cloisters gave us the strongest impression of antiquity; the stone arches being so worn and blackened by time. still an american must always have imagined a better cathedral than this. there were some immense windows of painted glass, but all modern. in the chapter-house we found a coal-fire burning in a grate, and a large heap of old books--the library of the cathedral--in a discreditable state of decay,--mildewed, rotten, neglected for years. the sexton told us that they were to be arranged and better ordered. over the door, inside, hung two failed and tattered banners, being those of the cheshire regiment. the most utterly indescribable feature of chester is the rows, which every traveller has attempted to describe. at the height of several feet above some of the oldest streets, a walk runs through the front of the houses, which project over it. back of the walk there are shops; on the outer side is a space of two or three yards, where the shopmen place their tables, and stands, and show-cases; overhead, just high enough for persons to stand erect, a ceiling. at frequent intervals little narrow passages go winding in among the houses, which all along are closely conjoined, and seem to have no access or exit, except through the shops, or into these narrow passages, where you can touch each side with your elbows, and the top with your hand. we penetrated into one or two of them, and they smelt anciently and disagreeably. at one of the doors stood a pale-looking, but cheerful and good-natured woman, who told us that she had come to that house when first married, twenty-one years before, and had lived there ever since; and that she felt as if she had been buried through the best years of her life. she allowed us to peep into her kitchen and parlor,--small, dingy, dismal, but yet not wholly destitute of a home look. she said that she had seen two or three coffins in a day, during cholera times, carried out of that narrow passage into which her door opened. these avenues put me in mind of those which run through ant-hills, or those which a mole makes underground. this fashion of rows does not appear to be going out; and, for aught i can see, it may last hundreds of years longer. when a house becomes so old as to be uutenantable, it is rebuilt, and the new one is fashioned like the old, so far as regards the walk running through its front. many of the shops are very good, and even elegant, and these rows are the favorite places of business in chester. indeed, they have many advantages, the passengers being sheltered from the rain, and there being within the shops that dimmer light by which tradesmen like to exhibit their wares. a large proportion of the edifices in the rows must be comparatively modern; but there are some very ancient ones, with oaken frames visible on the exterior. the row, passing through these houses, is railed with oak, so old that it has turned black, and grown to be as hard as stone, which it might be mistaken for, if one did not see where names and initials have been cut into it with knives at some bygone period. overhead, cross-beams project through the ceiling so low as almost to hit the head. on the front of one of these buildings was the inscription, "god's providence is mine inheritance," said to have been put there by the occupant of the house two hundred years ago, when the plague spared this one house only in the whole city. not improbably the inscription has operated as a safeguard to prevent the demolition of the house hitherto; but a shopman of an adjacent dwelling told us that it was soon to be taken down. here and there, about some of the streets through which the rows do not run, we saw houses of very aged aspect, with steep, peaked gables. the front gable-end was supported on stone pillars, and the sidewalk passed beneath. most of these old houses seemed to be taverns,--the black bear, the green dragon, and such names. we thought of dining at one of them, but, on inspection, they looked rather too dingy and close, and of questionable neatness. so we went to the royal hotel, where we probably fared just as badly at much more expense, and where there was a particularly gruff and crabbed old waiter, who, i suppose, thought himself free to display his surliness because we arrived at the hotel on foot. for my part, i love to see john bull show himself. i must go again and again and again to chester, for i suppose there is not a more curious place in the world. mr. ticknor, who has been staying at rock park with us since tuesday, has steamed away in the canada this morning. his departure seems to make me feel more abroad, more dissevered from my native country, than before. october d.--saturday evening, at six, i went to dine with mr. aiken, a wealthy merchant here, to meet two of the sons of burns. there was a party of ten or twelve, mr. aiken and his two daughters included. the two sons of burns have both been in the indian army, and have attained the ranks of colonel and major; one having spent thirty, and the other twenty-seven years in india. they are now old gentlemen of sixty and upwards, the elder with a gray head, the younger with a perfectly white one,--rather under than above the middle stature, and with a british roundness of figure,--plain, respectable, intelligent-looking persons, with quiet manners. i saw no resemblance in either of them to any portrait of their father. after the ladies left the table, i sat next to the major, the younger of the two, and had a good deal of talk with him. he seemed a very kindly and social man, and was quite ready to speak about his father, nor was he at all reluctant to let it be seen how much he valued the glory of being descended from the poet. by and by, at mr. aiken's instance, he sang one of burns's songs,--the one about "annie" and the "rigs of barley." he sings in a perfectly simple style, so that it is little more than a recitative, and yet the effect is very good as to humor, sense, and pathos. after rejoining the ladies, he sang another, "a posie for my ain dear may," and likewise "a man's a man for a' that." my admiration of his father, and partly, perhaps, my being an american, gained me some favor with him, and he promised to give me what he considered the best engraving of burns, and some other remembrance of him. the major is that son of burns who spent an evening at abbotsford with sir walter scott, when, as lockhart writes, "the children sang the ballads of their sires." he spoke with vast indignation of a recent edition of his father's works by robert chambers, in which the latter appears to have wronged the poet by some misstatements.--i liked them both and they liked me, and asked me to go and see there at cheltenham, where they reside. we broke up at about midnight. the members of this dinner-party were of the more liberal tone of thinking here in liverpool. the colonel and major seemed to be of similar principles; and the eyes of the latter glowed, when he sang his father's noble verse, "the rank is but the guinea's stamp," etc. it would have been too pitiable if burns had left a son who could not feel the spirit of that verse. october th.--coning to my office, two or three mornings ago, i found mrs. ------, the mother of mr. ------, the insane young man of whom i had taken charge. she is a lady of fifty or thereabouts, and not very remarkable anyway, nor particularly lady-like. however, she was just come off a rapid journey, having travelled from naples, with three small children, without taking rest, since my letter reached her. a son (this proved to be her new husband) of about twenty had come with her to the consulate. she was, of course, infinitely grieved about the young man's insanity, and had two or three bursts of tears while we talked the matter over. she said he was the hope of her life,--the best, purest, most innocent child that ever was, and wholly free from every kind of vice. but it appears that he had a previous attack of insanity, lasting three months, about three years ago. after i had told her all i knew about him, including my personal observations at a visit a week or two since, we drove in a cab to the asylum. it must have been a dismal moment to the poor lady, as we entered the gateway through a tall, prison-like wall. being ushered into the parlor, the governor soon appeared, and informed us that mr. ------ had had a relapse within a few days, and was not now so well as when i saw him. he complains of unjust confinement, and seems to consider himself, if i rightly understand, under persecution for political reasons. the governor, however, proposed to call him down, and i took my leave, feeling that it would be indelicate to be present at his first interview with his mother. so here ended my guardianship of the poor young fellow. in the afternoon i called at the waterloo hotel, where mrs. ------ was staying, and found her in the coffee-room with the children. she had determined to take a lodging in the vicinity of the asylum, and was going to remove thither as soon as the children had had something to eat. they seemed to be pleasant and well-behaved children, and impressed me more favorably than the mother, whom i suspect to be rather a foolish woman, although her present grief makes her appear in a more respectable light than at other times. she seemed anxious to impress me with the respectability and distinction of her connections in america, and i had observed the same tendency in the insane patient, at my interview with him. however, she has undoubtedly a mother's love for this poor shatterbrain, and this may weigh against the folly of her marrying an incongruously youthful second husband, and many other follies. this was day before yesterday, and i have heard nothing of her since. the same day i had applications for assistance in two other domestic affairs; one from an irishman, naturalized in america, who wished me to get him a passage thither, and to take charge of his wife and family here, at my own private expense, until he could remit funds to carry them across. another was from an irishman, who had a power of attorney from a countrywoman of his in america, to find and take charge of an infant whom she had left in the liverpool work-house, two years ago. i have a great mind to keep a list of all the business i am consulted about and employed in. it would be very curious. among other things, all penniless americans, or pretenders to americanism, look upon me as their banker; and i could ruin myself any week, if i had not laid down a rule to consider every applicant for assistance an impostor until he prove himself a true and responsible man,--which it is very difficult to do. yesterday there limped in a very respectable-looking old man, who described himself as a citizen of baltimore, who had been on a trip to england and elsewhere, and, being detained longer than he expected, and having had an attack of rheumatism, was now short of funds to pay his passage home, and hoped that i would supply the deficiency. he had quite a plain, homely, though respectable manner, and, for aught i know, was the very honestest man alive; but as he could produce no kind of proof of his character and responsibility, i very quietly explained the impossibility of my helping him. i advised him to try to obtain a passage on board of some baltimore ship, the master of which might be acquainted with him, or, at all events, take his word for payment, after arrival. this he seemed inclined to do, and took his leave. there was a decided aspect of simplicity about this old man, and yet i rather judge him to be an impostor. it is easy enough to refuse money to strangers and unknown people, or whenever there may be any question about identity; but it will not be so easy when i am asked for money by persons whom i know, but do not like to trust. they shall meet the eternal "no," however. october th.--in ormerod's history of chester it is mentioned that randal, earl of chester, having made an inroad into wales about , the welshmen gathered in mass against him, and drove him into the castle of nothelert in flintshire. the earl sent for succor to the constable of chester, roger lacy, surnamed "hell," on account of his fierceness. it was then fair-time at chester, and the constable collected a miscellaneous rabble of fiddlers, players, cobblers, tailors, and all manner of debauched people, and led them to the relief of the earl. at sight of this strange army the welshmen fled; and forever after the earl assigned to the constable of chester power over all fiddlers, shoemakers, etc., within the bounds of cheshire. the constable retained for himself and his heirs the control of the shoemakers; and made over to his own steward, dutton, that of the fiddlers and players, and for many hundreds of years afterwards the duttons of dutton retained the power. on midsummer-day, they used to ride through chester, attended by all the minstrels playing on their several instruments, to the church of st. john, and there renew their licenses. it is a good theme for a legend. sir peter leycester, writing in charles the second's time, copies the latin deed from the constable to dutton; rightly translated, it seems to mean "the magisterial power over all the lewd people . . . . in the whole of cheshire," but the custom grew into what is above stated. in the time of henry vii., the duttons claimed, by prescriptive right, that the cheshire minstrels should deliver them, at the feast of st. john, four bottles of wine and a lance, and that each separate minstrel should pay fourpence halfpenny. . . . . another account says ralph dutton was the constable's son-in-law, and "a lusty youth." october th.--coming to the ferry this morning a few minutes before the boat arrived from town, i went into the ferry-house, a small stone edifice, and found there an irishman, his wife and three children, the oldest eight or nine years old, and all girls. there was a good fire burning in the room, and the family was clustered round it, apparently enjoying the warmth very much; but when i went in both husband and wife very hospitably asked me to come to the fire, although there was not more than room at it for their own party. i declined on the plea that i was warm enough, and then the woman said that they were very cold, having been long on the road. the man was gray-haired and gray-bearded, clad in an old drab overcoat, and laden with a huge bag, which seemed to contain bedclothing or something of the kind. the woman was pale, with a thin, anxious, wrinkled face, but with a good and kind expression. the children were quite pretty, with delicate faces, and a look of patience and endurance in them, but yet as if they had suffered as little as they possibly could. the two elder were cuddled up close to the father, the youngest, about four years old, sat in its mother's lap, and she had taken off its small shoes and stockings, and was warming its feet at the fire. their little voices had a sweet and kindly sound as they talked in low tones to their parents and one another. they all looked very shabby, and yet had a decency about them; and it was touching to see how they made themselves at home at this casual fireside, and got all the comfort they could out of the circumstances. by and by two or three market-women came in and looked pleasantly at them, and said a word or two to the children. they did not beg of me, as i supposed they would; but after looking at them awhile, i pulled out a piece of silver, and handed it to one of the little girls. she took it very readily, as if she partly expected it, and then the father and mother thanked me, and said they had been travelling a long distance, and had nothing to subsist upon, except what they picked up on the road. they found it impossible to live in england, and were now on their way to liverpool, hoping to get a passage back to ireland, where, i suppose, extreme poverty is rather better off than here. i heard the little girl say that she should buy bread with the money. there is not much that can be caught in the description of this scene; but it made me understand, better than before, how poor people feel, wandering about in such destitute circumstances, and how they suffer; and yet how they have a life not quite miserable, after all, and how family love goes along with them. soon the boat arrived at the pier, and we all went on board; and as i sat in the cabin, looking up through a broken pane in the skylight, i saw the woman's thin face, with its anxious, motherly aspect; and the youngest child in her arms, shrinking from the chill wind, but yet not impatiently; and the eldest of the girls standing close by with her expression of childish endurance, but yet so bright and intelligent that it would evidently take but a few days to make a happy and playful child of her. i got into the interior of this poor family, and understand, through sympathy, more of them than i can tell. i am getting to possess some of the english indifference as to beggars and poor people; but still, whenever i come face to face with them, and have any intercourse, it seems as if they ought to be the better for me. i wish, instead of sixpence, i had given the poor family ten shillings, and denied it to a begging subscriptionist, who has just fleeced me to that amount. how silly a man feels in this latter predicament! i have had a good many visitors at the consulate from the united states within a short time,--among others, mr. d. d. barnard, our late minister to berlin, returning homeward to-day by the arctic; and mr. sickles, secretary of legation to london, a fine-looking, intelligent, gentlemanly young man. . . . . with him came judge douglas, the chosen man of young america. he is very short, extremely short, but has an uncommonly good head, and uncommon dignity without seeming to aim at it, being free and simple in manners. i judge him to be a very able man, with the western sociability and free-fellowship. generally i see no reason to be ashamed of my countrymen who come out here in public position, or otherwise assuming the rank of gentlemen. october th.--one sees incidents in the streets here, occasionally, which could not be seen in an american city. for instance, a week or two since, i was passing a quiet-looking, elderly gentleman, when, all of a sudden, without any apparent provocation, he uplifted his stick, and struck a black-gowned boy a smart blow on the shoulders. the boy looked at him wofully and resentfully, but said nothing, nor can i imagine why the thing was done. in tythebarne street to-day i saw a woman suddenly assault a man, clutch at his hair, and cuff him about the ears. the man, who was of decent aspect enough, immediately took to his heels, full speed, and the woman ran after him, and, as far as i could discern the pair, the chase continued. october d.--at a dinner-party at mr. holland's last evening, a gentleman, in instance of charles dickens's unweariability, said that during some theatrical performances in liverpool he acted in play and farce, spent the rest of the night making speeches, feasting, and drinking at table, and ended at seven o'clock in the morning by jumping leap-frog over the backs of the whole company. in moore's diary he mentions a beautiful guernsey lily having been given to his wife, and says that the flower was originally from guernsey. a ship from there had been wrecked on the coast of japan, having many of the lilies on board, and the next year the flowers appeared,--springing up, i suppose, on the wave-beaten strand. wishing to send a letter to a dead man, who may be supposed to have gone to tophet,--throw it into the fire. sir arthur aston had his brains beaten out with his own wooden leg, at the storming of tredagh in ireland by cromwell. in the county of cheshire, many centuries ago, there lived a half-idiot, named nixon, who had the gift of prophecy, and made many predictions about places, families, and important public events, since fulfilled. he seems to have fallen into fits of insensibility previous to uttering his prophecies. the family of mainwaring (pronounced mannering), of bromborough, had an ass's head for a crest. "richard dawson, being sick of the plague, and perceiving he must die, rose out of his bed and made his grave, and caused his nephew to cast straw into the grave, which was not far from the house, and went and laid him down in the said grave, and caused clothes to be laid upon him, and so departed out of this world. this he did because he was a strong man, and heavier than his said nephew and a serving-wench were able to bury. he died about the th of august. thus was i credibly told he did, ." this was in the township of malpas, recorded in the parish register. at bickley hall, taken down a few years ago, used to be shown the room where the body of the earl of leicester was laid for a whole twelvemonth,-- to ,--he having been kept unburied all that time, owing to a dispute which of his heirs should pay his funeral expenses. november th.--we all, together with mr. squarey, went to chester last sunday, and attended the cathedral service. a great deal of ceremony, and not unimposing, but rather tedious before it was finished,--occupying two hours or more. the bishop was present, but did nothing except to pronounce the benediction. in america the sermon is the principal thing; but here all this magnificent ceremonial of prayer and chanted responses and psalms and anthems was the setting to a short, meagre discourse, which would not have been considered of any account among the elaborate intellectual efforts of new england ministers. while this was going on, the light came through the stained glass windows and fell upon the congregation, tingeing them with crimson. after service we wandered about the aisles, and looked at the tombs and monuments,--the oldest of which was that of some nameless abbot, with a staff and mitre half obliterated from his tomb, which was under a shallow arch on one side of the cathedral. there were also marbles on the walls, and lettered stones in the pavement under our feet; but chiefly, if not entirely, of modern date. we lunched at the royal hotel, and then walked round the city walls, also crossing the bridge of one great arch over the dee, and penetrating as far into wales as the entrance of the marquis of westminster's park at eaton. it was, i think, the most lovely day as regards weather that i have seen in england. i passed, to-day, a man chanting a ballad in the street about a recent murder, in a voice that had innumerable cracks in it, and was most lugubrious. the other day i saw a man who was reading in a loud voice what seemed to be an account of the late riots and loss of life in wigan. he walked slowly along the street as he read, surrounded by a small crowd of men, women, and children; and close by his elbow stalked a policeman, as if guarding against a disturbance. november th.--there is a heavy dun fog on the river and over the city to-day, the very gloomiest atmosphere that ever i was acquainted with. on the river the steamboats strike gongs or ring bells to give warning of their approach. there are lamps burning in the counting-rooms and lobbies of the warehouses, and they gleam distinctly through the windows. the other day, at the entrance of the market-house, i saw a woman sitting in a small hand-wagon, apparently for the purpose of receiving alms. there was no attendant at hand; but i noticed that one or two persons who passed by seemed to inquire whether she wished her wagon to be moved. perhaps this is her mode of making progress about the city, by the voluntary aid of boys and other people who help to drag her. there is something in this--i don't yet well know what--that has impressed me, as if i could make a romance out of the idea of a woman living in this manner a public life, and moving about by such means. november th.--mr. h. a. b. told me of his friend mr. ------ (who was formerly attache to the british legation at washington, and whom i saw at concord), that his father, a clergyman, married a second wife. after the marriage, the noise of a coffin being nightly carried down the stairs was heard in the parsonage. it could be distinguished when the coffin reached a certain broad lauding and rested on it. finally, his father had to remove to another residence. besides this, mr. ------ had had another ghostly experience,--having seen a dim apparition of an uncle at the precise instant when the latter died in a distant place. the attache is a credible and honorable fellow, and talks of these matters as if he positively believed them. but ghostland lies beyond the jurisdiction of veracity. in a garden near chester, in taking down a summer-house, a tomb was discovered beneath it, with a latin inscription to the memory of an old doctor of medicine, william bentley, who had owned the place long ago, and died in . and his dust and bones had lain beneath all the merry times in the summer-house. december st.--it is curious to observe how many methods people put in practice here to pick up a halfpenny. yesterday i saw a man standing bareheaded and barelegged in the mud and misty weather, playing on a fife, in hopes to get a circle of auditors. nobody, however, seemed to take any notice. very often a whole band of musicians will strike up,-- passing a hat round after playing a tune or two. on board the ferry, until the coldest weather began, there were always some wretched musicians, with an old fiddle, an old clarinet, and an old verdigrised brass bugle, performing during the passage, and, as the boat neared the shore, sending round one of their number to gather contributions in the hollow of the brass bugle. they were a very shabby set, and must have made a very scanty living at best. sometimes it was a boy with an accordion, and his sister, a smart little girl, with a timbrel,--which, being so shattered that she could not play on it, she used only to collect halfpence in. ballad-singers, or rather chanters or croakers, are often to be met with in the streets, but hand-organ players are not more frequent than in our cities. i still observe little girls and other children barelegged and barefooted on the wet sidewalks. there certainly never was anything so dismal as the november weather has been; never any real sunshine; almost always a mist; sometimes a dense fog, like slightly rarefied wool, pervading the atmosphere. an epitaph on a person buried on a hillside in cheshire, together with some others, supposed to have died of the plague, and therefore not admitted into the churchyards:-- "think it not strange our bones ly here, thine may ly thou knowst not where." elizabeth hampson. these graves were near the remains of two rude stone crosses, the purpose of which was not certainly known, although they were supposed to be boundary marks. probably, as the plague-corpses were debarred from sanctified ground, the vicinity of these crosses was chosen as having a sort of sanctity. "bang beggar,"--an old cheshire term for a parish beadle. hawthorne hall, cheshire, macclesfield hundred, parish of wilmslow, and within the hamlet of morley. it was vested at an early period in the lathoms of irlam, lancaster county, and passed through the leighs to the pages of earlshaw. thomas leigh page sold it to mr. ralph bower of wilmslow, whose children owned it in . the leighs built a chancel in the church of wilmslow, where some of them are buried, their arms painted in the windows. the hall is an "ancient, respectable mansion of brick." december d.--yesterday, a chill, misty december day, yet i saw a woman barefooted in the street, not to speak of children. cold and uncertain as the weather is, there is still a great deal of small trade carried on in the open air. women and men sit in the streets with a stock of combs and such small things to sell, the women knitting as if they sat by a fireside. cheap crockery is laid out in the street, so far out that without any great deviation from the regular carriage-track a wheel might pass straight through it. stalls of apples are innumerable, but the apples are not fit for a pig. in some streets herrings are very abundant, laid out on boards. coals seem to be for sale by the wheelbarrowful. here and there you see children with some small article for sale,--as, for instance, a girl with two linen caps. a somewhat overladen cart of coal was passing along and some small quantity of the coal fell off; no sooner had the wheels passed than several women and children gathered to the spot, like hens and chickens round a handful of corn, and picked it up in their aprons. we have nothing similar to these street-women in our country. december th.--i don't know any place that brings all classes into contiguity on equal ground so completely as the waiting-room at rock ferry on these frosty days. the room is not more than eight feet, square, with walls of stone, and wooden benches ranged round them, and an open stove in one corner, generally well furnished with coal. it is almost always crowded, and i rather suspect that many persons who have no fireside elsewhere creep in here and spend the most comfortable part of their day. this morning, when i looked into the room, there were one or two gentlemen and other respectable persons; but in the best place, close to the fire, and crouching almost into it, was an elderly beggar, with the raggedest of overcoats, two great rents in the shoulders of it disclosing the dingy lining, all bepatched with various stuff covered with dirt, and on his shoes and trousers the mud of an interminable pilgrimage. owing to the posture in which he sat, i could not see his face, but only the battered crown and rim of the very shabbiest hat that ever was worn. regardless of the presence of women (which, indeed, englishmen seldom do regard when they wish to smoke), he was smoking a pipe of vile tobacco; but, after all, this was fortunate, because the man himself was not personally fragrant. he was terribly squalid,--terribly; and when i had a glimpse of his face, it well befitted the rest of his development,-- grizzled, wrinkled, weather-beaten, yet sallow, and down-looking, with a watchful kind of eye turning upon everybody and everything, meeting the glances of other people rather boldly, yet soon shrinking away; a long thin nose, a gray beard of a week's growth; hair not much mixed with gray, but rusty and lifeless;--a miserable object; but it was curious to see how he was not ashamed of himself, but seemed to feel that he was one of the estates of the kingdom, and had as much right to live as other men. he did just as he pleased, took the best place by the fire, nor would have cared though a nobleman were forced to stand aside for him. when the steamer's bell rang, he shouldered a large and heavy pack, like a pilgrim with his burden of sin, but certainly journeying to hell instead of heaven. on board he looked round for the best position, at first stationing himself near the boiler-pipe; but, finding the deck damp underfoot, he went to the cabin-door, and took his stand on the stairs, protected from the wind, but very incommodiously placed for those who wished to pass. all this was done without any bravado or forced impudence, but in the most quiet way, merely because he was seeking his own comfort, and considered that he had a right to seek it. it was an englishman's spirit; but in our country, i imagine, a beggar considers himself a kind of outlaw, and would hardly assume the privileges of a man in any place of public resort. here beggary is a system, and beggars are a numerous class, and make themselves, in a certain way, respected as such. nobody evinced the slightest disapprobation of the man's proceedings. in america, i think, we should see many aristocratic airs on such provocation, and probably the ferry people would there have rudely thrust the beggar aside; giving him a shilling, however, which no englishman would ever think of doing. there would also have been a great deal of fun made of his squalid and ragged figure; whereas nobody smiled at him this morning, nor in any way showed the slightest disrespect. this is good; but it is the result of a state of things by no means good. for many days there has been a great deal of fog on the river, and the boats have groped their way along, continually striking their bells, while, on all sides, there are responses of bell and gong; and the vessels at anchor look shadow-like as we glide past them, and the master of one steamer shouts a warning to the master of another which he meets. the englishmen, who hate to run any risk without an equivalent object, show a good deal of caution and timidity on these foggy days. december th.--chill, frosty weather; such an atmosphere as forebodes snow in new england, and there has been a little here. yet i saw a barefooted young woman yesterday. the feet of these poor creatures have exactly the red complexion of their hands, acquired by constant exposure to the cold air. at the ferry-room, this morning, was a small, thin, anxious-looking woman, with a bundle, seeming in rather poor circumstances, but decently dressed, and eying other women, i thought, with an expression of slight ill-will and distrust; also, an elderly, stout, gray-haired woman, of respectable aspect, and two young lady-like persons, quite pretty, one of whom was reading a shilling volume of james's "arabella stuart." they talked to one another with that up-and-down intonation which english ladies practise, and which strikes an unaccustomed ear as rather affected, especially in women of size and mass. it is very different from an american lady's mode of talking: there is the difference between color and no color; the tone variegates it. one of these young ladies spoke to me, making some remark about the weather,--the first instance i have met with of a gentlewoman's speaking to an unintroduced gentleman. besides these, a middle-aged man of the lower class, and also a gentleman's out-door servant, clad in a drab great-coat, corduroy breeches, and drab cloth gaiters buttoned from the knee to the ankle. he complained to the other man of the cold weather; said that a glass of whiskey, every half-hour, would keep a man comfortable; and, accidentally hitting his coarse foot against one of the young lady's feet, said, "beg pardon, ma'am,"--which she acknowledged with a slight movement of the head. somehow or other, different classes seem to encounter one another in an easier manner than with us; the shock is less palpable. i suppose the reason is that the distinctions are real, and therefore need not be continually asserted. nervous and excitable persons need to talk a great deal, by way of letting off their steam. on board the rock ferry steamer, a gentleman coming into the cabin, a voice addresses him from a dark corner, "how do you do, sir?"--"speak again!" says the gentleman. no answer from the dark corner; and the gentleman repeats, "speak again!" the speaker now comes out of the dark corner, and sits down in a place where he can be seen. "ah!" cries the gentleman, "very well, i thank you. how do you do? i did not recognize your voice." observable, the english caution, shown in the gentleman's not vouchsafing to say, "very well, thank you!" till he knew his man. what was the after life of the young man, whom jesus, looking on, "loved," and bade him sell all that he had, and give to the poor, and take up his cross and follow him? something very deep and beautiful might be made out of this. december st.--among the beggars of liverpool, the hardest to encounter is a man without any legs, and, if i mistake not, likewise deficient in arms. you see him before you all at once, as if he had sprouted halfway out of the earth, and would sink down and reappear in some other place the moment he has done with you. his countenance is large, fresh, and very intelligent; but his great power lies in his fixed gaze, which is inconceivably difficult to bear. he never once removes his eye from you till you are quite past his range; and you feel it all the same, although you do not meet his glance. he is perfectly respectful; but the intentness and directness of his silent appeal is far worse than any impudence. in fact, it is the very flower of impudence. i would rather go a mile about than pass before his battery. i feel wronged by him, and yet unutterably ashamed. there must be great force in the man to produce such an effect. there is nothing of the customary squalidness of beggary about him, but remarkable trimness and cleanliness. a girl of twenty or thereabouts, who vagabondizes about the city on her hands and knees, possesses, to a considerable degree, the same characteristics. i think they hit their victims the more effectually from being below the common level of vision. january d, .--night before last there was a fall of snow, about three or four inches, and, following it, a pretty hard frost. on the river, the vessels at anchor showed the snow along their yards, and on every ledge where it could lie. a blue sky and sunshine overhead, and apparently a clear atmosphere close at hand; but in the distance a mistiness became perceptible, obscuring the shores of the river, and making the vessels look dim and uncertain. the steamers were ploughing along, smoking their pipes through the frosty air. on the landing stage and in the streets, hard-trodden snow, looking more like my new england home than anything i have yet seen. last night the thermometer fell as low as degrees, nor probably is it above degrees to-day. no such frost has been known in england these forty years! and mr. wilding tells me that he never saw so much snow before. january th.--i saw, yesterday, stopping at a cabinet-maker's shop in church street, a coach with four beautiful white horses, and a postilion on each near-horse; behind, in the dicky, a footman; and on the box a coachman, all dressed in livery. the coach-panel bore a coat-of-arms with a coronet, and i presume it must have been the equipage of the earl of derby. a crowd of people stood round, gazing at the coach and horses; and when any of them spoke, it was in a lower tone than usual. i doubt not they all had a kind of enjoyment of the spectacle, for these english are strangely proud of having a class above them. every englishman runs to "the times" with his little grievance, as a child runs to his mother. i was sent for to the police court the other morning, in the case of an american sailor accused of robbing a shipmate at sea. a large room, with a great coal-fire burning on one side, and above it the portrait of mr. rushton, deceased, a magistrate of many years' continuance. a long table, with chairs, and a witness-box. one of the borough magistrates, a merchant of the city, sat at the head of the table, with paper and pen and ink before him; but the real judge was the clerk of the court, whose professional knowledge and experience governed all the proceedings. in the short time while i was waiting, two cases were tried, in the first of which the prisoner was discharged. the second case was of a woman,--a thin, sallow, hard-looking, careworn, rather young woman,--for stealing a pair of slippers out of a shop: the trial occupied five minutes or less, and she was sentenced to twenty-one days' imprisonment,--whereupon, without speaking, she looked up wildly first into one policeman's face, then into another's, at the same time wringing her hands with no theatric gesture, but because her torment took this outward shape,--and was led away. the yankee sailor was then brought up,--an intelligent, but ruffian-like fellow,--and as the case was out of the jurisdiction of the english magistrates, and as it was not worth while to get him sent over to america for trial, he was forthwith discharged. he stole a comforter. if mankind were all intellect, they would be continually changing, so that one age would be entirely unlike another. the great conservative is the heart, which remains the same in all ages; so that commonplaces of a thousand years' standing are as effective as ever. monday, february th.--at the police court on saturday, i attended the case of the second mate and four seamen of the john and albert, for assaulting, beating, and stabbing the chief mate. the chief mate has been in the hospital ever since the assault, and was brought into the court to-day to give evidence,--a man of thirty, black hair, black eyes, a dark complexion, disagreeable expression; sallow, emaciated, feeble, apparently in pain, one arm disabled. he sat bent and drawn upward, and had evidently been severely hurt, and was not yet fit to be out of bed. he had some brandy-and-water to enable him to sustain himself. he gave his evidence very clearly, beginning (sailor-like) with telling in what quarter the wind was at the time of the assault, and which sail was taken in. his testimony bore on one man only, at whom he cast a vindictive look; but i think he told the truth as far as he knew and remembered it. of the prisoners the second mate was a mere youth, with long sandy hair, and an intelligent and not unprepossessing face, dressed as neatly as a three or four weeks' captive, with small, or no means, could well allow, in a frock-coat, and with clean linen,--the only linen or cotton shirt in the company. the other four were rude, brutish sailors, in flannel or red-baize shirts. three of them appeared to give themselves little concern; but the fourth, a red-haired and red-bearded man,--paraman, by name,--evidently felt the pressure of the case upon himself. he was the one whom the mate swore to have given him the first blow; and there was other evidence of his having been stabbed with a knife. the captain of the ship, the pilot, the cook, and the steward, all gave their evidence; and the general bearing of it was, that the chief mate had a devilish temper, and had misused the second mate and crew,--that the four seamen had attacked him, and that paraman had stabbed him; while all but the steward concurred in saying that the second mate had taken no part in the affray. the steward, however, swore to having seen him strike the chief mate with a wooden marlinspike, which was broken by the blow. the magistrate dismissed all but paraman, whom i am to send to america for trial. in my opinion the chief mate got pretty nearly what he deserved, under the code of natural justice. while business was going forward, the magistrate, mr. mansfield, talked about a fancy ball at which he had been present the evening before, and of other matters grave and gay. it was very informal; we sat at the table, or stood with our backs to the fire; policemen came and went; witnesses were sworn on the greasiest copy of the gospels i ever saw, polluted by hundreds and thousands of perjured kisses; and for hours the prisoners were kept standing at the foot of the table, interested to the full extent of their capacity, while all others were indifferent. at the close of the case, the police officers and witnesses applied to me about their expenses. yesterday i took a walk with my wife and two children to bebbington church. a beautifully sunny morning. my wife and u. attended church, j. and i continued our walk. when we were at a little distance from the church, the bells suddenly chimed out with a most cheerful sound, and sunny as the morning. it is a pity we have no chimes of bells, to give the churchward summons, at home. people were standing about the ancient church-porch and among the tombstones. in the course of our walk, we passed many old thatched cottages, built of stone, and with what looked like a cow-house or pigsty at one end, making part of the cottage; also an old stone farm-house, which may have been a residence of gentility in its day. we passed, too, a small methodist chapel, making one of a row of low brick edifices. there was a sound of prayer within. i never saw a more unbeautiful place of worship; and it had not even a separate existence for itself, the adjoining tenement being an alehouse. the grass along the wayside was green, with a few daisies. there was green holly in the hedges, and we passed through a wood, up some of the tree-trunks of which ran clustering ivy. february d.--there came to see me the other day a young gentleman with a mustache and a blue cloak, who announced himself as william allingham, and handed me a copy of his poems, a thin volume, with paper covers, published by routledge. i thought i remembered hearing his name, but had never seen any of his works. his face was intelligent, dark, pleasing, and not at all john-bullish. he said that he had been employed in the customs in ireland, and was now going to london to live by literature,-- to be connected with some newspaper, i imagine. he had been in london before, and was acquainted with some of the principal literary people,-- among others, tennyson and carlyle. he seemed to have been on rather intimate terms with tennyson. we talked awhile in my dingy and dusky consulate, and he then took leave. his manners are good, and he appears to possess independence of mind. yesterday i saw a british regiment march down to george's pier, to embark in the niagara for malta. the troops had nothing very remarkable about them; but the thousands of ragged and squalid wretches, who thronged the pier and streets to gaze on them, were what i had not seen before in such masses. this was the first populace i have beheld; for even the irish, on the other side of the water, acquire a respectability of aspect. john bull is going with his whole heart into the turkish war. he is very foolish. whatever the czar may propose to himself, it is for the interest of democracy that he should not be easily put down. the regiment, on its way to embark, carried the queen's colors, and, side by side with them, the banner of the th,--yellow, with the names of the peninsular and other battles in which it had been engaged inscribed on it in a double column. it is a very distinguished regiment; and mr. henry bright mentioned as one of its distinctions, that washington had formerly been an officer in it. i never heard of this. february th.--we walked to woodside in the pleasant forenoon, and thence crossed to liverpool. on our way to woodside, we saw the remains of the old birkenhead priory, built of the common red freestone, much time-worn, with ivy creeping over it, and birds evidently at hone in its old crevices. these ruins are pretty extensive, and seem to be the remains of a quadrangle. a handsome modern church, likewise of the same red freestone, has been built on part of the site occupied by the priory; and the organ was sounding within, while we walked about the premises. on some of the ancient arches, there were grotesquely carved stone faces. the old walls have been sufficiently restored to make them secure, without destroying their venerable aspect. it is a very interesting spot; and so much the more so because a modern town, with its brick and stone houses, its flags and pavements, has sprung up about the ruins, which were new a thousand years ago. the station of the chester railway is within a hundred yards. formerly the monks of this priory kept the only ferry that then existed on the mersey. at a dinner at mr. bramley moore's a little while ago, we had a prairie-hen from the west of america. it was a very delicate bird, and a gentleman carved it most skilfully to a dozen guests, and had still a second slice to offer to them. aboard the ferry-boat yesterday, there was a laboring man eating oysters. he took them one by one from his pocket in interminable succession, opened them with his jack-knife, swallowed each one, threw the shell overboard, and then sought for another. having concluded his meal, he took out a clay tobacco-pipe, filled it, lighted it with a match, and smoked it,--all this, while the other passengers were looking at him, and with a perfect coolness and independence, such as no single man can ever feel in america. here a man does not seem to consider what other people will think of his conduct, but only whether it suits his own convenience to do so and so. it may be the better way. a french military man, a veteran of all napoleon's wars, is now living, with a false leg and arm, both movable by springs, false teeth, a false eye, a silver nose with a flesh-colored covering, and a silver plate replacing part of the skull. he has the cross of the legion of honor. march th.--on saturday i went with mr. b---- to the dingle, a pleasant domain on the banks of the mersey almost opposite to rock ferry. walking home, we looked into mr. thorn's unitarian chapel, mr. b----'s family's place of worship. there is a little graveyard connected with the chapel, a most uninviting and unpicturesque square of ground, perhaps thirty or forty yards across, in the midst of back fronts of city buildings. about half the space was occupied by flat tombstones, level with the ground, the remainder being yet vacant. nevertheless, there were perhaps more names of men generally known to the world on these few tombstones than in any other churchyard in liverpool,--roscoe, blanco white, and the rev. william enfield, whose name has a classical sound in my ears, because, when a little boy, i used to read his "speaker" at school. in the vestry of the chapel there were many books, chiefly old theological works, in ancient print and binding, much mildewed and injured by the damp. the body of the chapel is neat, but plain, and, being not very large, has a kind of social and family aspect, as if the clergyman and his people must needs have intimate relations among themselves. the unitarian sect in liverpool have, as a body, great wealth and respectability. yesterday i walked with my wife and children to the brow of a hill, overlooking birkenhead and tranmere, and commanding a fine view of the river, and liverpool beyond. all round about new and neat residences for city people are springing up, with fine names,--eldon terrace, rose cottage, belvoir villa, etc., etc., with little patches of ornamented garden or lawn in front, and heaps of curious rock-work, with which the english are ridiculously fond of adorning their front yards. i rather think the middling classes--meaning shopkeepers, and other respectabilities of that level--are better lodged here than in america; and, what i did not expect, the houses are a great deal newer than in our new country! of course, this can only be the case in places circumstanced like liverpool and its suburbs. but, scattered among these modern villas, there are old stone cottages of the rudest structure, and doubtless hundreds of years old, with thatched roofs, into which the grass has rooted itself, and now looks verdant. these cottages are in themselves as ugly as possible, resembling a large kind of pigsty; but often, by dint of the verdure on their thatch and the shrubbery clustering about them, they look picturesque. the old-fashioned flowers in the gardens of new england--blue-bells, crocuses, primroses, foxglove, and many others--appear to be wild flowers here on english soil. there is something very touching and pretty in this fact, that the puritans should have carried their field and hedge flowers, and nurtured theme in their gardens, until, to us, they seem entirely the product of cultivation. march th.--yesterday, at the coroner's court, attending the inquest on a black sailor who died on board an american vessel, after her arrival at this port. the court-room is capable of accommodating perhaps fifty people, dingy, with a pyramidal skylight above, and a single window on one side, opening into a gloomy back court. a private room, also lighted with a pyramidal skylight, is behind the court-room, into which i was asked, and found the coroner, a gray-headed, grave, intelligent, broad, red-faced man, with an air of some authority, well mannered and dignified, but not exactly a gentleman,--dressed in a blue coat, with a black cravat, showing a shirt-collar above it. considering how many and what a variety of cases of the ugliest death are constantly coming before him, he was much more cheerful than could be expected, and had a kind of formality and orderliness which i suppose balances the exceptionalities with which he has to deal. in the private room with him was likewise the surgeon, who professionally attends the court. we chatted about suicide and such matters,--the surgeon, the coroner, and i,--until the american case was ready, when we adjourned to the court-room, and the coroner began the examination. the american captain was a rude, uncouth down-easter, about thirty years old, and sat on a bench, doubled and bent into an indescribable attitude, out of which he occasionally straightened himself, all the time toying with a ruler, or some such article. the case was one of no interest; the man had been frost-bitten, and died from natural causes, so that no censure was deserved or passed upon the captain. the jury, who had been examining the body, were at first inclined to think that the man had not been frostbitten, but that his feet had been immersed in boiling water; but, on explanation by the surgeon, readily yielded their opinion, and gave the verdict which the coroner put into their mouths, exculpating the captain from all blame. in fact, it is utterly impossible that a jury of chance individuals should not be entirely governed by the judgment of so experienced and weighty a man as the coroner. in the court-room were two or three police officers in uniform, and some other officials, a very few idle spectators, and a few witnesses waiting to be examined. and while the case was going forward, a poor-looking woman came in, and i heard her, in an undertone, telling an attendant of a death that had just occurred. the attendant received the communication in a very quiet and matter-of-course way, said that it should be attended to, and the woman retired. the diary of a coroner would be a work likely to meet with large popular acceptance. a dark passageway, only a few yards in extent, leads from the liveliest street in liverpool to this coroner's court-room, where all the discussion is about murder and suicide. it seems, that, after a verdict of suicide, the corpse can only be buried at midnight, without religious rites. "his lines are cast in pleasant places,"--applied to a successful angler. a woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats. you may strip off the outer ones without doing much mischief, perhaps none at all; but you keep taking off one after another, in expectation of coming to the inner nucleus, including the whole value of the matter. it proves however, that there is no such nucleus, and that chastity is diffused through the whole series of coats, is lessened with the removal of each, and vanishes with the final one, which you supposed would introduce you to the hidden pearl. march d.--mr. b. and i took a cab saturday afternoon, and drove out of the city in the direction of knowsley. on our way we saw many gentlemen's or rich people's places, some of them dignified with the title of halls,--with lodges at their gates, and standing considerably removed from the road. the greater part of them were built of brick,--a material with which i have not been accustomed to associate ideas of grandeur; but it was much in use here in lancashire, in the elizabethan age,--more, i think, than now. these suburban residences, however, are of much later date than elizabeth's time. among other places, mr. b. called at the hazels, the residence of sir thomas birch, a kinsman of his. it is a large brick mansion, and has old trees and shrubbery about it, the latter very fine and verdant,--hazels, holly, rhododendron, etc. mr. b. went in, and shortly afterwards sir thomas birch came out,--a very frank and hospitable gentleman,--and pressed me to enter and take luncheon, which latter hospitality i declined. his house is in very nice order. he had a good many pictures, and, amongst them, a small portrait of his mother, painted by sir thomas lawrence, when a youth. it is unfinished, and when the painter was at the height of his fame, he was asked to finish it. but lawrence, after looking at the picture, refused to retouch it, saying that there was a merit in this early sketch which he could no longer attain. it was really a very beautiful picture of a lovely woman. sir thomas birch proposed to go with us and get us admittance into knowsley park, where we could not possibly find entrance without his aid. so we went to the stables, where the old groom had already shown hospitality to our cabman, by giving his horse some provender, and himself some beer. there seemed to be a kindly and familiar sort of intercourse between the old servant and the baronet, each of them, i presume, looking on their connection as indissoluble. the gate-warden of knowsley park was an old woman, who readily gave us admittance at sir thomas birch's request. the family of the earl of derby is not now at the park. it was a very bad time of year to see it; the trees just showing the earliest symptoms of vitality, while whole acres of ground were covered with large, dry, brown ferns,--which i suppose are very beautiful when green. two or three hares scampered out of these ferns, and sat on their hind legs looking about them, as we drove by. a sheet of water had been drawn off, in order to deepen its bed. the oaks did not seem to me so magnificent as they should be in an ancient noble property like this. a century does not accomplish so much for a tree, in this slow region, as it does in ours. i think, however, that they were more individual and picturesque, with more character in their contorted trunks; therein somewhat resembling apple-trees. our forest-trees have a great sameness of character, like our people,-- because one and the other grow too closely. in one part of the park we came to a small tower, for what purpose i know not, unless as an observatory; and near it was a marble statue on a high pedestal. the statue had been long exposed to the weather, and was overgrown and ingrained with moss and lichens, so that its classic beauty was in some sort gothicized. a half-mile or so from this point, we saw the mansion of kuowsley, in the midst of a very fine prospect, with a tolerably high ridge of hills in the distance. the house itself is exceedingly vast, a front and two wings, with suites of rooms, i suppose, interminable. the oldest part, sir thomas birch told us, is a tower of the time of henry vii. nevertheless, the effect is not overwhelming, because the edifice looks low in proportion to its great extent over the ground; and besides, a good deal of it is built of brick, with white window-frames, so that, looking at separate parts, i might think them american structures, without the smart addition of green venetian blinds, so universal with us. portions, however, were built of red freestone; and if i had looked at it longer, no doubt i should have admired it more. we merely drove round it from the rear to the front. it stands in my memory rather like a college or a hospital, than as the ancestral residence of a great english noble. we left the park in another direction, and passed through a part of lord sefton's property, by a private road. by the by, we saw half a dozen policemen, in their blue coats and embroidered collars, after entering knowsley park; but the earl's own servants would probably have supplied their place, had the family been at home. the mansion of croxteth, the seat of lord sefton, stands near the public road, and, though large, looked of rather narrow compass after knowsley. the rooks were talking together very loquaciously in the high tops of the trees near sir thomas birch's house, it being now their building-time. it was a very pleasant sound, the noise being comfortably softened by the remote height. sir thomas said that more than half a century ago the rooks used to inhabit another grove of lofty trees, close in front of the house; but being noisy, and not altogether cleanly in their habits, the ladies of the family grew weary of them and wished to remove them. accordingly, the colony was driven away, and made their present settlement in a grove behind the house. ever since that time not a rook has built in the ancient grove; every year, however, one or another pair of young rooks attempt to build among the deserted tree-tops, but the old rooks tear the new nest to pieces as often as it is put together. thus, either the memory of aged individual rooks or an authenticated tradition in their society has preserved the idea that the old grove is forbidden and inauspicious to them. a soil of general arnold, named william fitch arnold, and born in , now possesses the estate of little messenden abbey, bucks county, and is a magistrate for that county. he was formerly captain of the th lancers. he has now two sons and four daughters. the other three sons of general arnold, all older than this one, and all military men, do not appear to have left children; but a daughter married to colonel phipps, of the mulgrave family, has a son and two daughters. i question whether any of our true-hearted revolutionary heroes have left a more prosperous progeny than this arch-traitor. i should like to know their feelings with respect to their ancestor. april d.--i walked with j-----, two days ago, to eastham, a village on the road to chester, and five or six miles from rock ferry. on our way we passed through a village, in the centre of which was a small stone pillar, standing on a pedestal of several steps, on which children were sitting and playing. i take it to have been an old catholic cross; at least, i know not what else it is. it seemed very ancient. eastham is the finest old english village i have seen, with many antique houses, and with altogether a rural and picturesque aspect, unlike anything in america, and yet possessing a familiar look, as if it were something i had dreamed about. there were thatched stone cottages intermixed with houses of a better kind, and likewise a gateway and gravelled walk, that perhaps gave admittance to the squire's mansion. it was not merely one long, wide street, as in most new england villages, but there were several crooked ways, gathering the whole settlement into a pretty small compass. in the midst of it stood a venerable church of the common red freestone, with a most reverend air, considerably smaller than that of bebbington, but more beautiful, and looking quite as old. there was ivy on its spire and elsewhere. it looked very quiet and peaceful, and as if it had received the people into its low arched door every sabbath for many centuries. there were many tombstones about it, some level with the ground, some raised on blocks of stone, on low pillars, moss-grown and weather-worn; and probably these were but the successors of other stones that had quite crumbled away, or been buried by the accumulation of dead men's dust above them. in the centre of the churchyard stood an old yew-tree, with immense trunk, which was all decayed within, so that it is a wonder how the tree retains any life,--which, nevertheless, it does. it was called "the old yew of eastham," six hundred years ago! after passing through the churchyard, we saw the village inn on the other side. the doors were fastened, but a girl peeped out of the window at us, and let us in, ushering us into a very neat parlor. there was a cheerful fire in the grate, a straw carpet on the floor, a mahogany sideboard, and a mahogany table in the middle of the room; and, on the walls, the portraits of mine host (no doubt) and of his wife and daughters,--a very nice parlor, and looking like what i might have found in a country tavern at home, only this was an ancient house, and there is nothing at home like the glimpse, from the window, of the church, and its red, ivy-grown tower. i ordered some lunch, being waited on by the girl, who was very neat, intelligent, and comely,--and more respectful than a new england maid. as we came out of the inn, some village urchins left their play, and ran to me begging, calling me "master!" they turned at once from play to begging, and, as i gave them nothing, they turned to their play again. this village is too far from liverpool to have been much injured as yet by the novelty of cockney residences, which have grown up almost everywhere else, so far as i have visited. about a mile from it, however, is the landing-place of a steamer (which runs regularly, except in the winter months), where a large, new hotel is built. the grounds about it are extensive and well wooded. we got some biscuits at the hotel, and i gave the waiter (a splendid gentleman in black) four halfpence, being the surplus of a shilling. he bowed and thanked me very humbly. an american does not easily bring his mind to the small measure of english liberality to servants; if anything is to be given, we are ashamed not to give more, especially to clerical-looking persons, in black suits and white neckcloths. i stood on the exchange at noon, to-day, to see the th regiment, the connaught rangers, marching down to embark for the east. they were a body of young, healthy, and cheerful-looking men, and looked greatly better than the dirty crowd that thronged to gaze at them. the royal banner of england, quartering the lion, the leopard, and the harp, waved on the town-house, and looked gorgeous and venerable. here and there a woman exchanged greetings with an individual soldier, as he marched along, and gentlemen shook hands with officers with whom they happened to be acquainted. being a stranger in the land, it seemed as if i could see the future in the present better than if i had been an englishman; so i questioned with myself how many of these ruddy-cheeked young fellows, marching so stoutly away, would ever tread english ground again. the populace did not evince any enthusiasm, yet there could not possibly be a war to which the country could assent more fully than to this. i somewhat doubt whether the english populace really feels a vital interest in the nation. some years ago, a piece of rude marble sculpture, representing st. george and the dragon, was found over the fireplace of a cottage near rock ferry, on the road to chester. it was plastered over with pipe-clay, and its existence was unknown to the cottagers, until a lady noticed the projection and asked what it was. it was supposed to have originally adorned the walls of the priory at birkenhead. it measured fourteen and a half by nine inches, in which space were the heads of a king and queen, with uplifted hands, in prayer; their daughters also in prayer, and looking very grim; a lamb, the slain dragon, and st. george, proudly prancing on what looks like a donkey, brandishing a sword over his head. the following is a legend inscribed on the inner margin of a curious old box:-- "from birkenhead into hilbree a squirrel might leap from tree to tree." i do not know where hilbree is; but all round birkenhead a squirrel would scarcely find a single tree to climb upon. all is pavement and brick buildings now. good friday.--the english and irish think it good to plant on this day, because it was the day when our saviour's body was laid in the grave. seeds, therefore, are certain to rise again. at dinner the other day, mrs. ------ mentioned the origin of franklin's adoption of the customary civil dress, when going to court as a diplomatist. it was simply that his tailor had disappointed him of his court suit, and he wore his plain one with great reluctance, because he had no other. afterwards, gaining great success and praise by his mishap, he continued to wear it from policy. the grandmother of mrs. ------ died fifty years ago, at the age of twenty-eight. she had great personal charms, and among them a head of beautiful chestnut hair. after her burial in the family tomb, the coffin of one of her children was laid on her own, so that the lid seems to have decayed, or been broken from this cause; at any rate, this was the case when the tomb was opened about a year ago. the grandmother's coffin was then found to be filled with beautiful, glossy, living chestnut ringlets, into which her whole substance seems to have been transformed, for there was nothing else but these shining curls, the growth of half a century in the tomb. an old man, with a ringlet of his youthful mistress treasured on his heart, might be supposed to witness this wonderful thing. madam ------, who is now at my house, and very infirm, though not old, was once carried to the grave, and on the point of being buried. it was in barbary, where her husband was consul-general. he was greatly attached to her, and told the pall-bearers at the grave that he must see her once more. when her face was uncovered, he thought he discerned signs of life, and felt a warmth. finally she revived, and for many years afterwards supposed the funeral procession to have been a dream; she having been partially conscious throughout, and having felt the wind blowing on her, and lifting the shroud from her feet,--for i presume she was to be buried in oriental style, without a coffin. long after, in london, when she was speaking of this dream, her husband told her the facts, and she fainted away. whenever it is now mentioned, her face turns white. mr. ------, her son, was born on shipboard, on the coast of spain, and claims four nationalities,--those of spain, england, ireland, and the united states; his father being irish, his mother a native of england, himself a naturalized citizen of the united states, and his father having registered his birth and baptism in a catholic church of gibraltar, which gives him spanish privileges. he has hereditary claims to a spanish countship. his infancy was spent in barbary, and his lips first lisped in arabic. there has been an unsettled and wandering character in his whole life. the grandfather of madam ------, who was a british officer, once horsewhipped paul jones,--jones being a poltroon. how singular it is that the personal courage of famous warriors should be so often called in question! may th.--i went yesterday to a hospital to take the oath of a mate to a protest. he had met with a severe accident by a fall on shipboard. the hospital is a large edifice of red freestone, with wide, airy passages, resounding with footsteps passing through them. a porter was waiting in the vestibule. mr. wilding and myself were shown to the parlor, in the first instance,--a neat, plainly furnished room, with newspapers and pamphlets lying on the table and sofas. soon the surgeon of the house came,--a brisk, alacritous, civil, cheerful young man, by whom we were shown to the apartment where the mate was lying. as we went through the principal passage, a man was borne along in a chair looking very pale, rather wild, and altogether as if he had just been through great tribulation, and hardly knew as yet whereabouts he was. i noticed that his left arm was but a stump, and seemed done up in red baize,--at all events it was of a scarlet line. the surgeon shook his right hand cheerily, and he was carried on. this was a patient who had just had his arm cut off. he had been a rough person apparently, but now there was a kind of tenderness about him, through pain and helplessness. in the chamber where the mate lay, there were seven beds, all of them occupied by persons who had met with accidents. in the centre of the room was a stationary pine table, about the length of a man, intended, i suppose, to stretch patients upon for necessary operations. the furniture of the beds was plain and homely. i thought that the faces of the patients all looked remarkably intelligent, though they were evidently men of the lower classes. suffering had educated them morally and intellectually. they gazed curiously at mr. wilding and me, but nobody said a word. in the bed next to the mate lay a little boy with a broken thigh. the surgeon observed that children generally did well with accidents; and this boy certainly looked very bright and cheerful. there was nothing particularly interesting about the mate. after finishing our business, the surgeon showed us into another room of the surgical ward, likewise devoted to cases of accident and injury. all the beds were occupied, and in two of them lay two american sailors who had recently been stabbed. they had been severely hurt, but were doing very well. the surgeon thought that it was a good arrangement to have several cases together, and that the patients kept up one another's spirits,--being often merry together. smiles and laughter may operate favorably enough from bed to bed; but dying groans, i should think, must be somewhat of a discouragement. nevertheless, the previous habits and modes of life of such people as compose the more numerous class of patients in a hospital must be considered before deciding this matter. it is very possible that their misery likes such bedfellows as it here finds. as we were taking our leave, the surgeon asked us if we should not like to see the operating-room; and before we could reply he threw open the door, and behold, there was a roll of linen "garments rolled in blood,"-- and a bloody fragment of a human arm! the surgeon glanced at me, and smiled kindly, but as if pitying my discomposure. gervase elwes, son of sir gervase elwes, baronet, of stoke, suffolk, married isabella, daughter of sir thomas hervey, knight, and sister of the first earl of bristol. this gervase died before his father, but left a son, henry, who succeeded to the baronetcy. sir henry died without issue, and was succeeded by his sister's son, john maggott twining, who assumed the name of elwes. he was the famous miser, and must have had hawthorne blood in him, through his grandfather, gervase, whose mother was a hawthorne. it was to this gervase that my ancestor, william hawthorne, devised some land in massachusetts, "if he would come over, and enjoy it." my ancestor calls him his nephew. june th.--barry cornwall, mr. procter, called on me a week or more ago, but i happened not to be in the office. saturday last he called again, and as i had crossed to rock park he followed me thither. a plain, middle-sized, english-looking gentleman, elderly, with short, white hair, and particularly quiet in his manners. he talks in a somewhat low tone without emphasis, scarcely distinct. his head has a good outline, and would look well in marble. i liked him very well. he talked unaffectedly, showing an author's regard to his reputation, and was evidently pleased to hear of his american celebrity. he said that in his younger days he was a scientific pugilist, and once took a journey to have a sparring encounter with the game-chicken. certainly, no one would have looked for a pugilist in this subdued old gentleman. he is now commissioner of lunacy, and makes periodical circuits through the country, attending to the business of his office. he is slightly deaf, and this may be the cause of his unaccented utterance,--owing to his not being able to regulate his voice exactly by his own ear. he is a good man, and much better expressed by his real name, procter, than by his poetical one, barry cornwall. . . . . he took my hand in both of his at parting. . . . . june th.--at eleven, at this season (and how much longer i know not), there is still a twilight. if we could only have such dry, deliciously warm evenings as we used to have in our own land, what enjoyment there might be in these interminable twilights! but here we close the window-shutters, and make ourselves cosey by a coal-fire. all three of the children, and, i think, my wife and myself, are going through the hooping-cough. the east-wind of this season and region is most horrible. there have been no really warm days; for though the sunshine is sometimes hot, there is never any diffused heat throughout the air. on passing from the sunshine into the shade, we immediately feel too cool. june th.--the vagabond musicians about town are very numerous. on board the steam ferry-boats, i have heretofore spoken of them. they infest them from may to november, for very little gain apparently. a shilling a day per man must be the utmost of their emolument. it is rather sad to see somewhat respectable old men engaged in this way, with two or three younger associates. their instruments look much the worse for wear, and even my unmusical ear can distinguish more discord than harmony. they appear to be a very quiet and harmless people. sometimes there is a woman playing on a fiddle, while her husband blows a wind instrument. in the streets it is not unusual to find a band of half a dozen performers, who, without any provocation or reason whatever, sound their brazen instruments till the houses re-echo. sometimes one passes a man who stands whistling a tune most unweariably, though i never saw anybody give him anything. the ballad-singers are the strangest, from the total lack of any music in their cracked voices. sometimes you see a space cleared in the street, and a foreigner playing, while a girl-- weather-beaten, tanned, and wholly uncomely in face and shabby in attire dances ballets. the common people look on, and never criticise or treat any of these poor devils unkindly or uncivilly; but i do not observe that they give them anything. a crowd--or, at all events, a moderate-sized group--is much more easily drawn together here than with us. the people have a good deal of idle and momentary curiosity, and are always ready to stop when another person has stopped, so as to see what has attracted his attention. i hardly ever pause to look at a shop-window, without being immediately incommoded by boys and men, who stop likewise, and would forthwith throng the pavement if i did not move on. june th.--if it is not known how and when a man dies, it makes a ghost of him for many years thereafter, perhaps for centuries. king arthur is an example; also the emperor frederic, and other famous men, who were thought to be alive ages after their disappearance. so with private individuals. i had an uncle john, who went a voyage to sea about the beginning of the war of , and has never returned to this hour. but as long as his mother lived, as many as twenty years, she never gave up the hope of his return, and was constantly hearing stories of persons whose description answered to his. some people actually affirmed that they had seen him in various parts of the world. thus, so far as her belief was concerned, he still walked the earth. and even to this day i never see his name, which is no very uncommon one, without thinking that this may be the lost uncle. thus, too, the french dauphin still exists, or a kind of ghost of him; the three tells, too, in the cavern of uri. july th.--mr. cecil, the other day, was saying that england could produce as fine peaches as any other country. i asked what was the particular excellence of a peach, and he answered, "its cooling and refreshing quality, like that of a melon!" just think of this idea of the richest, most luscious, of all fruits! but the untravelled englishman has no more idea of what fruit is than of what sunshine is; he thinks he has tasted the first and felt the last, but they are both alike watery. i heard a lady in lord street talking about the "broiling sun," when i was almost in a shiver. they keep up their animal heat by means of wine and ale, else they could not bear this climate. july th.--a week ago i made a little tour in north wales with mr. bright. we left birkenhead by railway for chester at two o'clock; thence for bangor; thence by carriage over the menai bridge to beaumaris. at beaumaris, a fine old castle,--quite coming up to my idea of what an old castle should be. a gray, ivy-hung exterior wall, with large round towers at intervals; within this another wall, the place of the portcullis between; and again, within the second wall the castle itself, with a spacious green court-yard in front. the outer wall is so thick that a passage runs in it all round the castle, which covers a space of three acres. this passage gives access to a chapel, still very perfect, and to various apartments in the towers,--all exceedingly dismal, and giving very unpleasant impressions of the way in which the garrison of the castle lived. the main castle is entirely roofless, but the hall and other rooms are pointed out by the guide, and the whole is tapestried with abundant ivy, so that my impression is of gray walls, with here and there a vast green curtain; a carpet of green over the floors of halls and apartments; and festoons around all the outer battlement, with an uneven and rather perilous foot-path running along the top. there is a fine vista through the castle itself, and the two gateways of the two encompassing walls. the passage within the wall is very rude, both underfoot and on each side, with various ascents and descents of rough steps,--sometimes so low that your head is in danger; and dark, except where a little light comes through a loophole or window in the thickness of the wall. in front of the castle a tennis-court was fitted up, by laying a smooth pavement on the ground, and casing the walls with tin or zinc, if i recollect aright. all this was open to the sky; and when we were there, some young men of the town were playing at the game. there are but very few of these tennis-courts in england; and this old castle was a very strange place for one. the castle is the property of sir richard bulkely, whose seat is in the vicinity, and who owns a great part of the island of anglesea, on which beaumaris lies. the hotel where we stopped was the bulkely arms, and sir richard has a kind of feudal influence in the town. in the morning we walked along a delightful road, bordering on the menai straits, to bangor ferry. it was really a very pleasant road, overhung by a growth of young wood, exceedingly green and fresh. english trees are green all about their stems, owing to the creeping plants that overrun them. there were some flowers in the hedges, such as we cultivate in gardens. at the ferry, there was a whitewashed cottage; a woman or two, some children, and a fisherman-like personage, walking to and fro before the door. the scenery of the strait is very beautiful and picturesque, and directly opposite to us lay bangor,--the strait being here almost a mile across. an american ship from boston lay in the middle of it. the ferry-boat was just putting off for the bangor side, and, by the aid of a sail, soon neared the shore. at bangor we went to a handsome hotel, and hired a carriage and two horses for some welsh place, the name of which i forget; neither can i remember a single name of the places through which we posted that day, nor could i spell them if i heard them pronounced, nor pronounce them if i saw them spelt. it was a circuit of about forty miles, bringing us to conway at last. i remember a great slate-quarry; and also that many of the cottages, in the first part of our drive, were built of blocks of slate. the mountains were very bold, thrusting themselves up abruptly in peaks,--not of the dumpling formation, which is somewhat too prevalent among the new england mountains. at one point we saw snowdon, with its bifold summit. we also visited the smaller waterfall (this is a translation of an unpronounceable welsh name), which is the largest in wales. it was a very beautiful rapid, and the guide-book considers it equal in sublimity to niagara. likewise there were one or two lakes which the guide-book greatly admired, but which to me, who remembered a hundred sheets of blue water in new england, seemed nothing more than sullen and dreary puddles, with bare banks, and wholly destitute of beauty. i think they were nowhere more than a hundred yards across. but the hills were certainly very good, and, though generally bare of trees, their outlines thereby were rendered the stronger and more striking. many of the welsh women, particularly the older ones, wear black beaver hats, high-crowned, and almost precisely like men's. it makes them look ugly and witchlike. welsh is still the prevalent language, and the only one spoken by a great many of the inhabitants. i have had welsh people in my office, on official business, with whom i could not communicate except through an interpreter. at some unutterable village we went into a little church, where we saw an old stone image of a warrior, lying on his back, with his hands clasped. it was the natural son (if i remember rightly) of david, prince of wales, and was doubtless the better part of a thousand years old. there was likewise a stone coffin of still greater age; some person of rank and renown had mouldered to dust within it, but it was now open and empty. also, there were monumental brasses on the walls, engraved with portraits of a gentleman and lady in the costumes of elizabeth's time. also, on one of the pews, a brass record of some persons who slept in the vault beneath; so that, every sunday, the survivors and descendants kneel and worship directly over their dead ancestors. in the churchyard, on a flat tombstone, there was the representation of a harp. i supposed that it must be the resting-place of a bard; but the inscription was in memory of a merchant, and a skilful manufacturer of harps. this was a very delightful town. we saw a great many things which it is now too late to describe, the sharpness of the first impression being gone; but i think i can produce something of the sentiment of it hereafter. we arrived at conway late in the afternoon, to take the rail for chester. i must see conway, with its old gray wall and its unrivalled castle, again. it was better than beaumaris, and i never saw anything more picturesque than the prospect from the castle-wall towards the sea. we reached chester at p. m. the next morning, mr. bright left for liverpool before i was awake. i visited the cathedral, where the organ was sounding, sauntered through the rows, bought some playthings for the children, and left for home soon after twelve. liverpool, august th.--visiting the zoological gardens the other day with j-----, it occurred to me what a fantastic kind of life a person connected with them might be depicted as leading,--a child, for instance. the grounds are very extensive, and include arrangements for all kinds of exhibitions calculated to attract the idle people of a great city. in one enclosure is a bear, who climbs a pole to get cake and gingerbread from the spectators. elsewhere, a circular building, with compartments for lions, wolves, and tigers. in another part of the garden is a colony of monkeys, the skeleton of an elephant, birds of all kinds. swans and various rare water-fowl were swimming on a piece of water, which was green, by the by, and when the fowls dived they stirred up black mud. a stork was parading along the margin, with melancholy strides of its long legs, and came slowly towards its, as if for companionship. in one apartment was an obstreperously noisy society of parrots and macaws, most gorgeous and diversified of hue. these different colonies of birds and beasts were scattered about in various parts of the grounds, so that you came upon them unexpectedly. also, there were archery and shooting-grounds, and a sewing. a theatre, also, at which a rehearsal was going on,--we standing at one of the doors, and looking in towards the dusky stage where the company, in their ordinary dresses, were rehearsing something that had a good deal of dance and action in it. in the open air there was an arrangement of painted scenery representing a wide expanse of mountains, with a city at their feet, and before it the sea, with actual water, and large vessels upon it, the vessels having only the side that would be presented to the spectator. but the scenery was so good that at a first casual glance i almost mistook it for reality. there was a refreshment-room, with drinks and cakes and pastry, but, so far as i saw, no substantial victual. about in the centre of the garden there was an actual, homely-looking, small dwelling-house, where perhaps the overlookers of the place live. now this might be wrought, in an imaginative description, into a pleasant sort of a fool's paradise, where all sorts of unreal delights should cluster round some suitable personage; and it would relieve, in a very odd and effective way, the stern realities of life on the outside of the garden-walls. i saw a little girl, simply dressed, who seemed to have her habitat within the grounds. there was also a daguerreotypist, with his wife and family, carrying on his business in a shanty, and perhaps having his home in its inner room. he seemed to be an honest, intelligent, pleasant young man, and his wife a pleasant woman; and i had j-----'s daguerreotype taken for three shillings, in a little gilded frame. in the description of the garden, the velvet turf, of a charming verdure, and the shrubbery and shadowy walks and large trees, and the slopes and inequalities of ground, must not he forgotten. in one place there was a maze and labyrinth, where a person might wander a long while in the vain endeavor to get out, although all the time looking at the exterior garden, over the low hedges that border the walks of the maze. and this is like the inappreciable difficulties that often beset us in life. i will see it again before long, and get some additional record of it. august th.--we went to the isle of man, a few weeks ago, where s----- and the children spent a fortnight. i spent two sundays with them. i never saw anything prettier than the little church of kirk madden there. it stands in a perfect seclusion of shadowy trees,--a plain little church, that would not be at all remarkable in another situation, but is most picturesque in its solitude and bowery environment. the churchyard is quite full and overflowing with graves, and extends down the gentle slope of a hill, with a dark mass of shadow above it. some of the tombstones are flat on the ground, some erect, or laid horizontally on low pillars or masonry. there were no very old dates on any of these stones; for the climate soon effaces inscriptions, and makes a stone of fifty years look as old as one of five hundred,--unless it be slate, or something harder than the usual red freestone. there was an old runic monument, however, near the centre of the churchyard, that had some strange sculpture on it, and an inscription still legible by persons learned in such matters. against the tower of the church, too, there is a circular stone, with carving on it, said to be of immemorial antiquity. there is likewise a tall marble monument, as much as fifty feet high, erected some years ago to the memory of one of the athol family by his brother-officers of a local regiment of which he was colonel. at one of the side-entrances of the church, and forming the threshold within the thickness of the wall, so that the feet of all who enter must tread on it, is a flat tombstone of somebody who felt himself a sinner, no doubt, and desired to be thus trampled upon. the stone is much worn. the structure is extremely plain inside and very small. on the walls, over the pews, are several monumental sculptures,--a quite elaborate one to a colonel murray, of the coldstreamn guards; his military profession being designated by banners and swords in marble.--another was to a farmer. on one side of the church-tower there was a little penthouse, or lean-to,--merely a stone roof, about three or four feet high, and supported by a single pillar, beneath which was once deposited the bier. i have let too much time pass before attempting to record my impressions of the isle of man; but, as regards this church, no description can come up to its quiet beauty, its seclusion, and its every requisite for an english country church. last sunday i went to eastham, and, entering the churchyard, sat down on a tombstone under the yew-tree which has been known for centuries as the great tree of eastham. some of the village people were sitting on the graves near the door; and an old woman came towards me, and said, in a low, kindly, admonishing tone, that i must not let the sexton see me, because he would not allow any one to be there in sacrament-time. i inquired why she and her companions were there, and she said they were waiting for the sacrament. so i thanked her, gave her a sixpence, and departed. close under the eaves, i saw two upright stones, in memory of two old servants of the stanley family,--one over ninety, and the other over eighty years of age. august th.--j----- and i went to birkenhead park yesterday. there is a large ornamental gateway to the park, and the grounds within are neatly laid out, with borders of shrubbery. there is a sheet of water, with swans and other aquatic fowl, which swim about, and are fed with dainties by the visitors. nothing can be more beautiful than a swan. it is the ideal of a goose,--a goose beautified and beatified. there were not a great many visitors, but some children were dancing on the green, and a few lover-like people straying about. i think the english behave better than the americans at similar places. there was a camera-obscure, very wretchedly indistinct. at the refreshment-room were ginger-beer and british wines. august st.--i was in the crown court on saturday, sitting in the sheriff's seat. the judge was baron ------, an old gentleman of sixty, with very large, long features. his wig helped him to look like some strange kind of animal,--very queer, but yet with a sagacious, and, on the whole, beneficent aspect. during the session some mischievous young barrister occupied himself with sketching the judge in pencil; and, being handed about, it found its way to me. it was very like and very laughable, but hardly caricatured. the judicial wig is an exceedingly odd affair; and as it covers both ears, it would seem intended to prevent his lordship, and justice in his person, from hearing any of the case on either side, that thereby he may decide the better. it is like the old idea of blindfolding the statue of justice. it seems to me there is less formality, less distance between the judge, jury, witnesses, and bar, in the english courts than in our own. the judge takes a very active part in the trial, constantly asking a question of the witness on the stand, making remarks on the conduct of the trial, putting in his word on all occasions, and allowing his own sense of the matter in hand to be pretty plainly seen; so that, before the trial is over, and long before his own charge is delivered, he must have exercised a very powerful influence over the minds of the jury. all this is done, not without dignity, yet in a familiar kind of way. it is a sort of paternal supervision of the whole matter, quite unlike the cold awfulness of an american judge. but all this may be owing partly to the personal characteristics of baron ------. it appeared to me, however, that, from the closer relations of all parties, truth was likely to be arrived at and justice to be done. as an innocent man, i should not be afraid to be tried by baron ------. eaton hall. august th.--i went to eaton hall yesterday with my wife and mr. g. p. bradford, via chester. on our way, at the latter place, we visited st. john's church. it is built of the same red freestone as the cathedral, and looked exceedingly antique, and venerable; this kind of stone, from its softness, and its liability to be acted upon by the weather, being liable to an early decay. nevertheless, i believe the church was built above a thousand years ago,--some parts of it, at least,--and the surface of the tower and walls is worn away and hollowed in shallow sweeps by the hand of time. there were broken niches in several places, where statues had formerly stood. all, except two or three, had fallen or crumbled away, and those which remained were much damaged. the face and details of the figure were almost obliterated. there were many gravestones round the church, but none of them of any antiquity. probably, as the names become indistinguishable on the older stones, the graves are dug over again, and filled with new occupants and covered with new stones, or perhaps with the old ones newly inscribed. closely connected with the church was the clergyman's house, a comfortable-looking residence; and likewise in the churchyard, with tombstones all about it, even almost at the threshold, so that the doorstep itself might have been a tombstone, was another house, of respectable size and aspect. we surmised that this might be the sexton's dwelling, but it proved not to be so; and a woman, answering our knock, directed us to the place where he might be found. so mr. bradford and i went in search of him, leaving s----- seated on a tombstone. the sexton was a jolly-looking, ruddy-faced man, a mechanic of some sort, apparently, and he followed us to the churchyard with much alacrity. we found s----- standing at a gateway, which opened into the most ancient, and now quite ruinous, part of the church, the present edifice covering much less ground than it did some centuries ago. we went through this gateway, and found ourselves in an enclosure of venerable walls, open to the sky, with old norman arches standing about, beneath the loftiest of which the sexton told us the high altar used to stand. of course, there were weeds and ivy growing in the crevices, but not so abundantly as i have seen them elsewhere. the sexton pointed out a piece of a statue that had once stood in one of the niches, and which he himself, i think, had dug up from several feet below the earth; also, in a niche of the walls, high above our heads, he showed us an ancient wooden coffin, hewn out of a solid log of oak, the hollow being made rudely in the shape of a human figure. this too had been dug up, and nobody knew how old it was. while we looked at all this solemn old trumpery, the curate, quite a young man, stood at the back door of his house, elevated considerably above the ruins, with his young wife (i presume) and a friend or two, chatting cheerfully among themselves. it was pleasant to see them there. after examining the ruins, we went inside of the church, and found it a dim and dusky old place, quite paved over with tombstones, not an inch of space being left in the aisles or near the altar, or in any nook or corner, uncovered by a tombstone. there were also mural monuments and escutcheons, and close against the wall lay the mutilated statue of a crusader, with his legs crossed, in the style which one has so often read about. the old fellow seemed to have been represented in chain armor; but he had been more battered and bruised since death than even during his pugnacious life, and his nose was almost knocked away. this figure had been dug up many years ago, and nobody knows whom it was meant to commemorate. the nave of the church is supported by two rows of saxon pillars, not very lofty, but six feet six inches (so the sexton says) in diameter. they are covered with plaster, which was laid on ages ago, and is now so hard and smooth that i took the pillars to be really composed of solid shafts of gray stone. but, at one end of the church, the plaster had been removed from two of the pillars, in order to discover whether they were still sound enough to support the building; and they prove to be made of blocks of red freestone, just as sound as when it came from the quarry; for though this stone soon crumbles in the open air, it is as good as indestructible when sheltered from the weather. it looked very strange to see the fresh hue of these two pillars amidst the dingy antiquity of the rest of the structure. the body of the church is covered with pews, the wooden enclosures of which seemed of antique fashion. there were also modern stoves; but the sexton said it was very cold there, in spite of the stoves. it had, i must say, a disagreeable odor pervading it, in which the dead people of long ago had doubtless some share,--a musty odor, by no means amounting to a stench, but unpleasant, and, i should think, unwholesome. old wood-work, and old stones, and antiquity of all kinds, moral and physical, go to make up this smell. i observed it in the cathedral, and chester generally has it, especially under the rows. after all, the necessary damp and lack of sunshine, in such a shadowy old church as this, have probably more to do with it than the dead people have; although i did think the odor was particularly strong over some of the tombstones. not having shillings to give the sexton, we were forced to give him half a crown. the church of st. john is outside of the city walls. entering the east gate, we walked awhile under the rows, bought our tickets for eaton hall and its gardens, and likewise some playthings for the children; for this old city of chester seems to me to possess an unusual number of toy-shops. finally we took a cab, and drove to the hall, about four miles distant, nearly the whole of the way lying through the wooded park. there are many sorts of trees, making up a wilderness, which looked not unlike the woods of our own concord, only less wild. the english oak is not a handsome tree, being short and sturdy, with a round, thick mass of foliage, lying all within its own bounds. it was a showery day. had there been any sunshine, there might doubtless have been many beautiful effects of light and shadow in these woods. we saw one or two herds of deer, quietly feeding, a hundred yards or so distant. they appeared to be somewhat wilder than cattle, but, i think, not much wilder than sheep. their ancestors have probably been in a half-domesticated state, receiving food at the hands of man, in winter, for centuries. there is a kind of poetry in this, quite as much as if they were really wild deer, such as their forefathers were, when hugh lupus used to hunt them. our miserable cab drew up at the steps of eaton hall, and, ascending under the portico, the door swung silently open, and we were received very civilly by two old men,--one, a tall footman in livery; the other, of higher grade, in plain clothes. the entrance-hall is very spacious, and the floor is tessellated or somehow inlaid with marble. there was statuary in marble on the floor, and in niches stood several figures in antique armor, of various dates; some with lances, and others with battle-axes and swords. there was a two-handed sword, as much as six feet long; but not nearly so ponderous as i have supposed this kind of weapon to be, from reading of it. i could easily have brandished it. i don't think i am a good sight-seer; at least, i soon get satisfied with looking at the sights, and wish to go on to the next. the plainly dressed old man now led us into a long corridor, which goes, i think, the whole length of the house, about five hundred feet, arched all the way, and lengthened interminably by a looking-glass at the end, in which i saw our own party approaching like a party of strangers. but i have so often seen this effect produced in dry-goods stores and elsewhere, that i was not much impressed. there were family portraits and other pictures, and likewise pieces of statuary, along this arched corridor; and it communicated with a chapel with a scriptural altar-piece, copied from rubens, and a picture of st. michael and the dragon, and two, or perhaps three, richly painted windows. everything here is entirely new and fresh, this part having been repaired, and never yet inhabited by the family. this brand-newness makes it much less effective than if it had been lived in; and i felt pretty much as if i were strolling through any other renewed house. after all, the utmost force of man can do positively very little towards making grand things or beautiful things. the imagination can do so much more, merely on shutting one's eyes, that the actual effect seems meagre; so that a new house, unassociated with the past, is exceedingly unsatisfactory, especially when you have heard that the wealth mud skill of man has here done its best. besides, the rooms, as we saw them, did not look by any means their best, the carpets not being down, and the furniture being covered with protective envelopes. however, rooms cannot be seen to advantage by daylight; it being altogether essential to the effect, that they should be illuminated by artificial light, which takes them somewhat out of the region of bare reality. nevertheless, there was undoubtedly great splendor, for the details of which i refer to the guide-book. among the family portraits, there was one of a lady famous for her beautiful hand; and she was holding it up to notice in the funniest way, --and very beautiful it certainly was. the private apartments of the family were not shown us. i should think it impossible for the owner of this house to imbue it with his personality to such a degree as to feel it to be his home. it must be like a small lobster in a shell much too large for him. after seeing what was to be seen of the rooms, we visited the gardens, in which are noble conservatories and hot-houses, containing all manner of rare and beautiful flowers, and tropical fruits. i noticed some large pines, looking as if they were really made of gold. the gardener (under-gardener i suppose he was) who showed this part of the spectacle was very intelligent as well as kindly, and seemed to take an interest in his business. he gave s----- a purple everlasting flower, which will endure a great many years, as a memento of our visit to eaton hall. finally, we took a view of the front of the edifice, which is very fine, and much more satisfactory than the interior,--and returned to chester. we strolled about under the unsavory rows, sometimes scudding from side to side of the street, through the shower; took lunch in a confectioner's shop, and drove to the railway station in time for the three-o'clock train. it looked picturesque to see two little girls, hand in hand, racing along the ancient passages of the rows; but chester has a very evil smell. at the railroad station, s----- saw a small edition of "twice-told tales," forming a volume of the cottage library; and, opening it, there was the queerest imaginable portrait of myself,--so very queer that we could not but buy it. the shilling edition of "the scarlet letter" and "seven gables" are at all the book-stalls and shop-windows; but so is "the lamplighter," and still more trashy books. august th.--all past affairs, all home conclusions, all people whom i have known in america and meet again here, are strangely compelled to undergo a new trial. it is not that they suffer by comparison with circumstances of english life and forms of english manhood or womanhood; but, being free from my old surroundings, and the inevitable prejudices of home, i decide upon them absolutely. i think i neglected to record that i saw miss martineau a few weeks since. she is a large, robust, elderly woman, and plainly dressed; but withal she has so kind, cheerful, and intelligent a face that she is pleasanter to look at than most beauties. her hair is of a decided gray, and she does not shrink from calling herself old. she is the most continual talker i ever heard; it is really like the babbling of a brook, and very lively and sensible too; and all the while she talks, she moves the bowl of her ear-trumpet from one auditor to another, so that it becomes quite an organ of intelligence and sympathy between her and yourself. the ear-trumpet seems a sensible part of her, like the antennae of some insects. if you have any little remark to make, you drop it in; and she helps you to make remarks by this delicate little appeal of the trumpet, as she slightly directs it towards you; and if you have nothing to say, the appeal is not strong enough to embarrass you. all her talk was about herself and her affairs; but it did not seem like egotism, because it was so cheerful and free from morbidness. and this woman is an atheist, and thinks that the principle of life will become extinct when her body is laid in the grave! i will not think so; were it only for her sake. what! only a few weeds to spring out of her mortality, instead of her intellect and sympathies flowering and fruiting forever! september th.--my family went to rhyl last thursday, and on saturday i joined them there, in company with o'sullivan, who arrived in the behama from lisbon that morning. we went by way of chester, and found s----- waiting for us at the rhyl station. rhyl is a most uninteresting place, --a collection of new lodging-houses and hotels, on a long sand-beach, which the tide leaves bare almost to the horizon. the sand is by no means a marble pavement, but sinks under the foot, and makes very heavy walking; but there is a promenade in front of the principal range of houses, looking on the sea, whereon we have rather better footing. almost all the houses were full, and s----- had taken a parlor and two bedrooms, and is living after the english fashion, providing her own table, lights, fuel, and everything. it is very awkward to our american notions; but there is an independence about it, which i think must make it agreeable on better acquaintance. but the place is certainly destitute of attraction, and life seems to pass very heavily. the english do not appear to have a turn for amusing themselves. sunday was a bright and hot day, and in the forenoon i set out on a walk, not well knowing whither, over a very dusty road, with not a particle of shade along its dead level. the welsh mountains were before me, at the distance of three or four miles,--long ridgy hills, descending pretty abruptly upon the plain; on either side of the road, here and there, an old whitewashed, thatched stone cottage, or a stone farm-house, with an aspect of some antiquity. i never suffered so much before, on this side of the water, from heat and dust, and should probably have turned back had i not espied the round towers and walls of an old castle at some distance before me. having looked at a guide-book, previously to setting out, i knew that this must be rhyddlan castle, about three miles from rhyl; so i plodded on, and by and by entered an antiquated village, on one side of which the castle stood. this welsh village is very much like the english villages, with narrow streets and mean houses or cottages, built in blocks, and here and there a larger house standing alone; everything far more compact than in our rural villages, and with no grassy street-margin nor trees; aged and dirty also, with dirty children staring at the passenger, and an undue supply of mean inns; most, or many of the men in breeches, and some of the women, especially the elder ones, in black beaver hats. the streets were paved with round pebbles, and looked squalid and ugly. the children and grown people stared lazily at me as i passed, but showed no such alert and vivacious curiosity as a community of yankees would have done. i turned up a street that led me to the castle, which looked very picturesque close at hand,--more so than at a distance, because the towers and walls have not a sufficiently broken outline against the sky. there are several round towers at the angles of the wall very large in their circles, built of gray stone, crumbling, ivy-grown, everything that one thinks of in an old ruin. i could not get into the inner space of the castle without climbing over a fence, or clambering down into the moat; so i contented myself with walking round it, and viewing it from the outside. through the gateway i saw a cow feeding on the green grass in the inner court of the castle. in one of the walls there was a large triangular gap, where perhaps the assailants had made a breach. of course there were weeds on the ruinous top of the towers, and along the summit of the wall. this was the first castle built by edward i. in wales, and he resided here during the erection of conway castle, and here queen eleanor gave birth to a princess. some few years since a meeting of welsh bards was held within it. after viewing it awhile, and listening to the babble of some children who lay on the grass near by, i resumed my walk, and, meeting a welshman in the village street, i asked him my nearest way back to rhyl. "dim sassenach," said he, after a pause. how odd that an hour or two on the railway should have brought me amongst a people who speak no english! just below the castle, there is an arched stone bridge over the river clwyd, and the best view of the edifice is from hence. it stands on a gentle eminence, commanding the passage of the river, and two twin round towers rise close beside one another, whence, i suppose, archers have often drawn their bows against the wild welshmen, on the river-banks. behind was the line of mountains; and this was the point of defence between the hill country and the lowlands. on the bridge stood a good many idle welshmen, leaning over the parapet, and looking at some small vessels that had come up the river from the sea. there was the frame of a new vessel on the stocks near by. as i returned, on my way home, i again inquired my way of a man in breeches, who, i found, could speak english very well. he was kind, and took pains to direct me, giving me the choice of three ways, viz. the one by which i came, another across the fields, and a third by the embankment along the river-side. i chose the latter, and so followed the course of the clwyd, which is very ugly, with a tidal flow and wide marshy banks. on its farther side was rhyddlan marsh, where a battle was fought between the welsh and saxons a thousand years ago. i have forgotten to mention that the castle and its vicinity was the scene of the famous battle of the fiddlers, between de blandeville, earl of chester, and the welsh, about the time of the conqueror. conway castle. september th.--on monday we went with o'sullivan to conway by rail. certainly this must be the most perfect specimen of a ruinous old castle in the whole world; it quite fills up one's idea. we first walked round the exterior of the wall, at the base of which are hovels, with dirty children playing about them, and pigs rambling along, and squalid women visible in the doorways; but all these things melt into the picturesqueness of the scene, and do not harm it. the whole town of conway is built in what was once the castle-yard, and the whole circuit of the wall is still standing in a delightful state of decay. at the angles, and at regular intervals, there are round towers, having half their circle on the outside of the walls, and half within. most of these towers have a great crack pervading them irregularly from top to bottom; the ivy hangs upon them,--the weeds grow on the tops. gateways, three or four of them, open through the walls, and streets proceed from them into the town. at some points, very old cottages or small houses are close against the sides, and, old as they are, they must have been built after the whole structure was a ruin. in one place i saw the sign of an alehouse painted on the gray stones of one of the old round towers. as we entered one of the gates, after making the entire circuit, we saw an omnibus coming down the street towards us, with its horn sounding. llandudno was its place of destination; and, knowing no more about it than that it was four miles off, we took our seats. llandudno is a watering-village at the base of the great orme's head, at the mouth of the conway river. in this omnibus there were two pleasant-looking girls, who talked welsh together,--a guttural, childish kind of a babble. afterwards we got into conversation with them, and found them very agreeable. one of them was reading tupper's "proverbial philosophy." on reaching llandudno, s----- waited at the hotel, while o'sullivan, u----, and i ascended the great orme's head. there are copper-mines here, and we heard of a large cave, with stalactites, but did not go so far as that. we found the old shaft of a mine, however, and threw stones down it, and counted twenty before we heard them strike the bottom. at the base of the head, on the side opposite the village, we saw a small church with a broken roof, and horizontal gravestones of slate within the stone enclosure around it. the view from the hill was most beautiful,--a blue summer sea, with the distant trail of smoke from a steamer, and many snowy sails; in another direction the mountains, near and distant, some of them with clouds below their peaks. we went to one of the mines which are still worked, and boys came running to meet us with specimens of the copper ore for sale. the miners were not now hoisting ore from the shaft, but were washing and selecting the valuable fragments from great heaps of crumbled stone and earth. all about this spot there are shafts and well-holes, looking fearfully deep and black, and without the slightest protection, so that we might just as easily have walked into them as not. having examined these matters sufficiently, we descended the hill towards the village, meeting parties of visitors, mounted on donkeys, which is a much more sensible way of ascending in a hot day than to walk. on the sides and summit of the hill we found yellow gorse,--heath of two colors, i think, and very beautiful,--and here and there a harebell. owing to the long-continued dry weather, the grass was getting withered and brown, though not so much so as on american hill-pastures at this season. returning to the village, we all went into a confectioner's shop, and made a good luncheon. the two prettiest young ladies whom i have seen in england came into the shop and ate cakes while we were there. they appeared to be living together in a lodging-house, and ordered some of their housekeeping articles from the confectioner. next we went into the village bazaar,--a sort of tent or open shop, full of knick-knacks and gewgaws, and bought some playthings for the children. at half past one we took our seats in the omnibus, to return to conway. we had as yet only seen the castle wall and the exterior of the castle; now we were to see the inside. right at the foot of it an old woman has her stand for the sale of lithographic views of conway and other places; but these views are ridiculously inadequate, so that we did not buy any of them. the admittance into the castle is by a wooden door of modern construction, and the present seneschal is, i believe, the sexton of a church. he remembered me as having been there a month or two ago; and probably, considering that i was already initiated, or else because he had many other visitors, he left us to wander about the castle at will. it is altogether impossible to describe conway castle. nothing ever can have been so perfect in its own style, and for its own purposes, when it was first built; and now nothing else can be so perfect as a picture of ivy-grown, peaceful ruin. the banqueting-hall, all open to the sky and with thick curtains of ivy tapestrying the walls, and grass and weeds growing on the arches that overpass it, is indescribably beautiful. the hearthstones of the great old fireplaces, all about the castle, seem to be favorite spots for weeds to grow. there are eight large round towers, and out of four of them, i think, rise smaller towers, ascending to a much greater height, and once containing winding staircases, all of which are now broken, and inaccessible from below, though, in at least one of the towers, the stairs seemed perfect, high aloft. it must have been the rudest violence that broke down these stairs; for each step was a thick and heavy slab of stone, built into the wall of the tower. there is no such thing as a roof in any part; towers, hall, kitchen, all are open to the sky. one round tower, directly overhanging the railway, is so shattered by the falling away of the lower part, that you can look quite up into it and through it, while sitting in the cars; and yet it has stood thus, without falling into complete ruin, for more than two hundred years. i think that it was in this tower that we found the castle oven, an immense cavern, big enough to bake bread for an army. the railway passes exactly at the base of the high rock, on which this part of the castle is situated, and goes into the town through a great arch that has been opened in the castle wall. the tubular bridge across the conway has been built in a style that accords with the old architecture, and i observed that one little sprig of ivy had rooted itself in the new structure. there are numberless intricate passages in the thickness of the castle walls, forming communications between tower and tower,--damp, chill passages, with rough stone on either hand, darksome, and very likely leading to dark pitfalls. the thickness of the walls is amazing; and the people of those days must have been content with very scanty light, so small were the apertures,--sometimes merely slits and loopholes, glimmering through many feet of thickness of stone. one of the towers was said to have been the residence of queen eleanor; and this was better lighted than the others, containing an oriel-window, looking out of a little oratory, as it seemed to be, with groined arches and traces of ornamental sculpture, so that we could dress up some imperfect image of a queenly chamber, though the tower was roofless and floorless. there was another pleasant little windowed nook, close beside the oratory, where the queen might have sat sewing or looking down the river conway at the picturesque headlands towards the sea. we imagined her stately figure in antique robes, standing beneath the groined arches of the oratory. there seem to have been three chambers, one above another, in these towers, and the one in which was the embowed window was the middle one. i suppose the diameter of each of these circular rooms could not have been more than twenty feet on the inside. all traces of wood-work and iron-work are quite gone from the whole castle. these are said to have been taken away by a lord conway in the reign of charles ii. there is a grassy space under the windows of queen eleanor's tower,--a sort of outwork of the castle, where probably, when no enemy was near, the queen used to take the open air in summer afternoons like this. here we sat down on the grass of the ruined wall, and agreed that nothing in the world could be so beautiful and picturesque as conway castle, and that never could there have been so fit a time to see it as this sunny, quiet, lovely afternoon. sunshine adapts itself to the character of a ruin in a wonderful way; it does not "flout the ruins gray," as scott says, but sympathizes with their decay, and saddens itself for their sake. it beautifies the ivy too. we saw, at the corner of this grass-plot around queen eleanor's tower, a real trunk of a tree of ivy, with so stalwart a stem, and such a vigorous grasp of its strong branches, that it would be a very efficient support to the wall, were it otherwise inclined to fall. o that we could have ivy in america! what is there to beautify us when our time of ruin comes? before departing, we made the entire circuit of the castle on its walls, and o'sullivan and i climbed by a ladder to the top of one of the towers. while there, we looked down into the street beneath, and saw a photographist preparing to take a view of the castle, and calling out to some little girl in some niche or on some pinnacle of the walls to stand still that he might catch her figure and face. i think it added to the impressiveness of the old castle, to see the streets and the kitchen-gardens and the homely dwellings that had grown up within the precincts of this feudal fortress, and the people of to-day following their little businesses about it. this does not destroy the charm; but tourists and idle visitors do impair it. the earnest life of to-day, however, petty and homely as it may be, has a right to its place alongside of what is left of the life of other days; and if it be vulgar itself, it does not vulgarize the scene. but tourists do vulgarize it; and i suppose we did so, just like others. we took the train back to rhyl, where we arrived at about four o'clock, and, having dined, we again took the rail for chester, and thence to rock park (that is, o'sullivan and i), and reached home at about eleven o'clock. yesterday, september th, i began to wear a watch from bennet's, cheapside, london. w. c. bennet warrants it as the best watch which they can produce. if it prove as good and as durable as he prophesies, j----- will find it a perfect time-keeper long after his father has done with time. if i had not thought of his wearing it hereafter, i should have been content with a much inferior one. no. , . september th.--i went back to rhyl last friday in the steamer. we arrived at the landing-place at nearly four o'clock, having started at twelve, and i walked thence to our lodgings, west parade. the children and their mother were all gone out, and i sat some time in our parlor before anybody came. the next morning i made an excursion in the omnibus as far as ruthin, passing through rhyddlan, st. asaph, denbigh, and reaching ruthin at one o'clock. all these are very ancient places. st. asaph has a cathedral which is not quite worthy of that name, but is a very large and stately church in excellent repair. its square battlemented tower has a very fine appearance, crowning the clump of village houses on the hill-top, as you approach from rhyddlan. the ascent of the hill is very steep; so it is at denbigh and at ruthin,--the steepest streets, indeed, that i ever climbed. denbigh is a place of still more antique aspect than st. asaph; it looks, i think, even older than chester, with its gabled houses, many of their windows opening on hinges, and their fronts resting on pillars, with an open porch beneath. the castle makes an admirably ruinous figure on the hill, higher than the village. i had come hither with the purpose of inspecting it, but as it began to rain just then, i concluded to get into the omnibus and go to ruthin. there was another steep ascent from the commencement of the long street of ruthin, till i reached the market-place, which is of nearly triangular shape, and an exceedingly old-looking place. houses of stone or plastered brick; one or two with timber frames; the roofs of an uneven line, and bulging out or sinking in; the slates moss-grown. some of them have two peaks and even three in a row, fronting on the streets, and there is a stone market-house with a table of regulations. in this market-place there is said to be a stone on which king arthur beheaded one of his enemies; but this i did not see. all these villages were very lively, as the omnibus drove in; and i rather imagine it was market-day in each of them,--there being quite a bustle of welsh people. the old women came round the omnibus courtesying and intimating their willingness to receive alms,--witch-like women, such as one sees in pictures or reads of in romances, and very unlike anything feminine in america. their style of dress cannot have changed for centuries. it was quite unexpected to me to hear welsh so universally and familiarly spoken. everybody spoke it. the omnibus-driver could speak but imperfect english; there was a jabber of welsh all through the streets and market-places; and it flowed out with a freedom quite different from the way in which they expressed themselves in english. i had had an idea that welsh was spoken rather as a freak and in fun than as a native language; it was so strange to find another language the people's actual and earnest medium of thought within so short a distance of england. but english is scarcely more known to the body of the welsh people than to the peasantry of france. however, they sometimes pretend to ignorance, when they might speak it fairly enough. i took luncheon at the hotel where the omnibus stopped, and then went to search out the castle. it appears to have been once extensive, but the remains of it are now very few, except a part of the external wall. whatever other portion may still exist, has been built into a modern castellated mansion, which has risen within the wide circuit of the fortress,--a handsome and spacious edifice of red freestone, with a high tower, on which a flag was flying. the grounds were well laid out in walks, and really i think the site of the castle could not have been turned to better account. i am getting tired of antiquity. it is certainly less interesting in the long run than novelty; and so i was well content with the fresh, warm, red hue of the modern house, and the unworn outline of its walls, and its cheerful, large windows; and was willing that the old ivy-grown ruins should exist now only to contrast with the modernisms. these ancient walls, by the by, are of immense thickness. there is a passage through the interior of a portion of them, the width from this interior passage to the outer one being fifteen feet on one side, and i know not how much on the other. it continued showery all day; and the omnibus was crowded. i had chosen the outside from rhyl to denbigh, but, all the rest of the journey, imprisoned myself within. on our way home, an old lady got into the omnibus,--a lady of tremendous rotundity; and as she tumbled from the door to the farthest part of the carriage, she kept advising all the rest of the passengers to get out. "i don't think there will be much rain, gentlemen," quoth she, "you'll be much more comfortable on the outside." as none of us complied, she glanced along the seats. "what! are you all saas'uach?" she inquired. as we drove along, she talked welsh with great fluency to one of the passengers, a young woman with a baby, and to as many others as could understand her. it has a strange, wild sound, like a language half blown away by the wind. the lady's english was very good; but she probably prided herself on her proficiency in welsh. my excursion to-day had been along the valley of the clwyd, a very rich and fertile tract of country. the next day we all took a long walk on the beach, picking up shells. on monday we took an open carriage and drove to rhyddlan; whence we sent back the carriage, meaning to walk home along the embankment of the river clwyd, after inspecting the castle. the fortress is very ruinous, having been dismantled by the parliamentarians. there are great gaps,--two, at least, in the walls that connect the round towers, of which there were six, one on each side of a gateway in front, and the same at a gateway towards the river, where there is a steep descent to a wall and square tower, at the water-side. great pains and a great deal of gunpowder must have been used in converting this castle into a ruin. there were one or two fragments lying where they had fallen more than two hundred years ago, which, though merely a conglomeration of small stones and mortar, were just as hard as if they had been solid masses of granite. the substantial thickness of the walls is composed of these agglomerated small stones and mortar, the casing being hewn blocks of red freestone. this is much worn away by the weather, wherever it has been exposed to the air; but, under shelter, it looks as if it might have been hewn only a year or two ago. each of the round towers had formerly a small staircase turret rising beside and ascending above it, in which a warder might be posted, but they have all been so battered and shattered that it is impossible for an uninstructed observer to make out a satisfactory plan of then. the interior of each tower was a small room, not more than twelve or fifteen feet across; and of these there seem to have been three stories, with loop-holes for archery and not much other light than what came through them. then there are various passages and nooks and corners and square recesses in the stone, some of which must have been intended for dungeons, and the ugliest and gloomiest dungeons imaginable, for they could not have had any light or air. there is not, the least, splinter of wood-work remaining in any part of the castle,--nothing but bare stone, and a little plaster in one or two places, on the wall. in the front gateway we looked at the groove on each side, in which the portcullis used to rise and fall; and in each of the contiguous round towers there was a loop-hole, whence an enemy on the outer side of the portcullis might be shot through with an arrow. the inner court-yard is a parallelogram, nearly a square, and is about forty-five of my paces across. it is entirely grass-grown, and vacant, except for two or three trees that have been recently set out, and which are surrounded with palings to keep away the cows that pasture in and about the place. no window looks from the walls or towers into this court-yard; nor are there any traces of buildings having stood within the enclosure, unless it be what looks something like the flue of a chimney within one of the walls. i should suppose, however, that there must have been, when the castle was in its perfect state, a hall, a kitchen, and other commodious apartments and offices for the king and his train, such as there were at conway and beaumaris. but if so, all fragments have been carried away, and all hollows of the old foundations scrupulously filled up. the round towers could not have comprised all the accommodation of the castle. there is nothing more striking in these ruins than to look upward from the crumbling base, and see flights of stairs, still comparatively perfect, by which you might securely ascend to the upper heights of the tower, although all traces of a staircase have disappeared below, and the upper portion cannot be attained. on three sides of the fortress is a moat, about sixty feet wide, and cased with stone. it was probably of great depth in its day, but it is now partly filled up with earth, and is quite dry and grassy throughout its whole extent. on the inner side of the moat was the outer wall of the castle, portions of which still remain. between the outer wall and the castle itself the space is also about sixty feet. the day was cloudy and lowering, and there were several little spatterings of rain, while we rambled about. the two children ran shouting hither and thither, and were continually clambering into dangerous places, racing along ledges of broken wall. at last they altogether disappeared for a good while; their voices, which had heretofore been plainly audible, were hushed, nor was there any answer when we began to call them, while making ready for our departure. but they finally appeared, coming out of the moat, where they had been picking and eating blackberries,--which, they said, grew very plentifully there, and which they were very reluctant to leave. before quitting the castle, i must not forget the ivy, which makes a perfect tapestry over a large portion of the walls. we walked about the village, which is old and ugly; small, irregular streets, contriving to be intricate, though there are few of them; mean houses, joining to each other. we saw, in the principal one, the parliament house in which edward i. gave a charter, or allowed rights of some kind to his welsh subjects. the ancient part of its wall is entirely distinguishable from what has since been built upon it. thence we set out to walk along the embankment, although the sky looked very threatening. the wind, however, was so strong, and had such a full sweep at us, on the top of the bank, that we decided on taking a path that led from it across the moor. but we soon had cause to repent of this; for, which way soever we turned, we found ourselves cut off by a ditch or a little stream; so that here we were, fairly astray on rhyddlan moor, the old battle-field of the saxons and britons, and across which, i suppose, the fiddlers and mountebanks had marched to the relief of the earl of chester. anon, too, it began to shower; and it was only after various leaps and scramblings that we made our way to a large farm-house, and took shelter under a cart-shed. the back of the house to which we gained access was very dirty and ill-kept; some dirty children peeped at us as we approached, and nobody had the civility to ask us in; so we took advantage of the first cessation of the shower to resume our way. we were shortly overtaken by a very intelligent-looking and civil man, who seemed to have come from rhyddlan, and said he was going to rhyl. we followed his guidance over stiles and along hedge-row paths which we never could have threaded rightly by ourselves. by and by our kind guide had to stop at an intermediate farm; but he gave us full directions how to proceed, and we went on till it began to shower again pretty briskly, and we took refuge in a little bit of old stone cottage, which, small as it was, had a greater antiquity than any mansion in america. the door was open, and as we approached, we saw several children gazing at us; and their mother, a pleasant-looking woman, who seemed rather astounded at the visit that was about to befall her, tried to draw a tattered curtain over a part of her interior, which she fancied even less fit to be seen than the rest. to say the truth, the house was not at all better than a pigsty; and while we sat there, a pig came familiarly to the door, thrust in his snout, and seemed surprised that he should he driven away, instead of being admitted as one of the family. the floor was of brick; there was no ceiling, but only the peaked gable overhead. the room was kitchen, parlor, and, i suppose, bedroom for the whole family; at all events, there was only the tattered curtain between us and the sleeping accommodations. the good woman either could not or would not speak a word of english, only laughing when s----- said, "dim sassenach?" but she was kind and hospitable, and found a chair for each of us. she had been making some bread, and the dough was on the dresser. life with these people is reduced to its simplest elements. it is only a pity that they cannot or do not choose to keep themselves cleaner. poverty, except in cities, need not be squalid. when the shower abated a little, we gave all the pennies we had to the children, and set forth again. by the by, there were several colored prints stuck up against the walls, and there was a clock ticking in a corner and some paper-hangings pinned upon the slanting roof. it began to rain again before we arrived at rhyl, and we were driven into a small tavern. after staying there awhile, we set forth between the drops; but the rain fell still heavier, so that we were pretty well damped before we got to our lodgings. after dinner, i took the rail for chester and rock park, and s----- and the children and maid followed the next day. september d.--i dined on wednesday evening at mr. john heywood's, norris green. mr. mouckton mimes and lady were of the company. mr. mimes is a very agreeable, kindly man, resembling longfellow a good deal in personal appearance; and he promotes, by his genial manners, the same pleasant intercourse which is so easily established with longfellow. he is said to be a very kind patron of literary men, and to do a great deal of good among young and neglected people of that class. he is considered one of the best conversationists at present in society: it may very well be so; his style of talking being very simple and natural, anything but obtrusive, so that you might enjoy its agreeableness without suspecting it. he introduced me to his wife (a daughter of lord crewe), with whom and himself i had a good deal of talk. mr. milnes told me that he owns the land in yorkshire, whence some of the pilgrims of the mayflower emigrated to plymouth, and that elder brewster was the postmaster of the village. . . . . he also said that in the next voyage of the mayflower, after she carried the pilgrims, she was employed in transporting a cargo of slaves from africa,--to the west indies, i suppose. this is a queer fact, and would be nuts for the southerners. mem.--an american would never understand the passage in bunyan about christian and hopeful going astray along a by-path into the grounds of giant despair,--from there being no stiles and by-paths in our country. september th.--on saturday evening my wife and i went to a soiree given by the mayor and mrs. lloyd at the town hall to receive the earl of harrowby. it was quite brilliant, the public rooms being really magnificent, and adorned for the occasion with a large collection of pictures, belonging to mr. naylor. they were mostly, if not entirely, of modern artists,--of turner, wilkie, landseer, and others of the best english painters. turner's seemed too ethereal to have been done by mortal hands. the british scientific association being now in session here, many distinguished strangers were present. september th.--mr. monekton milnes called on me at the consulate day before yesterday. he is pleasant and sensible. speaking of american politicians, i remarked that they were seldom anything but politicians, and had no literary or other culture beyond their own calling. he said the case was the same in england, and instanced sir ------, who once called on him for information when an appeal had been made to him respecting two literary gentlemen. sir ------ had never heard the names of either of these gentlemen, and applied to mr. milnes as being somewhat conversant with the literary class, to know whether they were distinguished and what were their claims. the names of the two literary men were james sheridan knowles and alfred tennyson. october th.--yesterday i was present at a dejeuner on board the james barnes, on occasion of her coming under the british flag, having been built for the messrs. barnes by donald mckay of boston. she is a splendid vessel, and magnificently fitted up, though not with consummate taste. it would be worth while that ornamental architects and upholsterers should study this branch of art, since the ship-builders seem willing to expend a good deal of money on it. in fact, i do not see that there is anywhere else so much encouragement to the exercise of ornamental art. i saw nothing to criticise in the solid and useful details of the ship; the ventilation, in particular, being free and abundant, so that the hundreds of passengers who will have their berths between decks, and at a still lower depth, will have good air and enough of it. there were four or five hundred persons, principally liverpool merchants and their wives, invited to the dejeuner; and the tables were spread between decks, the berths for passengers not being yet put in. there was not quite light enough to make the scene cheerful, it being an overcast day; and, indeed, there was an english plainness in the arrangement of the festal room, which might have been better exchanged for the flowery american taste, which i have just been criticising. with flowers, and the arrangement of flags, we should have made something very pretty of the space between decks; but there was nothing to hide the fact that in a few days hence there would be crowded berths and sea-sick steerage passengers where we were now feasting. the cheer was very good,--cold fowl and meats; cold pies of foreign manufacture very rich, and of mysterious composition; and champagne in plenty, with other wines for those who liked them. i sat between two ladies, one of them mrs. ------, a pleasant young woman, who, i believe, is of american provincial nativity, and whom i therefore regarded as half a countrywoman. we talked a good deal together, and i confided to her my annoyance at the prospect of being called up to answer a toast; but she did not pity me at all, though she felt, much alarm about her husband, captain ------, who was in the same predicament. seriously, it is the most awful part of my official duty,-- this necessity of making dinner-speeches at the mayor's, and other public or semi-public tables. however, my neighborhood to mrs. ------ was good for me, inasmuch as by laughing over the matter with her came to regard it in a light and ludicrous way; and so, when the time actually came, i stood up with a careless dare-devil feeling. the chairman toasted the president immediately after the queen, and did me the honor to speak of myself in a most flattering manner, something like this: "great by his position under the republic,--greater still, i am bold to say, in the republic of letters!" i made no reply at all to this; in truth, i forgot all about it when i began to speak, and merely thanked the company in behalf of the president, and my countrymen, and made a few remarks with no very decided point to them. however, they cheered and applauded, and i took advantage of the applause to sit down, and mrs. ------ informed me that i had succeeded admirably. it was no success at all, to be sure; neither was it a failure, for i had aimed at nothing, and i had exactly hit it. but after sitting down, i was conscious of an enjoyment in speaking to a public assembly, and felt as if i should like to rise again. it is something like being under fire,--a sort of excitement, not exactly pleasure, but more piquant than most pleasures. i have felt this before, in the same circumstances; but, while on my legs, my impulse is to get through with my remarks and sit down again as quickly as possible. the next speech, i think, was by rev. dr. ------, the celebrated arctic gentleman, in reply to a toast complimentary to the clergy. he turned aside from the matter in hand, to express his kind feelings towards america, where he said he had been most hospitably received, especially at cambridge university. he also made allusions to me, and i suppose it would have been no more than civil in me to have answered with a speech in acknowledgment, but i did not choose to make another venture, so merely thanked him across the corner of the table, for he sat near me. he is a venerable-looking, white-haired gentleman, tall and slender, with a pale, intelligent, kindly face. other speeches were made; but from beginning to end there was not one breath of eloquence, nor even one neat sentence; and i rather think that englishmen would purposely avoid eloquence or neatness in after-dinner speeches. it seems to be no part of their object. yet any englishman almost, much more generally than americans, will stand up and talk on in a plain way, uttering one rough, ragged, and shapeless sentence after another, and will have expressed himself sensibly, though in a very rude manner, before he sits down. and this is quite satisfactory to his audience, who, indeed, are rather prejudiced against the man who speaks too glibly. the guests began to depart shortly after three o'clock. this morning i have seen two reports of my little speech,--one exceedingly incorrect; another pretty exact, but not much to my taste, for i seem to have left out everything that would have been fittest to say. october th.--the people, for several days, have been in the utmost anxiety, and latterly in the highest exultation about sebastopol,--and all england, and europe to boot, have been fooled by the belief that it had fallen. this, however, now turns out to be incorrect; and the public visage is somewhat grim, in consequence. i am glad of it. in spite of his actual sympathies, it is impossible for a true american to be otherwise than glad. success makes an englishman intolerable; and, already, on the mistaken idea that the way was open to a prosperous conclusion of the war, the times had begun to throw out menaces against america. i shall never love england till she sues to us for help, and, in the mean time, the fewer triumphs she obtains, the better for all parties. an englishman in adversity is a very respectable character; he does not lose his dignity, but merely comes to a proper conception of himself. it is rather touching to an observer to see how much the universal heart is in this matter,--to see the merchants gathering round the telegraphic messages, posted on the pillars of the exchange news-room, the people in the street who cannot afford to buy a paper clustering round the windows of the news-offices, where a copy is pinned up,--the groups of corporals and sergeants at the recruiting rendezvous, with a newspaper in the midst of them and all earnest and sombre, and feeling like one man together, whatever their rank. i seem to myself like a spy or a traitor when i meet their eyes, and am conscious that i neither hope nor fear in sympathy with them, although they look at me in full confidence of sympathy. their heart "knoweth its own bitterness," and as for me, being a stranger and all alien, i "intermeddle not with their joy." october th.--my ancestor left england in . i return in . i sometimes feel as if i myself had been absent these two hundred and twenty-three years, leaving england just emerging from the feudal system, and finding it, on my return, on the verge of republicanism. it brings the two far-separated points of time very closely together, to view the matter thus. october th.--a day or two ago arrived the sad news of the loss of the arctic by collision with a french steamer off newfoundland, and the loss also of three or four hundred people. i have seldom been more affected by anything quite alien from my personal and friendly concerns, than by the death of captain luce and his son. the boy was a delicate lad, and it is said that he had never been absent from his mother till this time, when his father had taken him to england to consult a physician about a complaint in his hip. so his father, while the ship was sinking, was obliged to decide whether he would put the poor, weakly, timorous child on board the boat, to take his hard chance of life there, or keep him to go down with himself and the ship. he chose the latter; and within half an hour, i suppose, the boy was among the child-angels. captain luce could not do less than die, for his own part, with the responsibility of all those lost lives upon him. he may not have been in the least to blame for the calamity, but it was certainly too heavy a one for him to survive. he was a sensible man, and a gentleman, courteous, quiet, with something almost melancholy in his address and aspect. oftentimes he has come into my inner office to say good-by before his departures, but i cannot precisely remember whether or no he took leave of me before this latest voyage. i never exchanged a great many words with him; but those were kind ones. october th.--it appears to be customary for people of decent station, but in distressed circumstances, to go round among their neighbors and the public, accompanied by a friend, who explains the case. i have been accosted in the street in regard to one of these matters; and to-day there came to my office a grocer, who had become security for a friend, and who was threatened with an execution,--with another grocer for supporter and advocate. the beneficiary takes very little active part in the affair, merely looking careworn, distressed, and pitiable, and throwing in a word of corroboration, or a sigh, or an acknowledgment, as the case may demand. in the present instance, the friend, a young, respectable-looking tradesman, with a lancashire accent, spoke freely and simply of his client's misfortunes, not pressing the case unduly, but doing it full justice, and saying, at the close of the interview, that it was no pleasant business for himself. the broken grocer was an elderly man, of somewhat sickly aspect. the whole matter is very foreign to american habits. no respectable american would think of retrieving his affairs by such means, but would prefer ruin ten times over; no friend would take up his cause; no public would think it worth while to prevent the small catastrophe. and yet the custom is not without its good side as indicating a closer feeling of brotherhood, a more efficient sense of neighborhood, than exists among ourselves, although, perhaps, we are more careless of a fellow-creature's ruin, because ruin with us is by no means the fatal and irretrievable event that it is in england. i am impressed with the ponderous and imposing look of an english legal document,--an assignment of real estate in england, for instance,-- engrossed on an immense sheet of thickest paper, in a formal hand, beginning with "this indenture" in german text, and with occasional phrases of form, breaking out into large script,--very long and repetitious, fortified with the mayor of manchester's seal, two or three inches in diameter, which is certified by a notary-public, whose signature, again, is to have my consular certificate and official seal. november d.--a young frenchman enters, of gentlemanly aspect, with a grayish cloak or paletot overspreading his upper person, and a handsome and well-made pair of black trousers and well-fitting boots below. on sitting down, he does not throw off nor at all disturb the cloak. eying him more closely, one discerns that he has no shirt-collar, and that what little is visible of his shirt-bosom seems not to be of to-day nor of yesterday,--perhaps not even of the day before. his manner is not very good; nevertheless, he is a coxcomb and a jackanapes. he avers himself a naturalized citizen of america, where he has been tutor in several families of distinction, and has been treated like a son. he left america on account of his health, and came near being tutor in the duke of norfolk's family, but failed for lack of testimonials; he is exceedingly capable and accomplished, but reduced in funds, and wants employment here, of the means of returning to america, where he intends to take a situation under government, which he is sure of obtaining. he mentioned a quarrel which he had recently had with an englishman in behalf of america, and would have fought a duel had such been the custom of the country. he made the englishman foam at the mouth, and told him that he had been twelve years at a military school, and could easily kill him. i say to him that i see little or no prospect of his getting employment here, but offer to inquire whether any situation, as clerk or otherwise, can be obtained for him in a vessel returning to america, and ask his address. he has no address. much to my surprise, he takes his leave without requesting pecuniary aid, but hints that he shall call again. he is a very disagreeable young fellow, like scores of others who call on me in the like situation. his english is very good for a frenchman, and he says he speaks it the least well of five languages. he has been three years in america, and obtained his naturalization papers, he says, as a special favor, and by means of strong interest. nothing is so absolutely odious as the sense of freedom and equality pertaining to an american grafted on the mind of a native of any other country in the world. a naturalized citizen is hateful. nobody has a right to our ideas, unless born to them. november th.--i lent the above frenchman a small sum; he advertised for employment as a teacher; and he called this morning to thank me for my aid, and says mr. c------ has engaged him for his children, at a guinea a week, and that he has also another engagement. the poor fellow seems to have been brought to a very low ebb. he has pawned everything, even to his last shirt, save the one he had on, and had been living at the rate of twopence a day. i had procured him a chance to return to america, but he was ashamed to go back in such poor circumstances, and so determined to seek better fortune here. i like him better than i did,--partly, i suppose, because i have helped him. november th.--the other day i saw an elderly gentleman walking in dale street, apparently in a state of mania; for as he limped along (being afflicted with lameness) he kept talking to himself, and sometimes breaking out into a threat against some casual passenger. he was a very respectable-looking man; and i remember to have seen him last summer, in the steamer, returning from the isle of man, where he had been staying at castle mona. what a strange and ugly predicament it would be for a person of quiet habits to be suddenly smitten with lunacy at noonday in a crowded street, and to walk along through a dim maze of extravagances,-- partly conscious of then, but unable to resist the impulse to give way to them! a long-suppressed nature might be represented as bursting out in this way, for want of any other safety-valve. in america, people seem to consider the government merely as a political administration; and they care nothing for the credit of it, unless it be the administration of their own political party. in england, all people, of whatever party, are anxious for the credit of their rulers. our government, as a knot of persons, changes so entirely every four years, that the institution has come to be considered a temporary thing. looking at the moon the other evening, little r----- said, "it blooms out in the morning!" taking the moon to be the bud of the sun. the english are a most intolerant people. nobody is permitted, nowadays, to have any opinion but the prevalent one. there seems to be very little difference between their educated and ignorant classes in this respect; if any, it is to the credit of the latter, who do not show tokens of such extreme interest in the war. it is agreeable, however, to observe how all englishmen pull together,--how each man comes forward with his little scheme for helping on the war,--how they feel themselves members of one family, talking together about their common interest, as if they were gathered around one fireside; and then what a hearty meed of honor they award to their soldiers! it is worth facing death for. whereas, in america, when our soldiers fought as good battles, with as great proportionate loss, and far more valuable triumphs, the country seemed rather ashamed than proud of them. mrs. heywood tells me that there are many catholics among the lower classes in lancashire and cheshire,--probably the descendants of retainers of the old catholic nobility and gentry, who are more numerous in these shires than in other parts of england. the present lord sefton's grandfather was the first of that race who became protestant. december th.--commodore p------ called to see me this morning,--a brisk, gentlemanly, offhand, but not rough, unaffected and sensible man, looking not so elderly as he ought, on account of a very well made wig. he is now on his return from a cruise in the east indian seas, and goes home by the baltic, with a prospect of being very well received on account of his treaty with japan. i seldom meet with a man who puts himself more immediately on conversable terms than the commodore. he soon introduced his particular business with me,--it being to inquire whether i would recommend some suitable person to prepare his notes and materials for the publication of an account of his voyage. he was good enough to say that he had fixed upon me, in his own mind, for this office; but that my public duties would of course prevent me from engaging in it. i spoke of herman melville, and one or two others; but he seems to have some acquaintance with the literature of the day, and did not grasp very cordially at any name that i could think of; nor, indeed, could i recommend any one with full confidence. it would be a very desirable task for a young literary man, or, for that matter, for an old one; for the world can scarcely have in reserve a less hackneyed theme than japan. this is a most beautiful day of english winter; clear and bright, with the ground a little frozen, and the green grass along the waysides at rock ferry sprouting up through the frozen pools of yesterday's rain. england is forever green. on christmas day, the children found wall-flowers, pansies, and pinks in the garden; and we had a beautiful rose from the garden of the hotel grown in the open air. yet one is sensible of the cold here, as much as in the zero atmosphere of america. the chief advantage of the english climate is that we are not tempted to heat our rooms to so unhealthy a degree as in new england. i think i have been happier this christmas than ever before,--by my own fireside, and with my wife and children about me,--more content to enjoy what i have,--less anxious for anything beyond it in this life. my early life was perhaps a good preparation for the declining half of life; it having been such a blank that any thereafter would compare favorably with it. for a long, long while, i have occasionally been visited with a singular dream; and i have an impression that i have dreamed it ever since i have been in england. it is, that i am still at college,--or, sometimes, even at school,--and there is a sense that i have been there unconscionably long, and have quite failed to make such progress as my contemporaries have done; and i seem to meet some of them with a feeling of shame and depression that broods over me as i think of it, even when awake. this dream, recurring all through these twenty or thirty years, must be one of the effects of that heavy seclusion in which i shut myself up for twelve years after leaving college, when everybody moved onward, and left me behind. how strange that it should come now, when i may call myself famous and prosperous!--when i am happy, too! january d, .--the progress of the age is trampling over the aristocratic institutions of england, and they crumble beneath it. this war has given the country a vast impulse towards democracy. the nobility will never hereafter, i think, assume or be permitted to rule the nation in peace, or command armies in war, on any ground except the individual ability which may appertain to one of their number, as well as to a commoner. and yet the nobles were never positively more noble than now; never, perhaps, so chivalrous, so honorable, so highly cultivated; but, relatively to the rest of the world, they do not maintain their old place. the pressure of the war has tested and proved this fact, at home and abroad. at this moment it would be an absurdity in the nobles to pretend to the position which was quietly conceded to them a year ago. this one year has done the work of fifty ordinary ones; or, more accurately, it has made apparent what has long been preparing itself. january th.--the american ambassador called on me to-day and stayed a good while,--an hour or two. he is visiting at mr. william browne's, at richmond hill, having come to this region to bring his niece, who is to be bride's-maid at the wedding of an american girl. i like mr. ------. he cannot exactly be called gentlemanly in his manners, there being a sort of rusticity about him; moreover, he has a habit of squinting one eye, and an awkward carriage of his head; hut, withal, a dignity in his large person, and a consciousness of high position and importance, which gives him ease and freedom. very simple and frank in his address, he may be as crafty as other diplomatists are said to be; but i see only good sense and plainness of speech,--appreciative, too, and genial enough to make himself conversable. he talked very freely of himself and of other public people, and of american and english affairs. he returns to america, he says, next october, and then retires forever from public life, being sixty-four years of age, and having now no desire except to write memoirs of his times, and especially of the administration of mr. polk. i suggested a doubt whether the people would permit him to retire; and he immediately responded to my hint as regards his prospects for the presidency. he said that his mind was fully made up, and that he would never be a candidate, and that he had expressed this decision to his friends in such a way as to put it out of his own power to change it. he acknowledged that he should have been glad of the nomination for the presidency in , but that it was now too late, and that he was too old,--and, in short, he seemed to be quite sincere in his nolo episcopari; although, really, he is the only democrat, at this moment, whom it would not be absurd to talk of for the office. as he talked, his face flushed, and he seemed to feel inwardly excited. doubtless, it was the high vision of half his lifetime which he here relinquished. i cannot question that he is sincere; but, of course, should the people insist upon having him for president, he is too good a patriot to refuse. i wonder whether he can have had any object in saying all this to me. he might see that it would be perfectly natural for me to tell it to general pierce. but it is a very vulgar idea,--this of seeing craft and subtlety, when there is a plain and honest aspect. january th.--i dined at mr. william browne's (m. p.) last, evening with a large party. the whole table and dessert service was of silver. speaking of shakespeare, mr. ------ said that the duke of somerset, who is now nearly fourscore, told him that the father of john and charles kemble had made all possible research into the events of shakespeare's life, and that he had found reason to believe that shakespeare attended a certain revel at stratford, and, indulging too much in the conviviality of the occasion, he tumbled into a ditch on his way home, and died there! the kemble patriarch was an aged man when he communicated this to the duke; and their ages, linked to each other; would extend back a good way; scarcely to the beginning of the last century, however. if i mistake not, it was from the traditions of stratford that kemble had learned the above. i do not remember ever to have seen it in print,--which is most singular. miss l---- has an english rather than an american aspect,--being of stronger outline than most of our young ladies, although handsomer than english women generally, extremely self-possessed and well poised without affectation or assumption, but quietly conscious of rank, as much so as if she were an earl's daughter. in truth, she felt pretty much as an earl's daughter would do towards the merchants' wives and daughters who made up the feminine portion of the party. i talked with her a little, and found her sensible, vivacious, and firm-textured, rather than soft and sentimental. she paid me some compliments; but i do not remember paying her any. mr. j-----'s daughters, two pale, handsome girls, were present. one of them is to be married to a grandson of mr. ------, who was also at the dinner. he is a small young man, with a thin and fair mustache, . . . . and a lady who sat next me whispered that his expectations are , pounds per annum. it struck me, that, being a country gentleman's son, he kept himself silent and reserved, as feeling himself too good for this commercial dinner-party; but perhaps, and i rather think so, he was really shy and had nothing to say, being only twenty-one, and therefore quite a boy among englishmen. the only man of cognizable rank present, except mr. ------ and the mayor of liverpool, was a baronet, sir thomas birch. january th.--s---- and i were invited to be present at the wedding of mr. j-------'s daughter this morning, but we were also bidden to the funeral services of mrs. g------, a young american lady; and we went to the "house of mourning," rather than to the "house of feasting." her death was very sudden. i crossed to rock ferry on saturday, and met her husband in the boat. he said his wife was rather unwell, and that he had just been sent for to see her; but he did not seem at all alarmed. and yet, on reaching home, he found her dead! the body is to be conveyed to america, and the funeral service was read over her in her house, only a few neighbors and friends being present. we were shown into a darkened room, where there was a dim gaslight burning, and a fire glimmering, and here and there a streak of sunshine struggling through the drawn curtains. mr. g------ looked pale, and quite overcome with grief,--this, i suppose, being his first sorrow,--and he has a young baby on his hands, and no doubt, feels altogether forlorn in this foreign land. the clergyman entered in his canonicals, and we walked in a little procession into another room, where the coffin was placed. mr. g------ sat down and rested his head on the coffin: the clergyman read the service; then knelt down, as did most of the company, and prayed with great propriety of manner, but with no earnestness,--and we separated. mr. g------ is a small, smooth, and pretty young man, not emphasized in any way; but grief threw its awfulness about him to-day in a degree which i should not have expected. january th.--mr. steele, a gentleman of rock ferry, showed me this morning a pencil-case formerly belonging to dr. johnson. it is six or seven inches long, of large calibre, and very clumsily manufactured of iron, perhaps plated in its better days, but now quite bare. indeed, it looks as rough as an article of kitchen furniture. the intaglio on the end is a lion rampant. on the whole, it well became dr. johnson to have used such a stalwart pencil-case. it had a six-inch measure on a part of it, so that it must have been at least eight inches long. mr. steele says he has seen a cracked earthen teapot, of large size, in which miss williams used to make tea for dr. johnson. god himself cannot compensate us for being born for any period short of eternity. all the misery endured here constitutes a claim for another life, and, still more, all the happiness; because all true happiness involves something more than the earth owns, and needs something more than a mortal capacity for the enjoyment of it. after receiving an injury on the head, a person fancied all the rest of his life that he heard voices flouting, jeering, and upbraiding him. february th.--i dined with the mayor at the town hall last friday evening. i sat next to mr. w. j------, an irish-american merchant, who is in very good standing here. he told me that he used to be very well acquainted with general jackson, and that he was present at the street fight between him and the bentons, and helped to take general jackson off the ground. colonel benton shot at him from behind; but it was jesse benton's ball that hit him and broke his arm. i did not understand him to infer any treachery or cowardice from the circumstance of colonel benton's shooting at jackson from behind, but, suppose it occurred in the confusion and excitement of a street fight. mr. w. j------ seems to think that, after all, the reconciliation between the old general and benton was merely external, and that they really hated one another as before. i do not think so. these dinners of the mayors are rather agreeable than otherwise, except for the annoyance, in my case, of being called up to speak to a toast, and that is less disagreeable than at first. the suite of rooms at the town house is stately and splendid, and all the mayors, as far as i have seen, exercise hospitality in a manner worthy of the chief magistrates of a great city. they are supposed always to spend much more than their salary (which is , pounds) in these entertainments. the town provides the wines, i am told, and it might be expected that they should be particularly good,--at least, those which improve by age, for a quarter of a century should be only a moderate age for wine from the cellars of centuries-long institutions, like a corporate borough. each mayor might lay in a supply of the best vintage he could find, and trust his good name to posterity to the credit of that wine; and so he would be kindly and warmly remembered long after his own nose had lost its rubicundity. in point of fact, the wines seem to be good, but not remarkable. the dinner was good, and very handsomely served, with attendance enough, both in the hall below--where the door was wide open at the appointed hour, notwithstanding the cold--and at table; some being in the rich livery of the borough, and some in plain clothes. servants, too, were stationed at various points from the hall to the reception-room; and the last one shouted forth the name of the entering guest. there were, i should think, about fifty guests at this dinner. two bishops were present. the bishops of chester and new south wales, dressed in a kind of long tunics, with black breeches and silk stockings, insomuch that i first fancied they were catholics. also dr. mcneil, in a stiff-collared coat, looking more like a general than a divine. there were two officers in blue uniforms; and all the rest of us were in black, with only two white waistcoats,--my own being one,--and a rare sprinkling of white cravats. how hideously a man looks in them! i should like to have seen such assemblages as must have gathered in that reception-room, and walked with stately tread to the dining-hall, in times past, the mayor and other civic dignitaries in their robes, noblemen in their state dresses, the consul in his olive-leaf embroidery, everybody in some sort of bedizenment,--and then the dinner would have been a magnificent spectacle, worthy of the gilded hall, the rich table-service, and the powdered and gold-laced servitors. at a former dinner i remember seeing a gentleman in small-clothes, with a dress-sword; but all formalities of the kind are passing away. the mayor's dinners, too, will no doubt be extinct before many years go by. i drove home from the woodside ferry in a cab with bishop burke and two other gentlemen. the bishop is nearly seven feet high. after writing the foregoing account of a civic banquet, where i ate turtle-soup, salmon, woodcock, oyster patties, and i know not what else, i have been to the news-room and found the exchange pavement densely thronged with people of all ages and of all manner of dirt and rags. they were waiting for soup-tickets, and waiting very patiently too, without outcry or disturbance, or even sour looks,--only patience and meekness in their faces. well, i don't know that they have a right to he impatient of starvation; but, still there does seem to be an insolence of riches and prosperity, which one day or another will have a downfall. and this will be a pity, too. on saturday i went with my friend mr. bright to otterpool and to larkhill to see the skaters on the private waters of those two seats of gentlemen; and it is a wonder to behold--and it is always a new wonder to me--how comfortable englishmen know how to make themselves; locating their dwellings far within private grounds, with secure gateways and porters' lodges, and the smoothest roads and trimmest paths, and shaven lawns, and clumps of trees, and every bit of the ground, every hill and dell, made the most of for convenience and beauty, and so well kept that even winter cannot cause disarray; and all this appropriated to the same family for generations, so that i suppose they come to believe it created exclusively and on purpose for them. and, really, the result is good and beautiful. it is a home,--an institution which we americans have not; but then i doubt whether anybody is entitled to a home in this world, in so full a sense. the day was very cold, and the skaters seemed to enjoy themselves exceedingly. they were, i suppose, friends of the owners of the grounds, and mr. bright said they were treated in a jolly way, with hot luncheons. the skaters practise skating more as an art, and can perform finer manoeuvres on the ice, than our new england skaters usually can, though the english have so much less opportunity for practice. a beggar-woman was haunting the grounds at otterpool, but i saw nobody give her anything. i wonder how she got inside of the gate. mr. w. j------ spoke of general jackson as having come from the same part of ireland as himself, and perhaps of the same family. i wonder whether he meant to say that the general was born in ireland,--that having been suspected in america. february st.--yesterday two companies of work-people came to our house in rock park, asking assistance, being out of work and with no resource other than charity. there were a dozen or more in each party. their deportment was quiet and altogether unexceptionable,--no rudeness, no gruffness, nothing of menace. indeed, such demonstrations would not have been safe, as they were followed about by two policemen; but they really seem to take their distress as their own misfortune and god's will, and impute it to nobody as a fault. this meekness is very touching, and makes one question the more whether they have all their rights. there have been disturbances, within a day or two, in liverpool, and shops have been broken open and robbed of bread and money; but this is said to have been done by idle vagabonds, and not by the really hungry work-people. these last submit to starvation gently and patiently, as if it were an every-day matter with them, or, at least, nothing but what lay fairly within their horoscope. i suppose, in fact, their stomachs have the physical habit that makes hunger not intolerable, because customary. if they had been used to a full meat diet, their hunger would be fierce, like that of ravenous beasts; but now they are trained to it. i think that the feeling of an american, divided, as i am, by the ocean from his country, has a continual and immediate correspondence with the national feeling at home; and it seems to be independent of any external communication. thus, my ideas about the russian war vary in accordance with the state of the public mind at home, so that i am conscious whereabouts public sympathy is. march th.--j----- and i walked to tranmere, and passed an old house which i suppose to be tranmere hall. our way to it was up a hollow lane, with a bank and hedge on each side, and with a few thatched stone cottages, centuries old, their ridge-poles crooked and the stones time-worn, scattered along. at one point there was a wide, deep well, hewn out of the solid red freestone, and with steps, also hewn in solid rock, leading down to it. these steps were much hollowed by the feet of those who had come to the well; and they reach beneath the water, which is very high. the well probably supplied water to the old cotters and retainers of tranmere hall five hundred years ago. the hall stands on the verge of a long hill which stretches behind tranmere and as far as birkenhead. it is an old gray stone edifice, with a good many gables, and windows with mullions, and some of them extending the whole breadth of the gable. in some parts of the house, the windows seem to have been built up; probably in the days when daylight was taxed. the form of the hall is multiplex, the roofs sloping down and intersecting one another, so as to make the general result indescribable. there were two sun-dials on different sides of the house, both the dial-plates of which were of stone; and on one the figures, so far as i could see, were quite worn off, but the gnomon still cast a shadow over it in such a way that i could judge that it was about noon. the other dial had some half-worn hour-marks, but no gnomon. the chinks of the stones of the house were very weedy, and the building looked quaint and venerable; but it is now converted into a farm-house, with the farm-yard and outbuildings closely appended. a village, too, has grown up about it, so that it seems out of place among modern stuccoed dwellings, such as are erected for tradesmen and other moderate people who have their residences in the neighborhood of a great city. among these there are a few thatched cottages, the homeliest domiciles that ever mortals lived in, belonging to the old estate. directly across the street is a wayside inn, "licensed to sell wine, spirits, ale, and tobacco." the street itself has been laid out since the land grew valuable by the increase of liverpool and birkenhead; for the old hall would never have been built on the verge of a public way. march th.--i attended court to day, at st. george's hall, with my wife, mr. bright, and mr. channing, sitting in the high sheriff's seat. it was the civil side, and mr. justice cresswell presided. the lawyers, as far as aspect goes, seemed to me inferior to an american bar, judging from their countenances, whether as intellectual men or gentlemen. their wigs and gowns do not impose on the spectator, though they strike him as an imposition. their date is past. mr. warren, of the "ten thousand a year," was in court,--a pale, thin, intelligent face, evidently a nervous man, more unquiet than anybody else in court,--always restless in his seat, whispering to his neighbors, settling his wig, perhaps with an idea that people single him out. st. george's hall--the interior hall itself, i mean--is a spacious, lofty, and most rich and noble apartment, and very satisfactory. the pavement is made of mosaic tiles, and has a beautiful effect. april th.--i dined at mr. j. p. heywood's on thursday, and met there mr. and mrs. ------ of smithell's hall. the hall is an old edifice of some five hundred years, and mrs. ------ says there is a bloody footstep at the foot of the great staircase. the tradition is that a certain martyr, in bloody mary's time, being examined before the occupant of the hall, and committed to prison, stamped his foot, in earnest protest against the injustice with which he was treated. blood issued from his foot, which slid along the stone pavement, leaving a long footmark, printed in blood. and there it has remained ever since, in spite of the scrubbings of all succeeding generations. mrs. ------ spoke of it with much solemnity, real or affected. she says that they now cover the bloody impress with a carpet, being unable to remove it. in the history of lancashire, which i looked at last night, there is quite a different account,--according to which the footstep is not a bloody one, but is a slight cavity or inequality in the surface of the stone, somewhat in the shape of a man's foot with a peaked shoe. the martyr's name was george marsh. he was a curate, and was afterwards burnt. mrs. ------ asked me to go and see the hall and the footmark; and as it is in lancashire, and not a great way off, and a curious old place, perhaps i may. april th.--the earl of ------, whom i saw the other day at st. george's hall, has a somewhat elderly look,--a pale and rather thin face, which strikes one as remarkably short, or compressed from top to bottom. nevertheless, it has great intelligence, and sensitiveness too, i should think, but a cold, disagreeable expression. i should take him to be a man of not very pleasant temper,--not genial. he has no physical presence nor dignity, yet one sees him to be a person of rank and consequence. but, after all, there is nothing about him which it need have taken centuries of illustrious nobility to produce, especially in a man of remarkable ability, as lord ------ certainly is. s-----, who attended court all through the hapgood trial, and saw lord ------ for hours together every day, has come to conclusions quite different from mine. she thinks him a perfectly natural person, without any assumption, any self-consciousness, any scorn of the lower world. she was delighted with his ready appreciation and feeling of what was passing around him,-- his quick enjoyment of a joke,--the simplicity and unaffectedness of his emotion at whatever incidents excited his interest,--the genial acknowledgment of sympathy, causing him to look round and exchange glances with those near him, who were not his individual friends, but barristers and other casual persons. he seemed to her all that a nobleman ought to be, entirely simple and free from pretence and self-assertion, which persons of lower rank can hardly help bedevilling themselves with. i saw him only for a very few moments, so cannot put my observation against hers, especially as i was influenced by what i had heard the liverpool people say of him. i do not know whether i have mentioned that the handsomest man i have seen in england was a young footman of mr. heywood's. in his rich livery, he was a perfect joseph andrews. in my romance, the original emigrant to america may have carried away with him a family secret, whereby it was in his power, had he so chosen, to have brought about the ruin of the family. this secret he transmits to his american progeny, by whom it is inherited throughout all the intervening generations. at last, the hero of the romance comes to england, and finds, that, by means of this secret, he still has it in his power to procure the downfall of the family. it would be something similar to the story of meleager, whose fate depended on the firebrand that his mother had snatched from the flames. april th.--on saturday i was present at a dejeuner on board the donald mckay; the principal guest being mr. layard, m. p. there were several hundred people, quite filling the between decks of the ship, which was converted into a saloon for the occasion. i sat next to mr. layard, at the head of the table, and so had a good opportunity of seeing and getting acquainted with him. he is a man in early middle age,--of middle stature, with an open, frank, intelligent, kindly face. his forehead is not expansive, but is prominent in the perceptive regions, and retreats a good deal. his mouth is full,--i liked him from the first. he was very kind and complimentary to me, and made me promise to go and see him in london. it would have been a very pleasant entertainment, only that my pleasure in it was much marred by having to acknowledge a toast, in honor of the president. however, such things do not trouble me nearly so much as they used to do, and i came through it tolerably enough. mr. layard's speech was the great affair of the day. he speaks with much fluency (though he assured me that he had to put great force upon himself to speak publicly), and, as he warms up, seems to engage with his whole moral and physical man,--quite possessed with what he has to say. his evident earnestness and good faith make him eloquent, and stand him instead of oratorical graces. his views of the position of england and the prospects of the war were as dark as well could be; and his speech was exceedingly to the purpose, full of common-sense, and with not one word of clap-trap. judging from its effect upon the audience, he spoke the voice of the whole english people,--although an english baronet, who sat next below me, seemed to dissent, or at least to think that it was not exactly the thing for a stranger to hear. it concluded amidst great cheering. mr. layard appears to be a true englishman, with a moral force and strength of character, and earnestness of purpose, and fulness of common-sense, such as have always served england's turn in her past successes; but rather fit for resistance than progress. no doubt, he is a good and very able man; but i question whether he could get england out of the difficulties which he sees so clearly, or could do much better than lord palmerston, whom he so decries. april th.--taking the deposition of sailors yesterday, in a case of alleged ill-usage by the officers of a vessel, one of the witnesses was an old seaman of sixty. in reply to some testimony of his, the captain said, "you were the oldest man in the ship, and we honored you as such." the mate also said that he never could have thought of striking an old man like that. indeed, the poor old fellow had a kind of dignity and venerableness about him, though he confessed to having been drunk, and seems to have been a mischief-maker, what they call a sea-preacher,-- promoting discontent and grumbling. he must have been a very handsome man in his youth, having regular features of a noble and beautiful cast. his beard was gray; but his dark hair had hardly a streak of white, and was abundant all over his head. he was deaf, and seemed to sit in a kind of seclusion, unless when loudly questioned or appealed to. once he broke forth from a deep silence thus, "i defy any man!" and then was silent again. it had a strange effect, this general defiance, which he meant, i suppose, in answer to some accusation that he thought was made against him. his general behavior throughout the examination was very decorous and proper; and he said he had never but once hitherto been before a consul, and that was in , when a mate had ill-used him, and, "being a young man then, i gave him a beating,"--whereupon his face gleamed with a quiet smile, like faint sunshine on an old ruin. "by many a tempest has his beard been shook"; and i suppose he must soon go into a workhouse, and thence, shortly, to his grave. he is now in a hospital, having, as the surgeon certifies, some ribs fractured; but there does not appear to have been any violence used upon him aboard the ship of such a nature as to cause this injury, though he swears it was a blow from a rope, and nothing else. what struck me in the case was the respect and rank that his age seemed to give him, in the view of the officers; and how, as the captain's expression signified, it lifted him out of his low position, and made him a person to be honored. the dignity of his manner is perhaps partly owing to the ancient mariner, with his long experience, being an oracle among the forecastle men. may d.--it rains to-day, after a very long period of east-wind and dry weather. the east-wind here, blowing across the island, seems to be the least damp of all the winds; but it is full of malice and mischief, of an indescribably evil temper, and stabs one like a cold, poisoned dagger. i never spent so disagreeable a spring as this, although almost every day for a month has been bright. friday, may th.--a few weeks ago, a sailor, a most pitiable object, came to my office to complain of cruelty from his captain and mate. they had beaten him shamefully, of which he bore grievous marks about his face and eyes, and bruises on his head and other parts of his person: and finally the ship had sailed, leaving him behind. i never in my life saw so forlorn a fellow, so ragged, so wretched; and even his wits seemed to have been beaten out of him, if perchance he ever had any. he got an order for the hospital; and there he has been, off and on, ever since, till yesterday, when i received a message that he was dying, and wished to see the consul; so i went with mr. wilding to the hospital. we were ushered into the waiting-room,--a kind of parlor, with a fire in the grate, and a centre-table, whereon lay one or two medical journals, with wood engravings; and there was a young man, who seemed to be an official of the house, reading. shortly the surgeon appeared,--a brisk, cheerful, kindly sort of person, whom i have met there on previous visits. he told us that the man was dying, and probably would not be able to communicate anything, but, nevertheless, ushered us up to the highest floor, and into the room where he lay. it was a large, oblong room, with ten or twelve beds in it, each occupied by a patient. the surgeon said that the hospital was often so crowded that they were compelled to lay some of the patients on the floor. the man whom we came to see lay on his bed in a little recess formed by a projecting window; so that there was a kind of seclusion for him to die in. he seemed quite insensible to outward things, and took no notice of our approach, nor responded to what was said to him,--lying on his side, breathing with short gasps,--his apparent disease being inflammation of the chest, although the surgeon said that he might be found to have sustained internal injury by bruises. he was restless, tossing his head continually, mostly with his eyes shut, and much compressed and screwed up, but sometimes opening them; and then they looked brighter and darker than when i first saw them. i think his face was not at any time so stupid as at his first interview with me; but whatever intelligence he had was rather inward than outward, as if there might be life and consciousness at a depth within, while as to external matters he was in a mist. the surgeon felt his wrist, and said that there was absolutely no pulsation, and that he might die at any moment, or might perhaps live an hour, but that there was no prospect of his being able to communicate with me. he was quite restless, nevertheless, and sometimes half raised himself in bed, sometimes turned himself quite over, and then lay gasping for an instant. his woollen shirt being thrust up on his arm, there appeared a tattooing of a ship and anchor, and other nautical emblems, on both of them, which another sailor-patient, on examining them, said must have been done years ago. this might be of some importance, because the dying man had told me, when i first saw him, that he was no sailor, but a farmer, and that, this being his first voyage, he had been beaten by the captain for not doing a sailor's duty, which he had had no opportunity of learning. these sea-emblems indicated that he was probably a seaman of some years' service. while we stood in the little recess, such of the other patients as were convalescent gathered near the foot of the bed; and the nurse came and looked on, and hovered about us,--a sharp-eyed, intelligent woman of middle age, with a careful and kind expression, neglecting nothing that was for the patient's good, yet taking his death as coolly as any other incident in her daily business. certainly, it was a very forlorn death-bed; and i felt--what i have heretofore been inclined to doubt-- that it might, be a comfort to have persons whom one loves, to go with us to the threshold of the other world, and leave us only when we are fairly across it. this poor fellow had a wife and two children on the other side of the water. at first he did not utter any sound; but by and by he moaned a little, and gave tokens of being more sensible to outward concerns,--not quite so misty and dreamy as hitherto. we had been talking all the while--myself in a whisper, but the surgeon in his ordinary tones--about his state, without his paying any attention. but now the surgeon put his mouth down to the man's face and said, "do you know that you are dying?" at this the patient's head began to move upon the pillow; and i thought at first that it was only the restlessness that he had shown all along; but soon it appeared to be an expression of emphatic dissent, a negative shake of the head. he shook it with all his might, and groaned and mumbled, so that it was very evident how miserably reluctant he was to die. soon after this he absolutely spoke. "o, i want you to get me well! i want to get away from here!" in a groaning and moaning utterance. the surgeon's question had revived him, but to no purpose; for, being told that the consul had come to see him, and asked whether he had anything to communicate, he said only, "o, i want him to get me well!" and the whole life that was left in him seemed to be unwillingness to die. this did not last long; for he soon relapsed into his first state, only with his face a little more pinched and screwed up, and his eyes strangely sunken. and lost in his head; and the surgeon said that there would be no use in my remaining. so i took my leave. mr. wilding had brought a deposition of the man's evidence, which he had clearly made at the consulate, for him to sign, and this we left with the surgeon, in case there should be such an interval of consciousness and intelligence before death as to make it possible for him to sign it. but of this there is no probability. i have just received a note from the hospital, stating that the sailor, daniel smith, died about three quarters of an hour after i saw him. may th.--the above-mentioned daniel smith had about him a bundle of letters, which i have examined. they are all very yellow, stained with sea-water, smelling of bad tobacco-smoke, and much worn at the folds. never were such ill-written letters, nor such incredibly fantastic spelling. they seem to be from various members of his family,--most of them from a brother, who purports to have been a deck-hand in the coasting and steamboat trade between charleston and other ports; others from female relations; one from his father, in which he inquires how long his son has been in jail, and when the trial is to come on,--the offence, however, of which he was accused, not being indicated. but from the tenor of his brother's letters, it would appear that he was a small farmer in the interior of south carolina, sending butter, eggs, and poultry to be sold in charleston by his brother, and receiving the returns in articles purchased there. this was his own account of himself; and he affirmed, in his deposition before me, that he had never had any purpose of shipping for liverpool, or anywhere else; but that, going on board the ship to bring a man's trunk ashore, he was compelled to remain and serve as a sailor. this was a hard fate, certainly, and a strange thing to happen in the united states at this day,--that a free citizen should be absolutely kidnapped, carried to a foreign country, treated with savage cruelty during the voyage, and left to die on his arrival. yet all this has unquestionably been done, and will probably go unpunished. the seed of the long-stapled cotton, now cultivated in america, was sent there in from the bahama islands, by some of the royalist refugees, who had settled there. the inferior short-stapled cotton had been previously cultivated for domestic purposes. the seeds of every other variety have been tried without success. the kind now grown was first introduced into georgia. thus to the refugees america owes as much of her prosperity as is due to the cotton-crops, and much of whatever harm is to result from slavery. may d.--captain j------ says that he saw, in his late voyage to australia and india, a vessel commanded by an englishman, who had with him his wife and thirteen children. this ship was the home of the family, and they had no other. the thirteen children had all been born on board, and had been brought up on board, and knew nothing of dry land, except by occasionally setting foot on it. captain j------ is a very agreeable specimen of the american shipmaster, --a pleasant, gentlemanly man, not at all refined, and yet with fine and honorable sensibilities. very easy in his manners and conversation, yet gentle,--talking on freely, and not much minding grammar; but finding a sufficient and picturesque expression for what he wishes to say; very cheerful and vivacious; accessible to feeling, as yesterday, when talking about the recent death of his mother. his voice faltered, and the tears came into his eyes, though before and afterwards he smiled merrily, and made us smile; fond of his wife, and carrying her about the world with him, and blending her with all his enjoyments; an excellent and sagacious man of business; liberal in his expenditure; proud of his ship and flag; always well dressed, with some little touch of sailor-like flashiness, but not a whit too much; slender in figure, with a handsome face, and rather profuse brown beard and whiskers; active and alert; about thirty-two. a daguerreotype sketch of any conversation of his would do him no justice, for its slang, its grammatical mistakes, its mistaken words (as "portable" for "portly"), would represent a vulgar man, whereas the impression he leaves is by no means that of vulgarity; but he is a character quite perfect within itself, fit for the deck and the cabin, and agreeable in the drawing-room, though not amenable altogether to its rules. being so perfectly natural, he is more of a gentleman for those little violations of rule, which most men, with his opportunities, might escape. the men whose appeals to the consul's charity are the hardest to be denied are those who have no country,---hungarians, poles, cubans, spanish-americans, and french republicans. all exiles for liberty come to me, if the representative of america were their representative. yesterday, came an old french soldier, and showed his wounds; to-day, a spaniard, a friend of lopez,--bringing his little daughter with him. he said he was starving, and looked so. the little girl was in good condition enough, and decently dressed.--may d. may th.--the two past days have been whitsuntide holidays; and they have been celebrated at tranmere in a manner very similar to that of the old "election" in massachusetts, as i remember it a good many years ago, though the festival has now almost or quite died out. whitsuntide was kept up on our side of the water, i am convinced, under pretence of rejoicings at the election of governor. it occurred at precisely the same period of the year,--the same week; the only difference being, that monday and tuesday are the whitsun festival days, whereas, in massachusetts, wednesday was "election day," and the acme of the merry-making. i passed through tranmere yesterday forenoon, and lingered awhile to see the sports. the greatest peculiarity of the crowd, to my eye, was that they seemed not to have any best clothes, and therefore had put on no holiday suits,--a grimy people, as at all times, heavy, obtuse, with thick beer in their blood. coarse, rough-complexioned women and girls were intermingled, the girls with no maiden trimness in their attire, large and blowsy. nobody seemed to have been washed that day. all the enjoyment was of an exceedingly sombre character, so far as i saw it, though there was a richer variety of sports than at similar festivals in america. there were wooden horses, revolving in circles, to be ridden a certain number of rounds for a penny; also swinging cars gorgeously painted, and the newest named after lord raglan; and four cars balancing one another, and turned by a winch; and people with targets and rifles,-- the principal aim being to hit an apple bobbing on a string before the target; other guns for shooting at the distance of a foot or two, for a prize of filberts; and a game much in fashion, of throwing heavy sticks at earthen mugs suspended on lines, three throws for a penny. also, there was a posture-master, showing his art in the centre of a ring of miscellaneous spectators, and handing round his bat after going through all his attitudes. the collection amounted to only one halfpenny, and, to eke it out, i threw in three more. there were some large booths with tables placed the whole length, at which sat men and women drinking and smoking pipes; orange-girls, a great many, selling the worst possible oranges, which had evidently been boiled to give them a show of freshness. there were likewise two very large structures, the walls made of boards roughly patched together, and rooted with canvas, which seemed to have withstood a thousand storms. theatres were there, and in front there were pictures of scenes which were to be represented within; the price of admission being twopence to one theatre, and a penny to the other. but, small as the price of tickets was, i could not see that anybody bought them. behind the theatres, close to the board wall, and perhaps serving as the general dressing-room, was a large windowed wagon, in which i suppose the company travel and live together. never, to my imagination, was the mysterious glory that has surrounded theatrical representation ever since my childhood brought down into such dingy reality as this. the tragedy queens were the same coarse and homely women and girls that surrounded me on the green. some of the people had evidently been drinking more than was good for them; but their drunkenness was silent and stolid, with no madness in it. no ebullition of any sort was apparent. may st.--last sunday week, for the first time, i heard the note of the cuckoo. "cuck-oo--cuck-oo" it says, repeating the word twice, not in a brilliant metallic tone, but low and flute-like, without the excessive sweetness of the flute,--without an excess of saccharine juice in the sound. there are said to be always two cuckoos seen together. the note is very soft and pleasant. the larks i have not yet heard in the sky; though it is not infrequent to hear one singing in a cage, in the streets of liverpool. brewers' draymen are allowed to drink as much of their master's beverage as they like, and they grow very brawny and corpulent, resembling their own horses in size, and presenting, one would suppose, perfect pictures of physical comfort and well-being. but the least bruise, or even the hurt of a finger, is liable to turn to gangrene or erysipelas, and become fatal. when the wind blows violently, however clear the sky, the english say, "it is a stormy day." and, on the other hand, when the air is still, and it does not actually rain, however dark and lowering the sky may be, they say, "the weather is fine!" june d.--the english women of the lower classes have a grace of their own, not seen in each individual, but nevertheless belonging to their order, which is not to be found in american women of the corresponding class. the other day, in the police court, a girl was put into the witness-box, whose native graces of this sort impressed me a good deal. she was coarse, and her dress was none of the cleanest, and nowise smart. she appeared to have been up all night, too, drinking at the tranmere wake, and had since ridden in a cart, covered up with a rug. she described herself as a servant-girl, out of place; and her charm lay in all her manifestations,--her tones, her gestures, her look, her way of speaking and what she said, being so appropriate and natural in a girl of that class; nothing affected; no proper grace thrown away by attempting to appear lady-like,--which an american girl would have attempted,--and she would also have succeeded in a certain degree. if each class would but keep within itself, and show its respect for itself by aiming at nothing beyond, they would all be more respectable. but this kind of fitness is evidently not to be expected in the future; and something else must be substituted for it. these scenes at the police court are often well worth witnessing. the controlling genius of the court, except when the stipendiary magistrate presides, is the clerk, who is a man learned in the law. nominally the cases are decided by the aldermen, who sit in rotation, but at every important point there comes a nod or a whisper from the clerk; and it is that whisper which sets the defendant free or sends him to prison. nevertheless, i suppose the alderman's common-sense and native shrewdness are not without their efficacy in producing a general tendency towards the right; and, no doubt, the decisions of the police court are quite as often just as those of any other court whatever. june th.--i walked with j----- yesterday to bebington church. when i first saw this church, nearly two years since, it seemed to me the fulfilment of my ideal of an old english country church. it is not so satisfactory now, although certainly a venerable edifice. there used some time ago to be ivy all over the tower; and at my first view of it, there was still a little remaining on the upper parts of the spire. but the main roots, i believe, were destroyed, and pains were taken to clear away the whole of the ivy, so that now it is quite bare,--nothing but homely gray stone, with marks of age, but no beauty. the most curious thing about the church is the font. it is a massive pile, composed of five or six layers of freestone in an octagon shape, placed in the angle formed by the projecting side porch and the wall of the church, and standing under a stained-glass window. the base is six or seven feet across, and it is built solidly up in successive steps, to the height of about six feet,--an octagonal pyramid, with the basin of the font crowning the pile hewn out of the solid stone, and about a foot in diameter and the same in depth. there was water in it from the recent rains,--water just from heaven, and therefore as holy as any water it ever held in old romish times. the aspect of this aged font is extremely venerable, with moss in the basin and all over the stones; grass, and weeds of various kinds, and little shrubs, rooted in the chinks of the stones and between the successive steps. at each entrance of rock park, where we live, there is a small gothic structure of stone, each inhabited by a policeman and his family; very small dwellings indeed, with the main apartment opening directly out-of-doors; and when the door is open, one can see the household fire, the good wife at work, perhaps the table set, and a throng of children clustering round, and generally overflowing the threshold. the policeman walks about the park in stately fashion, with his silver-laced blue uniform and snow-white gloves, touching his hat to gentlemen who reside in the park. in his public capacity he has rather an awful aspect, but privately he is a humble man enough, glad of any little job, and of old clothes for his many children, or, i believe, for himself. one of the two policemen is a shoemaker and cobbler. his pay, officially, is somewhere about a guinea a week. the park, just now, is very agreeable to look at, shadowy with trees and shrubs, and with glimpses of green leaves and flower-gardens through the branches and twigs that line the iron fences. after a shower the hawthorn blossoms are delightfully fragrant. golden tassels of the laburnum are abundant. i may have mentioned elsewhere the traditional prophecy, that, when the ivy should reach the top of bebbington spire, the tower was doomed to fall. it lies still, therefore, a chance of standing for centuries. mr. turner tells me that the font now used is inside of the church, but the one outside is of unknown antiquity, and that it was customary, in papistical time, to have the font without the church. there is a little boy often on board the rock ferry steamer with an accordion,--an instrument i detest; but nevertheless it becomes tolerable in his hands, not so much for its music, as for the earnestness and interest with which he plays it. his body and the accordion together become one musical instrument on which his soul plays tunes, for he sways and vibrates with the music from head to foot and throughout his frame, half closing his eyes and uplifting his face, as painters represent st. cecilia and other famous musicians; and sometimes he swings his accordion in the air, as if in a perfect rapture. after all, my ears, though not very nice, are somewhat tortured by his melodies, especially when confined within the cabin. the boy is ten years old, perhaps, and rather pretty; clean, too, and neatly dressed, very unlike all other street and vagabond children whom i have seen in liverpool. people give him their halfpence more readily than to any other musicians who infest the boat. j-----, the other day, was describing a soldier-crab to his mother, he being much interested in natural history, and endeavoring to give as strong an idea as possible of its warlike characteristics, and power to harm those who molest it. little r----- sat by, quietly listening and sewing, and at last, lifting her head, she remarked, "i hope god did not hurt himself, when he was making him!" leamington. june st.--we left rock ferry and liverpool on monday the th by the rail for this place; a very dim and rainy day, so that we had no pleasant prospects of the country; neither would the scenery along the great western railway have been in any case very striking, though sunshine would have made the abundant verdure and foliage warm and genial. but a railway naturally finds its way through all the common places of a country, and is certainly a most unsatisfactory mode of travelling, the only object being to arrive. however, we had a whole carriage to ourselves, and the children enjoyed the earlier part of the journey very much. we skirted shrewsbury, and i think i saw the old tower of a church near the station, perhaps the same that struck falstaff's "long hour." as we left the town i saw the wrekin, a round, pointed hill of regular shape, and remembered the old toast, "to all friends round the wrekin!" as we approached birmingham, the country began to look somewhat brummagemish, with its manufacturing chimneys, and pennons of flame quivering out of their tops; its forges, and great heaps of mineral refuse; its smokiness and other ugly symptoms. of birmingham itself we saw little or nothing, except the mean and new brick lodging-houses, on the outskirts of the town. passing through warwick, we had a glimpse of the castle,--an ivied wall and two turrets, rising out of imbosoming foliage; one's very idea of an old castle. we reached leamington at a little past six, and drove to the clarendon hotel,--a very spacious and stately house, by far the most splendid hotel i have yet seen in england. the landlady, a courteous old lady in black, showed my wife our rooms, and we established ourselves in an immensely large and lofty parlor, with red curtains and ponderous furniture, perhaps a very little out of date. the waiter brought me the book of arrivals, containing the names of all visitors for from three to five years back. during two years i estimated that there had been about three hundred and fifty persons only, and while we were there, i saw nobody but ourselves to support the great hotel. among the names were those of princes, earls, countesses, and baronets; and when the people of the house heard from r-----'s nurse that i too was a man of office, and held the title of honorable in my own country, they greatly regretted that i entered myself as plain "mister" in the book. we found this hotel very comfortable, and might doubtless have made it luxurious, had we chosen to go to five times the expense of similar luxuries in america; but we merely ordered comfortable things, and so came off at no very extravagant rate,--and with great honor, at all events, in the estimation of the waiter. during the afternoon we found lodgings, and established ourselves in them before dark. this english custom of lodgings, of which we had some experience at rhyl last year, has its advantages; but is rather uncomfortable for strangers, who, in first settling themselves down, find that they must undertake all the responsibility of housekeeping at an instant's warming, and cannot get even a cup of tea till they have made arrangements with the grocer. soon, however, there comes a sense of being at home, and by our exclusive selves, which never can be attained at hotels nor boarding-houses. our house is well situated and respectably furnished, with the dinginess, however, which is inseparable from lodging-houses,--as if others had used these things before and would use them again after we had gone,--a well-enough adaptation, but a lack of peculiar appropriateness; and i think one puts off real enjoyment from a sense of not being truly fitted. july st.--on friday i took the rail with j----- for coventry. it was a bright and very warm day, oppressively so, indeed; though i think that there is never in this english climate the pervading warmth of an american summer day. the sunshine may be excessively hot, but an overshadowing cloud or the shade of a tree or of a building at once affords relief; and if the slightest breeze stirs, you feel the latent freshness of the air. coventry is some nine or ten miles from leamington. the approach to it from the railway presents nothing very striking,--a few church-towers, and one or two tall steeples; and the houses first seen are of modern and unnoticeable aspect. getting into the interior of the town, however, you find the streets very crooked, and some of them very narrow. i saw one place where it seemed possible to shake hands from one jutting storied old house to another. there were whole streets of the same kind of houses, one story impending over another, such as used to be familiar to me in salem, and in some streets of boston. in fact, the whole aspect of the town--its irregularity and continual indirectness--reminded me very much of boston, as i used to see it, in rare visits thither, when a child. these coventry houses, however, many of them, are much larger than any of similar style that i have seen elsewhere, and they spread into greater bulk as they ascend, by means of one story jutting over the other. probably the new-englanders continued to follow this fashion of architecture after it had been abandoned in the mother country. the old house built, by philip english, in salem, dated about ; and it was in this style,--many gabled, and impending. here the edifices of such architecture seem to be elizabethan, and of earlier date. a woman in stratford told us that the rooms, very low on the ground-floor, grew loftier from story to story to the attic. the fashion of windows, in coventry, is such as i have not hitherto seen. in the highest story, a window of the ordinary height extends along the whole breadth of the house, ten, fifteen, perhaps twenty feet, just like any other window of a commonplace house, except for this inordinate width. one does not easily see what the inhabitants want of so much window-light; but the fashion is very general, and in modern houses, or houses that have been modernized, this style of window is retained. thus young people who grow up amidst old people contract quaint and old-fashioned manners and aspect. i imagine that these ancient towns--such as chester and stratford, warwick and coventry--contain even a great deal more antiquity than meets the eye. you see many modern fronts; but if you peep or penetrate inside, you find an antique arrangement,--old rafters, intricate passages, and ancient staircases, which have put on merely a new outside, and are likely still to prove good for the usual date of a new house. they put such an immense and stalwart ponderosity into their frameworks, that i suppose a house of elizabeth's time, if renewed, has at least an equal chance of durability with one that is new in every part. all the hotels in coventry, so far as i noticed them, are old, with new fronts; and they have an archway for the admission of vehicles into the court-yard, and doors opening into the rooms of the building on each side of the arch. maids and waiters are seen darting across the arched passage from door to door, and it requires a guide (in my case, at least) to show you the way to the coffee-room or the bar. i have never been up stairs in any of them, but can conceive of infinite bewilderment of zigzag corridors between staircase and chamber. it was fair-day in coventry, and this gave what no doubt is an unusual bustle to the streets. in fact, i have not seen such crowded and busy streets in any english town; various kinds of merchandise being for sale in the open air, and auctioneers disposing of miscellaneous wares, pretty much as they do at musters and other gatherings in the united states. the oratory of the american auctioneer, however, greatly surpasses that of the englishman in vivacity and fun. but this movement and throng, together with the white glow of the sun on the pavements, make the scene, in my recollection, assume an american aspect, and this is strange in so antique and quaint a town as coventry. we rambled about without any definite aim, but found our way, i believe, to most of the objects that are worth seeing. st. michael's church was most magnificent,--so old, yet enduring; so huge, so rich; with such intricate minuteness in its finish, that, look as long as you will at it, you can always discover something new directly before your eyes. i admire this in gothic architecture,--that you cannot master it all at once, that it is not a naked outline; but, as deep and rich as human nature itself, always revealing new ideas. it is as if the builder had built himself and his age up into it, and as if the edifice had life. grecian temples are less interesting to me, being so cold and crystalline. i think this is the only church i have seen where there are any statues still left standing in the niches of the exterior walls. we did not go inside. the steeple of st. michael's is three hundred and three feet high, and no doubt the clouds often envelop the tip of the spire. trinity, another church with a tall spire, stands near st. michael's, but did not attract me so much; though i, perhaps, might have admired it equally, had i seen it first or alone. we certainly know nothing of church-building in america, and of all english things that i have seen, methinks the churches disappoint me least. i feel, too, that there is something much more wonderful in them than i have yet had time to know and experience. in the course of the forenoon, searching about everywhere in quest of gothic architecture, we found our way into st. mary's hall. the doors were wide open; it seemed to be public,--there was a notice on the wall desiring visitors to give nothing to attendants for showing it, and so we walked in. i observed, in the guide-books, that we should have obtained an order for admission from some member of the town council; but we had none, and found no need of it. an old woman, and afterwards an old man, both of whom seemed to be at home on the premises, told us that we might enter, and troubled neither themselves nor us any further. st. mary's hall is now the property of the corporation of coventry, and seems to be the place where the mayor and council hold their meetings. it was built by one of the old guilds or fraternities of merchants and tradesmen the woman shut the kitchen door when i approached, so that i did not see the great fireplaces and huge cooking-utensils which are said to be there. whether these are ever used nowadays, and whether the mayor of coventry gives such hospitable banquets as the mayor of liverpool, i do not know. we went to the red lion, and had a luncheon of cold lamb and cold pigeon-pie. this is the best way of dining at english hotels,--to call the meal a luncheon, in which case you will get as good or better a variety than if it were a dinner, and at less than half the cost. having lunched, we again wandered about town, and entered a quadrangle of gabled houses, with a church, and its churchyard on one side. this proved to be st. john's church, and a part of the houses were the locality of bond's hospital, for the reception of ten poor men, and the remainder was devoted to the bablake school. into this latter i peered, with a real american intrusiveness, which i never found in myself before, but which i must now assume, or miss a great many things which i am anxious to see. running along the front of the house, under the jut of the impending story, there was a cloistered walk, with windows opening on the quadrangle. an arched oaken door, with long iron hinges, admitted us into a school-room about twenty feet square, paved with brick tiles, blue and red. adjoining this there is a larger school-room which we did not enter, but peeped at, through one of the inner windows, from the cloistered walk. in the room which we entered, there were seven scholars' desks, and an immense arched fireplace, with seats on each side, under the chimney, on a stone slab resting on a brick pedestal. the opening of the fireplace was at least twelve feet in width. on one side of the room were pegs for fifty-two boys' hats and clothes, and there was a boy's coat, of peculiar cut, hanging on a peg, with the number " " in brass upon it. the coat looked ragged and shabby. an old school-book was lying on one of the desks, much tattered, and without a title; but it seemed to treat wholly of saints' days and festivals of the church. a flight of stairs, with a heavy balustrade of carved oak, ascended to a gallery, about eight or nine feet from the lower floor, which runs along two sides of the room, looking down upon it. the room is without a ceiling, and rises into a peaked gable, about twenty feet high. there is a large clock in it, and it is lighted by two windows, each about ten feet wide,--one in the gallery, and the other beneath it. two benches or settles, with backs, stood one on each side of the fireplace. an old woman in black passed through the room while i was making my observations, and looked at me, but said nothing. the school was founded in , by thomas whealby, mayor of coventry; the revenue is about pounds, and admits children of the working-classes at eleven years old, clothes and provides for them, and finally apprentices them for seven years. we saw some of the boys playing in the quadrangle, dressed in long blue coats or gowns, with cloth caps on their heads. i know not how the atmosphere of antiquity, and massive continuance from age to age, which was the charm to me in this scene of a charityschool-room, can be thrown over it in description. after noting down these matters, i looked into the quiet precincts of bond's hospital, which, no doubt, was more than equally interesting; but the old men were lounging about or lolling at length, looking very drowsy, and i had not the heart nor the face to intrude among them. there is something altogether strange to an american in these charitable institutions,--in the preservation of antique modes and customs which is effected by them, insomuch that, doubtless, without at all intending it, the founders have succeeded in preserving a model of their own long-past age down into the midst of ours, and how much later nobody can know. we were now rather tired, and went to the railroad, intending to go home; but we got into the wrong train, and were carried by express, with hurricane speed, to bradon, where we alighted, and waited a good while for the return train to coventry. at coventry again we had more than an hour to wait, and therefore wandered wearily up into the city, and took another look at its bustling streets, in which there seems to be a good emblem of what england itself really is,--with a great deal of antiquity in it, and which is now chiefly a modification of the old. the new things are based and supported on the sturdy old things, and often limited and impeded by them; but this antiquity is so massive that there seems to be no means of getting rid of it without tearing society to pieces. july d.--to-day i shall set out on my return to liverpool, leaving my family here. to the lakes. july th.--i left leamington on monday, shortly after twelve, having been accompanied to the railway station by u---- and j-----, whom i sent away before the train started. while i was waiting, a rather gentlemanly, well-to-do, english-looking man sat down by me, and began to talk of the crimea, of human affairs in general, of god and his providence, of the coming troubles of the world, and of spiritualism, in a strange free way for an englishman, or, indeed, for any man. it was easy to see that he was an enthusiast of some line or other. he being bound for birmingham and i for rugby, we soon had to part; but he asked my name, and told me his own, which i did not much attend to, and immediately forgot. [here follows a long account of a visit to lichfield and uttoxeter, condensed in "our old home."] july th.--the day after my arrival, by way of lichfield and uttoxeter, at liverpool, the door of the consulate opened, and in came the very sociable personage who accosted me at the railway station at leamington. he was on his way towards edinburgh, to deliver a course of lectures or a lecture, and had called, he said, to talk with me about spiritualism, being desirous of having the judgment of a sincere mind on the subject. in his own mind, i should suppose, he is past the stage of doubt and inquiry; for he told me that in every action of his life he is governed by the counsels received from the spiritual world through a medium. i did not inquire whether this medium (who is a small boy) had suggested his visit to me. my remarks to him were quite of a sceptical character in regard to the faith to which he had surrendered himself. he has formerly lived in america, and had had a son born there. he gave me a pamphlet written by himself, on the cure of consumption and other diseases by antiseptic remedies. i hope he will not bore me any more, though he seems to be a very sincere and good man; but these enthusiasts who adopt such extravagant ideas appear to one to lack imagination, instead of being misled by it, as they are generally supposed to be. newby bridge.--foot of windermere. july th.--i left liverpool on saturday last, by the london and northwestern railway, for leamington, spent sunday there, and started on monday for the english lakes, with the whole family. we should not have taken this journey just now, but i had an official engagement which it was convenient to combine with a pleasure-excursion. the first night we arrived at chester, and put up at the albion hotel, where we found ourselves very comfortable. we took the rail at twelve the next day, and went as far as milnethorpe station, where we engaged seats in an old-fashioned stage-coach, and came to newby bridge. i suppose there are not many of these coaches now running on any road in great britain; but this appears to be the genuine machine, in all respects, and especially in the round, ruddy coachman, well moistened with ale, good-natured, courteous, and with a proper sense of his dignity and important position. u----, j-----, and i mounted atop, s-----, nurse, and r----- got inside, and we bowled off merrily towards the hearts of the hills. it was more than half past nine when we arrived at newby bridge, and alighted at the swan hotel, where we now are. it is a very agreeable place: not striking as to scenery, but with a pleasant rural aspect. a stone bridge of five arches crosses the river severn (which is the communication between windermere lake and morecambe bay) close to the house, which sits low--and well sheltered in the lap of hills,--an old-fashioned inn, where the landlord and his people have a simple and friendly way of dealing with their guests, and yet provide them with all sorts of facilities for being comfortable. they load our supper and breakfast tables with trout, cold beef, ham, toast, and muffins; and give us three fair courses for dinner, and excellent wine, the cost of all which remains to be seen. this is not one of the celebrated stations among the lakes; but twice a day the stage-coach passes from milnethorpe towards ulverton, and twice returns, and three times a little steamer passes to and fro between our hotel and the head of the lake. young ladies, in broad-brimmed hats, stroll about, or row on the river in the light shallops, of which there are abundance; sportsmen sit on the benches under the windows of the hotel, arranging their fishing-tackle; phaetons and post-chaises, with postilions in scarlet jackets and white breeches, with one high-topped boot, and the other leathered far up on the leg to guard against friction between the horses, dash up to the door. morning and night comes the stage-coach, and we inspect the outside passengers, almost face to face with us, from our parlor-windows, up one pair of stairs. little boys, and j----- among them, spend hours on hours fishing in the clear, shallow river for the perch, chubs, and minnows that may be seen flashing, like gleams of light over the flat stones with which the bottom is paved. i cannot answer for the other boys, but j----- catches nothing. there are a good many trees on the hills and roundabout, and pleasant roads loitering along by the gentle river-side, and it has been so sunny and warm since we came here that we shall have quite a genial recollection of the place, if we leave it before the skies have time to frown. the day after we came, we climbed a high and pretty steep hill, through a path shadowed with trees and shrubbery, up to a tower, from the summit of which we had a wide view of mountain scenery and the greater part of windermere. this lake is a lovely little pool among the hills, long and narrow, beautifully indented with tiny bays and headlands; and when we saw it, it was one smile (as broad a smile as its narrowness allowed) with really brilliant sunshine. all the scenery we have yet met with is in excellent taste, and keeps itself within very proper bounds,-- never getting too wild and rugged to shock the sensibilities of cultivated people, as american scenery is apt to do. on the rudest surface of english earth, there is seen the effect of centuries of civilization, so that you do not quite get at naked nature anywhere. and then every point of beauty is so well known, and has been described so much, that one must needs look through other people's eyes, and feels as if he were seeing a picture rather than a reality. man has, in short, entire possession of nature here, and i should think young men might sometimes yearn for a fresher draught. but an american likes it. furness abbey. yesterday, july th, we took a phaeton and went to furness abbey,--a drive of about sixteen miles, passing along the course of the leam to morecambe bay, and through ulverton and other villages. these villages all look antique, and the smallest of them generally are formed of such close, contiguous clusters of houses, and have such narrow and crooked streets, that they give you an idea of a metropolis in miniature. the houses along the road (of which there are not many, except in the villages) are almost invariably old, built of stone, and covered with a light gray plaster; generally they have a little flower-garden in front, and, often, honeysuckles, roses, or some other sweet and pretty rustic adornment, are flowering over the porch. i have hardly had such images of simple, quiet, rustic comfort and beauty, as from the look of these houses; and the whole impression of our winding and undulating road, bordered by hedges, luxuriantly green, and not too closely clipped, accords with this aspect. there is nothing arid in an english landscape; and one cannot but fancy that the same may be true of english rural life. the people look wholesome and well-to-do,--not specimens of hard, dry, sunburnt muscle, like our yeomen,--and are kind and civil to strangers, sometimes making a little inclination of the head in passing. miss martineau, however, does not seem to think well of their mental and moral condition. we reached furness abbey about twelve. there is a railway station close by the ruins; and a new hotel stands within the precincts of the abbey grounds; and continually there is the shriek, the whiz, the rumble, the bell-ringing, denoting the arrival of the trains; and passengers alight, and step at once (as their choice may be) into the refreshment-room, to get a glass of ale or a cigar,--or upon the gravelled paths of the lawn, leading to the old broken walls and arches of the abbey. the ruins are extensive, and the enclosure of the abbey is stated to have covered a space of sixty-five acres. it is impossible to describe them. the most interesting part is that which was formerly the church, and which, though now roofless, is still surrounded by walls, and retains the remnants of the pillars that formerly supported the intermingling curves of the arches. the floor is all overgrown with grass, strewn with fragments and capitals of pillars. it was a great and stately edifice, the length of the nave and choir having been nearly three hundred feet, and that of the transept more than half as much. the pillars along the nave were alternately a round, solid one and a clustered one. now, what remains of some of them is even with the ground; others present a stump just high enough to form a seat; and others are, perhaps, a man's height from the ground,--and all are mossy, and with grass and weeds rooted into their chinks, and here and there a tuft of flowers, giving its tender little beauty to their decay. the material of the edifice is a soft red stone, and it is now extensively overgrown with a lichen of a very light gray line, which, at a little distance, makes the walls look as if they had long ago been whitewashed, and now had partially returned to their original color. the arches of the nave and transept were noble and immense; there were four of them together, supporting a tower which has long since disappeared,--arches loftier than i ever conceived to have been made by man. very possibly, in some cathedral that i have seen, or am yet to see, there may be arches as stately as these; but i doubt whether they can ever show to such advantage in a perfect edifice as they do in this ruin,--most of them broken, only one, as far as i recollect, still completing its sweep. in this state they suggest a greater majesty and beauty than any finished human work can show; the crumbling traces of the half-obliterated design producing somewhat of the effect of the first idea of anything admirable, when it dawns upon the mind of an artist or a poet,--an idea which, do what he may, he is sure to fall short of in his attempt to embody it. in the middle of the choir is a much-dilapidated monument of a cross-legged knight (a crusader, of course) in armor, very rudely executed; and, against the wall, lie two or three more bruised and battered warriors, with square helmets on their heads and visors down. nothing can be uglier than these figures; the sculpture of those days seems to have been far behind the architecture. and yet they knew how to put a grotesque expression into the faces of their images, and we saw some fantastic shapes and heads at the lower points of arches which would do to copy into punch. in the chancel, just at the point below where the high altar stands, was the burial-place of the old barons of kendal. the broken crusader, perhaps, represents one of them; and some of their stalwart bones might be found by digging down. against the wall of the choir, near the vacant space where the altar was, are some stone seats with canopies richly carved in stone, all quite perfectly preserved, where the priests used to sit at intervals, during the celebration of mass. conceive all these shattered walls, with here and there an arched door, or the great arched vacancy of a window; these broken stones and monuments scattered about; these rows of pillars up and down the nave; these arches, through which a giant might have stepped, and not needed to bow his head, unless in reverence to the sanctity of the place,--conceive it all, with such verdure and embroidery of flowers as the gentle, kindly moisture of the english climate procreates on all old things, making them more beautiful than new,--conceive it with the grass for sole pavement of the long and spacious aisle, and the sky above for the only roof. the sky, to be sure, is more majestic than the tallest of those arches; and yet these latter, perhaps, make the stronger impression of sublimity, because they translate the sweep of the sky to our finite comprehension. it was a most beautiful, warm, sunny day, and the ruins had all the pictorial advantage of bright light and deep shadows. i must not forget that birds flew in and out among the recesses, and chirped and warbled, and made themselves at home there. doubtless, the birds of the present generation are the posterity of those who first settled in the ruins, after the reformation; and perhaps the old monks of a still earlier day may have watched them building about the abbey, before it was a ruin at all. we had an old description of the place with us, aided by which we traced out the principal part of the edifice, such as the church, as already mentioned, and, contiguous to this, the chapter-house, which is better preserved than the church; also the kitchen, and the room where the monks met to talk; and the range of wall, where their cells probably were. i never before had given myself the trouble to form any distinct idea of what an abbey or monastery was,--a place where holy rites were daily and continually to be performed, with places to eat and sleep contiguous and convenient, in order that the monks might always be at hand to perform those rites. they lived only to worship, and therefore lived under the same roof with their place of worship, which, of course, was the principal object in the edifice, and hallowed the whole of it. we found, too, at one end of the ruins, what is supposed to have been a school-house for the children of the tenantry or villeins of the abbey. all round this room is a bench of stone against the wall, and the pedestal also of the master's seat. there are, likewise, the ruins of the mill; and the mill-stream, which is just as new as ever it was, still goes murmuring and babbling, and passes under two or three old bridges, consisting of a low gray arch overgrown with grass and shrubbery. that stream was the most fleeting and vanishing thing about the ponderous and high-piled abbey; and yet it has outlasted everything else, and might still outlast another such edifice, and be none the worse for wear. there is not a great deal of ivy upon the walls, and though an ivied wall is a beautiful object, yet it is better not to have too much,--else it is but one wall of unbroken verdure, on which you can see none of the sculptural ornaments, nor any of the hieroglyphics of time. a sweep of ivy here and there, with the gray wall everywhere showing through, makes the better picture; and i think that nothing is so effective as the little bunches of flowers, a mere handful, that grow in spots where the seeds have been carried by the wind ages ago. i have made a miserable botch of this description; it is no description, but merely an attempt to preserve something of the impression it made on me, and in this i do not seem to have succeeded at all. i liked the contrast between the sombreness of the old walls, and the sunshine falling through them, and gladdening the grass that floored the aisles; also, i liked the effect of so many idle and cheerful people, strolling into the haunts of the dead monks, and going babbling about, and peering into the dark nooks; and listening to catch some idea of what the building was from a clerical-looking personage, who was explaining it to a party of his friends. i don't know how well acquainted this gentleman might be with the subject; but he seemed anxious not to impart his knowledge too extensively, and gave a pretty direct rebuff to an honest man who ventured an inquiry of him. i think that the railway, and the hotel within the abbey grounds, add to the charm of the place. a moonlight solitary visit might be very good, too, in its way; but i believe that one great charm and beauty of antiquity is, that we view it out of the midst of quite another mode of life; and the more perfectly this can be done, the better. it can never be done more perfectly than at furness abbey, which is in itself a very sombre scene, and stands, moreover, in the midst of a melancholy valley, the saxon name of which means the vale of the deadly nightshade. the entrance to the stable-yard of the hotel is beneath a pointed arch of saxon architecture, and on one side of this stands an old building, looking like a chapel, but which may have been a porter's lodge. the abbot's residence was in this quarter; and the clerical personage, before alluded to, spoke of these as the oldest part of the ruins. about half a mile on the hither side of the abbey stands the village of dalton, in which is a castle built on a roman foundation, and which was afterwards used by the abbots (in their capacity of feudal lords) as a prison. the abbey was founded about by king stephen, before he came to the throne; and the faces of himself and of his queen are still to be seen on one of the walls. we had a very agreeable drive home (our drive hither had been uncomfortably sunny and hot), and we stopped at ulverton to buy a pair of shoes for j----- and some drawing-books and stationery. as we passed through the little town in the morning, it was all alive with the bustle and throng of the weekly market; and though this had ceased on our return, the streets still looked animated, because the heat of the day drew most of the population, i should imagine, out of doors. old men look very antiquated here in their old-fashioned coats and breeches, sunning themselves by the wayside. we reached home somewhere about eight o'clock,--home i see i have called it; and it seems as homelike a spot as any we have found in england,--the old inn, close by the bridge, beside the clear river, pleasantly overshadowed by trees. it is entirely english, and like nothing that one sees in america; and yet. i feel as if i might have lived here a long while ago, and had now come back because i retained pleasant recollections of it. the children, too, make themselves at home. j----- spends his time from morning to night fishing for minnows or trout, and catching nothing at all, and u---- and r----- have been riding between fields and barn in a hay-cart. the roads give us beautiful walks along the river-side, or wind away among the gentle hills; and if we had nothing else to look at in these walks, the hedges and stone fences would afford interest enough, so many and pretty are the flowers, roses, honeysuckles, and other sweet things, and so abundantly does the moss and ivy grow among the old stones of the fences, which would never have a single shoot of vegetation on them in america till the very end of time. but here, no sooner is a stone fence built, than nature sets to work to make it a part of herself. she adopts it and adorns it, as if it were her own child. a little sprig of ivy may be seen creeping up the side, and clinging fast with its many feet; a tuft of grass roots itself between two of the stones, where a little dust from the road has been moistened into soil for it: a small bunch of fern grows in another such crevice; a deep, soft, green moss spreads itself over the top and all along the sides of the fence; and wherever nothing else will grow, lichens adhere to the stones and variegate their lines. finally, a great deal of shrubbery is sure to cluster along its extent, and take away all hardness from the outline; and so the whole stone fence looks as if god had had at least as much to do with it as man. the trunks of the trees, too, exhibit a similar parasitical vegetation. parasitical is an unkind phrase to bestow on this beautiful love and kindness which seems to exist here between one plant and another; the strong thing--being always ready to give support and sustenance, and the weak thing to repay with beauty, so that both are the richer,--as in the case of ivy and woodbine, clustering up the trunk of a tall tree, and adding corinthian grace to its lofty beauty. mr. w------, our landlord, has lent us a splendid work with engravings, illustrating the antiquities of furness abbey. i gather from it that the hotel must have been rebuilt or repaired from an old manor-house, which was itself erected by a family of prestons, after the reformation, and was a renewal from the abbot's residence. much of the edifice probably, as it exists now, may have been part of the original one; and there are bas-reliefs of scripture subjects, sculptured in stone, and fixed in the wall of the dining-room, which have been there since the abbot's time. this author thinks that what we had supposed to be the school-house (on the authority of an old book) was really the building for the reception of guests, with its chapel. he says that the tall arches in the church are sixty feet high. the earl of burlington, i believe, is the present proprietor of the abbey. the lakes. july th.--on saturday, we left newby bridge, and came by steamboat up windermere lake to lowwood hotel, where we now are. the foot of the lake is just above newby bridge, and it widens from that point, but never to such a breadth that objects are not pretty distinctly visible from shore to shore. the steamer stops at two or three places in the course of its voyage, the principal one being bowness, which has a little bustle and air of business about it proper to the principal port of the lake. there are several small yachts, and many skiffs rowing about. the banks are everywhere beautiful, and the water, in one portion, is strewn with islands; few of which are large enough to be inhabitable, but they all seem to be appropriated, and kept in the neatest order. as yet, i have seen no wildness; everything is perfectly subdued and polished and imbued with human taste, except, indeed, the outlines of the hills, which continue very much the same as god made them. as we approached the head of the lake, the congregation of great hills in the distance became very striking. the shapes of these english mountains are certainly far more picturesque than those which i have seen in eastern america, where their summits are almost invariably rounded, as i remember them. they are great hillocks, great bunches of earth, similar to one another in their developments. here they have variety of shape, rising into peaks, falling in abrupt precipices, stretching along in zigzag outlines, and thus making the most of their not very gigantic masses, and producing a remarkable effect. we arrived at the lowwood hotel, which is very near the head of the lake, not long after two o'clock. it stands almost on the shore of windermere, with only a green lawn between,--an extensive hotel, covering a good deal of ground; but low, and rather village-inn-like than lofty. we found the house so crowded as to afford us no very comfortable accommodations, either as to parlor or sleeping-rooms, and we find nothing like the home-feeling into which we at once settled down at newby bridge. there is a very pretty vicinity, and a fine view of mountains to the northwest, sitting together in a family group, sometimes in full sunshine, sometimes with only a golden gleam on one or two of them, sometimes all in a veil of cloud, from which here and there a great, dusky head raises itself, while you are looking at a dim obscurity. nearer, there are high, green slopes, well wooded, but with such decent and well-behaved wood as you perceive has grown up under the care of man; still no wildness, no ruggedness,--as how should there be, when, every half-mile or so, a porter's lodge or a gentleman's gateway indicates that the whole region is used up for villas. on the opposite shore of the lake there is a mimic castle, which i suppose i might have mistaken for a real one two years ago. it is a great, foolish toy of gray stone. a steamboat comes to the pier as many as six times a day, and stage-coaches and omnibuses stop at the door still oftener, communicating with ambleside and the town of windermere, and with the railway, which opens london and all the world to us. we get no knowledge of our fellow-guests, all of whom, like ourselves, live in their own circles, and are just as remote from us as if the lake lay between. the only words i have spoken since arriving here have been to my own family or to a waiter, save to one or two young pedestrians who met me on a walk, and asked me the distance to lowwood hotel. "just beyond here," said i, and i might stay for months without occasion to speak again. yesterday forenoon j----- and i walked to ambleside,--distant barely two miles. it is a little town, chiefly of modern aspect, built on a very uneven hillside, and with very irregular streets and lanes, which bewilder the stranger as much as those of a larger city. many of the houses look old, and are probably the cottages and farm-houses which composed the rude village a century ago; but there are stuccoed shops and dwellings, such as may have been built within a year or two; and three hotels, one of which has the look of a good old village inn; and the others are fashionable or commercial establishments. through the midst of the village comes tumbling and rumbling a mountain streamlet, rushing through a deep, rocky dell, gliding under an old stone inch, and turning, when occasion calls, the great block of a water-mill. this is the only very striking feature of the village,--the stream taking its rough pathway to the lake as it used to do before the poets had made this region fashionable. in the evening, just before eight o'clock, i took a walk alone, by a road which goes up the hill, back of our hotel, and which i supposed might be the road to the town of windermere. but it went up higher and higher, and for the mile or two that it led me along, winding up, i saw no traces of a town; but at last it turned into a valley between two high ridges, leading quite away from the lake, within view of which the town of windermere is situated. it was a very lonely road, though as smooth, hard, and well kept as any thoroughfare in the suburbs of a city; hardly a dwelling on either side, except one, half barn, half farm-house, and one gentleman's gateway, near the beginning of the road, and another more than a mile above. at, two or three points there were stone barns, which are here built with great solidity. at one place there was a painted board, announcing that a field of five acres was to be sold, and referring those desirous of purchasing to a solicitor in london. the lake country is but a london suburb. nevertheless, the walk was lonely and lovely; the copses and the broad hillside, the glimpses of the lake, the great misty company of pikes and fells, beguiled me into a sense of something like solitude; and the bleating of the sheep, remote and near, had a like tendency. gaining the summit of the hill, i had the best view of windermere which i have yet attained,--the best, i should think, that can be had, though, being towards the south, it brings the softer instead of the more striking features of the landscape into view. but it shows nearly the whole extent of the lake, all the way from lowwood, beyond newby bridge, and i think there can hardly be anything more beautiful in the world. the water was like a strip and gleam of sky, fitly set among lovely slopes of earth. it was no broader than many a river, and yet you saw at once that it could be no river, its outline being so different from that of a running stream, not straight nor winding, but stretching to one side or the other, as the shores made room for it. this morning it is raining, and we are not very comfortable nor contented, being all confined to our little parlor, which has a broken window, against which i have pinned the times to keep out the chill damp air. u---- has been ill, in consequence of having been overheated at newby bridge. we have no books, except guide-books, no means of amusement, nothing to do. there are no newspapers, and i shall remember lowwood not very agreeably. as far as we are concerned, it is a scrambling, ill-ordered hotel, with insufficient attendance, wretched sleeping-accommodations, a pretty fair table, but german-silver forks and spoons; our food does not taste very good, and yet there is really no definite fault to be found with it. since writing the above, i have found the first volume of sir charles grandison, and two of g. p. r. james's works, in the coffee-room. the days pass heavily here, and leave behind them a sense of having answered no very good purpose. they are long enough, at all events, for the sun does not set till after eight o'clock, and rises i know not when. one of the most remarkable distinctions between england and the united states is the ignorance into which we fall of whatever is going on in the world the moment we get away from the great thoroughfares and centres of life. in leamington we heard no news from week's end to week's end, and knew not where to find a newspaper; and here the case is neither better nor worse. the rural people really seem to take no interest in public affairs; at all events, they have no intelligence on such subjects. it is possible that the cheap newspapers may, in time, find their way into the cottages, or, at least, into the country taverns; but it is not at all so now. if they generally know that sebastopol is besieged, it is the extent of their knowledge. the public life of america is lived through the mind and heart of every man in it; here the people feel that they have nothing to do with what is going forward, and, i suspect, care little or nothing about it. such things they permit to be the exclusive concern of the higher classes. in front of our hotel, on the lawn between us and the lake, there are two trees, which we have hitherto taken to be yews; but on examining them more closely, i find that they are pine-trees, and quite dead and dry, although they have the aspect of dark rich life. but this is caused by the verdure of two great ivy-vines, which have twisted round them like gigantic snakes, and, clambering up and throttling the life out of them, have put out branches, and made crowns of thick green leaves, so that, at a little distance, it is quite impossible not to take them for genuine trees. the trunks of the ivy-vines must be more than a foot in circumference, and one feels they have stolen the life that belonged to the pines. the dead branches of one of the pines stick out horizontally through the ivy-boughs. the other shows nothing but the ivy, and in shape a good deal resembles a poplar. when the pine trunks shall have quite crumbled away, the ivy-stems will doubtless have gained sufficient strength to sustain themselves independently. july th.--yesterday s----- went down the lake in the steamboat to take u----, baby, and nurse to newby bridge, while the three rest of us should make a tour through the lake region. after mamma's departure, and when i had finished some letters, j----- and i set out on a walk, which finally brought us to bowness, through much delightful shade of woods, and past beautiful rivulets or brooklets, and up and down many hills. this chief harbor of the lakes seemed alive and bustling with tourists, it being a sunny and pleasant day, so that they were all abroad, like summer insects. the town is a confused and irregular little place, of very uneven surface. there is an old church in it, and two or three large hotels. we stayed there perhaps half an hour, and then went to the pier, where shortly a steamer arrived, with music sounding,--on the deck of which, with her back to us, sat a lady in a gray travelling-dress. j----- cried out, "mamma! mamma!" to which the lady deigned no notice, but, he repeating it, she turned round, and was as much surprised, no doubt, to see her husband and son, as if this little lake had been the great ocean, and we meeting each other from opposite shores of it. we soon steamed back to lowwood, and took a car thence for rydal and grasmere, after a cold luncheon. at bowness i met miss charlotte cushman, who has been staying at the lowwood hotel with us since monday, without either party being aware of it. our road to rydal lay through ambleside, which is certainly a very pretty town, and looks cheerfully in a sunny day. we saw miss martineau's residence, called "the knoll," standing high up on a hillock, and having at its foot a methodist chapel, for which, or whatever place of christian worship, this good lady can have no occasion. we stopped a moment in the street below her house, and deliberated a little whether to call on her; but concluded we would not. after leaving ambleside, the road winds in and out among the hills, and soon brings us to a sheet (or napkin, rather than a sheet) of water, which the driver tells us is rydal lake! we had already heard that it was but three quarters of a mile long, and one quarter broad; still, it being an idea of considerable size in our minds, we had inevitably drawn its ideal, physical proportions on a somewhat corresponding scale. it certainly did look very small; and i said, in my american scorn, that i could carry it away easily in a porringer; for it is nothing more than a grass-bordered pool among the surrounding hills which ascend directly from its margin; so that one might fancy it, not, a permanent body of water, but a rather extensive accumulation of recent rain. moreover, it was rippled with a breeze, and so, as i remember it, though the sun shone, it looked dull and sulky, like a child out of humor. now, the best thing these small ponds can do is to keep perfectly calm and smooth, and not attempt to show off any airs of their own, but content themselves with serving as a mirror for whatever of beautiful or picturesque there may be in the scenery around them. the hills about rydal water are not very lofty, but are sufficiently so as objects of every-day view,-- objects to live with; and they are craggier than those we have hitherto seen, and bare of wood, which indeed would hardly grow on some of their precipitous sides. on the roadside, as we reach the foot of the lake, stands a spruce and rather large house of modern aspect, but with several gables and much overgrown with ivy,--a very pretty and comfortable house, built, adorned, and cared for with commendable taste. we inquired whose it was, and the coachman said it was "mr. wordsworth's," and that "mrs. wordsworth was still residing there." so we were much delighted to have seen his abode, and as we were to stay the night at grasmere, about two miles farther on, we determined to come back and inspect it as particularly as should be allowable. accordingly, after taking rooms at brown's hotel, we drove back in our return car, and, reaching the head of rydal water, alighted to walk through this familiar scene of so many years of wordsworth's life. we ought to have seen de quincey's former residence and hartley coleridge's cottage, i believe, on our way, but were not aware of it at the time. near the lake there is a stone-quarry, and a cavern of some extent, artificially formed, probably by taking out the stone. above the shore of the lake, not a great way from wordsworth's residence, there is a flight of steps hewn in a rock and ascending to a rock seat where a good view of the lake may be attained; and, as wordsworth has doubtless sat there hundreds of times, so did we ascend and sit down, and look at the hills and at the flags on the lake's shore. reaching the house that had been pointed out to us as wordsworth's residence, we began to peer about at its front and gables, and over the garden wall, on both sides of the road, quickening our enthusiasm as much as we could, and meditating to pilfer some flower or ivy-leaf from the house or its vicinity, to be kept as sacred memorials. at this juncture a man approached, who announced himself as the gardener of the place, and said, too, that this was not wordsworth's house at all, but the residence of mr. ball, a quaker gentleman; but that his ground adjoined wordsworth's, and that he had liberty to take visitors through the latter. how absurd it would have been if we had carried away ivy-leaves and tender recollections from this domicile of a respectable quaker! the gardener was an intelligent man, of pleasant, sociable, and respectful address; and as we went along he talked about the poet, whom he had known, and who, he said, was very familiar with the country people. he led us through mr. ball's grounds, up a steep hillside, by winding, gravelled walks, with summer-houses at points favorable for them. it was a very shady and pleasant spot, containing about an acre of ground, and all turned to good account by the manner of laying it out; so that it seemed more than it really is. in one place, on a small, smooth slab of slate, let into a rock, there is an inscription by wordsworth, which i think i have read in his works, claiming kindly regards from those who visit the spot after his departure, because many trees had been spared at his intercession. his own grounds, or rather his ornamental garden, is separated from mr. ball's only by a wire fence, or some such barrier, and the gates have no fastening, so that the whole appears like one possession, and doubtless was so as regarded the poet's walks and enjoyments. we approached by paths so winding that i hardly know how the house stands in relation to the road; but, after much circuity, we really did see wordsworth's residence,--an old house with an uneven ridge-pole, built of stone, no doubt, but plastered over with some neutral tint,--a house that would not have been remarkably pretty in itself, but so delightfully situated, so secluded, so hedged about with shrubbery, and adorned with flowers, so ivy-grown on one side, so beautified with the personal care of him who lived in it and loved it, that it seemed the very place for a poet's residence; and as if, while he lived so long in it, his poetry had manifested itself in flowers, shrubbery, and ivy. i never smelt such a delightful fragrance of flowers as there was all through the garden. in front of the house there is a circular terrace of two ascents, in raising which wordsworth had himself performed much of the labor; and here there are seats, from which we obtained a fine view down the valley of the rothay, with windermere in the distance,--a view of several miles, and which we did not suppose could be seen, after winding among the hills so far from the lake. it is very beautiful and picture-like. while we sat here, s----- happened to refer to the ballad of little barbara lewthwaite, and j----- began to repeat the poem concerning her, and the gardener said that "little barbara" had died not a great while ago, an elderly woman, leaving grown-up children behind her. her marriage-name was thompson, and the gardener believed there was nothing remarkable in her character. there is a summer-house at one extremity of the grounds, in deepest shadow, but with glimpses of mountain views through trees which shut it in, and which have spread intercepting boughs since wordsworth died. it is lined with pine-cones, in a pretty way enough, but of doubtful taste. i rather wonder that people of real taste should help nature out, and beautify her, or perhaps rather prettify her so much as they do,--opening vistas, showing one thing, hiding another, making a scene picturesque, whether or no. i cannot rid myself of the feeling that there is something false--a kind of humbug--in all this. at any rate, the traces of it do not contribute to my enjoyment, and, indeed, it ought to be done so exquisitely as to leave no trace. but i ought not to criticise in any way a spot which gave me so much pleasure, and where it is good to think of wordsworth in quiet, past days, walking in his home-shadow of trees which he knew, and training flowers, and trimming shrubs, and chanting in an undertone his own verses up and down the winding walks. the gardener gave j----- a cone from the summer-house, which had fallen on the seat, and s----- got some mignonette, and leaves of laurel and ivy, and we wended our way back to the hotel. wordsworth was not the owner of this house; it being the property of lady fleming. mrs. wordsworth still lives there, and is now at home. five o'clock.---all day it has been cloudy and showery, with thunder now and then; the mists hang low on the surrounding hills, adown which, at various points, we can see the snow-white fall of little streamlets ("forces" they call them here) swollen by the rain. an overcast day is not so gloomy in the hill-country as in the lowlands; there are more breaks, more transfusion of skylight through the gloom, as has been the case to-day, and as i found in lenox; we get better acquainted with clouds by seeing at what height they be on the hillsides, and find that the difference betwixt a fair day and a cloudy and rainy one is very superficial, after all. nevertheless, rain is rain, and wets a man just as much among the mountains as anywhere else; so we have been kept within doors all day, till an hour or so ago, when j----- and i went down to the village in quest of the post-office. we took a path that leads from the hotel across the fields, and, coming into a wood, crosses the rothay by a one-arched bridge and passes the village church. the rothay is very swift and turbulent to-day, and hurries along with foam-specks on its surface, filling its banks from brim to brim,--a stream perhaps twenty feet wide, perhaps more; for i am willing that the good little river should have all it can fairly claim. it is the st. lawrence of several of these english lakes, through which it flows, and carries off their superfluous waters. in its haste, and with its rushing sound, it was pleasant both to see and hear; and it sweeps by one side of the old churchyard where wordsworth lies buried,--- the side where his grave is made. the church of grasmere is a very plain structure, with a low body, on one side of which is a small porch with a pointed arch. the tower is square and looks ancient; but the whole is overlaid with plaster of a buff or pale yellow hue. it was originally built, i suppose, of rough shingly stones, as many of the houses hereabouts are now, and, like many of them, the plaster is used to give a finish. we found the gate of the churchyard wide open; and the grass was lying on the graves, having probably been mowed yesterday. it is but a small churchyard, and with few monuments of any pretension in it, most of them being slate headstones, standing erect. from the gate at which we entered, a distinct foot-track leads to the corner nearest the riverside, and i turned into it by a sort of instinct, the more readily as i saw a tourist-looking man approaching from that point, and a woman looking among the gravestones. both of these persons had gone by the time i came up, so that j----- and i were left to find wordsworth's grave all by ourselves. at this corner of the churchyard there is a hawthorn bush or tree, the extremest branches of which stretch as far as where wordsworth lies. this whole corner seems to be devoted to himself and his family and friends; and they all lie very closely together, side by side, and head to foot, as room could conveniently be found. hartley coleridge lies a little behind, in the direction of the church, his feet being towards wordsworth's head, who lies in the row of those of his own blood. i found out hartley coleridge's grave sooner than wordsworth's; for it is of marble, and, though simple enough, has more of sculptured device about it, having been erected, as i think the inscription states, by his brother and sister. wordsworth has only the very simplest slab of slate, with "william wordsworth" and nothing else upon it. as i recollect it, it is the midmost grave of the row. it is or has been well grass-grown, but the grass is quite worn away from the top, though sufficiently luxuriant at the sides. it looks as if people had stood upon it, and so does the grave next to it, which i believe is one of his children. i plucked some grass and weeds from it, and as he was buried within so few years they may fairly be supposed to have drawn their nutriment from his mortal remains, and i gathered them from just above his head. there is no fault to be found with his grave,--within view of the hills, within sound of the river, murmuring near by,--no fault except that he is crowded so closely with his kindred; and, moreover, that, being so old a churchyard, the earth over him must all have been human once. he might have had fresh earth to himself; but he chose this grave deliberately. no very stately and broad-based monument can ever be erected over it without infringing upon, covering, and overshadowing the graves, not only of his family, but of individuals who probably were quite disconnected with him. but it is pleasant to think and know--were it but on the evidence of this choice of a resting-place--that he did not care for a stately monument. after leaving the churchyard, we wandered about in quest of the post-office, and for a long time without success. this little town of grasmere seems to me as pretty a place as ever i met with in my life. it is quite shut in by hills that rise up immediately around it, like a neighborhood of kindly giants. these hills descend steeply to the verge of the level on which the village stands, and there they terminate at once, the whole site of the little town being as even as a floor. i call it a village; but it is no village at all,--all the dwellings standing apart, each in its own little domain, and each, i believe, with its own little lane leading to it, independently of the rest. most of these are old cottages, plastered white, with antique porches, and roses and other vines trained against them, and shrubbery growing about them; and some are covered with ivy. there are a few edifices of more pretension and of modern build, but not so strikingly so as to put the rest out of countenance. the post-office, when we found it, proved to be an ivied cottage, with a good deal of shrubbery round it, having its own pathway, like the other cottages. the whole looks like a real seclusion, shut out from the great world by these encircling hills, on the sides of which, whenever they are not too steep, you see the division lines of property, and tokens of cultivation,--taking from them their pretensions to savage majesty, but bringing them nearer to the heart of man. since writing the above, i have been again with s----- to see wordsworth's grave, and, finding the door of the church open, we went in. a woman and little girl were sweeping at the farther end, and the woman came towards us out of the cloud of dust which she had raised. we were surprised at the extremely antique appearance of the church. it is paved with bluish-gray flagstones, over which uncounted generations have trodden, leaving the floor as well laid as ever. the walls are very thick, and the arched windows open through them at a considerable distance above the floor. there is no middle aisle; but first a row of pews next either wall, and then an aisle on each side of the pews, occupying the centre of the church,--then, two side aisles, but no middle one. and down through the centre or the church runs a row of five arches, very rude and round-headed, all of rough stone, supported by rough and massive pillars, or rather square, stone blocks, which stand in the pews, and stood in the same places probably, long before the wood of those pews began to grow. above this row of arches is another row, built upon the same mass of stone, and almost as broad, but lower; and on this upper row rests the framework, the oaken beams, the black skeleton of the roof. it is a very clumsy contrivance for supporting the roof, and if it were modern, we certainly should condemn it as very ugly; but being the relic of a simple age it comes in well with the antique simplicity of the whole structure. the roof goes up, barn-like, into its natural angle, and all the rafters and cross-beams are visible. there is an old font; and in the chancel is a niche, where (judging from a similar one in furness abbey) the holy water used to be placed for the priest's use while celebrating mass. around the inside of the porch is a stone bench, against the wall, narrow and uneasy, but where a great many people had sat, who now have found quieter resting-places. the woman was a very intelligent-looking person, not of the usual english ruddiness, but rather thin and somewhat pale, though bright, of aspect. her way of talking was very agreeable. she inquired if we wished to see wordsworth's monument, and at once showed it to us,--a slab of white marble fixed against the upper end of the central row of stone arches, with a pretty long inscription, and a profile bust, in bas-relief, of his aged countenance. the monument, is placed directly over wordsworth's pew, and could best be seen and read from the very corner seat where he used to sit. the pew is one of those occupying the centre of the church, and is just across the aisle from the pulpit, and is the best of all for the purpose of seeing and hearing the clergyman, and likewise as convenient as any, from its neighborhood to the altar. on the other side of the aisle, beneath the pulpit, is lady fleming's pew. this and one or two others are curtained, wordsworth's was not. i think i can bring up his image in that corner seat of his pew--a white-headed, tall, spare man, plain in aspect--better than in any other situation. the woman said that she had known him very well, and that he had made some verses on a sister of hers. she repeated the first lines, something about a lamb, but neither s----- nor i remembered them. on the walls of the chancel there are monuments to the flemings, and painted escutcheons of their arms; and along the side walls also, and on the square pillars of the row of arches, there are other monuments, generally of white marble, with the letters of the inscription blackened. on these pillars, likewise, and in many places in the walls, were hung verses from scripture, painted on boards. at one of the doors was a poor-box,--an elaborately carved little box, of oak, with the date , and the name of the church--st. oswald's--upon it. the whole interior of the edifice was plain, simple, almost to grimness,--or would have been so, only that the foolish church-wardens, or other authority, have washed it over with the same buff color with which they have overlaid the exterior. it is a pity; it lightens it up, and desecrates it greatly, especially as the woman says that there were formerly paintings on the walls, now obliterated forever. i could have stayed in the old church much longer, and could write much more about it, but there must be an end to everything. pacing it from the farther end to the elevation before the altar, i found that it was twenty-five paces long. on looking again at the rothay, i find i did it some injustice; for at the bridge, in its present swollen state, it is nearer twenty yards than twenty feet across. its waters are very clear, and it rushes along with a speed which is delightful to see, after an acquaintance with the muddy and sluggish avon and leam. since tea i have taken a stroll from the hotel in a different direction from heretofore, and passed the swan inn, where scott used to go daily to get a draught of liquor, when he was visiting wordsworth, who had no wine nor other inspiriting fluid in his house. it stands directly on the wayside,--a small, whitewashed house, with an addition in the rear that seems to have been built since scott's time. on the door is the painted sign of a swan, and the name "scott's swan hotel." i walked a considerable distance beyond it, but, a shower cooling up, i turned back, entered the inn, and, following the mistress into a snug little room, was served with a glass of bitter ale. it is a very plain and homely inn, and certainly could not have satisfied scott's wants if he had required anything very far-fetched or delicate in his potations. i found two westmoreland peasants in the room, with ale before them. one went away almost immediately; but the other remained, and, entering into conversation with him, he told me that he was going to new zealand, and expected to sail in september. i announced myself as an american, and he said that a large party had lately gone from hereabouts to america; but he seemed not to understand that there was any distinction between canada and the states. these people had gone to quebec. he was a very civil, well-behaved, kindly sort of person, of a simple character, which i took to belong to the class and locality, rather than to himself individually. i could not very well understand all that he said, owing to his provincial dialect; and when he spoke to his own countrymen, or to the women of the house, i really could but just catch a word here and there. how long it takes to melt english down into a homogeneous mass! he told me that there was a public library in grasmere to which he has access in common with the other inhabitants, and a reading-room connected with it, where he reads the times in the evening. there was no american smartness in his mind. when i left the house, it was showering briskly; but the drops quite ceased, and the clouds began to break away before i reached my hotel, and i saw the new moon over my right shoulder. july st.--we left grasmere yesterday, after breakfast; it being a delightful morning, with some clouds, but the cheerfullest sunshine on great part of the mountainsides and on ourselves. we returned, in the first place, to ambleside, along the border of grasmere lake, which would be a pretty little piece of water, with its steep and high surrounding hills, were it not that a stubborn and straight-lined stone fence, running along the eastern shore, by the roadside, quite spoils its appearance. rydal water, though nothing can make a lake of it, looked prettier and less diminutive than at the first view; and, in fact, i find that it is impossible to know accurately how any prospect or other thing looks, until after at least a second view, which always essentially corrects the first. this, i think, is especially true in regard to objects which we have heard much about, and exercised our imagination upon; the first view being a vain attempt to reconcile our idea with the reality, and at the second we begin to accept the thing for what it really is. wordsworth's situation is really a beautiful one; and nab scaur behind his house rises with a grand, protecting air. we passed nab's cottage, in which de quincey formerly lived, and where hartley coleridge lived and died. it is a small, buff-tinted, plastered stone cottage, immediately on the roadside, and originally, i should think, of a very humble class; but it now looks as if persons of taste might some time or other have sat down in it, and caused flowers to spring up about it. it is very agreeably situated under the great, precipitous hill, and with rydal water close at band, on the other side of the road. an advertisement of lodgings to let was put up on this cottage. i question whether any part of the world looks so beautiful as england-- this part of england, at least--on a fine summer morning. it makes one think the more cheerfully of human life to see such a bright universal verdure; such sweet, rural, peaceful, flower-bordered cottages,--not cottages of gentility, but dwellings of the laboring poor; such nice villas along the roadside, so tastefully contrived for comfort and beauty, and adorned more and more, year after year, with the care and after-thought of people who mean to live in them a great while, and feel as if their children might live in them also, and so they plant trees to overshadow their walks, and train ivy and all beautiful vines up against their walls, and thus live for the future in another sense than we americans do. and the climate helps them out, and makes everything moist, and green, and full of tender life, instead of dry and arid, as human life and vegetable life is so apt to be with us. certainly, england can present a more attractive face than we can; even in its humbler modes of life, to say nothing of the beautiful lives that might be led, one would think, by the higher classes, whose gateways, with broad, smooth gravelled drives leading through them, one sees every mile or two along the road, winding into some proud seclusion. all this is passing away, and society most assume new relations; but there is no harm in believing that there has been something very good in english life,-- good for all classes while the world was in a state out of which these forms naturally grew. passing through ambleside, our phaeton and pair turned towards ullswater, which we were to reach through the pass of kirkstone. this is some three or four miles from ambleside, and as we approached it the road kept ascending higher and higher, the hills grew more bare, and the country lost its soft and delightful verdure. at last the road became so steep that j----- and i alighted to walk. this is the aspiring road that wordsworth speaks of in his ode; it passes through the gorge of precipitous hills,--or almost precipitous,--too much so for even the grass to grow on many portions, which are covered with gray smugly stones; and i think this pass, in its middle part, must have looked just the same when the romans marched through it as it looks now. no trees could ever have grown on the steep hillsides, whereon even the english climate can generate no available soil. i do not know that i have seen anything more impressive than the stern gray sweep of these naked mountains, with nothing whatever to soften or adorn them. the notch of the white mountains, as i remember it in my youthful days, is more wonderful and richly picturesque, but of quite a different character. about the centre and at the highest point of the pass stands an old stone building of mean appearance, with the usual sign of an alehouse, "licensed to retail foreign spirits, ale, and tobacco," over the door, and another small sign, designating it as the highest inhabitable house in england. it is a chill and desolate place for a residence. they keep a visitor's book here, and we recorded our names in it, and were not too sorry to leave the mean little hovel, smelling as it did of tobacco-smoke, and possessing all other characteristics of the humblest alehouse on the level earth. the kirkstone, which gives the pass its name, is not seen in approaching from ambleside, until some time after you begin to descend towards brothers' water. when the driver first pointed it out, a little way up the hill on our left, it looked no more than a bowlder of a ton or two in weight, among a hundred others nearly as big; and i saw hardly any resemblance to a church or church-spire, to which the fancies of past generations have likened it. as we descended the pass, however, and left the stone farther and farther behind, it continued to show itself, and assumed a more striking and prominent aspect, standing out clearly relieved against the sky, so that no traveller would fail to observe it, where there are so few defined objects to attract notice, amid the naked monotony of the stern hills; though, indeed, if i had taken it for any sort of an edifice, it would rather have been for a wayside inn or a shepherd's hut than for a church. we lost sight of it, and again beheld it more and more brought out against the sky, by the turns of the road, several times in the course of our descent. there is a very fine view of brothers' water, shut in by steep hills, as we go down kirkstone pass. at about half past twelve we reached patterdale, at the foot of ullswater, and here took luncheon. the hotels are mostly very good all through this region, and this deserved that character. a black-coated waiter, of more gentlemanly appearance than most englishmen, yet taking a sixpence with as little scruple as a lawyer would take his fee; the mistress, in lady-like attire, receiving us at the door, and waiting upon us to the carriage-steps; clean, comely housemaids everywhere at hand,-- all appliances, in short, for being comfortable, and comfortable, too, within one's own circle. and, on taking leave, everybody who has done anything for you, or who might by possibility have done anything, is to be feed. you pay the landlord enough, in all conscience; and then you pay all his servants, who have been your servants for the time. but, to say the truth, there is a degree of the same kind of annoyance in an american hotel, although it is not so much an acknowledged custom. here, in the houses where attendance is not charged in the bill, no wages are paid by the host to those servants--chambermaid, waiter, and boots--who come into immediate contact with travellers. the drivers of the cars, phaetons, and flys are likewise unpaid, except by their passengers, and claim threepence a mile with the same sense of right as their masters in charging for the vehicles and horses. when you come to understand this claim, not as an appeal to your generosity, but as an actual and necessary part of the cost of the journey, it is yielded to with a more comfortable feeling; and the traveller has really option enough, as to the amount which he will give, to insure civility and good behavior on the driver's part. ullswater is a beautiful lake, with steep hills walling it about, so steep, on the eastern side, that there seems hardly room for a road to run along the base. we passed up the western shore, and turned off from it about midway, to take the road towards keswick. we stopped, however, at lyulph's tower, while our chariot went on up a hill, and took a guide to show us the way to airey force,--a small cataract, which is claimed as private property, and out of which, no doubt, a pretty little revenue is raised. i do not think that there can be any rightful appropriation, as private property, of objects of natural beauty. the fruits of the land, and whatever human labor can produce from it, belong fairly enough to the person who has a deed or a lease; but the beautiful is the property of him who can hive it and enjoy it. it is very unsatisfactory to think of a cataract under lock and key. however, we were shown to airey force by a tall and graceful mountain-maid, with a healthy cheek, and a step that had no possibility of weariness in it. the cascade is an irregular streak of foamy water, pouring adown a rude shadowy glen. i liked well enough to see it; but it is wearisome, on the whole, to go the rounds of what everybody thinks it necessary to see. it makes me a little ashamed. it is somewhat as if we were drinking out of the same glass, and eating from the same dish, as a multitude of other people. within a few miles of keswick, we passed along at the foot of saddleback, and by the entrance of the vale of st. john, and down the valley, on one of the slopes, we saw the enchanted castle. thence we drove along by the course of the greta, and soon arrived at keswick, which lies at the base of skiddaw, and among a brotherhood of picturesque eminences, and is itself a compact little town, with a market-house, built of the old stones of the earl of derwentwater's ruined castle, standing in the centre,--the principal street forking into two as it passes it. we alighted at the king's arms, and went in search of southey's residence, which we found easily enough, as it lies just on the outskirts of the town. we inquired of a group of people, two of whom, i thought, did not seem to know much about the matter; but the third, an elderly man, pointed it out at once,--a house surrounded by trees, so as to be seen only partially, and standing on a little eminence, a hundred yards or so from the road. we went up a private lane that led to the rear of the place, and so penetrated quite into the back-yard without meeting anybody,--passing a small kennel, in which were two hounds, who gazed at us, but neither growled nor wagged their tails. the house is three stories high, and seems to have a great deal of room in it, so as not to discredit its name, "greta hall,"--a very spacious dwelling for a poet. the windows were nearly all closed; there were no signs of occupancy, but a general air of neglect. s-----, who is bolder than i in these matters, ventured through what seemed a back garden gate, and i soon heard her in conversation with some man, who now presented himself, and proved to be a gardener. he said he had formerly acted in that capacity for southey, although a gardener had not been kept by him as a regular part of his establishment. this was an old man with an odd crookedness of legs, and strange, disjointed limp. s----- had told him that we were americans, and he took the idea that we had come this long distance, over sea and land, with the sole purpose of seeing southey's residence, so that he was inclined to do what he could towards exhibiting it. this was but little; the present occupant (a mr. radday, i believe the gardener called him) being away, and the house shut up. but he showed us about the grounds, and allowed us to peep into the windows of what had been southey's library, and into those of another of the front apartments, and showed us the window of the chamber in the rear, in which southey died. the apartments into which we peeped looked rather small and low,--not particularly so, but enough to indicate an old building. they are now handsomely furnished, and we saw over one of the fireplaces an inscription about southey; and in the corner of the same room stood a suit, of bright armor. it is taller than the country-houses of english gentlemen usually are, and it is even stately. all about, in front, beside it and behind, there is a great profusion of trees, most of which were planted by southey, who came to live here more than fifty years ago, and they have, of course, grown much more shadowy now than he ever beheld them; for he died about fourteen years since. the grounds are well laid out, and neatly kept, with the usual lawn and gravelled walks, and quaint little devices in the ornamental way. these may be of later date than southey's time. the gardener spoke respectfully of southey, and of his first wife, and observed that "it was a great loss to the neighborhood when that family went down." the house stands directly above the greta, the murmur of which is audible all about it; for the greta is a swift little river, and goes on its way with a continual sound, which has both depth and breadth. the gardener led us to a walk along its banks, close by the hall, where he said southey used to walk for hours and hours together. he might, indeed, get there from his study in a moment. there are two paths, one above the other, well laid out on the steep declivity of the high bank; and there is such a very thick shade of oaks and elms, planted by southey himself over the bank, that all the ground and grass were moist, although it had been a sunny day. it is a very sombre walk; not many glimpses of the sky through those dense boughs. the greta is here, perhaps, twenty yards across, and very dark of hue, and its voice is melancholy and very suggestive of musings and reveries; but i should question whether it were favorable to any settled scheme of thought. the gardener told us that there used to be a pebbly beach on the margin of the river, and that it was southey's habit to sit and write there, using a tree of peculiar shape for a table. an alteration in the current of the river has swept away the beach, and the tree, too, has fallen. all these things were interesting to me, although southey was not, i think, a picturesque man, --not one whose personal character takes a strong hold on the imagination. in these walks he used to wear a pair of shoes heavily clamped with iron; very ponderous they must have been, from the particularity with which the gardener mentioned them. the gardener took leave of us at the front entrance of the grounds, and, returning to the king's arms, we ordered a one-horse fly for the fall of lodore. our drive thither was along the banks of derwentwater, and it is as beautiful a road, i imagine, as can be found in england or anywhere else. i like derwentwater the best of all the lakes, so far as i have yet seen them. skiddaw lies at the head of a long even ridge of mountains, rising into several peaks, and one higher than the rest. on the eastern side there are many noble eminences, and on the west, along which we drove, there is a part of the way a lovely wood, and nearly the whole distance a precipitous range of lofty cliffs, descending sheer down without any slope, except what has been formed in the lapse of ages by the fall of fragments, and the washing down of smaller stones. the declivity thus formed along the base of the cliffs is in some places covered with trees or shrubs; elsewhere it is quite bare and barren. the precipitous parts of the cliffs are very grand; the whole scene, indeed, might be characterized as one of stern grandeur with an embroidery of rich beauty, without lauding it too much. all the sternness of it is softened by vegetative beauty wherever it can possibly be thrown in; and there is not here, so strongly as along windermere, evidence that human art has been helping out nature. i wish it were possible to give any idea of the shapes of the hills; with these, at least, man has nothing to do, nor ever will have anything to do. as we approached the bottom of the lake, and of the beautiful valley in which it lies, we saw one hill that seemed to crouch down like a titanic watch-dog, with its rear towards the spectator, guarding the entrance to the valley. the great superiority of these mountains over those of new england is their variety and definiteness of shape, besides the abundance everywhere of water prospects, which are wanting among our own hills. they rise up decidedly, and each is a hill by itself, while ours mingle into one another, and, besides, have such large bases that you can tell neither where they begin nor where they end. many of these cumberland mountains have a marked vertebral shape, so that they often look like a group of huge lions, lying down with their backs turned toward each other. they slope down steeply from narrow ridges; hence their picturesque seclusions of valleys and dales, which subdivide the lake region into so many communities. our hills, like apple-dumplings in a dish, have no such valleys as these. there is a good inn at lodore,--a small, primitive country inn, which has latterly been enlarged and otherwise adapted to meet the convenience of the guests brought thither by the fame of the cascade; but it is still a country inn, though it takes upon itself the title of hotel. we found pleasant rooms here, and established ourselves for the night. from this point we have a view of the beautiful lake, and of skiddaw at the head of it. the cascade is within three or four minutes' walk, through the garden gate, towards the cliff, at the base of which the inn stands. the visitor would need no other guide than its own voice, which is said to be audible sometimes at the distance of four miles. as we were coming from keswick, we caught glimpses of its white foam high up the precipice; and it is only glimpses that can be caught anywhere, because there is no regular sheet of falling water. once, i think, it must have fallen abruptly over the edge of the long line of precipice that here extends along parallel with the shore of the lake; but, in the course of time, it has gnawed and sawed its way into the heart of the cliff,--this persistent little stream,--so that now it has formed a rude gorge, adown which it hurries and tumbles in the wildest way, over the roughest imaginable staircase. standing at the bottom of the fall, you have a far vista sloping upward to the sky, with the water everywhere as white as snow, pouring and pouring down, now on one side of the gorge, now on the other, among immense bowlders, which try to choke its passage. it does not attempt to leap over these huge rocks, but finds its way in and out among then, and finally gets to the bottom after a hundred tumbles. it cannot be better described than in southey's verses, though it is worthy of better poetry than that. after all, i do not know that the cascade is anything more than a beautiful fringe to the grandeur of the scene; for it is very grand,--this fissure through the cliff,--with a steep, lofty precipice on the right hand, sheer up and down, and on the other hand, too, another lofty precipice, with a slope of its own ruin on which trees and shrubbery have grown. the right-hand precipice, however, has shelves affording sufficient hold for small trees, but nowhere does it slant. if it were not for the white little stream falling gently downward, and for the soft verdure upon either precipice, and even along the very pathway of the cascade, it would be a very stern vista up that gorge. i shall not try to describe it any more. it has not been praised too much, though it may have been praised amiss. i went thither again in the morning, and climbed a good way up, through the midst of its rocky descent, and i think i could have reached the top in this way. it is remarkable that the bounds of the water, from one step of its broken staircase to another, give an impression of softness and gentleness; but there are black, turbulent pools among the great bowlders, where the stream seems angry at the difficulties which it meets with. looking upward in the sunshine, i could see a rising mist, and i should not wonder if a speck of rainbow were sometimes visible. i noticed a small oak in the bed of the cascade, and there is a lighter vegetation scattered about. at noon we took a car for portinscale, and drove back along the road to keswick, through which we passed, stopping to get a perhaps of letters at the post-office, and reached portinscale, which is a mile from keswick. after dinner we walked over a bridge, and through a green lane, to the church where southey is buried. it is a white church, of norman architecture, with a low, square tower. as we approached, we saw two persons entering the portal, and, following them in, we found the sexton, who was a tall, thin old man, with white hair, and an intelligent, reverent face, showing the edifice to a stout, red-faced, self-important, good-natured john bull of a gentleman. without any question on our part, the old sexton immediately led us to southey's monument, which is placed in a side aisle, where there is not breadth for it to stand free of the wall; neither is it in a very good light. but, it seemed to me a good work of art,--a recumbent figure of white marble, on a couch, the drapery of which he has drawn about him,--being quite enveloped in what may be a shroud. the sculptor has not intended to represent death, for the figure lies on its side, and has a book in its hand, and the face is lifelike, and looks full of expression,--a thin, high-featured, poetic face, with a finely proportioned head and abundant hair. it represents southey rightly, at whatever age he died, in the full maturity of manhood, when he was strongest and richest. i liked the statue, and wished that it lay in a broader aisle, or in the chancel, where there is an old tomb of a knight and lady of the ratcliffe family, who have held the place of honor long enough to yield it now to a poet. southey's sculptor was lough. i must not forget to mention that john bull, climbing on a bench, to get a better view of the statue, tumbled off with a racket that resounded irreverently through the church. the old, white-headed, thin sexton was a model man of his class, and appeared to take a loving and cheerful interest in the building, and in those who, from age to age, have worshipped and been buried there. it is a very ancient and interesting church. within a few years it has been thoroughly repaired as to the interior, and now looks as if it might endure ten more centuries; and i suppose we see little that is really ancient, except the double row of norman arches, of light freestone, that support the oaken beams and rafters of the roof. all the walls, however, are venerable, and quite preserve the identity of the edifice. there is a stained-glass window of modern manufacture, and in one of the side windows, set amidst plain glass, there is a single piece, five hundred years old, representing st. anthony, very finely executed, though it looks a little faded. along the walls, on each side, between the arched windows, there are marble slabs affixed, with inscriptions to the memories of those who used to occupy the seats beneath. i remember none of great antiquity, nor any old monument, except that in the chancel, over the knight and lady of the ratcliffe family. this consists of a slab of stone, on four small stone pillars, about two feet high. the slab is inlaid with a brass plate, on which is sculptured the knight in armor, and the lady in the costume of elizabeth's time, exceedingly well done and well preserved, and each figure about eighteen inches in length. the sexton showed us a rubbing of them on paper. under the slab, which, supported by the low stone pillars, forms a canopy for them, lie two sculptured figures of stone, of life size, and at full length, representing the same persons; but i think the sculptor was hardly equal in his art to the engraver. the most-curious antique relic in the church is the font. the bowl is very capacious, sufficiently so to admit of the complete immersion of a child of two or three months old. on the outside, in several compartments, there are bas-reliefs of scriptural and symbolic subjects, --such as the tree of life, the word proceeding out of god's mouth, the crown of thorns,--all in the quaintest taste, sculptured by some hand of a thousand years ago, and preserving the fancies of monkish brains, in stone. the sexton was very proud of this font and its sculpture, and took a kindly personal interest, in showing it; and when we had spent as much time as we could inside, he led us to southey's grave in the churchyard. he told us that he had known southey long and well, from early manhood to old age; for he was only twenty-nine when he came to keswick to reside. he had known wordsworth too, and coleridge, and lovell; and he had seen southey and wordsworth walking arm in arm together in that churchyard. he seemed to revere southey's memory, and said that he had been much lamented, and that as many as a hundred people came to the churchyard when he was buried. he spoke with great praise of mrs. southey, his first wife, telling of her charity to the poor, and how she was a blessing to the neighborhood; but he said nothing in favor of the second mrs. southey, and only mentioned her selling the library, and other things, after her husband's death, and going to london. yet i think she was probably a good woman, and meets with less than justice because she took the place of another good woman, and had not time and opportunity to prove herself as good. as for southey himself, my idea is, that few better or more blameless men have ever lived; but he seems to lack color, passion, warmth, or something that should enable me to bring him into close relation with myself. the graveyard where his body lies is not so rural and picturesque as that where wordsworth is buried; although skiddaw rises behind it, and the greta is murmuring at no very great distance away. but the spot itself has a somewhat bare and bold aspect, with no shadow of trees, no shrubbery. over his grave there is a ponderous, oblong block of slate, a native mineral of this region, as hard as iron, and which will doubtless last quite as long as southey's works retain any vitality in english literature. it is not a monument fit for a poet. there is nothing airy or graceful about it,--and, indeed, there cannot he many men so solid and matter-of-fact as to deserve a tomb like that. wordsworth's grave is much better, with only a simple headstone, and the grass growing over his mortality, which, for a thousand years, at least, it never can over southey's. most of the monuments are of this same black slate, and some erect headstones are curiously sculptured, and seem to have been recently erected. we now returned to the hotel, and took a car for the valley of st. john. the sky seemed to portend rain in no long time, and skiddaw had put on his cap; but the people of the hotel and the driver said that there would be no rain this afternoon, and their opinion proved correct. after driving a few miles, we again cane within sight of the enchanted castle. it stands rather more than midway adown the declivity of one of the ridges that form the valley to the left, as you go southward, and its site would have been a good one for a fortress, intended to defend the lower entrance of this mountain defile. at a proper distance, it looks not unlike the gray dilapidation of a gothic castle, which has been crumbling and crumbling away for ages, until time might be supposed to have imperceptibly stolen its massive pile from man, and given it back to nature; its towers and battlements and arched entrances being so much defaced and decayed that all the marks of human labor had nearly been obliterated, and the angles of the hewn stone rounded away, while mosses and weeds and bushes grow over it as freely as over a natural ledge of rocks. it is conceivable that in some lights, and in some states of the atmosphere, a traveller, at the entrance of the valley, might really imagine that he beheld a castle here; but, for myself, i must acknowledge that it required a willing fancy to make me see it. as we drew nearer, the delusion did not immediately grow less strong; but, at length, we found ourselves passing at the foot of the declivity, and, behold! it was nothing but an enormous ledge of rock, coming squarely out of the hillside, with other parts of the ledge cropping out in its vicinity. looking back, after passing, we saw a knoll or hillock, of which the castled rock is the bare face. there are two or three stone cottages along the roadside, beneath the magic castle, and within the enchanted ground. scott, in the bridal of triermain, locates the castle in the middle of the valley, and makes king arthur ride around it, which any mortal would have great difficulty in doing. this vale of st. john has very striking scenery. blencathra shuts it in to the northward, lying right across the entrance; and on either side there are lofty crags and declivities, those to the west being more broken and better wooded than the ridge to the eastward, which stretches along for several miles, steep, high, and bare, producing only grass enough for sheep pasture, until it rises into the dark brow of helvellyn. adown this ridge, seen afar, like a white ribbon, comes here and there a cascade, sending its voice before it, which distance robs of all its fury, and makes it the quietest sound in the world; and while you see the foamy leap of its upper course a mile or two away, you may see and hear the selfsame little brook babbling through a field, and passing under the arch of a rustic bridge beneath your feet. it is a deep seclusion, with mountains and crags on all sides. about a mile beyond the castle we stopped at a little wayside inn, the king's head, and put up for the night. this, i believe, is the only inn which i have found in england--the only one where i have eaten and slept --that does not call itself a hotel. it is very primitive in its arrangements,--a long, low, whitewashed, unadorned, and ugly cottage of two stories. at one extremity is a barn and cow-house, and next to these the part devoted to the better class of guests, where we had our parlor and chambers, contiguous to which is the kitchen and common room, paved with flagstones,--and, lastly, another barn and stable; all which departments are not under separate roofs, but under the same long contiguity, and forming the same building. our parlor opens immediately upon the roadside, without any vestibule. the house appears to be of some antiquity, with beams across the low ceilings; but the people made us pretty comfortable at bed and board, and fed us with ham and eggs, veal-steaks, honey, oatcakes, gooseberry-tarts, and such cates and dainties,--making a moderate charge for all. the parlor was adorned with rude engravings. i remember only a plate of the duke of wellington, at three stages of his life; and there were minerals, delved, doubtless, out of the hearts of the mountains, upon the mantel-piece. the chairs were of an antiquated fashion, and had very capacious seats. we were waited upon by two women, who looked and acted not unlike the countryfolk of new england,--say, of new hampshire,--except that these may have been more deferential. while we remained here, i took various walks to get a glimpse of helvellyn, and a view of thirlmere,--which is rather two lakes than one, being so narrow at one point as to be crossed by a foot-bridge. its shores are very picturesque, coming down abruptly upon it, and broken into crags and prominences, which view their shaggy faces in its mirror; and helvellyn slopes steeply upward, from its southern shore, into the clouds. on its eastern bank, near the foot-bridge, stands armboth house, which miss martineau says is haunted; and i saw a painted board at the entrance of the road which leads to it advertising lodgings there. the ghosts, of course, pay nothing for their accommodations. at noon, on the day after our arrival, j----- and i went to visit the enchanted castle; and we were so venturesome as to turn aside from the road, and ascend the declivity towards its walls, which indeed we hoped to surmount. it proved a very difficult undertaking, the site of the fortress being much higher and steeper than we had supposed; but we did clamber upon what we took for the most elevated portion, when lo! we found that we had only taken one of the outworks, and that there was a gorge of the hill betwixt us and the main walls; while the citadel rose high above, at more than twice the elevation which we had climbed. j----- wished to go on, and i allowed him to climb, till he appeared to have reached so steep and lofty a height that he looked hardly bigger than a monkey, and i should not at all have wondered had he come rolling down to the base of the rock where i sat. but neither did he get actually within the castle, though he might have done so but for a high stone fence, too difficult for him to climb, which runs from the rock along the hillside. the sheep probably go thither much oftener than any other living thing, and to them we left the castle of st. john, with a shrub waving from its battlements, instead of a banner. after dinner we ordered a car for ambleside, and while it was getting ready, i went to look at the river of st. john, which, indeed, flows close beside our inn, only just across the road, though it might well be overlooked unless you specially sought for it. it is a brook brawling over the stones, very much as brooks do in new england, only we never think of calling them rivers there. i could easily have made a leap from shore to shore, and j----- scrambled across on no better footing than a rail. i believe i have complained of the want of brooks in other parts of england, but there is no want of them here, and they are always interesting, being of what size they may. we drove down the valley, and gazed at the vast slope of helvellyn, and at thirlmere beneath it, and at eagle's crag and raven's crag, which beheld themselves in it, and we cast many a look behind at blencathra, and that noble brotherhood of mountains out of the midst of which we came. but, to say the truth, i was weary of fine scenery, and it seemed to me that i had eaten a score of mountains, and quaffed as many lakes, all in the space of two or three days,--and the natural consequence was a surfeit. there was scarcely a single place in all our tour where i should not have been glad to spend a month; but, by flitting so quickly from one point to another, i lost all the more recondite beauties, and had come away without retaining even the surface of much that i had seen. i am slow to feel,--slow, i suppose, to comprehend, and, like the anaconda, i need to lubricate any object a great deal before i can swallow it and actually make it my own. yet i shall always enjoy having made this journey, and shall wonder the more at england, which comprehends so much, such a rich variety, within its narrow bounds. if england were all the world, it still would have been worth while for the creator to have made it, and mankind would have had no cause to find fault with their abode; except that there is not room enough for so many as might be happy here. we left the great inverted arch of the valley behind us, looking back as long as we could at blencathra, and skiddaw over its shoulder, and the clouds were gathering over them at our last glimpse. passing by dummail raise (which is a mound of stones over an old british king), we entered westmoreland, and soon had the vale of grasmere before us, with the church where wordsworth lies, and nab scaur and rydal water farther on. at ambleside we took another car for newby bridge, whither we drove along the eastern shore of windermere. the superb scenery through which we had been passing made what we now saw look tame, although a week ago we should have thought it more than commonly interesting. hawkshead is the only village on our road,--a small, whitewashed old town, with a whitewashed old norman church, low, and with a low tower, on the same pattern with others that we have seen hereabouts. it was between seven and eight o'clock when we reached newby bridge, and heard u----'s voice greeting us, and saw her head, crowned with a wreath of flowers, looking down at us, out of the window of our parlor. and to-day, july d, i have written this most incomplete and unsatisfactory record of what we have done and seen since wednesday last. i am pretty well convinced that all attempts at describing scenery, especially mountain scenery, are sheer nonsense. for one thing, the point of view being changed, the whole description, which you made up from the previous point of view, is immediately falsified. and when you have done your utmost, such items as those setting forth the scene in a play,--"a mountainous country, in the distance a cascade tumbling over a precipice, and in front a lake; on one side an ivy-covered cottage,"-- this dry detail brings the matter before one's mind's eyes more effectually than all the art of word-painting. july th.--we are still at newby bridge, and nothing has occurred of remarkable interest, nor have we made any excursions, beyond moderate walks. two days have been rainy, and to-day there is more rain. we find such weather as tolerable here as it would probably be anywhere; but it passes rather heavily with the children,--and for myself, i should prefer sunshine. though mr. white's books afford me some entertainment, especially an odd volume of ben jonson's plays, containing "volpone," "the alchemist," "bartholomew fair," and others. "the alchemist" is certainly a great play. we watch all arrivals and other events from our parlor window,--a stage-coach driving up four times in the twenty-four hours, with its forlorn outsiders, all saturated with rain; the steamer, from the head of the lake, landing a crowd of passengers, who stroll up to the hotel, drink a glass of ale, lean over the parapet of the bridge, gaze at the flat stones which pave the bottom of the liver, and then hurry back to the steamer again; cars, phaetons, horsemen, all damped and disconsolate. there are a number of young men staying at the hotel, some of whom go forth in all the rain, fishing, and come back at nightfall, trudging heavily, but with creels on their backs that do not seem very heavy. yesterday was fair, and enlivened us a good deal. returning from a walk in the forenoon, i found a troop of yeomanry cavalry in the stable-yard of the hotel. they were the north lancashire regiment, and were on their way to liverpool for the purpose of drill. not being old campaigners, their uniforms and accoutrements were in so much the finer order, all bright, and looking span-new, and they themselves were a body of handsome and stalwart young men; and it was pleasant to look at their helmets, and red jackets and carbines, and steel scabbarded swords, and gallant steeds,--all so martial in aspect,--and to know that they were only play-soldiers, after all, and were never likely to do nor suffer any warlike mischief. by and by their bugles sounded, and they trotted away, wheeling over the ivy-grown stone bridge, and disappearing behind the trees on the milnethorpe road. our host comes forth from the bar with a bill, which he presents to an orderly-sergeant. he, the host, then tells me that he himself once rode many years, a trooper, in this regiment, and that all his comrades were larger men than himself. yet mr. thomas white is a good-sized man, and now, at all events, rather overweight for a dragoon. yesterday came one of those bands of music that seem to itinerate everywhere about the country. it consisted of a young woman who played the harp, a bass-viol player, a fiddler, a flutist, and a bugler, besides a little child, of whom, i suppose, the woman was the mother. they sat down on a bench by the roadside, opposite the house, and played several tunes, and by and by the waiter brought them a large pitcher of ale, which they quaffed with apparent satisfaction; though they seemed to be foreigners by their mustachios and sallow hue, and would perhaps have preferred a vinous potation. one would like to follow these people through their vagrant life, and see them in their social relations, and overhear their talk with each other. all vagrants are interesting; and there is a much greater variety of them here than in america,--people who cast themselves on fortune, and take whatever she gives without a certainty of anything. i saw a travelling tinker yesterday,--a man with a leather apron, and a string of skewers hung at his girdle, and a pack over his shoulders, in which, no doubt, were his tools and materials of trade. it is remarkable what a natural interest everybody feels in fishing. an angler from the bridge immediately attracts a group to watch his luck. it is the same with j-----, fishing for minnows, on the platform near which the steamer lands its passengers. by the by, u---- caught a minnow last evening, and, immediately after, a good-sized perch,--her first fish. july th.--we left newby bridge, all of us, on saturday, at twelve o'clock, and steamed up the lake to ambleside; a pretty good day as to weather, but with a little tendency to shower. there was nothing new on the lake, and no new impressions, as far as i can remember. at ambleside, s----- and nurse went shopping, after which we took a carriage for grasmere, and established ourselves at brown's hotel. i find that my impressions from our previous sight of all these scenes do not change on revision. they are very beautiful; but, if i must say it, i am a little weary of them. we soon tire of things which we visit merely by way of spectacle, and with which we have no real and permanent connection. in such cases we very quickly wish the spectacle to be taken away, and another substituted; at all events i do not care about seeing anything more of the english lakes for at least a year. perhaps a part of my weariness is owing to the hotel-life which we lead. at an english hotel the traveller feels as if everybody, from the landlord downward, united in a joint and individual purpose to fleece him, because all the attendants who come in contact with him are to be separately considered. so, after paying, in the first instance, a very heavy bill, for what would seem to cover the whole indebtedness, there remain divers dues still to be paid, to no trifling amount, to the landlord's servants,--dues not to be ascertained, and which you never can know whether you have properly satisfied. you can know, perhaps, when you have less than satisfied them, by the aspect of the waiter, which i wish i could describe, not disrespectful in the slightest degree, but a look of profound surprise, a gaze at the offered coin (which he nevertheless pockets) as if he either did not see it, or did not know it, or could not believe his eyesight;--all this, however, with the most quiet forbearance, a christian-like non-recognition of an unmerited wrong and insult; and finally, all in a moment's space indeed, he quits you and goes about his other business. if you have given him too much, you are made sensible of your folly by the extra amount of his gratitude, and the bows with which he salutes you from the doorstep. generally, you cannot very decidedly say whether you have been right or wrong; but, in almost all cases, you decidedly feel that you have been fleeced. then the living at the best of english hotels, so far as my travels have brought me acquainted with them, deserves but moderate praise, and is especially lacking in variety. nothing but joints, joints, joints; sometimes, perhaps, a meat-pie, which, if you eat it, weighs upon your conscience, with the idea that you have eaten the scraps of other people's dinners. at the lake hotels, the fare is lamb and mutton and grout,--the latter not always fresh, and soon tired of. we pay like nabobs, and are expected to be content with plain mutton. we spent the day yesterday at grasmere, in quiet walks about the hotel; and at a little past six in the afternoon, i took my departure in the stage-coach for windermere. the coach was greatly overburdened with outside passengers,--fifteen in all, besides the four insiders, and one of the fifteen formed the apex of an immense pile of luggage on the top. it seems to me miraculous that we did not topple over, the road being so hilly and uneven, and the driver, i suspect, none the steadier for his visits to all the tap-rooms along the route from cockermouth. there was a tremendous vibration of the coach now and then; and i saw that, in case of our going over, i should be flung headlong against the high stone fence that bordered most of the road. in view of this i determined to muffle my head in the folds of my thick shawl at the moment of overturn, and as i could do no better for myself, i awaited my fate with equanimity. as far as apprehension goes, i had rather travel from maine to georgia by rail, than from grasmere to windermere by stage-coach. at lowwood, the landlady espied me from the window, and sent out a large packet that had arrived by mail; but as it was addressed to some person of the christian name of william, i did not venture to open it. she said, also, that a gentleman had been there, who very earnestly desired to see me, and i have since had reason to suppose that this was allingham, the poet. we arrived at windermere at half past seven, and waited nearly an hour for the train to start. i took a ticket for lancaster, and talked there about the war with a gentleman in the coffee-room, who took me for an englishman, as most people do nowadays, and i heard from him--as you may from all his countrymen--an expression of weariness and dissatisfaction with the whole business. these fickle islanders! how differently they talked a year ago! john bull sees now that he never was in a worse predicament in his life; and yet it would not take much to make him roar as bellicosely as ever. i went to bed at eleven, and slept unquietly on feathers. i had purposed to rise betimes, and see the town of lancaster before breakfast. but here i reckoned without my host; for, in the first place, i had no water for my ablutions, and my boots were not brushed; and so i could not get down stairs till the hour i named for my coffee and chops; and, secondly, the breakfast was delayed half an hour, though promised every minute. in fine, i had but just time to take a hasty walk round lancaster castle, and see what i could of the town on my way,--a not very remarkable town, built of stone, with taller houses than in the middle shires of england, narrow streets up and down an eminence on which the castle is situated, with the town immediately about it. the castle is a satisfactory edifice, but so renovated that the walls look almost entirely modern, with the exception of the fine old front, with the statue of an armed warrior, very likely john of gaunt himself, in a niche over the norman arch of the entrance. close beside the castle stands an old church. the train left lancaster at half past nine, and reached liverpool at twelve, over as flat and uninteresting a country as i ever travelled. i have betaken myself to the rock ferry hotel, where i am as comfortable as i could be anywhere but at home; but it is rather comfortless to think of hone as three years off, and three thousand miles away. with what a sense of utter weariness, not fully realized till then, we shall sink down on our own threshold, when we reach it. the moral effect of being without a settled abode is very wearisome. our coachman from grasmere to windermere looked like a great beer-barrel, oozy with his proper liquor. i suppose such solid soakers never get upset. the launch. august d.--mr. ------ has urged me very much to go with his father and family to see the launch of a great ship which has been built for their house, and afterwards to partake of a picnic; so, on tuesday morning i presented myself at the landing-stage, and met the party, to take passage for chester. it was a showery morning, and looked wofully like a rainy day; but nothing better is to be expected in england; and, after all, there is seldom such a day that you cannot glide about pretty securely between the drops of rain. this, however, did not turn out one of those tolerable days, but grew darker and darker, and worse and worse; and was worst of all when we had passed about six miles beyond chester, and were just on the borders of wales, on the hither side of the river dee, where the ship was to be launched. here the train stopped, and absolutely deposited our whole party of excursionists, under a heavy shower, in the midst of a muddy potato-field, whence we were to wade through mud and mire to the ship-yard, almost half a mile off. some kind christian, i know not whom, gave me half of his umbrella, and half of his cloak, and thereby i got to a shed near the ship, without being entirely soaked through. the ship had been built on the banks of the dee, at a spot where it is too narrow for her to be launched directly across, and so she lay lengthwise of the river, and was so arranged as to take the water parallel with the stream. she is, for aught i know, the largest ship in the world; at any rate, longer than the great britain,--an iron-screw steamer,--and looked immense and magnificent, and was gorgeously dressed out in flags. had it been a pleasant day, all chester and half wales would have been there to see the launch; and, in spite of the rain, there were a good many people on the opposite shore, as well as on our side; and one or two booths, and many of the characteristics of a fair,--that is to say, men and women getting intoxicated without any great noise and confusion. the ship was expected to go off at about twelve o'clock, and at that juncture all mr. ------'s friends assembled under the bows of the ship, where we were a little sheltered from the rain by the projection of that part of the vessel over our heads. the bottle of port-wine with which she was to be christened was suspended from the bows to the platform where we stood by a blue ribbon; and the ceremony was to be performed by mrs. ------, who, i could see, was very nervous in anticipation of the ceremony. mr. ------ kept giving her instructions in a whisper, and showing her how to throw the bottle; and as the critical moment approached, he took hold of it along with her. all this time we were waiting in momentary expectation of the ship going off, everything being ready, and only the touch of a spring, as it were, needed to make her slide into the water. but the chief manager kept delaying a little longer, and a little longer; though the pilot on board sent to tell him that it was time she was off. "yes, yes; but i want as much water as i can get," answered the manager; and so he held on till, i suppose, the tide had raised the river dee to its very acme of height. at last the word was given; the ship began slowly to move; mrs. ------ threw the bottle against the bow with a spasmodic effort that dashed it into a thousand pieces, and diffused the fragrance of the old port all around, where it lingered several minutes. i did not think that there could have been such a breathless moment in an affair of this kind. the ship moved majestically down toward the river; and unless it were niagara, i never saw anything grander and more impressive than the motion of this mighty mass as she departed from us. we on the platform, and everybody along both shores of the dee, took off our hats in the rain, waved handkerchiefs, cheered, shouted,--"beautiful!" "what a noble launch!" "never was so fair a sight!"--and, really, it was so grand, that calm, majestic movement, that i felt the tears come into my eyes. the wooden pathway adown which she was gliding began to smoke with the friction; when all at once, when we expected to see her plunge into the dee, she came to a full stop. mr. ------, the father of my friend, a gentleman with white hair, a dark, expressive face, bright eyes, and an oriental cast of features, immediately took the alarm. a moment before his countenance had been kindled with triumph; but now he turned pale as death, and seemed to grow ten years older while i was looking at him. well he might, for his noble ship was stuck fast in the land of the dee, and without deepening the bed of the river, i do not see how her vast iron hulk is ever to be got out. [this steamer was afterwards successfully floated off on the th of the same month.] there was no help for it. a steamboat was hitched on to the stranded vessel, but broke two or three cables without stirring her an inch. so, after waiting long after we had given up all hope, we went to the office of the ship-yard, and there took a lunch; and still the rain was pouring, pouring, pouring, and i never experienced a blacker affair in all my days. then we had to wait a great while for a train to take us back, so that it was almost five o'clock before we arrived at chester, where i spent an hour in rambling about the old town, under the rows; and on the walls, looking down on the treetops, directly under my feet, and through their thick branches at the canal, which creeps at the base, and at the cathedral; walking under the dark intertwining arches of the cloisters, and looking up at the great cathedral tower, so wasted away externally by time and weather that it looks, save for the difference of color between white snow and red freestone, like a structure of snow, half dissolved by several warm days. at the lunch i met with a graduate of cambridge (england), tutor of a grandson of percival, with his pupil (percival, the assassinated minister, i mean). i should not like this position of tutor to a young englishman; it certainly has an ugly twang of upper servitude. i observed that the tutor gave his pupil the best seat in the railway carriage, and in all respects provided for his comfort before thinking of his own; and this, not as a father does for his child, out of love, but from a sense of place and duty, which i did not quite see how a gentleman could consent to feel. and yet this mr. c------ was evidently a gentleman, and a quiet, intelligent, agreeable, and, no doubt, learned man. k------ being mentioned, mr. c------ observed that he had known him well at college, having been his contemporary there. he did not like him, however,--thought him a "dangerous man," as well as i could gather; he thinks there is some radical defect in k------'s moral nature, a lack of sincerity; and, furthermore, he believes him to be a sensualist in his disposition, in support of which view he said mr. k------ had made drawings, such as no pure man could have made, or could allow himself to show or look at. this was the only fact which mr. c------ adduced, bearing on his opinion of k------; otherwise, it seemed to be one of those early impressions which a collegian gets of his fellow-students, and which he never gets rid of, whatever the character of the person may turn out to be in after years. i have judged several persons in this way, and still judge them so, though the world has cone to very different conclusions. which is right?--the world, which has the man's whole mature life on its side; or his early companion, who has nothing for it but some idle passages of his youth? mr. m------ remarked of newspaper reporters, that they may be known at all celebrations, and of any public occasion, by the enormous quantity of luncheon they eat. august th.--mr. b------ dined with us at the rock ferry hotel the day before yesterday. speaking of helvellyn, and the death of charles cough, about whom wordsworth and scott have both sung, mr. b------ mentioned a version of that story which rather detracts from the character of the faithful dog. but somehow it lowers one's opinion of human nature itself, to be compelled so to lower one's standard of a dog's nature. i don't intend to believe the disparaging story, but it reminds me of the story of the new-zealander who was asked whether he loved a missionary who had been laboring for his soul and those of his countrymen. "to be sure i loved him. why, i ate a piece of him for my breakfast this morning!" for the last week or two i have passed my time between the hotel and the consulate, and a weary life it is, and one that leaves little of profit behind it. i am sick to death of my office,--brutal captains and brutal sailors; continual complaints of mutual wrong, which i have no power to set right, and which, indeed, seem to have no right on either side; calls of idleness or ceremony from my travelling countrymen, who seldom know what they are in search of at the commencement of their tour, and never have attained any desirable end at the close of it; beggars, cheats, simpletons, unfortunates, so mixed up that it is impossible to distinguish one from another, and so, in self-defence, the consul distrusts them all. . . . . at the hotel, yesterday, there was a large company of factory people from preston, who marched up from the pier with a band of military music playing before them. they spent the day in the gardens and ball-room of the hotel, dancing and otherwise merry-making; but i saw little of them, being at the consulate. towards evening it drizzled, and the assemblage melted away gradually; and when the band marched down to the pier, there were few to follow, although one man went dancing before the musicians, flinging out his arms, and footing it with great energy and gesticulation. some young women along the road likewise began to dance as the music approached. thackeray has a dread of servants, insomuch that he hates to address them, or to ask them for anything. his morbid sensibility, in this regard, has perhaps led him to study and muse upon them, so that he may be presumed to have a more intimate knowledge of this class than any other man. carlyle dresses so badly, and wears such a rough outside, that the flunkies are rude to him at gentlemen's doors. in the afternoon j----- and i took a walk towards tranmere hall, and beyond, as far as oxton. this part of the country, being so near liverpool and birkenhead, is all sprinkled over with what they call "terraces," "bellevues," and other pretty names for semi-detached villas ("recluse cottage" was one) for a somewhat higher class. but the old, whitewashed stone cottage is still frequent, with its roof of slate or thatch, which perhaps is green with weeds or grass. through its open door, you see that it has a pavement of flagstones, or perhaps of red freestone; and hogs and donkeys are familiar with the threshold. the door always opens directly into the kitchen, without any vestibule; and, glimpsing in, you see that a cottager's life must be the very plainest and homeliest that ever was lived by men and women. yet the flowers about the door often indicate a native capacity for the beautiful; but often there is only a pavement of round stones or of flagstones, like those within. at one point where there was a little bay, as it were, in the hedge fence, we saw something like a small tent or wigwam,--an arch of canvas three or four feet high, and open in front, under which sat a dark-complexioned woman and some children. the woman was sewing, and i took them for gypsies. august th.--yesterday afternoon j----- and i went to birkenhead park, which i have already described. . . . . it so happened that there was a large school spending its holiday there; a school of girls of the lower classes, to the number of a hundred and fifty, who disported themselves on the green, under the direction of the schoolmistresses and of an old gentleman. it struck me, as it always has, to observe how the lower orders of this country indicate their birth and station by their aspect and features. in america there would be a good deal of grace and beauty among a hundred and fifty children and budding girls, belonging to whatever rank of life. but here they had universally a most plebeian look,--stubbed, sturdy figures, round, coarse faces, snub-noses,--the most evident specimens of the brown bread of human nature. they looked wholesome and good enough, and fit to sustain their rough share of life; but it would have been impossible to make a lady out of any one of them. climate, no doubt, has most to do with diffusing a slender elegance over american young-womanhood; but something, perhaps, is also due to the circumstance of classes not being kept apart there as they are here: they interfuse, amid the continual ups and downs of our social life; and so, in the lowest stations of life, you may see the refining influence of gentle blood. at all events, it is only necessary to look at such an assemblage of children as i saw yesterday, to be convinced that birth and blood do produce certain characteristics. to be sure, i have seen no similar evidence in england or elsewhere of old gentility refining and elevating the race. these girls were all dressed in black gowns, with white aprons and neckerchiefs, and white linen caps on their heads,--a very dowdyish attire, and well suited to their figures. i saw only two of their games,--in one, they stood in a circle, while two of their number chased one another within and without the ring of girls, which opened to let the fugitive pass, but closed again to impede the passage of the pursuer. the other was blind-man's-buff on a new plan: several of the girls, sometimes as many as twenty, being blinded at once, and pursuing a single one, who rang a hand-bell to indicate her whereabouts. this was very funny; the bell-girl keeping just beyond their reach, and drawing them after her in a huddled group, so that they sometimes tumbled over one another and lay sprawling. i think i have read of this game in strutt's "english sports and pastimes." we walked from the park home to rock ferry, a distance of three or four miles,--a part of which was made delightful by a foot-path, leading us through fields where the grass had just been mown, and others where the wheat harvest was commenced. the path led us into the very midst of the rural labor that was going forward; and the laborers rested a moment to look at us; in fact, they seemed to be more willing to rest than american laborers would have been. children were loitering along this path or sitting down beside it; and we met one little maid, passing from village to village, intent on some errand. reaching tranmere, i went into an alehouse, nearly opposite the hall, and called for a glass of ale. the doorstep before the house, and the flagstone floor of the entry and tap-room, were chalked all over in corkscrew lines,--an adornment that gave an impression of care and neatness, the chalked lines being evidently freshly made. it was a low, old-fashioned room ornamented with a couple of sea-shells, and an earthen-ware figure on the mantel-piece; also with advertisements of allsop's ale, and other drinks, and with a pasteboard handbill of "the ancient order of foresters"; any member of which, paying sixpence weekly, is entitled to ten shillings per week, and the attendance of a first-rate physician in sickness, and twelve pounds to be paid to his friends in case of death. any member of this order, when travelling, is sure (says the handbill) to meet with a brother member to lend him a helping hand, there being nearly three thousand districts of this order, and more than a hundred and nine thousand members in great britain, whence it has extended to australia, america, and other countries. looking up at the gateway of tranmere hall, i discovered an inscription on the red freestone lintel, and, though much time-worn, i succeeded in reading it. "labor omnia vincit. ." there were likewise some initials which i could not satisfactorily make out. the sense of this motto would rather befit the present agricultural occupants of the house than the idle gentlefolks who built and formerly inhabited it. smithell's hall. august th.--on thursday i went by invitation to smithell's hall in bolton le moors to dine and spend the night. the hall is two or three miles from the town of bolton, where i arrived by railway from liverpool, and which seems to be a pretty large town, though the houses are generally modern, or with modernized fronts of brick or stucco. it is a manufacturing town, and the tall brick chimneys rise numerously in the neighborhood, and are so near smithell's hall that i suspect the atmosphere is somewhat impregnated with their breath. mr. ------ can comfort himself with the rent which he receives from the factories erected upon his own grounds; and i suppose the value of his estate has greatly increased by the growth of manufactories; although, unless he wish to sell it, i do not see what good this can do him. smithell's hall is one of the oldest residences of england, and still retains very much the aspect that it must have had several centuries ago. the house formerly stood around all four sides of a quadrangle, enclosing a court, and with an entrance through an archway. one side of this quadrangle was removed in the time of the present mr. ------'s father, and the front is now formed by the remaining three sides. they look exceedingly ancient and venerable, with their range of gables and lesser peaks. the house is probably timber-framed throughout, and is overlaid with plaster, and its generally light line is painted with a row of trefoils in black, producing a very quaint effect. the wing, forming one side of the quadrangle, is a chapel, and has been so from time immemorial; and mr. ------ told me that he had a clergyman, and even a bishop, in his own diocese. the drawing-room is on the opposite side of the quadrangle; and through an arched door, in the central portion, there is a passage to the rear of the house. it is impossible to describe such an old rambling edifice as this, or to get any clear idea of its plan, even by going over it, without the aid of a map. mr. ------ has added some portions, and altered others, but with due regard to harmony with the original structure, and the great body of it is still mediaeval. the entrance-hall opens right upon the quadrangular court; and is a large, low room, with a settle of carved old oak, and other old oaken furniture,--a centre-table with periodicals and newspapers on it,--some family pictures on the walls,--and a large, bright coal-fire in the spacious grate. the fire is always kept up, throughout summer and winter, and it seemed to me an excellent plan, and rich with cheerful effects; insuring one comfortable place, and that the most central in the house, whatever may be the inclemency of the weather. it was a cloudy, moist, showery day, when i arrived; and this fire gave me the brightest and most hospitable smile, and took away any shivery feeling by its mere presence. the servant showed me thence into a low-studded dining-room, where soon mrs. ------ made her appearance, and, after some talk, brought me into the billiard-room, opening from the hall, where mr. ------ and a young gentleman were playing billiards, and two ladies looking on. after the game was finished, mr. ------ took me round to see the house and grounds. the peculiarity of this house is what is called "the bloody footstep." in the time of bloody mary, a protestant clergyman--george marsh by name --was examined before the then proprietor of the hall, sir roger barton, i think, and committed to prison for his heretical opinions, and was ultimately burned at the stake. as his guards were conducting him from the justice-room, through the stone-paved passage that leads from front to rear of smithell's hall, he stamped his foot upon one of the flagstones in earnest protestation against the wrong which he was undergoing. the foot, as some say, left a bloody mark in the stone; others have it, that the stone yielded like wax under his foot, and that there has been a shallow cavity ever since. this miraculous footprint is still extant; and mrs. ------ showed it to me before her husband took me round the estate. it is almost at the threshold of the door opening from the rear of the house, a stone two or three feet square, set among similar ones, that seem to have been worn by the tread of many generations. the footprint is a dark brown stain in the smooth gray surface of the flagstone; and, looking sidelong at it, there is a shallow cavity perceptible, which mrs. ------ accounted for as having been worn by people setting their feet just on this place, so as to tread the very spot, where the martyr wrought the miracle. the mark is longer than any mortal foot, as if caused by sliding along the stone, rather than sinking into it; and it might be supposed to have been made by a pointed shoe, being blunt at the heel, and decreasing towards the toe. the blood-stained version of the story is more consistent with the appearance of the mark than the imprint would be; for if the martyr's blood oozed out through his shoe and stocking, it might have made his foot slide along the stone, and thus have lengthened the shape. of course it is all a humbug,--a darker vein cropping up through the gray flagstone; but, it is probably a fact, and, for aught i know, may be found in fox's book of martyrs, that george marsh underwent an examination in this house [there is a full and pathetic account of the examination and martyrdom of george marsh in the eleventh section of fox's book of martyrs, as i have just found (june , ). he went to smithell's hall, among other places, to be questioned by mr. barton.--ed.]; and the tradition may have connected itself with the stone within a short time after the martyrdom; or, perhaps, when the old persecuting knight departed this life, and bloody mary was also dead, people who had stood at a little distance from the hall door, and had seen george marsh lift his hand and stamp his foot just at this spot,--perhaps they remembered this action and gesture, and really believed that providence had thus made an indelible record of it on the stone; although the very stone and the very mark might have lain there at the threshold hundreds of years before. but, even if it had been always there, the footprint might, after the fact, be looked upon as a prophecy, from the time when the foundation of the old house was laid, that a holy and persecuted man should one day set his foot here, on the way that was to lead him to the stake. at any rate, the legend is a good one. mrs. ------ tells me that the miraculous stone was once taken up from the pavement, and flung out of doors, where it remained many years; and in proof of this, it is cracked quite across at one end. this is a pity, and rather interferes with the authenticity, if not of the stone itself, yet of its position in the pavement. it is not far from the foot of the staircase, leading up to sir roger barton's examination-room, whither we ascended, after examining the footprint. this room now opens sideways on the chapel, into which it looks down, and which is spacious enough to accommodate a pretty large congregation. on one of the walls of the chapel there is a marble tablet to the memory of one of the present family,--mr.------'s father, i suppose; he being the first of the name who possessed the estate. the present owners, however, seem to feel pretty much the same pride in the antiquity and legends of the house as if it had come down to them in an unbroken succession of their own forefathers. it has, in reality, passed several times from one family to another, since the conquest. mr. ------ led me through a spacious old room, which was formerly panelled with carved oak, but which is converted into a brew-house, up a pair of stairs, into the garret of one of the gables, in order to show me the ancient framework of the house. it is of oak, and preposterously ponderous,--immense beams and rafters, which no modern walls could support,--a gigantic old skeleton, which architects say must have stood a thousand years; and, indeed, it is impossible to ascertain the date of the original foundation, though it is known to have been repaired and restored between five and six centuries ago. of course, in the lapse of ages, it must continually have been undergoing minor changes, but without at all losing its identity. mr. ------ says that this old oak wood, though it looks as strong and as solid as ever, has really lost its strength, and that it would snap short off, on application of any force. after this we took our walk through the grounds, which are well wooded, though the trees will bear no comparison with those which i have seen in the midland parts of england. it takes, i suspect, a much longer time for trees to attain a good size here than in america; and these trees, i think mr. ------ told me, were principally set out by himself. he is upwards of sixty,--a good specimen of the old english country-gentleman, sensible, loving his land and his trees and his dogs and his game, doing a little justice-business, and showing a fitness for his position; so that you feel satisfied to have him keep it. he was formerly a member of parliament. i had met him before at dinner at mrs. h------'s. . . . . he took pleasure in showing me his grounds, through which he has laid out a walk, winding up and down through dells and over hillocks, and now and then crossing a rustic bridge; so that you have an idea of quite an extensive domain. beneath the trees there is a thick growth of ferns, serving as cover for the game. a little terrier-dog, who had hitherto kept us company, all at once disappeared; and soon afterwards we heard the squeak of some poor victim in the cover, whereupon mr. ------ set out with agility, and ran to the rescue.--by and by the terrier came back with a very guilty look. from the wood we passed into the open park, whence we had a distant view of the house; and, returning thither, we viewed it in other aspects, and on all sides. one portion of it is occupied by mr. ------'s gardener, and seems not to have been repaired, at least as to its exterior, for a great many years,--showing the old wooden frame, painted black, with plaster in the interstices; and broad windows, extending across the whole breadth of the rooms, with hundreds of little diamond-shaped panes of glass. before dinner i was shown to my room, which opens from an ancient gallery, lined with oak, and lighted by a row of windows along one side of the quadrangle. along this gallery are the doors of several sleeping-chambers, one of which--i think it is here--is called "the dead man's chamber." it is supposed to have been the room where the corpses of persons connected with the household used to be laid out. my own room was called "the beam chamber," from am immense cross-beam that projects from the ceiling, and seems to be an entire tree, laid across, and left rough-hewn, though at present it is whitewashed. the but of the tree (for it diminishes from one end of the chamber to the other) is nearly two feet square, in its visible part. we dined, at seven o'clock, in a room some thirty-five or forty feet long, and proportionably broad, all panelled with the old carved oak which mr. ------ took from the room which he had converted into a brew-house. the oak is now of a very dark brown hue, and, being highly polished, it produces a sombre but rich effect. it is supposed to be of the era of henry the seventh, and when i examined it the next morning, i found it very delicately and curiously wrought. there are carved profiles of persons in the costume of the times, done with great skill; also foliage, intricate puzzles of intersecting lines, sacred devices, anagrams, and, among others, the device of a bar across a tun, indicating the name of barton. most of the carving, however, is less elaborate and intricate than these specimens, being in a perpendicular style, and on one pattern. before the wood grew so very dark, the beauty of the work must have been much more easily seen than now, as to particulars, though i hardly think that the general effect could have been better; at least, the sombre richness that overspreads the entire square of the room is suitable to such an antique house. an elaborate gothic cornice runs round the whole apartment. the sideboard and other furniture are of gothic patterns, and, very likely, of genuine antiquity; but the fireplace is perhaps rather out of keeping, being of white marble with the arms of this family sculptured on it. though hardly sunset when we sat down to dinner, yet, it being an overcast day, and the oaken room so sombre, we had candles burning on the table; and, long before dinner was over, the candle-light was all the light we had. it is always pleasanter to dine by artificial light. mrs. ------'s dinner was a good one, and mr. ------'s wines were very good. i had mrs. ------ on one side, and another lady on the other side. . . . . after dinner there were two card-parties formed in the dining-room, at one of which there was a game of vingt-et-un, and at the other a game of whist, at which mrs. ------ and i lost several shillings to a mrs. halton and mr. gaskell. . . . . after finishing our games at cards, mrs. halton drove off in a pony-chaise to her own house; the other ladies retired, and the gentlemen sat down to chat awhile over the hall fire, occasionally sipping a glass of wine-and-water, and finally we all went off to our rooms. it was past twelve o'clock when i composed myself to sleep, and i could not have slept long, when a tremendous clap of thunder woke me just in time to see a vivid flash of lightning. i saw no ghosts, though mrs. ------ tells me there is one, which makes a disturbance, unless religious services are regularly kept up in the chapel. in the morning, before breakfast, we had prayers, read by mr. ------, in the oak dining-room, all the servants coming in, and everybody kneeling down. i should like to know how much true religious feeling is indicated by this regular observance of religious rites in english families. in america, if people kneel down to pray, it is pretty certain that they feel a genuine interest in the matter, and their daily life is supposed to be in accordance with their devotions. if an american is an infidel, he knows it; but an englishman is often so without suspecting it,--being kept from that knowledge by this formality of family prayer, and his other regularities of external worship. . . . . there was a parrot in a corner of the dining-room, and, when prayers were over, mrs. ------ praised it very highly for having been so silent; it being poll's habit, probably, to break in upon the sacred exercises with unseemly interjections and remarks. while we were at breakfast, poll began to whistle and talk very vociferously, and in a tone and with expressions that surprised me, till i learned that the bird is usually kept in the kitchen and servants' hall, and is only brought into the dining-room at prayer-time and breakfast. thus its mouth is full of kitchen talk, which flows out before the gentlefolks with the queerest effect. after breakfast i examined the carvings of the room. mr. ------ has added to its decorations the coats of arms of all the successive possessors of the house, with those of the families into which they married, including the ratcliffes, stanleys, and others. from the dining-room i passed into the library, which contains books enough to make a rainy day pass pleasantly. i remember nothing else that i need to record; and as i sat by the hall fire, talking with mr. gaskell, at about eleven o'clock, the butler brought me word that a fly, which i had bespoken, was ready to convey me to the railway. i took leave of mrs. ------, her last request being that i would write a ghost-story for her house,--and drove off. shrewsbury september th.--yesterday we all of us set forth from rock ferry at half past twelve, and reached shrewsbury between three and four o'clock, and took up our quarters at the lion hotel. we found shrewsbury situated on an eminence, around which the severn winds, making a peninsula of it, quite densely covered by the town. the streets ascend, and curve about, and intersect each other with the customary irregularity of these old english towns, so that it is quite impossible to go directly to any given point, or for a stranger to find his way to a place which he wishes to reach, though, by what seems a singular good fortune, the sought-for place is always offering itself when least expected. on this account i never knew such pleasant walking as in old streets like those of shrewsbury. and there are passages opening under archways, and winding up between high edifices, very tempting to the explorer, and generally leading to some court, or some queer old range of buildings or piece of architecture, which it would be the greatest pity to miss seeing. there was a delightful want of plan in the laying out of these ancient towns. in fact, they never were laid out at all, nor were restrained by any plan whatever, but grew naturally, with streets as eccentric as the pathway of a young child toddling about the floor. the first curious thing we particularly noticed, when we strolled out after dinner, was the old market-house, which stands in the midst of an oblong square; a gray edifice, elevated on pillars and arches, and with the statue of an armed knight, richard plantagenet, duke of york, in a central niche, in its front. the statue is older than the market-house, having been moved thither from one of the demolished towers of the city wall in . the market-house was erected in . there are other curious sculptures and carvings and quirks of architecture about this building; and the houses that stand about the square are, many of them, very striking specimens of what dwelling-houses used to be in elizabeth's time, and earlier. i have seen no such stately houses, in that style, as we found here in shrewsbury. there were no such fine ones in coventry, stratford, warwick, chester, nor anywhere else where we have been. their stately height and spaciousness seem to have been owing to the fact that shrewsbury was a sort of metropolis of the country round about, and therefore the neighboring gentry had their town-houses there, when london was several days' journey off, instead of a very few hours; and, besides, it was once much the resort of kings, and the centre-point of great schemes of war and policy. one such house, formerly belonging to a now extinct family, that of ireland, rises to the height of four stories, and has a front consisting of what look like four projecting towers. there are ranges of embowered windows, one above another, to the full height of the house, and these are surmounted by peaked gables. the people of those times certainly did not deny themselves light; and while window-glass was an article of no very remote introduction, it was probably a point of magnificence and wealthy display to have enough of it. one whole side of the room must often have been formed by the window. this ireland mansion, as well as all the rest of the old houses in shrewsbury, is a timber house,--that is, a skeleton of oak, filled up with brick, plaster, or other material, and with the beams of the timber marked out with black paint; besides which, in houses of any pretension, there are generally trefoils, and other gothic-looking ornaments, likewise painted black. they have an indescribable charm for me,--the more, i think, because they are wooden; but, indeed, i cannot tell why it is that i like them so well, and am never tired of looking at them. a street was a development of human life, in the days when these houses were built, whereas a modern street is but the cold plan of an architect, without individuality or character, and without the human emotion which a man kneads into the walls which he builds on a scheme of his own. we strolled to a pleasant walk under a range of trees, along the shore of the severn. it is called the quarry walk. the severn is a pretty river, the largest, i think (unless it be such an estuary as the mersey), that i have met with in england; that is to say, about a fair stone's-throw across. it is very gentle in its course, and winds along between grassy and sedgy banks, with a good growth of weeds in some part of its current. it has one stately bridge, called the english bridge, of several arches, and, as we sauntered along the quarry walk, we saw a ferry where the boat seemed to be navigated across by means of a rope, stretched from bank to bank of the river. after leaving the quarry walk, we passed an old tower of red freestone, the only one remaining of those formerly standing at intervals along the whole course of the town wall; and we also went along what little is now left of the wall itself. and thence, through the irregular streets, which gave no account of themselves, we found our way, i know not how, back to our hotel. it is an uncheerful old hotel, which takes upon itself to be in the best class of english country hotels, and charges the best price; very dark in the lower apartments, pervaded with a musty odor, but provided with a white-neckclothed waiter, who spares no ceremony in serving the joints of mutton. j----- and i afterwards walked forth again, and went this time to the castle, which stands exactly above the railway station. a path, from its breadth quite a street, leads up to the arched gateway; but we found a board, giving notice that these are private grounds, and no strangers admitted; so that we only passed through the gate a few steps, and looked about us, and retired, on perceiving a man approaching us through the trees and shrubbery. a private individual, it seems, has burrowed in this old warlike den, and turned the keep, and any other available apartment, into a modern dwelling, and laid out his pleasure-grounds within the precincts of the castle wall, which allows verge enough for the purpose. the ruins have been considerably repaired. this castle was built at various times, the keep by edward i., and other portions at an earlier period, and it stands on the isthmus left by the severn in its wandering course about the town. the duke of cleveland now owns it. i do not know who occupies it. in the course of this walk, we passed st. mary's church,--a very old church indeed, no matter how old, but say, eight hundred or a thousand years. it has a very tall spire, and the spire is now undergoing repairs; and, seeing the door open, i went into the porch, but found no admission further. then, walking around it, through the churchyard, we saw that all the venerable gothic windows--one of them grand in size-- were set with stained glass, representing coats of arms and ancient armor, and kingly robes, and saints with glories about their heads, and scriptural people; but all of these, as far as our actual perception was concerned, quite colorless, and with only a cold outline, dimly filled up. yet, had we been within the church, and had the sunlight been streaming through, what a warm, rich, gorgeous, roseate, golden life would these figures have showed! in the churchyard, close upon the street, so that its dust must be continually scattered over the spot, i saw a heavy gray tombstone, with a latin inscription, purporting that bishop butler, the author of the analogy, in his lifetime had chosen this as a burial-place for himself and his family. there is a statue of him within the church. from the top of the spire a man, above a hundred years ago, attempted to descend, by means of a rope, to the other side of the severn; but the rope broke, and he fell in his midway flight, and was killed. it was an undertaking worthy of sam patch. there is a record of the fact on the outside of the tower. i remember nothing more that we saw yesterday; but, before breakfast, j----- and i sallied forth again, and inspected the gateway and interior court of the council house,--a very interesting place, both in itself and for the circumstances connected with it, it having been the place where the councillors for the welsh marches used to reside during their annual meetings; and charles the first also lived here for six weeks in . james ii. likewise held his court here in . the house was originally built in ,--that is, the council house itself,--the gateway, and the house through which it passes, being of as late date as . this latter is a fine old house, in the usual style of timber architecture, with the timber lines marked out, and quaint adornments in black paint; and the pillars of the gateway which passes beneath the front chamber are of curiously carved oak, which has probably stood the action of english atmosphere better than marble would have done. passing through this gateway, we entered a court, and saw some old buildings more or less modernized, but without destroying their aged stateliness, standing round three sides of it, with arched entrances and bow-windows, and windows in the roofs, and peaked gables, and all the delightful irregularity and variety that these houses have, and which make them always so fresh,--and with so much detail that every minute you see something heretofore unseen. it must have been no unfit residence for a king and his court, when those three sides of the square, all composing one great fantastic house, were in their splendor. the square itself, too, must have been a busy and cheerful scene, thronged with attendants, guests, horses, etc. after breakfast, we all walked out, and, crossing the english bridge, looked at the severn over its parapet. the river is here broader than elsewhere, and very shallow, and has an island covered with bushes, about midway across. just over the bridge we saw a church, of red freestone, and evidently very ancient. this is the church of the holy cross, and is a portion of the abbey of st. peter and st. john, which formerly covered ten acres of ground. we did not have time to go into the church; but the windows and other points of architecture, so far as we could discern them, and knew how to admire them, were exceedingly venerable and beautiful. on the other side of the street, over a wide space, there are other remains of the old abbey; and the most interesting was a stone pulpit, now standing in the open air, seemingly in a garden, but which originally stood in the refectory of the abbey, and was the station whence one of the monks read to his brethren at their meals. the pulpit is much overgrown with ivy. we should have made further researches among these remains, though they seem now to be in private grounds; but a large mastiff came nut of his kennel, and, approaching us to the length of his iron chain, began barking very fiercely. nor had we time to see half that we would gladly have seen and studied here and elsewhere about shrewsbury. it would have been very interesting to have visited hotspur's and falstaff's battle-field, which is four miles from the town; too distant, certainly, for falstaff to have measured the length of the fight by shrewsbury clock. there is now a church, built there by henry iv., and said to cover the bones of those slain in the battle. returning into the town, we penetrated some narrow lanes, where, as the old story goes, people might almost shake hands across from the top windows of the opposite houses, impending towards each other. emerging into a wider street, at a spot somewhat more elevated than other parts of the town, we went into a shop to buy some royal shrewsbury cakes, which we had seen advertised at several shop windows. they are a very rich cake, with plenty of eggs, sugar, and butter, and very little flour. a small public building of stone, of modern date, was close by; and asking the shopwoman what it was, she said it was the butter cross, or market for butter, eggs, and poultry. it is a remarkable site, for here, in ancient times, stood a stone cross, where heralds used to make proclamation, and where criminals of state used to be executed. david, the last of the welsh princes, was here cruelly put to death by edward i., and many noblemen were beheaded on this spot, after being taken prisoners in the battle of shrewsbury. i can only notice one other memorable place in shrewsbury, and that is the raven inn, where farquhar wrote his comedy of "the recruiting officer" in . the window of the room in which he wrote is said to look into the inn yard, and i went through the arched entrance to see if i could distinguish it. the hostlers were currying horses in the yard, and so stared at me that i gave but the merest glance. the shrewsbury inns have not only the customary names of english inns,--as the lion, the stag,--but they have also the carved wooden figures of the object named, whereas, in all other towns, the name alone remains. we left shrewsbury at half past ten, and arrived in london at about four in the afternoon. london. september th.--on wednesday, just before dusk, j----- and i walked forth, for the first time, in london. our lodgings are in george street, hanover square, no. ; and st. george's church, where so many marriages in romance and in fashionable life have been celebrated, is a short distance below our house, in the same street. the edifice seems to be of white marble, now much blackened with london smoke, and has a grecian pillared portico. in the square, just above us, is a statue of william pitt. we went down bond street, and part of regent street, just estraying a little way from our temporary nest, and taking good account of landmarks and corners, so as to find our way readily back again. it is long since i have had such a childish feeling; but all that i had heard and felt about the vastness of london made it seem like swimming in a boundless ocean, to venture one step beyond the only spot i knew. my first actual impression of london was of stately and spacious streets, and by no means so dusky and grimy as i had expected,--not merely in the streets about this quarter of the town, which is the aristocratic quarter, but in all the streets through which we had passed from the railway station. if i had not first been so imbued with the smoke and dinginess of liverpool, i should doubtless have seen a stronger contrast betwixt dusky london and the cheerful glare of our american cities. there are no red bricks here; all are of a dark hue, and whatever of stone or stucco has been white soon clothes itself in mourning. yesterday forenoon i went out alone, and plunged headlong into london, and wandered about all day, without any particular object in view, but only to lose myself for the sake of finding myself unexpectedly among things that i had always read and dreamed about. the plan was perfectly successful, for, besides vague and unprofitable wanderings, i saw, in the course of the day, hyde park, regent's park, whitehall, the two new houses of parliament, charing cross, st. paul's, the, strand, fleet street, cheapside, whitechapel, leadenhall street, the haymarket, and a great many other places, the names of which were classic in my memory. i think what interests me most here, is the london of the writers of queen anne's age,--whatever pope, the spectator, de foe, and down as late as johnson and goldsmith, have mentioned. the monument, for instance, which is of no great height nor beauty compared with that on bunker hill, charmed me prodigiously. st. paul's appeared to me unspeakably grand and noble, and the more so from the throng and bustle continually going on around its base, without in the least disturbing the sublime repose of its great dome, and, indeed, of all its massive height and breadth. other edifices may crowd close to its foundation, and people may tramp as they like about it; but still the great cathedral is as quiet and serene as if it stood in the middle of salisbury plain. there cannot be anything else in its way so good in the world as just this effect of st. paul's in the very heart and densest tumult of london. i do not know whether the church is built of marble, or of whatever other white or nearly white material; but in the time that it has been standing there, it has grown black with the smoke of ages, through which there are nevertheless gleams of white, that make a most picturesque impression on the whole. it is much better than staring white; the edifice would not be nearly so grand without this drapery of black. i did not find these streets of the old city so narrow and irregular as i expected. all the principal ones are sufficiently broad, and there are few houses that look antique, being, i suppose, generally modern-fronted, when not actually of modern substance. there is little or no show or pretension in this part of london; it has a plain, business air,--an air of homely, actual life, as of a metropolis of tradesmen, who have been carrying on their traffic here, in sober earnest, for hundreds of years. you observe on the sign-boards, "established ninety years in threadneedle street," "established in ,"--denoting long pedigrees of silk-mercers and hosiers,--de foe's contemporaries still represented by their posterity, who handle the hereditary yardstick on the same spot. i must not forget to say that i crossed the thames over a bridge which, i think, is near charing cross. afterwards, i found my way to london bridge, where there was a delightful density of throng. the thames is not so wide and majestic as i had imagined,--nothing like the mersey, for example. as a picturesque object, however, flowing through the midst of a city, it would lose by any increase of width. omnibuses are a most important aid to wanderers about london. i reached home, well wearied, about six o'clock. in the course of the day, i had seen one person whom i knew,--mr. clarke, to whom henry b------ introduced me, when we went to see the great ship launched on the dee. this, i believe, was in regent street. in that street, too, i saw a company of dragoons, beautifully mounted, and defensively armed, in brass helmets and steel cuirasses, polished to the utmost excess of splendor. it was a pretty sight. at one of the public edifices, on each side of the portal, sat a mounted trooper similarly armed, and with his carbine resting on his knee, just as motionless as a statue. this, too, as a picturesque circumstance, was very good, and really made an impression on me with respect to the power and stability of the government, though i could not help smiling at myself for it. but then the thought, that for generations an armed warrior has always sat just there, on his war-steed, and with his weapon in his hand, is pleasant to the imagination,-- although it is questionable whether his carbine be loaded; and, no doubt, if the authorities had any message to send, they would choose some other messenger than this heavy dragoon,--the electric wire, for instance. still, if he and his horse were to be withdrawn from their post, night or day (for i suppose the sentinels are on duty all night), it seems as if the monarchy would be subverted, and the english constitution crumble into rubbish; and, in honest fact, it will signify something like that, when guard is relieved there for the last time. september th.--yesterday forenoon s-----, the two eldest children, and i went forth into london streets, and proceeded down regent street, and thence to st. james's park, at the entrance of which is a statue of somebody,--i forget whom. on the very spacious gravel-walks, covering several acres, in the rear of the horse guards, some soldiers were going through their exercise; and, after looking at them awhile, we strolled through the park, alongside of a sheet of water, in which various kinds of ducks, geese, and rare species of waterfowl were swimming. there was one swan of immense size, which moved about among the lesser fowls like a stately, full-rigged ship among gunboats. by and by we found ourselves near what we since have discovered to be buckingham palace,--a long building, in the italian style, but of no impressiveness, and which one soon wearies of looking at. the queen having gone to scotland the day before, the palace now looked deserted, although there was a one-horse cab, of shabby aspect, standing at the principal front, where doubtless the carriages of princes and the nobility draw up. there is a fountain playing before the palace, and water-fowl love to swim under its perpetual showers. these ducks and geese are very tame, and swim to the margin of the pond to be fed by visitors, looking up at you with great intelligence. s----- asked a man in a sober suit of livery (of whom we saw several about the park), whose were some of the large mansions which we saw, and he pointed out stafford house, the residence of the duke of sutherland, --a very noble edifice, much more beautiful than the palace, though not so large; also the house of the earl of ellesmere, and residences of other noblemen. this range of mansions, along the park, from the spot whence we viewed them, looks very much like beacon street, in boston, bordering on the common, allowing for a considerable enlargement of scale in favor of the park residences. the park, however, has not the beautiful elms that overshadow boston common, nor such a pleasant undulation of surface, nor the fine off-view of the country, like that across charles river. i doubt whether london can show so delightful a spot as that common, always excepting the superiority of english lawns, which, however, is not so evident in the london parks, there being less care bestowed on the grass than i should have expected. from this place we wandered into what i believe to be hyde park, attracted by a gigantic figure on horseback, which loomed up in the distance. the effect of this enormous steed and his rider is very grand, seen in the misty atmosphere. i do not understand why we did not see st. james's palace, which is situated, i believe, at the extremity of the same range of mansions of which stafford house is the opposite end. from the entrance of hyde park, we seem to have gone along piccadilly, and, making two or three turns, and getting bewildered, i put s----- and the children into a cab, and sent them home. continuing my wanderings, i went astray among squares of large aristocratic-looking edifices, all apparently new, with no shops among them, some yet unfinished, and the whole seeming like a city built for a colony of gentlefolks, who might be expected to emigrate thither in a body. it was a dreary business to wander there, turning corner after corner, and finding no way of getting into a less stately and more genial region. at last, however, i passed in front of the queen's mews, where sentinels were on guard, and where a jolly-looking man, in a splendidly laced scarlet coat and white-topped boots, was lounging at the entrance. he looked like the prince of grooms or coachmen. . . . . the corner of hyde park was within a short distance, and i took a hansom at the cab-stand there, and drove to the american despatch agency, henrietta street, covent garden, having some documents of state to be sent by to-day's steamer. the business of forwarding despatches to america, and distributing them to the various legations and consulates in europe, must be a pretty extensive one; for mr. miller has a large office, and two clerks in attendance. from this point i went through covent garden market, and got astray in the city, so that i can give no clear account of my afternoon's wanderings. i passed through holborn, however, and i think it was from that street that i passed through an archway (which i almost invariably do, when i see one), and found myself in a very spacious, gravelled square, surrounded on the four sides by a continuous edifice of dark brick, very plain, and of cold and stern aspect. this was gray's inn, all tenanted by a multitude of lawyers. passing thence, i saw "furnival's inn" over another archway, but, being on the opposite side of the street, i did not go thither. in holborn, still, i went through another arched entrance, over which was "staples inn," and here likewise seemed to be offices; but, in a court opening inwards from this, there was a surrounding seclusion of quiet dwelling-houses, with beautiful green shrubbery and grass-plots in the court, and a great many sunflowers in full bloom. the windows were open; it was a lovely summer afternoon, and i have a sense that bees were humming in the court, though this may have been suggested by my fancy, because the sound would have been so well suited to the scene. a boy was reading at one of the windows. there was not a quieter spot in england than this, and it was very strange to have drifted into it so suddenly out of the bustle and rumble of holborn; and to lose all this repose as suddenly, on passing through the arch of the outer court. in all the hundreds of years since london was built, it has not been able to sweep its roaring tide over that little island of quiet. in holborn i saw the most antique-looking houses that i have yet met with in london, but none of very remarkable aspect. i think i must have been under a spell of enchantment to-day, connecting me with st. paul's; for, trying to get away from it by various avenues, i still got bewildered, and again and again saw its great dome and pinnacles before me. i observe that the smoke has chiefly settled on the lower part of the edifice, leaving its loftier portions and its spires much less begrimed. it is very beautiful, very rich. i did not think that anything but gothic architecture could so have interested me. the statues, the niches, the embroidery, as it were, of sculpture traced around it, produced a delightful effect. in front of st. paul's there is a statue of queen anne, which looks rather more majestic, i doubt not, than that fat old dame ever did. st. paul's churchyard had always been a place of immense interest in my imagination. it is merely the not very spacious street, running round the base of the church,--at least, this street is included in the churchyard, together with the enclosure immediately about the church, sowed with tombstones. i meant to look for the children's book-shop, but forgot it, or neglected it, from not feeling so much interest in a thing near at hand as when it seemed unattainable. i watched a man tearing down the brick wall of a house that did not appear very old; but it surprised me to see how crumbly the brick-work was, one stroke of his pick often loosening several bricks in a row. it is my opinion that brick houses, after a moderate term of years, stand more by habit and courtesy than through any adhesive force of the old mortar. i recommenced my wanderings; but i remember nothing else particularly claiming to be mentioned, unless it be paternoster row,--a little, narrow, darksome lane, in which, it being now dusk in that density of the city, i could not very well see what signs were over the doors. in this street, or thereabouts, i got into an omnibus, and, being set down near regent's circus, reached home well wearied. september th.--yesterday, having some tickets to the zoological gardens, we went thither with the two eldest children. it was a most beautiful sunny day, the very perfection of english weather,--which is as much as to say, the best weather in the world, except, perhaps, some few days in an american october. these gardens are at the end of regent's park, farthest from london, and they are very extensive; though, i think, not quite worthy of london,--not so good as one would expect them to be,--not so fine and perfect a collection of beasts, birds, and fishes, as one might fairly look for, when the greatest metropolis of the world sets out to have such a collection at all.--my idea was, that here every living thing was provided for, in the way best suited to its nature and habits, and that the refinement of civilization had here restored a garden of eden, where all the animal kingdom had regained a happy home. this is not quite the case; though, i believe, the creatures are as comfortable as could he expected, and there are certainly a good many strange beasts here. the hippopotamus is the chief treasure of the collection,--an immense, almost misshapen, mass of flesh. at this moment i do not remember anything that interested me except a sick monkey,--a very large monkey, and elderly he seemed to be. his keeper brought him some sweetened apple and water, and some tea; for the monkey had quite lost his appetite, and refused all ordinary diet. he came, however, quite eagerly, and smelt of the tea and apple, the keeper exhorting him very tenderly to eat. but the poor monkey shook his head slowly, and with the most pitiable expression, at the same time extending his hand to take the keeper's, as if claiming his sympathy and friendship. by and by the keeper (who is rather a surly fellow) essayed harsher measures, and insisted that the monkey should eat what had been brought for him, and hereupon ensued somewhat of a struggle, and the tea was overturned upon the straw of the bed. then the keeper scolded him, and, seizing him by one arm, drew him out of his little bedroom into the larger cage, upon which the wronged monkey began a loud, dissonant, reproachful chatter, more expressive of a sense of injury than any words could be. observing the spectators in front of the cage, he seemed to appeal to them, and addressed his chatter thitherward, and stretched out his long, lean arm and black hand between the bars, as if claiming the grasp of any one friend he might have in the whole world. he was placable, however; for when the keeper called him in a gentler tone, he hobbled towards him with a very stiff and rusty movement, and the scene closed with their affectionately hugging one another. but i fear the poor monkey will die. in a future state of being, i think it will be one of my inquiries, in reference to the mysteries of the present state, why monkeys were made. the creator could not surely have meant to ridicule his own work. it might rather be fancied that satan had perpetrated monkeys, with a malicious purpose of parodying the masterpiece of creation! the aquarium, containing, in some of its compartments, specimens of the animal and vegetable life of the sea, and, in others, those of the fresh water, was richly worth inspecting; but not nearly so perfect as it might be. now i think we have a right to claim, in a metropolitan establishment of this kind, in all its departments, a degree of perfection that shall quite outdo the unpractised thought of any man on that particular subject. there were a good many well-dressed people and children in the gardens, saturday being a fashionable day for visiting them. one great amusement was feeding some bears with biscuits and cakes, of which they seemed exceedingly fond. one of the three bears clambered to the top of a high pole, whence he invited the spectators to hand him bits of cake on the end of a stick, or to toss them into his mouth, which he opened widely for that purpose. another, apparently an elderly bear, not having skill nor agility for these gymnastics, sat on the ground, on his hinder end, groaning most pitifully. the third took what stray bits he could get, without earning them by any antics. at four o'clock there was some music from the band of the first life-guards, a great multitude of chairs being set on the greensward in the sunshine and shade, for the accommodation of the auditors. here we had the usual exhibition of english beauty, neither superior nor otherwise to what i have seen in other parts of england. before the music was over, we walked slowly homeward, along beside regent's park, which is very prettily laid out, but lacks some last touch of richness and beauty; though, after all, i do not well see what more could be done with grass, trees, and gravel-walks. the children, especially j-----, who had raced from one thing to another all day long, grew tired; so we put them into a cab, and walked slowly through portland place, where are a great many noble mansions, yet no very admirable architecture; none that possessed, nor that ever can possess, the indefinable charm of some of those poor old timber houses in shrewsbury. the art of domestic architecture is lost. we can rear stately and beautiful dwellings (though we seldom do), but they do not seem proper to the life of man, in the same way that his shell is proper to the lobster; nor, indeed, is the mansion of the nobleman proper to him, in the same kind and degree, that a hut is proper to a peasant. from portland place we passed into regent street, and soon reached home. september th.--yesterday forenoon we walked out with the children, intending for charing cross; but, missing our way, as usual, we went down a rather wide and stately street, and saw before us an old brick edifice with a pretty extensive front, over which rose a clock-tower,--the whole dingy, and looking both gloomy and mean. there was an arched entrance beneath the clock-tower, at which two guardsmen, in their bear-skin caps, were stationed as sentinels; and from this circumstance, and our having some guess at the locality, we concluded the old brick building to be st. james's palace. otherwise we might have taken it for a prison, or for a hospital, which, in truth, it was at first intended for. but, certainly, there are many paupers in england who live in edifices of far more architectural pretension externally than this principal palace of the english sovereigns. seeing other people go through the archway, we also went, meeting no impediment from the sentinels, and found ourselves in a large paved court, in the centre of which a banner was stuck down, with a few soldiers standing near it. this flag was the banner of the regiment of guards on duty. the aspect of the interior court was as naked and dismal as the outside, the brick being of that dark hue almost universal in england. on one side of the court there was a door which seemed to give admission to a chapel, into which several persons went, and probably we might have gone too, had we liked. from this court, we penetrated into at least two or three others; for the palace is very extensive, and all of it, so far as i could see, on the same pattern,--large, enclosed courts, paved, and quite bare of grass, shrubbery, or any beautiful thing,--dark, stern, brick walls, without the slightest show of architectural beauty, or even an ornament over the square, commonplace windows, looking down on those forlorn courts. a carriage-drive passes through it, if i remember aright, from the principal front, emerging by one of the sides; and i suppose that the carriages roll through the palace, at the levees and drawing-rooms. there was nothing to detain us here any long time, so we went from court to court, and came out through a side-opening. the edifice is battlemented all round, and this, with somewhat of fantastic in the shape of the clock-tower, is the only attempt at ornament in the whole. then we skirted along st. james's park, passing marlborough house,--a red brick building,--and a very long range of stone edifices, which, whether they were public or private, one house or twenty, we knew not. we ascended the steps of the york column, and soon reached charing cross and trafalgar square, where there are more architectural monuments than in any other one place in london; besides two fountains, playing in large reservoirs of water, and various edifices of note and interest. northumberland house, now, and for a long while, the town residence of the percys, stands on the strand side,--over the entrance a lion, very spiritedly sculptured, flinging out his long tail. on another side of the square is morley's hotel, exceedingly spacious, and looking more american than anything else in the hotel line that i have seen here. the nelson monument, with lord nelson, in a cocked hat, on its top, is very grand in its effect. all about the square there were sundry loungers, people looking at the bas-reliefs on nelson's column, children paddling in the reservoirs of the fountains; and, it being a sunny day, it was a cheerful and lightsome, as well as an impressive scene. on second thoughts, i do not know but that london should have a far better display of architecture and sculpture than this, on its finest site, and in its very centre; for, after all, there is nothing of the very best. but i missed nothing at the time. in the afternoon s----- and i set out to attend divine service in westminster abbey. on our way thither we passed through pall mall, which is full of club-houses, and we were much struck with the beauty of the one lately erected for the carleton club. it is built of a buff-colored or yellowish stone, with pillars or pilasters of polished aberdeen granite, wonderfully rich and beautiful; and there is a running border of sculptured figures all round the upper part of the building, besides other ornament and embroidery, wherever there was room or occasion for it. it being an oblong square, the smooth and polished aspect in this union of two rich colors in it,--this delicacy and minuteness of finish, this lavish ornament--made me think of a lady's jewel-box; and if it could be reduced to the size of about a foot square, or less, it would make the very prettiest one that ever was seen. i question whether it have any right to be larger than a jewel-box; but it is certainly a most beautiful edifice. we turned down whitehall, at the head of which, over the very spot where the regicides were executed, stands the bronze equestrian statue of charles i.,--the statue that was buried under the earth during the whole of cromwell's time, and emerged after the restoration. we saw the admiralty and the horse-guards, and, in front of the latter, the two mounted sentinels, one of whom was flirting and laughing with some girls. on the other side of the street stands the banqueting-house, built by inigo jones; from a window of which king charles stepped forth, wearing a kingly head, which, within a few minutes afterwards, fell with a dead thump on the scaffold. it was nobly done,-- and nobly suffered. how rich is history in the little space around this spot! i find that the day after i reached london, i entirely passed by westminster abbey without knowing it, partly because my eyes were attracted by the gaudier show of the new houses of parliament, and partly because this part of the abbey has been so much repaired and renewed that it has not the marks of age. looking at its front, i now found it very grand and venerable; but it is useless to attempt a description: these things are not to be translated into words; they can be known only by seeing them, and, until seen, it is well to shape out no idea of them. impressions, states of mind, produced by noble spectacles of whatever kind, are all that it seems worth while to attempt reproducing with the pen. after coming out of the abbey, we looked at the two houses of parliament, directly across the way,--an immense structure, and certainly most splendid, built of a beautiful warm-colored stone. the building has a very elaborate finish, and delighted me at first; but by and by i began to be sensible of a weariness in the effect, a lack of variety in the plan and ornament, a deficiency of invention; so that instead of being more and more interested the longer one looks, as is the case with an old gothic edifice, and continually reading deeper into it, one finds that one has seen all in seeing a little piece, and that the magnificent palace has nothing better to show one or to do for one. it is wonderful how the old weather-stained and smoke-blackened abbey shames down this brand-newness; not that the parliament houses are not fine objects to look at, too. yesterday morning we walked to charing cross, with u---- and j-----, and there took a cab to the tower, driving thither through the strand, fleet street, past st. paul's, and amid all the thickest throng of the city. i have not a very distinct idea of the tower, but remember that our cab drove within an outer gate, where we alighted at a ticket-office; the old royal fortress being now a regular show-place, at sixpence a head, including the sight of armory and crown-jewels. we saw about the gate several warders or yeomen of the guard, or beefeaters, dressed in scarlet coats of antique fashion, richly embroidered with golden crowns, both on the breast and back, and other royal devices and insignia; so that they looked very much like the kings on a pack of cards, or regular trumps, at all events. i believe they are old soldiers, promoted to this position for good conduct. one of them took charge of us, and when a sufficient number of visitors had collected with us, he led us to see what very small portion of the tower is shown. there is a great deal of ground within the outer precincts; and it has streets and houses and inhabitants and a church within it; and, going up and down behind the warder, without any freedom to get acquainted with the place by strolling about, i know little more about it than when i went in,--only recollecting a mean and disagreeable confusion of brick walls, barracks, paved courts, with here and there a low bulky turret, of rather antique aspect, and, in front of one of the edifices, a range of curious old cannon, lying on the ground, some of them immensely large and long, and beautifully wrought in brass. i observed by a plan, however, that the white tower, containing the armory, stands about in the centre of the fortress, and that it is a square, battlemented structure, having a turret at each angle. we followed the warder into the white tower, and there saw, in the first place, a long gallery of mounted knights, and men at arms, which has been so often described that when i wish to recall it to memory i shall turn to some other person's account of it. i was much struck, however, with the beautiful execution of a good many of the suits of armor, and the exquisite detail with which they were engraved. the artists of those days attained very great skill, in this kind of manufacture. the figures of the knights, too, in full array, undoubtedly may have shown a combination of stateliness and grace which heretofore i have not believed in,--not seeing how it could be compatible with iron garments. but it is quite incomprehensible how, in the time of the heaviest armor, they could strike a blow, or possess any freedom of movement, except such as a turtle is capable of; and, in truth, they are said not to have been able to rise up when overthrown. they probably stuck out their lances, and rode straight at the enemy, depending upon upsetting him by their mass and weight. in the row of knights is henry viii.; also charles brandon, duke of suffolk, who must have been an immensely bulky man; also, a splendid suit of armor, gilded all over, presented by the city of london to charles i.; also, two or three suits of boys' armor, for the little princes of the house of stuart. they began to wear these burdens betimes, in order that their manhood might be the more tolerant of them. we went through this gallery so hastily that it would have been about as well not to have seen it at all. then we went up a winding stair to another room, containing armor and weapons, and beautiful brass cannon, that appeared to have been for ornament rather than use, some of them being quite covered with embossed sculpture, marvellously well wrought. in this room was john of gaunt's suit, indicating a man seven feet high, and the armor seems to bear the marks of much wear; but this may be owing to great scrubbing, throughout the centuries since john of gaunt died. there, too, we saw the cloak in which wolfe fell, on the plains of abraham,--a coarse, faded, threadbare, light-colored garment, folded up under a glass case. many other things we might have seen, worthy of being attended to, had there been time to look at them. following into still another room, we were told that this was sir walter raleigh's apartment, while confined in the tower, so that it was within these walls that he wrote the history of the world. the room was formerly lighted by lancet windows, and must have been very gloomy; but, if he had the whole length of it to himself, it was a good space to walk and meditate in. on one side of the apartment is a low door, giving admittance, we were told, to the cell where raleigh slept; so we went in, and found it destitute of any window, and so dark that we could not estimate its small extent except by feeling about. at the threshold of this sleeping-kennel, there were one or two inscriptions, scratched in the wall, but not, i believe, by raleigh. in this apartment, among a great many other curious things, are shown the devilish instruments of torture which the spaniards were bringing to england in their armada; and, at the end of the room, sits queen elizabeth on horseback, in her high ruff and faded finery. very likely none of these clothes were ever on her actual person. here, too, we saw a headsman's block,--not that on which raleigh was beheaded, which i would have given gold to see, but the one which was used for the scotch lords kilmarnock, lovat, and others, executed on account of the rebellion of . it is a block of oak, about two feet high, with a large knot in it, so that it would not easily be split by a blow of the axe; hewn and smoothed in a very workmanlike way, and with a hollow to accommodate the head and shoulders on each side. there were two or three very strong marks of the axe in the part over which the neck lay, and several smaller cuts; as if the first stroke nearly severed the head, and then the chopping off was finished by smaller blows, as we see a butcher cutting meat with his cleaver. a headsman's axe was likewise shown us,--its date unknown. in the white tower we were shown the regalia, under a glass, and within an iron cage. edward the confessor's golden staff was very finely wrought; and there were a great many pretty things; but i have a suspicion, i know not why, that these are not the real jewels,--at least, that such inestimable ones as the koh-i-noor (or however it is spelt) are less freely exhibited. the warder then led us into a paved court, which he said was the place of execution of all royal personages and others, who, from motives of fear or favor, were beheaded privately. raleigh was among these, and so was anne boleyn. we then followed to the beauchamp tower, where many state prisoners of note were confined, and where, on the walls of one of the chambers, there are several inscriptions and sculptures of various devices, done by the prisoners,--and very skilfully done, too, though perhaps with no better instrument than an old nail. these poor wretches had time and leisure enough to spend upon their work. this chamber is lighted by small lancet windows, pierced at equal intervals round the circle of the beauchamp tower; and it contains a large, square fireplace, in which is now placed a small modern stove. we were hurried away, before we could even glance at the inscriptions, and we saw nothing else, except the low, obscure doorway in the bloody tower, leading to the staircase, under which were found the supposed bones of the little princes; and lastly, the round, norman arch, opening to the water passage, called the traitor's gate. finally, we ate some cakes and buns in the refreshment-room connected with the ticket-office, and then left the fortress. the ancient moat, by the way, has been drained within a few years, and now forms a great hollow space, with grassy banks, round about the citadel. we now wished to see the thames, and therefore threaded our way along thames street, towards london bridge, passing through a fish-market, which i suppose to be the actual billingsgate, whence originated all the foul language in england. under london bridge there is a station for steamers running to greenwich and woolwich. we got on board one of these, not very well knowing, nor much caring, whither it might take us, and steamed down the river, which is bordered with the shabbiest, blackest, ugliest, meanest buildings: it is the back side of the town; and, in truth, the muddy tide of the thames deserves to see no better. there was a great deal of shipping in the river, and many steamers, and it was much more crowded than the mersey, where all the ships go into docks; but the vessels were not so fine. by and by we reached greenwich, and went ashore there, proceeding up from the quay, past beer-shops and eating-houses in great numbers and variety. greenwich hospital is here a very prominent object, and after passing along its extensive front, facing towards the river, we entered one of the principal gates, as we found ourselves free to do. we now left the hospital, and steamed back to london bridge, whence we went up into the city, and, to finish the labors of the day, ascended the monument. this seems to be still a favorite adventure with the cockneys; for we heard one woman, who went up with us, saying that she had been thinking of going up all her life, and another said that she had gone up thirty years ago. there is an iron railing, or rather a cage, round the top, through which it would be impossible for people to force their way, in order to precipitate themselves, as six persons have heretofore done. there was a mist over london, so that we did not gain a very clear view, except of the swarms of people running about, like ants, in the streets at the foot of the monument. descending, i put s----- and the children into a cab, and i myself wandered about the city. passing along fleet street, i turned in through an archway, which i rightly guessed to be the entrance to the temple. it is a very large space, containing many large, solemn, and serious edifices of dark brick, and no sooner do you pass under the arch than all the rumble and bustle of london dies away at once; and it seems as if a person might live there in perfect quiet, without suspecting that it was not always a sabbath. people appear to have their separate residences here; but i do not understand what is the economy of their lives. quite in the deepest interior of this region, there is a large garden, bordering on the thames, along which it has a gravel-walk, and benches where it would be pleasant to sit. on one edge of the garden, there is some scanty shrubbery, and flowers of no great brilliancy; and the greensward, with which the garden is mostly covered, is not particularly rich nor verdant. emerging from the temple, i stopped at a tavern in the strand, the waiter of which observed to me, "they say sebastopol is taken, sir!" it was only such an interesting event that could have induced an english waiter to make a remark to a stranger, not called for in the way of business. the best view we had of the town--in fact, the only external view, and the only time we really saw the white tower--was from the river, as we steamed past it. here the high, square, battlemented white tower, with the four turrets at its corners, rises prominently above all other parts of the fortress. september th.--mr. ------, the american minister, called on me on tuesday, and left his card; an intimation that i ought sooner to have paid my respects to him; so yesterday forenoon i set out to find his residence, harley street. it is a street out of cavendish square, in a fashionable quarter, although fashion is said to be ebbing away from it. the ambassador seems to intend some little state in his arrangements; but, no doubt, the establishment compares shabbily enough with those of the legations of other great countries, and with the houses of the english aristocracy. a servant, not in livery, or in a very unrecognizable one, opened the door for me, and gave my card to a sort of upper attendant, who took it in to mr. ------. he had three gentlemen with him, so desired that i should be ushered into the office of the legation, until he should be able to receive me. here i found a clerk or attache, mr. m------, who has been two or three years on this side of the water; an intelligent person, who seems to be in correspondence with the new york courier and enquirer. by and by came in another american to get a passport for the continent, and soon the three gentlemen took leave of the ambassador, and i was invited to his presence. the tall, large figure of mr. ------ has a certain air of state and dignity; he carries his head in a very awkward way, but still looks like a man of long and high authority, and, with his white hair, is now quite venerable. there is certainly a lack of polish, a kind of rusticity, notwithstanding which you feel him to be a man of the world. i should think he might succeed very tolerably in english society, being heavy and sensible, cool, kindly, and good-humored, with a great deal of experience of life. we talked about various matters, politics among the rest; and he observed that if the president had taken the advice which he gave him in two long letters, before his inauguration, he would have had a perfectly quiet and successful term of office. the advice was, to form a perfectly homogeneous cabinet of union men, and to satisfy the extremes of the party by a fair distribution of minor offices; whereas he formed his cabinet of extreme men, on both sides, and gave the minor offices to moderate ones. but the antislavery people, surely, had no representative in the cabinet. mr. ------ further observed, that he thought the president had a fair chance of re-nomination, for that the south could not, in honor, desert him; to which i replied that the south had been guilty of such things heretofore. mr. ------ thinks that the next presidential term will be more important and critical, both as to our foreign relations and internal affairs, than any preceding one,--which i should judge likely enough to be the case, although i heard the sane prophecy often made respecting the present term. the ambassador dined with us at rock park a year or two ago, and i then felt, and always feel, as if he were a man of hearty feeling and simplicity, and certainly it would be unjust to conclude otherwise, merely from the fact (very suspicious, it is true) of his having been a life-long politician. after we had got through a little matter of business (respecting a young american who has enlisted at liverpool), the minister rang his bell, and ordered another visitor to be admitted; and so i took my leave. in the other room i found the secretary of legation,--a tall, slender man of about forty, with a small head and face,--gentlemanly enough, sensible, and well informed, yet i should judge, not quite up to his place. there was also a dr. b------ from michigan present, and i rather fancy the ambassador is quite as much bored with visitors as the consul at liverpool. before i left the office, mr. ------ came in with miss sarah clarke on his arm. she had come thither to get her passport vised; and when her business was concluded, we went out together. she was going farther towards the west end, and i into the city; so we soon parted, and i lost myself among the streets and squares, arriving at last at oxford street, though even then i did not know whether my face were turned cityward or in the opposite direction. crossing regent street, however, i became sure of my whereabout, and went on through holborn, and sought hither and thither for grace church street, in order to find the american consul, general campbell; for i needed his aid to get a bank post-bill cashed. but i could not find the street, go where i would; so at last i went to no. cheapside, and introduced myself to mr. ------, whom i already knew by letter, and by a good many of his poems, which he has sent me, and by two excellent watches, which i bought of him. this establishment, though it has the ordinary front of dingy brick, common to buildings in the city, looks like a time-long stand, the old shop of a london tradesman, with a large figure of a watch over the door, a great many watches (and yet no gorgeous show of them) in the window, a low, dark front shop, and a little room behind, where there was a chair or two. mr. ------ is a small, slender young man, quite un-english in aspect, with black, curly hair, a thin, dark, colorless visage, very animated and of quick expression, with a nervous temperament. . . . . he dismounted from a desk when my card was handed to him, and turned to me with a vivid, glad look of recognition. we talked, in the first place, about poetry and such matters, about england and america, and the nature and depth of their mutual dislike, and, of course, the slavery question came up, as it always does, in one way or another. anon, i produced my bank post-bill; and mr. ------ kindly engaged to identify me at the bank, being ready to swear to me, he said, on the strength of my resemblance to my engraved portrait. so we set out for the bank of england, and, arriving there, were directed to the proper clerk, after much inquiry; but he told us that the bill was not yet due, having been drawn at seven days, and having two still to run,--which was the fact. as i was almost shillingless, mr. ------ now offered to cash it for me. he is very kind and good. . . . . arriving at his shop again, he went out to procure the money, and soon returned with it. at my departure he gave me a copy of a new poem of his, entitled "verdicts," somewhat in the manner of lowell's satire. . . . . mr. ------ resides now at greenwich, whither he hoped i would come and see him on my return to london. perhaps i will, for i like him. it seems strange to see an englishman with so little physical ponderosity and obtuseness of nerve. after parting from him, it being three o'clock or thereabouts, i resumed my wanderings about the city, of which i never weary as long as i can put one foot before the other. seeing that the door of st. paul's, under one of the semicircular porches, was partially open, i went in, and found that the afternoon service was about to be performed; so i remained to hear it, and to see what i could of the cathedral. what a total and admirable contrast between this and a gothic church! the latter so dim and mysterious, with its various aisles, its intricacy of pointed arches, its dark walls and columns and pavement, and its painted glass windows, bedimming even what daylight might otherwise get into its eternal evening. but this cathedral was full of light, and light was proper to it. there were no painted windows, no dim recesses, but a wide and airy space beneath the dome; and even through the long perspective of the nave there was no obscurity, but one lofty and beautifully rounded arch succeeding to another, as far as the eye could reach. the walls were white, the pavement constructed of squares of gray and white marble. it is a most grand and stately edifice, and its characteristic stems to be to continue forever fresh and new; whereas such a church as westminster abbey must have been as venerable as it is now from the first day when it grew to be an edifice at all. how wonderful man is in his works! how glad i am that there can be two such admirable churches, in their opposite styles, as st. paul's and westminster abbey! the organ was played while i was there, and there was an anthem beautifully chanted by voices that came from afar off and remotely above, as if out of a sunny sky. meanwhile i looked at such monuments as were near; chiefly those erected to military or naval men,--picton, general ponsonby, lord st. vincent, and others; but against one of the pillars stands a statue of dr. johnson,--a noble and thoughtful figure, with a development of muscle befitting an athlete. i doubt whether sculptors do not err in point of taste, by making all their statues models of physical perfection, instead of expressing by them the individual character and habits of the man. the statue in the market-place at lichfield has more of the homely truth of johnson's actual personality than this. st. paul's, as yet, is by no means crowded with monuments; there is, indeed, plenty of room for a mob of the illustrious, yet to come. but it seems to me that the character of the edifice would be injured by allowing the monuments to be clustered together so closely as at westminster, by incrusting the walls with them, or letting the statues throng about the pedestals of columns. there must be no confusion in such a cathedral as this, and i question whether the effect will ever be better than it is now, when each monument has its distinct place, and as your eye wanders around, you are not distracted from noting each marble man, in his niche against the wall, or at the base of a marble pillar. space, distance, light, regularity, are to be preserved, even if the result should be a degree of nakedness. i saw mr. appleton of the legation, and dr. brown, on the floor of the cathedral. they were about to go over the whole edifice, and had engaged a guide for that purpose; but, as i intend to go thither again with s-----, i did not accompany them, but went away the quicker that one of the gentlemen put on his hat, and i was ashamed of being seen in company with a man who could wear his hat in a cathedral. not that he meant any irreverence; but simply felt that he was in a great public building,--as big, nearly, as all out of doors,--and so forgot that it was a consecrated place of worship. the sky is the dome of a greater cathedral than st. paul's, and built by a greater architect than sir christopher wren, and yet we wear our hats unscrupulously beneath it. i remember no other event of importance, except that i penetrated into a narrow lane or court, either in the strand or fleet street, where was a tavern, calling itself the "old thatched house," and purporting to have been nell gwyn's dairy. i met with a great many alleys and obscure archways, in the course of the day's wanderings. september th.--yesterday, in the earlier part of the day, it poured with rain, and i did not go out till five o'clock in the afternoon; nor did i then meet with anything interesting. i walked through albemarle street, for the purpose of looking at murray's shop, but missed it entirely, at my first inquisition. the street is one of hotels, principally, with only a few tradesmen's shops, and has a quiet, aristocratic aspect. on my return, down the other sidewalk, i did discover the famous publisher's locality; but merely by the name "mr. murray," engraved on a rather large brass plate, such as doctors use, on the door. there was no sign of a book, nor of its being a place of trade in any way; and i should have taken the house to be, if not a private mansion, then a lawyer's office. at seven o'clock s-----, u----, and i went to dine with mr. r---- s------ in portland place. . . . . mr. s------'s house is a very fine one, and he gave us a very quiet, elegant, and enjoyable dinner, in much better taste and with less fuss than some others we have attended elsewhere. mr. s------ is a friend of thackeray, and, speaking of the last number of the newcomes,--so touching that nobody can read it aloud without breaking down,--he mentioned that thackeray himself had read it to james russell lowell and william story in a cider-cellar! i read all the preceding numbers of the newcomes to my wife, but happened not to have an opportunity to read this last, and was glad of it,--knowing that my eyes would fill, and my voice quiver. mr. s------ likes thackeray, and thinks him a good fellow. mr. s------ has a--or i don't know but i ought better to say the--beautiful full-length picture of washington by stuart, and i was proud to see that noblest face and figure here in england. the picture of a man beside whom, considered physically, any english nobleman whom i have seen would look like common clay. speaking of thackeray, i cannot but wonder at his coolness in respect to his own pathos, and compare it with my emotions, when i read the last scene of the scarlet letter to my wife, just after writing it,--tried to read it rather, for my voice swelled and heaved, as if i were tossed up and down on an ocean as it subsides after a storm. but i was in a very nervous state then, having gone through a great diversity of emotion, while writing it, for many months. i think i have never overcome my own adamant in any other instance. tumblers, hand-organists, puppet-showmen, bagpipers, and all such vagrant mirth-makers, are very numerous in the streets of london. the other day, passing through fleet street, i saw a crowd filling up a narrow court, and high above their heads a tumbler, standing on his head, on the top of a pole, that reached as high as the third story of the neighboring houses. sliding down the pole head foremost, he disappeared out of my sight. a multitude of punches go the mounds continually. two have passed through hanover street, where we reside, this morning. the first asked two shillings for his performance; so we sent him away. the second demanded, in the first place, half a crown; but finally consented to take a shilling, and gave us the show at that price, though much maimed in its proportions. besides the spectators in our windows, he had a little crowd on the sidewalk, to whom he went round for contributions, but i did not observe that anybody gave him so much as a halfpenny. it is strange to see how many people are aiming at the small change in your pocket. in every square a beggar-woman meets you, and turns back to follow your steps with her miserable murmur. at the street-crossings there are old men or little girls with their brooms; urchins propose to brush your boots; and if you get into a cab, a man runs to open the door for you, and touches his hat for a fee, as he closes it again. september th.--it was raining yesterday, and i kept within doors till after four o'clock, when j----- and i took a walk into the city. seeing the entrance to clement's inn, we went through it, and saw the garden, with a kneeling bronze figure in it; and when just in the midst of the inn, i remembered that justice shallow was of old a student there. i do not well understand these inns of court, or how they differ from other places. anybody seems to be free to reside in them, and a residence does not seem to involve any obligation to study law, or to have any connection therewith. clement's inn consists of large brick houses, accessible by narrow lanes and passages, but, by some peculiar privilege or enchantment, enjoying a certain quiet and repose, though in close vicinity to the noisiest part of the city. i got bewildered in the neighborhood of st. paul's, and, try how i might to escape from it, its huge dusky dome kept showing itself before me, through one street and another. in my endeavors to escape it, i at one time found myself in st. john's street, and was in hopes to have seen the old st. john's gate, so familiar for above a century on the cover of the gentleman's magazine. but i suppose it is taken down, for we went through the entire street, i think, and saw no trace of it. either afterwards or before this we came upon smithfield, a large irregular square, filled up with pens for cattle, of which, however, there were none in the market at that time. i leaned upon a post, at the western end of the square, and told j----- how the martyrs had been burnt at smithfield in bloody mary's days. again we drifted back to st. paul's; and, at last, in despair of ever getting out of this enchanted region, i took a hansom cab to charing cross, whence we easily made our way home. liverpool. september th.--i took the ten-o'clock train yesterday morning from the euston station, and arrived at liverpool at about five, passing through the valley of trent, without touching at birmingham. english scenery, on the tracks, is the tamest of the tame, hardly a noticeable hill breaking the ordinary gentle undulation of the landscape, but still the verdure and finish of the fields and parks make it worth while to throw out a glance now and then, as you rush by. few separate houses are seen, as in america; but sometimes a village, with the square, gray, battlemented tower of its norman church, and rows of thatched cottages, reminding one of the clustered mud-nests of swallows, under the eaves of a barn; here and there a lazy little river, like the trent; perhaps, if you look sharply where the guide-book indicates, the turrets of an old castle in the distance; perhaps the great steeple and spires of a cathedral; perhaps the tall chimney of a manufactory; but, on the whole, the traveller comes to his journey's end unburdened with a single new idea. i observe that the harvest is not all gathered in as yet, and this rainy weather must look very gloomy to the farmer. i saw gleaners, yesterday, in the stubble-fields. there were two gentlemen in the same railway-carriage with me, and we did not exchange half a dozen words the whole day. i am here, established at mrs. blodgett's boarding-house, which i find quite full; insomuch that she had to send one of her sea-captains to sleep in another house, in order to make room for me. it is exclusively american society: four shipmasters, and a doctor from pennsylvania, who has been travelling a year on the continent, and who seems to be a man of very active intelligence, interested in everything, and especially in agriculture. . . . . he asserted that we are fifty years ahead of england in agricultural science, and that he could cultivate english soil to far better advantage than english farmers do, and at vastly less expense. their tendency to cling to old ideas, which retards them in everything else, keeps them behindhand in this matter too. really, i do not know any other place in england where a man can be made so sensible that he lives in a progressive world as here in mrs. blodgett's boarding-house. the captains talk together about their voyages, and how they manage with their unruly mates and crews; and how freights are in america, and the prospects of business; and of equinoctial gales, and the qualities of different ships, and their commanders, and how crews, mates, and masters have all deteriorated since their remembrance. . . . . but these men are alive, and talk of real matters, and of matters which they know. the shipmasters who come to mrs. blodgett's are favorable specimens of their class; being all respectable men, in the employ of good houses, and raised by their capacity to the command of first-rate ships. in my official intercourse with them, i do not generally see their best side; as they are seldom before me except as complainants, or when summoned to answer to some complaint made by a seaman. but hearing their daily talk, and listening to what is in their minds, and their reminiscences of what they have gone through, one becomes sensible that they are men of energy and ability, fit to be trusted, and retaining a hardy sense of honor, and a loyalty to their own country, the stronger because they have compared it with many others. most of them are gentlemen, too, to a certain extent,--some more than others, perhaps; and none to a very exquisite point, or, if so, it is none the better for them as sailors or as men. september th.--it is singular to feel a sense of my own country returning upon me with the intercourse of the people whom i find here. . . . . the doctor is much the most talkative of our company, and sometimes bores me thereby; though he seldom says anything that is not either instructive or amusing. he tells a curious story of prince albert, and how he avails himself of american sharp-shooting. during the doctor's tour in scotland, which he has just finished, he became acquainted with one of the prince's attaches, who invited him very earnestly to join his royal highness's party, promising him a good gun, and a keeper to load it for him, two good dogs, besides as many cigars as he could smoke and as much wine as he could drink, on the condition that whatever game he shot should be the prince's. "the prince," said the attache, "is very fond of having americans in his shooting-parties, on account of their being such excellent shots; and there was one with him last year who shot so admirably that his royal highness himself left off shooting in utter astonishment." the attache offered to introduce the doctor to the prince, who would be certain to receive him very graciously. . . . . i think, perhaps, we talk of kings and queens more at our table than people do at other tables in england; not, of course, that we like them better, or admire them more, but that they are curiosities. yet i would not say that the doctor may not be susceptible on the point of royal attentions; for he told us with great complacency how emphatically, on two or three occasions, louis napoleon had returned his bow, and the last time had turned and made some remark (evidently about the doctor) to the empress. . . . . i ought not to omit mentioning that he has been told in france that he personally resembles the emperor, and i suspect he is trying to heighten the resemblance by training his mustache on the pattern of that which adorns the imperial upper lip. he is a genuine american character, though modified by a good deal of travel; a very intelligent man, full of various ability, with eyes all over him for any object of interest,--a little of the bore, sometimes,--quick to appreciate character, with a good deal of tact, gentlemanly in his manners, but yet lacking a deep and delicate refinement. not but that americans are as capable of this last quality as other people are; but what with the circumstances amid which we grow up, and the peculiar activity of our minds, we certainly do often miss it. by the by, he advanced a singular proposition the other evening, namely, that the english people do not so well understand comfort, or attain it so perfectly in their domestic arrangements, as we do. i thought he hardly supported this opinion so satisfactorily as some of his other new ideas. i saw in an american paper yesterday, that an opera, still unfinished, had been written on the story of the scarlet letter, and that several scenes of it had been performed successfully in new york. i should think it might possibly succeed as an opera, though it would certainly fail as a play. london. september th.--on saturday, at half past three o'clock, i left liverpool by the london and northwest railway for london. mrs. blodgett's table had been thinned by several departures during the week. . . . . my mind had been considerably enlivened, and my sense of american superiority renewed, by intercourse with these people; and there is no danger of one's intellect becoming a standing pool in such society. i think better of american shipmasters, too, than i did from merely meeting them in my office. they keep up a continual discussion of professional matters, and of all things having any reference to their profession; the laws of insurance, the rights of vessels in foreign ports, the authority and customs of vessels of war with regard to merchantmen, etc.,--with stories and casual anecdotes of their sea-adventures, gales, shipwrecks, icebergs, and collisions of vessels, and hair-breadth escapes. their talk runs very much on the sea, and on the land as connected with the sea; and their interest does not seem to extend very far beyond the wide field of their professional concerns. nothing remarkable occurred on the journey to london. the greater part of the way there were only two gentlemen in the same compartment with me; and we occupied each our corner, with little other conversation than in comparing watches at the various stations. i got out of the carriage only once, at rugby, i think, and for the last seventy or eighty miles the train did not stop. there was a clear moon the latter part of the journey, and the mist lay along the ground, looking very much like a surface of water. we reached london at about ten, and i found s----- expecting me. yesterday the children went with fanny to the zoological gardens; and, after sending them off, s----- and i walked to piccadilly, and there took a cab for kensington gardens. it was a delightful day,--the best of all weather, the real english good weather,--more like an indian summer than anything else within my experience; a mellow sunshine, with great warmth in it,--a soft, balmy air, with a slight haze through it. if the sun made us a little too warm, we had but to go into the shade to be immediately refreshed. the light of these days is very exquisite, so gently bright, without any glare,--a veiled glow. in short, it is the kindliest mood of nature, and almost enough to compensate for chill and dreary months. moreover, there is more of such weather here than the english climate has ever had credit for. kensington gardens form an eminently beautiful piece of artificial woodland and park scenery. the old palace of kensington, now inhabited by the duchess of inverness, stands at one extremity; an edifice of no great mark, built of brick, covering much ground, and low in proportion to its extent. in front of it, at a considerable distance, there is a sheet of water; and in all directions there are vistas of wide paths among noble trees, standing in groves, or scattered in clumps; everything being laid out with free and generous spaces, so that you can see long streams of sunshine among the trees, and there is a pervading influence of quiet and remoteness. tree does not interfere with tree; the art of man is seen conspiring with nature, as if they had consulted together how to make a beautiful scene, and had taken ages of quiet thought and tender care to accomplish it. we strolled slowly along these paths, and sometimes deviated from them, to walk beneath the trees, many of the leaves of which lay beneath our feet, yellow and brown, and with a pleasant smell of vegetable decay. these were the leaves of chestnut-trees; the other trees (unless elms) have yet, hardly begun to shed their foliage, although you can discern a sober change of line in the woodland masses; and the trees individualize themselves by assuming each its own tint, though in a very modest way. if they could have undergone the change of an american autumn, it would have been like putting on a regal robe. autumn often puts one on in america, but it is apt to be very ragged. there were a good many well-dressed people scattered through the grounds,--young men and girls, husbands with their wives and children, nursery-maids and little babes playing about in the grass. anybody might have entered the gardens, i suppose; but only well-dressed people were there not, of the upper classes, but shop-keepers, clerks, apprentices, and respectability of that sort. it is pleasant to think that the people have the freedom, and therefore the property, of parks like this, more beautiful and stately than a nobleman can keep to himself. the extent of kensington gardens, when reckoned together with hyde park, from which it is separated only by a fence of iron rods, is very great, comprising miles of greensward and woodland. the large artificial sheet of water, called the serpentine river, lies chiefly in hyde park, but comes partly within the precincts of the gardens. it is entitled to honorable mention among the english lakes, being larger than some that are world-celebrated,--several miles long, and perhaps a stone's-throw across in the widest part. it forms the paradise of a great many ducks of various breeds, which are accustomed to be fed by visitors, and come flying from afar, touching the water with their wings, and quacking loudly when bread or cake is thrown to them. i bought a bun of a little hunchbacked man, who kept a refreshment-stall near the serpentine, and bestowed it pied-meal on these ducks, as we loitered along the bank. we left the park by another gate, and walked homeward, till we came to tyburnia, and saw the iron memorial which marks where the gallows used to stand. thence we turned into park lane, then into upper grosvenor street, and reached hanover square sooner than we expected. in the evening i walked forth to charing cross, and thence along the strand and fleet street, where i made no new discoveries, unless it were the mitre tavern. i mean to go into it some day. the streets were much thronged, and there seemed to be a good many young people,--lovers, it is to be hoped,--who had spent the day together, and were going innocently home. perhaps so,--perhaps not. september th.--yesterday forenoon j----- and i walked out, with no very definite purpose; but, seeing a narrow passageway from the strand down to the river, we went through it, and gained access to a steamboat, plying thence to london bridge. the fare was a halfpenny apiece, and the boat almost too much crowded for standing-room. this part of the river presents the water-side of london in a rather pleasanter aspect than below london bridge,--the temple, with its garden, somerset house,--and generally, a less tumble-down and neglected look about the buildings; although, after all, the metropolis does not see a very stately face in its mirror. i saw alsatia betwixt the temple and blackfriar's bridge. its precincts looked very narrow, and not particularly distinguishable, at this day, from the portions of the city on either side of it. at london bridge we got aboard of a woolwich steamer, and went farther down the river, passing the custom-house and the tower, the only prominent objects rising out of the dreary range of shabbiness which stretches along close to the water's edge. from this remote part of london we walked towards the heart of the city; and, as we went, matters seemed to civilize themselves by degrees, and the streets grew crowded with cabs, omnibuses, drays, and carts. we passed, i think, through whitechapel, and, reaching st. paul's, got into an omnibus, and drove to regent street, whence it was but a step or two home. in the afternoon, at four o'clock, s----- and i went to call on the american ambassador and miss l------. the lady was not at home, but we went in to see mr. ------ and were shown into a stately drawing-room, the furniture of which was sufficiently splendid, but rather the worse for wear,--being hired furniture, no doubt. the ambassador shortly appeared, looking venerable, as usual,--or rather more so than usual,--benign, and very pale. his deportment towards ladies is highly agreeable and prepossessing, and he paid very kind attention to s-----, thereby quite confirming her previous good feeling towards him. she thinks that he is much changed since she saw him last, at dinner, at our house,--more infirm, more aged, and with a singular depression in his manner. i, too, think that age has latterly come upon him with great rapidity. he said that miss l------ was going home on the th of october, and that he himself had long purposed going, but had received despatches which obliged him to put off his departure. the president, he said, had just written, requesting him to remain till april, but this he was determined not to do. i rather think that he does really wish to return, and not for any ambitious views concerning the presidency, but from an old man's natural desire to be at home, and among his own people. s----- spoke to him about an order from the lord chamberlain for admission to view the two houses of parliament; and the ambassador drew from his pocket a colored silk handkerchief, and made a knot in it, in order to remind himself to ask the lord chamberlain. the homeliness of this little incident has a sort of propriety and keeping with much of mr. ------'s manner, but i would rather not have him do so before english people. he arranged to send a close carriage for us to come and see him socially this evening. after leaving his house we drove round hyde park, and thence to portland place, where we left cards for mrs. russell sturgis; thence into regent's park, thence home. u---- and j----- accompanied us throughout these drives, but remained in the carriage during our call on mr. ------. in the evening i strolled out, and walked as far as st. paul's,--never getting enough of the bustle of london, which may weary, but can never satisfy me. by night london looks wild and dreamy, and fills me with a sort of pleasant dread. it was a clear evening, with a bright english moon,--that is to say, what we americans should call rather dim. september th.--yesterday, at eleven, i walked towards westminster abbey, and as i drew near the abbey bells were clamorous for joy, chiming merrily, musically, and, obstreperously,--the most rejoicing sound that can be conceived; and we ought to have a chime of bells in every american town and village, were it only to keep alive the celebration of the fourth of july. i conjectured that there might have been another victory over the russians, that perhaps the northern side of sebastopol had surrendered; but soon i saw the riddle that these merry bells were proclaiming. there were a great many private carriages, and a large concourse of loungers and spectators, near the door of the church that stands close under the eaves of the abbey. gentlemen and ladies, gayly dressed, were issuing forth, carriages driving away, and others drawing up to the door in their turn; and, in short, a marriage had just been celebrated in the church, and this was the wedding-party. the last time i was there, westminster was flinging out its great voice of joy for a national triumph; now, for the happy union of two lovers. what a mighty sympathizer is this old abbey! it is pleasant to recognize the mould and fashion of english features through the marble of many of the statues and busts in the abbey, even though they may be clad in roman robes. i am inclined to think them, in many cases, faithful likenesses; and it brings them nearer to the mind, to see these original sculptures,--you see the man at but one remove, as if you caught his image in a looking-glass. the bust of gay seemed to me very good,--a thoughtful and humorous sweetness in the face. goldsmith has as good a position as any poet in the abbey, his bust and tablet filling the pointed arch over a door that seems to lead towards the cloisters. no doubt he would have liked to be assured of so conspicuous a place. there is one monument to a native american, "charles wragg, esq., of south carolina,"--the only one, i suspect, in westminster abbey, and he acquired this memorial by the most un-american of qualities, his loyalty to his king. he was one of the refugees leaving america in , and being shipwrecked on his passage the monument was put up by his sister. it is a small tablet with a representation of mr. wragg's shipwreck at the base. next to it is the large monument of sir cloudesley shovel, which i think addison ridicules,--the admiral, in a full-bottomed wig and roman dress, but with a broad english face, reclining with his head on his hand, and looking at you with great placidity. i stood at either end of the nave, and endeavored to take in the full beauty and majesty of the edifice; but apparently was not in a proper state of mind, for nothing came of it. it is singular how like an avenue of overarching trees are these lofty aisles of a cathedral. leaving the abbey about one o'clock, i walked into the city as far as grace church street, and there called on the american consul, general ------, who had been warmly introduced to me last year by a letter from the president. i like the general; a kindly and honorable man, of simple manners and large experience of life. afterwards i called on mr. oakford, an american connected in business with mr. crosby, from whom i wanted some information as to the sailing of steamers from southampton to lisbon. mr. crosby was not in town. . . . . at eight o'clock mr. ------ sent his carriage, according to previous arrangement, to take us to spend the evening socially. miss l------ received us with proper cordiality, and looked quite becomingly,--more sweet and simple in aspect than when i have seen her in full dress. shortly the ambassador appeared, and made himself highly agreeable; not that he is a brilliant conversationist, but his excellent sense and good-humor, and all that he has seen and been a part of, are sufficient resources to draw upon. we talked of the queen, whom he spoke of with high respect; . . . . of the late czar, whom he knew intimately while minister to russia,--and he quite confirms all that has been said about the awful beauty of his person. mr. ------'s characterization of him was quite favorable; he thought better of his heart than most people, and adduced his sports with a school of children,--twenty of whom, perhaps, he made to stand rigidly in a row, like so many bricks,--then, giving one a push, would laugh obstreperously to see the whole row tumble down. he would lie on his back, and allow the little things to scramble over him. his majesty admitted mr. ------ to great closeness of intercourse, and informed him of a conspiracy which was then on foot for the czar's murder. on the evening, when the assassination was to take place, the czar did not refrain from going to the public place where it was to be perpetrated, although, indeed, great precautions had been taken to frustrate the schemes of the conspirators. mr. ------ said, that, in case the plot had succeeded, all the foreigners, including himself, would likewise have been murdered, the native russians having a bitter hatred against foreigners. he observed that he had been much attached to the czar, and had never joined in the english abuse of him. his sympathies, however, are evidently rather english than russian, in this war. speaking of the present emperor, he said that lord heytebury, formerly english ambassador in russia, lately told him that he complimented the czar nicholas on the good qualities of his son, saying that he was acknowledged by all to be one of the most amiable youths in the world. "too amiable, i fear, for his position," answered the czar. "he has too much of his mother in him." september th.--yesterday, much earlier than english people ever do such things, general ------ made us a call on his way to the consulate, and sat talking a stricken hour or thereabouts. scarcely had he gone when mrs. oakford and her daughter came. after sitting a long while, they took u---- to their house, near st. john's wood, to spend the night. i had been writing my journal and official correspondence during such intervals as these calls left me; and now, concluding these businesses, s-----, j-----, and i went out and took a cab for the terminus of the crystal palace railway, whither we proceeded over waterloo bridge, and reached the palace not far from three o'clock. it was a beautifully bright day, such as we have in wonderful succession this month. the crystal palace gleamed in the sunshine; but i do not think a very impressive edifice can be built of glass,--light and airy, to be sure, but still it will be no other than an overgrown conservatory. it is unlike anything else in england; uncongenial with the english character, without privacy, destitute of mass, weight, and shadow, unsusceptible of ivy, lichens, or any mellowness from age. the train of carriages stops within the domain of the palace, where there is a long ascending corridor up into the edifice. there was a very pleasant odor of heliotrope diffused through the air; and, indeed, the whole atmosphere of the crystal palace is sweet with various flower-scents, and mild and balmy, though sufficiently fresh and cool. it would be a delightful climate for invalids to spend the winter in; and if all england could be roofed over with glass, it would be a great improvement on its present condition. the first thing we did, before fairly getting into the palace, was to sit down in a large ante-hall, and get some bread and butter and a pint of bass's pale ale, together with a cup of coffee for s-----. this was the best refreshment we could find at that spot; but farther within we found abundance of refreshment-rooms, and john bull and his wife and family at fifty little round tables, busily engaged with cold fowl, cold beef, ham, tongue, and bottles of ale and stout, and half-pint decanters of sherry. the english probably eat with more simple enjoyment than any other people; not ravenously, as we often do, and not exquisitely and artificially, like the french, but deliberately and vigorously, and with due absorption in the business, so that nothing good is lost upon them. . . . . it is remarkable how large a feature the refreshment-rooms make in the arrangements of the crystal palace. the crystal palace is a gigantic toy for the english people to play with. the design seems to be to reproduce all past ages, by representing the features of their interior architecture, costume, religion, domestic life, and everything that can be expressed by paint and plaster; and, likewise, to bring all climates and regions of the earth within these enchanted precincts, with their inhabitants and animals in living semblance, and their vegetable productions, as far as possible, alive and real. some part of the design is already accomplished to a wonderful degree. the indian, the egyptian, and especially the arabian, courts are admirably executed. i never saw or conceived anything so gorgeous as the alhambra. there are byzantine and mediaeval representations, too,-- reproductions of ancient apartments, decorations, statues from tombs, monuments, religious and funereal,--that gave me new ideas of what antiquity has been. it takes down one's overweening opinion of the present time, to see how many kinds of beauty and magnificence have heretofore existed, and are now quite passed away and forgotten; and to find that we, who suppose that, in all matters of taste, our age is the very flower-season of the time,--that we are poor and meagre as to many things in which they were rich. there is nothing gorgeous now. we live a very naked life. this was the only reflection i remember making, as we passed from century to century, through the succession of classic, oriental, and mediaeval courts, adown the lapse of time,--seeing all these ages in as brief a space as the wandering jew might glance along them in his memory. i suppose a pompeian house with its courts and interior apartments was as faithfully shown as it was possible to do it. i doubt whether i ever should feel at home in such a house. in the pool of a fountain, of which there are several beautiful ones within the palace, besides larger ones in the garden before it, we saw tropical plants growing,--large water-lilies of various colors, some white, like our concord pond-lily, only larger, and more numerously leafed. there were great circular green leaves, lying flat on the water, with a circumference equal to that of a centre-table. tropical trees, too, varieties of palm and others, grew in immense pots or tubs, but seemed not to enjoy themselves much. the atmosphere must, after all, be far too cool to bring out their native luxuriance; and this difficulty can never be got over at a less expense than that of absolutely stewing the visitors and attendants. otherwise, it would be very practicable to have all the vegetable world, at least, within these precincts. the palace is very large, and our time was short, it being desirable to get home early; so, after a stay of little more than two hours, we took the rail back again, and reached hanover square at about six. after tea i wandered forth, with some thought of going to the theatre, and, passing the entrance of one, in the strand, i went in, and found a farce in progress. it was one of the minor theatres, very minor indeed; but the pieces, so far as i saw them, were sufficiently laughable. there were some spanish dances, too, very graceful and pretty. between the plays a girl from the neighboring saloon came to the doors of the boxes, offering lemonade and ginger-beer to the occupants. a person in my box took a glass of lemonade, and shared it with a young lady by his side, both sipping out of the same glass. the audience seemed rather heavy,--not briskly responsive to the efforts of the performers, but good-natured, and willing to be pleased, especially with some patriotic dances, in which much waving and intermingling of the french and english flags was introduced. theatrical performances soon weary me of late years; and i came away before the curtain rose on the concluding piece. september th.-- ---- and i walked to charing cross yesterday forenoon, and there took a hansom cab to st. paul's cathedral. it had been a thick, foggy morning, but had warmed and brightened into one of the balmiest and sunniest of noons. as we entered the cathedral, the long bars of sunshine were falling from its upper windows through the great interior atmosphere, and were made visible by the dust, or mist, floating about in it. it is a grand edifice, and i liked it quite as much as on my first view of it, although a sense of coldness and nakedness is felt when we compare it with gothic churches. it is more an external work than the gothic churches are, and is not so made out of the dim, awful, mysterious, grotesque, intricate nature of man. but it is beautiful and grand. i love its remote distances, and wide, clear spaces, its airy massiveness; its noble arches, its sky-like dome, which, i think, should be all over light, with ground-glass, instead of being dark, with only diminutive windows. we walked round, looking at the monuments, which are so arranged, at the bases of columns and in niches, as to coincide with the regularity of the cathedral, and be each an additional ornament to the whole, however defective individually as works of art. we thought that many of these monuments were striking and impressive, though there was a pervading sameness of idea,--a great many victorys and valors and britannias, and a great expenditure of wreaths, which must have cost victory a considerable sum at any florist's whom she patronizes. a very great majority of the memorials are to naval and military men, slain in bonaparte's wars; men in whom one feels little or no interest (except picton, abercrombie, moore, nelson, of course, and a few others really historic), they having done nothing remarkable, save having been shot, nor shown any more brains than the cannonballs that killed them. all the statues have the dust of years upon then, strewn thickly in the folds of their marble garments, and on any limb stretched horizontally, and on their noses, so that the expression is much obscured. i think the nation might employ people to brush away the dust from the statues of its heroes. but, on the whole, it is very fine to look through the broad arches of the cathedral, and see, at the foot of some distant pillar, a group of sculptured figures, commemorating some man and deed that (whether worth remembering or not) the nation is so happy as to reverence. in westminster abbey, the monuments are so crowded, and so oddly patched together upon the walls, that they are ornamental only in a mural point of view; and, moreover, the quaint and grotesque taste of many of them might well make the spectator laugh,--an effect not likely to be produced by the monuments in st. paul's. but, after all, a man might read the walls of the abbey day after day with ever-fresh interest, whereas the cold propriety of the cathedral would weary him in due time. we did not ascend to the galleries and other points of interest aloft, nor go down into the vaults, where nelson's sarcophagus is shown, and many monuments of the old gothic cathedral, which stood on this site, before the great fire. they say that these lower regions are comfortably warm and dry; but as we walked round in front, within the iron railing of the churchyard, we passed an open door, giving access to the crypt, and it breathed out a chill like death upon us. it is pleasant to stand in the centre of the cathedral, and hear the noise of london, loudest all round this spot,--how it is calmed into a sound as proper to be heard through the aisles as the tones of its own organ. if st. paul's were to be burnt again (having already been bunt and risen three or four times since the sixth century), i wonder whether it would ever be rebuilt in the same spot! i doubt whether the city and the nation are so religious as to consecrate their midmost heart for the site of a church, where land would be so valuable by the square inch. coming from the cathedral, we went through paternoster row, and saw ave mary lane; all this locality appearing to have got its nomenclature from monkish personages. we now took a cab for the british museum, but found this to be one of the days on which strangers are not admitted; so we slowly walked into oxford street, and then strolled homeward, till, coming to a sort of bazaar, we went in and found a gallery of pictures. this bazaar proved to be the pantheon, and the first picture we saw in the gallery was haydon's resurrection of lazarus,--a great height and breadth of canvas, right before you as you ascend the stairs. the face of lazarus is very awful, and not to be forgotten; it is as true as if the painter had seen it, or had been himself the resurrected man and felt it; but the rest of the picture signified nothing, and is vulgar and disagreeable besides. there are several other pictures by haydon in this collection,--the banishment of aristides, nero with his harp, and the conflagration of rome; but the last is perfectly ridiculous, and all of them are exceedingly unpleasant. i should be sorry to live in a house that contained one of them. the best thing of haydon was a hasty dash of a sketch for a small, full-length portrait of wordsworth, sitting on the crag of a mountain. i doubt whether wordsworth's likeness has ever been so poetically brought out. this gallery is altogether of modern painters, and it seems to be a receptacle for pictures by artists who can obtain places nowhere else,--at least, i never heard of their names before. they were very uninteresting, almost without exception, and yet some of the pictures were done cleverly enough. there is very little talent in this world, and what there is, it seems to me, is pretty well known and acknowledged. we don't often stumble upon geniuses in obscure corners. leaving the gallery, we wandered through the rest of the bazaar, which is devoted to the sale of ladies' finery, jewels, perfumes, children's toys, and all manner of small and pretty rubbish. . . . . in the evening i again sallied forth, and lost myself for an hour or two; at last recognizing my whereabouts in tottenham court road. in such quarters of london it seems to be the habit of people to take their suppers in the open air. you see old women at the corners, with kettles of hot water for tea or coffee; and as i passed a butcher's open shop, he was just taking out large quantities of boiled beef, smoking hot. butchers' stands are remarkable for their profuse expenditure of gas; it belches forth from the pipes in great flaring jets of flame, uncovered by any glass, and broadly illuminating the neighborhood. i have not observed that london ever goes to bed. september th.--yesterday we walked to the british museum. a sentinel or two kept guard before the gateway of this extensive edifice in great russell street, and there was a porter at the lodge, and one or two policemen lounging about, but entrance was free, and we walked in without question. officials and policemen were likewise scattered about the great entrance-hall, none of whom, however, interfered with us; so we took whatever way we chose, and wandered about at will. it is a hopeless, and to me, generally, a depressing business to go through an immense multifarious show like this, glancing at a thousand things, and conscious of some little titillation of mind from them, but really taking in nothing, and getting no good from anything. one need not go beyond the limits of the british museum to be profoundly accomplished in all branches of science, art, and literature; only it would take a lifetime to exhaust it in any one department; but to see it as we did, and with no prospect of ever seeing it more at leisure, only impressed me with the truth of the old apothegm, "life is short, and art is long." the fact is, the world is accumulating too many materials for knowledge. we do not recognize for rubbish what is really rubbish; and under this head might be reckoned very many things one sees in the british museum; and, as each generation leaves its fragments and potsherds behind it, such will finally be the desperate conclusion of the learned. we went first among some antique marbles,--busts, statues, terminal gods, with several of the roman emperors among them. we saw here the bust whence haydon took his ugly and ridiculous likeness of nero,--a foolish thing to do. julius caesar was there, too, looking more like a modern old man than any other bust in the series. perhaps there may be a universality in his face, that gives it this independence of race and epoch. we glimpsed along among the old marbles,--elgin and others, which are esteemed such treasures of art;--the oddest fragments, many of them smashed by their fall from high places, or by being pounded to pieces by barbarians, or gnawed away by time; the surface roughened by being rained upon for thousands of years; almost always a nose knocked off; sometimes a headless form; a great deficiency of feet and hands,--poor, maimed veterans in this hospital of incurables. the beauty of the most perfect of them must be rather guessed at, and seen by faith, than with the bodily eye; to look at the corroded faces and forms is like trying to see angels through mist and cloud. i suppose nine tenths of those who seem to be in raptures about these fragments do not really care about them; neither do i. and if i were actually moved, i should doubt whether it were by the statues or by my own fancy. we passed, too, through assyrian saloons and egyptian saloons,--all full of monstrosities and horrible uglinesses, especially the egyptian, and all the innumerable relics that i saw of them in these saloons, and among the mummies, instead of bringing me closer to them, removed me farther and farther; there being no common ground of sympathy between them and us. their gigantic statues are certainly very curious. i saw a hand and arm up to the shoulder fifteen feet in length, and made of some stone that seemed harder and heavier than granite, not having lost its polish in all the rough usage that it has undergone. there was a fist on a still larger scale, almost as big as a hogshead. hideous, blubber-lipped faces of giants, and human shapes with beasts' heads on them. the egyptian controverted nature in all things, only using it as a groundwork to depict, the unnatural upon. their mummifying process is a result of this tendency. we saw one very perfect mummy,--a priestess, with apparently only one more fold of linen betwixt us and her antique flesh, and this fitting closely to her person from head to foot, so that we could see the lineaments of her face and the shape of her limbs as perfectly as if quite bare. i judge that she may have been very beautiful in her day,--whenever that was. one or two of the poor thing's toes (her feet were wonderfully small and delicate) protruded from the linen, and, perhaps, not having been so perfectly embalmed, the flesh had fallen away, leaving only some little bones. i don't think this young woman has gained much by not turning to dust in the time of the pharaohs. we also saw some bones of a king that had been taken out of a pyramid; a very fragmentary skeleton. among the classic marbles i peeped into an urn that once contained the ashes of dead people, and the bottom still had an ashy hue. i like this mode of disposing of dead bodies; but it would be still better to burn them and scatter the ashes, instead of hoarding them up,--to scatter them over wheat-fields or flowerbeds. besides these antique halls, we wandered through saloons of antediluvian animals, some set up in skeletons, others imprisoned in solid stone; also specimens of still extant animals, birds, reptiles, shells, minerals,-- the whole circle of human knowledge and guess-work,--till i wished that the whole past might be swept away, and each generation compelled to bury and destroy whatever it had produced, before being permitted to leave the stage. when we quit a house, we are expected to make it clean for the next occupant; why ought we not to leave a clean world for the next generation? we did not see the library of above half a million of volumes; else i suppose i should have found full occasion to wish that burnt and buried likewise. in truth, a greater part of it is as good as buried, so far as any readers are concerned. leaving the museum, we sauntered home. after a little rest, i set out for st. john's wood, and arrived thither by dint of repeated inquiries. it is a pretty suburb, inhabited by people of the middling class. u---- met me joyfully, but seemed to have had a good time with mrs. oakford and her daughter; and, being pressed to stay to tea, i could not well help it. before tea i sat talking with mrs. oakford and a friend of hers, miss clinch, about the americans and the english, especially dwelling on the defects of the latter,--among which we reckoned a wretched meanness in money transactions, a lack of any embroidery of honor and liberality in their dealings, so that they require close watching, or they will be sure to take you at advantage. i hear this character of them from americans on all hands, and my own experience confirms it as far as it goes, not merely among tradespeople, but among persons who call themselves gentlefolks. the cause, no doubt, or one cause, lies in the fewer chances of getting money here, the closer and sharper regulation of all the modes of life; nothing being left to liberal and gentlemanly feelings, except fees to servants. they are not gamblers in england, as we to some extent are; and getting their money painfully, or living within an accurately known income, they are disinclined to give up so much as a sixpence that they can possibly get. but the result is, they are mean in petty things. by and by mr. oakford came in, well soaked with the heaviest shower that i ever knew in england, which had been rattling on the roof of the little side room where we sat, and had caught him on the outside of the omnibus. at a little before eight o'clock i came home with u---- in a cab,--the gaslight glittering on the wet streets through which we drove, though the sky was clear overhead. september th.--yesterday, a little before twelve, we took a cab, and went to the two houses of parliament,--the most immense building, methinks, that ever was built; and not yet finished, though it has now been occupied for years. its exterior lies hugely along the ground, and its great unfinished tower is still climbing towards the sky; but the result (unless it be the riverfront, which i have not yet seen) seems not very impressive. the interior is much more successful. nothing can be more magnificent and gravely gorgeous than the chamber of peers,--a large oblong hall, panelled with oak, elaborately carved, to the height of perhaps twenty feet. then the balustrade of the gallery runs around the hall, and above the gallery are six arched windows on each side, richly painted with historic subjects. the roof is ornamented and gilded, and everywhere throughout there is embellishment of color and carving on the broadest scale, and, at the same time, most minute and elaborate; statues of full size in niches aloft; small heads of kings, no bigger than a doll; and the oak is carved in all parts of the panelling as faithfully as they used to do it in henry vii's time,--as faithfully and with as good workmanship, but with nothing like the variety and invention which i saw in the dining-room of smithell's hall. there the artist wrought with his heart and head; but much of this work, i suppose, was done by machinery. be that as it may, it is a most noble and splendid apartment, and, though so fine, there is not a touch of finery; it glistens and glows with even a sombre magnificence, owing to the rich, deep lines, and the dim light, bedimmed with rich colors by coming through the painted windows. in arched recesses, that serve as frames, at each end of the hall, there are three pictures by modern artists from english history; and though it was not possible to see them well as pictures, they adorned and enriched the walls marvellously as architectural embellishments. the peers' seats are four rows of long sofas on each side, covered with red morocco; comfortable seats enough, but not adapted to any other than a decorously exact position. the woolsack is between these two divisions of sofas, in the middle passage of the floor,--a great square seat, covered with scarlet, and with a scarlet cushion set up perpendicularly for the chancellor to lean against. in front of the woolsack there is another still larger ottoman, on which he might be at full length,--for what purpose intended, i know not. i should take the woolsack to be not a very comfortable seat, though i suppose it was originally designed to be the most comfortable one that could be contrived, in view of the chancellor's much sitting. the throne is the first object you see on entering the hall, being close to the door; a chair of antique form, with a high, peaked back, and a square canopy above, the whole richly carved and quite covered with burnished gilding, besides being adorned with rows of rock crystals,-- which seemed to me of rather questionable taste. it is less elevated above the floor than one imagines it ought to be. while we were looking at it, i saw two americans,--western men, i should judge,--one of them with a true american slouch, talking to the policeman in attendance, and describing our senate chamber in contrast with the house of lords. the policeman smiled and ah-ed, and seemed to make as courteous and liberal responses as he could. there was quite a mixed company of spectators, and, i think, other americans present besides the above two and ourselves. the lord chamberlain's tickets appear to be distributed with great impartiality. there were two or three women of the lower middle class, with children or babies in arms, one of whom lifted up its voice loudly in the house of peers. we next, after long contemplating this rich hall, proceeded through passages and corridors to a great central room, very beautiful, which seems to be used for purposes of refreshment, and for electric telegraphs; though i should not suppose this could be its primitive and ultimate design. thence we went into the house of commons, which is larger than the chamber of peers, and much less richly ornamented, though it would have appeared splendid had it come first in order. the speaker's chair, if i remember rightly, is loftier and statelier than the throne itself. both in this hall and in that of the lords, we were at first surprised by the narrow limits within which the great ideas of the lords and commons of england are physically realized; they would seem to require a vaster space. when we hear of members rising on opposite sides of the house, we think of them as but dimly discernible to their opponents, and uplifting their voices, so as to be heard afar; whereas they sit closely enough to feel each other's spheres, to note all expression of face, and to give the debate the character of a conversation. in this view a debate seems a much more earnest and real thing than as we read it in a newspaper. think of the debaters meeting each other's eyes, their faces flushing, their looks interpreting their words, their speech growing into eloquence, without losing the genuineness of talk! yet, in fact, the chamber of peers is ninety feet long and half as broad, and high, and the chamber of commons is still larger. thence we went to westminster hall, through a gallery with statues on each side,--beautiful statues too, i thought; seven of them, of which four were from the times of the civil wars,--clarendon, falkland, hampden, selden, somers, mansfield, and walpole. there is room for more in this corridor, and there are niches for hundreds of their marble brotherhood throughout the edifice; but i suppose future ages will have to fill the greater part of them. yet i cannot help imagining that this rich and noble edifice has more to do with the past than with the future; that it is the glory of a declining empire; and that the perfect bloom of this great stone flower, growing out of the institutions of england, forbodes that they have nearly lived out their life. it sums up all. its beauty and magnificence are made out of ideas that are gone by. we entered westminster hall (which is incorporated into this new edifice, and forms an integral part of it) through a lofty archway, whence a double flight of broad steps descends to the stone pavement. after the elaborate ornament of the rooms we had just been viewing, this venerable hall looks extremely simple and bare,--a gray stone floor, gray and naked stone walls, but a roof sufficiently elaborate, its vault being filled with carved beams and rafters of chestnut, very much admired and wondered at for the design and arrangement. i think it would have pleased me more to have seen a clear vaulted roof, instead of this intricacy of wooden points, by which so much skylight space is lost. they make (be it not irreverently said) the vast and lofty apartment look like the ideal of an immense barn. but it is a noble space, and all without the support of a single pillar. it is about eighty of my paces from the foot of the steps to the opposite end of the hall, and twenty-seven from side to side; very high, too, though not quite proportionately to its other dimensions. i love it for its simplicity and antique nakedness, and deem it worthy to have been the haunt and home of history through the six centuries since it was built. i wonder it does not occur to modern ingenuity to make a scenic representation, in this very hall, of the ancient trials for life or death, pomps, feasts, coronations, and every great historic incident in the lives of kings, parliaments, protectors, and all illustrious men, that have occurred here. the whole world cannot show another hall such as this, so tapestried with recollections of whatever is most striking in human annals. westminster abbey being just across the street, we went thither from the hall, and sought out the cloisters, which we had not yet visited. they are in excellent preservation,--broad walks, canopied with intermingled arches of gray stone, on which some sort of lichen, or other growth of ages (which seems, however, to have little or nothing vegetable in it), has grown. the pavement is entirely made of flat tombstones, inscribed with half-effaced names of the dead people beneath; and the wall all round bears the marble tablets which give a fuller record of their virtues. i think it was from a meditation in these cloisters that addison wrote one of his most beautiful pieces in the spectator. it is a pity that this old fashion of a cloistered walk is not retained in our modern edifices; it was so excellent for shelter and for shade during a thoughtful hour,--this sombre corridor beneath an arched stone roof, with the central space of richest grass, on which the sun might shine or the shower fall, while the monk or student paced through the prolonged archway of his meditations. as we came out from the cloisters, and walked along by the churchyard of the abbey, a woman came begging behind us very earnestly. "a bit of bread," she said, "and i will give you a thousand blessings! hunger is hard to bear. o kind gentleman and kind lady, a penny for a bit of bread! it is a hard thing that gentlemen and ladies should see poor people wanting bread, and make no difference whether they are good or bad." and so she followed us almost all round the abbey, assailing our hearts in most plaintive terms, but with no success; for she did it far too well to be anything but an impostor, and no doubt she had breakfasted better, and was likely to have a better dinner, than ourselves. and yet the natural man cries out against the philosophy that rejects beggars. it is a thousand to one that they are impostors, but yet we do ourselves a wrong by hardening our hearts against them. at last, without turning round, i told her that i should give her nothing,--with some asperity, doubtless, for the effort to refuse creates a bitterer repulse than is necessary. she still followed us a little farther, but at last gave it up, with a deep groan. i could not have performed this act of heroism on my first arrival from america. whether the beggar-woman had invoked curses on us, and heaven saw fit to grant some slight response, i know not, but it now began to rain on my wife's velvet; so i put her and j----- into a cab, and hastened to ensconce myself in westminster abbey while the shower should last. poets' corner has never seemed like a strange place to me; it has been familiar from the very first; at all events, i cannot now recollect the previous conception, of which the reality has taken the place. i seem always to have known that somewhat dim corner, with the bare brown stone-work of the old edifice aloft, and a window shedding down its light on the marble busts and tablets, yellow with time, that cover the three walls of the nook up to a height of about twenty feet. prior's is the largest and richest monument. it is observable that the bust and monument of congreve are in a distant part of the abbey. his duchess probably thought it a degradation to bring a gentleman among the beggarly poets. i walked round the aisles, and paced the nave, and came to the conclusion that westminster abbey, both in itself and for the variety and interest of its monuments, is a thousand times preferable to st. paul's. there is as much difference as between a snow-bank and a chimney-corner in their relation to the human heart. by the by, the monuments and statues in the abbey seem all to be carefully dusted. the shower being over, i walked down into the city, where i called on mr. b------ and left s-----'s watch to be examined and put in order. he told me that he and his brother had lately been laying out and letting a piece of land at blackheath, that had been left them by their father, and that the ground-rent would bring them in two thousand pounds per annum. with such an independent income, i doubt whether any american would consent to be anything but a gentleman,--certainly not an operative watchmaker. how sensible these englishmen are in some things! thence i went at a venture, and lost myself, of course. at one part of my walk i came upon st. luke's hospital, whence i returned to st. paul's, and thence along fleet street and the strand. contiguous to the latter is holywell street,--a narrow lane, filled up with little bookshops and bookstalls, at some of which i saw sermons and other works of divinity, old editions of classics, and all such serious matters, while at stalls and windows close beside them (and, possibly, at the same stalls) there were books with title-pages displayed, indicating them to be of the most indecent kind. october d.--yesterday forenoon i went with j----- into the city to grace church street, to get a bank post-note cashed by mr. oakford, and afterwards to the offices of two lines of steamers, in moorgate street and leadenhall street. the city was very much thronged. it is a marvel what sets so many people a going at all hours of the day. then it is to be considered that these are but a small portion of those who are doing the business of the city; much the larger part being occupied in offices at desks, in discussions of plans of enterprise, out of sight of the public, while these earnest hurriers are merely the froth in the pot. after seeing the steam-officials, we went to london bridge, which always swarms with more passengers than any of the streets. descending the steps that lead to the level of the thames, we took passage in a boat bound up the river to chelsea, of which there is one starting every ten minutes, the voyage being of forty minutes' duration. it began to sprinkle a little just as we started; but after a slight showeriness, lasting till we had passed westminster bridge, the day grew rather pleasant. at westminster bridge we had a good view of the river-front of the two houses of parliament, which look very noble from this point,--a long and massive extent, with a delightful promenade for the legislative people exactly above the margin of the river. this is certainly a magnificent edifice, and yet i doubt whether it is so impressive as it might and ought to have been made, considering its immensity. it makes no more impression than you can well account to yourself for, and you rather wonder that it does not make more. the reason must be that the architect has not "builded better than he knew." he felt no power higher and wiser than himself, making him its instrument. he reckoned upon and contrived all his effects with malice aforethought, and therefore missed the crowning glory,--that being a happiness which god, out of his pure grace, mixes up with only the simple-hearted, best efforts of men. october d.--i again went into the city yesterday forenoon, to settle about the passages to lisbon, taking j----- with me. from hungerford bridge we took the steamer to london bridge, that being an easy and speedy mode of accomplishing distances that take many footsteps through the crowded thoroughfares. after leaving the steamer-office, we went back through the strand, and, crossing waterloo bridge, walked a good way on to the surrey side of the river; a coarse, dingy, disagreeable suburb, with shops apparently for country produce, for old clothes, second-hand furniture, for ironware, and other things bulky and inelegant. how many scenes and sorts of life are comprehended within london! there was much in the aspect of these streets that reminded me of a busy country village in america on an immensely magnified scale. growing rather weary anon, we got into an omnibus, which took us as far as the surrey zoological gardens, which j----- wished very much to see. they proved to be a rather poor place of suburban amusement; poor, at least, by daylight, their chief attraction for the public consisting in out-of-door representations of battles and sieges. the storming of sebastopol (as likewise at the cremorne gardens) was advertised for the evening, and we saw the scenery of sebastopol, painted on a vast scale, in the open air, and really looking like miles and miles of hill and water; with a space for the actual manoeuvring of ships on a sheet of real water in front of the scene, on which some ducks were now swimming about, in place of men-of-war. the climate of england must often interfere with this sort of performance; and i can conceive of nothing drearier for spectators or performers than a drizzly evening. convenient to this central spot of entertainment there were liquor and refreshment rooms, with pies and cakes. the menagerie, though the ostensible staple of the gardens, is rather poor and scanty; pretty well provided with lions and lionesses, also one or two giraffes, some camels, a polar bear,--who plunged into a pool of water for bits of cake,--and two black bears, who sat on their haunches or climbed poles; besides a wilderness of monkeys, some parrots and macaws, an ostrich, various ducks, and other animal and ornithological trumpery; some skins of snakes so well stuffed that i took them for living serpents till j----- discovered the deception, and an aquarium, with a good many common fishes swimming among sea-weed. the garden is shaded with trees, and set out with greensward and gravel-walks, from which the people were sweeping the withered autumnal leaves, which now fall every day. plaster statues stand here and there, one of them without a head, thus disclosing the hollowness of the trunk; there were one or two little drizzly fountains, with the water dripping over the rock-work, of which the english are so fond; and the buildings for the animals and other purposes had a flimsy, pasteboard aspect of pretension. the garden was in its undress; few visitors, i suppose, coming hither at this time of day,--only here and there a lady and children, a young man and girl, or a couple of citizens, loitering about. i take pains to remember these small items, because they suggest the day-life or torpidity of what may look very brilliant at night. these corked-up fountains, slovenly greensward, cracked casts of statues, pasteboard castles, and duck-pond bay of balaclava then shining out in magic splendor, and the shabby attendants whom we saw sweeping and shovelling probably transformed into the heroes of sebastopol. j----- thought it a delightful place; but i soon grew very weary, and came away about four o'clock, and, getting into a city omnibus, we alighted on the hither side of blackfriar's bridge. turning into fleet street, i looked about for a place to dine at, and chose the mitre tavern, in memory of johnson and boswell. it stands behind a front of modern shops, through which is an archway, giving admittance into a narrow court-yard, which, i suppose, was formerly open to fleet street. the house is of dark brick, and, comparing it with other london edifices, i should take it to have been at least refronted since johnson's time; but within, the low, sombre coffee-room which we entered might well enough have been of that era or earlier. it seems to be a good, plain, respectable inn; and the waiter gave us each a plate of boiled beef, and, for dessert, a damson tart, which made up a comfortable dinner. after dinner, we zigzagged homeward through clifford's link passage, holborn, drury lane, the strand, charing cross, pall mall, and regent street; but i remember only an ancient brick gateway as particularly remarkable. i think it was the entrance to lincoln's inn. we reached home at about six. there is a woman who has several times passed through this hanover street, in which we live, stopping occasionally to sing songs under the windows; and last evening, between nine and ten o'clock, she came and sang "kathleen o'moore" richly and sweetly. her voice rose up out of the dim, chill street, and made our hearts throb in unison with it as we sat in our comfortable drawing-room. i never heard a voice that touched me more deeply. somebody told her to go away, and she stopped like a nightingale suddenly shot; but, finding that s----- wished to know something about her, fanny and one of the maids ran after her, and brought her into the hall. it seems she was educated to sing at the opera, and married an italian opera-singer, who is now dead; lodging in a model lodging-house at threepence a night, and being a penny short to-night, she tried this method, in hope of getting this penny. she takes in plain sewing when she can get any, and picks up a trifle about the street by means of her voice, which, she says, was once sweet, but has now been injured by the poorness of her living. she is a pale woman, with black eyes, fanny says, and may have been pretty once, but is not so now. it seems very strange, that with such a gift of heaven, so cultivated, too, as her voice is, making even an unsusceptible heart vibrate like a harp-string, she should not have had an engagement among the hundred theatres and singing-rooms of london; that she should throw away her melody in the streets for the mere chance of a penury, when sounds not a hundredth part so sweet are worth from other lips purses of gold. october th.--it rained almost all day on wednesday, so that i did not go out till late in the afternoon, and then only took a stroll along oxford street and holborn, and back through fleet street and the strand. yesterday, at a little after ten, i went to the ambassador's to get my wife's passport for lisbon. while i was talking with the clerk, mr. ------ made his appearance in a dressing-gown, with a morning cheerfulness and alacrity in his manner. he was going to liverpool with his niece, who returns to america by the steamer of saturday. she has had a good deal of success in society here; being pretty enough to be remarked among english women, and with cool, self-possessed, frank, and quiet manners, which look very like the highest breeding. i next went to westminster abbey, where i had long promised myself another quiet visit; for i think i never could be weary of it; and when i finally leave england, it will be this spot which i shall feel most unwilling to quit forever. i found a party going through the seven chapels (or whatever their number may be), and again saw those stately and quaint old tombs,--ladies and knights stretched out on marble slabs, or beneath arches and canopies of stone, let into the walls of the abbey, reclining on their elbows, in ruff and farthingale or riveted armor, or in robes of state, once painted in rich colors, of which only a few patches of scarlet now remain; bearded faces of noble knights, whose noses, in many cases, had been smitten off; and mary, queen of scots, had lost two fingers of her beautiful hands, which she is clasping in prayer. there must formerly have been very free access to these tombs; for i observed that all the statues (so far as i examined them) were scratched with the initials of visitors, some of the names being dated above a century ago. the old coronation-chair, too, is quite covered, over the back and seat, with initials cut into it with pocket-knives, just as yankees would do it; only it is not whittled away, as would have been its fate in our hands. edward the confessor's shrine, which is chiefly of wood, likewise abounds in these inscriptions, although this was esteemed the holiest shrine in england, so that pilgrims still come to kneel and kiss it. our guide, a rubicund verger of cheerful demeanor, said that this was true in a few instances. there is a beautiful statue in memory of horace walpole's mother; and i took it to be really a likeness, till the verger said that it was a copy of a statue which her son had admired in italy, and so had transferred it to his mother's grave. there is something characteristic in this mode of filial duty and honor. in all these chapels, full of the tombs and effigies of kings, dukes, arch-prelates, and whatever is proud and pompous in mortality, there is nothing that strikes me more than the colossal statue of plain mr. watt, sitting quietly in a chair, in st. paul's chapel, and reading some papers. he dwarfs the warriors and statesmen; and as to the kings, we smile at them. telford is in another of the chapels. this visit to the chapels was much more satisfactory than my former one; although i in vain strove to feel it adequately, and to make myself sensible how rich and venerable was what i saw. this realization must come at its own time, like the other happinesses of life. it is unaccountable that i could not now find the seat of sir george downing's squire, though i examined particularly every seat on that side of henry vii's chapel, where i before found it. i must try again. . . . . october th.--yesterday was not an eventful day. i took j----- with me to the city, called on mr. sturgis at the barings' house, and got his checks for a bank post-note. the house is at bishopsgate street, within. it has no sign of any kind, but stands back from the street, behind an iron-grated fence. the firm appears to occupy the whole edifice, which is spacious, and fit for princely merchants. thence i went and paid for the passages to lisbon ( pounds) at the peninsular steam company's office, and thence to call on general ------. i forgot to mention, that, first of all, i went to mr. b------'s, whom i found kind and vivacious as usual. it now rained heavily, and, being still showery when we came to cheapside again, we first stood under an archway (a usual resort for passengers through london streets), and then betook ourselves to sanctuary, taking refuge in st. paul's cathedral. the afternoon service was about to begin, so, after looking at a few of the monuments, we sat down in the choir, the richest and most ornamented part of the cathedral, with screens or partitions of oak, cunningly carved. small white-robed choristers were flitting noiselessly about, making preparations for the service, which by and by began. it is a beautiful idea, that, several times in the course of the day, a man can slip out of the thickest throng and bustle of london into this religious atmosphere, and hear the organ, and the music of young, pure voices; but, after all, the rites are lifeless in our day. we found, on emerging, that we had escaped a very heavy shower, and it still sprinkled and misted as we went homeward through holborn and oxford street. southampton october th.--we all left london on sunday morning, between ten and eleven, from the waterloo station, and arrived in southampton about two, without meeting with anything very remarkable on the way. we put up at chapple's castle hotel, which is one of the class styled "commercial," and, though respectable, not such a one as the nobility and gentry usually frequent. i saw little difference in the accommodation, except that young women attended us instead of men,--a pleasant change. it was a showery day, but j----- and i walked out to see the shore and the town and the docks, and, if possible, the ship in which s----- was to sail. the most noteworthy object was the remains of an old castle, near the water-side; the square, gray, weed grown, weird keep of which shows some modern chimney-pots above its battlements, while remaining portions of the fortress are made to seem as one of the walls for coal-depots, and perhaps for small dwellings. the english characteristically patch new things into old things in this manner, materially, legally, constitutionally, and morally. walking along the pier, we observed some pieces of ordnance, one of which was a large brass cannon of henry viii.'s time, about twelve feet long, and very finely made. the bay of southampton presents a pleasant prospect, and i believe it is the great rendezvous of the yacht-club. old and young seafaring people were strolling about, and lounging at corners, just as they do on sunday afternoons in the minor seaports of america. from the shore we went up into the town, which is handsome, and of a cheerful aspect, with streets generally wide and well paved,--a cleanly town, not smoke-begrimed. the houses, if not modern, are, at least with few exceptions, new fronted. we saw one relic of antiquity,--a fine mediaeval gateway across the principal street, much more elevated than the gates of chester, with battlements at the top, and a spacious apartment over the great arch for the passage of carriages, and the smaller one on each side for foot-passengers. there were two statues in armor or antique costume on the hither side of the gateway, and two old paintings on the other. this, so far as i know, is the only remnant of the old wall of southampton. on monday the morning was bright, alternating with a little showeriness. u----, j-----, and i went into the town to do some shopping before the steamer should sail; and a little after twelve we drove down to the dock. the madeira is a pleasant-looking ship enough, not very large, but accommodating, i believe, about seventy passengers. we looked at my wife's little stateroom, with its three berths for herself and the two children; and then sat down in the saloon, and afterwards on deck, to spend the irksome and dreary hour or two before parting. many of the passengers seemed to be portuguese, undersized, dark, mustachioed people, smoking cigars. john bull was fairly represented too. . . . . u---- was cheerful, and r----- seemed anxious to get off. poor fanny was altogether cast down, and shed tears, either from regret at leaving her native land, or dread of sea-sickness, or general despondency, being a person of no spring of spirits. i waited till the captain came on board, --a middle-aged or rather elderly man, with a sensible expression, but, methought, with a hard, cold eye, to whom i introduced my wife, recommending her to his especial care, as she was unattended by any gentleman; and then we thought it best to cut short the parting scene. so we bade one another farewell; and, leaving them on the deck of the vessel, j----- and i returned to the hotel, and, after dining at the table d'hote, drove down to the railway. this is the first great parting that we have ever had. it was three o'clock when we left southampton. in order to get to worcester, where we were to spend the night, we strode, as it were, from one line of railway to another, two or three times, and did not arrive at our journey's end till long after dark. at worcester we put ourselves into the hands of a cabman, who drove us to the crown hotel,--one of the old-fashioned hotels, with an entrance through an arched passage, by which vehicles were admitted into the inn-yard, which has also an exit, i believe, into another street. on one side of the arch was the coffee-room, where, after looking at our sleeping-chambers on the other side of the arch, we had some cold pigeon-pie for supper, and for myself a pint of ale. it should be mentioned, that, in the morning, before embarking s----- and the children on board the steamer, i saw a fragment of a rainbow among the clouds, and remembered the old adage bidding "sailors take warning." in the afternoon, as j----- and i were railing from southampton, we saw another fragmentary rainbow, which, by the same adage, should be the "sailor's delight." the weather has rather tended to confirm the first omen, but the sea-captains tell me that the steamer must have gone beyond the scope of these winds. worcester. october th.---in the morning of tuesday, after breakfast in the coffee-room, j----- and i walked about to see the remarkables of worcester. it is not a particularly interesting city, compared with other old english cities; the general material of the houses being red brick, and almost all modernized externally, whatever may be the age of their original framework. we saw a large brick jail in castellated style, with battlements,--a very barren and dreary-looking edifice; likewise, in the more central part of the town, a guildhall with a handsome front, ornamented with a statue of queen anne above the entrance, and statues of charles i. and charles ii. on either side of the door, with the motto, "floreat semper civitas fidelis." worcester seems to pride itself upon its loyalty. we entered the building, and in the large interior hall saw some old armor hanging on the wall at one end,-- corselets, helmets, greaves, and a pair of breeches of chain mail. an inscription told us that these suits of armor had been left by charles i. after the battle of worcester, and presented to the city at a much later date by a gentleman of the neighborhood. on the stone floor of the hall, under the armor, were two brass cannon, one of which had been taken from the french in a naval battle within the present century; the other was a beautiful piece, bearing, i think, the date of , and manufactured in brussels for the count de burgh, as a latin inscription testified. this likewise was a relic of the battle of worcester, where it had been lost by charles. many gentlemen--connected with the city government, i suppose--were passing through the hall; and, looking through its interior doors, we saw stately staircases and council-rooms panelled with oak or other dark wood. there seems to be a good deal of state in the government of these old towns. worcester cathedral would have impressed me much had i seen it earlier; though its aspect is less venerable than that of chester or lichfield, having been faithfully renewed and repaired, and stone-cutters and masons were even now at work on the exterior. at our first visit, we found no entrance; but coming again at ten o'clock, when the service was to begin, we found the door open, and the chorister-boys, in their white robes, standing in the nave and aisles, with elder people in the same garb, and a few black-robed ecclesiastics and an old verger. the interior of the cathedral has been covered with a light-colored paint at some recent period. there is, as i remember, very little stained glass to enrich and bedim the light; and the effect produced is a naked, daylight aspect, unlike what i have seen in any other gothic cathedral. the plan of the edifice, too, is simple; a nave and side aisles, with great clustered pillars, from which spring the intersecting arches; and, somehow or other, the venerable mystery which i have found in westminster abbey and elsewhere does not lurk in these arches and behind these pillars. the choir, no doubt, is richer and more beautiful; but we did not enter it. i remember two tombs, with recumbent figures on there, between the pillars that divide the nave from the side aisles, and there were also mural monuments,--one, well executed, to an officer slain in the peninsular war, representing him falling from his horse; another by a young widow to her husband, with an inscription of passionate grief, and a record of her purpose finally to sleep beside him. he died in . i did not see on the monument any record of the consummation of her purpose; and so perhaps she sleeps beside a second husband. there are more antique memorials than these two on the wall, and i should have been interested to examine them; but the service was now about to begin in the choir, and at the far-off end of the nave the old verger waved his hand to banish us from the cathedral. at the same time he moved towards us, probably to say that he would show it to us after service; but having little time, and being so moderately impressed with what i had already seen, i took my departure, and so disappointed the old man of his expected shilling or half-crown. the tomb of king john is somewhere in this cathedral. we renewed our rambles through the town, and, passing the museum of the worcester natural history society, i yielded to j-----'s wish to go in. there are three days in the week, i believe, on which it is open to the public; but this being one of the close days, we were admitted on payment of a shilling. it seemed a very good and well-arranged collection in most departments of natural history, and j-----, who takes more interest in these matters than i do, was much delighted. we were left to examine the hall and galleries quite at our leisure. besides the specimens of beasts, birds, shells, fishes, minerals, fossils, insects, and all other natural things before the flood and since, there was a stone bearing a roman inscription, and various antiquities, coins, and medals, and likewise portraits, some of which were old and curious. leaving the museum, we walked down to the stone bridge over the severn, which is here the largest river i have seen in england, except, of course, the mersey and the thames. a flight of steps leads from the bridge down to a walk along the river-side, and this we followed till we reached the spot where an angler was catching chubs and dace, under the walls of the bishop's palace, which here faces the river. it seems to be an old building, but with modern repairs and improvements. the angler had pretty good success while we were looking at him, drawing out two or three silvery fish, and depositing them in his basket, which was already more than half full. the severn is not a transparent stream, and looks sluggish, but has really movement enough to carry the angler's float along pretty fast. there were two vessels of considerable size (that is, as large as small schooners) lying at the bridge. we now passed under an old stone archway, through a lane that led us from the river-side up past the cathedral, whence a gentleman and lady were just emerging, and the verger was closing the door behind them. we returned to our hotel, and ordered luncheon,--some cold chicken, cold ham, and ale, and after paying the bill (about fifteen shillings, to which i added five shillings for attendance) we took our departure in a fly for the railway. the waiter (a young woman), chambermaid, and boots, all favored us with the most benign and deferential looks at parting, whence it was easy to see that i had given them more than they had any claim to receive. nevertheless, this english system of fees has its good side, and i never travel without finding the advantage of it, especially on railways, where the officials are strictly forbidden to take fees, and where, in consequence, a fee secures twice as much good service as anywhere else. be it recorded, that i never knew an englishman to refuse a shilling,--or, for that matter, a halfpenny. from worcester we took tickets to wolverhampton, and thence to birkenhead. it grew dark before we reached chester, and began to rain; and when we got to birkenhead it was a pitiless, pelting storm, under which, on the deck of the steamboat, we crossed the detestable mersey, two years' trial of which has made me detest it every day more and more. it being the night of rejoicing for the taking of sebastopol and the visit of the duke of cambridge, we found it very difficult to get a cab on the liverpool side; but after much waiting in the rain, and afterwards in one of the refreshment-rooms, on the landing stage, we took a hansom and drove off. the cloudy sky reflected the illuminations, and we saw some gas-lighted stars and other devices, as we passed, very pretty, but much marred by the wind and rain. so we finally arrived at mrs. blodgett's, and made a good supper of ham and cold chicken, like our luncheon, after which, wet as we were, and drizzling as the weather was, and though it was two hours beyond his bedtime, i took j----- out to see the illuminations. i wonder what his mother would have said. but the boy must now begin to see life and to feel it. there was a crowd of people in the street; such a crowd that we could hardly make a passage through them, and so many cabs and omnibuses that it was difficult to cross the ways. some of the illuminations were very brilliant; but there was a woful lack of variety and invention in the devices. the star of the garter, which kept flashing out from the continual extinguishment of the wind and rain,--v and a, in capital letters of light,--were repeated a hundred times; as were loyal and patriotic mottoes,--crowns formed by colored lamps. in some instances a sensible tradesman had illuminated his own sign, thereby at once advertising his loyalty and his business. innumerable flags were suspended before the houses and across the streets, and the crowd plodded on, silent, heavy, and without any demonstration of joy, unless by the discharge of pistols close at one's ear. the rain, to be sure, was quite sufficient to damp any joyous ebullition of feeling; but the next day, when the rain had ceased, and when the streets were still thronged with people, there was the same heavy, purposeless strolling from place to place, with no more alacrity of spirit than while it rained. the english do not know how to rejoice; and, in their present circumstances, to say the truth, have not much to rejoice for. we soon came home; but i believe it was nearly, if not quite, eleven. at mrs. blodgett's, mr. archer (surgeon to some prison or house of correction here in liverpool) spoke of an attorney who many years ago committed forgery, and, being apprehended, took a dose of prussic acid. mr. archer came with the stomach-pump, and asked the patient how much prussic acid he had taken. "sir," he replied, attorney-like, "i decline answering that question!" he recovered, and afterwards arrived at great wealth in new south wales. november th.--at dinner at mr. bright's, a week or two ago, mr. robertson gladstone spoke of a magistrate of liverpool, many years since, sir john ------. of a morning, sitting on the bench in the police court, he would take five shillings out of his pocket and say, "here, mr. clerk, so much for my fine. i was drunk last night!" mr. gladstone witnessed this personally. november th.--i went to the north hospital yesterday, to take the deposition of a dying man as to his ill treatment by the second and third mates of the ship assyria, on the voyage from new orleans. this hospital is a very gloomy place, with its wide bleak entries and staircases, which may be very good for summer weather, but which are most congenial at this bleak november season. i found the physicians of the house laughing and talking very cheerfully with mr. wilding, who had preceded me. we went forthwith, up two or three pairs of stairs, to the ward where the sick man lay, and where there were six or eight other beds, in almost each of which was a patient,--narrow beds, shabbily furnished. the man whom i came to see was the only one who was not perfectly quiet; neither was he very restless. the doctor, informing him of my presence, intimated that his disease might be lethal, and that i was come to hear what he had to say as to the causes of his death. afterwards, a testament was sought for, in order to swear him, and i administered the oath, and made him kiss the book. he then (in response to mr. wilding's questions) told how he had been beaten and ill-treated, hanged and thwacked, from the moment he came on board, to which usage he ascribed his death. sometimes his senses seemed to sink away, so that i almost thought him dead; but by and by the questions would appear to reach him, and bring him back, and he went on with his evidence, interspersing it, however, with dying groans, and almost death rattles. in the midst of whatever he was saying, he often recurred to a sum of four dollars and a half, which he said he had put into the hands of the porter of the hospital, and which he wanted to get back. several times he expressed his wish to return to america (of which he was not a native), and, on the whole, i do not think he had any real sense of his precarious condition, notwithstanding that he assented to the doctor's hint to that effect. he sank away so much at one time, that they brought him wine in a tin cup, with a spout to drink out of, and he mustered strength to raise himself in his bed and drink; then hemmed, with rather a disappointed air, as if it did not stimulate and refresh him, as drink ought to do. when he had finished his evidence (which mr. wilding took down in writing from his mouth), he marked his cross at the foot of the paper, and we ceased to torment him with further question. his deposition will probably do no good, so far as the punishment of the persons implicated is concerned; for he appears to have come on board in a sickly state, and never to have been well during the passage. on a pallet, close by his bed, lay another seaman of the same ship, who had likewise been abused by the same men, and bore more ostensible marks of ill usage than this man did, about the head and face. there is a most dreadful state of things aboard our ships. hell itself can be no worse than some of them, and i do pray that some new-englander with the rage of reform in him may turn his thoughts this way. the first step towards better things--the best practicable step for the present--is to legalize flogging on shipboard; thereby doing away with the miscellaneous assaults and batteries, kickings, fisticuffings, ropes'-endings, marline-spikings, which the inferior officers continually perpetrate, as the only mode of keeping up anything like discipline. as in many other instances, philanthropy has overshot itself by the prohibition of flogging, causing the captain to avoid the responsibility of solemn punishment, and leave his mates to make devils of themselves, by habitual and hardly avoidable ill treatment of the seamen. after i left the dying sailor, his features seemed to contract and grow sharp. some young medical students stood about the bed, watching death creep upon him, and anticipating, perhaps, that in a day or two they would have the poor fellow's body on the dissecting-table. dead patients, i believe, undergo this fate, unless somebody chooses to pay their funeral expenses; but the captain of the assyria (who seems to be respectable and kind-hearted, though master of a floating hell) tells me that he means to bury the man at his own cost. this morning there is a note from the surgeon of the hospital, announcing his death, and likewise the dangerous state of his shipmate whom i saw on the pallet beside him. sea-captains call a dress-coat a "claw-hammer." november d.--i went on board the ship william lapscott, lying in the river, yesterday, to take depositions in reference to a homicide committed in new york. i sat on a sofa in the cabin, and mr. wilding at a table, with his writing-materials before him, and the crew were summoned, one by one,--rough, piratical-looking fellows, contrasting strongly with the gewgaw cabin in which i received them. there is no such finery on land as in the cabin of one of these ships in the liverpool trade, finished off with a complete panelling of rosewood, mahogany, and bird's-eye maple, polished and varnished, and gilded along the cornices and the edges of the panels. it is all a piece of elaborate cabinet-work; and one does not altogether see why it should be given to the gales, and the salt-sea atmosphere, to be tossed upon the waves, and occupied by a rude shipmaster in his dreadnaught clothes, when the fairest lady in the land has no such boudoir. a telltale compass hung beneath the skylight, and a clock was fastened near it, and ticked loudly. a stewardess, with the aspect of a woman at home, went in and out of the cabin, about her domestic calls. through the cabin door (it being a house on deck) i could see the arrangement of the ship. the first sailor that i examined was a black-haired, powerful fellow, in an oil-skin jacket, with a good face enough, though he, too, might have been taken for a pirate. in the affray in which the homicide occurred, he had received a cut across the forehead, and another slantwise across his nose, which had quite cut it in two, on a level with the face, and had thence gone downward to his lower jaw. but neither he nor any one else could give any testimony elucidating the matter into which i had come to inquire. a seaman had been stabbed just before the vessel left new york, and had been sent on shore and died there. most of these men were in the affray, and all of then were within a few yards of the spot where it occurred; but those actually present all pleaded that they were so drunk that the whole thing was now like a dream, with no distinct images; and, if any had been sober, they took care to know nothing that could inculpate any individual. perhaps they spoke truth; they certainly had a free and honest-like way of giving their evidence, as if their only object was to tell all the truth they knew. but i rather think, in the forecastle, and during the night-watches, they have whispered to one another a great deal more than they told me, and have come to a pretty accurate conclusion as to the man who gave the stab. while the examination proceeded, there was a drawing of corks in a side closet; and, at its conclusion, the captain asked us to stay to dinner, but we excused ourselves, and drank only a glass of wine. the captain apologized for not joining us, inasmuch as he had drunk no wine for the last seventeen years. he appears to be a particularly good and trustworthy man, and is the only shipmaster whom i have met with, who says that a crew can best be governed by kindness. in the inner closet there was a cage containing two land-birds, who had come aboard him, tired almost to death, three or four hundred miles from shore; and he had fed them and been tender of them, from a sense of what was due to hospitality. he means to give them to j-----. november th.--i have grown wofully aristocratic in my tastes, i fear, since coming to england; at all events, i am conscious of a certain disgust at going to dine in a house with a small entrance-hall and a narrow staircase, parlor with chintz curtains, and all other arrangements on a similar scale. this is pitiable. however, i really do not think i should mind these things, were it not for the bustle, the affectation, the intensity, of the mistress of the house. it is certain that a woman in england is either decidedly a lady or decidedly not a lady. there seems to be no respectable medium. bill of fare: broiled soles, half of a roast pig, a haricot of mutton, stewed oysters, a tart, pears, figs, with sherry and port wine, both good, and the port particularly so. i ate some pig, and could hardly resist the lady's importunities to eat more; though to my fancy it tasted of swill,--had a flavor of the pigsty. on the parlor table were some poor editions of popular books, longfellow's poems and others. the lady affects a literary taste, and bothered me about my own productions. a beautiful subject for a romance, or for a sermon, would be the subsequent life of the young man whom jesus bade to sell all he had and give to the poor; and he went away sorrowful, and is not recorded to have done what he was bid. december th.--this has been a foggy morning and forenoon, snowing a little now and then, and disagreeably cold. the sky is of an inexpressibly dreary, dun color. it is so dark at times that i have to hold my book close to my eyes, and then again it lightens up a little. on the whole, disgustingly gloomy; and thus it has been for a long while past, although the disagreeableness seems to be very near the earth, and just above the steeples and house-tops very probably there may be a bright, sunshiny day. at about twelve there is a faint glow of sunlight, like the gleaming reflection from a not highly polished copper kettle. december th.--on christmas eve and yesterday, there were little branches of mistletoe hanging in several parts of the house, in the kitchen, the entries, the parlor, and the smoking-room,--suspended from the gas-fittings. the maids of the house did their utmost to entrap the gentlemen boarders, old and young; under the privileged places, and there to kiss them, after which they were expected to pay a shilling. it is very queer, being customarily so respectful, that they should assume this license now, absolutely trying to pull the gentlemen into the kitchen by main force, and kissing the harder and more abundantly the more they were resisted. a little rosy-checked scotch lass--at other times very modest --was the most active in this business. i doubt whether any gentleman but myself escaped. i heard old mr. s------ parleying with the maids last evening, and pleading his age; but he seems to have met with no mercy, for there was a sound of prodigious smacking immediately afterwards. j----- was assaulted, and fought, most vigorously; but was outrageously kissed,--receiving some scratches, moreover, in the conflict. the mistletoe has white, wax-looking berries, and dull green leaves, with a parasitical stem. early in the morning of christmas day, long before daylight, i heard music in the street, and a woman's voice, powerful and melodious, singing a christmas hymn. before bedtime i presume one half of england, at a moderate calculation, was the worse for liquor. the market-houses, at this season, show the national taste for heavy feeding,--carcasses of prize oxen, immensely fat, and bulky; fat sheep, with their woolly heads and tails still on, and stars and other devices ingeniously wrought on the quarters; fat pigs, adorned with flowers, like corpses of virgins; hares, wild-fowl, geese, ducks, turkeys; and green boughs and banners suspended about the stalls,--and a great deal of dirt and griminess on the stone floor of the market-house, and on the persons of the crowd. there are some englishmen whom i like,--one or two for whom i might say i have an affection; but still there is not the same union between us as if they were americans. a cold, thin medium intervenes betwixt our most intimate approaches. it puts me in mind of alnaschar and his princess, with the cold steel blade of his scimitar between them. perhaps if i were at home i might feel differently; but in a foreign land i can never forget the distinction between english and american. january st, .--last night, at mrs. blodgett's, we sat up till twelve o'clock to open the front door, and let the new year in. after the coming guest was fairly in the house, the back door was to be opened, to let the old year out; but i was tired, and did not wait for the latter ceremony. when the new year made its entrance, there was a general shaking of hands, and one of the shipmasters said that it was customary to kiss the ladies all round; but to my great satisfaction, we did not proceed to such extremity. there was singing in the streets, and many voices of people passing, and when twelve had struck, all the bells of the town, i believe, rang out together. i went up stairs, sad and lonely, and, stepping into j-----'s little room, wished him a happy new year, as he slept, and many of them. to a cool observer, a country does not show to best advantage during a time of war. all its self-conceit is doubly visible, and, indeed, is sedulously kept uppermost by direct appeals to it. the country must be humbugged, in order to keep its courage up. sentiment seems to me more abundant in middle-aged ladies in england than in the united states. i don't know how it may be with young ladies. the shipmasters bear testimony to the singular delicacy of common sailors in their behavior in the presence of women; and they say that this good trait is still strongly observable even in the present race of seamen, greatly deteriorated as it is. on shipboard, there is never an indecorous word or unseemly act said or done by sailors when a woman can be cognizant of it; and their deportment in this respect differs greatly from that of landsmen of similar position in society. this is remarkable, considering that a sailor's female acquaintances are usually and exclusively of the worst kind, and that his intercourse with them has no relation whatever to morality or decency. for this very reason, i suppose, he regards a modest woman as a creature divine and to be reverenced. january th.---i have suffered wofully from low spirits for some time past; and this has not often been the case since i grew to be a man, even in the least auspicious periods of my life. my desolate bachelor condition, i suppose, is the cause. really, i have no pleasure in anything, and i feel my tread to be heavier, and my physical movement more sluggish, than in happier times. a weight is always upon me. my appetite is not good. i sleep ill, lying awake till late at night, to think sad thoughts and to imagine sombre things, and awaking before light with the same thoughts and fancies still in my mind. my heart sinks always as i ascend the stairs to my office, from a dim augury of ill news from lisbon that i may perhaps hear,--of black-sealed letters, or some such horrors. nothing gives me any joy. i have learned what the bitterness of exile is, in these days; and i never should have known it but for the absence of "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,"--i can perfectly appreciate that line of goldsmith; for it well expresses my own torpid, unenterprising, joyless state of mind and heart. i am like an uprooted plant, wilted and drooping. life seems so purposeless as not to be worth the trouble of carrying it on any further. i was at a dinner, the other evening, at mr. b------'s, where the entertainment was almost entirely american,--new york oysters, raw, stewed, and fried; soup of american partridges, particularly good; also terrapin soup, rich, but not to my taste; american pork and beans, baked in yankee style; a noble american turkey, weighing thirty-one pounds; and, at the other end of the table, an american round of beef, which the englishmen present allowed to be delicious, and worth a guinea an ounce. i forget the other american dishes, if there were any more,--o yes! canvas-back ducks, coming on with the sweets, in the usual english fashion. we ought to have had catawba wine; but this was wanting, although there was plenty of hock, champagne, sherry, madeira, port, and claret. our host is a very jolly man, and the dinner was a merrier and noisier one than any english dinner within my experience. february th.--i read to-day, in the little office-bible (greasy with perjuries) st. luke's account of the agony, the trial, the crucifixion, and the resurrection; and how christ appeared to the two disciples, on their way to emmaus, and afterwards to a company of disciples. on both these latter occasions he expounded the scriptures to them, and showed the application of the old prophecies to himself; and it is to be supposed that he made them fully, or at least sufficiently, aware what his character was,--whether god, or man, or both, or something between, together with all other essential points of doctrine. but none of this doctrine or of these expositions is recorded, the mere facts being most simply stated, and the conclusion to which he led them, that, whether god himself, or the son of god, or merely the son of man, he was, at all events, the christ foretold in the jewish scriptures. this last, therefore, must have been the one essential point. february th.--on saturday there called on me an elderly robinson-crusoe sort of man, mr. h------, shipwright, i believe, of boston, who has lately been travelling in the east. about a year ago he was here, after being shipwrecked on the dutch coast, and i assisted him to get home. again, i have supplied him with five pounds, and my credit for an outside garment. he is a spare man, with closely cropped gray, or rather white hair, close-cropped whiskers fringing round his chin, and a close-cropped white mustache, with his under lip and a portion of his chin bare beneath,--sunburnt and weather-worn. he has been in syria and jerusalem, through the desert, and at sebastopol; and says he means to get ticknor to publish his travels, and the story of his whole adventurous life, on his return home. a free-spoken, confiding, hardy, religious, unpolished, simple, yet world-experienced man; very talkative, and boring me with longer visits than i like. he has brought home, among other curiosities, "a lady's arm," as he calls it, two thousand years old,--a piece of a mummy, of course; also some coins, one of which, a gold coin of vespasian, he showed me, and said he bought it of an arab of the desert. the bedouins possess a good many of these coins, handed down immemorially from father to son, and never sell them unless compelled by want. he had likewise a hebrew manuscript of the book of ruth, on a parchment roll, which was put into his care to be given to lord haddo. he was at sebastopol during the siege, and nearly got his head knocked off by a cannon-ball. his strangest statement is one in reference to lord raglan. he says that an english officer told him that his lordship shut himself up, desiring not to be disturbed, as he needed sleep. when fifteen hours had gone by, his attendants thought it time to break open the door; and lord raglan was found dead, with a bottle of strychnine by the bedside. the affair, so far as the circumstances indicated suicide, was hushed up, and his death represented as a natural one. the english officer seems to have been an unscrupulous fellow, jesting thus with the fresh memory of his dead commander; for it is impossible to believe a word of the story. even if lord raglan had wished for death, he would hardly have taken strychnine, when there were so many chances of being honorably shot. in wood's narrative of the campaign, it is stated that he died surrounded by the members of his staff, after having been for some time ill. it appears, however, by the same statement, that no serious apprehensions had been entertained, until, one afternoon, he shut himself in, desiring not to be disturbed till evening. after two or three hours he called lord burghersh,--"frank, frank!" and was found to be almost in a state of collapse, and died that evening. mr. h------'s story might very well have been a camp rumor. it seems to me that the british ministry, in its notion of a life-peerage, shows an entire misunderstanding of what makes people desire the peerage. it is not for the immediate personal distinction; but because it removes the peer and his consanguinity from the common rank of men, and makes a separate order of them, as if they should grow angelic. a life-peer is but a mortal amid the angelic throng. february th.--i went yesterday with mrs. ------ and another lady, and mr. m------, to the west derby workhouse. . . . . [here comes in the visit to the west derby workhouse, which was made the subject of a paper in our old home, called "outside glimpses of english poverty." as the purpose in publishing these passages from the private note-books is to give to those who ask for a memoir of mr. hawthorne every possible incident recorded by himself which shows his character and nature, the editor thinks it proper to disclose the fact that mr. hawthorne was himself the gentleman of that party who took up in his arms the little child, so fearfully repulsive in its condition. and it seems better to quote his own words in reference to it, than merely to say it was he. under date february , . "after this, we went to the ward where the children were kept, and, on entering this, we saw, in the first place, two or three unlovely and unwholesome little imps, who were lazily playing together. one of them (a child about six years old, but i know not whether girl or boy) immediately took the strangest fancy for me. it was a wretched, pale, half-torpid little thing, with a humor in its eyes which the governor said was the scurvy. i never saw, till a few moments afterwards, a child that i should feel less inclined to fondle. but this little, sickly, humor-eaten fright prowled around me, taking hold of my skirts, following at my heels, and at last held up its hands, smiled in my face, and, standing directly before me, insisted on my taking it up! not that it said a word, for i rather think it was underwitted, and could not talk; but its face expressed such perfect confidence that it was going to be taken up and made much of, that it was impossible not to do it. it was as if god had promised the child this favor on my behalf, and that i must needs fulfil the contract. i held my undesirable burden a little while; and, after setting the child down, it still followed me, holding two of my fingers and playing with them, just as if it were a child of my own. it was a foundling, and out of all human kind it chose me to be its father! we went up stairs into another ward; and, on coming down again, there was this same child waiting for me, with a sickly smile round its defaced mouth, and in its dim red eyes. . . . . i never should have forgiven myself if i had repelled its advances."--ed.] after leaving the workhouse, we drove to norris green; and mrs. ------ showed me round the grounds, which are very good and nicely kept. o these english homes, what delightful places they are! i wonder how many people live and die in the workhouse, having no other home, because other people have a great deal more home than enough. . . . . we had a very pleasant dinner, and mr. m------ and i walked back, four miles and a half, to liverpool, where we arrived just before midnight. why did christ curse the fig-tree? it was not in the least to blame; and it seems most unreasonable to have expected it to bear figs out of season. instead of withering it away, it would have been as great a miracle, and far more beautiful, and, one would think, of more beneficent influence, to have made it suddenly rich with ripe fruit. then, to be sure, it might have died joyfully, having answered so good a purpose. i have been reminded of this miracle by the story of a man in heywood, a town in lancashire, who used such horribly profane language that a plane-tree in front of his cottage is said to have withered away from that hour. i can draw no moral from the incident of the fig-tree, unless it be that all things perish from the instant when they cease to answer some divine purpose. march th.--yesterday i lunched on board captain russell's ship, the princeton. these daily lunches on shipboard might answer very well the purposes of a dinner; being, in fact, noontide dinners, with soup, roast mutton, mutton-chops, and a macaroni pudding,--brandy, port and sherry wines. there were three elderly englishmen at table, with white heads, which, i think, is oftener the predicament of elderly heads here than in america. one of these was a retired custom-house officer, and the other two were connected with shipping in some way. there is a satisfaction in seeing englishmen eat and drink, they do it so heartily, and, on the whole, so wisely,--trusting so entirely that there is no harm in good beef and mutton, and a reasonable quantity of good liquor; and these three hale old men, who had acted on this wholesome faith for so long, were proofs that it is well on earth to live like earthly creatures. in america, what squeamishness, what delicacy, what stomachic apprehension, would there not be among three stomachs of sixty or seventy years' experience! i think this failure of american stomachs is partly owing to our ill usage of our digestive powers, and partly to our want of faith in them. after lunch, we all got into an omnibus, and went to the mersey iron foundry, to see the biggest piece of ordnance in the world, which is almost finished. the overseer of the works received us, and escorted us courteously throughout the establishment; which is very extensive, giving employment to a thousand men, what with night-work and day-work. the big gun is still on the axle, or turning-machine, by means of which it has been bored. it is made entirely of wrought and welded iron, fifty tons of which were originally used; and the gun, in its present state, bored out and smoothed away, weighs nearly twenty-three tons. it has, as yet, no trunnions, and does not look much like a cannon, but only a huge iron cylinder, immensely solid, and with a bore so large that a young man of nineteen shoved himself into it, the whole length, with a light, in order to see whether it is duly smooth and regular. i suppose it will have a better effect, as to the impression of size, when it is finished, polished, mounted, aid fully equipped, after the fashion of ordinary cannon. it is to throw a ball of three hundred pounds' weight five miles, and woe be to whatever ship or battlement shall bear the brunt! after inspecting the gun we went through other portions of the establishment, and saw iron in various stages of manufacture. i am not usually interested in manufacturing processes, being quite unable to understand them, at least in cotton-machinery and the like; but here there were such exhibitions of mighty strength, both of men and machines, that i had a satisfaction in looking on. we saw lumps of iron, intensely white-hot, and in all but a melting state, passed through rollers of various size and pressure, and speedily converted into long bars, which came curling and waving out of the rollers like great red ribbons, or like fiery serpents wriggling out of tophet; and finally, being straightened out, they were laid to cool in heaps. trip-hammers are very pleasant things to look at, working so massively as they do, and yet so accurately; chewing up the hot iron, as it were, and fashioning it into shape, with a sort of mighty and gigantic gentleness in their mode of action. what great things man has contrived, and is continually performing! what a noble brute he is! also, i found much delight in looking at the molten iron, boiling and bubbling in the furnace, and sometimes slopping over, when stirred by the attendant. there were numberless fires on all sides, blinding us with their intense glow; and continually the pounding strokes of huge hammers, some wielded by machinery and others by human arms. i had a respect for these stalwart workmen, who seemed to be near kindred of the machines amid which they wrought,--mighty men, smiting stoutly, and looking into the fierce eyes of the furnace fearlessly, and handling the iron at a temperature which would have taken the skin off from ordinary fingers. they looked strong, indeed, but pale; for the hot atmosphere in which they live cannot but be deleterious, and i suppose their very strength wears them quickly out. but i would rather live ten years as an iron-smith than fifty as a tailor. so much heat can be concentrated into a mass of iron, that a lump a foot square heats all the atmosphere about it, and burns the face at a considerable distance. as the trip-hammer strikes the lump, it seems still more to intensify the heat by squeezing it together, and the fluid iron oozes out like sap or juice. "he was ready for the newest fashions!"--this expression was used by mrs. blodgett in reference to mr. ------ on his first arrival in england, and it is a very tender way of signifying that a person is rather poorly off as to apparel. march th.--mr. ------, our new ambassador, arrived on thursday afternoon by the atlantic, and i called at the adelphi hotel, after dinner, to pay him my respects. i found him and his family at supper. . . . . they seem to be plain, affable people. . . . . the ambassador is a venerable old gentleman, with a full head of perfectly white hair, looking not unlike an old-fashioned wig; and this, together with his collarless white neckcloth and his brown coat, gave him precisely such an aspect as one would expect in a respectable person of pre-revolutionary days. there was a formal simplicity, too, in his manners, that might have belonged to the same era. he must have been a very handsome man in his youthful days, and is now comely, very erect, moderately tall, not overburdened with flesh; of benign and agreeable address, with a pleasant smile; but his eyes, which are not very large, impressed me as sharp and cold. he did not at all stamp himself upon me as a man of much intellectual or characteristic vigor. i found no such matter in his conversation, nor did i feel it in the indefinable way by which strength always makes itself acknowledged. b------, though, somehow, plain and uncouth, yet vindicates himself as a large man of the world, able, experienced, fit to handle difficult circumstances of life; dignified, too, and able to hold his own in any society. mr. ------ has a kind of venerable dignity; but yet, if a person could so little respect himself as to insult him, i should say that there was no innate force in mr. ------ to prevent it. it is very strange that he should have made so considerable a figure in public life, filling offices that the strongest men would have thought worthy of their highest ambition. there must be something shrewd and sly under his apparent simplicity; narrow, cold, selfish, perhaps. i fancied these things in his eyes. he has risen in life by the lack of too powerful qualities, and by a certain tact, which enables him to take advantage of circumstances and opportunities, and avail himself of his unobjectionableness, just at the proper time. i suppose he must be pronounced a humbug, yet almost or quite an innocent one. yet he is a queer representative to be sent from brawling and boisterous america at such a critical period. it will be funny if england sends him back again, on hearing the news of ------'s dismissal. mr. ------ gives me the impression of being a very amiable man in his own family. he has brought his son with him, as secretary of legation,--a small young man, with a little mustache. it will be a feeble embassy. i called again the next morning, and introduced mrs. ------, who, i believe, accompanied the ladies about town. this simplicity in mr. ------'s manner puzzles and teases me; for, in spite of it, there was a sort of self-consciousness, as if he were being looked at,--as if he were having his portrait taken. london. march d.--yesterday,--no, day before yesterday,--i left liverpool for london by rail, from the lime street station. the journey was a dull and monotonous one, as usual. three passengers were in the same carriage with me at starting; but they dropped off; and from rugby i was alone. we reached london after ten o'clock; and i took a cab for st. james's place, no. , where i found mr. b------ expecting me. he had secured a bedroom for me at this lodging-house, and i am to be free of his drawing-room during my stay. we breakfasted at nine, and then walked down to his counting-room, in old broad street, in the city. it being a dim, dingy morning, london looked very dull, the more so as it was good friday, and therefore the streets were comparatively thin of people and vehicles, and had on their sunday aspect. if it were not for the human life and bustle of london, it would be a very stupid place, with a heavy and dreary-monotony of unpicturesque streets. we went up bolt court, where dr. johnson used to live; and this was the only interesting site we saw. after spending some time in the counting-room, while mr. ------ read his letters, we went to london bridge, and took the steamer for waterloo bridge, with partly an intent to go to richmond, but the day was so damp and dusky that we concluded otherwise. so we came home, visiting, on our way, the site of covent garden theatre, lately burnt down. the exterior walls still remain perfect, and look quite solid enough to admit of the interior being renewed, but i believe it is determined to take them down. after a slight lunch and a glass of wine, we walked out, along piccadilly, and to hyde park, which already looks very green, and where there were a good many people walking and driving, and rosy-faced children at play. somehow or other the shine and charm are gone from london, since my last visit; and i did not very much admire, nor feel much interested in anything. we returned (and i, for my part, was much wearied) in time for dinner at five. the evening was spent at home in various talk, and i find mr. ------ a very agreeable companion, and a young man of thought and information, with a self-respecting character, and i think him a safe person to live with. this st. james's place is in close vicinity to st. james's palace, the gateway and not very splendid front of which we can see from the corner. the club-houses and the best life of the town are near at hand. addison, before his marriage, used to live in st. james's place, and the house where mr. rogers recently died is up the court, not that this latter residence excites much interest in my mind. i remember nothing else very noteworthy in this first day's experience, except that on sir watkins williams wynn's door, not far from this house, i saw a gold knocker, which is said to be unscrewed every night lest it should be stolen. i don't know whether it be really gold; for it did not look so bright as the generality of brass ones. i received a very good letter from j----- this morning. he was to go to mr. bright's at sandhays yesterday, and remain till monday. after writing the above, i walked along the strand, fleet street, ludgate hill and cheapside to wood street,--a very narrow street, insomuch that one has to press close against the wall to escape being grazed when a cart is passing. at no. i found the place of business of mr. bennoch, who came to see me at rock ferry with mr. jerdan, not long after my arrival in england. i found him in his office; but he did not at first recognize me, so much stouter have i grown during my residence in england,--a new man, as he says. mr. bennoch is a kindly, frank, very good man, and was bounteous in his plans for making my time pass pleasantly. we talked of ------, from whom he has just received a letter, and who says he will fight for england in case of a war. i let bennoch know that i, at least, should take the other side. after arranging to go to greenwich fair, and afterwards to dine with bennoch, i left him and went to mr. ------'s office, and afterwards strayed forth again, and crossed london bridge. thence i rambled rather drearily along through several shabby and uninteresting streets on the other side of the thames; and the dull streets in london are really the dullest and most disheartening in the world. by and by i found my way to southwark bridge, and so crossed to upper thames street, which was likewise very stupid, though i believe clenman's paternal house in "little dorrit" stands thereabouts. . . . . next, i got into ludgate hill, near st. paul's, and being quite foot-weary, i took a paddington omnibus, and rode up into regent street, whence i came home. march th.--yesterday being a clear day for england, we determined upon an expedition to hampton court; so walked out betimes towards the waterloo station; but first crossed the thames by westminster bridge, and went to lambeth palace. it stands immediately on the bank of the river, not far above the bridge. we merely walked round it, and saw only an old stone tower or two, partially renewed with brick, and a high connecting wall, within which appeared gables and other portions of the palace, all of an ancient plan and venerable aspect, though evidently much patched up and restored in the course of the many ages since its foundation. there is likewise a church, part of which looks old, connected with the palace. the streets surrounding it have many gabled houses, and a general look of antiquity, more than some other parts of london. we then walked to the waterloo station, on the same side of the river; and at twenty minutes past one took the rail for hampton court, distant some twelve or fifteen miles. on arriving at the terminus, we beheld hampton palace, on the other side of the thames,--an extensive structure, with a front of red brick, long and comparatively low, with the great hall which wolsey built rising high above the rest. we crossed the river (which is here but a narrow stream) by a stone bridge. the entrance to the palace is about half a quarter of a mile from the railway, through arched gates, which give a long perspective into the several quadrangles. these quadrangles, one beyond another, are paved with stone, and surrounded by the brick walls of the palace, the many windows of which look in upon them. soldiers were standing sentinel at the exterior gateways, and at the various doors of the palace; but they admitted everybody without question and without fee. policemen, or other attendants, were in most of the rooms, but interfered with no one; so that, in this respect, it was one of the pleasantest places to visit that i have found in england. a good many people, of all classes, were strolling through the apartments. we first went into wolsey's great hall, up a most spacious staircase, the walls and ceiling of which were covered with an allegorical fresco by verrio, wonderfully bright and well preserved; and without caring about the design or execution, i greatly liked the brilliancy of the colors. the great hall is a most noble and beautiful room, above a hundred feet long and sixty high and broad. most of the windows are of stained or painted glass, with elaborate designs, whether modern or ancient i know not, but certainly brilliant in effect. the walls, from the floor to perhaps half their height, are covered with antique tapestry, which, though a good deal faded, still retains color enough to be a very effective adornment, and to give an idea of how rich a mode of decking a noble apartment this must have been. the subjects represented were from scripture, and the figures seemed colossal. on looking closely at this tapestry, you could see that it was thickly interwoven with threads of gold, still glistening. the windows, except one or two that are long, do not descend below the top of this tapestry, and are therefore twenty or thirty feet above the floor; and this manner of lighting a great room seems to add much to the impressiveness of the enclosed space. the roof is very magnificent, of carved oak, intricately and elaborately arched, and still as perfect to all appearance as when it was first made. there are banners, so fresh in their hues, and so untattered, that i think they must be modern, suspended along beneath the cornice of the hall, and exhibiting wolsey's arms and badges. on the whole, this is a perfect sight, in its way. next to the hall there is a withdrawing-room, more than seventy feet long, and twenty-five feet high. the walls of this apartment, too, are covered with ancient tapestry, of allegorical design, but more faded than that of the hall. there is also a stained-glass window; and a marble statue of venus on a couch, very lean and not very beautiful; and some cartoons of carlo cignani, which have left no impression on my memory; likewise, a large model of a splendid palace of some east indian nabob. i am not sure, after all, that verrio's frescoed grand staircase was not in another part of the palace; for i remember that we went from it through an immensely long suite of apartments, beginning with the guard-chamber. all these rooms are wainscoted with oak, which looks new, being, i believe, of the date of king william's reign. over many of the doorways, or around the panels, there are carvings in wood by gibbons, representing wreaths of flowers, fruit, and foliage, the most perfectly beautiful that can be conceived; and the wood being of a light hue (lime-wood, i believe), it has a fine effect on the dark oak panelling. the apartments open one beyond another, in long, long, long succession,-- rooms of state, and kings' and queens' bedchambers, and royal closets bigger than ordinary drawing-rooms, so that the whole suite must be half a mile, or it may be a mile, in extent. from the windows you get views of the palace-grounds, broad and stately walks, and groves of trees, and lawns, and fountains, and the thames and adjacent country beyond. the walls of all these rooms are absolutely covered with pictures, including works of all the great masters, which would require long study before a new eye could enjoy them; and, seeing so many of them at once, and having such a nothing of time to look at them all, i did not even try to see any merit in them. vandyke's picture of charles i., on a white horse beneath an arched gateway, made more impression on me than any other, and as i recall it now, it seems as if i could see the king's noble, melancholy face, and armed form, remembered not in picture, but in reality. all sir peter lely's lewd women, and kneller's too, were in these rooms; and the jolly old stupidity of george iii. and his family, many times repeated; and pictures by titian, rubens, and other famous hands, intermixed with many by west, which provokingly drew the eye away from their betters. it seems to me that a picture, of all other things, should be by itself; whereas people always congregate them in galleries. to endeavor really to see them, so arranged, is like trying to read a hundred poems at once,--a most absurd attempt. of all these pictures, i hardly recollect any so well as a ridiculous old travesty of the resurrection and last judgment, where the dead people are represented as coming to life at the sound of the trumpet,--the flesh re-establishing itself on the bones, one man picking up his skull, and putting it on his shoulders,--and all appearing greatly startled, only half awake, and at a loss what to do next. some devils are dragging away the damned by the heels and on sledges, and above sits the redeemer and some angelic and sainted people, looking complacently down upon the scene! we saw, in one of the rooms, the funeral canopy beneath which the duke of wellington lay in state,--very gorgeous, of black velvet embroidered with silver and adorned with escutcheons; also, the state bed of queen anne, broad, and of comfortable appearance, though it was a queen's,--the materials of the curtains, quilt, and furniture, red velvet, still brilliant in hue; also king william's bed and his queen mary's, with enormously tall posts, and a good deal the worse for time and wear. the last apartment we entered was the gallery containing raphael's cartoons, which i shall not pretend to admire nor to understand. i can conceive, indeed, that there is a great deal of expression in them, and very probably they may, in every respect, deserve all their fame; but on this point i can give no testimony. to my perception they were a series of very much faded pictures, dimly seen (for this part of the palace was now in shadow), and representing figures neither graceful nor beautiful, nor, as far as i could discern, particularly grand. but i came to them with a wearied mind and eye; and also i had a previous distaste to them through the medium of engravings. but what a noble palace, nobly enriched, is this hampton court! the english government does well to keep it up, and to admit the people freely into it, for it is impossible for even a republican not to feel something like awe--at least a profound respect--for all this state, and for the institutions which are here represented, the sovereigns whose moral magnificence demands such a residence; and its permanence, too, enduring from age to age, and each royal generation adding new splendors to those accumulated by their predecessors. if one views the matter in another way, to be sure, we may feel indignant that such dolt-heads, rowdies, and every way mean people, as many of the english sovereigns have been, should inhabit these stately halls, contrasting its splendors with their littleness; but, on the whole, i readily consented within myself to be impressed for a moment with the feeling that royalty has its glorious side. by no possibility can we ever have such a place in america. leaving hampton court at about four o'clock, we walked through bushy park,--a beautiful tract of ground, well wooded with fine old trees, green with moss, all up their twisted trunks,--through several villages, twickenham among the rest, to richmond. before entering twickenham, we passed a lath-and-plaster castellated edifice, much time-worn, and with the plaster peeling off from the laths, which i fancied might be horace walpole's toy-castle. not that it really could have been; but it was like the image, wretchedly mean and shabby, which one forms of such a place, in its decay. from hampton court to the star and garter, on richmond hill, is about six miles. after glancing cursorily at the prospect, which is famous, and doubtless very extensive and beautiful if the english mistiness would only let it be seen, we took a good dinner in the large and handsome coffee-room of the hotel, and then wended our way to the rail-station, and reached home between eight and nine o'clock. we must have walked not far from fifteen miles in the course of the day. march th.--yesterday, at one o'clock, i called by appointment on mr. bennoch, and lunched with him and his partners and clerks. this lunch seems to be a legitimate continuation of the old london custom of the master living at the same table with his apprentices. the meal was a dinner for the latter class. the table was set in an upper room of the establishment; and the dinner was a large joint of roast mutton, to which ten people sat down, including a german silk-merchant as a guest besides myself. mr. bennoch was at the head of the table, and one of his partners at the foot. for the apprentices there was porter to drink, and for the partners and guests some sparkling moselle, and we had a sufficient dinner with agreeable conversation. bennoch said that g. g------ used to be very fond of these lunches while in england. after lunch, mr. bennoch took me round the establishment, which is quite extensive, occupying, i think, two or three adjacent houses, and requiring more. he showed me innumerable packages of ribbons, and other silk manufactures, and all sorts of silks, from the raw thread to the finest fabrics. he then offered to show me some of the curiosities of old london, and took me first to barber-surgeons' hall, in monkwell street. it was at this place that the first anatomical studies were instituted in england. at the time of its foundation, the barbers and surgeons were one company; but the latter, i believe, are now the exclusive possessors of the hall. the edifice was built by inigo jones, and the principal room is a fine one, with finely carved wood-work on the ceiling and walls. there is a skylight in the roof, letting down a sufficient radiance on the long table beneath, where, no doubt, dead people have been dissected, and where, for many generations, it has been the custom of the society to hold its stated feasts. in this room hangs the most valuable picture by holbein now in existence, representing the company of barber-surgeons kneeling before henry viii., and receiving their charter from his hands. the picture is about six feet square. the king is dressed in scarlet, and quite fulfils one's idea of his aspect. the barber-surgeons, all portraits, are an assemblage of grave-looking personages, in dark costumes. the company has refused five thousand pounds for this unique picture; and the keeper of the hall told me that sir robert peel had offered a thousand pounds for liberty to take out only one of the heads, that of a person named pen, he conditioning to have a perfect fac-simile painted in. i did not see any merit in this head over the others. beside this great picture hung a most exquisite portrait by vandyke; an elderly, bearded man, of noble and refined countenance, in a rich, grave dress. there are many other pictures of distinguished men of the company, in long past times, and of some of the kings and great people of england, all darkened with age, and producing a rich and sombre effect, in this stately old hall. nothing is more curious in london than these ancient localities and customs of the city companies,--each trade and profession having its own hall, and its own institutions. the keeper next showed us the plate which is used at the banquets. i should like to be present at one of these feasts. i saw also an old vellum manuscript, in black-letter, which appeared to be a record of the proceedings of the company; and at the end there were many pages ruled for further entries, but none had been made in the volume for the last three or four hundred years. i think it was in the neighborhood of barber-surgeons' hall, which stands amid an intricacy of old streets, where i should never have thought of going, that i saw a row of ancient almshouses, of elizabethan structure. they looked wofully dilapidated. in front of one of them was an inscription, setting forth that some worthy alderman had founded this establishment for the support of six poor men; and these six, or their successors, are still supported, but no larger number, although the value of the property left for that purpose would now suffice for a much larger number. then mr. bennoch took me to cripplegate, and, entering the door of a house, which proved to be a sexton's residence, we passed by a side entrance into the church-porch of st. giles, of which the sexton's house seems to be an indivisible contiguity. this is a very ancient church, that escaped the great fire of london. the galleries are supported by arches, the pillars of which are cased high upwards with oak; but all this oaken work and the oaken pews are comparatively modern, though so solid and dark that they agree well enough with the general effect of the church. proceeding to the high altar, we found it surrounded with many very curious old monuments and memorials, some in carved oak, some in marble; grim old worthies, mostly in the costume of queen elizabeth's time. here was the bust of speed, the historian; here was the monument of fox, author of the book of martyrs. high up on the wall, beside the altar, there was a black wooden coffin, and a lady sitting upright within it, with her hands clasped in prayer, it being her awakening moment at the resurrection. thence we passed down the centre aisle, and about midway we stopped before a marble bust, fixed against one of the pillars. and this was the bust of milton! yes, and milton's bones lay beneath our feet; for he was buried under the pew over the door of which i was leaning. the bust, i believe, is the original of the one in westminster abbey. treading over the tombstones of the old citizens of london, both in the aisles and the porch, and within doors and without, we went into the churchyard, one side of which is fenced in by a portion of london wall, very solid, and still high, though the accumulation of human dust has covered much of its base. this is the most considerable portion now remaining of the ancient wall of london. the sexton now asked us to go into the tower of the church, that he might show us the oldest part of the structure, and we did so, and, looking down from the organ gallery, i saw a woman sitting alone in the church, waiting for the rector, whose ghostly consolation, i suppose, she needed. this old church-tower was formerly lighted by three large windows,--one of them of very great size; but the thrifty church-wardens of a generation or two ago had built them up with brick, to the great disfigurement of the church. the sexton called my attention to the organ-pipe, which is of sufficient size, i believe, to admit three men. from cripplegate we went to milton street (as it is now called), through which we walked for a very excellent reason; for this is the veritable grub street, where my literary kindred of former times used to congregate. it is still a shabby-looking street, with old-fashioned houses, and inhabited chiefly by people of the poorer classes, though not by authors. next we went to old broad street, and, being joined by mr. b------, we set off for london bridge, turning out of our direct course to see london stone in watling street. this famous stone appears now to be built into the wall of st. swithin's church, and is so encased that you can only see and touch the top of it through a circular hole. there are one or two long cuts or indentations in the top, which are said to have been made by jack cade's sword when he struck it against the stone. if so, his sword was of a redoubtable temper. judging by what i saw, london stone was a rudely shaped and unhewn post. at the london bridge station, we took the rail for greenwich, and, it being only about five miles off, we were not long in reaching the town. it was easter monday; and during the first three days of easter, from time immemorial, a fair has been held at greenwich, and this was what we had come to see. [this fair is described in our old home, in "a loudon suburb."] reaching mr. bennoch's house, we found it a pretty and comfortable one, and adorned with many works of art; for he seems to be a patron of art and literature, and a warm-hearted man, of active benevolence and vivid sympathies in many directions. his face shows this. i have never seen eyes of a warmer glow than his. on the walls of one room there were a good many sketches by haydon, and several artists' proofs of fine engravings, presented by persons to whom he had been kind. in the drawing-room there was a marble bust of mrs. ------, and one, i think, of himself, and one of the queen, which mr. bennoch said was very good, and it is unlike any other i have seen. it is intended as a gift, from a number of subscribers, to miss nightingale. likewise a crayon sketch of ------, looking rather morbid and unwholesome, as the poor lady really is. also, a small picture of mr. bennoch in a military dress, as an officer, probably of city-horse. by and by came in a young gentleman, son of haydon, the painter of high art, and one or two ladies staying in the house, and anon mrs. ------. and so we went in to dinner. bennoch is an admirable host, and warms his guests like a household fire by the influence of his kindly face and glowing eyes, and by such hospitable demeanor as best suits this aspect. after the cloth was removed, came in mr. newton crosland, a young man who once called on me in liverpool,--the husband of a literary lady, formerly camilla toulmin. the lady herself was coming to spend the evening. the husband (and i presume the wife) is a decided believer in spiritual manifestations. we talked of politics and spiritualism and literature; and before we rose from table, mr. bennoch drank the health of the ladies, and especially of mrs. ------, in terms very kind towards her and me. i responded in her behalf as well as i could, and left it to mr. bowman, as a bachelor, to respond for the ladies generally,--which he did briefly, toasting mrs. b------. we had heard the sound of the piano in the drawing-room for some time, and now adjourning thither, i had the pleasure to be introduced to mrs. newton crosland,--a rather tall, thin, pale, and lady-like person, looking, i thought, of a sensitive character. she expressed in a low tone and quiet way great delight at seeing my distinguished self! for she is a vast admirer of the scarlet letter, and especially of the character of hester; indeed, i remember seeing a most favorable criticism of the book from her pen, in one of the london magazines. . . . . at eleven o'clock mrs. crosland entered the tiniest pony-carriage, and set forth for her own residence, with a lad walking at the pony's head, and carrying a lantern. . . . . march th.--yesterday was not a very eventful day. after writing in my journal i went out at twelve, and visited, for the first time, the national gallery. it is of no use for me to criticise pictures, or to try to describe them, but i have an idea that i might acquire a taste, with a little attention to the subject, for i find i already begin to prefer some pictures to others. this is encouraging. of those that i saw yesterday, i think i liked several by murillo best. there were a great many people in the gallery, almost entirely of the middle, with a few of the lower classes; and i should think that the effect of the exhibition must at least tend towards refinement. nevertheless, the only emotion that i saw displayed was in broad grins on the faces of a man and two women, at sight of a small picture of venus, with a satyr peeping at her with an expression of gross animal delight and merriment. without being aware of it, this man and the two women were of that same satyr breed. if i lived in london, i would endeavor to educate myself in this and other galleries of art; but as the case stands, it would be of no use. i saw two of turner's landscapes; but did not see so much beauty in them as in some of claude's. a view of the grand canal in venice, by canaletto, seemed to me wonderful,--absolutely perfect,--a better reality, for i could see the water of the canal moving and dimpling; and the palaces and buildings on each side were quite as good in their way. leaving the gallery, i walked down into the city, and passed through smithfield, where i glanced at st. bartholomew's hospital. . . . . then i went into st. paul's, and walked all round the great cathedral, looking, i believe, at every monument on the floor. there is certainly nothing very wonderful in any of them, and i do wish it would not so generally happen that english warriors go into battle almost nude; at least, we must suppose so, from their invariably receiving their death-wounds in that condition. i will not believe that a sculptor or a painter is a man of genius unless he can wake the nobleness of his subject, illuminate and transfigure any given pattern of coat and breeches. nevertheless, i never go into st. paul's without being impressed anew with the grandeur of the edifice, and the general effect of these same groups of statuary ranged in their niches and at the bases of the pillars as adornments of the cathedral. coming homeward, i went into the enclosure of the temple, and near the entrance saw "dr. johnson's staircase" printed over a doorway; so i not only looked in, but went up the first flight, of some broad, well-worn stairs, passing my hand over a heavy, ancient, broken balustrade, on which, no doubt, johnson's hand had often rested. it was here that boswell used to visit him, in their early acquaintance. before my lunch, i had gone into bolt court, where he died. this morning there have been letters from mr. wilding, enclosing an invitation to me to be one of the stewards of the anniversary dinner of the literary fund. no, i thank you, gentlemen! march th.--yesterday i went out at about twelve, and visited the british museum; an exceedingly tiresome affair. it quite crushes a person to see so much at once, and i wandered from hall to hall with a weary and heavy heart, wishing (heaven forgive me!) that the elgin marbles and the frieze of the parthenon were all burnt into lime, and that the granite egyptian statues were hewn and squared into building-stones, and that the mummies had all turned to dust two thousand years ago; and, in fine, that all the material relics of so many successive ages had disappeared with the generations that produced them. the present is burdened too much with the past. we have not time, in our earthly existence, to appreciate what is warm with life, and immediately around us; yet we heap up these old shells, out of which human life has long emerged, casting them off forever. i do not see how future ages are to stagger onward under all this dead weight, with the additions that will be continually made to it. after leaving the museum, i went to see bennoch, and arrange with him our expedition of to-day; and he read me a letter from topper, very earnestly inviting me to come and spend a night or two with him. then i wandered about the city, and was lost in the vicinity of holborn; so that for a long while i was under a spell of bewilderment, and kept returning, in the strangest way, to the same point in lincoln's inn fields. . . . . mr. bowman and i went to the princess's theatre in the evening. charles kean performed in louis xi. very well indeed,--a thoughtful and highly skilled actor,--much improved since i saw him, many years ago, in america. aldershott camp. april st.--after my last date on thursday, i visited the national gallery. at three o'clock, having packed a travelling-bag, i went to bennoch's office, and lunched with him; and at about five we took the rail from the waterloo station for aldershott camp. at tamborough we were cordially received by lieutenant shaw, of the north cork rifles, and were escorted by him, in a fly, to his quarters. the camp is a large city, composed of numberless wooden barracks, arranged in regular streets, on a wide, bleak heath, with an extensive and dreary prospect on all sides. lieutenant shaw assigned me one room in his hut, and bennoch another, and made us as comfortable as kind hospitality could; but the huts are very small, and the rooms have no size at all; neither are they air-tight, and the sharp wind whistles in at the crevices; and, on the whole, of all discomfortable places, i am inclined to reckon aldershott camp the most so. i suppose the government has placed the camp on that windy heath, and built such wretched huts, for the very purpose of rendering life as little desirable as may be to the soldiers, so that they should throw it away the more willingly. at seven o'clock we dined at the regimental mess, with the officers of the north cork. the mess-room is by far the most endurable place to be found in camp. the hut is large, and the mess-room is capable of receiving between thirty and forty guests, besides the officers of the regiment, when a great dinner-party is given. as i saw it, the whole space was divided into a dining-room and two anterooms by red curtains drawn across; and the second anteroom seems to be a general rendezvous for the officers, where they meet at all times, and talk, or look over the newspapers and the army-register, which constitute the chief of their reading. the colonel and lieutenant-colonel of the regiment received bennoch and me with great cordiality, as did all the other officers, and we sat down to a splendid dinner. all the officers of the regiment are irishmen, and all of them, i believe, men of fortune; and they do what they can towards alleviating their hardships in camp by eating and drinking of the best that can be obtained of all good things. the table service and plate were as fine as those in any nobleman's establishment; the dishes numerous and admirably got up; and the wines delectable and genuine,--as they had need to be; for there is a great consumption of them. i liked these irish officers exceedingly;--not that it would be possible to live long among them without finding existence a bore; for they have no thought, no intellectual movement, no ideas, that i was aware of, beyond horses, dogs, drill, garrisons, field-days, whist, wine, cigars, and all that kind of thing; yet they were really gentlemen living on the best terms with one another,--courteous, kind, most hospitable, with a rich irish humor, softened down by social refinements,--not too refined either, but a most happy sort of behavior, as natural as that of children, and with a safe freedom that made one feel entirely at my ease. i think well of the irish gentlemen, for their sakes; and i believe i might fairly attribute to lieutenant-colonel stowell (next whom i sat) a higher and finer cultivation than the above description indicates. indeed, many of them may have been capable of much more intellectual intercourse than that of the mess-table; but i suppose it would not have been in keeping with their camp life, nor suggested by it. several of the elder officers were men who had been long in the army; and the colonel--a bluff, hearty old soldier, with a profile like an eagle's head and beak--was a veteran of the peninsula, and had a medal on his breast with clasps for three famous battles besides that of waterloo. the regimental band played during dinner, and the lieutenant-colonel apologized to me for its not playing "hail columbia," the tune not coning within their musical accomplishments. it was no great matter, however; for i should not have distinguished it from any other tune; but, to do me what honor was possible, in the way of national airs, the band was ordered to play a series of negro melodies, and i was entirely satisfied. it is really funny that the "wood-notes wild" of those poor black slaves should have been played in a foreign laud as an honorable compliment to one of their white countrymen. after dinner we played whist, and then had some broiled bones for supper, and finally went home to our respective huts not much earlier than four o'clock. but i don't wonder these gentlemen sit up as long as they can keep their eyes open; for never was there anything so utterly comfortless as their camp-beds. they are really worse than the bed of honor, no wider, no softer, no warmer, and affording not nearly so sound sleep. indeed, i got hardly any sleep at all, and almost as soon as i did close my eyes, the bugles sounded, and the drums beat reveille, and from that moment the camp was all astir; so i pretty soon uprose, and went to the mess-room for my breakfast, feeling wonderfully fresh and well, considering what my night had been. long before this, however, this whole regiment, and all the other regiments, marched off to take part in a general review, and bennoch and i followed, as soon as we had eaten a few mutton-chops. it was a bright, sunshiny day; but with a strong east-wind, as piercing and pitiless as ever blew; and this wide, undulating plain of aldershott seemed just the place where the east-wind was at home. still, it acted, on the whole, like an invigorating cordial; and whereas in pleasanter circumstances i should have lain down, and gone to sleep, i now felt as if i could do without sleep for a month. in due time we found out the place of the north cork regiment in the general battle-array, and were greeted as old comrades by the colonel and other officers. soon the soldiers (who, when we first reached them, were strolling about, or standing at ease) were called into order; and anon we saw a group of mounted officers riding along the lines, and among them a gentleman in a civilian's round hat, and plain frock and trousers, riding on a white horse. this group of riders turned the front of the regiment, and then passed along the rear, coming close to where we stood; and as the plainly dressed gentleman rode by, he bent towards me, and i tried to raise my hat, but did not succeed very well, because the fierce wind had compelled me to jam it tightly upon my head. the duke of cambridge (for this was he) is a comely-looking gentlemanly man, of bluff english face, with a great deal of brown beard about it. though a pretty tall man, he appears, on horseback, broad and round in proportion to his height. i looked at him with a certain sort of interest, and a feeling of kindness; for one does feel kindly to whatever human being is anywise marked out from the rest, unless it be by his disagreeable qualities. the troops, from twelve to fifteen thousand, now fell into marching order, and went to attack a wood, where we were to suppose the enemy to be stationed. the sham-fight seemed to me rather clumsily managed, and without any striking incident or result. the officers had prophesied, the night before, that general k------, commanding in the camp, would make a muddle of it; and probably he did. after the review, the duke of cambridge with his attendant officers took their station, and all the regiments marched in front of him, saluting as they passed. as each colonel rode by, and as the banner of each regiment was lowered, the duke lifted his hat. the most splendid effect of this parade was the gleam of the sun upon the long line of bayonets,--the sheen of all that steel appearing like a wavering fringe of light upon the dark masses of troops below. it was very fine. but i was glad when all was done, and i could go back to the mess-room, whither i carried an excellent appetite for luncheon. after this we walked about the camp,--looked at some model tents, inspected the arrangements and modes of living in the huts of the privates; and thus gained more and more adequate ideas of the vile uncomfortableness of a military life. finally, i went to the anteroom and turned over the regimental literature,--a peerage and baronetage,--an army and militia register, a number of the sporting magazine, and one of the united service, while bennoch took another walk. before dinner we both tried to catch a little nap by way of compensation for last night's deficiencies; but, for my part, the attempt was fruitless. the dinner was as splendid and as agreeable as that of the evening before; and i believe it was nearly two o'clock when bennoch and i bade farewell to our kind entertainers. for my part i fraternized with these military gentlemen in a way that augurs the very best things for the future peace of the two countries. they all expressed the warmest sympathies towards america and it was easy to judge from their conversation that there is no real friendliness on the part of the military towards the french. the old antipathy is just as strong as ever,--stronger than ever, perhaps, on account of the comparatively more brilliant success of the french in this russian war. so, with most christian sentiments of peace and brotherly love, we returned to our hut, and lay down, each in his narrow bed. early in the morning the drums and bugles began the usual bedevilment; and shortly after six i dressed, and we had breakfast at the mess-room, shook hands with lieutenant shaw (our more especial host), and drove off to the railway station at ash. i know not whether i have mentioned that the villages neighboring to the camp have suffered terribly as regards morality from the vicinity of the soldiers. quiet old english towns, that till within a little time ago had kept their antique simplicity and innocence, have now no such thing as female virtue in them, so far as the lower classes are concerned. this is expressing the matter too strongly, no doubt; but there is too much truth in it, nevertheless; and one of the officers remarked that even ladies of respectability had grown much more free in manners and conversation than at first. i have heard observations similar to this from a nova-scotian, in reference to the moral influence of soldiers when stationed in the provinces. wooton. wooton stands in a hollow, near the summit of one of the long swells that here undulate over the face of the country. there is a good deal of wood behind it, as should be the case with the residence of the author of the sylva; but i believe few, if any, of these trees are known to have been planted by john evelyn, or even to have been coeval with his time. the house is of brick, partly ancient, and consists of a front and two projecting wings, with a porch and entrance in the centre. it has a desolate, meagre aspect, and needs something to give it life and stir and jollity. the present proprietor is of the old evelyn family, and is now one of the two members of parliament for surrey; but he is a very shy and retiring man, unmarried, sees little company, and seems either not to know how to make himself comfortable or not to care about it. a servant told us that mr. ------ had just gone out, but tupper, who is apparently on intimate terms with him, thought it best that we should go into the house, while he went in search of the master. so the servant ushered us through a hall,--where were many family pictures by lely, and, for aught i know, by vandyke, and by kneller, and other famous painters,--up a grand staircase, and into the library, the inner room of which contained the ponderous volumes which john evelyn used to read. nevertheless, it was a room of most barren aspect, without a carpet on the floor, with pine bookcases, with a common whitewashed ceiling, with no luxurious study-chairs, and without a fire. there was an open folio on the table, and a sheet of manuscript that appeared to have been recently written. i took down a book from the shelves (a volume of annals, connected with english history), and tupper afterwards told us that this one single volume, for its rarity, was worth either two or three hundred pounds. against one of the windows of this library there grows a magnolia-tree, with a very large stem, and at least fifty years old. mrs. tupper and i waited a good while, and then bennoch and tupper came back, without having found mr. ------. tupper wished very much to show the prayer-book used by king charles at his execution, and some curious old manuscript volumes; but the servant said that his master always kept these treasures locked up, and trusted the key to nobody. we therefore had to take our leave without seeing them; and i have not often entered a house that one feels to be more forlorn than wooton,--although we did have a glimpse of a dining-room, with a table laid for three or four guests, and looking quite brilliant with plate and glass and snowy napery. there was a fire, too, in this one room. mr. ------ is making extensive alterations in the house, or has recently done so, and this is perhaps one reason of its ungenial meagreness and lack of finish. before our departure from wooton, tupper had asked me to leave my card for mr. ------; but i had no mind to overstep any limit of formal courtesy in dealing with an englishman, and therefore declined. tupper, however, on his own responsibility, wrote his name, bennoch's, and mine on a piece of paper, and told the servant to show them to mr. ------. we soon had experience of the good effect of this; for we had scarcely got back before somebody drove up to tupper's door, and one of the girls, looking out, exclaimed that there was mr. ------ himself, and another gentleman. he had set out, the instant he heard of our call, to bring the three precious volumes for me to see. this surely was most kind; a kindness which i should never have dreamed of expecting from a shy, retiring man like mr. ------. so he and his friend were ushered into the dining-room, and introduced. mr. ------ is a young-looking man, dark, with a mustache, rather small, and though he has the manners of a man who has seen the world, it evidently requires an effort in him to speak to anybody; and i could see his whole person slightly writhing itself, as it were, while he addressed me. this is strange in a man of his public position, member for the county, necessarily mixed up with life in many forms, the possessor of sixteen thousand pounds a year, and the representative of an ancient name. nevertheless, i liked him, and felt as if i could become intimately acquainted with him, if circumstances were favorable; but, at a brief interview like this, it was hopeless to break through two great reserves; so i talked more with his companion--a pleasant young man, fresh from college, i should imagine--than with mr. ------ himself. the three books were really of very great interest. one was an octavo volume of manuscript in john evelyn's own hand, the beginning of his published diary, written as distinctly as print, in a small, clear character. it can be read just as easily as any printed book. another was a church of england prayer-book, which king charles used on the scaffold, and which was stained with his sacred blood, and underneath are two or three lines in john evelyn's hand, certifying this to be the very book. it is an octavo, or small folio, and seems to have been very little used, scarcely opened, except in one spot; its leaves elsewhere retaining their original freshness and elasticity. it opens most readily at the commencement of the common service; and there, on the left-hand page, is a discoloration, of a yellowish or brownish hue, about two thirds of an inch large, which, two hundred years ago and a little more, was doubtless red. for on that page had fallen a drop of king charles's blood. the other volume was large, and contained a great many original letters, written by the king during his troubles. i had not time to examine them with any minuteness, and remember only one document, which mr. ------ pointed out, and which had a strange pathos and pitifulness in it. it was a sort of due-bill, promising to pay a small sum for beer, which had been supplied to his majesty, so soon as god should enable him, or the distracted circumstances of his kingdom make it possible,--or some touching and helpless expression of that kind. prince hal seemed to consider it an unworthy matter, that a great prince should think of "that poor creature, small beer," at all; but that a great prince should not be able to pay for it is far worse. mr. ------ expressed his regret that i was not staying longer in this part of the country, as he would gladly have seen me at wooten, and he succeeded in saying something about my books; and i hope i partly succeeded in showing him that i was very sensible of his kindness in letting me see those relics. i cannot say whether or no i expressed it sufficiently. it is better with such a man, or, indeed, with any man, to say too little than too much; and, in fact, it would have been indecorous in me to take too much of his kindness to my own share, bennoch being likewise in question. we had a cup of coffee, and then took our leave; tupper accompanying us part way down the village street, and bidding us an affectionate farewell. battle abbey. bennoch and i recommenced our travels, and, changing from one railway to another, reached tunbridge wells at nine or ten in the evening. . . . . the next day was spent at tunbridge wells, which is famous for a chalybeate spring, and is a watering-place of note, most healthily situated on a high, breezy hill, with many pleasant walks in the neighborhood. . . . . from tunbridge wells we transported ourselves to battle,--the village in which is battle abbey. it is a large village, with many antique houses and some new ones; and in its principal street, on one side, with a wide, green space before it, you see the gray, embattled, outer wall, and great, square, battlemented entrance tower (with a turret at each corner), of the ancient abbey. it is the perfect reality of a gothic battlement and gateway, just as solid and massive as when it was first built, though hoary and venerable with the many intervening centuries. there are only two days in the week on which visitors are allowed entrance, and this was not one of them. nevertheless, bennoch was determined to get in, and he wished me to send lady webster my card with his own; but this i utterly refused, for the honor of america and for my own honor; because i will not do anything to increase the reputation we already have as a very forward people. bennoch, however, called at a bookshop on the other side of the street, near the gateway of the castle; and making friends, as he has a marvellous tact in doing, with the bookseller, the latter offered to take in his card to the housekeeper, and see if lady webster would not relax her rule in our favor. meanwhile, we went into the old church of battle, which was built in norman times, though subsequently to the abbey. as we entered the church door, the bell rang for joy at the news of peace, which had just been announced by the london papers. the church has been whitewashed in modern times, and does not look so venerable as it ought, with its arches and pillared aisles. in the chancel stands a marble tomb, heavy, rich, and elaborate, on the top of which lie the broken-nosed statues of sir anthony browne and his lady, who were the lord and lady of battle abbey in henry viii.'s time. the knight is in armor, and the lady in stately garb, and (save for their broken noses) they are in excellent preservation. the pavement of the chancel and aisles is all laid with tombstones, and on two or three of these there were engraved brasses, representing knights in armor, and churchmen, with inscriptions in latin. some of them are very old. on the walls, too, there are various monuments, principally of dignitaries connected with the abbey. two hatchments, in honor of persons recently dead, were likewise suspended in the chancel. the best pew of the church is, of course, that of the webster family. it is curtained round, carpeted, furnished with chairs and footstools, and more resembles a parlor than a pew; especially as there is a fireplace in one of the pointed archways, which i suppose has been bricked up in order to form it. on the opposite side of the aisle is the pew of some other magnate, containing a stove. the rest of the parishioners have to keep themselves warm with the fervor of their own piety. i have forgotten what else was interesting, except that we were shown a stone coffin, recently dug up, in which was hollowed a place for the head of the corpse. returning to the bookshop, we found that lady webster had sent her compliments, and would be very happy to have us see the abbey. how thoroughly kind these english people can be when they like, and how often they like to be so! we lost no time in ringing the bell at the arched entrance, under the great tower, and were admitted by an old woman who lives, i believe, in the thickness of the wall. she told us her room used to be the prison of the abbey, and under the great arch she pointed to a projecting beam, where she said criminals used to be hanged. at two of the intersecting points of the arches, which form the roof of the gateway, were carved faces of stone, said to represent king harold and william the conqueror. the exterior wall, of which this tower is the gateway, extends far along the village street, and encloses a very large space, within which stands the mansion, quite secluded from unauthorized visitors, or even from the sight of those without, unless it be at very distant eyeshot. we rang at the principal door of the edifice (it is under a deep arch, in the norman style, but of modern date), and a footman let its in, and then delivered us over to a respectable old lady in black. she was a frenchwoman by birth, but had been very long in the service of the family, and spoke english almost without an accent; her french blood being indicated only by her thin and withered aspect, and a greater gentility of manner than would have been seen in an englishwoman of similar station. she ushered us first into a grand and noble hall, the arched and carved oaken roof of which ascended into the gable. it was nearly sixty feet long, and its height equal to its length,--as stately a hall, i should imagine, as is anywhere to be found in a private mansion. it was lighted, at one end, by a great window, beneath which, occupying the whole breadth of the hall, hung a vast picture of the battle of hastings; and whether a good picture or no, it was a rich adornment of the hall. the walls were wainscoted high upward with oak: they were almost covered with noble pictures of ancestry, and of kings and great men, and beautiful women; there were trophies of armor hung aloft; and two armed figures, one in brass mail, the other in bright steel, stood on a raised dais, underneath the great picture. at the end of the hall, opposite the picture, a third of the way up towards the roof, was a gallery. all these things that i have enumerated were in perfect condition, without rust, untouched by decay or injury of any kind; but yet they seemed to belong to a past age, and were mellowed, softened in their splendor, a little dimmed with time,--toned down into a venerable magnificence. of all domestic things that i have seen in england, it satisfied me most. then the frenchwoman showed us into various rooms and offices, most of which were contrived out of the old abbey-cloisters, and the vaulted cells and apartments in which the monks used to live. if any house be haunted, i should suppose this might be. if any church-property bring a curse with it, as people say, i do not see how the owners of battle abbey can escape it, taking possession of and dwelling in these holy precincts, as they have done, and laying their kitchen hearth with the stones of overthrown altars. the abbey was first granted, i believe, to sir anthony browne, whom i saw asleep with his lady in the church. it was his first wife. i wish it had been his second; for she was surrey's geraldine. the posterity of sir anthony kept the place till , and then sold it to the websters, a family of baronets, who are still the owners and occupants. the present proprietor is sir augustus webster, whose mother is the lady that so kindly let us into the abbey. mr. bennoch gave the nice old french lady half a crown, and we next went round among the ruined portions of the abbey, under the gardener's guidance. we saw two ivied towers, insulated from all other ruins; and an old refectory, open to the sky, and a vaulted crypt, supported by pillars; and we saw, too, the foundation and scanty remains of a chapel, which had been long buried out of sight of man, and only dug up within present memory,--about forty years ago. there had always been a tradition that this was the spot where harold had planted his standard, and where his body was found after the battle; and the discovery of the ruined chapel confirmed the tradition. i might have seen a great deal more, had there been time; and i have forgotten much of what i did see; but it is an exceedingly interesting place. there is an avenue of old yew-trees, which meet above like a cloistered arch; and this is called the monks' walk. i rather think they were ivy, though growing unsupported. as we were retiring, the gardener suddenly stopped, as if he were alarmed, and motioned to us to do the same, saying, "i believe it is my lady!" and so it was,--a tall and stately lady in black, trimming shrubs in the garden. she bowed to us very graciously,--we raised our hats, and thus we met and parted without more ado. as we went through the arch of the entrance tower, bennoch gave the old female warder a shilling, and the gardener followed us to get half a crown. hastings. we took a fly and driver from the principal hotel of battle, and drove off for hastings, about seven miles distant. hastings is now a famous watering and sea-bathing place, and seems to be well sheltered from the winds, though open to the sea, which here stretches off towards france. we climbed a high and steep hill, terraced round its base with streets of modern lodging-houses, and crowned on its summit with the ruins of a castle, the foundation of which was anterior to the conquest. this castle has no wall towards the sea, the precipice being too high and sheer to admit of attack on that side. i have quite exhausted my descriptive faculty for the present, so shall say nothing of this old castle, which indeed (the remains being somewhat scanty and scraggling) is chiefly picturesque and interesting from its bold position on such a headlong hill. clambering down on another side from that of our ascent, we entered the town of hastings, which seems entirely modern, and made up of lodging-houses, shops, hotels, parades, and all such makings up of watering-places generally. we took a delightful warm bath, washing off all weariness and naughtiness, and coming out new men. then we walked to st. leonard's,--a part of hastings, i believe, but a mile or two from the castle, and there called at the lodgings of two friends of bennoch. these were mr. martin, the author of bon gaultier's ballads, and his wife, the celebrated actress, helen faucett. mr. martin is a barrister, a gentleman whose face and manners suited me at once; a simple, refined, sincere, not too demonstrative person. his wife, too, i liked; a tall, dark, fine, and lady-like woman, with the simplest manners, that give no trouble at all, and so must be perfect. with these two persons i felt myself, almost in a moment, on friendly terms, and in true accord, and so i talked, i think, more than i have at any time since coming to london. we took a pleasant lunch at their house; and then they walked with us to the railway station, and there they took leave of bennoch affectionately and of me hardly less so; for, in truth, we had grown to be almost friends in this very little while. and as we rattled away, i said to bennoch earnestly, "what good people they are!"--and bennoch smiled, as if he had known perfectly well that i should think and say so. and thus we rushed onward to london; and i reached st. james's place between nine and ten o'clock, after a very interesting tour, the record of which i wish i could have kept as we went along, writing each day's history before another day's adventures began. end of vol. i. passages from the english note-books of nathaniel hawthorne vol. ii. passages from hawthorne's english note-books. london.--milton-club dinner. april th, .--on tuesday i went to no. ludgate hill, to dine with bennoch at the milton club; a club recently founded for dissenters, nonconformists, and people whose ideas, religious or political, are not precisely in train with the establishment in church and state. i was shown into a large reading-room, well provided with periodicals and newspapers, and found two or three persons there; but bennoch had not yet arrived. in a few moments, a tall gentleman with white hair came in,--a fine and intelligent-looking man, whom i guessed to be one of those who were to meet me. he walked about, glancing at the periodicals; and soon entered mr. tupper, and, without seeing me, exchanged warm greetings with the white-haired gentleman. "i suppose," began mr. tupper, "you have come to meet--" now, conscious that my name was going to be spoken, and not knowing but the excellent mr. tupper might say something which he would not, quite like me to overhear, i advanced at once, with outstretched hand, and saluted him. he expressed great joy at the recognition, and immediately introduced me to mr. hall. the dining-room was pretty large and lofty, and there were sixteen guests at table, most of them authors, or people connected with the press; so that the party represented a great deal of the working intellect of london at this present day and moment,--the men whose plays, whose songs, whose articles, are just now in vogue. mr. tom taylor was one of the very few whose writings i had known anything about. he is a tall, slender, dark young man, not english-looking, and wearing colored spectacles, so that i should readily have taken him for an american literary man. i did not have much opportunity of talking with him, nor with anybody else, except dr. ------, who seemed a shrewd, sensible man, with a certain slight acerbity of thought. mr. herbert ingram, recently elected member of parliament, was likewise present, and sat on bennoch's left. it was a very good dinner, with an abundance of wine, which bennoch sent round faster than was for the next day's comfort of his guests. it is singular that i should thus far have quite forgotten w------ h--------, whose books i know better than those of any other person there. he is a white-headed, stout, firm-looking, and rather wrinkled-faced old gentleman, whose temper, i should imagine, was not the very sweetest in the world. there is all abruptness, a kind of sub-acidity, if not bitterness, in his address; he seemed not to be, in short, so genial as i should have anticipated from his books. as soon as the cloth was removed, bennoch, without rising from his chair, made a speech in honor of his eminent and distinguished guest, which illustrious person happened to be sitting in the selfsame chair that i myself occupied. i have no recollection of what he said, nor of what i said in reply, but i remember that both of us were cheered and applauded much more than the occasion deserved. then followed about fifty other speeches; for every single individual at table was called up (as tupper said, "toasted and roasted"), and, for my part, i was done entirely brown (to continue t-----'s figure). everybody said something kind, not a word or idea of which can i find in my memory. certainly, if i never get any more praise in my life, i have had enough of it for once. i made another little bit of a speech, too, in response to something that was said in reference to the present difficulties between england and america, and ended, as a proof that i deemed war impossible, with drinking success to the british army, and calling on lieutenant shaw, of the aldershott camp, to reply. i am afraid i must have said something very wrong, for the applause was vociferous, and i could hear the gentlemen whispering about the table, "good!" "good!" "yes, he is a fine fellow,"--and other such ill-earned praises; and i took shame to myself, and held my tongue (publicly) the rest of the evening. but in such cases something must be allowed to the excitement of the moment, and to the effect of kindness and goodwill, so broadly and warmly displayed; and even a sincere man must not be held to speak as if he were under oath. we separated, in a blessed state of contentment with one another, at about eleven; and (lest i should starve before morning) i went with mr. d------ to take supper at his house in park lane. mr. d------ is a pale young gentleman, of american aspect, being a west-indian by birth. he is one of the principal writers of editorials for the times. we were accompanied in the carriage by another gentleman, mr. m------, who is connected with the management of the same paper. he wrote the letters from scutari, which drew so much attention to the state of the hospitals. mr. d------ is the husband of the former miss ------, the actress, and when we reached his house, we found that she had just come home from the theatre, and was taking off her stage-dress. anon she came down to the drawing-room,--a seemingly good, simple, and intelligent lady, not at all pretty, and, i should think, older than her husband. she was very kind to me, and told me that she had read one of my books--the house of the seven gables--thirteen years ago; which i thought remarkable, because i did not write it till eight or nine years afterwards. the principal talk during supper (which consisted of welsh-rabbit and biscuits, with champagne and sodawater) was about the times, and the two contributors expressed vast admiration of mr. ------, who has the chief editorial management of the paper. it is odd to find how little we outsiders know of men who really exercise a vast influence on affairs, for this mr. ------ is certainly of far more importance in the world than a minister of state. he writes nothing himself; but the character of the times seems to depend upon his intuitive, unerring judgment; and if ever he is absent from his post, even for a day or two, they say that the paper immediately shows it. in reply to my questions, they appeared to acknowledge that he was a man of expediency, but of a very high expediency, and that he gave the public the very best principles which it was capable of receiving. perhaps it may be so: the times's articles are certainly not written in so high a moral vein as might be wished; but what they lack in height they gain in breadth. every sensible man in england finds his own best common-sense there; and, in effect, i think its influence is wholesome. apropos of public speaking, dr. ------ said that sir lytton bulwer asked him (i think the anecdote was personal to himself) whether he felt his heart beat when he was going to speak. "yes." "does your voice frighten you?" "yes." "do all your ideas forsake you?" "yes." "do you wish the floor to open and swallow you?" "yes." "why, then, you'll make an orator!" dr. ------ told of canning, too, how once, before rising to speak in the house of commons, he bade his friend feel his pulse, which was throbbing terrifically. "i know i shall make one of my best speeches," said canning, "because i'm in such an awful funk!" president pierce, who has a great deal of oratorical power, is subject to a similar horror and reluctance. reform-club dinner. april th.--on thursday, at eight o'clock, i went to the reform club, to dine with dr. ------. the waiter admitted me into a great basement hall, with a tessellated or mosaic or somehow figured floor of stone, and lighted from a dome of lofty height. in a few minutes dr. ------ appeared, and showed me about the edifice, which is very noble and of a substantial magnificence that was most satisfactory to behold,--no wood-work imitating better materials, but pillars and balustrades of marble, and everything what it purports to be. the reading-room is very large, and luxuriously comfortable, and contains an admirable library: there are rooms and conveniences for every possible purpose; and whatever material for enjoyment a bachelor may need, or ought to have, he can surely find it here, and on such reasonable terms that a small income will do as much for him as a far greater one on any other system. in a colonnade, on the first floor, surrounding the great basement hall, there are portraits of distinguished reformers, and black niches for others yet to come. joseph hume, i believe, is destined to fill one of these blanks; but i remarked that the larger part of the portraits, already hung up, are of men of high rank,--the duke of sussex, for instance; lord durham, lord grey; and, indeed, i remember no commoner. in one room, i saw on the wall the fac-simile, so common in the united states, of our declaration of independence. descending again to the basement hall, an elderly gentleman came in, and was warmly welcomed by dr. ------. he was a very short man, but with breadth enough, and a back excessively bent,--bowed almost to deformity; very gray hair, and a face and expression of remarkable briskness and intelligence. his profile came out pretty boldly, and his eyes had the prominence that indicates, i believe, volubility of speech, nor did he fail to talk from the instant of his appearance; and in the tone of his voice, and in his glance, and in the whole man, there was something racy,--a flavor of the humorist. his step was that of an aged man, and he put his stick down very decidedly at every footfall; though as he afterwards told me that he was only fifty-two, he need not yet have been infirm. but perhaps he has had the gout; his feet, however, are by no means swollen, but unusually small. dr. ------ introduced him as mr. douglas jerrold, and we went into the coffee-room to dine. the coffee-room occupies one whole side of the edifice, and is provided with a great many tables, calculated for three or four persons to dine at; and we sat down at one of these, and dr. ------ ordered some mulligatawny soup, and a bottle of white french wine. the waiters in the coffee-room are very numerous, and most of them dressed in the livery of the club, comprising plush breeches and white-silk stockings; for these english reformers do not seem to include republican simplicity of manners in their system. neither, perhaps, is it anywise essential. after the soup, we had turbot, and by and by a bottle of chateau margaux, very delectable; and then some lambs' feet, delicately done, and some cutlets of i know not what peculiar type; and finally a ptarmigan, which is of the same race of birds as the grouse, but feeds high up towards the summits of the scotch mountains. then some cheese, and a bottle of chambertin. it was a very pleasant dinner, and my companions were both very agreeable men; both taking a shrewd, satirical, yet not ill-natured, view of life and people, and as for mr. douglas jerrold, he often reminded me of e---- c------, in the richer veins of the latter, both by his face and expression, and by a tincture of something at once wise and humorously absurd in what he said. but i think he has a kinder, more genial, wholesomer nature than e----, and under a very thin crust of outward acerbity i grew sensible of a very warm heart, and even of much simplicity of character in this man, born in london, and accustomed always to london life. i wish i had any faculty whatever of remembering what people say; but, though i appreciate anything good at the moment, it never stays in my memory; nor do i think, in fact, that anything definite, rounded, pointed, separable, and transferable from the general lump of conversation was said by anybody. i recollect that they laughed at mr. ------, and at his shedding a tear into a scottish river, on occasion of some literary festival. . . . . they spoke approvingly of bulwer, as valuing his literary position, and holding himself one of the brotherhood of authors; and not so approvingly of charles dickens, who, born a plebeian, aspires to aristocratic society. but i said that it was easy to condescend, and that bulwer knew he could not put off his rank, and that he would have all the advantages of it in spite of his authorship. we talked about the position of men of letters in england, and they said that the aristocracy hated and despised and feared them; and i asked why it was that literary men, having really so much power in their hands, were content to live unrecognized in the state. douglas jerrold talked of thackeray and his success in america, and said that he himself purposed going and had been invited thither to lecture. i asked him whether it was pleasant to a writer of plays to see them performed; and he said it was intolerable, the presentation of the author's idea being so imperfect; and dr. ------ observed that it was excruciating to hear one of his own songs sung. jerrold spoke of the duke of devonshire with great warmth, as a true, honest, simple, most kind-hearted man, from whom he himself had received great courtesies and kindnesses (not, as i understood, in the way of patronage or essential favors); and i (heaven forgive me!) queried within myself whether this english reforming author would have been quite so sensible of the duke's excellence if his grace had not been a duke. but indeed, a nobleman, who is at the same time a true and whole-hearted man, feeling his brotherhood with men, does really deserve some credit for it. in the course of the evening, jerrold spoke with high appreciation of emerson; and of longfellow, whose hiawatha he considered a wonderful performance; and of lowell, whose fable for critics he especially admired. i mentioned thoreau, and proposed to send his works to dr. ------, who, being connected with the illustrated news, and otherwise a writer, might be inclined to draw attention to then. douglas jerrold asked why he should not have them too. i hesitated a little, but as he pressed me, and would have an answer, i said that i did not feel quite so sure of his kindly judgment on thoreau's books; and it so chanced that i used the word "acrid" for lack of a better, in endeavoring to express my idea of jerrold's way of looking at men and books. it was not quite what i meant; but, in fact, he often is acrid, and has written pages and volumes of acridity, though, no doubt, with an honest purpose, and from a manly disgust at the cant and humbug of the world. jerrold said no more, and i went on talking with dr. ------; but, in a minute or two, i became aware that something had gone wrong, and, looking at douglas jerrold, there was an expression of pain and emotion on his face. by this time a second bottle of burgundy had been opened (clos vougeot, the best the club could produce, and far richer than the chambertin), and that warm and potent wine may have had something to do with the depth and vivacity of mr. jerrold's feelings. but he was indeed greatly hurt by that little word "acrid." "he knew," he said, "that the world considered him a sour, bitter, ill-natured man; but that such a man as i should have the sane opinion was almost more than he could bear." as he spoke, he threw out his arms, sank back in his seat, and i was really a little apprehensive of his actual dissolution into tears. hereupon i spoke, as was good need, and though, as usual, i have forgotten everything i said, i am quite sure it was to the purpose, and went to this good fellow's heart, as it came warmly from my own. i do remember saying that i felt him to be as genial as the glass of burgundy which i held in my hand; and i think that touched the very right spot; for he smiled, and said he was afraid the burgundy was better than he, but yet he was comforted. dr. ------ said that he likewise had a reputation for bitterness; and i assured him, if i might venture to join myself to the brotherhood of two such men, that i was considered a very ill-natured person by many people in my own country. douglas jerrold said he was glad of it. we were now in sweetest harmony, and jerrold spoke more than it would become me to repeat in praise of my own books, which he said he admired, and he found the man more admirable than his books! i hope so, certainly. we now went to the haymarket theatre, where douglas jerrold is on the free list; and after seeing a ballet by some spanish dancers, we separated, and betook ourselves to our several homes. i like douglas jerrold very much. april th.--on saturday evening, at ten o'clock, i went to a supper-party at mr. d------'s, and there met five or six people,--mr. faed, a young and distinguished artist; dr. eliotson, a dark, sombre, taciturn, powerful-looking man, with coal-black hair, and a beard as black, fringing round his face; mr. charles reade, author of christie johnstone and other novels, and many plays,--a tall man, more than thirty, fair-haired, and of agreeable talk and demeanor. on april th, i went to the waterloo station, and there meeting bennoch and dr. ------, took the rail for woking, where we found mr. hall's carriage waiting to convey us to addlestone, about five miles off. on arriving we found that mr. and mrs. hall had not yet returned from church. their place is an exceedingly pretty one, and arranged in very good taste. the house is not large; but is filled, in every room, with fine engravings, statuettes, ingenious prettinesses or beautifulnesses in the way of flower-stands, cabinets, and things that seem to have bloomed naturally out of the characters of its occupants. there is a conservatory connected with the drawing-room, and enriched with lovely plants, one of which has a certain interest as being the plant on which coleridge's eyes were fixed when he died. this conservatory is likewise beautified with several very fine casts of statues by modern sculptors, among which was the greek slave of powers, which my english friends criticised as being too thin and meagre; but i defended it as in accordance with american ideas of feminine beauty. from the conservatory we passed into the garden, but did not minutely examine it, knowing that mr. hall would wish to lead us through it in person. so, in the mean time, we took a walk in the neighborhood, over stiles and along by-paths, for two or three miles, till we reached the old village of chertsey. in one of its streets stands an ancient house, gabled, and with the second story projecting over the first, and bearing an inscription to the purport that the poet cowley had once resided, and, i think, died there. thence we passed on till we reached a bridge over the thames, which at this point, about twenty-five miles from london, is a narrow river, but looks clean and pure, and unconscious what abominations the city sewers will pour into it anon. we were caught in two or three showers in the course of our walk; but got back to firfield without being very much wetted. our host and hostess had by this time returned from church, and mrs. hall came frankly and heartily to the door to greet us, scolding us (kindly) for having got wet. . . . . i liked her simple, easy, gentle, quiet manners, and i liked her husband too. he has a wide and quick sympathy, and expresses it freely. . . . . the world is the better for him. the shower being now over, we went out upon the beautiful lawn before his house, where there were a good many trees of various kinds, many of which have been set out by persons of great or small distinction, and are labelled with their names. thomas moore's name was appended to one; maria edgeworth's to another; likewise fredrika bremer's, jenny lind's; also grace greenwood's, and i know not whose besides. this is really a pleasant method of enriching one's grounds with memorials of friends, nor is there any harm in making a shrubbery of celebrities. three holes were already dug, and three new trees lay ready to be planted, and for me there was a sumach to plant,--a tree i never liked; but mr. hall said that they had tried to dig up a hawthorn, but found it clung too fast to the soil. so, since better might not be, and telling mr. hall that i supposed i should have a right to hang myself on this tree whenever i chose, i seized a spade, and speedily shovelled in a great deal of dirt; and there stands my sumach, an object of interest to posterity! bennoch also and dr. ------ set out their trees, and indeed, it was in some sense a joint affair, for the rest of the party held up each tree, while its godfather shovelled in the earth; but, after all, the gardener had more to do with it than we. after this important business was over, mr. hall led us about his rounds, which are very nicely planned and ordered; and all this he has bought, and built, and laid out, from the profits of his own and his wife's literary exertions. we dined early, and had a very pleasant dinner, and, after the cloth was removed, mr. hall was graciously pleased to drink my health, following it with a long tribute to my genius. i answered briefly; and one half of my short speech was in all probability very foolish. . . . . after the ladies (there were three, one being a girl of seventeen, with rich auburn hair, the adopted daughter of the halls) had retired, dr. ------ having been toasted himself, proposed mrs. hall's health. i did not have a great deal of conversation with mrs. hall; but enough to make me think her a genuine and good woman, unspoilt by a literary career, and retaining more sentiment than even most girls keep beyond seventeen. she told me that it had been the dream of her life to see longfellow and myself! . . . . her dream is half accomplished now, and, as they say longfellow is coming over this summer, the remainder may soon be rounded out. on taking leave, our kind hosts presented me with some beautiful flowers, and with three volumes of a work, by themselves, on ireland; and dr. ------ was favored also with some flowers, and a plant in a pot, and bennoch too had his hands full, . . . . and we went on our way rejoicing. [here follows an account of the lord mayor's dinner, taken mostly for our old home; but i think i will copy this more exact description of the lady mentioned in "civic banquets."--ed.] . . . . my eyes were mostly drawn to a young lady, who sat nearly opposite me, across the table. she was, i suppose, dark, and yet not dark, but rather seemed to be of pure white marble, yet not white; but the purest and finest complexion, without a shade of color in it, yet anything but sallow or sickly. her hair was a wonderful deep raven-black, black as night, black as death; not raven-black, for that has a shiny gloss, and hers had not, but it was hair never to be painted nor described,--wonderful hair, jewish hair. her nose had a beautiful outline, though i could see that it was jewish too; and that, and all her features, were so fine that sculpture seemed a despicable art beside her, and certainly my pen is good for nothing. if any likeness could be given, however; it must be by sculpture, not painting. she was slender and youthful, and yet had a stately and cold, though soft and womanly grace; and, looking at her, i saw what were the wives of the old patriarchs in their maiden or early-married days,--what judith was, for, womanly as she looked, i doubt, not she could have slain a man in a just cause,--what bathsheba was, only she seemed to have no sin in her,-- perhaps what eve was, though one could hardly think her weak enough to eat the apple. . . . . whether owing to distinctness of race, my sense that she was a jewess, or whatever else, i felt a sort of repugnance, simultaneously with my perception that she was an admirable creature. the house of commons. at ten o'clock the next day [after the lord mayor's dinner] i went to lunch with bennoch, and afterwards accompanied him to one of the government offices in downing street. he went thither, not on official business, but on a matter connected with a monument to miss mitford, in which mr. harness, a clergyman and some sort of a government clerk, is interested. i gathered from this conversation that there is no great enthusiasm about the monumental affair among the british public. it surprised me to hear allusions indicating that miss mitford was not the invariably amiable person that her writings would suggest; but the whole drift of what they said tended, nevertheless, towards the idea that she was an excellent and generous person, loved most by those who knew her best. from downing street we crossed over and entered westminster hall, and passed through it, and up the flight of steps at its farthest end, and along the avenue of statues, into the vestibule of the house of commons. it was now somewhat past five, and we stood at the inner entrance of the house, to see the members pass in, bennoch pointing out to me the distinguished ones. i was not much impressed with the appearance of the members generally; they seemed to me rather shabbier than english gentlemen usually, and i saw or fancied in many of them a certain self-importance, as they passed into the interior, betokening them to be very full of their dignity. some of them looked more american--more like american politicians--than most englishmen do. there was now and then a gray-headed country gentleman, the very type of stupidity; and two or three city members came up and spoke to bennoch, and showed themselves quite as dull, in their aldermanic way, as the country squires. . . . . bennoch pointed out lord john russell, a small, very short, elderly gentleman, in a brown coat, and so large a hat--not large of brim, but large like a peck-measure--that i saw really no face beneath it. by and by came a rather tall, slender person, in a black frock-coat, buttoned up, and black pantaloons, taking long steps, but i thought rather feebly or listlessly. his shoulders were round, or else he had a habitual stoop in them. he had a prominent nose, a thin face, and a sallow, very sallow complexion; . . . . and had i seen him in america i should have taken him for a hard-worked editor of a newspaper, weary and worn with night-labor and want of exercise,--aged before his time. it was disraeli, and i never saw any other englishman look in the least like him; though, in america, his appearance would not attract notice as being unusual. i do not remember any other noteworthy person whom we saw enter; in fact, the house had already been some time in session, and most of the members were in their places. we were to dine at the refectory of the house with the new member for boston; and, meanwhile, bennoch obtained admittance for us into the speaker's gallery, where we had a view of the members, and could hear what was going on. a mr. muntz was speaking on the income tax, and he was followed by sir george cornewall lewis and others; but it was all very uninteresting, without the slightest animation or attempt at oratory,--which, indeed, would have been quite out of place. we saw lord palmerston; but at too great a distance to distinguish anything but a gray head. the house had daylight in it when we entered, and for some time afterwards; but, by and by, the roof, which i had taken to be a solid and opaque ceiling, suddenly brightened, and showed itself to be transparent; a vast expanse of tinted and figured glass, through which came down a great, mild radiance on the members below. the character of the debate, however, did not grow more luminous or vivacious; so we went down into the vestibule, and there waited for mr. ------, who soon came and led us into the refectory. it was very much like the coffee-room of a club. the strict rule forbids the entrance of any but members of parliament; but it seems to be winked at, although there is another room, opening beyond this, where the law of seclusion is strictly enforced. the dinner was good, not remarkably so, but good enough,--a soup, some turbot or salmon, cutlets, and i know not what else, and claret, sherry, and port; for, as mr. ------ said, "he did not wish to be stingy." mr. ------ is a self-made man, and a strong instance of the difference between the englishman and the american, when self-made, and without early education. he is no more a gentleman now than when he began life, --not a whit more refined, either outwardly or inwardly; while the american would have been, after the same experience, not distinguishable outwardly, and perhaps as refined within, as nine tenths of the gentlemen born, in the house of commons. and, besides, an american comes naturally to any distinctions to which success in life may bring him; he takes them as if they were his proper inheritance, and in no wise to be wondered at. mr. ------, on the other hand, took evidently a childish delight in his position, and felt a childish wonder in having arrived at it; nor did it seem real to him, after all. . . . . we again saw disraeli, who has risen from the people by modes perhaps somewhat like those of mr. ------. he came and stood near our table, looking at the bill of fare, and then sat down on the opposite side of the room with another gentleman, and ate his dinner. the story of his marriage does him much credit; and indeed i am inclined to like disraeli, as a man who has made his own place good among a hostile aristocracy, and leads instead of following them. from the house of commons we went to albert smith's exhibition, or lecture, of the ascent of mont blanc, to which bennoch had orders. it was very amusing, and in some degree instructive. we remained in the saloon at the conclusion of the lecture; and when the audience had dispersed, mr. albert smith made his appearance. . . . . nothing of moment happened the next day, at least, not till two o'clock, when i went with mr. bowman to birch's eating-house (it is not birch's now, but this was the name of the original founder, who became an alderman, and has long been dead) for a basin of turtle-soup. it was very rich, very good, better than we had at the lord mayor's, and the best i ever ate. in the evening, mr. j. b. davis, formerly our secretary of legation, called to take us to dine at mr. ------'s in camden town. mr. ------ calls his residence vermont house; but it hardly has a claim to any separate title, being one of the centre houses of a block. i forget whether i mentioned his calling on me. he is a vermonter, a graduate of yale college, who has been here several years, and has established a sort of book brokerage, buying libraries for those who want them, and rare works and editions for american collectors. his business naturally brings him into relations with literary people; and he is himself a kindly and pleasant man. on our arrival we found mr. d------ and one of his sisters already there; and soon came a mr. peabody, who, if i mistake not, is one of the salem peabodys, and has some connection with the present eminent london mr. peabody. at any rate, he is a very sensible, well-instructed, and widely and long travelled man. mr. tom taylor was also expected; but, owing to some accident or mistake, he did not come for above an hour, all which time our host waited. . . . . but mr. tom taylor, a wit, a satirist, and a famous diner out, is too formidable and too valuable a personage to be treated cavalierly. in the interim mr. ------ showed us some rare old books, which he has in his private collection, a black-letter edition of chaucer, and other specimens of the early english printers; and i was impressed, as i have often been, with the idea that we have made few, if any, improvements in the art of printing, though we have greatly facilitated the modes of it. he showed us dryden's translation of virgil, with dr. johnson's autograph in it and a large collection of bibles, of all dates,--church bibles, family bibles of the common translation, and older ones. he says he has written or is writing a history of the bible (as a printed work, i presume). many of these bibles had, no doubt, been in actual and daily use from generation to generation; but they were now all splendidly bound, and were likewise very clean and smooth,--in fact, every leaf had been cleansed by a delicate process, a part of which consisted in soaking the whole book in a tub of water, during several days. mr. ------ is likewise rich in manuscripts, having a spanish document with the signature of the son of columbus; a whole little volume in franklin's handwriting, being the first specimen of it; and the original manuscripts of many of the songs of burns. among these i saw "auld lang syne," and "bruce's address to his army." we amused ourselves with these matters as long as we could; but at last, as there was to be a party in the evening, dinner could no longer be put off; so we took our seats at table, and immediately afterwards mr. taylor made his appearance with his wife and another lady. mr. taylor is reckoned a brilliant conversationist; but i suppose he requires somebody to draw him out and assist him; for i could hear nothing that i thought very remarkable on this occasion. he is not a kind of man whom i can talk with, or greatly help to talk; so, though i sat next to him, nothing came of it. he told me some stories of his life in the temple,--little funny incidents, that he afterwards wrought into his dramas; in short, a sensible, active-minded, clearly perceptive man, with a humorous way of showing up men and matters. . . . . i wish i could know exactly what the english style good conversation. probably it is something like plum-pudding,--as heavy, but seldom so rich. after dinner mr. tom taylor and mr. d------, with their respective ladies, took their leave; but when we returned to the drawing-room, we found it thronged with a good many people. mr. s. c. hall was there with his wife, whom i was glad to see again, for this was the third time of meeting her, and, in this whirl of new acquaintances, i felt quite as if she were an old friend. mr. william howitt was also there, and introduced me to his wife,--a very natural, kind, and pleasant lady; and she presented me to one or two daughters. mr. marston, the dramatist, was also introduced to me; and mr. helps, a thin, scholarly, cold sort of a man. dr. mackay and his wife were there, too; and a certain mr. jones, a sculptor,--a jolly, large, elderly person, with a twinkle in his eye. also a mr. godwin, who impressed me as quite a superior person, gentlemanly, cultivated, a man of sensibility; but it is quite impossible to take a clear imprint from any one character, where so many are stamped upon one's notice at once. this mr. godwin, as we were discussing thackeray, said that he is most beautifully tender and devoted to his wife, whenever she can be sensible of his attentions. he says that thackeray, in his real self, is a sweet, sad man. i grew weary of so many people, especially of the ladies, who were rather superfluous in their oblations, quite stifling me, indeed, with the incense that they burnt under my nose. so far as i could judge, they had all been invited there to see me. it is ungracious, even hoggish, not to be gratified with the interest they expressed in me; but then it is really a bore, and one does not know what to do or say. i felt like the hippopotamus, or-- to use a more modest illustration--like some strange insect imprisoned under a tumbler, with a dozen eyes watching whatever i did. by and by, mr. jones, the sculptor, relieved me by standing up against the mantel-piece, and telling an irish story, not to two or three auditors, but to the whole drawing-room, all attentive as to a set exhibition. it was very funny. the next day after this i went with mr. bowman to call on our minister, and found that he, and four of the ladies of his family, with his son, had gone to the queen's drawing-room. we lunched at the wellington; and spent an hour or more in looking out of the window of that establishment at the carriages, with their pompous coachmen and footmen, driving to and from the palace of st. james, and at the horse guards, with their bright cuirasses, stationed along the street. . . . . then i took the rail for liverpool. . . . . while i was still at breakfast at the waterloo, j----- came in, ruddy-cheeked, smiling, very glad to see me, and looking, i thought, a good deal taller than when i left him. and so ended my london excursion, which has certainly been rich in incident and character, though my account of it be but meagre. scotland.--glasgow. may th.--last friday, may d, i took the rail, with mr. bowman, from the lime street station, for glasgow. there was nothing of much interest along the road, except that, when we got beyond penrith, we saw snow on the tops of some of the hills. twilight came on as we were entering scotland; and i have only a recollection of bleak and bare hills and villages dimly seen, until, nearing glasgow, we saw the red blaze of furnace-lights at frequent iron-founderies. we put up at the queen's hotel, where we arrived about ten o'clock; a better hotel than i have anywhere found in england,--new, well arranged, and with brisk attendance. in the morning i rambled largely about glasgow, and found it to be chiefly a modern-built city, with streets mostly wide and regular, and handsome houses and public edifices of a dark gray stone. in front of our hotel, in an enclosed green space, stands a tall column surmounted by a statue of sir walter scott,--a good statue, i should think, as conveying the air and personal aspect of the man. there is a bronze equestrian statue of the queen in one of the streets, and one or two more equestrian or other statues of eminent persons. i passed through the trongate and the gallow-gate, and visited the salt-market, and saw the steeple of the tolbooth, all of which scott has made interesting; and i went through the gate of the university, and penetrated into its enclosed courts, round which the college edifices are built. they are not gothic, but of the age, i suppose, of james i.,--with odd-looking, conical-roofed towers, and here and there the bust of a benefactor in niches round the courts, and heavy stone staircases ascending from the pavement, outside the buildings, all of dark gray granite, cold, hard, and venerable. the university stands in high street, in a dense part of the town, and a very old and shabby part, too. i think the poorer classes of glasgow excel even those in liverpool in the bad eminence of filth, uncombed and unwashed children, drunkenness, disorderly deportment, evil smell, and all that makes city poverty disgusting. in my opinion, however, they are a better-looking people than the english (and this is true of all classes), more intelligent of aspect, with more regular features. i looked for the high cheek-bones, which have been attributed, as a characteristic feature, to the scotch, but could not find them. what most distinguishes them front the english is the regularity of the nose, which is straight, or sometimes a little curved inward; whereas the english nose has no law whatever, but disports itself in all manner of irregularity. i very soon learned to recognize the scotch face, and when not too scotch, it is a handsome one. in another part of the high street, up a pretty steep slope, and on one side of a public green, near an edifice which i think is a medical college, stands st. mungo's cathedral. it is hardly of cathedral dimensions, though a large and fine old church. the price of a ticket of admittance is twopence; so small that it might be as well to make the entrance free. the interior is in excellent repair, with the nave and side aisles, and clustered pillars, and intersecting arches, that belong to all these old churches; and a few monuments along the walls. i was going away without seeing any more than this; but the verger, a friendly old gentleman, with a hearty scotch way of speaking, told me that the crypts were what chiefly interested strangers; and so he guided me down into the foundation-story of the church, where there is an intricacy and entanglement of immensely massive and heavy arches, supporting the structure above. the view through these arches, among the great shafts of the columns, was very striking. in the central part is a monument; a recumbent figure, if i remember rightly, but it is not known whom it commemorates. there is also a monument to a scotch prelate, which seems to have been purposely defaced, probably in covenant times. these intricate arches were the locality of one of the scenes in "rob roy," when rob gives frank osbaldistone some message or warning, and then escapes from him into the obscurity behind. in one corner is st. mungo's well, secured with a wooden cover; but i should not care to drink water that comes from among so many old graves. after viewing the cathedral, i got back to the hotel just in time to go from thence to the steamer wharf, and take passage up the clyde. there was nothing very interesting in this little voyage. we passed many small iron steamers, and some large ones; and green fields along the river-shores, villas, villages, and all such suburban objects; neither am i quite sure of the name of the place we landed at, though i think it was bowling. here we took the railway for balloch; and the only place or thing i remember during this transit was a huge bluff or crag, rising abruptly from a river-side, and looking, in connection with its vicinity to the highlands, just such a site as would be taken for the foundation of a castle. on inquiry it turned out that this abrupt and double-headed hill (for it has two summits, with a cleft between) is the site of dumbarton castle, for ages one of the strongest fortresses in scotland, and still kept up as a garrisoned place. at the distance and point of view at which we passed it, the castle made no show. arriving at balloch, we found it a small village, with no marked features, and a hotel, where we got some lunch, and then we took a stroll over the bridge across the levers, while waiting for the steamer to take us up loch lomond. it was a beautiful afternoon, warm and sunny; and after walking about a mile, we had a fine view of loch lomond, and of the mountains around and beyond it,--ben lomond among the rest. it is vain, at a week's distance, to try to remember the shapes of mountains; so i shall attempt no description of them, and content myself with saying that they did not quite come up to my anticipations. in due time we returned to our hotel, and found in the coffee-room a tall, white-haired, venerable gentleman, and a pleasant-looking young lady, his daughter. they had been eating lunch, and the young lady helped her father on with his outside garment, and his comforter, and gave him his stick, just as any other daughter might do,--all of which i mention because he was a nobleman; and, moreover, had engaged all the post-horses at the inn, so that we could not continue our travels by land, along the side of loch lomond, as we had first intended. at four o'clock the railway train arrived again, with a very moderate number of passengers, who (and we among them) immediately embarked on board a neat little steamer which was waiting for us. the day was bright and cloudless; but there was a strong, cold breeze blowing down the lake, so that it was impossible, without vast discomfort, to stand in the bow of the steamer and look at the scenery. i looked at it, indeed, along the sides, as we passed, and on our track behind; and no doubt it was very fine; but from all the experience i have had, i do not think scenery can be well seen from the water. at any rate, the shores of loch lomond have faded completely out of my memory; nor can i conceive that they really were very striking. at a year's interval, i can recollect the cluster of hills around the head of lake windermere; at twenty years' interval, i remember the shores of lake champlain; but of the shores of this scottish lake i remember nothing except some oddly shaped rocks, called "the cobbler and his daughter," on a mountain-top, just before we landed. but, indeed, we had very imperfect glimpses of the hills along the latter part of the course, because the wind had grown so very cold that we took shelter below, and merely peeped at loch lomond's sublimities from the cabin-windows. the whole voyage up loch lomond is, i think, about thirty-two miles; but we landed at a place called tarbet, much short of the ultimate point. there is here a large hotel; but we passed it, and walked onward a mile or two to arroquhar, a secluded glen among the hills, where is a new hotel, built in the old manor-house style, and occupying the site of what was once a castle of the chief of the macfarlanes. over the portal is a stone taken from the former house, bearing the date . there is a little lake near the house, and the hills shut in the whole visible scene so closely that there appears no outlet nor communication with the external world; but in reality this little lake is connected with loch long, and loch long is an arm of the sea; so that there is water communication between arroquhar and glasgow. we found this a very beautiful place; and being quite sheltered from all winds that blew, we strolled about late into the prolonged twilight, and admired the outlines of the surrounding hills, and fancied resemblances to various objects in the shapes of the crags against the evening sky. the sun had not set till nearly, if not quite, eight o'clock; and before the daylight had quite gone, the northern lights streamed out, and i do not think that there was much darkness over the glen of arroquhar that night. at all events, before the darkness came, we withdrew into the coffee-room. we had excellent beds and sleeping-rooms in this new hotel, and i remember nothing more till morning, when we were astir betimes, and had some chops for breakfast. then our host, mr. macregor, who is also the host of our hotel at glasgow, and has many of the characteristics of an american landlord, claiming to be a gentleman and the equal of his guests, took us in a drosky, and drove us to the shore of loch lomond, at a point about four miles from arroquhar. the lake is here a mile and a half wide, and it was our object to cross to inversnaid, on the opposite shore; so first we waved a handkerchief, and then kindled some straw on the beach, in order to attract the notice of the ferryman at inversnaid. it was half an hour before our signals and shoutings resulted in the putting off of a boat, with two oarsmen, who made the transit pretty speedily; and thus we got across loch lomond. at inversnaid there is a small hotel, and over the rock on which it stands a little waterfall tumbles into the lake,--a very little one, though i believe it is reckoned among the other picturesque features of the scene. we were now in rob roy's country, and at the distance of a mile or so, along the shore of the lake, is rob roy's cave, where he and his followers are supposed to have made their abode in troublous times. while lunch was getting ready, we again took the boat, and went thither. landing beneath a precipitous, though not very lofty crag, we clambered up a rude pathway, and came to the mouth of the cave, which is nothing but a fissure or fissures among some great rocks that have tumbled confusedly together. there is hardly anywhere space enough for half a dozen persons to crowd themselves together, nor room to stand upright. on the whole, it is no cave at all, but only a crevice; and, in the deepest and darkest part, you can look up and see the sky. it may have sheltered rob roy for a night, and might partially shelter any christian during a shower. returning to the hotel, we started in a drosky (i do not know whether this is the right name of the vehicle, or whether it has a right name, but it is a carriage in which four persons sit back to back, two before and two behind) for aberfoyle. the mountain-side ascends very steeply from the inn door, and, not to damp the horse's courage in the outset, we went up on foot. the guide-book says that the prospect from the summit of the ascent is very fine; but i really believe we forgot to turn round and look at it. all through our drive, however, we had mountain views in plenty, especially of great ben lomond, with his snow-covered head, round which, since our entrance into the highlands, we had been making a circuit. nothing can possibly be drearier than the mountains at this season; bare, barren, and bleak, with black patches of withered heath variegating the dead brown of the herbage on their sides; and as regards trees the hills are perfectly naked. there were no frightful precipices, no boldly picturesque features, along our road; but high, weary slopes, showing miles and miles of heavy solitude, with here and there a highland hut, built of stone and thatched; and, in one place, an old gray, ruinous fortress, a station of the english troops after the rebellion of ; and once or twice a village of hills, the inhabitants of which, old and young, ran to their doors to stare at us. for several miles after we left inversnaid, the mountain-stream which makes the waterfall brawled along the roadside. all the hills are sheep-pastures, and i never saw such wild, rough, ragged-looking creatures as the sheep, with their black faces and tattered wool. the little lambs were very numerous, poor things, coming so early in the season into this inclement region; and it was laughable to see how invariably, when startled by our approach, they scampered to their mothers, and immediately began to suck. it would seem as if they sought a draught from the maternal udder, wherewith to fortify and encourage their poor little hearts; but i suppose their instinct merely drove them close to their dams, and, being there, they took advantage of their opportunity. these sheep must lead a hard life during the winter; for they are never fed nor sheltered. the day was sunless, and very uncomfortably cold; and we were not sorry to walk whenever the steepness of the road gave us cause. i do not remember what o'clock it was, but not far into the afternoon, when we reached the baillie nicol-jarvie inn at aberfoyle; a scene which is much more interesting in the pages of rob roy than we found it in reality. here we got into a sort of cart, and set out, over another hill-path, as dreary as or drearier than the last, for the trosachs. on our way, we saw ben venue, and a good many other famous bens, and two or three lochs; and when we reached the trosachs, we should probably have been very much enraptured if our eyes had not already been weary with other mountain shapes. but, in truth, i doubt if anybody ever does really see a mountain, who goes for the set and sole purpose of seeing it. nature will not let herself be seen in such cases. you must patiently bide her time; and by and by, at some unforeseen moment, she will quietly and suddenly unveil herself, and for a brief space allow you to look right into the heart of her mystery. but if you call out to her peremptorily, "nature! unveil yourself this very moment!" she only draws her veil the closer; and you may look with all your eyes, and imagine that you see all that she can show, and yet see nothing. thus, i saw a wild and confused assemblage of heights, crags, precipices, which they call the trosachs, but i saw them calmly and coldly, and was glad when the drosky was ready to take us on to callender. the hotel at the trosachs, by the by, is a very splendid one, in the form of an old feudal castle, with towers and turrets. all among these wild hills there is set preparation for enraptured visitants; and it seems strange that the savage features do not subside of their own accord, and that there should still be cold winds and snow on the top of ben lomond, and rocks and heather, and ragged sheep, now that there are so many avenues by which the commonplace world is sluiced in among the highlands. i think that this fashion of the picturesque will pass away. we drove along the shore of lake vennachar, and onward to callender, which i believe is either the first point in the lowlands or the last in the highlands. it is a large village on the river teith. we stopped here to dine, and were some time in getting any warmth into our benumbed bodies; for, as i said before, it was a very cold day. looking from the window of the hotel, i saw a young man in highland dress, with bare thighs, marching through the village street towards the lowlands, with a martial and elastic step, as if he were going forth to conquer and occupy the world. i suppose he was a soldier who had been absent on leave, returning to the garrison at stirling. i pitied his poor thighs, though he certainly did not look uncomfortable. after dinner, as dusk was coming on and we had still a long drive before us (eighteen miles, i believe), we took a close carriage and two horses, and set off for stirling. the twilight was too obscure to show many things along the road, and by the time we drove into stirling we could but dimly see the houses in the long street in which stood our hotel. there was a good fire in the coffee-room, which looked like a drawing-room in a large old-fashioned mansion, and was hung round with engravings of the portraits of the county members, and a master of fox-hounds, and other pictures. we made ourselves comfortable with some tea, and retired early. in the morning we were stirring betimes, and found stirling to be a pretty large town, of rather ancient aspect, with many gray stone houses, the gables of which are notched on either side, like a flight of stairs. the town stands on the slope of a hill, at the summit of which, crowning a long ascent, up which the paved street reaches all the way to its gate, is stirling castle. of course we went thither, and found free entrance, although the castle is garrisoned by five or six hundred men, among whom are barelegged highlanders (i must say that this costume is very fine and becoming, though their thighs did look blue and frost-bitten) and also some soldiers of other scotch regiments, with tartan trousers. almost immediately on passing the gate, we found an old artillery-man, who undertook to show us round the castle. only a small portion of it seems to be of great antiquity. the principal edifice within the castle wall is a palace, that was either built or renewed by james vi.; and it is ornamented with strange old statues, one of which is his own. the old scottish parliament house is also here. the most ancient part of the castle is the tower, where one of the earls of douglas was stabbed by a king, and afterwards thrown out of the window. in reading this story, one imagines a lofty turret, and the dead man tumbling headlong from a great height; but, in reality, the window is not more than fifteen or twenty feet from the garden into which he fell. this part of the castle was burned last autumn; but is now under repair, and the wall of the tower is still stanch and strong. we went up into the chamber where the murder took place, and looked through the historic window. then we mounted the castle wall, where it broods over a precipice of many hundred feet perpendicular, looking down upon a level plain below, and forth upon a landscape, every foot of which is richly studded with historic events. there is a small peep-hole in the wall, which queen mary is said to have been in the habit of looking through. it is a most splendid view; in the distance, the blue highlands, with a variety of mountain outlines that i could have studied unweariably; and in another direction, beginning almost at the foot of the castle hill, were the links of forth, where, over a plain of miles in extent the river meandered, and circled about, and returned upon itself again and again and again, as if knotted into a silver chain, which it was difficult to imagine to be all one stream. the history of scotland might be read from this castle wall, as on a book of mighty page; for here, within the compass of a few miles, we see the field where wallace won the battle of stirling, and likewise the battle-field of bannockburn, and that of falkirk, and sheriffmuir, and i know not how many besides. around the castle hill there is a walk, with seats for old and infirm persons, at points sheltered from the wind. we followed it downward, and i think we passed over the site where the games used to be held, and where, this morning, some of the soldiers of the garrison were going through their exercises. i ought to have mentioned, that, passing through the inner gateway of the castle, we saw the round tower, and glanced into the dungeon, where the roderic dhu of scott's poem was left to die. it is one of the two round towers, between which the portcullis rose and fell. edinburgh.--the palace of holyrood. at eleven o'clock we took the rail for edinburgh, and i remember nothing more, except that the cultivation and verdure of the country were very agreeable, after our experience of highland barrenness and desolation, until we found the train passing close at the base of the rugged crag of edinburgh castle. we established ourselves at queen's hotel, in prince's street, and then went out to view the city. the monument to sir walter scott--a rather fantastic and not very impressive affair, i thought-- stands almost directly in front of a hotel. we went along prince's street, and thence, by what turns i know not, to the palace of holyrood, which stands on a low and sheltered site, and is a venerable edifice. arthur's seat rises behind it,--a high hill, with a plain between. as we drew near the palace, mr. bowman, who has been here before, pointed out the windows of queen mary's apartments, in a circular tower on the left of the gateway. on entering the enclosed quadrangle, we bought tickets for sixpence each, admitting us to all parts of the palace that are shown to visitors; and first we went into a noble hall or gallery, a long and stately room, hung with pictures of ancient scottish kings; and though the pictures were none of them authentic, they, at least, answer an excellent purpose in the way of upholstery. it was here that the young pretender gave the ball which makes one of the scenes in waverley. thence we passed into the old historic rooms of the palace,--darnley's and queen mary's apartments, which everybody has seen and described. they are very dreary and shabby-looking rooms, with bare floors, and here and there a piece of tapestry, faded into a neutral tint; and carved and ornamented ceilings, looking shabbier than plain whitewash. we saw queen mary's old bedstead, low, with four tall posts,--and her looking-glass, which she brought with her from france, and which has often reflected the beauty that set everybody mad,--and some needlework and other womanly matters of hers; and we went into the little closet where she was having such a cosey supper-party with two or three friends, when the conspirators broke in, and stabbed rizzio before her face. we saw, too, the blood-stain at the threshold of the door in the next room, opening upon the stairs. the body of rizzio was flung down here, and the attendant told us that it lay in that spot all night. the blood-stain covers a large space,--much larger than i supposed,--and it gives the impression that there must have been a great pool and sop of blood on all the spot covered by rizzio's body, staining the floor deeply enough never to be washed out. it is now of a dark brown hue; and i do not see why it may not be the genuine, veritable stain. the floor, thereabouts, appears not to have been scrubbed much; for i touched it with my finger, and found it slightly rough; but it is strange that the many footsteps should not have smoothed it, in three hundred years. one of the articles shown us in queen mary's apartments was the breastplate supposed to have been worn by lord ruthven at the murder, a heavy plate of iron, and doubtless a very uncomfortable waistcoat. holyrood abbey. from the palace, we passed into the contiguous ruin of holyrood abbey; which is roofless, although the front, and some broken columns along the nave, and fragments of architecture here and there, afford hints of a magnificent gothic church in bygone times. it deserved to be magnificent; for here have been stately ceremonials, marriages of kings, coronations, investitures, before the high altar, which has now been overthrown or crumbled away; and the floor--so far as there is any floor --consists of tombstones of the old scottish nobility. there are likewise monuments, bearing the names of illustrious scotch families; and inscriptions, in the scotch dialect, on the walls. in one of the front towers,--the only remaining one, indeed,--we saw the marble tomb of a nobleman, lord belhaven, who is represented reclining on the top,--with a bruised nose, of course. except in westminster abbey, i do not remember ever to have seen an old monumental statue with the nose entire. in all political or religious outbreaks, the mob's first impulse is to hit the illustrious dead on their noses. at the other end of the abbey, near the high altar, is the vault where the old scottish kings used to be buried; but, looking in through the window, i saw only a vacant space,--no skull, nor bone, nor the least fragment of a coffin. in fact, i believe the royal dead were turned out of their last home, on occasion of the revolutionary movements, at the accession of william iii. high street and the grass-market. quitting the abbey and the palace, we turned into the canongate, and passed thence into high street, which, i think, is a continuation of the canongate; and being now in the old town of edinburgh, we saw those immensely tall houses, seven stories high, where the people live in tiers, all the way from earth to middle air. they were not so quaint and strange looking as i expected; but there were some houses of very antique individuality, and among them that of john knox, which looks still in good repair. one thing did not in the least fall short of my expectations,--the evil odor, for which edinburgh has an immemorial renown,--nor the dirt of the inhabitants, old and young. the town, to say the truth, when you are in the midst of it, has a very sordid, grimy, shabby, upswept, unwashen aspect, grievously at variance with all poetic and romantic associations. from the high street we turned aside into the grass-market, the scene of the porteous mob; and we found in the pavement a cross on the site where the execution of porteous is supposed to have taken place. the castle. returning thence to the high street, we followed it up to the castle, which is nearer the town, and of more easy access from it, than i had supposed. there is a large court or parade before the castle gate, with a parapet on the abrupt side of the hill, looking towards arthur's seat and salisbury crags, mud overhanging a portion of the old town. as we leaned over this parapet, my nose was conscious of the bad odor of edinburgh, although the streets, whence it must have come, were hundreds of feet below. i have had some experience of this ugly smell in the poor streets of liverpool; but i think i never perceived it before crossing the atlantic. it is the odor of an old system of life; the scent of the pine forests is still too recent with us for it to be known in america. the castle of edinburgh is free (as appears to be the case with all garrisoned places in great britain) to the entrance of any peaceable person. so we went in, and found a large space enclosed within the walls, and dwellings for officers, and accommodation for soldiers, who were being drilled, or loitering about; and as the hill still ascends within the external wall of the castle, we climbed to the summit, and there found an old soldier whom we engaged to be our guide. he showed us mons meg, a great old cannon, broken at the breech, but still aimed threateningly from the highest ramparts; and then he admitted us into an old chapel, said to have been built by a queen of scotland, the sister of harold, king of england, and occupying the very highest part of the hill. it is the smallest place of worship i ever saw, but of venerable architecture, and of very solid construction. the old soldier had not much more to show us; but he pointed out the window whence one of the kings of scotland is said, when a baby, to have been lowered down, the whole height of the castle, to the bottom of the precipice on which it stands,--a distance of seven hundred feet. after the soldier had shown us to the extent of his jurisdiction, we went into a suite of rooms, in one of which i saw a portrait of queen mary, which gave me, for the first time, an idea that she was really a very beautiful woman. in this picture she is wonderfully so,--a tender womanly grace, which was none the less tender and graceful for being equally imbued with queenly dignity and spirit. it was too lovely a head to be cut off. i should be glad to know the authenticity of this picture. i do not know that we did anything else worthy of note, before leaving edinburgh. there is matter enough, in and about the town, to interest the visitor for a very long time; but when the visit is calculated on such brevity as ours was, we get weary of the place, before even these few hours come to an end. thus, for my part, i was not sorry when, in the course of the afternoon, we took the rail for melrose, where we duly arrived, and put up at the george inn. melrose. melrose is a village of rather antique aspect, situated on the slope and at the bottom of the eildon hills, which, from this point of view, appear like one hill, with a double summit. the village, as i said, has an old look, though many of the houses have at least been refronted at some recent date; but others are as ancient, i suppose, as the days when the abbey was in its splendor,--a rustic and peasant-like antiquity, however, low-roofed, and straw-thatched. there is an aged cross of stone in the centre of the town. our first object, of course, was to see the abbey, which stands just on the outskirts of the village, and is attainable only by applying at a neighboring house, the inhabitant of which probably supports himself, and most comfortably, too, as a showman of the ruin. he unlocked the wooden gate, and admitted us into what is left of the abbey, comprising only the ruins of the church, although the refectory, the dormitories, and the other parts of the establishment, formerly covered the space now occupied by a dozen village houses. melrose abbey is a very satisfactory ruin, all carpeted along its nave and transepts with green grass; and there are some well-grown trees within the walls. we saw the window, now empty, through which the tints of the painted glass fell on the tombstone of michael scott, and the tombstone itself, broken in three pieces, but with a cross engraven along its whole length. it must have been the monument of an old monk or abbot, rather than a wizard. there, too, is still the "marble stone" on which the monk and warrior sat them down, and which is supposed to mark the resting-place of alexander of scotland. there are remains, both without and within the abbey, of most curious and wonderfully minute old sculpture,--foliage, in places where it is almost impossible to see them, and where the sculptor could not have supposed that they would be seen, but which yet are finished faithfully, to the very veins of each leaf, in stone; and there is a continual variety of this accurate toil. on the exterior of the edifice there is equal minuteness of finish, and a great many niches for statues; all of which, i believe, are now gone, although there are carved faces at some points and angles. the graveyard around the abbey is still the only one which the village has, and is crowded with gravestones, among which i read the inscription of one erected by sir walter scott to the memory of thomas pardy, one of his servants. some sable birds--either rooks or jackdaws-- were flitting about the ruins, inside and out. mr. bowman and i talked about revisiting melrose by moonlight; but, luckily, there was to be no moon that evening. i do not myself think that daylight and sunshine make a ruin less effective than twilight or moonshine. in reference to scott's description, i think he deplorably diminishes the impressiveness of the scene by saying that the alternate buttresses, seen by moonlight, look as if made of ebon and ivory. it suggests a small and very pretty piece of cabinet-work; not these gray, rough walls, which time has gnawed upon for a thousand years, without eating them away. leaving the abbey, we took a path or a road which led us to the river tweed, perhaps a quarter of a mile off; and we crossed it by a foot-bridge,--a pretty wide stream, a dimpling breadth of transparent water flowing between low banks, with a margin of pebbles. we then returned to our inn, and had tea, and passed a quiet evening by the fireside. this is a good, unpretentious inn; and its visitors' book indicates that it affords general satisfaction to those who come here. in the morning we breakfasted on broiled salmon, taken, no doubt, in the neighboring tweed. there was a very coarse-looking man at table with us, who informed us that he owned the best horse anywhere round the eildon hills, and could make the best cast for a salmon, and catch a bigger fish than anybody,--with other self-laudation of the same kind. the waiter afterwards told us that he was the son of an admiral in the neighborhood; and soon, his horse being brought to the door, we saw him mount and ride away. he sat on horseback with ease and grace, though i rather suspect, early as it was, that he was already in his cups. the scotch seem to me to get drunk at very unseasonable hours. i have seen more drunken people here than during all my residence in england, and, generally, early in the day. their liquor, so far as i have observed, makes them good-natured and sociable, imparting a perhaps needed geniality to their cold natures. after breakfast we took a drosky, or whatever these fore-and-aft-seated vehicles are called, and set out for dryburgh abbey, three miles distant. it was a cold though rather bright morning, with a most shrewd and bitter wind, which blew directly in my face as i sat beside the driver. an english wind is bad enough, but methinks a scotch one, is rather worse; at any rate, i was half frozen, and wished dryburgh abbey in tophet, where it would have been warmer work to go and see it. some of the border hills were striking, especially the cowden knowe, which ascends into a prominent and lofty peak. such villages as we passed did not greatly differ from english villages. by and by we came to the banks of the tweed, at a point where there is a ferry. a carriage was on the river-bank, the driver waiting beside it; for the people who came in it had already been ferried across to see the abbey. the ferryman here is a young girl; and, stepping into the boat, she shoved off, and so skilfully took advantage of the eddies of the stream, which is here deep and rapid, that we were soon on the other side. she was by no means an uncomely maiden, with pleasant scotch features, and a quiet intelligence of aspect, gleaming into a smile when spoken to; much tanned with all kinds of weather, and, though slender, yet so agile and muscular that it was no shame for a man to let himself be rowed by her. from the ferry we had a walk of half a mile, more or less, to a cottage, where we found another young girl, whose business it is to show the abbey. she was of another mould than the ferry-maiden,--a queer, shy, plaintive sort of a body,--and answered all our questions in a low, wailing tone. passing through an apple-orchard, we were not long in reaching the abbey, the ruins of which are much more extensive and more picturesque than those of melrose, being overrun with bushes and shrubbery, and twined about with ivy, and all such vegetation as belongs, naturally, to old walls. there are the remains of the refectory, and other domestic parts of the abbey, as well as the church, and all in delightful state of decay,--not so far gone but that we had bits of its former grandeur in the columns and broken arches, and in some portions of the edifice that still retain a roof. in the chapter-house we saw a marble statue of newton, wofully maltreated by damps and weather; and though it had no sort of business there, it fitted into the ruins picturesquely enough. there is another statue, equally unauthorized; both having been placed here by a former earl of buchan, who seems to have been a little astray in his wits. on one side of the church, within an arched recess, are the monuments of sir walter scott and his family,--three ponderous tombstones of aberdeen granite, polished, but already dimmed and dulled by the weather. the whole floor of the recess is covered by these monuments, that of sir walter being the middle one, with lady (or, as the inscription calls her, dame) scott beyond him, next to the church wall, and some one of his sons or daughters on the hither side. the effect of his being buried here is to make the whole of dryburgh abbey his monument. there is another arched recess, twin to the scott burial-place, and contiguous to it, in which are buried a pringle family; it being their ancient place of sepulture. the spectator almost inevitably feels as if they were intruders, although their rights here are of far older date than those of scott. dryburgh abbey must be a most beautiful spot of a summer afternoon; and it was beautiful even on this not very genial morning, especially when the sun blinked out upon the ivy, and upon the shrubberied paths that wound about the ruins. i think i recollect the birds chirruping in this neighborhood of it. after viewing it sufficiently,--sufficiently for this one time,--we went back to the ferry, and, being set across by the same undine, we drove back to melrose. no longer riding against the wind, i found it not nearly so cold as before. i now noticed that the eildon hills, seen from this direction, rise from one base into three distinct summits, ranged in a line. according to "the lay of the last minstrel," they were cleft into this shape by the magic of michael scott. reaching melrose . . . . without alighting, we set off for abbotsford, three miles off. the neighborhood of melrose, leading to abbotsford, has many handsome residences of modern build and very recent date,--suburban villas, each with its little lawn and garden ground, such as we see in the vicinity of liverpool. i noticed, too, one castellated house, of no great size, but old, and looking as if its tower were built, not for show, but for actual defence in the old border warfare. we were not long in reaching abbotsford. the house, which is more compact, and of considerably less extent than i anticipated, stands in full view from the road, and at only a short distance from it, lower down towards the river. its aspect disappointed me; but so does everything. it is but a villa, after all; no castle, nor even a large manor-house, and very unsatisfactory when you consider it in that light. indeed, it impressed me, not as a real house, intended for the home of human beings,--a house to die in or to be born in,--but as a plaything,-- something in the same category as horace walpole's strawberry hill. the present owner seems to have found it insufficient for the actual purposes of life; for he is adding a wing, which promises to be as extensive as the original structure. we rang at the front door (the family being now absent), and were speedily admitted by a middle-aged or somewhat elderly man,--the butler, i suppose, or some upper servant,--who at once acceded to our request to be permitted to see the house. we stepped from the porch immediately into the entrance-hall; and having the great hall of battle abbey in my memory, and the ideal of a baronial hall in my mind, i was quite taken aback at the smallness and narrowness and lowness of this; which, however, is a very fine one, on its own little scale. in truth, it is not much more than a vestibule. the ceiling is carved; and every inch of the walls is covered with claymores, targets, and other weapons and armor, or old-time curiosities, tastefully arranged, many of which, no doubt, have a history attached to them,--or had, in sir walter's own mind. our attendant was a very intelligent person, and pointed out much that was interesting; but in such a multitudinous variety it was almost impossible to fix the eye upon any one thing. probably the apartment looked smaller than it really was, on account of being so wainscoted and festooned with curiosities. i remember nothing particularly, unless it be the coal-grate in the fireplace, which was one formerly used by archbishop sharpe, the prelate whom balfour of burley murdered. either in this room or the next one, there was a glass case containing the suit of clothes last worn by scott,--a short green coat, somewhat worn, with silvered buttons, a pair of gray tartan trousers, and a white hat. it was in the hall that we saw these things; for there too, i recollect, were a good many walking-sticks that had been used by scott, and the hatchet with which he was in the habit of lopping branches from his trees, as he walked among them. from the hall we passed into the study;--a small room, lined with the books which sir walter, no doubt, was most frequently accustomed to refer to; and our guide pointed out some volumes of the moniteur, which he used while writing the history of napoleon. probably these were the driest and dullest volumes in his whole library. about mid-height of the walls of the study there is a gallery, with a short flight of steps for the convenience of getting at the upper books. a study-table occupied the centre of the room, and at one end of the table stands an easy-chair, covered with morocco, and with ample space to fling one's self back. the servant told me that i might sit down in this chair, for that sir walter sat there while writing his romances, "and perhaps," quoth the man, smiling, "you may catch some inspiration." what a bitter word this would have been if he had known me to be a romance-writer! "no, i never shall be inspired to write romances!" i answered, as if such an idea had never occurred to me. i sat down, however. this study quite satisfied me, being planned on principles of common-sense, and made to work in, and without any fantastic adaptation of old forms to modern uses. next to the study is the library, an apartment of respectable size, and containing as many books as it can hold, all protected by wire-work. i did not observe what or whose works were here; but the attendant showed us one whole compartment full of volumes having reference to ghosts, witchcraft, and the supernatural generally. it is remarkable that scott should have felt interested in such subjects, being such a worldly and earthly man as he was; but then, indeed, almost all forms of popular superstition do clothe the ethereal with earthly attributes, and so make it grossly perceptible. the library, like the study, suited me well,--merely the fashion of the apartment, i mean,--and i doubt not it contains as many curious volumes as are anywhere to be met with within a similar space. the drawing-room adjoins it; and here we saw a beautiful ebony cabinet, which was presented to sir walter by george iv.; and some pictures of much interest,--one of scott himself at thirty-five, rather portly, with a heavy face, but shrewd eyes, which seem to observe you closely. there is a full-length of his eldest son, an officer of dragoons, leaning on his charger; and a portrait of lady scott,--a brunette, with black hair and eyes, very pretty, warm, vivacious, and un-english in her aspect. i am not quite sure whether i saw all these pictures in the drawing-room, or some of them in the dining-room; but the one that struck me most--and very much indeed--was the head of mary, queen of scots, literally the head cut off and lying on a dish. it is said to have been painted by an italian or french artist, two days after her death. the hair curls or flows all about it; the face is of a death-like hue, but has an expression of quiet, after much pain and trouble,--very beautiful, very sweet and sad; and it affected me strongly with the horror and strangeness of such a head being severed from its body. methinks i should not like to have it always in the room with me. i thought of the lovely picture of mary that i had seen at edinburgh castle, and reflected what a symbol it would be,--how expressive of a human being having her destiny in her own hands,--if that beautiful young queen were painted as carrying this dish, containing her own woful head, and perhaps casting a curious and pitiful glance down upon it, as if it were not her own. also, in the drawing-room, there was a plaster cast of sir walter's face, taken after death; the only one in existence, as our guide assured us. it is not often that one sees a homelier set of features than this; no elevation, no dignity, whether bestowed by nature or thrown over them by age or death; sunken cheeks, the bridge of the nose depressed, and the end turned up; the mouth puckered, and no chin whatever, or hardly any. the expression was not calm and happy; but rather as if he were in a perturbed slumber, perhaps nothing short of nightmare. i wonder that the family allow this cast to be shown,--the last record that there is of scott's personal reality, and conveying such a wretched and unworthy idea of it. adjoining the drawing-room is the dining-room, in one corner of which, between two windows, scott died. it was now a quarter of a century since his death; but it seemed to me that we spoke with a sort of hush in our voices, as if he were still dying here, or had but just departed. i remember nothing else in this room. the next one is the armory, which is the smallest of all that we had passed through; but its walls gleam with the steel blades of swords, and the barrels of pistols, matchlocks, firelocks, and all manner of deadly weapons, whether european or oriental; for there are many trophies here of east indian warfare. i saw rob roy's gun, rifled and of very large bore; and a beautiful pistol, formerly claverhouse's; and the sword of montrose, given him by king charles, the silver hilt of which i grasped. there was also a superb claymore, in an elaborately wrought silver sheath, made for sir walter scott, and presented to him by the highland society, for his services in marshalling the clans when george iv. came to scotland. there were a thousand other things, which i knew must be most curious, yet did not ask nor care about them, because so many curiosities drive one crazy, and fret one's heart to death. on the whole, there is no simple and great impression left by abbotsford; and i felt angry and dissatisfied with myself for not feeling something which i did not and could not feel. but it is just like going to a museum, if you look into particulars; and one learns from it, too, that scott could not have been really a wise man, nor an earnest one, nor one that grasped the truth of life; he did but play, and the play grew very sad toward its close. in a certain way, however, i understand his romances the better for having seen his house; and his house the better for having read his romances. they throw light on one another. we had now gone through all the show-rooms; and the next door admitted us again into the entrance-hall, where we recorded our names in the visitors' book. it contains more names of americans, i should judge, from casting my eyes back over last year's record, than of all other people in the world, including great britain. bidding farewell to abbotsford, i cannot but confess a sentiment of remorse for having visited the dwelling-place--as just before i visited the grave of the mighty minstrel and romancer with so cold a heart and in so critical a mood,--his dwelling-place and his grave whom i had so admired and loved, and who had done so much for my happiness when i was young. but i, and the world generally, now look at him from a different point of view; and, besides, these visits to the actual haunts of famous people, though long dead, have the effect of making us sensible, in some degree, of their human imperfections, as if we actually saw them alive. i felt this effect, to a certain extent, even with respect to shakespeare, when i visited stratford-on-avon. as for scott, i still cherish him in a warm place, and i do not know that i have any pleasanter anticipation, as regards books, than that of reading all his novels over again after we get back to the wayside. [this mr. hawthorne did, aloud to his family, the year following his return to america.--ed.] it was now one or two o'clock, and time for us to take the rail across the borders. many a mile behind us, as we rushed onward, we could see the threefold eildon hill, and probably every pant of the engine carried us over some spot of ground which scott has made fertile with poetry. for scotland--cold, cloudy, barren little bit of earth that it is--owes all the interest that the world feels in it to him. few men have done so much for their country as he. however, having no guide-book, we were none the wiser for what we saw out of the window of the rail-carriage; but, now and then, a castle appeared, on a commanding height, visible for miles round, and seemingly in good repair,--now, in some low and sheltered spot, the gray walls of an abbey; now, on a little eminence, the ruin of a border fortress, and near it the modern residence of the laird, with its trim lawn and shrubbery. we were not long in coming to berwick, a town which seems to belong both to england and scotland, or perhaps is a kingdom by itself, for it stands on both sides of the boundary river, the tweed, where it empties into the german ocean. from the railway bridge we had a good view over the town, which looks ancient, with red roofs on all the gabled houses; and it being a sunny afternoon, though bleak and chill, the sea-view was very fine. the tweed is here broad, and looks deep, flowing far beneath the bridge, between high banks. this is all that i can say of berwick (pronounced berrick), for though we spent above an hour at the station waiting for the train, we were so long in getting our dinner, that we had not time for anything else. i remember, however, some gray walls, that looked like the last remains of an old castle, near the railway station. we next took the train for newcastle, the way to which, for a considerable distance, lies within sight of the sea; and in close vicinity to the shore we saw holy isle, on which are the ruins of an abbey. norham castle must be somewhere in this neighborhood, on the english shore of the tweed. it was pretty late in the afternoon--almost nightfall--when we reached newcastle, over the roofs of which, as over those of berwick, we had a view from the railway, and like berwick, it was a congregation of mostly red roofs; but, unlike berwick (the atmosphere over which was clear and transparent), there came a gush of smoke from every chimney, which made it the dimmest and smokiest place i ever saw. this is partly owing to the iron founderies and furnaces; but each domestic chimney, too, was smoking on its own account,--coal being so plentiful there, no doubt, that the fire is always kept freshly heaped with it, reason or none. out of this smoke-cloud rose tall steeples; and it was discernible that the town stretched widely over an uneven surface, on the banks of the tyne, which is navigable up hither ten miles from the sea for pretty large vessels. we established ourselves at the station hotel, and then walked out to see something of the town; but i remember only a few streets of duskiness and dinginess, with a glimpse of the turrets of a castle to which we could not find our way. so, as it was getting twilightish and very cold, we went back to the hotel, which is a very good one, better than any one i have seen in the south of england, and almost or quite as good as those of scotland. the coffee-room is a spacious and handsome apartment, adorned with a full-length portrait of wellington, and other pictures, and in the whole establishment there was a well-ordered alacrity and liberal provision for the comfort of guests that one seldom sees in english inns. there are a good many american guests in newcastle, and through all the north. an old newcastle gentleman and his friend came into the smoking-room, and drank three glasses of hot whiskey-toddy apiece, and were still going on to drink more when we left them. these respectable persons probably went away drunk that night, yet thought none the worse of themselves or of one another for it. it is like returning to times twenty years gone by for a new-englander to witness such simplicity of manners. the next morning, may th, i rose and breakfasted early, and took the rail soon after eight o'clock, leaving mr. bowman behind; for he had business in newcastle, and would not follow till some hours afterwards. there is no use in trying to make a narrative of anything that one sees along an english railway. all i remember of this tract of country is that one of the stations at which we stopped for an instant is called "washington," and this is, no doubt, the old family place, where the de wessyngtons, afterwards the washingtons, were first settled in england. before reaching york, first one old lady and then another (quaker) lady got into the carriage along with me; and they seemed to be going to york, on occasion of some fair or celebration. this was all the company i had, and their advent the only incident. it was about eleven o'clock when i beheld york cathedral rising huge above the old city, which stands on the river ouse, separated by it from the railway station, but communicating by a ferry (or two) and a bridge. i wandered forth, and found my way over the latter into the ancient and irregular streets of york, crooked, narrow, or of unequal width, puzzling, and many of them bearing the name of the particular gate in the old walls of the city to which they lead. there were no such fine, ancient, stately houses as some of those in shrewsbury were, nor such an aspect of antiquity as in chester; but still york is a quaint old place, and what looks most modern is probably only something old, hiding itself behind a new front, as elsewhere in england. i found my way by a sort of instinct, as directly as possible, to york minster. it stands in the midst of a small open space,--or a space that looks small in comparison with the vast bulk of the cathedral. i was not so much impressed by its exterior as i have usually been by gothic buildings; because it is rectangular in its general outline and in its towers, and seems to lack the complexity and mysterious plan which perplexes and wonder-strikes me in most cathedrals. doubtless, however, if i had known better how to admire it, i should have found it wholly admirable. at all events, it has a satisfactory hugeness. seeking my way in, i at first intruded upon the registry of deeds, which occupies a building patched up against the mighty side of the cathedral, and hardly discernible, so small the one and so large the other. i finally hit upon the right door, and i felt no disappointment in my first glance around at the immensity of enclosed space;--i see now in my mind's eye a dim length of nave, a breadth in the transepts like a great plain, and such an airy height beneath the central tower that a worshipper could certainly get a good way towards heaven without rising above it. i only wish that the screen, or whatever they call it, between the choir and nave, could be thrown down, so as to give us leave to take in the whole vastitude at once. i never could understand why, after building a great church, they choose to sunder it in halves by this mid-partition. but let me be thankful for what i got, and especially for the height and massiveness of the clustered pillars that support the arches on which rests the central tower. i remember at furness abbey i saw two tall pillars supporting a broken arch, and thought it, the most majestic fragment of architecture that could possibly be. but these pillars have a nobler height, and these arches a greater sweep. what nonsense to try to write about a cathedral! there is a great, cold bareness and bleakness about the interior; for there are very few monuments, and those seem chiefly to be of ecclesiastical people. i saw no armed knights, asleep on the tops of their tombs; but there was a curious representation of a skeleton, at full length, under the table-slab of one of the monuments. the walls are of a grayish hue, not so agreeable as the rich dark tint of the inside of westminster abbey; but a great many of the windows are still filled with ancient painted glass, the very small squares and pieces of which are composed into splendid designs of saints and angels, and scenes from scripture. there were a few watery blinks of sunshine out of doors, and whenever these came through the old painted windows, some of the more vivid colors were faintly thrown upon the pavement of the cathedral,--very faintly, it is true; for, in the first place, the sunshine was not brilliant; and painted glass, too, fades in the course of the ages, perhaps, like all man's other works. there were two or three windows of modern manufacture, and far more magnificent, as to brightness of color and material beauty, than the ancient ones; but yet they looked vulgar, glaring, and impertinent in comparison, because such revivals or imitations of a long-disused art cannot have the good faith and earnestness of the originals. indeed, in the very coloring, i felt the same difference as between heart's blood and a scarlet dye. it is a pity, however, that the old windows cannot be washed, both inside and out, for now they have the dust of centuries upon them. the screen or curtain between the nave and choir has eleven carved figures, at full length, which appeared to represent kings, some of them wearing crowns, and bearing sceptres or swords. they were in wood, and wrought by some gothic hand. these carvings, and the painted windows, and the few monuments, are all the details that the mind can catch hold of in the immensity of this cathedral; and i must say that it was a dreary place on that cold, cloudy day. i doubt whether a cathedral is a sort of edifice suited to the english climate. the first buildings of the kind were probably erected by people who had bright and constant sunshine, and who desired a shadowy awfulness--like that of a forest, with its arched wood-paths--into which to retire in their religious moments. in america, on a hot summer's day, how delightful its cool and solemn depths would be! the painted windows, too, were evidently contrived, in the first instance, by persons who saw how effective they would prove when a vivid sun shone through them. but in england, the interior of a cathedral, nine days out of ten, is a vast sullenness, and as chill as death and the tomb. at any rate, it was so to-day, and so thought one of the old vergers, who kept walking as briskly as he could along the width of the transepts. there were several of these old men when i first came in, but they went off, all but this one, before i departed. none of them said a word to me, nor i to them; and admission to the minster seems to be entirely free. after emerging from this great gloom, i wandered to and fro about york, and contrived to go astray within no very wide space. if its history be authentic, it is an exceedingly old city, having been founded about a thousand years before the christian era. there used to be a palace of the roman emperors here, and the emperor severus died here, as did some of his successors; and constantine the great was born here. i know not what, if any, relics of those earlier times there may be; but york is still partly surrounded with a wall, and has several gates, which the city authorities take pains to keep in repair. i grow weary in my endeavor to find my way back to the railway, and inquired it of one of the good people of york,--a respectable, courteous, gentlemanly person,-- and he told me to walk along the walls. then he went on a considerable distance; but seemed to repent of not doing more for me; so he waited till i came up, and, walking along by my side, pointed out the castle, now the jail, and the place of execution, and directed me to the principal gateway of the city, and instructed me how to reach the ferry. the path along the wall leads, in one place, through a room over the arch of a gateway,--a low, thick-walled, stone apartment, where doubtless the gatekeeper used to lodge, and to parley with those who desired entrance. i found my way to the ferry over the ouse, according to this kind yorkist's instructions. the ferryman told me that the fee for crossing was a halfpenny, which seemed so ridiculously small that i offered him more; but this unparalleled englishman declined taking anything beyond his rightful halfpenny. this seems so wonderful to me that i can hardly trust my own memory. reaching the station, i got some dinner, and at four o'clock, just as i was starting, came mr. bowman, my very agreeable and sensible travelling companion. our journeying together was ended here; for he was to keep on to london, and i to return to liverpool. so we parted, and i took the rail westward across england, through a very beautiful, and in some degree picturesque, tract of country, diversified with hills, through the valleys and vistas of which goes the railroad, with dells diverging from it on either hand, and streams and arched bridges, and old villages, and a hundred pleasant english sights. after passing rochdale, however, the dreary monotony of lancashire succeeded this variety. between nine and ten o'clock i reached the tithebarn station in liverpool. ever since until now, may th, i have employed my leisure moments in scribbling off the journal of my tour; but it has greatly lost by not having been written daily, as the scenes and occurrences were fresh. the most picturesque points can be seized in no other way, and the hues of the affair fade as quickly as those of a dying dolphin; or as, according to audubon, the plumage of a dead bird. one thing that struck me as much as anything else in the highlands i had forgotten to put down. in our walk at balloch, along the road within view of loch lomond and the neighboring hills, it was a brilliant sunshiny afternoon, and i never saw any atmosphere so beautiful as that among the mountains. it was a clear, transparent, ethereal blue, as distinct as a vapor, and yet by no means vaporous, but a pure, crystalline medium. i have witnessed nothing like this among the berkshire hills nor elsewhere. york is full of old churches, some of them very antique in appearance, the stones weather-worn, their edges rounded by time, blackened, and with all the tokens of sturdy and age-long decay; and in some of them i noticed windows quite full of old painted glass, a dreary kind of minute patchwork, all of one dark and dusty hue, when seen from the outside. yet had i seen them from the interior of the church, there doubtless would have been rich and varied apparitions of saints, with their glories round their heads, and bright-winged angels, and perhaps even the almighty father himself, so far as conceivable and representable by human powers. it requires light from heaven to make them visible. if the church were merely illuminated from the inside,--that is, by what light a man can get from his own understanding,--the pictures would be invisible, or wear at best but a miserable aspect. liverpool. may th.--day before yesterday i had a call at the consulate from one of the potentates of the earth,--a woolly-haired negro, rather thin and spare, between forty and fifty years of age, plainly dressed; at the first glimpse of whom, i could readily have mistaken him for some ship's steward, seeking to enter a complaint of his captain. however, this was president roberts, of liberia, introduced by a note from mrs. o'sullivan, whom he has recently met in madeira. i was rather favorably impressed with him; for his deportment was very simple, and without any of the flourish and embroidery which a negro might be likely to assume on finding himself elevated from slavery to power. he is rather shy, reserved, at least, and undemonstrative, yet not harshly so,--in fine, with manners that offer no prominent points for notice or criticism; although i felt, or thought i felt, that his color was continually before his mind, and that he walks cautiously among men, as conscious that every new introduction is a new experiment. he is not in the slightest degree an interesting man (so far as i discovered in a very brief interview), apart from his position and history; his face is not striking, nor so agreeable as if it were jet black; but there may be miles and miles of depth in him which i know nothing of. our conversation was of the most unimportant character; for he had called merely to deliver the note, and sat only a few minutes, during which he merely responded to my observations, and originated no remarks. intelligence, discretion, tact,-- these are probably his traits; not force of character and independence. the same day i took the rail from the little street station for manchester, to meet bennoch, who had asked me thither to dine with him. i had never visited manchester before, though now so long resident within twenty miles of it; neither is it particularly worth visiting, unless for the sake of its factories, which i did not go to see. it is a dingy and heavy town, with very much the aspect of liverpool, being, like the latter, built almost entirely within the present century. i stopped at the albion hotel, and, as bennoch was out, i walked forth to view the city, and made only such observations as are recorded above. opposite the hotel stands the infirmary,--a very large edifice, which, when erected, was on the outskirts, or perhaps in the rural suburbs, of the town, but it is now almost in its centre. in the enclosed space before it stands the statue of peel, and sits a statue of dr. dalton, the celebrated chemist, who was a native of manchester. returning to the hotel, i sat down in the room where we were to dine, and in due time bennoch made his appearance, with the same glow and friendly warmth in his face that i had left burning there when we parted in london. if this man has not a heart, then no man ever had. i like him inexpressibly for his heart and for his intellect, and for his flesh and blood; and if he has faults, i do not know them, nor care to know them, nor value him the less if i did know them. he went to his room to dress; and in the mean time a middle-aged, dark man, of pleasant aspect, with black hair, black eyebrows, and bright, dark eyes came in, limping a little, but not much. he seemed not quite a man of the world, a little shy in manner, yet he addressed me kindly and sociably. i guessed him to be mr. charles swain, the poet, whom mr. bennoch had invited to dinner. soon came another guest whom mr. swain introduced to me as mr. ------, editor of the manchester examiner. then came bennoch, who made us all regularly acquainted, or took for granted that we were so; and lastly appeared a mr. w------, a merchant in manchester, and a very intelligent man; and the party was then complete. mr. swain, the poet, is not a man of fluent conversation; he said, indeed, very little, but gave me the impression of amiability and simplicity of character, with much feeling. mr. w------ is a very sensible man. he has spent two or three years in america, and seems to have formed juster conclusions about us than most of his countrymen do. he is the only englishman, i think, whom i have met, who fairly acknowledges that the english do cherish doubt, jealousy, suspicion, in short, an unfriendly feeling, towards the americans. it is wonderful how every american, whatever class of the english he mingles with, is conscious of this feeling, and how no englishman, except this sole mr. w------, will confess it. he expressed some very good ideas, too, about the english and american press, and the reasons why the times may fairly be taken as the exponent of british feeling towards us, while the new york herald, immense as its circulation is, can be considered, in no similar degree or kind, the american exponent. we sat late at table, and after the other guests had retired, bennoch and i had some very friendly talk, and he proposed that on my wife's return we should take up our residence in his house at blackheath, while mrs. bennoch and himself were absent for two months on a trip to germany. if his wife and mine ratify the idea, we will do so. the next morning we went out to see the exchange, and whatever was noticeable about the town. time being brief, i did not visit the cathedral, which, i believe, is a thousand years old. there are many handsome shops in manchester; and we went into one establishment, devoted to pictures, engravings, and decorative art generally, which is most perfect and extensive. the firm, if i remember, is that of the messrs. agnew, and, though originating here, they have now a house in london. here i saw some interesting objects, purchased by them at the recent sale of the rogers collection; among other things, a slight pencil and water-color sketch by raphael. an unfinished affair, done in a moment, as this must have been, seems to bring us closer to the hand that did it than the most elaborately painted picture can. were i to see the transfiguration, raphael would still be at the distance of centuries. seeing this little sketch, i had him very near me. i know not why,-- perhaps it might be fancied that he had only laid down the pencil for an instant, and would take it up again in a moment more. i likewise saw a copy of a handsome, illustrated edition of childe harold, presented by old john murray to mr. rogers, with an inscription on the fly-leaf, purporting that it was a token of gratitude from the publisher, because, when everybody else thought him imprudent in giving four hundred guineas for the poem, mr. rogers told him it would turn out the best bargain he ever made. there was a new picture by millais, the distinguished pre-raphaelite artist, representing a melancholy parting between two lovers. the lady's face had a great deal of sad and ominous expression; but an old brick wall, overrun with foliage, was so exquisitely and elaborately wrought that it was hardly possible to look at the personages of the picture. every separate leaf of the climbing and clustering shrubbery was painfully made out; and the wall was reality itself, with the weather-stains, and the moss, and the crumbling lime between the bricks. it is not well to be so perfect in the inanimate, unless the artist can likewise make man and woman as lifelike, and to as great a depth, too, as the creator does. bennoch left town for some place in yorkshire, and i for liverpool. i asked him to come and dine with me at the adelphi, meaning to ask two or three people to meet him; but he had other engagements, and could not spare a day at present, though he promises to come before long. dining at mr. rathbone's one evening last week (may st), it was mentioned that borrow, author of the bible in spain, is supposed to be of gypsy descent by the mother's side. hereupon mr. martineau mentioned that he had been a schoolfellow of borrow, and though he had never heard of his gypsy blood, he thought it probable, from borrow's traits of character. he said that, borrow had once run away from school, and carried with him a party of other boys, meaning to lead a wandering life. if an englishman were individually acquainted with all our twenty-five millions of americans, and liked every one of them, and believed that each man of those millions was a christian, honest, upright, and kind, he would doubt, despise, and hate them in the aggregate, however he might love and honor the individuals. captain ------ and his wife oakum; they spent all evening at mrs. b------'s. the captain is a marblehead man by birth, not far from sixty years old; very talkative and anecdotic in regard to his adventures; funny, good-humored, and full of various nautical experience. oakum (it is a nickname which he gives his wife) is an inconceivably tall woman,-- taller than he,--six feet, at least, and with a well-proportioned largeness in all respects, but looks kind and good, gentle, smiling,--and almost any other woman might sit like a baby on her lap. she does not look at all awful and belligerent, like the massive english women one often sees. you at once feel her to be a benevolent giantess, and apprehend no harm from her. she is a lady, and perfectly well mannered, but with a sort of naturalness and simplicity that becomes her; for any the slightest affectation would be so magnified in her vast personality that it would be absolutely the height of the ridiculous. this wedded pair have no children, and oakum has so long accompanied her husband on his voyages that i suppose by this time she could command a ship as well as he. they sat till pretty late, diffusing cheerfulness all about them, and then, "come, oakum," cried the captain, "we must hoist sail!" and up rose oakum to the ceiling, and moved tower-like to the door, looking down with a benignant smile on the poor little pygmy women about her. "six feet," did i say? why, she must he seven, eight, nine; and, whatever be her size, she is as good as she is big. june th.--monday night ( th), just as i was retiring, i received a telegraphic message announcing my wife's arrival at southampton. so, the next day, i arranged the consular business for an absence of ten days, and set forth with j-----, and reached birmingham, between eight and nine, evening. we put up at the queen's hotel, a very large establishment, contiguous to the railway. next morning we left birmingham, and made our first stage to leamington, where we had to wait nearly an hour, which we spent in wandering through some of the streets that had been familiar to us last year. leamington is certainly a beautiful town, new, bright, clean, and as unlike as possible to the business towns of england. however, the sun was burning hot, and i could almost have fancied myself in america. from leamington we took tickets for oxford, where we were obliged to make another stop of two hours; and these we employed to what advantage we could, driving up into town, and straying hither and thither, till j-----'s weariness weighed upon me, and i adjourned with him to a hotel. oxford is an ugly old town, of crooked and irregular streets, gabled houses, mostly plastered of a buff or yellow hue; some new fronts; and as for the buildings of the university, they seem to be scattered at random, without any reference to one another. i passed through an old gateway of christ church, and looked at its enclosed square, and that is, in truth, pretty much all i then saw of the university of oxford. from christ church we rambled along a street that led us to a bridge across the isis; and we saw many row-boats lying in the river,--the lightest craft imaginable, unless it were an indian canoe. the isis is but a narrow stream, and with a sluggish current. i believe the students of oxford are famous for their skill in rowing. to me as well as to j----- the hot streets were terribly oppressive; so we went into the roebuck hotel, where we found a cool and pleasant coffee-room. the entrance to this hotel is through an arch, opening from high street, and giving admission into a paved court, the buildings all around being part of the establishment,--old edifices with pointed gables and old-fashioned projecting windows, but all in fine repair, and wearing a most quiet, retired, and comfortable aspect. the court was set all round with flowers, growing in pots or large pedestalled vases; on one side was the coffee-room, and all the other public apartments, and the other side seemed to be taken up by the sleeping-chambers and parlors of the guests. this arrangement of an inn, i presume, is very ancient, and it resembles what i have seen in the hospitals, free schools, and other charitable establishments in the old english towns; and, indeed, all large houses were arranged on somewhat the same principle. by and by two or three young men came in, in wide-awake hats, and loose, blouse-like, summerish garments; and from their talk i found them to be students of the university, although their topics of conversation were almost entirely horses and boats. one of them sat down to cold beef and a tankard of ale; the other two drank a tankard of ale together, and went away without paying for it,--rather to the waiter's discontent. students are very much alike, all the world over, and, i suppose, in all time; but i doubt whether many of my fellows at college would have gone off without paying for their beer. we reached southampton between seven and eight o'clock. i cannot write to-day. june th.--the first day after we reached southampton was sunny and pleasant; but we made little use of the fine weather, except that s----- and i walked once along the high street, and j----- and i took a little ramble about town in the afternoon. the next day there was a high and disagreeable wind, and i did not once stir out of the house. the third day, too, i kept entirely within doors, it being a storm of wind and rain. the castle hotel stands within fifty yards of the water-side; so that this gusty day showed itself to the utmost advantage,--the vessels pitching and tossing at their moorings, the waves breaking white out of a tumultuous gray surface, the opposite shore glooming mistily at the distance of a mile or two; and on the hither side boatmen and seafaring people scudding about the pier in waterproof clothes; and in the street, before the hotel door, a cabman or two, standing drearily beside his horse. but we were sunny within doors. yesterday it was breezy, sunny, shadowy, showery; and we ordered a cab to take us to clifton villa, to call on mrs. ------, a friend of b------'s, who called on us the day after our arrival. just, as we were ready to start, mrs. ------ again called, and accompanied us back to her house. it is in shirley, about two miles from southampton pier, and is a pleasant suburban villa, with a pretty ornamented lawn and shrubbery about it. mrs. ------ is an instructress of young ladies; and at b------'s suggestion, she is willing to receive us for two or three weeks, during the vacation, until we are ready to go to london. she seems to be a pleasant and sensible woman, and to-morrow we shall decide whether to go there. there was nothing very remarkable in this drive; and, indeed, my stay hereabouts thus far has been very barren of sights and incidents externally interesting, though the inner life has been rich. southampton is a very pretty town, and has not the dinginess to which i have been accustomed in many english towns. the high street reminds me very much of american streets in its general effect; the houses being mostly stuccoed white or light, and cheerful in aspect, though doubtless they are centuries old at heart. the old gateway, which i presume i have mentioned in describing my former visit to southampton, stands across high street, about in the centre of the town, and is almost the only token of antiquity that presents itself to the eye. june th.--yesterday morning, june th, s-----, mrs. ------, and i took the rail for salisbury, where we duly arrived without any accident or anything noticeable, except the usual verdure and richness of an english summer landscape. from the railway station we walked up into salisbury, with the tall spire (four hundred feet high) of the cathedral before our eyes. salisbury is an antique city, but with streets more regular than i have seen in most old towns, and the houses have a more picturesque aspect than those of oxford, for instance, where almost all are mean-looking alike,--though i could hardly judge of oxford on that hot, weary day. through one or more of the streets there runs a swift, clear little stream, which, being close to the pavement, and bordered with stone, may be called, i suppose, a kennel, though possessing the transparent purity of a rustic rivulet. it is a brook in city garb. we passed under the pointed arch of a gateway, which stands in one of the principal streets, and soon came in front of the cathedral. i do not remember any cathedral with so fine a site as this, rising up out of the centre of a beautiful green, extensive enough to show its full proportions, relieved and insulated from all other patchwork and impertinence of rusty edifices. it is of gray stone, and looks as perfect as when just finished, and with the perfection, too, that could not have come in less than six centuries of venerableness, with a view to which these edifices seem to have been built. a new cathedral would lack the last touch to its beauty and grandeur. it needs to be mellowed and ripened, like some pictures; although i suppose this awfulness of antiquity was supplied, in the minds of the generation that built cathedrals, by the sanctity which they attributed to them. salisbury cathedral is far more beautiful than that of york, the exterior of which was really disagreeable to my eye; but this mighty spire and these multitudinous gray pinnacles and towers ascend towards heaven with a kind of natural beauty, not as if man had contrived them. they might be fancied to have grown up, just as the spires of a tuft of grass do, at the same time that they have a law of propriety and regularity among themselves. the tall spire is of such admirable proportion that it does not seem gigantic; and indeed the effect of the whole edifice is of beauty rather than weight and massiveness. perhaps the bright, balmy sunshine in which we saw it contributed to give it a tender glory, and to soften a little its majesty. when we went in, we heard the organ, the forenoon service being near conclusion. if i had never seen the interior of york cathedral, i should have been quite satisfied, no doubt, with the spaciousness of this nave and these side aisles, and the height of their arches, and the girth of these pillars; but with that recollection in my mind they fell a little short of grandeur. the interior is seen to disadvantage, and in a way the builder never meant it to be seen; because there is little or no painted glass, nor any such mystery as it makes, but only a colorless, common daylight, revealing everything without remorse. there is a general light hue, moreover, like that of whitewash, over the whole of the roof and walls of the interior, pillars, monuments, and all; whereas, originally, every pillar was polished, and the ceiling was ornamented in brilliant colors, and the light came, many-hued, through the windows, on all this elaborate beauty, in lieu of which there is nothing now but space. between the pillars that separate the nave from the side aisles, there are ancient tombs, most of which have recumbent statues on them. one of these is longsword, earl of salisbury, son of fair rosamond, in chain mail; and there are many other warriors and bishops, and one cross-legged crusader, and on one tombstone a recumbent skeleton, which i have likewise seen in two or three other cathedrals. the pavement of the aisles and nave is laid in great part with flat tombstones, the inscriptions on which are half obliterated, and on the walls, especially in the transepts, there are tablets, among which i saw one to the poet bowles, who was a canon of this cathedral. the ecclesiastical dignitaries bury themselves and monument themselves to the exclusion of almost everybody else, in these latter times; though still, as of old, the warrior has his place. a young officer, slain in the indian wars, was memorialized by a tablet, and may be remembered by it, six hundred years hence, as we now remember the old knights and crusaders. it deserves to be mentioned that i saw one or two noses still unbroken among these recumbent figures. most of the antique statues, on close examination, proved to be almost, entirely covered with names and initials, scratched over the once polished surface. the cathedral and its relics must have been far less carefully watched, at some former period, than now. between the nave and the choir, as usual, there is a screen that half destroys the majesty of the building, by abridging the spectator of the long vista which he might otherwise have of the whole interior at a glance. we peeped through the barrier, and saw some elaborate monuments in the chancel beyond; but the doors of the screen are kept locked, so that the vergers may raise a revenue by showing strangers through the richest part of the cathedral. by and by one of these vergers came through the screen, with a gentleman and lady whom he was taking round, and we joined ourselves to the party. he showed us into the cloisters, which had long been neglected and ruinous, until the time of bishop dennison, the last prelate, who has been but a few years dead. this bishop has repaired and restored the cloisters in faithful adherence to the original plan; and they now form a most delightful walk about a pleasant and verdant enclosure, in the centre of which sleeps good bishop dennison, with a wife on either side of him, all three beneath broad flat stones. most cloisters are darksome and grim; but these have a broad paved walk beneath the vista of arches, and are light, airy, and cheerful; and from one corner you can get the best possible view of the whole height and beautiful proportion of the cathedral spire. one side of this cloistered walk seems to be the length of the nave of the cathedral. there is a square of four such sides; and of places for meditation, grave, yet not too sombre, it seemed to me one of the best. while we stayed there, a jackdaw was walking to and fro across the grassy enclosure, and haunting around the good bishop's grave. he was clad in black, and looked like a feathered ecclesiastic; but i know not whether it were bishop dennison's ghost, or that of some old monk. on one side of the cloisters, and contiguous to the main body of the cathedral, stands the chapter-house. bishop dennison had it much at heart to repair this part of the holy edifice; and, if i mistake not, did begin the work; for it had been long ruinous, and in cromwell's time his dragoons stationed their horses there. little progress, however, had been made in the repairs when the bishop died; and it was decided to restore the building in his honor, and by way of monument to him. the repairs are now nearly completed; and the interior of this chapter-house gave me the first idea, anywise adequate, of the splendor of these gothic church edifices. the roof is sustained by one great central pillar of polished marble,--small pillars clustered about a great central column, which rises to the ceiling, and there gushes out with various beauty, that overflows all the walls; as if the fluid idea had sprung out of that fountain, and grown solid in what we see. the pavement is elaborately ornamented; the ceiling is to be brilliantly gilded and painted, as it was of yore, and the tracery and sculptures around the walls are to be faithfully renewed from what remains of the original patterns. after viewing the chapter-house, the verger--an elderly man of grave, benign manner, clad in black and talking of the cathedral and the monuments as if he loved them--led us again into the nave of the cathedral, and thence within the screen of the choir. the screen is as poor as possible,--mere barren wood-work, without the least attempt at beauty. in the chancel there are some meagre patches of old glass, and some of modern date, not very well worth looking at. we saw several interesting monuments in this part of the cathedral,--one belonging to the ducal family of somerset, and erected in the reign of james i.; it is of marble, and extremely splendid and elaborate, with kneeling figures and all manner of magnificence,--more than i have seen in any monument except that of mary of scotland in westminster abbey. the more ancient tombs are also very numerous, and among them that of the bishop who founded the cathedral. within the screen, against the wall, is erected a monument, by chantrey, to the earl of malmesbury; a full-length statue of the earl in a half-recumbent position, holding an open volume and looking upward,--a noble work,--a calm, wise, thoughtful, firm, and not unbenignant face. beholding its expression, it really was impossible not to have faith in the high character of the individual thus represented; and i have seldom felt this effect from any monumental bust or statue, though i presume it is always aimed at. i am weary of trying to describe cathedrals. it is utterly useless; there is no possibility of giving the general effect, or any shadow of it, and it is miserable to put down a few items of tombstones, and a bit of glass from a painted window, as if the gloom and glory of the edifice were thus to be reproduced. cathedrals are almost the only things (if even those) that have quite filled out my ideal here in this old world; and cathedrals often make me miserable from my inadequacy to take them wholly in; and, above all, i despise myself when i sit down to describe them. we now walked around the close, which is surrounded by some of the quaintest and comfortablest ecclesiastical residences that can be imagined. these are the dwelling-houses of the dean and the canons, and whatever other high officers compose the bishop's staff; and there was one large brick mansion, old, but not so ancient as the rest, which we took to be the bishop's palace. i never beheld anything--i must say again so cosey, so indicative of domestic comfort for whole centuries together,--houses so fit to live in or to die in, and where it would be so pleasant to lead a young wife beneath the antique portal, and dwell with her till husband and wife were patriarchal,--as these delectable old houses. they belong naturally to the cathedral, and have a necessary relation to it, and its sanctity is somehow thrown over them all, so that they do not quite belong to this world, though they look full to overflowing of whatever earthly things are good for man. these are places, however, in which mankind makes no progress; the rushing tumult of human life here subsides into a deep, quiet pool, with perhaps a gentle circular eddy, but no onward movement. the same identical thought, i suppose, goes round in a slow whirl from one generation to another, as i have seen a withered leaf do in the vortex of a brook. in the front of the cathedral there is a most stately and beautiful tree, which flings its verdure upward to a very lofty height; but far above it rises the tall spire, dwarfing the great tree by comparison. when the cathedral had sufficiently oppressed us with its beauty, we returned to sublunary matters, and went wandering about salisbury in search of a luncheon, which we finally took in a confectioner's shop. then we inquired hither and thither, at various livery-stables, for a conveyance to stonehenge, and at last took a fly from the lamb hotel. the drive was over a turnpike for the first seven miles, over a bare, ridgy country, showing little to interest us. we passed a party of seven or eight men, in a coarse uniform dress, resembling that worn by convicts and apparently under the guardianship of a stout, authoritative, yet rather kindly-looking man with a cane. our driver said that they were lunatics from a neighboring asylum, out for a walk. seven miles from salisbury, we turned aside from the turnpike, and drove two miles across salisbury plain, which is an apparently boundless extent of unenclosed land, treeless and houseless. it is not exactly a plain, but a green sea of long and gentle swells and subsidences, affording views of miles upon miles to a very far horizon. we passed large flocks of sheep, with the shepherds watching them; but the dogs seemed to take most of the care of the flocks upon their own shoulders, and would scamper to turn the sheep when they inclined to stray whither they should not; and then arose a thousand-fold bleating, not unpleasant to the ear; for it did not apparently indicate any fear or discomfort on the part of the flock. the sheep and lambs are all black-faced, and have a very funny expression. as we drove over the plain (my seat was beside the driver), i saw at a distance a cluster of large gray stones, mostly standing upright, and some of them slightly inclined towards each other, --very irregular, and so far off forming no very picturesque or noteworthy spectacle. of course i knew at once that this was stonehenge, and also knew that the reality was going to dwindle wofully within my ideal, as almost everything else does. when we reached the spot, we found a picnic-party just finishing their dinner, on one of the overthrown stones of the druidical temple; and within the sacred circle an artist was painting a wretched daub of the scene, and an old shepherd --the very shepherd of salisbury plain sat erect in the centre of the ruin. there never was a ruder thing than stonehenge made by mortal hands. it is so very rude that it seems as if nature and man had worked upon it with one consent, and so it is all the stranger and more impressive from its rudeness. the spectator wonders to see art and contrivance, and a regular and even somewhat intricate plan, beneath all the uncouth simplicity of this arrangement of rough stones; and certainly, whatever was the intellectual and scientific advancement of the people who built stonehenge, no succeeding architects will ever have a right to triumph over them; for nobody's work in after times is likely to endure till it becomes a mystery as to who built it, and how, and for what purpose. apart from the moral considerations suggested by it, stonehenge is not very well worth seeing. materially, it is one of the poorest of spectacles, and when complete, it must have been even less picturesque than now,--a few huge, rough stones, very imperfectly squared, standing on end, and each group of two supporting a third large stone on their tops; other stones of the same pattern overthrown and tumbled one upon another; and the whole comprised within a circuit of about a hundred feet diameter; the short, sheep-cropped grass of salisbury plain growing among all these uncouth bowlders. i am not sure that a misty, lowering day would not have better suited stonehenge, as the dreary midpoint of the great, desolate, trackless plain; not literally trackless, however, for the london and exeter road passes within fifty yards of the ruins, and another road intersects it. after we had been there about an hour, there came a horseman within the druid's circle,--evidently a clerical personage by his white neckcloth, though his loose gray riding pantaloons were not quite in keeping. he looked at us rather earnestly, and at last addressed mrs. ------, and announced himself as mr. hinchman,--a clergyman whom she had been trying to find in salisbury, in order to avail herself of him as a cicerone; and he had now ridden hither to meet us. he told us that the artist whom we found here could give us more information than anybody about stonehenge; for it seems he has spent a great many years here, painting and selling his poor sketches to visitors, and also selling a book which his father wrote about the remains. this man showed, indeed, a pretty accurate, acquaintance with these old stones, and pointed out, what is thought to be the altar-stone, and told us of some relation between this stone and two other stones, and the rising of the sun at midsummer, which might indicate that stonehenge was a temple of solar worship. he pointed out, too, to how little depth the stones were planted in the earth, insomuch that i have no doubt the american frosts would overthrow stonehenge in a single winter; and it is wonderful that it should have stood so long, even in england. i have forgotten what else he said; but i bought one of his books, and find it a very unsatisfactory performance, being chiefly taken up with an attempt to prove these remains to be an antediluvian work, constructed, i think the author says, under the superintendence of father adam himself! before our departure we were requested to write our names in the album which the artist keeps for the purpose; and he pointed out ex-president fillmore's autograph, and those of one or two other americans who have been here within a short time. it is a very curious life that this artist leads, in this great solitude, and haunting stonehenge like the ghost of a druid; but he is a brisk little man, and very communicative on his one subject. mr. hinchman rode with us over the plain, and pointed out salisbury spire, visible close to stonehenge. under his guidance we returned by a different road from that which brought us thither,--and a much more delightful one. i think i never saw such continued sylvan beauty as this road showed us, passing through a good deal of woodland scenery,--fine old trees, standing each within its own space, and thus having full liberty to outspread itself, and wax strong and broad for ages, instead of being crowded, and thus stifled and emaciated, as human beings are here, and forest-trees are in america. hedges, too, and the rich, rich verdure of england; and villages full of picturesque old houses, thatched, and ivied, or perhaps overrun with roses,--and a stately mansion in the elizabethan style; and a quiet stream, gliding onward without a ripple from its own motion, but rippled by a large fish darting across it; and over all this scene a gentle, friendly sunshine, not ardent enough to crisp a single leaf or blade of grass. nor must the village church be forgotten, with its square, battlemented tower, dating back to the epoch of the normans. we called at a house where one of mrs. ------'s pupils was residing with her aunt,--a thatched house of two stories high, built in what was originally a sand-pit, but which, in the course of a good many years, has been transformed into the most delightful and homelike little nook almost that can be found in england. a thatched cottage suggests a very rude dwelling indeed; but this had a pleasant parlor and drawing-room, and chambers with lattice-windows, opening close beneath the thatched roof; and the thatch itself gives an air to the place as if it were a bird's nest, or some such simple and natural habitation. the occupants are an elderly clergyman, retired from professional duty, and his sister; and having nothing else to do, and sufficient means, they employ themselves in beautifying this sweet little retreat,-- planting new shrubbery, laying out new walks around it, and helping nature to add continually another charm; and nature is certainly a more genial playfellow in england than in my own country. she is always ready to lend her aid to any beautifying purpose. leaving these good people, who were very hospitable, giving tea and offering wine, we reached salisbury in time to take the train for southampton. june th.--yesterday we left the castle hotel, after paying a bill of twenty pounds for a little more than a week's board. in america we could not very well have lived so simply, but we might have lived luxuriously for half the money. this castle hotel was once an old roman castle, the landlord says, and the circular sweep of the tower is still seen towards the street, although, being painted white, and built up with modern additions, it would not be taken for an ancient structure. there is a dungeon beneath it, in which the landlord keeps his wine. j----- and i, quitting the hotel, walked towards shinley along the water-side, leaving the rest of the family to follow in a fly. there are many traces, along the shore, of the fortifications by which southampton was formerly defended towards the water, and very probably their foundations may be as ancient as roman times. our hotel was no doubt connected with this chain of defences, which seems to have consisted of a succession of round towers, with a wall extending from one to another. we saw two or three of these towers still standing, and likely to stand, though ivy-grown and ruinous at the summit, and intermixed and even amalgamated with pot-houses and mean dwellings; and often, through an antique arch, there was a narrow doorway, giving access to the house of some sailor or laborer or artisan, and his wife gossiping at it with her neighbor, or his children playing about it. after getting beyond the precincts of southampton our walk was not very interesting, except to j-----, who kept running down to the verge of the water, looking for shells and sea-insects. june th.--yesterday, th, i left liverpool from the lime street station; an exceedingly hot day for england, insomuch that the rail carriages were really uncomfortable. i have now passed over the london and northwestern railway so often that the northern part of it is very wearisome, especially as it has few features of interest even to a new observer. at stafford--no, at wolverhampton--we diverged to a track which i have passed over only once before. we stopped an hour and a quarter at wolverhampton, and i walked up into the town, which is large and old,--old, at least, in its plan, or lack of plan,--the streets being irregular, and straggling over an uneven surface. like many of the english towns, it reminds me of boston, though dingier. the sun was so hot that i actually sought the shady sides of the streets; and this, of itself, is one long step towards establishing a resemblance between an english town and an american one. english railway carriages seem to me more tiresome than any other; and i suppose it is owing to the greater motion, arising from their more elastic springs. a slow train, too, like that which i was now in, is more tiresome than a quick one, at least to the spirits, whatever it may be to the body. we loitered along through afternoon and evening, stopping at every little station, and nowhere getting to the top of our speed, till at last, in the late dusk, we reached gloucester, and i put up at the wellington hotel, which is but a little way from the station. i took tea and a slice or two of ham in the coffee-room, and had a little talk with two people there; one of whom, on learning that i was an american, said, "but i suppose you have now been in england some time?" he meant, finding me not absolutely a savage, that i must have been caught a good while ago. . . . . the next morning i went into the city, the hotel being on its outskirts, and rambled along in search of the cathedral. some church-bells were chiming and clashing for a wedding or other festal occasion, and i followed the sound, supposing that it might proceed from the cathedral, but this was not the case. it was not till i had got to a bridge over the severn, quite out of the town, that i saw again its tower, and knew how to shape my course towards it. i did not see much that was strange or interesting in gloucester. it is old, with a good many of those antique elizabethan houses with two or three peaked gables on a line together; several old churches, which always cluster about a cathedral, like chickens round a hen; a hospital for decayed tradesmen; another for bluecoat boys; a great many butcher's shops, scattered in all parts of the town, open in front, with a counter or dresser on which to display the meat, just in the old fashion of shakespeare's house. it is a large town, and has a good deal of liveliness and bustle, in a provincial way. in short, judging by the sheep, cattle, and horses, and the people of agricultural aspect that i saw about the streets, i should think it must have been market-day. i looked here and there for the old bell inn, because, unless i misremember, fielding brings tom jones to this inn, while he and partridge were travelling together. it is still extant; for, on my arrival the night before, a runner from it had asked me to go thither; but i forgot its celebrity at the moment. i saw nothing of it in my rambles about gloucester, but at last i found the cathedral, though i found no point from which a good view of the exterior can be seen. it has a very beautiful and rich outside, however, and a lofty tower, very large and ponderous, but so finished off, and adorned with pinnacles, and all manner of architectural devices,--wherewith these old builders knew how to alleviate their massive structures,--that it seems to sit lightly in the air. the porch was open, and some workmen were trundling barrows into the nave; so i followed, and found two young women sitting just within the porch, one of whom offered to show me round the cathedral. there was a great dust in the nave, arising from the operations of the workmen. they had been laying a new pavement, and scraping away the plaster, which had heretofore been laid over the pillars and walls. the pillars come out from the process as good as new,--great, round, massive columns, not clustered like those of most cathedrals; they are twenty-one feet in circumference, and support semicircular arches. i think there are seven of these columns, on each side of the nave, which did not impress me as very spacious; and the dust and racket of the work-people quite destroyed the effect which should have been produced by the aisles and arches; so that i hardly stopped to glance at this part, though i saw some mural monuments and recumbent statues along the walls. the choir is separated from the nave by the usual screen, and now by a sail-cloth or something of that kind, drawn across, in order to keep out the dust, while the repairs are going on. when the young woman conducted me hither, i was at once struck by the magnificent eastern window, the largest in england, which fills, or looks vast enough to fill, all that end of the cathedral,--a most splendid window, full of old painted glass, which looked as bright as sunshine, though the sun was not really shining through it. the roof of the choir is of oak and very fine, and as much as ninety feet high. there are chapels opening from the choir, and within them the monuments of the eminent people who built them, and of benefactors or prelates, or of those otherwise illustrious in their day. my recollection of what i saw here is very dim and confused; more so than i anticipated. i remember somewhere within the choir the tomb of edward ii. with his effigy upon the top of it, in a long robe, with a crown on his head, and a ball and sceptre in his hand; likewise, a statue of robert, son of the conqueror, carved in irish oak and painted. he lolls in an easy posture on his tomb, with one leg crossed lightly over the other, to denote that he was a crusader. there are several monuments of mitred abbots who formerly presided over the cathedral. a cavalier and his wife, with the dress of the period elaborately represented, lie side by side in excellent preservation; and it is remarkable that though their noses are very prominent, they have come down from the past without any wear and tear. the date of the cavalier's death is , and i think his statue could not have been sculptured until after the restoration, else he and his dame would hardly have come through cromwell's time unscathed. here, as in all the other churches in england, cromwell is said to have stabled his horses, and broken the windows, and belabored the old monuments. there is one large and beautiful chapel, styled the lady's chapel, which is, indeed, a church by itself, being ninety feet long, and comprising everything that appertains to a place of worship. here, too, there are monuments, and on the floor are many old bricks and tiles, with inscriptions on them, or gothic devices, and flat tombstones, with coats of arms sculptured on them; as, indeed, there are everywhere else, except in the nave, where the new pavement has obliterated them. after viewing the choir and the chapels, the young woman led me down into the crypts below, where the dead persons who are commemorated in the upper regions were buried. the low ponderous pillars and arches of these crypts are supposed to be older than the upper portions of the building. they are about as perfect, i suppose, as when new, but very damp, dreary, and darksome; and the arches intersect one another so intricately, that, if the girl had deserted me, i might easily have got lost there. these are chapels where masses used to be said for the souls of the deceased; and my guide said that a great many skulls and bones had been dug up here. no doubt a vast population has been deposited in the course of a thousand years. i saw two white skulls, in a niche, grinning as skulls always do, though it is impossible to see the joke. these crypts, or crypts like these, are doubtless what congreve calls the "aisles and monumental caves of death," in that passage which dr. johnson admired so much. they are very singular,--something like a dark shadow or dismal repetition of the upper church below ground. ascending from the crypts, we went next to the cloisters, which are in a very perfect state, and form an unbroken square about the green grass-plot, enclosed within. here also it is said cromwell stabled his horses; but if so, they were remarkably quiet beasts, for tombstones, which form the pavement, are not broken, nor cracked, nor bear any hoof-marks. all around the cloisters, too, the stone tracery that shuts them in like a closed curtain, carefully drawn, remains as it was in the days of the monks, insomuch that it is not easy to get a glimpse of the green enclosure. probably there used to be painted glass in the larger apertures of this stone-work; otherwise it is perfect. these cloisters are very different from the free, open, and airy ones of salisbury; but they are more in accordance with our notions of monkish habits; and even at this day, if i were a canon of gloucester, i would put that dim ambulatory to a good use. the library is adjacent to the cloisters, and i saw some rows of folios and quartos. i have nothing else to record about the cathedral, though if i were to stay there a month, i suppose it might then begin to be understood. it is wicked to look at these solemn old churches in a hurry. by the by, it was not built in a hurry; but in full three hundred years, having been begun in and only finished in , not a great many years before papistry began to go out of vogue in england. from gloucester i took the rail for basingstoke before noon. the first part of the journey was through an uncommonly beautiful tract of country, hilly, but not wild; a tender and graceful picturesqueness,--fine, single trees and clumps of trees, and sometimes wide woods, scattered over the landscape, and filling the nooks of the hills with luxuriant foliage. old villages scattered frequently along our track, looking very peaceful, with the peace of past ages lingering about them; and a rich, rural verdure of antique cultivation everywhere. old country-seats--specimens of the old english hall or manor-house--appeared on the hillsides, with park-scenery surrounding the mansions; and the gray churches rose in the midst of all the little towns. the beauty of english scenery makes me desperate, it is so impossible to describe it, or in any way to record its impression, and such a pity to leave it undescribed; and, moreover, i always feel that i do not get from it a hundredth or a millionth part of the enjoyment that there really is in it, hurrying past it thus. i was really glad when we rumbled into a tunnel, piercing for a long distance through a hill; and, emerging on the other side, we found ourselves in a comparatively level and uninteresting tract of country, which lasted till we reached southampton. english scenery, to be appreciated and to be reproduced with pen and pencil, requires to be dwelt upon long, and to be wrought out with the nicest touches. a coarse and hasty brush is not the instrument for such work. july th.--monday, june th, was a warm and beautiful day, and my wife and i took a cab from southampton and drove to netley abbey, about three or four miles. the remains of the abbey stand in a sheltered place, but within view of southampton water; and it is a most picturesque and perfect ruin, all ivy-grown, of course, and with great trees where the pillars of the nave used to stand, and also in the refectory and the cloister court; and so much soil on the summit of the broken walls, that weeds flourish abundantly there, and grass too; and there was a wild rosebush, in full bloom, as much as thirty or forty feet from the ground. s----- and i ascended a winding stair, leading up within a round tower, the steps much foot-worn; and, reaching the top, we came forth at the height where a gallery had formerly run round the church, in the thickness of the wall. the upper portions of the edifice were now chiefly thrown down; but i followed a foot-path, on the top of the remaining wall, quite to the western entrance of the church. since the time when the abbey was taken from the monks, it has been private property; and the possessor, in henry viii.'s days, or subsequently, built a residence for himself within its precincts out of the old materials. this has now entirely disappeared, all but some unsightly old masonry, patched into the original walls. large portions of the ruin have been removed, likewise, to be used as building-materials elsewhere; and this is the abbey mentioned, i think, by dr. watts, concerning which a mr. william taylor had a dream while he was contemplating pulling it down. he dreamed that a part of it fell upon his head; and, sure enough, a piece of the wall did come down and crush him. in the nave i saw a large mass of conglomerated stone that had fallen from the wall between the nave and cloisters, and thought that perhaps this was the very mass that killed poor mr. taylor. the ruins are extensive and very interesting; but i have put off describing them too long, and cannot make a distinct picture of them now. moreover, except to a spectator skilled in architecture, all ruined abbeys are pretty much alike. as we came away, we noticed some women making baskets at the entrance, and one of them urged us to buy some of her handiwork; for that she was the gypsy of netley abbey, and had lived among the ruins these thirty years. so i bought one for a shilling. she was a woman with a prominent nose, and weather-tanned, but not very picturesque or striking. to blackheath. on the th july, we left the villa, with our enormous luggage, and took our departure from southampton by the noon train. the main street of southampton, though it looks pretty fresh and bright, must be really antique, there being a great many projecting windows, in the old-time style, and these make the vista of the street very picturesque. i have no doubt that i missed seeing many things more interesting than the few that i saw. our journey to london was without any remarkable incident, and at the waterloo station we found one of mr. bennoch's clerks, under whose guidance we took two cabs for the east kent station at london bridge, and there railed to blackheath, where we arrived in the afternoon. on thursday i went into london by one of the morning trains, and wandered about all day,--visiting the exhibition of the royal academy, and westminster abbey and st. paul's, the two latter of which i have already written about in former journals. on friday, s-----, j-----, and i walked over the heath, and through the park to greenwich, and spent some hours in the hospital. the painted hall struck me much more than at my first view of it; it is very beautiful indeed, and the effect of its frescoed ceiling most rich and magnificent, the assemblage of glowing hues producing a general result of splendor. . . . . in the evening i went with mr. and mrs. ------ to a conversazione at mrs. newton crosland's, who lives on blackheath. . . . . i met with one person who interested me,--mr. bailey, the author of festus; and i was surprised to find myself already acquainted with him. it is the same mr. bailey whom i met a few months ago, when i first dined at mr. -----'s,--a dark, handsome, rather picturesque-looking man, with a gray beard, and dark hair, a little dimmed with gray. he is of quiet and very agreeable deportment, and i liked him and believed in him. . . . . there is sadness glooming out of him, but no unkindness nor asperity. mrs. crosland's conversazione was enriched with a supper, and terminated with a dance, in which mr. ------ joined with heart and soul, but mrs. ------ went to sleep in her chair, and i would gladly have followed her example if i could have found a chair to sit upon. in the course of the evening i had some talk with a pale, nervous young lady, who has been a noted spiritual medium. yesterday i went into town by the steamboat from greenwich to london bridge, with a nephew of mr. ------'s, and, calling at his place of business, he procured us an order from his wine-merchants, by means of which we were admitted into the wine-vaults of the london docks. we there found parties, with an acquaintance, who was going, with two french gentlemen, into the vaults. it is a good deal like going down into a mine, each visitor being provided with a lamp at the end of a stick; and following the guide along dismal passages, running beneath the streets, and extending away interminably,--roughly arched overhead with stone, from which depend festoons of a sort of black fungus, caused by the exhalations of the wine. nothing was ever uglier than this fungus. it is strange that the most ethereal effervescence of rich wine can produce nothing better. the first series of vaults which we entered were filled with port-wine, and occupied a space variously estimated at from eleven to sixteen acres,--which i suppose would hold more port-wine than ever was made. at any rate, the pipes and butts were so thickly piled that in some places we could hardly squeeze past them. we drank from two or three vintages; but i was not impressed with any especial excellence in the wine. we were not the only visitors, for, far in the depths of the vault, we passed a gentleman and two young ladies, wandering about like the ghosts of defunct wine-bibhers, in a tophet specially prepared for then. people employed here sometimes go astray, and, their lamps being extinguished, they remain long in this everlasting gloom. we went likewise to the vaults of sherry-wine, which have the same characteristics as those just described, but are less extensive. it is no guaranty for the excellence or even for the purity of the wine, that it is kept in these cellars, under the lock and key of the government; for the merchants are allowed to mix different vintages, according to their own pleasure, and to adulterate it as they like. very little of the wine probably comes out as it goes in, or is exactly what it pretends to be. i went back to mr. ------'s office, and we drove together to make some calls jointly and separately. i went alone to mrs. heywood's; afterwards with mr. ------ to the american minister's, whom we found at home; and i requested of him, on the part of the americans at liverpool, to tell me the facts about the american gentleman being refused admittance to the levee. the ambassador did not seem to me to make his point good for having withdrawn with the rejected guest. july th. (our wedding-day.)--we were invited yesterday evening to mrs. s. c. hall's, where jenny lind was to sing; so we left blackheath at about eight o'clock in a brougham, and reached ashley place, as the dusk was gathering, after nine. the halls reside in a handsome suite of apartments, arranged on the new system of flats, each story constituting a separate tenement, and the various families having an entrance-hall in common. the plan is borrowed from the continent, and seems rather alien to the traditionary habits of the english; though, no doubt, a good degree of seclusion is compatible with it. mr. hall received us with the greatest cordiality before we entered the drawing-room. mrs. hall, too, greeted us with most kindly warmth. jenny lind had not yet arrived; but i found dr. mackay there, and i was introduced to miss catherine sinclair, who is a literary lady, though none of her works happen to be known to me. soon the servant announced madam goldschmidt, and this famous lady made her appearance, looking quite different from what i expected. mrs. hall established her in the inner drawing-room, where was a piano and a harp; and shortly after, our hostess came to me, and said that madam goldschmidt wished to be introduced to me. there was a gentle peremptoriness in the summons, that made it something like being commanded into the presence of a princess; a great favor, no doubt, but yet a little humbling to the recipient. however, i acquiesced with due gratitude, and was presented accordingly. she made room for me on the sofa, and i sat down, and began to talk. jenny lind is rather tall,--quite tall, for a woman,--certainly no beauty, but with sense and self-reliance in her aspect and manners. she was suffering under a severe cold, and seemed worn down besides, so probably i saw her under disadvantages. her conversation is quite simple, and i should have great faith in her sincerity; and there is about her the manner of a person who knows the world, and has conquered it. she said something or other about the scarlet letter; and, on my part, i paid her such compliments as a man could pay who had never heard her sing. . . . . her conversational voice is an agreeable one, rather deep, and not particularly smooth. she talked about america, and of our unwholesome modes of life, as to eating and exercise, and of the ill-health especially of our women; but i opposed this view as far as i could with any truth, insinuating my opinion that we are about as healthy as other people, and affirming for a certainty that we live longer. in good faith, so far as i have any knowledge of the matter, the women of england are as generally out of health as those of america; always something has gone wrong with them; and as for jenny lind, she looks wan and worn enough to be an american herself. this charge of ill-health is almost universally brought forward against us nowadays,--and, taking the whole country together, i do not believe the statistics will bear it out. the rooms, which were respectably filled when we arrived, were now getting quite full. i saw mr. stevens, the american man of libraries, and had some talk with him; and durham, the sculptor; and mr. and mrs. hall introduced me to various people, some of whom were of note,--for instance, sir emerson tennent, a man of the world, of some parliamentary distinction, wearing a star; mr. samuel lover, a most good-natured, pleasant irishman, with a shining and twinkling visage; miss jewsbury, whom i found very conversable. she is known in literature, but not to me. we talked about emerson, whom she seems to have been well acquainted with while he was in england; and she mentioned that miss martineau had given him a lock of hair; it was not her own hair, but a mummy's. after our return, mrs. ------ told us that miss jewsbury had written, among other things, three histories, and as she asked me to introduce her to s-----, and means to cultivate our acquaintance, it would be well to know something of them. we were told that she is now employed in some literary undertaking of lady morgan's, who, at the age of ninety, is still circulating in society, and is as brisk in faculties as ever. i should like to see her ladyship, that is, i should not be sorry to see her; for distinguished people are so much on a par with others, socially, that it would be foolish to be overjoyed at seeing anybody whomsoever. leaving out the illustrious jenny lind, i suspect that i was myself the greatest lion of the evening; for a good many persons sought the felicity of knowing me, and had little or nothing to say when that honor and happiness was conferred on them. it is surely very wrong and ill-mannered in people to ask for an introduction unless they are prepared to make talk; it throws too great an expense and trouble on the wretched lion, who is compelled, on the spur of the moment, to convert a conversable substance out of thin air, perhaps for the twentieth time that evening. i am sure i did not say--and i think i did not hear said-- one rememberable word in the course of this visit; though, nevertheless, it was a rather agreeable one. in due season ices and jellies were handed about; and some ladies and gentlemen--professional, perhaps--were kind enough to sing songs, and play on the piano and harp, while persons in remote corners went on with whatever conversation they had in hand. then came supper; but there were so many people to go into the supper-room that we could not all crowd thither together, and, coming late, i got nothing but some sponge-cake and a glass of champagne, neither of which i care for. after supper, mr. lover sang some irish songs, his own in music and words, with rich, humorous effect, to which the comicality of his face contributed almost as much as his voice and words. the lord mayor looked in for a little while, and though a hard-featured jew enough, was the most picturesque person there. july th.--mrs. heywood had invited me to dinner last evening. . . . . her house is very finely situated, overlooking hyde park, and not a great way from where tyburn tree used to stand. when i arrived, there were no guests but mr. and mrs. d------; but by and by came mr. monckton milnes and lady, the bishop of lichfield, mr. tom taylor, mr. ewart, m. p., sir somebody somerville, mr. and mrs. musgrave, and others. mr. milnes, whom i had not seen for more than a year, greeted me very cordially, and so did mr. taylor. i took mrs. musgrave in to dinner. she is an irish lady, and mrs. heywood had recommended her to me as being very conversable; but i had a good deal more talk with mrs. m------, with whom i was already acquainted, than with her. mrs. m------ is of noble blood, and therefore not snobbish,--quite unaffected, gentle, sweet, and easy to get on with, reminding me of the best-mannered american women. but how can anything characteristic be said or done among a dozen people sitting at table in full dress? speaking of full dress, the bishop wore small-clothes and silk stockings, and entered the drawing-room with a three-cornered hat, which he kept flattened out under his arm. he asked the briefest blessing possible, and, sitting at the ultra end of the table, i heard nothing further from him till he officiated as briefly before the cloth was withdrawn. mrs. m------ talked about tennyson, with whom her husband was at the university, and whom he continues to know intimately. she says that he considers maud his best poem. he now lives in the isle of wight, spending all the year round there, and has recently bought the place on which he resides. she was of opinion that he would have been gratified by my calling on him, which i had wished to do, while we were at southampton; but this is a liberty which i should hardly venture upon with a shy man like tennyson,--more especially as he might perhaps suspect me of doing it on the score of my own literary character. but i should like much to see him mr. tom taylor, during dinner, made some fun for the benefit of the ladies on either side of him. i liked him very well this evening. when the ladies had not long withdrawn, and after the wine had once gone round, i asked mr. heywood to make my apologies to mrs. heywood, and took leave; all london lying betwixt me and the london bridge station, where i was to take the rail homeward. at the station i found mr. bennoch, who had been dining with the lord mayor to meet sir william williams, and we railed to greenwich, and reached home by midnight. mr. and mrs. bennoch have set out on their continental journey to-day,--leaving us, for a little space, in possession of what will be more like a home than anything that we shall hereafter find in england. this afternoon i had taken up the fourth volume of jerdan's autobiography,--wretched twaddle, though it records such constant and apparently intimate intercourse with distinguished people,--and was reading it, between asleep and awake, on the sofa, when mr. jerdan himself was announced. i saw him, in company with mr. bennoch, nearly three years ago, at rock park, and wondered then what there was in so uncouth an individual to get him so freely into polished society. he now looks rougher than ever,--time-worn, but not reverend; a thatch of gray hair on his head; an imperfect set of false teeth; a careless apparel, checked trousers, and a stick, for he had walked a mile or two from his own dwelling. i suspect--and long practice at the consulate has made me keen-sighted-- that mr. jerdan contemplated some benefit from my purse; and, to the extent of a sovereign or so, i would not mind contributing to his comfort. he spoke of a secret purpose of mr. ------ and himself to obtain me a degree or diploma in some literary institution,--what one i know not, and did not ask; but the honor cannot be a high one, if this poor old fellow can do aught towards it. i am afraid he is a very disreputable senior, but certainly not the less to be pitied on that account; and there was something very touching in his stiff and infirm movement, as he resumed his stick and took leave, waving me a courteous farewell, and turning upon me a smile, grim with age, as he went down the steps. in that gesture and smile i fancied some trace of the polished man of society, such as he may have once been; though time and hard weather have roughened him, as they have the once polished marble pillars which i saw so rude in aspect at netley abbey. speaking of dickens last evening, mr. ------ mentioned his domestic tastes,--how he preferred home enjoyments to all others, and did not willingly go much into society. mrs. ------, too, the other day told us of his taking on himself all possible trouble as regards his domestic affairs. . . . . there is a great variety of testimony, various and varied, as to the character of dickens. i must see him before i finally leave england. july th.--on friday morning ( th), at nine o'clock, i took the rail into town to breakfast with mr. milnes. as he had named a little after ten as the hour, i could not immediately proceed to his house, and so walked moderately over london bridge and into the city, meaning to take a cab from charing cross, or thereabouts. passing through some street or other, contiguous to cheapside, i saw in a court-yard the entrance to the guildhall, and stepped in to look at it. it is a spacious hall, about one hundred and fifty feet long, and perhaps half as broad, paved with flagstones which look worn and some of them cracked across; the roof is very lofty and was once vaulted, but has been shaped anew in modern times. there is a vast window partly filled with painted glass, extending quite along each end of the hall, and a row of arched windows on either side, throwing their light from far above downward upon the pavement. this fashion of high windows, not reaching within twenty or thirty feet of the floor, serves to give great effect to the large enclosed space of an antique hall. against the walls are several marble monuments; one to the earl of chatham, a statue of white marble, with various allegorical contrivances, fronting an obelisk or pyramid of dark marble; and another to his son, william pitt, of somewhat similar design and of equal size; each of them occupying the whole space, i believe, between pavement and ceiling. there is likewise a statue of beckford, a famous lord mayor,--the most famous except whittington, and that one who killed wat tyler; and like those two, his fame is perhaps somewhat mythological, though he lived and bustled within less than a century. he is said to have made a bold speech to the king; but this i will not believe of any englishman--at least, of any plebeian englishman--until i hear it. but there stands his statue in the guildhall in the act of making his speech, as if the monstrous attempt had petrified him. lord nelson, too, has a monument, and so, i think, has some other modern worthy. at one end of the hall, under one of the great painted windows, stand three or four old statues of mediaeval kings, whose identities i forget; and in the two corners of the opposite end are two gigantic absurdities of painted wood, with grotesque visages, whom i quickly recognized as gog and magog. they stand each on a pillar, and seem to be about fifteen feet high, and look like enormous playthings for the children of giants; and it is strange to see them in this solemn old hall, among the memorials of dead heroes and statesmen. there is an annual banquet in the guildhall, given by the lord mayor and sheriffs, and i believe it is the very acme of civic feasting. after viewing the hall, as it still lacked something of ten, i continued my walk through that entanglement of city streets, and quickly found myself getting beyond my reckoning. i cannot tell whither i went, but i passed through a very dirty region, and i remember a long, narrow, evil-odored street, cluttered up with stalls, in which were vegetables and little bits of meat for sale; and there was a frowzy multitude of buyers and sellers. still i blundered on, and was getting out of the density of the city into broader streets, but still shabby ones, when, looking at my watch, i found it to be past ten, and no cab-stand within sight. it was a quarter past when i finally got into one; and the driver told me that it would take half an hour to go from thence to upper brook street; so that i was likely to exceed the license implied in mr. milnes's invitation. whether i was quite beyond rule i cannot say; but it did not lack more than ten minutes of eleven when i was ushered up stairs, and i found all the company assembled. however, it is of little consequence, except that if i had come early, i should have been introduced to many of the guests, whom now i could only know across the table. mrs. milnes greeted me very kindly, and mr. milnes came towards me with an elderly gentleman in a blue coat and gray pantaloons,--with a long, rather thin, homely visage, exceedingly shaggy eyebrows, though no great weight of brow, and thin gray hair, and introduced me to the marquis of lansdowne. the marquis had his right hand wrapped up in a black-silk handkerchief; so he gave me his left, and, from some awkwardness in meeting it, when i expected the right, i gave him only three of my fingers,--a thing i never did before to any person, and it is droll that i should have done it to a marquis. he addressed me with great simplicity and natural kindness, complimenting me on my works, and speaking about the society of liverpool in former days. lord lansdowne was the friend of moore, and has about him the aroma communicated by the memories of many illustrious people with whom he has associated. mr. ticknor, the historian of spanish literature, now greeted me. mr. milnes introduced me to mrs. browning, and assigned her to me to conduct into the breakfast-room. she is a small, delicate woman, with ringlets of dark hair, a pleasant, intelligent, and sensitive face, and a low, agreeable voice. she looks youthful and comely, and is very gentle and lady-like. and so we proceeded to the breakfast-room, which is hung round with pictures; and in the middle of it stood a large round table, worthy to have been king arthur's, and here we seated ourselves without any question of precedence or ceremony. on one side of me was an elderly lady, with a very fine countenance, and in the course of breakfast i discovered her to be the mother of florence nightingale. one of her daughters (not florence) was likewise present. mrs. milnes, mrs. browning, mrs. nightingale, and her daughter were the only ladies at table; and i think there were as many as eight or ten gentlemen, whose names--as i came so late--i was left to find out for myself, or to leave unknown. it was a pleasant and sociable meal, and, thanks to my cold beef and coffee at home, i had no occasion to trouble myself much about the fare; so i just ate some delicate chicken, and a very small cutlet, and a slice of dry toast, and thereupon surceased from my labors. mrs. browning and i talked a good deal during breakfast, for she is of that quickly appreciative and responsive order of women with whom i can talk more freely than with any man; and she has, besides, her own originality, wherewith to help on conversation, though, i should say, not of a loquacious tendency. she introduced the subject of spiritualism, which, she says, interests her very much; indeed, she seems to be a believer. mr. browning, she told me, utterly rejects the subject, and will not believe even in the outward manifestations, of which there is such overwhelming evidence. we also talked of miss bacon; and i developed something of that lady's theory respecting shakespeare, greatly to the horror of mrs. browning, and that of her next neighbor,--a nobleman, whose name i did not hear. on the whole, i like her the better for loving the man shakespeare with a personal love. we talked, too, of margaret fuller, who spent her last night in italy with the brownings; and of william story, with whom they have been intimate, and who, mrs. browning says, is much stirred about spiritualism. really, i cannot help wondering that so fine a spirit as hers should not reject the matter, till, at least, it is forced upon her. i like her very much. mrs. nightingale had been talking at first with lord lansdowne, who sat next her, but by and by she turned to nee, and began to speak of london smoke then, there being a discussion about lord byron on the other side of the table, she spoke to me about lady byron, whom she knows intimately, characterizing her as a most excellent and exemplary person, high-principled, unselfish, and now devoting herself to the care of her two grandchildren,--their mother, byron's daughter, being dead. lady byron, she says, writes beautiful verses. somehow or other, all this praise, and more of the same kind, gave me an idea of an intolerably irreproachable person; and i asked mrs. nightingale if lady byron were warm-hearted. with some hesitation, or mental reservation,--at all events, not quite outspokenly,--she answered that she was. i was too much engaged with these personal talks to attend much to what was going on elsewhere; but all through breakfast i had been more and more impressed by the aspect of one of the guests, sitting next to milnes. he was a man of large presence,--a portly personage, gray-haired, but scarcely as yet aged; and his face had a remarkable intelligence, not vivid nor sparkling, but conjoined with great quietude,--and if it gleamed or brightened at one time more than another, it was like the sheen over a broad surface of sea. there was a somewhat careless self-possession, large and broad enough to be called dignity; and the more i looked at him, the more i knew that he was a distinguished person, and wondered who. he might have been a minister of state; only there is not one of them who has any right to such a face and presence. at last,--i do not know how the conviction came,--but i became aware that it was macaulay, and began to see some slight resemblance to his portraits. but i have never seen any that is not wretchedly unworthy of the original. as soon as i knew him, i began to listen to his conversation, but he did not talk a great deal, contrary to his usual custom; for i am told he is apt to engross all the talk to himself. probably he may have been restrained by the presence of ticknor, and mr. palfrey, who were among his auditors and interlocutors; and as the conversation seemed to turn much on american subjects, he could not well have assumed to talk them down. i am glad to have seen him,--a face fit for a scholar, a man of the world, a cultivated intelligence. after we left the table, and went into the library, mr. browning introduced himself to me,--a younger man than i expected to see, handsome, with brown hair. he is very simple and agreeable in manner, gently impulsive, talking as if his heart were uppermost. he spoke of his pleasure in meeting me, and his appreciation of my books; and--which has not often happened to me--mentioned that the blithedale romance was the one he admired most. i wonder why. i hope i showed as much pleasure at his praise as he did at mine; for i was glad to see how pleasantly it moved him. after this, i talked with ticknor and miles, and with mr. palfrey, to whom i had been introduced very long ago by george hillard, and had never seen him since. we looked at some autographs, of which mr. milnes has two or three large volumes. i recollect a leaf from swift's journal to stella; a letter from addison; one from chatterton, in a most neat and legible hand; and a characteristic sentence or two and signature of oliver cromwell, written in a religious book. there were many curious volumes in the library, but i had not time to look at them. i liked greatly the manners of almost all,--yes, as far as i observed,-- all the people at this breakfast, and it was doubtless owing to their being all people either of high rank or remarkable intellect, or both. an englishman can hardly be a gentleman, unless he enjoy one or other of these advantages; and perhaps the surest way to give him good manners is to make a lord of him, or rather of his grandfather or great-grandfather. in the third generation, scarcely sooner, he will be polished into simplicity and elegance, and his deportment will be all the better for the homely material out of which it is wrought and refined. the marquis of lansdowne, for instance, would have been a very commonplace man in the common ranks of life; but it has done him good to be a nobleman. not that his tact is quite perfect. in going up to breakfast, he made me precede him; in returning to the library, he did the same, although i drew back, till he impelled me up the first stair, with gentle persistence. by insisting upon it, he showed his sense of condescension much more than if, when he saw me unwilling to take precedence, he had passed forward, as if the point were not worth either asserting or yielding. heaven knows, it was in no humility that i would have trodden behind him. but he is a kind old man; and i am willing to believe of the english aristocracy generally that they are kind, and of beautiful deportment; for certainly there never can have been mortals in a position more advantageous for becoming so. i hope there will come a time when we shall be so; and i already know a few americans, whose noble and delicate manners may compare well with any i have seen. i left the house with mr. palfrey. he has cone to england to make some researches in the state paper office, for the purposes of a work which he has in hand. he mentioned to me a letter which he had seen, written from new england in the time of charles ii. and referring to the order sent by the minister of that day for the appearance of governor bellingham and my ancestor on this side of the water. the signature of this letter is an anagram of my ancestor's name. the letter itself is a very bold and able one, controverting the propriety of the measure above indicated; and mr. palfrey feels certain that it was written by my aforesaid ancestor. i mentioned my wish to ascertain the place in england whence the family emigrated; and mr. palfrey took me to the record office, and introduced me to mr. joseph hunter,--a venerable and courteous gentleman, of antiquarian pursuits. the office was odorous of musty parchments, hundreds of years old. mr. hunter received me with great kindness, and gave me various old records and rolls of parchment, in which to seek for my family name; but i was perplexed with the crabbed characters, and soon grew weary and gave up the quest. he says that it is very seldom that an american family, springing from the early settlers, can be satisfactorily traced back to their english ancestry. july th.--monday morning i took the rail from blackheath to london. it is a very pleasant place, blackheath, and far more rural than one would expect, within five or six miles of london,--a great many trees, making quite a mass of foliage in the distance; green enclosures; pretty villas, with their nicely kept lawns, and gardens, with grass-plots and flower borders; and village streets, set along the sidewalks with ornamental trees; and the houses standing a little back, and separated one from another,--all this within what is called the park, which has its gateways, and the sort of semi-privacy with which i first became acquainted at rock park. from the london bridge station i took a cab for paddington, and then had to wait above two hours before a train started for birkenhead. meanwhile i walked a little about the neighborhood, which is very dull and uninteresting; made up of crescents and terraces, and rows of houses that have no individuality, and second-rate shops,--in short, the outskirts of the vast city, when it begins to have a kind of village character but no rurality or sylvan aspect, as at blackheath. my journey, when at last we started, was quite unmarked by incident, and extremely tedious; it being a slow train, which plods on without haste and without rest. at about ten o'clock we reached birkenhead, and there crossed the familiar and detestable mersey, which, as usual, had a cloudy sky brooding over it. mrs. blodgett received me most hospitably, but was impelled, by an overflow of guests, to put me into a little back room, looking into the court, and formerly occupied by my predecessor, general armstrong. . . . . she expressed a hope that i might not see his ghost,--nor have i, as yet. speaking of ghosts, mr. h. a. b------ told me a singular story to-day of an apparition that haunts the times office, in printing-house square. a mr. w------ is the engineer of the establishment, and has his residence in the edifice, which is built, i believe, on the site of merchant taylor's school,--an old house that was no longer occupied for its original purpose, and, being supposed haunted, was left untenanted. the father-in-law of mr. w------, an old sea-captain, came on a visit to him and his wife, and was put into their guest-chamber, where he passed the night. the next morning, assigning no very satisfactory reason, he cut his visit short and went away. shortly afterwards, a young lady came to visit the w------'s; but she too went away the next morning,--going first to make a call, as she said, to a friend, and sending thence for her trunks. mrs. w------ wrote to this young lady, asking an explanation. the young lady replied, and gave a singular account of an apparition,-- how she was awakened in the night by a bright light shining through the window, which was parallel to the bed; then, if i remember rightly, her curtains were withdrawn, and a shape looked in upon her,--a woman's shape, she called it; but it was a skeleton, with lambent flames playing about its bones, and in and out among the ribs. other persons have since slept in this chamber, and some have seen the shape, others not. mr. w------ has slept there himself without seeing anything. he has had investigations by scientific people, apparently under the idea that the phenomenon might have been caused by some of the times's work-people, playing tricks on the magic-lantern principle; but nothing satisfactory has thus far been elucidated. mr. b------ had this story from mrs. gaskell. . . . . supposing it a ghost, nothing else is so remarkable as its choosing to haunt the precincts of the times newspaper. july th.--on saturday, th, i took the rail from the lime street station for london, via the trent valley, and reached blackheath in the evening. . . . . sunday morning my wife and i, with j-----, railed into london, and drove to the essex street chapel, where mr. channing was to preach. the chapel is the same where priestley and belsham used to preach,--one of the plainest houses of worship i was ever in, as simple and undecorated as the faith there inculcated. they retain, however, all the form and ceremonial of the english established church, though so modified as to meet the doctrinal views of the unitarians. there may be good sense in this, inasmuch as it greatly lessens the ministerial labor to have a stated form of prayer, instead of a necessity for extempore outpourings; but it must be, i should think, excessively tedious to the congregation, especially as, having made alterations in these prayers, they cannot attach much idea of sanctity to them. [here follows a long record of mr. hawthorne's visit to miss bacon,-- condensed in our old hone, in the paper called "recollections of a gifted woman."] august d.--on wednesday ( th july) we went to marlborough house to see the vernon gallery of pictures. they are the works, almost entirely of english artists of the last and present century, and comprise many famous paintings; and i must acknowledge that i had more enjoyment of them than of those portions of the national gallery which i had before seen,-- including specimens of the grand old masters. my comprehension has not reached their height. i think nothing pleased me more than a picture by sir david wilkie,--the parish beadle, with a vagrant boy and a monkey in custody; it is exceedingly good and true throughout, and especially the monkey's face is a wonderful production of genius, condensing within itself the whole moral and pathos of the picture. marlborough house was the residence of the great duke, and is to be that of the prince of wales, when another place is found for the pictures. it adjoins st. james's palace. in its present state it is not a very splendid mansion, the rooms being small, though handsomely shaped, with vaulted ceilings, and carved white-marble fireplaces. i left s----- here after an hour or two, and walked forth into the hot and busy city with j-----. . . . . i called at routledge's bookshop, in hopes to make an arrangement with him about miss bacon's business. but routledge himself is making a journey in the north, and neither of the partners was there, so that i shall have to go thither some other day. then we stepped into st. paul's cathedral to cool ourselves, and it was delightful so to escape from the sunny, sultry turmoil of fleet street and ludgate, and find ourselves at once in this remote, solemn, shadowy seclusion, marble-cool. o that we had cathedrals in america, were it only for the sensuous luxury! we strolled round the cathedral, and i delighted j----- much by pointing out the monuments of three british generals, who were slain in america in the last war,--the naughty and bloodthirsty little man! we then went to guildhall, where i thought j----- would like to see gog and magog; but he had never heard of those illustrious personages, and took no interest in them. . . . . but truly i am grateful to the piety of former times for raising this vast, cool canopy of marble [st. paul's] in the midst of the feverish city. i wandered quite round it, and saw, in a remote corner, a monument to the officers of the coldstream guards, slain in the crimea. it was a mural tablet, with the names of the officers on an escutcheon; and two privates of the guards, in marble bas-relief, were mourning over them. over the tablet hung two silken banners, new and glossy, with the battles in which the regiment has been engaged inscribed on them,--not merely crimean but peninsular battles. these banners will bang there till they drop away in tatters. after thus refreshing myself in the cathedral, i went again to routledge's in farrington street, and saw one of the firm. he expressed great pleasure at seeing me, as indeed he might, having published and sold, without any profit on my part, uncounted thousands of my books. i introduced the subject of miss bacon's work; and he expressed the utmost willingness to do everything in his power towards bringing it before the world, but thought that his firm--it being their business to publish for the largest circle of readers--was not the most eligible for the publication of such a book. very likely this may be so. at all events, however, i am to send him the manuscript, and he will at least give me his advice and assistance in finding a publisher. he was good enough to express great regret that i had no work of my own to give him for publication; and, truly, i regret it too, since, being a resident in england, i could now have all the publishing privileges of a native author. he presented me with a copy of an illustrated edition of longfellow's poems, and i took my leave. thence i went to the picture gallery at the british institution, where there are three rooms full of paintings by the first masters, the property of private persons. every one of them, no doubt, was worth studying for a long, long time; and i suppose i may have given, on an average, a minute to each. what an absurdity it would seem, to pretend to read two or three hundred poems, of all degrees between an epic and a ballad, in an hour or two! and a picture is a poem, only requiring the greater study to be felt and comprehended; because the spectator must necessarily do much for himself towards that end. i saw many beautiful things,--among them some landscapes by claude, which to the eye were like the flavor of a rich, ripe melon to the palate. august th.--yesterday we took the rail for london, it being a fine, sunny day, though not so very warm as many of the preceding days have been. . . . . we went along piccadilly as far as the egyptian hall. it is quite remarkable how comparatively quiet the town has become, now that the season is over. one can see the difference in all the region west of temple bar; and, indeed, either the hot weather or some other cause seems to have operated in assuaging the turmoil in the city itself. i never saw london bridge so little thronged as yesterday. at the egyptian hall, or in the same edifice, there is a gallery of pictures, the property of lord ward, who allows the public to see them, five days of the week, without any trouble or restriction,--a great kindness on his lordship's part, it must be owned. it is a very valuable collection, i presume, containing specimens of many famous old masters; some of the early and hard pictures by raphael and his master and fellow-pupils,--very curious, and nowise beautiful; a perfect, sunny glimpse of venice, by canaletto; and saints, and scriptural, allegorical, and mythological people, by titian, guido, correggio, and many more names than i can remember. there is likewise a dead magdalen by canova, and a venus by the same, very pretty, and with a vivid light of joyous expression in her face; . . . . also powers's greek slave, in which i see little beauty or merit; and two or three other statues. we then drove to ashley place, to call on mrs. s. c. hall, whom we found at home. in fact, wednesday is her reception-day; although, as now everybody is out of town, we were the only callers. she is an agreeable and kindly woman. she told us that her husband and herself propose going to america next year, and i heartily wish they may meet with a warm and friendly reception. i have been seldom more assured of the existence of a heart than in her; also a good deal of sentiment. she had been visiting bessie, the widow of moore, at sloperton, and gave s----- a rose from his cottage. such things are very true and unaffected in her. the only wonder is that she has not lost such girlish freshness of feeling as prompts them. we did not see mr. hall, he having gone to the crystal palace. taking our leave, we returned along victoria street--a new street, penetrating through what was recently one of the worst parts of the town, and now bordered with large blocks of buildings, in a dreary, half-finished state, and left so for want of funds--till we came to westminster abbey. we went in and spent an hour there, wandering all round the nave and aisles, admiring the grand old edifice itself, but finding more to smile at than to admire in the monuments. . . . . the interior view of the abbey is better than can be described; the heart aches, as one gazes at it, for lack of power and breadth enough to take its beauty and grandeur in. the effect was heightened by the sun shining through the painted window in the western end, and by the bright sunshine that came through the open portal, and lay on the pavement,--that space so bright, the rest of the vast floor so solemn and sombre. at the western end, in a corner from which spectators are barred out, there is a statue of wordsworth, which i do not recollect seeing at any former visit. its only companion in the same nook is pope's friend, secretary craggs. downing street, that famous official precinct, took its name from sir george downing, who was proprietor or lessee of property there. he was a native of my own old native town, and his descendants still reside there,--collateral descendants, i suppose,--and follow the drygoods business (drapers). august th.--i journeyed to liverpool via chester. . . . . one sees a variety of climate, temperature, and season in a ride of two hundred miles, north and south, through england. near london, for instance, the grain was reaped, and stood in sheaves in the stubble-fields, over which girls and children might be seen gleaning; farther north, the golden, or greenish-golden, crops were waving in the wind. in one part of our way the atmosphere was hot and dry; at another point it had been cooled and refreshed by a heavy thunder-shower, the pools of which still lay along our track. it seems to me that local varieties of weather are more common in this island, and within narrower precincts, than in america. . . . . i never saw england of such a dusky and dusty green before,--almost sunbrowned, indeed. sometimes the green hedges formed a marked framework to a broad sheet of golden grain-field. as we drew near oxford, just before reaching the station i had a good view of its domes, towers, and spires,--better, i think, than when j----- and i rambled through the town a month or two ago. mr. frank scott haydon, of the record office, london, writes me that he has found a "henry atte hawthorne" on a roll which he is transcribing, of the first edward iii. he belonged to the parish of aldremeston, in the hundred of blakenhurste, worcester county. august st.--yesterday, at twelve o'clock, i took the steamer for runcorn, from the pier-head. in the streets, i had noticed that it was a breezy day; but on the river there was a very stiff breeze from the northeast, right ahead, blowing directly in our face the whole way; and truly this river mersey is never without a breeze, and generally in the direction of its course,--an evil-tempered, unkindly, blustering wind, that you cannot meet without being exasperated by it. as it came straight against us, it was impossible to find a shelter anywhere on deck, except it were behind the stove-pipe; and, besides, the day was overcast and threatening rain. i have undergone very miserable hours on the mersey, where, in the space of two years, i voyaged thousands of miles,--and this trip to runcorn reminded me of them, though it was less disagreeable after more than a twelvemonth's respite. we had a good many passengers on board, most of whom were of the second class, and congregated on the forward deck; more women than men, i think, and some of them with their husbands and children. several produced lunch and bottles, and refreshed themselves very soon after we started. by and by the wind became so disagreeable that i went below, and sat in the cabin, only occasionally looking out, to get a peep at the shores of the river, which i had never before seen above eastham. however, they are not worth looking at; level and monotonous, without trees or beauty of any kind,--here and there a village, and a modern church, on the low ridge behind; perhaps, a windmill, which the gusty day had set busily to work. the river continues very wide--no river indeed, but an estuary--during almost the whole distance to runcorn; and nearly at the end of our voyage we approached some abrupt and prominent hills, which, many a time, i have seen on my passages to rock ferry, looking blue and dim, and serving for prophets of the weather; for when they can be distinctly seen adown the river, it is a token of coming rain. we met many vessels, and passed many which were beating up against the wind, and which keeled over, so that their decks must have dipped,--schooners and vessels that come from the bridgewater canal. we shipped a sea ourselves, which gave the fore-deck passengers a wetting. before reaching runcorn, we stopped to land some passengers at another little port, where there was a pier and a lighthouse, and a church within a few yards of the river-side,--a good many of the river-craft, too, in dock, forming quite a crowd of masts. about ten minutes' further steaming brought us to runcorn, where were two or three tall manufacturing chimneys, with a pennant of black smoke from each; two vessels of considerable size on the stocks; a church or two; and a meagre, uninteresting, shabby, brick-built town, rising from the edge of the river, with irregular streets,--not village-like, but paved, and looking like a dwarfed, stunted city. i wandered through it till i came to a tall, high-pedestalled windmill on the outer verge, the vans of which were going briskly round. thence retracing my steps, i stopped at a poor hotel, and took lunch, and, finding that i was in time to take the steamer back, i hurried on board, and we set sail (or steam) before three. i have heard of an old castle at runcorn, but could discover nothing of it. it was well that i returned so promptly, for we had hardly left the pier before it began to rain, and there was a heavy downfall throughout the voyage homeward. runcorn is fourteen miles from liverpool, and is the farthest point to which a steamer runs. i had intended to come home by rail,--a circuitous route,--but the advice of the landlady of the hotel, and the aspect of the weather, and a feeling of general discouragement prevented me. an incident in s. c. hall's ireland, of a stone cross, buried in cromwell's time, to prevent its destruction by his soldiers. it was forgotten, and became a mere doubtful tradition, but one old man had been told by his father, and he by his father, etc., that it was buried near a certain spot; and at last, two hundred years after the cross was buried, the vicar of the parish dug in that spot and found it. in my (english) romance, an american might bring the tradition from over the sea, and so discover the cross, which had been altogether forgotten. august th.--day before yesterday i took the rail for southport,--a cool, generally overcast day, with glimmers of faint sunshine. the ride is through a most uninteresting tract of country, at first, glimpses of the river, with the thousands of masts in the docks; the dismal outskirts of a great town, still spreading onward, with beginnings of streets, and insulated brick buildings and blocks; farther on, a wide monotony of level plain, and here and there a village and a church; almost always a windmill in sight, there being plenty of breeze to turn its vans on this windy coast. the railway skirts along the sea the whole distance, but is shut out from the sight of it by the low sand-hills, which seem to have been heaped up by the waves. there are one or two lighthouses on the shore. i have not seen a drearier landscape, even in lancashire. reaching southport at three, i rambled about, with a view to discover whether it be a suitable residence for my family during september. it is a large village, or rather more than a village, which seems to be almost entirely made up of lodging-houses, and, at any rate, has been built up by the influx of summer visitors,--a sandy soil, level, and laid out with well-paved streets, the principal of which are enlivened with bazaars, markets, shops, hotels of various degrees, and a showy vivacity of aspect. there are a great many donkey-carriages,--large vehicles, drawn by a pair of donkeys; bath-chairs, with invalid ladies; refreshment-rooms in great numbers,--a place where everybody seems to be a transitory guest, nobody at home. the main street leads directly down to the sea-shore, along which there is an elevated embankment, with a promenade on the top, and seats, and the toll of a penny. the shore itself, the tide being then low, stretched out interminably seaward, a wide waste of glistering sands; and on the dry border, people were riding on donkeys, with the drivers whipping behind; and children were digging with their little wooden spades; and there were donkey-carriages far out on the sands,--a pleasant and breezy drive. a whole city of bathing-machines was stationed near the shore, and i saw others in the seaward distance. the sea-air was refreshing and exhilarating, and if s----- needs a seaside residence, i should think this might do as well as any other. i saw a large brick edifice, enclosed within a wall, and with somewhat the look of an almshouse or hospital; and it proved to be an infirmary, charitably established for the reception of poor invalids, who need sea-air and cannot afford to pay for it. two or three of such persons were sitting under its windows. i do not think that the visitors of southport are generally of a very opulent class, but of the middle rank, from manchester and other parts of this northern region. the lodging-houses, however, are of sufficiently handsome style and arrangement. oxford. [mr. hawthorne extracted from his recorded oxford experiences his excursion to blenheim, but left his observations of the town itself untouched,--and these i now transcribe.--ed.] august st.--. . . . yesterday we took the rail for london, and drove across the city to the paddington station, where we met bennoch, and set out with him for oxford. i do not quite understand the matter, but it appears that we were expected guests of mr. spiers, a very hospitable gentleman, and ex-mayor of oxford, and a friend of bennoch and of the halls. mr. s. c. hall met us at the oxford station, and under his guidance we drove to a quiet, comfortable house in st. giles street, where rooms had been taken for us. durham, the sculptor, is likewise of the party. after establishing ourselves at these lodgings, we walked forth to take a preliminary glimpse of the city, and mr. hall, being familiar with the localities, served admirably as a guide. if i remember aright, i spoke very slightingly of the exterior aspect of oxford, as i saw it with j----- during an hour or two's stay here, on my way to southampton (to meet s----- on her return from lisbon). i am bound to say that my impressions are now very different; and that i find oxford exceedingly picturesque and rich in beauty and grandeur and in antique stateliness. i do not remember very particularly what we saw,--time-worn fronts of famous colleges and halls of learning everywhere about the streets, and arched entrances; passing through which, we saw bits of sculpture from monkish hands,--the most grotesque and ludicrous faces, as if the slightest whim of these old carvers took shape in stone, the material being so soft and manageable by them; an ancient stone pulpit in the quadrangle of maudlin college (magdalen), one of only three now extant in england; a splendid--no, not splendid, but dimly magnificent--chapel, belonging to the same college, with painted windows of rare beauty, not brilliant with diversified hues, but of a sombre tint. in this chapel there is an alabaster monument,--a recumbent figure of the founder's father, as large as life,--which, though several centuries old, is as well preserved as if fresh from the chisel. in the high street, which, i suppose, is the noblest old street in england, mr. hall pointed out, the crown inn, where shakespeare used to spend the night, and was most hospitably welcomed by the pretty hostess (the mother of sir william davenant) on his passage between stratford and london. it is a three-story house, with other houses contiguous,--an old timber mansion, though now plastered and painted of a yellowish line. the ground-floor is occupied as a shoe-shop; but the rest of the house is still kept as a tavern. . . . . it is not now term time, and oxford loses one of its most characteristic features by the absence of the gownsmen; but still there is a good deal of liveliness in the streets. we walked as far as a bridge beyond maudlin college, and then drove homeward. at six we went to dine with the hospitable ex-mayor, across the wide, tree-bordered street; for his house is nearly opposite our lodgings. he is an intelligent and gentlemanly person, and was mayor two years ago, and has done a great deal to make peace between the university and the town, heretofore bitterly inimical. his house is adorned with pictures and drawings, and he has an especial taste for art. . . . . the dinner-table was decorated with pieces of plate, vases, and other things, which were presented to him as tokens of public or friendly regard and approbation of his action in the mayoralty. after dinner, too, he produced a large silver snuff-box, which had been given him on the same account; in fact, the inscription affirmed that it was one of five pieces of plate so presented. the vases are really splendid,--one of them two feet high, and richly ornamented. it will hold five or six bottles of wine, and he said that it had been filled, and, i believe, sent round as a loving-cup at some of his entertainments. he cordially enjoys these things, and his genuine benevolence produces all this excellent hospitality. . . . . but bennoch proposed a walk, and we set forth. we rambled pretty extensively about the streets, sometimes seeing the shapes of old edifices dimly and doubtfully, it being an overcast night; or catching a partial view of a gray wall, or a pillar, or a gothic archway, by lamplight. . . . . the clock had some time ago struck eleven, when we were passing under a long extent of antique wall and towers, which were those of baliol college. mr. d------ led us into the middle of the street, and showed us a cross, which was paved into it, on a level with the rest of the road. this was the spot where latimer and ridley and another bishop were martyred in bloody mary's time. there is a memorial to them in another street; but this, where i set my foot at nearly midnight, was the very spot where their flesh burned to ashes, and their bones whitened. it has been a most beautiful morning, and i have seen few pleasanter scenes than this street in which we lodge, with its spacious breadth, its two rows of fine old trees, with sidewalks as wide as the whole width of some streets; and, on the opposite side, the row of houses, some of them ancient with picturesque gables, partially disclosed through the intervening foliage. . . . . from our window we have a slantwise glimpse, to the right, of the walls of st. john's college, and the general aspect of st. giles. it is of an antiquity not to shame those mediaeval halls. our own lodgings are in a house that seems to be very old, with panelled walls, and beams across the ceilings, lattice-windows in the chambers, and a musty odor such as old houses inevitably have. nevertheless, everything is extremely neat, clean, and comfortable; and in term time our apartments are occupied by a mr. stebbing, whose father is known in literature by some critical writings, and who is a graduate and an admirable scholar. there is a bookcase of five shelves, containing his books, mostly standard works, and indicating a safe and solid taste. after lunch to-day we (that is, mrs. hall, her adopted daughter, s-----, and i, with the ex-mayor) set forth, in an open barouche, to see the remarkables of oxford, while the rest of the guests went on foot. we first drew up at new college (a strange name for such an old place, but it was new some time since the conquest), and went through its quiet and sunny quadrangles, and into its sunny and shadowy gardens. i am in despair about the architecture and old edifices of these oxford colleges, it is so impossible to express them in words. they are themselves--as the architect left them, and as time has modified and improved them--the expression of an idea which does not admit of being otherwise expressed, or translated into anything else. those old battlemented walls around the quadrangles; many gables; the windows with stone pavilions, so very antique, yet some of them adorned with fresh flowers in pots,--a very sweet contrast; the ivy mantling the gray stone; and the infinite repose, both in sunshine and shadow,--it is as if half a dozen bygone centuries had set up their rest here, and as if nothing of the present time ever passed through the deeply recessed archway that shuts in the college from the street. not but what people have very free admittance; and many parties of young men and girls and children came into the gardens while we were there. these gardens of new college are indescribably beautiful,--not gardens in an american sense, but lawns of the richest green and softest velvet grass, shadowed over by ancient trees, that have lived a quiet life here for centuries, and have been nursed and tended with such care, and so sheltered from rude winds, that certainly they must have been the happiest of all trees. such a sweet, quiet, sacred, stately seclusion-- so age-long as this has been, and, i hope, will continue to be--cannot exist anywhere else. one side of the garden wall is formed by the ancient wall of the city, which cromwell's artillery battered, and which still retains its pristine height and strength. at intervals, there are round towers that formed the bastions; that is to say, on the exterior they are round towers, but within, in the garden of the college, they are semicircular recesses, with iron garden-seats arranged round them. the loop-holes through which the archers and musketeers used to shoot still pierce through deep recesses in the wall, which is here about six feet thick. i wish i could put into one sentence the whole impression of this garden, but it could not be done in many pages. we looked also at the outside of the wall, and mr. parker, deeply skilled in the antiquities of the spot, showed us a weed growing,--here in little sprigs, there in large and heavy festoons,--hanging plentifully downward from a shallow root. it is called the oxford plant, being found only here, and not easily, if at all, introduced anywhere else. it bears a small and pretty blue flower, not altogether unlike the forget-me-not, and we took some of it away with us for a memorial. we went into the chapel of new college, which is in such fresh condition that i think it must be modern; and yet this cannot be, since there are old brasses inlaid into tombstones in the pavement, representing mediaeval ecclesiastics and college dignitaries; and busts against the walls, in antique garb; and old painted windows, unmistakable in their antiquity. but there is likewise a window, lamentable to look at, which was painted by sir joshua reynolds, and exhibits strikingly the difference between the work of a man who performed it merely as a matter of taste and business, and what was done religiously and with the whole heart; at least, it shows that the artists and public of the last age had no sympathy with gothic art. in the chancel of this church there are more painted windows, which i take to be modern, too, though they are in much better taste, and have an infinitely better effect, than sir joshua's. at any rate, with the sunshine through them, they looked very beautiful, and tinted the high altar and the pavement with brilliant lines. the sacristan opened a tall and narrow little recess in the wall of the chancel, and showed it entirely filled with the crosier of william of wickham. it appears to be made of silver gilt, and is a most rich and elaborate relic, at least six feet high. modern art cannot, or does not, equal the chasing and carving of this splendid crosier, which is enriched with figures of saints and, apostles, and various gothic devices,--very minute, but all executed as faithfully as if the artist's salvation had depended upon every notch he made in the silver. . . . . leaving new college, bennoch and i, under mr. parker's guidance, walked round christ church meadows, part of our way lying along the banks of the cherwell, which unites with the isis to form the thames, i believe. the cherwell is a narrow and remarkably sluggish stream; but is deep in spots, and capriciously so,--so that a person may easily step from knee-deep to fifteen feet in depth. a gentleman present used a queer expression in reference to the drowning of two college men; he said "it was an awkward affair." i think this is equal to longfellow's story of the frenchman who avowed himself very much "displeased" at the news of his father's death. at the confluence of the cherwell and isis we saw a good many boats, belonging to the students of the various colleges; some of them being very large and handsome barges, capable of accommodating a numerous party, with room on board for dancing and merry-making. some of them are calculated to be drawn by horses, in the manner of canal-boats; others are propellable by oars. it is practicable to perform the voyage between oxford and london--a distance of about one hundred and thirty miles--in three days. the students of oxford are famous boatmen; there is a constant rivalship, on this score, among the different colleges; and annually, i believe, there is a match between oxford and cambridge. the cambridge men beat the oxonians in this year's trial. on our return into the city, we passed through christ church, which, as regards the number of students, is the most considerable college of the university. it has a stately dome; but my memory is confused with battlements, towers, and gables, and gothic staircases and cloisters. if there had been nothing else in oxford but this one establishment, my anticipations would not have been disappointed. the bell was tolling for worship in the chapel; and mr. parker told us that dr. pusey is a canon, or in some sort of dignity, in christ church, and would soon probably make his appearance in the quadrangle, on his way to chapel; so we walked to and fro, waiting an opportunity to see him. a gouty old dignitary, in a white surplice, came hobbling along from one extremity of the court; and by and by, from the opposite corner, appeared dr. pusey, also in a white surplice, and with a lady by his side. we met him, and i stared pretty fixedly at him, as i well might; for he looked on the ground, as if conscious that he would be stared at. he is a man past middle life, of sufficient breadth and massiveness, with a pale, intellectual, manly face. he was talking with the lady, and smiled, but not jollily. mr. parker, who knows him, says that he is a man of kind and gentle affections. the lady was his niece. thence we went through high street and broad street, and passing by baliol college,--a most satisfactory pile and range of old towered and gabled edifices,--we came to the cross on the pavement, which is supposed to mark the spot where the bishops were martyred. but mr. parker told us the mortifying fact, that he had ascertained that this could not possibly have been the genuine spot of martyrdom, which must have taken place at a point within view, but considerably too far off to be moistened by any tears that may be shed here. it is too bad. we concluded the rambles of the day by visiting the gardens of st. john's college; and i desire, if possible, to say even more in admiration of them than of those of new college,--such beautiful lawns, with tall, ancient trees, and heavy clouds of foliage, and sunny glimpses through archways of leafy branches, where, to-day, we could see parties of girls, making cheerful contrast with the sombre walls and solemn shade. the world, surely, has not another place like oxford; it is a despair to see such a place and ever to leave it, for it would take a lifetime and more than one, to comprehend and enjoy it satisfactorily. at dinner, to-day, the golden vases were all ranged on the table, the largest and central one containing a most magnificent bouquet of dahlias and other bright-hued flowers. on tuesday, our first visit was to christ church, where we saw the large and stately hall, above a hundred feet long by forty wide, and fifty to the top of its carved oaken roof, which is ornamented with festoons, as it were, and pendants of solid timber. the walls are panelled with oak, perhaps half-way upward, and above are the rows of arched windows on each side; but, near the upper end, two great windows come nearly to the floor. there is a dais, where the great men of the college and the distinguished guests sit at table, and the tables of the students are arranged along the length of the hall. all around, looking down upon those who sit at meat, are the portraits of a multitude of illustrious personages who were members of the learned fraternity in times past; not a portrait being admitted there (unless it he a king, and i remember only henry viii.) save those who were actually students on the foundation, receiving the eleemosynary aid of the college. most of them were divines; but there are likewise many statesmen, eminent during the last three hundred years, and, among many earlier ones, the marquis of wellesley and canning. it is an excellent idea, for their own glory, and as examples to the rising generations, to have this multitude of men, who have done good and great things, before the eyes of those who ought to do as well as they, in their own time. archbishops, prime ministers, poets, deep scholars,--but, doubtless, an outward success has generally been their claim to this position, and christ church may have forgotten a better man than the best of them. it is not, i think, the tendency of english life, nor of the education of their colleges, to lead young men to high moral excellence, but to aim at illustrating themselves in the sight of mankind. thence we went into the kitchen, which is arranged very much as it was three centuries ago, with two immense fireplaces. there was likewise a gridiron, which, without any exaggeration, was large enough to have served for the martyrdom of st. lawrence. the college dinners are good, but plain, and cost the students one shilling and eleven pence each, being rather cheaper than a similar one could be had at an inn. there is no provision for breakfast or supper in commons; but they can have these meals sent to their rooms from the buttery, at a charge proportioned to the dishes they order. there seems to be no necessity for a great expenditure on the part of oxford students. from the kitchen we went to the chapel, which is the cathedral of oxford, and well worth seeing, if there had not been so many other things to see. it is now under repair, and there was a great heap of old wood-work and panelling lying in one of the aisles, which had been stripped away from some of the ancient pillars, leaving them as good as new. there is a shrine of a saint, with a wooden canopy over it; and some painted glass, old and new; and a statue of cyril jackson, with a face of shrewdness and insight; and busts, as mural monuments. our next visit was to merton college, which, though not one of the great colleges, is as old as any of them, and looks exceedingly venerable. we were here received by a friend of mr. spiers, in his academic cap, but without his gown, which is not worn, except in term time. he is a very civil gentleman, and showed us some antique points of architecture,--such as a norman archway, with a passage over it, through which the queen of charles i. used to go to chapel; and an edifice of the thirteenth century, with a stone roof, which is considered to be very curious. how ancient is the aspect of these college quadrangles! so gnawed by time as they are, so crumbly, so blackened, and so gray where they are not black,--so quaintly shaped, too, with here a line of battlement and there a row of gables; and here a turret, with probably a winding stair inside; and lattice-windows, with stone mullions, and little panes of glass set in lead; and the cloisters, with a long arcade, looking upon the green or pebbled enclosure. the quality of the stone has a great deal to do with the apparent antiquity. it is a stone found in the neighborhood of oxford, and very soon begins to crumble and decay superficially, when exposed to the weather; so that twenty years do the work of a hundred, so far as appearances go. if you strike one of the old walls with a stick, a portion of it comes powdering down. the effect of this decay is very picturesque, and is especially striking, i think, on edifices of classic architecture, such as some of the oxford colleges are, greatly enriching the grecian columns, which look so cold when the outlines are hard and distinct. the oxford people, however, are tired of this crumbly stone, and when repairs are necessary, they use a more durable material, which does not well assort with the antiquity into which it is intruded. mr. e------ showed us the library of merton college. it occupies two sides of an old building, and has a very delightful fragrance of ancient books. the halls containing it are vaulted, and roofed with oak, not carved and ornamented, but laid flat, so that they look very like a grand and spacious old garret. all along, there is a row of alcoves on each side, with rude benches and reading-desks, in the simplest style, and nobody knows how old. the books look as old as the building. the more valuable were formerly chained to the bookcases; and a few of them have not yet broken their chains. it was a good emblem of the dark and monkish ages, when learning was imprisoned in their cloisters, and chained in their libraries, in the days when the schoolmaster had not yet gone abroad. mr. e------ showed us a very old copy of the bible; and a vellum manuscript, most beautifully written in black-letter and illuminated, of the works of duns scotus, who was a scholar of merton college. he then showed us the chapel, a large part of which has been renewed and ornamented with pictured windows and other ecclesiastical splendor, and paved with encaustic tiles, according to the puseyite taste of the day; for merton has adopted the puseyite doctrines, and is one of their chief strongholds in oxford. if they do no other good, they at least do much for the preservation and characteristic restoration of the old english churches; but perhaps, even here, there is as much antiquity spoiled as retained. in the portion of the chapel not yet restored, we saw the rude old pavement, inlaid with gravestones, in some of which were brasses, with the figures of the college dignitaries, whose dust slumbered beneath; and i think it was here that i saw the tombstone of anthony-a-wood, the gossiping biographer of the learned men of oxford. from the chapel we went into the college gardens, which are very pleasant, and possess the advantage of looking out on the broad verdure of christ church meadows and the river beyond. we loitered here awhile, and then went to mr. ------'s rooms, to which the entrance is by a fine old staircase. they had a very comfortable, aspect,--a wainscoted parlor and bedroom, as nice and cosey as a bachelor could desire, with a good collection of theological books; and on a peg hung his gown, with a red border about it, denoting him to be a proproctor. he was kind enough to order a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese, college ale, and a certain liquor called "archdeacon." . . . . we ate and drank, . . . . and, bidding farewell to good mr. e------, we pursued our way to the ratcliffe library. this is a very handsome edifice, of a circular shape; the lower story consisting altogether of arches, open on all sides, as if to admit anybody to the learning here stored up. i always see great beauty and lightsomeness in these classic and grecian edifices, though they seem cold and intellectual, and not to have had their mortar moistened with human life-blood, nor to have the mystery of human life in them, as gothic structures do. the library is in a large and beautiful room, in the story above the basement, and, as far as i saw, consisted chiefly or altogether of scientific works. i saw silliman's journal on one of the desks, being the only trace of american science, or american learning or ability in any department, which i discovered in the university of oxford. after seeing the library, we went to the top of the building, where we had an excellent view of oxford and the surrounding country. then we went to the convocation hall, and afterwards to the theatre, where s----- sat down in the chancellor's chair, which is very broad, and ponderously wrought of oak. i remember little here, except the amphitheatre of benches, and the roof, which seems to be supported by golden ropes, and on the wall, opposite the door, some full-length portraits, among which one of that ridiculous coxcomb, george iv., was the most prominent. these kings thrust themselves impertinently forward by bust, statue, and picture, on all occasions, and it is not wise in them to show their shallow foreheads among men of mind. the bodleian library. mr. spiers tried to get us admittance to the bodleian library; but this is just the moment when it is closed for the purpose of being cleaned; so we missed seeing the principal halls of this library, and were only admitted into what was called the picture gallery. this, however, satisfied all my desires, so far as the backs of books are concerned, for they extend through a gallery, running round three sides of a quadrangle, making an aggregate length of more than four hundred feet,--a solid array of bookcases, full of books, within a protection of open iron-work. up and down the gallery there are models of classic temples; and about midway in its extent stands a brass statue of earl pembroke, who was chancellor of the university in james i's time; not in scholarly garb, however, but in plate and mail, looking indeed like a thunderbolt of war. i rapped him with my knuckles, and he seemed to be solid metal, though, i should imagine, hollow at heart. a thing which interested me very much was the lantern of guy fawkes. it was once tinned, no doubt, but is now nothing but rusty iron, partly broken. as this is called the picture gallery, i must not forget the pictures, which are ranged in long succession over the bookcases, and include almost all englishmen whom the world has ever heard of, whether in statesmanship or literature, i saw a canvas on which had once been a lovely and unique portrait of mary of scotland; but it was consigned to a picture-cleaner to be cleansed, and, discovering that it was painted over another picture, he had the curiosity to clean poor mary quite away, thus revealing a wishy-washy woman's face, which now hangs in the gallery. i am so tired of seeing notable things that i almost wish that whatever else is remarkable in oxford could he obliterated in some similar manner. from the bodleian we went to the taylor institute, which was likewise closed; but the woman who had it in charge had formerly been a servant of mr. spiers, and he so overpersuaded her that she finally smiled and admitted us. it would truly have been a pity to miss it; for here, on the basement floor, are the original models of chantrey's busts and statues, great and small; and in the rooms above are a far richer treasure,--a large collection of original drawings by raphael and michael angelo. these are far better for my purpose than their finished pictures,--that is to say, they bring me much closer to the hands that drew them and the minds that imagined them. it is like looking into their brains, and seeing the first conception before it took shape outwardly (i have somewhere else said about the same thing of such sketches). i noticed one of raphael's drawings, representing the effect of eloquence; it was a man speaking in the centre of a group, between whose ears and the orator's mouth connecting lines were drawn. raphael's idea must have been to compose his picture in such a way that their auricular organs should not fail to be in a proper relation with the eloquent voice; and though this relation would not have been individually traceable in the finished picture, yet the general effect--that of deep and entranced attention--would have been produced. in another room there are some copies of raphael's cartoons, and some queer mediaeval pictures, as stiff and ugly as can well be conceived, yet successful in telling their own story. we looked a little while at these, and then, thank heaven! went home and dressed for dinner. i can write no more to-day. indeed, what a mockery it is to write at all! [here follows the drive to cumnor place, stanton harcourt, nuneham courtney, godstowe, etc.,--already published in our old home.--ed.] september th.--the morning after our excursion on the thames was as bright and beautiful as many preceding ones had been. after breakfast s----- and i walked a little about the town, and bought thomas a kempis, in both french and english, for u----. . . . . mr. de la motte, the photographer, had breakfasted with us, and mr. spiers wished him to take a photograph of our whole party. so, in the first place, before the rest were assembled, he made an experimental group of such as were there; and i did not like my own aspect very much. afterwards, when we were all come, he arranged us under a tree in the garden,--mr. and mrs. spiers, with their eldest son, mr. and mrs. hall and fanny, mr. addison, my wife and me,--and stained the glass with our figures and faces in the twinkling of an eye; not s-----'s face, however, for she turned it away, and left only a portion of her bonnet and dress,--and mrs. hall, too, refused to countenance the proceeding. but all the rest of us were caught to the life, and i was really a little startled at recognizing myself so apart from myself, and done so quickly too. this was the last important incident of our visit to oxford, except that mr. spiers was again most hospitable at lunch. never did anybody attend more faithfully to the comfort of his friends than does this good gentleman. but he has shown himself most kind in every possible way, and i shall always feel truly grateful. no better way of showing our sense of his hospitality, and all the trouble he has taken for us (and our memory of him), has occurred to us, than to present him with a set of my tales and romances; so, by the next steamer, i shall write to ticknor and fields to send them, elegantly bound, and s----- will emblazon his coat of arms in each volume. he accompanied us and mr. and mrs. hall to the railway station, and we left oxford at two o'clock. it had been a very pleasant visit, and all the persons whom we met were kind and agreeable, and disposed to look at one another in a sunny aspect. i saw a good deal of mr. hall. he is a thoroughly genuine man, of kind heart and true affections, a gentleman of taste and refinement, and full of humor. on the saturday after our return to blackheath, we went to hampton court, about which, as i have already recorded a visit to it, i need say little here. but i was again impressed with the stately grandeur of wolsey's great hall, with its great window at each end, and one side window, descending almost to the floor, and a row of windows on each side, high towards the roof, and throwing down their many-colored light on the stone pavement, and on the gobelin tapestry, which must have been gorgeously rich when the walls were first clothed with it. i fancied, then, that no modern architect could produce so fine a room; but oddly enough, in the great entrance-hall of the euston station, yesterday, i could not see how this last fell very much short of wolsey's hall in grandeur. we were quite wearied in passing through the endless suites of rooms in hampton court, and gazing at the thousands of pictures; it is too much for one day,--almost enough for one life, in such measure as life can be bestowed on pictures. it would have refreshed us had we spent half the time in wandering about the grounds, which, as we glimpsed at them from the windows of the palace, seemed very beautiful, though laid out with an antique formality of straight lines and broad gravelled paths. before the central window there is a beautiful sheet of water, and a fountain upshooting itself and plashing into it, with a continuous and pleasant sound. how beautifully the royal robe of a monarchy is embroidered! palaces, pictures, parks! they do enrich life; and kings and aristocracies cannot keep these things to themselves, they merely take care of them for others. even a king, with all the glory that can be shed around him, is but the liveried and bedizened footman of his people, and the toy of their delight. i am very glad that i came to this country while the english are still playing with such a toy. yesterday j----- and i left blackheath, and reached liverpool last night. the rest of my family will follow in a few days; and so finishes our residence in bennoch's house, where i, for my part, have spent some of the happiest hours that i have known since we left our american home. it is a strange, vagabond, gypsy sort of life,--this that we are leading; and i know not whether we shall finally be spoiled for any other, or shall enjoy our quiet wayside, as we never did before, when once we reach it again. the evening set in misty and obscure; and it was dark almost when j----- and i arrived at the landing stage on our return. i was struck with the picturesque effect of the high tower and tall spire of st. nicholas, rising upward, with dim outline, into the duskiness; while midway of its height the dial-plates of an illuminated clock blazed out, like two great eyes of a giant. september th.--on saturday my wife, with all her train, arrived at mrs. b------'s; and on tuesday--vagabonds as we are--we again struck our tent, and set out for southport. i do not know what sort of character it will form in the children,--this unsettled, shifting, vagrant life, with no central home to turn to, except what we carry in ourselves. it was a windy day, and, judging by the look of the trees, on the way to southport, it must be almost always windy, and with the blast in one prevailing direction; for invariably their branches, and the whole contour and attitude of the tree, turn from seaward, with a strangely forlorn aspect. reaching southport, we took an omnibus, and under the driver's guidance came to our tall stone house, fronting on the sands, and styled "brunswick terrace." . . . . the english system of lodging-houses has its good points; but it is, nevertheless, a contrivance for bearing the domestic cares of home about with you whithersoever you go; and immediately you have to set about producing your own bread and cheese. however, fanny took most of this trouble off our hands, though there was inevitably the stiffness and discomfort of a new housekeeping on the first day of our arrival; besides that, it was cool, and the wind whistled and grumbled and eddied into the chinks of the house. meanwhile, in all my experience of southport, i have never yet seen the sea, but only an interminable breadth of sands, looking pooly or plashy in some places, and barred across with drier reaches of sand, but no expanse of water. it must be miles and miles, at low water, to the veritable sea-shore. we are about twenty miles north of liverpool, on the border of the irish sea; and ireland and, i suppose, the isle of man intervene betwixt us and the ocean, not much to our benefit; for the air of the english coast, under ocean influences, is said to be milder than when it comes across the land,--milder, therefore, above or below ireland, because then the gulf stream ameliorates it. betimes, the forenoon after our arrival, i had to take the rail to liverpool, but returned, a little after five, in the midst of a rain,-- still low water and interminable sands; still a dreary, howling blast. we had a cheerful fireside, however, and should have had a pleasant evening, only that the wind on the sea made us excessively drowsy. this morning we awoke to hear the wind still blustering, and blowing up clouds, with fitful little showers, and soon blowing them away again, and letting the brightest of sunshine fall over the plashy waste of sand. we have already walked forth on the shore with j----- and r-----, who pick up shells, and dig wells in the sand with their little wooden spades; but soon we saw a rainbow on the western sky, and then a shower came spattering down upon us in good earnest. we first took refuge under the bridge that stretches between the two portions of the promenade; but as there was a chill draught there, we made the best of our way home. the sun has now again come out brightly, though the wind is still tumbling a great many clouds about the sky. evening.--later, i walked out with u----, and, looking seaward, we saw the foam and spray of the advancing tide, tossed about on the verge of the horizon,--a long line, like the crests and gleaming helmets of an army. in about half an hour we found almost the whole waste of sand covered with water, and white waves breaking out all over it; but, the bottom being so nearly level, and the water so shallow, there was little of the spirit and exultation of the sea in a strong breeze. of the long line of bathing-machines, one after another was hitched to a horse, and trundled forth into the water, where, at a long distance from shore, the bathers found themselves hardly middle deep. september th.--the wind grumbled and made itself miserable all last night, and this morning it is still howling as ill-naturedly as ever, and roaring and rumbling in the chimneys. the tide is far out, but, from an upper window, i fancied, at intervals, that i could see the plash of the surf-wave on the distant limit of the sand; perhaps, however, it was only a gleam on the sky. constantly there have been sharp spatters of rain, hissing and rattling against the windows, while a little before or after, or perhaps simultaneously, a rainbow, somewhat watery of texture, paints itself on the western clouds. gray, sullen clouds hang about the sky, or sometimes cover it with a uniform dulness; at other times, the portions towards the sun gleam almost lightsomely; now, there may be an airy glimpse of clear blue sky in a fissure of the clouds; now, the very brightest of sunshine comes out all of a sudden, and gladdens everything. the breadth of sands has a various aspect, according as there are pools, or moisture enough to glisten, or a drier tract; and where the light gleams along a yellow ridge or bar, it is like sunshine itself. certainly the temper of the day shifts; but the smiles come far the seldomest, and its frowns and angry tears are most reliable. by seven o'clock pedestrians began to walk along the promenade, close buttoned against the blast; later, a single bathing-machine got under way, by means of a horse, and travelled forth seaward; but within what distance it finds the invisible margin i cannot say,--at all events, it looks like a dreary journey. just now i saw a sea-gull, wheeling on the blast, close in towards the promenade. september st.--yesterday morning was bright, sunny and windy, and cool and exhilarating. i went to liverpool at eleven, and, returning at five, found the weather still bright and cool. the temperature, methinks, must soon diminish the population of southport, which, judging from appearances, must be mainly made up of temporary visitors. there is a newspaper, the southport visitor, published weekly, and containing a register of all the visitants in the various hotels and lodging-houses. it covers more than two sides of the paper, to the amount of some hundreds. the guests come chiefly from liverpool, manchester, and the neighboring country-towns, and belong to the middle classes. it is not a fashionable watering-place. only one nobleman's name, and those of two or three baronets, now adorn the list. the people whom we see loitering along the beach and the promenade have, at best, a well-to-do, tradesmanlike air. i do not find that there are any public amusements; nothing but strolling on the sands, donkey-riding, or drives in donkey-carts; and solitary visitors must find it a dreary place. yet one or two of the streets are brisk and lively, and, being well thronged, have a holiday aspect. there are no carriages in town save donkey-carts; some of which are drawn by three donkeys abreast, and are large enough to hold a whole family. these conveyances will take you far out on the sands through wet and dry. the beach is haunted by the flying dutchman, --a sort of boat on wheels, schooner-rigged with sails, and which sometimes makes pretty good speed, with a fair wind. this morning we have been walking with j----- and r----- out over the "ribbed sea sands," a good distance from shore. throughout the week, the tides will be so low as not to cover the shallow basin of this bay, if a bay it be. the weather was sullen, with now and then a faint gleam of sunshine, lazily tracing our shadows on the sand; the wind rather quieter than on preceding days. . . . . in the sunshine the sands seem to be frequented by great numbers of gulls, who begin to find the northern climate too wintry. you see their white wings in the sunlight, but they become almost or quite invisible in the shade. we shall soon have an opportunity of seeing how a watering-place looks when the season is quite over; for we have concluded to remain here till december, and everybody else will take flight in a week or two. a short time ago, in the evening, in a street of liverpool, i saw a decent man, of the lower orders, taken much aback by being roughly brushed against by a rowdy fellow. he looked after him, and exclaimed indignantly, "is that a yankee?" it shows the kind of character we have here. october th.--on saturday evening, i gave a dinner to bennoch, at the adelphi hotel. the chief point or characteristic of english customs was, that mr. radley, our landlord, himself attended at table, and officiated as chief waiter. he has a fortune of , pounds,--half a million of dollars,--and is an elderly man of good address and appearance. in america, such a man would very probably be in congress; at any rate, he would never conceive the possibility of changing plates, or passing round the table with hock and champagne. some of his hock was a most rich and imperial wine, such as can hardly be had on the rhine itself. there were eight gentlemen besides bennoch. a donkey, the other day, stubbornly refusing to come out of a boat which had brought him across the mersey; at last, after many kicks had been applied, and other persecutions of that kind, a man stepped forward, addressing him affectionately, "come along, brother,"--and the donkey obeyed at once. october th.--on thursday, instead of taking the rail for liverpool, i set out, about eleven, for a long walk. it was an overcast morning, such as in new england would have boded rain; but english clouds are not nearly so portentous as american in that respect. accordingly, the sun soon began to peep through crevices, and i had not gone more than a mile or two when it shone a little too warmly for comfort, yet not more than i liked. it was very much like our pleasant october days at home; indeed, the climates of the two countries more nearly coincide during the present month than at any other season of the year. the air was almost perfectly still; but once in a while it stirred, and breathed coolly in my face; it is very delightful, this latent freshness, in a warm atmosphere. the country about southport has as few charms as it is possible for any region to have. in the close neighborhood of the shore, it is nothing but sand-hillocks, covered with coarse grass; and this is the original nature of the whole site on which the town stands, although it is now paved, and has been covered with soil enough to make gardens, and to nourish here and there a few trees. a little farther inland the surface seems to have been marshy, but has been drained by ditches across the fields and along the roadside; and the fields are embanked on all sides with parapets of earth which appear as if intended to keep out inundations. in fact, holland itself cannot be more completely on a level with the sea. the only dwellings are the old, whitewashed stone cottages, with thatched roofs, on the brown straw of which grow various weeds and mosses, brightening it with green patches, and sprouting along the ridgepole,--the homeliest hovels that ever mortals lived in, and which they share with pigs and cows at one end. hens, too, run in and out of the door. one or two of these hovels bore signs, "licensed to sell beer, ale, and tobacco," and generally there were an old woman and some children visible. in all cases there was a ditch, full of water, close at hand, stagnant, and often quite covered with a growth of water-weeds,--very unwholesome, one would think, in the neighborhood of a dwelling; and, in truth, the children and grown people did look pale. in the fields, along the roadside, men and women were harvesting their carrots and other root-crops, especially digging potatoes,--the pleasantest of all farm labor, in my opinion, there being such a continual interest in opening the treasures of each hill. as i went on, the country began to get almost imperceptibly less flat, and there was some little appearance of trees. i had determined to go to ormskirk, but soon got out of the way, and came to a little hamlet that looked antique and picturesque, with its small houses of stone and brick, built, with the one material and repaired with the other perhaps ages afterward. here i inquired my way of a woman, who told me, in broad lancashire dialect, "that i main go back, and turn to my left, till i came to a finger-post"; and so i did, and found another little hamlet, the principal object in which was a public-house, with a large sign, representing a dance round a maypole. it was now about one o'clock; so i entered, and, being ushered into what, i suppose, they called the coffee-room, i asked for some cold neat and ale. there was a jolly, round, rather comely woman for a hostess, with a free, hospitable, yet rather careless manner. the coffee-room smelt rather disagreeably of bad tobacco-smoke, and was shabbily furnished with an old sofa and flag-bottomed chairs, and adorned with a print of "old billy," a horse famous for a longevity of about sixty years; and also with colored engravings of old-fashioned hunting-scenes, conspicuous with scarlet coats. there was a very small bust of milton on the mantel-piece. by and by the remains of an immense round of beef, three quarters cut away, were put on the table; then some smoking-hot potatoes; and finally the hostess told me that their own dinner was just ready, and so she had brought me in some hot chops, thinking i might prefer them to the cold meat. i did prefer them; and they were stewed or fried chops, instead of broiled, and were very savory. there was household bread too, and rich cheese, and a pint of ale, home brewed, not very mighty, but good to quench thirst, and, by way of condiment, some pickled cabbage; so, instead of a lunch, i made quite a comfortable dinner. moreover, there was a cold pudding on the table, and i called for a clean plate, and helped myself to some of it. it was of rice, and was strewn over, rather than intermixed, with some kinds of berries, the nature of which i could not exactly make out. i then set forth again. it was still sunny and warm, and i walked more slowly than before dinner; in fact, i did little more than lounge along, sitting down, at last, on the stone parapet of a bridge. the country grew more pleasant, more sylvan, and, though still of a level character, not so drearily flat. soon appeared the first symptom that i had seen of a gentleman's residence,--a lodge at a park gate, then a long stretch of wall, with a green lawn, and afterwards an extent of wooded land; then another gateway, with a neat lodge on each side of it, and, lastly, another extent of wood. the hall or mansion-house, however, was nowhere apparent, being, doubtless, secluded deep and far within its grounds. i inquired of a boy who was the owner of the estate, and he answered, "mr. scarisbrick"; and no doubt it is a family of local eminence. along the road,--an old inn; some aged stone houses, built for merely respectable occupants; a canal, with two canal-boats, heaped up with a cargo of potatoes; two little girls, who were watching lest some cows should go astray, and had their two little chairs by the roadside, and their dolls and other playthings, and so followed the footsteps of the cows all day long. i met two boys, coming from ormskirk, mounted on donkeys, with empty panniers, on which they had carried vegetables to market. finally, between two and three o'clock, i saw the great tower of ormskirk church, with its spire, not rising out of the tower, but sprouting up close beside it; and, entering the town, i directed my steps first to this old church. ormskirk church. it stands on a gentle eminence, sufficient to give it a good site, and has a pavement of flat gravestones in front. it is doubtless, as regards its foundation, a very ancient church, but has not exactly a venerable aspect, being in too good repair, and much restored in various parts; not ivy-grown, either, though green with moss here and there. the tower is square and immensely massive, and might have supported a very lofty spire; so that it is the more strange that what spire it has should be so oddly stuck beside it, springing out of the church wall. i should have liked well enough to enter the church, as it is the burial-place of the earls of derby, and perhaps may contain some interesting monuments; but as it was all shut up, and even the iron gates of the churchyard closed and locked, i merely looked at the outside. from the church, a street leads to the market-place, in which i found a throng of men and women, it being market-day; wares of various kinds, tin, earthen, and cloth, set out on the pavements; droves of pigs; ducks and fowls; baskets of eggs; and a man selling quack medicines, recommending his nostrums as well as he could. the aspect of the crowd was very english,--portly and ruddy women; yeomen with small-clothes and broad-brimmed hats, all very quiet and heavy and good-humored. their dialect was so provincial that i could not readily understand more than here and there a word. but, after all, there were few traits that could be made a note of. i soon grew weary of the scene, and so i went to the railway station, and waited there nearly an hour for the train to take me to southport. ormskirk is famous for its gingerbread, which women sell to the railway passengers at a sixpence for a rouleau of a dozen little cakes. november th.--a week ago last monday, herman melville came to see me at the consulate, looking much as he used to do, and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner. . . . . we soon found ourselves on pretty much our former terms of sociability and confidence. . . . . he is thus far on his way to constantinople. i do not wonder that he found it necessary to take an airing through the world, after so many years of toilsome pen-labor, following upon so wild and adventurous a youth as his was. i invited him to come and stay with us at southport, as long as he might remain in this vicinity, and accordingly he did come the next day. . . . . on wednesday we took a pretty long walk together, and sat down in a hollow among the sand-hills, sheltering ourselves from the high cool wind. melville, as he always does, began to reason of providence and futurity, and of everything else that lies beyond human ken. . . . . he has a very high and noble nature, and is better worth immortality than the most of us. . . . . on saturday we went to chester together. i love to take every opportunity of going to chester; it being the one only place, within easy reach of liverpool, which possesses any old english interest. we went to the cathedral. its gray nave impressed me more than at any former visit. passing into the cloisters, an attendant took possession of us, and showed us about. within the choir there is a profusion of very rich oaken carving, both on the screen that separates it from the nave, and on the seats and walls; very curious and most elaborate, and lavished (one would say) most wastefully, where nobody would think of looking for it,--where, indeed, amid the dimness of the cathedral, the exquisite detail of the elaboration could not possibly be seen. our guide lighted some of the gas-burners, of which there are many hundreds, to help us see them; but it required close scrutiny, even then. it must have been out of the question, when the whole means of illumination were only a few smoky torches or candles. there was a row of niches, where the monks used to stand, for four hours together, in the performance of some of their services; and to relieve them a little, they were allowed partially to sit on a projection of the seats, which were turned up in the niche for that purpose; but if they grew drowsy, so as to fail to balance themselves, the seat was so contrived as to slip down, thus bringing the monk to the floor. these projections on the seats are each and all of them carved with curious devices, no two alike. the guide showed us one, representing, apparently, the first quarrel of a new-married couple, wrought with wonderful expression. indeed, the artist never failed to bring out his idea in the most striking manner,--as, for instance, satan, under the guise of a lion, devouring a sinner bodily; and again in the figure of a dragon, with a man halfway down his gullet, the legs hanging out. the carver may not have seen anything grotesque in this, nor intended it at all by way of joke; but certainly there would appear to be a grim mirthfulness in some of the designs. one does not see why such fantasies should be strewn about the holy interior of a cathedral, unless it were intended to contain everything that belongs to the heart of man, both upward and downward. in a side aisle of the choir, we saw a tomb, said to be that of the emperor henry iv. of germany, though on very indistinct authority. this is an oblong tomb, carved, and, on one side, painted with bright colors and gilded. during a very long period it was built and plastered into the wall, and the exterior side was whitewashed; but, on being removed, the inner side was found to have been ornamented with gold and color, in the manner in which we now see it. if this were customary with tombs, it must have added vastly to the gorgeous magnificence, to which the painted windows and polished pillars and ornamented ceilings contributed so much. in fact, a cathedral in its fresh estate seems to have been like a pavilion of the sunset, all purple and gold; whereas now it more resembles deepest and grayest twilight. afterwards, we were shown into the ancient refectory, now used as the city grammar-school, and furnished with the usual desks and seats for the boys. in one corner of this large room was the sort of pulpit or elevated seat, with a broken staircase of stone ascending to it, where one of the monks used to read to his brethren, while sitting at their meals. the desks were cut and carved with the scholars' knives, just as they used to be in the school-rooms where i was a scholar. thence we passed into the chapter-house, but, before that, we went through a small room, in which melville opened a cupboard, and discovered a dozen or two of wine-bottles; but our guide told us that they were now empty, and never were meant for jollity, having held only sacramental wine. in the chapter-house, we saw the library, some of the volumes of which were antique folios. there were two dusty and tattered banners hanging on the wall, and the attendant promised to make us laugh by something that he would tell us about them. the joke was that these two banners had been in the battle of bunker hill; and our countrymen, he said, always smiled on hearing this. he had discovered us to be americans by the notice we took of a mural tablet in the choir, to the memory of a lieutenant-governor clarke, of new york, who died in chester before the revolution. from the chapter-house he ushered us back into the nave, ever and anon pointing out some portion of the edifice more ancient than the rest, and when i asked him how he knew this, he said that he had learnt it from the archaeologists, who could read off such things like a book. this guide was a lively, quick-witted man, who did his business less by rote, and more with a vivacious interest, than any guide i ever met. after leaving the cathedral we sought out the yacht inn, near the water-gate. this was, for a long period of time, the principal inn of chester, and was the house at which swift once put up, on his way to holyhead, and where he invited the clergy to come and sup with him. we sat down in a small snuggery, conversing with the landlord. the chester people, according to my experience, are very affable, and fond of talking with strangers about the antiquities and picturesque characteristics of their town. it partly lives, the landlord told us, by its visitors, and many people spend the summer here on account of the antiquities and the good air. he showed us a broad, balustraded staircase, leading into a large, comfortable, old-fashioned parlor, with windows looking on the street and on the custom house that stood opposite. this was the room where swift expected to receive the clergy of chester; and on one of the window-panes were two acrid lines, written with the diamond of his ring, satirizing those venerable gentlemen, in revenge for their refusing his invitation. the first line begins rather indistinctly; but the writing grows fully legible, as it proceeds. the yacht tavern is a very old house, in the gabled style. the timbers and framework are still perfectly sound. in the same street is the bishop's house (so called as having been the residence of a prelate long ago), which is covered with curious sculpture, representing scriptural scenes. and in the same neighborhood is the county court, accessible by an archway, through which we penetrated, and found ourselves in a passage, very ancient and dusky, overlooked from the upper story by a gallery, to which an antique staircase ascended, with balustrades and square landing-places. a printer saw us here, and asked us into his printing-office, and talked very affably; indeed, he could have hardly been more civil, if he had known that both melville and i have given a good deal of employment to the brethren of his craft. december th.--an old gentleman has recently paid me a good many visits,--a kentucky man, who has been a good deal in england and europe generally without losing the freshness and unconventionality of his earlier life. he was a boatman, and afterwards captain of a steamer on the ohio and mississippi; but has gained property, and is now the owner of mines of coal and iron, which he is endeavoring to dispose of here in england. a plain, respectable, well-to-do-looking personage, of more than seventy years; very free of conversation, and beginning to talk with everybody as a matter of course; tall, stalwart, a dark face, with white curly hair and keen eyes; and an expression shrewd, yet kindly and benign. he fought through the whole war of , beginning with general harrison at the battle of tippecanoe, which he described to me. he says that at the beginning of the battle, and for a considerable time, he heard tecumseh's voice, loudly giving orders. there was a man named wheatley in the american camp, a strange, incommunicative person,--a volunteer, making war entirely on his own book, and seeking revenge for some relatives of his, who had been killed by the indians. in the midst of the battle this wheatley ran at a slow trot past r------ (my informant), trailing his rifle, and making towards the point where tecumseh's voice was heard. the fight drifted around, and r------ along with it; and by and by he reached a spot where wheatley lay dead, with his head on tecumseh's breast. tecumseh had been shot with a rifle, but, before expiring, appeared to have shot wheatley with a pistol, which he still held in his hand. r------ affirms that tecumseh was flayed by the kentucky men on the spot, and his skin converted into razor-straps. i have left out the most striking point of the narrative, after all, as r------ told it, viz. that soon after wheatley passed him, he suddenly ceased to hear tecumseh's voice ringing through the forest, as he gave his orders. he was at the battle of new orleans, and gave me the story of it from beginning to end; but i remember only a few particulars in which he was personally concerned. he confesses that his hair bristled upright--every hair in his head--when he heard the shouts of the british soldiers before advancing to the attack. his uncomfortable sensations lasted till he began to fire, after which he felt no more of them. it was in the dusk of the morning, or a little before sunrise, when the assault was made; and the fight lasted about two hours and a half, during which r------ fired twenty-four times; and said he, "i saw my object distinctly each time, and i was a good rifle-shot." he was raising his rifle to fire the twenty-fifth time, when an american officer, general carroll, pressed it down, and bade him fire no more. "enough is enough," quoth the general. for there needed no more slaughter, the british being in utter rout and confusion. in this retreat many of the enemy would drop down among the dead, then rise, run a considerable distance, and drop again, thus confusing the riflemen's aim. one fellow had thus got about four hundred and fifty yards from the american line, and, thinking himself secure, he made a derisive gesture. "i'll have a shot at him anyhow," cried a rifleman; so he fired, and the poor devil dropped. r------ himself, with one of his twenty-four shots, hit a british officer, who fell forward on his face, about thirty paces from our line, and as the enemy were then retreating (they advanced and were repelled two or three times) he ran out, and turned him over on his back. the officer was a man about thirty-eight, tall and fine-looking; his eyes were wide open, clear and bright, and were fixed full on r------ with a somewhat stern glance, but there was the sweetest and happiest smile over his face that could be conceived. he seemed to be dead;--at least, r------ thinks that he did not really see him, fixedly as he appeared to gaze. the officer held his sword in his hand, and r------ tried in vain to wrest it from him, until suddenly the clutch relaxed. r------ still keeps the sword hung up over his mantel-piece. i asked him how the dead man's aspect affected him. he replied that he felt nothing at the time; but that ever since, in all trouble, in uneasy sleep, and whenever he is out of tune, or waking early, or lying awake at night, he sees this officer's face, with the clear bright eyes and the pleasant smile, just as distinctly as if he were bending over him. his wound was in the breast, exactly on the spot that r------ had aimed at, and bled profusely. the enemy advanced in such masses, he says, that it was impossible not to hit them unless by purposely firing over their heads. after the battle, r------ leaped over the rampart, and took a prisoner who was standing unarmed in the midst of the slain, having probably dropped down during the heat of the action, to avoid the hail-storm of rifle-shots. as he led him in, the prisoner paused, and pointed to an officer who was lying dead beside his dead horse, with his foot still in the stirrup. "there lies our general," said he. the horse had been killed by a grape-shot, and pakenham himself, apparently, by a six-pounder ball, which had first struck the earth, covering him from head to foot with mud and clay, and had then entered his side, and gone upward through his breast. his face was all besmirched with the moist earth. r------ took the slain general's foot out of the stirrup, and then went to report his death. much more he told me, being an exceedingly talkative old man, and seldom, i suppose, finding so good a listener as myself. i like the man,--a good-tempered, upright, bold and free old fellow; of a rough breeding, but sufficiently smoothed by society to be of pleasant intercourse. he is as dogmatic as possible, having formed his own opinions, often on very disputable grounds, and hardened in them; taking queer views of matters and things, and giving shrewd and not ridiculous reasons for them; but with a keen, strong sense at the bottom of his character. a little while ago i met an englishman in a railway carriage, who suggests himself as a kind of contrast to this warlike and vicissitudinous backwoodsman. he was about the same age as r------, but had spent, apparently, his whole life in liverpool, and has long occupied the post of inspector of nuisances,--a rather puffy and consequential man; gracious, however, and affable, even to casual strangers like myself. the great contrast betwixt him and the american lies in the narrower circuit of his ideas; the latter talking about matters of history of his own country and the world,--glancing over the whole field of politics, propounding opinions and theories of his own, and showing evidence that his mind had operated for better or worse on almost all conceivable matters; while the englishman was odorous of his office, strongly flavored with that, and otherwise most insipid. he began his talk by telling me of a dead body which he had lately discovered in a house in liverpool, where it had been kept about a fortnight by the relatives, partly from want of funds for the burial, and partly in expectation of the arrival of some friends from glasgow. there was a plate of glass in the coffin-lid, through which the inspector of nuisances, as he told me, had looked and seen the dead man's face in an ugly state of decay, which he minutely described. however, his conversation was not altogether of this quality; for he spoke about larks, and how abundant they are just now, and what a good pie they make, only they must be skinned, else they will have a bitter taste. we have since had a lark-pie ourselves, and i believe it was very good in itself; only the recollection of the nuisance-man's talk was not a very agreeable flavor. a very racy and peculiarly english character might be made out of a man like this, having his life-concern wholly with the disagreeables of a great city. he seemed to be a good and kindly person, too, but earthy,--even as if his frame had been moulded of clay impregnated with the draining of slaughter-houses. december st.--on thursday evening i dined for the first time with the new mayor at the town hall. i wish to preserve all the characteristic traits of such banquets, because, being peculiar to england, these municipal feasts may do well to picture in a novel. there was a big old silver tobacco-box, nearly or quite as large round as an ordinary plate, out of which the dignitaries of liverpool used to fill their pipes, while sitting in council or after their dinners. the date " " was on the lid. it is now used as a snuff-box, and wends its way, from guest to guest, round the table. we had turtle, and, among other good things, american canvasback ducks. . . . . these dinners are certainly a good institution, and likely to be promotive of good feeling; the mayor giving them often, and inviting, in their turn, all the respectable and eminent citizens of whatever political bias. about fifty gentlemen were present that evening. i had the post of honor at the mayor's right hand; and france, turkey, and austria were toasted before the republic, for, as the mayor whispered me, he must first get his allies out of the way. the turkish consul and the austrian both made better english speeches than any englishman, during the evening; for it is inconceivable what shapeless and ragged utterances englishmen are content to put forth, without attempting anything like a wholeness; but inserting a patch here and a patch there, and finally getting out what they wish to say, indeed, but in most disorganized guise. . . . . i can conceive of very high enjoyment in making a speech; one is in such a curious sympathy with his audience, feeling instantly how every sentence affects them, and wonderfully excited and encouraged by the sense that it has gone to the right spot. then, too, the imminent emergency, when a man is overboard, and must sink or swim, sharpens, concentrates, and invigorates the mind, and causes matters of thought and sentiment to assume shape and expression, though, perhaps, it seemed hopeless to express them, just before you rose to speak. yet i question much whether public speaking tends to elevate the orator, intellectually or morally; the effort, of course, being to say what is immediately received by the audience, and to produce an effect on the instant. i don't quite see how an honest man can be a good and successful orator; but i shall hardly undertake to decide the question on my merely post-prandial experience. the mayor toasted his guests by their professions,--the merchants, for instance, the bankers, the solicitors,--and while one of the number responded, his brethren also stood up, each in his place, thus giving their assent to what he said. i think the very worst orator was a major of artillery, who spoke in a meek, little, nervous voice, and seemed a good deal more discomposed than probably he would have been in the face of the enemy. the first toast was "the ladies," to which an old bachelor responded. december st.--thus far we have come through the winter, on this bleak and blasty shore of the irish sea, where, perhaps, the drowned body of milton's friend lycidas might have been washed ashore more than two centuries ago. this would not be very likely, however, so wide a tract of sands, never deeply covered by the tide, intervening betwixt us and the sea. but it is an excessively windy place, especially here on the promenade; always a whistle and a howl,--always an eddying gust through the corridors and chambers,--often a patter of hail or rain or snow against the windows; and in the long evenings the sounds outside are very much as if we were on shipboard in mid-ocean, with the waves dashing against the vessel's sides. i go to town almost daily, starting at about eleven, and reaching southport again at a little past live; by which time it is quite dark, and continues so till nearly eight in the morning. christmas time has been marked by few characteristics. for a week or two previous to christmas day, the newspapers contained rich details respecting market-stalls and butchers' shops,--what magnificent carcasses of prize oxen and sheep they displayed. . . . . the christmas waits came to us on christmas eve, and on the day itself, in the shape of little parties of boys or girls, singing wretched doggerel rhymes, and going away well pleased with the guerdon of a penny or two. last evening came two or three older choristers at pretty near bedtime, and sang some carols at our door. they were psalm tunes, however. everybody with whom we have had to do, in any manner of service, expects a christmas-box; but, in most cases, a shilling is quite a satisfactory amount. we have had holly and mistletoe stuck up on the gas-fixtures and elsewhere about the house. on the mantel-piece in the coroner's court the other day, i saw corked and labelled phials, which it may be presumed contained samples of poisons that have brought some poor wretches to their deaths, either by murder or suicide. this court might be wrought into a very good and pregnant description, with its grimy gloom illuminated by a conical skylight, constructed to throw daylight down on corpses; its greasy testament covered over with millions of perjured kisses; the coroner himself, whose life is fed on all kinds of unnatural death; its subordinate officials, who go about scenting murder, and might be supposed to have caught the scent in their own garments; its stupid, brutish juries, settling round corpses like flies; its criminals, whose guilt is brought face to face with them here, in closer contact than at the subsequent trial. o---- p------, the famous mormonite, called on me a little while ago,--a short, black-haired, dark-complexioned man; a shrewd, intelligent, but unrefined countenance, excessively unprepossessing; an uncouth gait and deportment; the aspect of a person in comfortable circumstances, and decently behaved, but of a vulgar nature and destitute of early culture. i think i should have taken him for a shoemaker, accustomed to reflect in a rude, strong, evil-disposed way on matters of this world and the next, as he sat on his bench. he said he had been residing in liverpool about six months; and his business with me was to ask for a letter of introduction that should gain him admittance to the british museum, he intending a visit to london. he offered to refer me to respectable people for his character; but i advised him to apply to mr. dallas, as the proper person for his purpose. march st, .--on the night of last wednesday week, our house was broken into by robbers. they entered by the back window of the breakfast-room, which is the children's school-room, breaking or cutting a pane of glass, so as to undo the fastening. i have a dim idea of having heard a noise through my sleep; but if so, it did not more than slightly disturb me. u---- heard it, she being at watch with r-----; and j-----, having a cold, was also wakeful, and thought the noise was of servants moving about below. neither did the idea of robbers occur to u----. j-----, however, hearing u---- at her mother's door, asking for medicine for r-----, called out for medicine for his cold, and the thieves probably thought we were bestirring ourselves, and so took flight. in the morning the servants found the hall door and the breakfast-room window open; some silver cups and some other trifles of plate were gone from the sideboard, and there were tokens that the whole lower part of the house had been ransacked; but the thieves had evidently gone off in a hurry, leaving some articles which they would have taken, had they been more at leisure. we gave information to the police, and an inspector and constable soon came to make investigations, taking a list of the missing articles, and informing themselves as to all particulars that could be known. i did not much expect ever to hear any more of the stolen property; but on sunday a constable came to request my presence at the police-office to identify the lost things. the thieves had been caught in liverpool, and some of the property found upon them, and some of it at a pawnbroker's where they had pledged it. the police-office is a small dark room, in the basement story of the town hall of southport; and over the mantel-piece, hanging one upon another, there are innumerable advertisements of robberies in houses, and on the highway,--murders, too, and garrotings; and offences of all sorts, not only in this district, but wide away, and forwarded from other police-stations. bring thus aggregated together, one realizes that there are a great many more offences than the public generally takes note of. most of these advertisements were in pen and ink, with minute lists of the articles stolen; but the more important were in print; and there, too, i saw the printed advertisement of our own robbery, not for public circulation, but to be handed about privately, among police-officers and pawnbrokers. a rogue has a very poor chance in england, the police being so numerous, and their system so well organized. in a corner of the police-office stood a contrivance for precisely measuring the heights of prisoners; and i took occasion to measure j-----, and found him four feet seven inches and a half high. a set of rules for the self-government of police-officers was nailed on the door, between twenty and thirty in number, and composing a system of constabulary ethics. the rules would be good for men in almost any walk of life; and i rather think the police-officers conform to them with tolerable strictness. they appear to be subordinated to one another on the military plan. the ordinary constable does not sit down in the presence of his inspector, and this latter seems to be half a gentleman; at least, such is the bearing of our southport inspector, who wears a handsome uniform of green and silver, and salutes the principal inhabitants, when meeting them in the street, with an air of something like equality. then again there is a superintendent, who certainly claims the rank of a gentleman, and has perhaps been an officer in the army. the superintendent of this district was present on this occasion. the thieves were brought down from liverpool on tuesday, and examined in the town hall. i had been notified to be present, but, as a matter of courtesy, the police-officers refrained from calling me as a witness, the evidence of the servants being sufficient to identify the property. the thieves were two young men, not much over twenty,--james and john macdonald, terribly shabby, dirty, jail-bird like, yet intelligent of aspect, and one of them handsome. the police knew them already, and they seemed not much abashed by their position. there were half a dozen magistrates on the bench,--idle old gentlemen of southport and the vicinity, who lounged into the court, more as a matter of amusement than anything else, and lounged out again at their own pleasure; for these magisterial duties are a part of the pastime of the country gentlemen of england. they wore their hats on the bench. there were one or two of them more active than their fellows; but the real duty was done by the clerk of the court. the seats within the bar were occupied by the witnesses, and around the great table sat some of the more respectable people of southport; and without the bar were the commonalty in great numbers; for this is said to be the first burglary that has occurred here within the memory of man, and so it has caused a great stir. there seems to be a strong case against the prisoners. a boy attached to the railway testified to having seen them at birchdale on wednesday afternoon, and directed them on their way to southport; peter pickup recognized them as having applied to him for lodgings in the course of that evening; a pawnbroker swore to one of them as having offered my top-coat for sale or pledge in liverpool; and my boots were found on the feet of one of them,--all this in addition to other circumstances of pregnant suspicion. so they were committed for trial at the liverpool assizes, to be holden some time in the present month. i rather wished them to escape. february th.--coming along the promenade, a little before sunset, i saw the mountains of the welsh coast shadowed very distinctly against the horizon. mr. channing told me that he had seen these mountains once or twice during his stay at southport; but, though constantly looking for them, they have never before greeted my eyes in all the months that we have spent here. it is said that the isle of man is likewise discernible occasionally; but as the distance must be between sixty and seventy miles, i should doubt it. how misty is england! i have spent four years in a gray gloom. and yet it suits me pretty well. to york. april th.--at skipton. my wife, j-----, and i left southport to-day for a short tour to york and its neighborhood. the weather has been exceedingly disagreeable for weeks past, but yesterday and to-day have been pleasant, and we take advantage of the first glimpses of spring-like weather. we came by preston, along a road that grew rather more interesting as we proceeded to this place, which is about sixty miles from southport, and where we arrived between five and six o'clock. first of all, we got some tea; and then, as it was a pleasant sunset, we set forth from our old-fashioned inn to take a walk. skipton is an ancient town, and has an ancient though well-repaired aspect, the houses being built of gray stone, but in no picturesque shapes; the streets well paved; the site irregular and rising gradually towards skipton castle, which overlooks the town, as an old lordly castle ought to overlook the feudal village which it protects. the castle was built shortly after the conquest by robert de romeli, and was afterwards the property and residence of the famous cliffords. we met an honest man, as we approached the gateway, who kindly encouraged us to apply for admittance, notwithstanding it was good friday; telling us how to find the housekeeper, who would probably show us over the castle. so we passed through the gate, between two embattled towers; and in the castle court we met a flock of young damsels, who had been rambling about the precincts. they likewise directed us in our search for the housekeeper, and s-----, being bolder than i in such assaults on feudal castles, led the way down a dark archway, and up an exterior stairway, and, knocking at a door, immediately brought the housekeeper to a parley. she proved to be a nowise awful personage, but a homely, neat, kindly, intelligent, and middle-aged body. she seemed to be all alone in this great old castle, and at once consented to show us about,--being, no doubt, glad to see any christian visitors. the castle is now the property of sir r. tufton; but the present family do not make it their permanent residence, and have only occasionally visited it. indeed, it could not well be made an eligible or comfortable residence, according to modern ideas; the rooms occupying the several stories of large round towers, and looking gloomy and sombre, if not dreary,--not the less so for what has been done to modernize them; for instance, modern paper-hangings, and, in some of the rooms, marble fireplaces. they need a great deal more light and higher ceilings; and i rather imagine that the warm, rich effect of glowing tapestry is essential to keep one's spirit cheerful in these ancient rooms. modern paper-hangings are too superficial and wishy-washy for the purpose. tapestry, it is true, there is now, completely covering the walls of several of the rooms, but all faded into ghastliness; nor could some of it have been otherwise than ghastly, even in its newness, for it represented persons suffering various kinds of torture, with crowds of monks and nuns looking on. in another room there was the story of solomon and the queen of sheba, and other subjects not to be readily distinguished in the twilight that was gathering in these antique chambers. we saw, too, some very old portraits of the cliffords and the thanets, in black frames, and the pictures themselves sadly faded and neglected. the famous countess anne of pembroke, dorset, and montgomery was represented on one of the leaves of a pair of folding doors, and one of her husbands, i believe, on the other leaf. there was the picture of a little idiot lordling, who had choked himself to death; and a portrait of oliver cromwell, who battered this old castle, together with almost every other english or welsh castle that i ever saw or heard of. the housekeeper pointed out the grove of trees where his cannon were planted during the siege. there was but little furniture in the rooms; amongst other articles, an antique chair, in which mary, queen of scots, is said to have rested. the housekeeper next took us into the part of the castle which has never been modernized since it was repaired, after the siege of cromwell. this is a dismal series of cellars above ground, with immensely thick walls, letting in but scanty light, and dim staircases of stone; and a large hall, with a vast fireplace, where every particle of heat must needs have gone up chimney,--a chill and heart-breaking place enough. quite in the midst of this part of the castle is the court-yard,--a space of some thirty or forty feet in length and breadth, open to the sky, but shut completely in on every side by the buildings of the castle, and paved over with flat stones. out of this pavement, however, grows a yew-tree, ascending to the tops of the towers, and completely filling, with its branches and foliage, the whole open space between them. some small birds--quite a flock of them--were twittering and fluttering among the upper branches. we went upward, through two or three stories of dismal rooms,--among others, through the ancient guard-room,--till we came out on the roof of one of the towers, and had a very fine view of an amphitheatre of ridgy hills which shut in and seclude the castle and the town. the upper foliage was within our reach, close to the parapet of the tower; so we gathered a few twigs as memorials. the housekeeper told us that the yew-tree is supposed to be eight hundred years old, and, comparing it with other yews that i have seen, i should judge that it must measure its antiquity by centuries, at all events. it still seems to be in its prime. along the base of the castle, on the opposite side to the entrance, flows a stream, sending up a pleasant murmur from among the trees. the housekeeper said it was not a stream, but only a "wash," whatever that may be; and i conjecture that it creates the motive-power of some factory-looking edifices, which we saw on our first arrival at skipton. we now took our leave of the housekeeper, and came homeward to our inn, where i have written the foregoing pages by a bright fire; but i think i write better descriptions after letting the subject lie in my mind a day or two. it is too new to be properly dealt with immediately after coming from the scene. the castle is not at all crumbly, but in excellent repair, though so venerable. there are rooks cawing about the shapeless patches of their nests, in the tops of the trees. in the castle wall, as well as in the round towers of the gateway, there seem to be little tenements, perhaps inhabited by the servants and dependants of the family. they looked in very good order, with tokens of present domesticity about them. the whole of this old castle, indeed, was as neat as a new, small dwelling, in spite of an inevitable musty odor of antiquity. april th.--this morning we took a carriage and two horses, and set out for bolton priory, a distance of about six miles. the morning was cool, with breezy clouds, intermingled with sunshine, and, on the whole, as good as are nine tenths of english mornings. j----- sat beside the driver, and s----- and i in the carriage, all closed but one window. as we drove through skipton, the little town had a livelier aspect than yesterday when it wore its good friday's solemnity; but now its market-place was thronged, principally with butchers, displaying their meat under little movable pent-houses, and their customers. the english people really like to think and talk of butcher's meat, and gaze at it with delight; and they crowd through the avenues of the market-houses and stand enraptured round a dead ox. we passed along by the castle wall, and noticed the escutcheon of the cliffords or the thanets carved in stone over the portal, with the motto desormais, the application of which i do not well see; these ancestral devices usually referring more to the past, than to the future. there is a large old church, just at the extremity of the village, and just below the castle, on the slope of the hill. the gray wall of the castle extends along the road a considerable distance, in good repair, with here and there a buttress, and the semicircular bulge of a tower. the scenery along the road was not particularly striking,--long slopes, descending from ridges; a generally hard outline of country, with not many trees, and those, as yet, destitute of foliage. it needs to be softened with a good deal of wood. there were stone farm-houses, looking ancient, and able to last till twice as old. instead of the hedges, so universal in other parts of england, there were stone fences of good height and painful construction, made of small stones, which i suppose have been picked up out of the fields through hundreds of years. they reminded me of old massachusetts, though very unlike our rude stone walls, which, nevertheless, last longer than anything else we build. another new england feature was the little brooks, which here and there flowed across our road, rippling over the pebbles, clear and bright. i fancied, too, an intelligence and keenness in some of the yorkshire physiognomies, akin to those characteristics in my countrymen's faces. we passed an ancient, many-gabled inn, large, low, and comfortable, bearing the name of the devonshire house, as does our own hotel, for the duke of devonshire is a great proprietor in these parts. a mile or so beyond, we came to a gateway, broken through what, i believe, was an old wall of the priory grounds; and here we alighted, leaving our driver to take the carriage to the inn. passing through this hole in the wall, we saw the ruins of the priory at the bottom of the beautiful valley about a quarter of a mile off; and, well as the monks knew how to choose the sites of their establishments, i think they never chose a better site than this,--in the green lap of protecting hills, beside a stream, and with peace and fertility looking down upon it on every side. the view down the valley is very fine, and, for my part, i am glad that some peaceable and comfort-loving people possessed these precincts for many hundred years, when nobody else knew how to appreciate peace and comfort. the old gateway tower, beneath which was formerly the arched entrance into the domain of the priory, is now the central part of a hunting-seat of the duke of devonshire, and the edifice is completed by a wing of recent date on each side. a few hundred yards from this hunting-box are the remains of the priory, consisting of the nave of the old church, which is still in good repair, and used as the worshipping-place of the neighborhood (being a perpetual curacy of the parish of skipton), and the old ruined choir, roofless, with broken arches, ivy-grown, but not so rich and rare a ruin as either melrose, netley, or furness. its situation makes its charm. it stands near the river wharfe,--a broad and rapid stream, which hurries along between high banks, with a sound which the monks must have found congenial to their slumberous moods. it is a good river for trout, too; and i saw two or three anglers, with their rods and baskets, passing through the ruins towards its shore. it was in this river wharfe that the boy of egremont was drowned, at the strid, a mile or two higher up the stream. in the first place, we rambled round the exterior of the ruins; but, as i have said, they are rather bare and meagre in comparison with other abbeys, and i am not sure that the especial care and neatness with which they are preserved does not lessen their effect on the beholder. neglect, wildness, crumbling walls, the climbing and conquering ivy; masses of stone lying where they fell; trees of old date, growing where the pillars of the aisles used to stand,--these are the best points of ruined abbeys. but, everything here is kept with such trimness that it gives you the idea of a petrifaction. decay is no longer triumphant; the duke of devonshire has got the better of it. the grounds around the church and the ruins are still used for burial, and there are several flat tombstones and altar tombs, with crosiers engraved or carved upon them, which at first i took to be the memorials of bishops or abbots, and wondered that the sculpture should still be so distinct. on one, however, i read the date and the name of a layman; for the tombstones were all modern, the humid english atmosphere giving them their mossy look of antiquity, and the crosier had been assumed only as a pretty device. close beside the ruins there is a large, old stone farm-house, which must have been built on the site of a part of the priory,--the cells, dormitories, refectory, and other portions pertaining to the monks' daily life, i suppose, and built, no doubt, with the sacred stones. i should imagine it would be a haunted house, swarming with cowled spectres. we wished to see the interior of the church, and procured a guide from this farm-house,--the sexton, probably,--a gray-haired, ruddy, cheery, and intelligent man, of familiar though respectful address. the entrance of the church was undergoing improvement, under the last of the abbots, when the reformation occurred; and it has ever remained in an unfinished state, till now it is mossy with age, and has a beautiful tuft of wall-flowers growing on a ledge over the gothic arch of the doorway. the body of the church is of much anterior date, though the oaken roof is supposed to have been renewed in henry viii's time. this, as i said before, was the nave of the old abbey church, and has a one-sided and unbalanced aspect, there being only a single aisle, with its row of sturdy pillars. the pavement is covered with pews of old oak, very homely and unornamental; on the side opposite the aisle there are two or three windows of modern stained glass, somewhat gaudy and impertinent; there are likewise some hatchments and escutcheons over the altar and elsewhere. on the whole, it is not an impressive interior; but, at any rate, it had the true musty odor which i never conceived of till i came to england,--the odor of dead men's decay, garnered up and shut in, and kept from generation to generation; not disgusting nor sickening, because it is so old, and of the past. on one side of the altar there was a small square chapel,--or what had once been a chapel, separated from the chancel by a partition about a man's height, if i remember aright. our guide led us into it, and observed that some years ago the pavement had been taken up in this spot, for burial purposes; but it was found that it had already been used in that way, and that the corpses had been buried upright. inquiring further, i found that it was the clapham family, and another that was called morley, that were so buried; and then it occurred to me that this was the vault wordsworth refers to in one of his poems,--the burial-place of the claphams and mauleverers, whose skeletons, for aught i know, were even then standing upright under our feet. it is but a narrow place, perhaps a square of ten feet. we saw little or nothing else that was memorable, unless it were the signature of queen adelaide in a visitors' book. on our way back to skipton it rained and hailed, but the sun again shone out before we arrived. we took the train for leeds at half past ten, and arrived there in the afternoon, passing the ruined abbey of kirkstall on our way. the ruins looked more interesting than those of bolton, though not so delightfully situated, and now in the close vicinity of manufactories, and only two or three miles from leeds. we took a dish of soup, and spent a miserable hour in and about the railway station of leeds; whence we departed at four, and reached york in an hour or two. we put up at the black swan, and before tea went out, on the cool bright edge of evening, to get a glimpse of the cathedral, which impressed me more grandly than when i first saw it, nearly a year ago. indeed, almost any object gains upon me at the second sight. i have spent the evening in writing up my journal,--an act of real virtue. after walking round the cathedral, we went up a narrow and crooked street, very old and shabby, but with an antique house projecting as much as a yard over the pavement on one side,--a timber house it seemed to be, plastered over and stained yellow or buff. there was no external door, affording entrance into this edifice; but about midway of its front we came to a low, gothic, stone archway, passing right through the house; and as it looked much time-worn, and was sculptured with untraceable devices, we went through. there was an exceedingly antique, battered, and shattered pair of oaken leaves, which used doubtless to shut up the passage in former times, and keep it secure; but for the last centuries, probably, there has been free ingress and egress. indeed, the portal arch may never have been closed since the reformation. within, we found a quadrangle, of which the house upon the street formed one side, the others being composed of ancient houses, with gables in a row, all looking upon the paved quadrangle, through quaint windows of various fashion. an elderly, neat, pleasant-looking woman now came in beneath the arch, and as she had a look of being acquainted here, we asked her what the place was; and she told us, that in the old popish times the prebends of the cathedral used to live here, to keep them from doing mischief in the town. the establishment, she said, was now called "the college," and was let in rooms and small tenements to poor people. on consulting the york guide, i find that her account was pretty correct; the house having been founded in henry vi.'s time, and called st. william's college, the statue of the patron saint being sculptured over the arch. it was intended for the residence of the parsons and priests of the cathedral, who had formerly caused troubles and scandals by living in the town. we returned to the front of the cathedral on our way homeward, and an old man stopped us, to inquire if we had ever seen the fiddler of york. we answered in the negative, and said that we had not time to see him now; but the old gentleman pointed up to the highest pinnacle of the southern front, where stood the fiddler of york, one of those gothic quaintnesses which blotch the grandeur and solemnity of this and other cathedrals. april th.--this morning was bleak and most ungenial; a chilly sunshine, a piercing wind, a prevalence of watery cloud,--april weather, without the tenderness that ought to be half revealed in it. this is easter sunday, and service at the cathedral commenced at half past ten; so we set out betimes and found admittance into the vast nave, and thence into the choir. an attendant ushered s----- and j----- to a seat at a distance from me, and then gave me a place in one of the stalls where the monks used to sit or kneel while chanting the services. i think these stalls are now appropriated to the prebends. they are of carved oaken wood, much less elaborate and wonderfully wrought than those of chester cathedral, where all was done with head and heart, each a separate device, instead of cut, by machinery like this. the whole effect of this carved work, however, lining the choir with its light tracery and pinnacles, is very fine. the whole choir, from the roof downward, except the old stones of the outer walls, is of modern renovation, it being but a few years since this part of the cathedral was destroyed by fire. the arches and pillars and lofty roof, however, have been well restored; and there was a vast east window, full of painted glass, which, if it be modern, is wonderfully chaste and gothic-like. all the other windows have painted glass, which does not flare and glare as if newly painted. but the light, whitewashed aspect of the general interior of the choir has a cold and dreary effect. there is an enormous organ, all clad in rich oaken carving, of similar pattern to that of the stalls. it was communion day, and near the high altar, within a screen, i saw the glistening of the gold vessels wherewith the services were to be performed. the choir was respectably filled with a pretty numerous congregation, among whom i saw some officers in full dress, with their swords by their sides, and one, old white-bearded warrior, who sat near me, seemed very devout at his religious exercises. in front of me and on the corresponding benches, on the other side of the choir, sat two rows of white-robed choristers, twenty in all, and these, with some women; performed the vocal part of the music. it is not good to see musicians, for they are sometimes coarse and vulgar people, and so the auditor loses faith in any fine and spiritual tones that they may breathe forth. the services of easter sunday comprehend more than the ordinary quantity of singing and chanting; at all events, nearly an hour and a half were thus employed, with some intermixture of prayers and reading of scriptures; and, being almost congealed with cold, i thought it would never come to an end. the spirit of my puritan ancestors was mighty within me, and i did not wonder at their being out of patience with all this mummery, which seemed to me worse than papistry because it was a corruption of it. at last a canon gave out the text, and preached a sermon about twenty minutes long,--the coldest, driest, most superficial rubbish; for this gorgeous setting of the magnificent cathedral, the elaborate music, and the rich ceremonies seem inevitably to take the life out of the sermon, which, to be anything, must be all. the puritans showed their strength of mind and heart by preferring a sermon an hour and a half long, into which the preacher put his whole soul, and lopping away all these externals, into which religious life had first leafed and flowered, and then petrified. after the service, while waiting for my wife in the nave, i was accosted by a young gentleman who seemed to be an american, and whom i have certainly seen before, but whose name i could not recollect. this, he said, was his first visit to york, and he was evidently inclined to join me in viewing the curiosities of the place, but, not knowing his name, i could not introduce him to my wife, and so made a parting salute. after dinner, we set forth and took a promenade along the wall, and a ramble through some of the crooked streets, noting the old, jutting-storied houses, story above story, and the old churches, gnawed like a bone by the tooth of time, till we came suddenly to the black swan before we expected it. . . . . i rather fancy that i must have observed most of the external peculiarities at my former visit, and therefore need not make another record of them in this journal. in the course of our walk we saw a procession of about fifty charity-school boys, in flat caps, each with bands under his chin, and a green collar to his coat; all looking unjoyous, and as if they had no home nor parents' love. they turned into a gateway, which closed behind them; and as the adjoining edifice seemed to be a public institution,--at least, not private,--we asked what it was, and found it to be a hospital or residence for old maiden ladies, founded by a gentlewoman of york; i know not whether she herself is of the sisterhood. it must be a very singular institution, and worthy of intimate study, if it were possible to make one's way within the portal. after writing the above, j----- and i went out for another ramble before tea; and, taking a new course, we came to a grated iron fence and gateway, through which we could see the ruins of st. mary's abbey. they are very extensive, and situated quite in the midst of the city, and the wall and then a tower of the abbey seem to border more than one of the streets. our walk was interesting, as it brought us unexpectedly upon several relics of antiquity,--a loop-holed and battlemented gateway; and at various points fragments of the old gothic stone-work, built in among more recent edifices, which themselves were old; grimness intermixed with quaintness and grotesqueness; old fragments of religious or warlike architecture mingled with queer domestic structures,--the general effect sombre, sordid, and grimy; but yet with a fascination that makes us fain to linger about such scenes, and come to them again. we passed round the cathedral, and saw jackdaws fluttering round the pinnacles, while the bells chimed the quarters, and little children played on the steps under the grand arch of the entrance. it is very stately, very beautiful, this minster; and doubtless would be very satisfactory, could i only know it long and well enough,--so rich as its front is, even with almost all the niches empty of their statues; not stern in its effect, which i suppose must be owing to the elaborate detail with which its great surface is wrought all over, like the chasing of a lady's jewel-box, and yet so grand! there is a dwelling-house on one side, gray with antiquity, which has apparently grown out of it like an excrescence; and though a good-sized edifice, yet the cathedral is so large that its vastness is not in the least deformed by it. if it be a dwelling-house, i suppose it is inhabited by the person who takes care of the cathedral. this morning, while listening to the tedious chanting and lukewarm sermon, i depreciated the whole affair, cathedral and all; but now i do more justice, at least to the latter, and am only sorry that its noble echoes must follow at every syllable, and re-reverberate at the commas and semicolons, such poor discourses as the canon's. but, after all, it was the puritans who made the sermon of such importance in religious worship as we new-englanders now consider it; and we are absurd in considering this magnificent church and all those embroidered ceremonies only in reference to it. before going back to the hotel, i went again up the narrow and twisted passage of college street, to take another glance at st. william's college. i underestimated the projection of the front over the street; it is considerably more than three feet, and is about eight or nine feet above the pavement. the little statue of st. william is an alto-relievo over the arched entrance, and has an escutcheon of arms on each side, all much defaced. in the interior of the quadrangle, the houses have not gables nor peaked fronts, but have peaked windows on the red-tiled roofs. the doorway, opposite the entrance-arch, is rather stately; and on one side is a large, projecting window, which is said to belong to the room where the printing-press of charles i. was established in the days of the parliament. the minster. monday, april th.--this morning was chill, and, worse, it was showery, so that our purposes to see york were much thwarted. at about ten o'clock, however, we took a cab, and drove to the cathedral, where we arrived while service was going on in the choir, and ropes were put up as barriers between us and the nave; so that we were limited to the south transept, and a part of one of the aisles of the choir. it was dismally cold. we crept cheerlessly about within our narrow precincts (narrow, that is to say, in proportion to the vast length and breadth of the cathedral), gazing up into the hollow height of the central tower, and looking at a monumental brass, fastened against one of the pillars, representing a beruffed lady of the tudor times, and at the canopied tomb of archbishop de grey, who ruled over the diocese in the thirteenth century. then we went into the side aisle of the choir, where there were one or two modern monuments; and i was appalled to find that a sermon was being preached by the ecclesiastic of the day, nor were there any signs of an imminent termination. i am not aware that there was much pith in the discourse, but there was certainly a good deal of labor and earnestness in the preacher's mode of delivery; although, when he came to a close, it appeared that the audience was not more than half a dozen people. the barriers being now withdrawn, we walked adown the length of the nave, which did not seem to me so dim and vast as the recollection which i have had of it since my visit of a year ago. but my pre-imaginations and my memories are both apt to play me false with all admirable things, and so create disappointments for me, while perhaps the thing itself is really far better than i imagine or remember it. we engaged an old man, one of the attendants pertaining to the cathedral, to be our guide, and he showed us first the stone screen in front of the choir, with its sculptured kings of england; and then the tombs in the north transept,-- one of a modern archbishop, and one of an ancient one, behind which the insane person who set fire to the church a few years ago hid himself at nightfall. then our guide unlocked a side door, and led us into the chapter-house,--an octagonal hall, with a vaulted roof, a tessellated floor, and seven arched windows of old painted glass, the richest that i ever saw or imagined, each looking like an inestimable treasury of precious stories, with a gleam and glow even in the sullen light of this gray morning. what would they be with the sun shining through them! with all their brilliancy, moreover, they were as soft as rose-leaves. i never saw any piece of human architecture so beautiful as this chapter-house; at least, i thought so while i was looking at it, and think so still; and it owed its beauty in very great measure to the painted windows: i remember looking at these windows from the outside yesterday, and seeing nothing but an opaque old crust of conglomerated panes of glass; but now that gloomy mystery was radiantly solved. returning into the body of the cathedral, we next entered the choir, where, instead of the crimson cushions and draperies which we had seen yesterday, we found everything folded in black. it was a token of mourning for one of the canons, who died on saturday night. the great east window, seventy-five feet high, and full of old painted glass in many exquisitely wrought and imagined scriptural designs, is considered the most splendid object in the minster. it is a pity that it is partially hidden from view, even in the choir, by a screen before the high altar; but indeed, the gothic architects seem first to imagine beautiful and noble things, and then to consider how they may best be partially screened from sight. a certain secrecy and twilight effect belong to their plan. we next went round the side aisles of the choir, which contain many interesting monuments of prelates, and a specimen of the very common elizabethan design of an old gentleman in a double ruff and trunk breeches, with one of his two wives on either side of him, all kneeling in prayer; and their conjoint children, in two rows, kneeling in the lower compartments of the tomb. we saw, too, a rich marble monument of one of the strafford family, and the tombstone of the famous earl himself,--a flat tombstone in the pavement of the aisle, covering the vault where he was buried, and with four iron rings fastened into the four corners of the stone whereby to lift it. and now the guide led us into the vestry, where there was a good fire burning in the grate, and it really thawed my heart, which was congealed with the dismal chill of the cathedral. here we saw a good many curious things,--for instance, two wooden figures in knightly armor, which had stood sentinels beside the ancient clock before it was replaced by a modern one; and, opening a closet, the guide produced an old iron helmet, which had been found in a tomb where a knight had been buried in his armor; and three gold rings and one brass one, taken out of the graves, and off the finger-bones of mediaeval archbishops,--one of them with a ruby set in it; and two silver-gilt chalices, also treasures of the tombs; and a wooden head, carved in human likeness, and painted to the life, likewise taken from a grave where an archbishop was supposed to have been buried. they found no veritable skull nor bones, but only this block-head, as if death had betrayed the secret of what the poor prelate really was. we saw, too, a canopy of cloth, wrought with gold threads, which had been borne over the head of king james i., when he came to york, on his way to receive the english crown. there were also some old brass dishes, in which pence used to be collected in monkish times. over the door of this vestry were hung two banners of a yorkshire regiment, tattered in the peninsular wars, and inscribed with the names of the battles through which they had been borne triumphantly; and waterloo was among them. the vestry, i think, occupies that excrescential edifice which i noticed yesterday as having grown out of the cathedral. after looking at these things, we went down into the crypts, under the choir. these were very interesting, as far as we could see them; being more antique than anything above ground, but as dark as any cellar. there is here, in the midst of these sepulchral crypts, a spring of water, said to be very pure and delicious, owing to the limestone through which the rain that feeds its source is filtered. near it is a stone trough, in which the monks used to wash their hands. i do not remember anything more that we saw at the cathedral, and at noon we returned to the black swan. the rain still continued, so that s----- could not share in any more of my rambles, but j----- and i went out again, and discovered the guildhall. it is a very ancient edifice of richard ii.'s time, and has a statue over the entrance which looks time-gnawed enough to be of coeval antiquity, although in reality it is only a representation of george ii. in his royal robes. we went in, and found ourselves in a large and lofty hall, with an oaken roof and a stone pavement, and the farther end was partitioned off as a court of justice. in that portion of the hall the judge was on the bench, and a trial was going forward; but in the hither portion a mob of people, with their hats on, were lounging and talking, and enjoying the warmth of the stoves. the window over the judgment-seat had painted glass in it, and so, i think, had some of the hall windows. at the end of the hall hung a great picture of paul defending himself before agrippa, where the apostle looked like an athlete, and had a remarkably bushy black beard. between two of the windows hung an indian bell from burmah, ponderously thick and massive. both the picture and the bell had been presented to the city as tokens of affectionate remembrance by its children; and it is pleasant to think that such failings exist in these old stable communities, and that there are permanent localities where such gifts can be kept from generation to generation. at four o'clock we left the city of york, still in a pouring rain. the black swan, where we had been staying, is a good specimen of the old english inn, sombre, quiet, with dark staircases, dingy rooms, curtained beds,--all the possibilities of a comfortable life and good english fare, in a fashion which cannot have been much altered for half a century. it is very homelike when one has one's family about him, but must be prodigiously stupid for a solitary man. we took the train for manchester, over pretty much the same route that i travelled last year. many of the higher hills in yorkshire were white with snow, which, in our lower region, softened into rain; but as we approached manchester, the western sky reddened, and gave promise of better weather. we arrived at nearly eight o'clock, and put up at the palatine hotel. in the evening i scrawled away at my journal till past ten o'clock; for i have really made it a matter of conscience to keep a tolerably full record of my travels, though conscious that everything good escapes in the process. in the morning we went out and visited the manchester cathedral, a particularly black and grimy edifice, containing some genuine old wood carvings within the choir. we stayed a good while, in order to see some people married. one couple, with their groomsman and bride's-maid, were sitting within the choir; but when the clergyman was robed and ready, there entered five other couples, each attended by groomsman and bride's-maid. they all were of the lower orders; one or two respectably dressed, but most of them poverty-stricken,--the men in their ordinary loafer's or laborer's attire, the women with their poor, shabby shawls drawn closely about them; faded untimely, wrinkled with penury and care; nothing fresh, virgin-like, or hopeful about them; joining themselves to their mates with the idea of making their own misery less intolerable by adding another's to it. all the six couple stood up in a row before the altar, with the groomsmen and bride's-maids in a row behind them; and the clergyman proceeded to marry them in such a way that it almost seemed to make every man and woman the husband and wife of every other. however, there were some small portions of the service directed towards each separate couple; and they appeared to assort themselves in their own fashion afterwards, each one saluting his bride with a kiss. the clergyman, the sexton, and the clerk all seemed to find something funny in this affair; and the woman who admitted us into the church smiled too, when she told us that a wedding-party was waiting to be married. but i think it was the saddest thing we have seen since leaving home; though funny enough if one likes to look at it from a ludicrous point of view. this mob of poor marriages was caused by the fact that no marriage fee is paid during easter. this ended the memorable things of our tour; for my wife and j----- left manchester for southport, and i for liverpool, before noon. april th.--on the th, having been invited to attend at the laying of the corner-stone of mr. browne's free library, i went to the town hall, according to the programme, at eleven o'clock. there was already a large number of people (invited guests, members of the historical society, and other local associations) assembled in the great hall-room, and one of these was delivering an address to mr. browne as i entered. approaching the outer edge of the circle, i was met and cordially greeted by monckton milnes, whom i like, and who always reminds me of longfellow, though his physical man is more massive. while we were talking together, a young man approached him with a pretty little expression of surprise and pleasure at seeing him there. he had a slightly affected or made-up manner, and was rather a comely person. mr. milnes introduced him to me as lord ------. hereupon, of course, i observed him more closely; and i must say that i was not long in discovering a gentle dignity and half-imperceptible reserve in his manner; but still my first impression was quite as real as my second one. he occupies, i suppose, the foremost position among the young men of england, and has the fairest prospects of a high course before him; nevertheless, he did not impress me as possessing the native qualities that could entitle him to a high public career. he has adopted public life as his hereditary profession, and makes the very utmost of all his abilities, cultivating himself to a determined end, knowing that he shall have every advantage towards attaining his object. his natural disadvantages must have been, in some respects, unusually great; his voice, for instance, is not strong, and appeared to me to have a more positive defect than mere weakness. doubtless he has struggled manfully against this defect; and it made me feel a certain sympathy, and, indeed, a friendliness, for which he would not at all have thanked me, had he known it. i felt, in his person, what a burden it is upon human shoulders, the necessity of keeping up the fame and historical importance of an illustrious house; at least, when the heir to its honors has sufficient intellect and sensibility to feel the claim that his country and his ancestors and his posterity all have upon him. lord ------ is fully capable of feeling these claims; but i would not care, methinks, to take his position, unless i could have considerably more than his strength. in a little while we formed ourselves into a procession, four in a row, and set forth from the town hall, through james street, lord street, lime street, all the way through a line of policemen and a throng of people; and all the windows were alive with heads, and i never before was so conscious of a great mass of humanity, though perhaps i may often have seen as great a crowd. but a procession is the best point of view from which to see the crowd that collects together. the day, too, was very fine, even sunshiny, and the streets dry,--a blessing which cannot be overestimated; for we should have been in a strange trim for the banquet, had we been compelled to wade through the ordinary mud of liverpool. the procession itself could not have been a very striking object. in america, it would have had a hundred picturesque and perhaps ludicrous features,--the symbols of the different trades, banners with strange devices, flower-shows, children, volunteer soldiers, cavalcades, and every suitable and unsuitable contrivance; but we were merely a trail of ordinary-looking individuals, in great-coats, and with precautionary umbrellas. the only characteristic or professional costume, as far as i noticed, was that of the bishop of chester, in his flat cap and black-silk gown; and that of sir henry smith, the general of the district, in full uniform, with a star and half a dozen medals on his breast. mr. browne himself, the hero of the day, was the plainest and simplest man of all,--an exceedingly unpretending gentleman in black; small, white-haired, pale, quiet, and respectable. i rather wondered why he chose to be the centre of all this ceremony; for he did not seem either particularly to enjoy it, or to be at all incommoded by it, as a more nervous and susceptible man might have been. the site of the projected edifice is on one of the streets bordering on st. george's hall; and when we came within the enclosure, the corner-stone, a large square of red freestone, was already suspended over its destined place. it has a brass plate let into it, with an inscription, which will perhaps not be seen again till the present english type has grown as antique as black-letter is now. two or three photographs were now taken of the site, the corner-stone, mr. browne, the distinguished guests, and the crowd at large; then ensued a prayer from the bishop of chester, and speeches from mr. holme, mr. browne, lord ------, sir john pakington, sir henry smith, and as many others as there was time for. lord ------ acquitted himself very creditably, though brought out unexpectedly, and with evident reluctance. i am convinced that men, liable to be called on to address the public, keep a constant supply of commonplaces in their minds, which, with little variation, can be adapted to one subject about as well as to another; and thus they are always ready to do well enough, though seldom to do particularly well. from the scene of the corner-stone, we went to st. george's hall, where a drawing-room and dressing-room had been prepared for the principal guests. before the banquet, i had some conversation with sir james kay shuttleworth, who had known miss bronte very intimately, and bore testimony to the wonderful fidelity of mrs. gaskell's life of her. he seemed to have had an affectionate regard for her, and said that her marriage promised to have been productive of great happiness; her husband being not a remarkable man, but with the merit of an exceeding love for her. mr. browne now took me up into the gallery, which by this time was full of ladies; and thence we had a fine view of the noble hall, with the tables laid, in readiness for the banquet. i cannot conceive of anything finer than this hall: it needs nothing but painted windows to make it perfect, and those i hope it may have one day or another. at two o'clock we sat down to the banquet, which hardly justified that name, being only a cold collation, though sufficiently splendid in its way. in truth, it would have been impossible to provide a hot dinner for nine hundred people in a place remote from kitchens. the principal table extended lengthwise of the hall, and was a little elevated above the other tables, which stretched across, about twenty in all. before each guest, besides the bill of fare, was laid a programme of the expected toasts, among which appeared my own name, to be proposed by mr. monckton milnes. these things do not trouble me quite as much as they used, though still it sufficed to prevent much of the enjoyment which i might have had if i could have felt myself merely a spectator. my left-hand neighbor was colonel campbell of the artillery; my right-hand one was mr. picton, of the library committee; and i found them both companionable men, especially the colonel, who had served in china and in the crimea, and owned that he hated the french. we did not make a very long business of the eatables, and then came the usual toasts of ceremony, and afterwards those more peculiar to the occasion, one of the first of which was "the house of stanley," to which lord ------ responded. it was a noble subject, giving scope for as much eloquence as any man could have brought to bear upon it, and capable of being so wrought out as to develop and illustrate any sort of conservative or liberal tendencies which the speaker might entertain. there could not be a richer opportunity for reconciling and making friends betwixt the old system of society and the new; but lord ------ did not seem to make anything of it. i remember nothing that he said excepting his statement that the family had been five hundred years connected with the town of liverpool. i wish i could have responded to "the house of stanley," and his lordship could have spoken in my behalf. none of the speeches were remarkably good; the bishop of chester's perhaps the best, though he is but a little man in aspect, not at all filling up one's idea of a bishop, and the rest were on an indistinguishable level, though, being all practised speakers, they were less hum-y and ha-y than english orators ordinarily are. i was really tired to death before my own turn came, sitting all that time, as it were, on the scaffold, with the rope round my neck. at last monckton milnes was called up and made a speech, of which, to my dismay, i could hardly hear a single word, owing to his being at a considerable distance, on the other side of the chairman, and flinging his voice, which is a bass one, across the hall, instead of adown it, in my direction. i could not distinguish one word of any allusions to my works, nor even when he came to the toast, did i hear the terms in which he put it, nor whether i was toasted on my own basis, or as representing american literature, or as consul of the united states. at all events, there was a vast deal of clamor; and uprose peers and bishop, general, mayor, knights and gentlemen, everybody in the hall greeting me with all the honors. i had uprisen, too, to commence my speech; but had to sit down again till matters grew more quiet, and then i got up, and proceeded to deliver myself with as much composure as i ever felt at my own fireside. it is very strange, this self-possession and clear-sightedness which i have experienced when standing before an audience, showing me my way through all the difficulties resulting from my not having heard monckton milnes's speech; and on since reading the latter, i do not see how i could have answered it better. my speech certainly was better cheered than any other; especially one passage, where i made a colossus of mr. browne, at which the audience grew so tumultuous in their applause that they drowned my figure of speech before it was half out of my mouth. after rising from table, lord ------ and i talked about our respective oratorical performances; and he appeared to have a perception that he is not naturally gifted in this respect. i like lord ------, and wish that it were possible that we might know one another better. if a nobleman has any true friend out of his own class, it ought to be a republican. nothing further of interest happened at the banquet, and the next morning came out the newspapers with the reports of my speech, attributing to me a variety of forms of ragged nonsense, which, poor speaker as i am, i was quite incapable of uttering. may th.--the winter is over, but as yet we scarcely have what ought to be called spring; nothing but cold east-winds, accompanied with sunshine, however, as east-winds generally are in this country. all milder winds seem to bring rain. the grass has been green for a month,--indeed, it has never been entirely brown,--and now the trees and hedges are beginning to be in foliage. weeks ago the daisies bloomed, even in the sandy grass-plot bordering on the promenade beneath our front windows; and in the progress of the daisy, and towards its consummation, i saw the propriety of burns's epithet, "wee, modest, crimson-nipped flower,"--its little white petals in the bud being fringed all round with crimson, which fades into pure white when the flower blooms. at the beginning of this month i saw fruit-trees in blossom, stretched out flat against stone walls, reminding me of a dead bird nailed against the side of a barn. but it has been a backward and dreary spring; and i think southport, in the course of it, has lost its advantage over the rest of the liverpool neighborhood in point of milder atmosphere. the east-wind feels even rawer here than in the city. nevertheless, the columns, of the southport visitor begin to be well replenished with the names of guests, and the town is assuming its aspect of summer life. to say the truth, except where cultivation has done its utmost, there is very little difference between winter and summer in the mere material aspect of southport; there being nothing but a waste of sand intermixed with plashy pools to seaward, and a desert of sand-hillocks on the land side. but now the brown, weather-hardened donkey-women haunt people that stray along the reaches, and delicate persons face the cold, rasping, ill-tempered blast on the promenade, and children dig in the sands; and, for want of something better, it seems to be determined that this shall be considered spring. southport is as stupid a place as i ever lived in; and i cannot but bewail our ill fortune to have been compelled to spend so many months on these barren sands, when almost every other square yard of england contains something that would have been historically or poetically interesting. our life here has been a blank. there was, indeed, a shipwreck, a month or two ago, when a large ship came ashore within a mile from our windows; the larger portion of the crew landing safely on the hither sands, while six or seven betook themselves to the boat, and were lost in attempting to gain the shore, on the other side of the ribble. after a lapse of several weeks, two or three of their drowned bodies were found floating in this vicinity, and brought to southport for burial; so that it really is not at all improbable that milton's lycidas floated hereabouts, in the rise and lapse of the tides, and that his bones may still be whitening among the sands. in the same gale that wrecked the above-mentioned vessel, a portion of a ship's mast was driven ashore, after evidently having been a very long time in and under water; for it was covered with great barnacles, and torn sea-weed, insomuch that there was scarcely a bare place along its whole length; clusters of sea-anemones were sticking to it, and i know not what strange marine productions besides. j----- at once recognized the sea-anemones, knowing them by his much reading of gosse's aquarium; and though they must now have been two or three days high and dry out of water, he made an extempore aquarium out of a bowl, and put in above a dozen of these strange creatures. in a little while they bloomed out wonderfully, and even seemed to produce young anemones; but, from some fault in his management, they afterwards grew sickly and died. s----- thinks that the old storm-shattered mast, so studded with the growth of the ocean depths, is a relic of the spanish armada which strewed its wrecks along all the shores of england; but i hardly think it would have taken three hundred years to produce this crop of barnacles and sea-anemones. a single summer might probably have done it. yesterday we all of us except r----- went to liverpool to see the performances of an american circus company. i had previously been, a day or two before, with j-----, and had been happy to perceive that the fact of its being an american establishment really induced some slight swelling of the heart within me. it is ridiculous enough, to be sure, but i like to find myself not wholly destitute of this noble weakness, patriotism. as for the circus, i never was fond of that species of entertainment, nor do i find in this one the flash and glitter and whirl which i remember in other american exhibitions. [here follow the visits to lincoln and boston, printed in our old home. --ed.] may th.--we left boston by railway at noon, and arrived in peterborough in about an hour and a quarter, and have put up at the railway hotel. after dinner we walked into the town to see the cathedral, of the towers and arches of which we had already had a glimpse from our parlor window. our journey from boston hitherward was through a perfectly level country,--the fens of lincolnshire,--green, green, and nothing else, with old villages and farm-houses and old church-towers; very pleasant and rather wearisomely monotonous. to return to peterborough. it is a town of ancient aspect; and we passed, on our way towards the market-place, a very ancient-looking church, with a very far projecting porch, opening in front and on each side through arches of broad sweep. the street by which we approached from our hotel led us into the market-place, which had what looked like an old guildhall on one side. on the opposite side, above the houses, appeared the towers of the cathedral, and a street leads from the market-place to its front, through an arched gateway, which used to be the external entrance to the abbey, i suppose, of which the cathedral was formerly the church. the front of the cathedral is very striking, and unlike any other that i have seen; being formed by three lofty and majestic arches in a row, with three gable peaks above them, forming a sort of colonnade, within which is the western entrance of the nave. the towers are massive, but low in proportion to their bulk. there are no spires, but pinnacles and statues, and all the rich detail of gothic architecture, the whole of a venerable gray line. it is in perfect repair, and has not suffered externally, except by the loss of multitudes of statues, gargoyles, and miscellaneous eccentricities of sculpture, which used to smile, frown, laugh, and weep over the faces of these old fabrics. we entered through a side portal, and sat down on a bench in the nave, and kept ourselves quiet; for the organ was sounding, and the choristers were chanting in the choir. the nave and transepts are very noble, with clustered pillars and norman arches, and a great height under the central tower; the whole, however, being covered with plaster and whitewash, except the roof, which is of painted oak. this latter adornment has the merit, i believe, of being veritably ancient; but certainly i should prefer the oak of its native hue, for the effect of the paint is to make it appear as if the ceiling were covered with imitation mosaic-work or an oil-cloth carpet. after sitting awhile, we were invited by a verger, who came from within the screen, to enter the choir and hear the rest of the service. we found the choristers there in their white garments, and an audience of half a dozen people, and had time to look at the interior of the choir. all the carved wood-work of the tabernacle, the bishop's throne, the prebends' stalls, and whatever else, is modern; for this cathedral seems to have suffered wofully from cromwell's soldiers, who hacked at the old oak, and hammered and pounded upon the marble tombs, till nothing of the first and very few of the latter remain. it is wonderful how suddenly the english people lost their sense of the sanctity of all manner of externals in religion, without losing their religion too. the french, in their revolution, underwent as sudden a change; but they became pagans and atheists, and threw away the substance with the shadow. i suspect that the interior arrangement of the choir and the chancel has been greatly modernized; for it is quite unlike anything that i have seen elsewhere. instead of one vast eastern window, there are rows of windows lighting the lady chapel, and seen through rows of arches in the screen of the chancel; the effect being, whoever is to have the credit of it, very rich and beautiful. there is, i think, no stained glass in the windows of the nave, though in the windows of the chancel there is some of recent date, and from fragments of veritable antique. the effect of the whole interior is grand, expansive, and both ponderous and airy; not dim, mysterious, and involved, as gothic interiors often are, the roundness and openness of the arches being opposed to this latter effect. when the chanting came to a close, one verger took his stand at the entrance of the choir, and another stood farther up the aisle, and then the door of a stall opened, and forth came a clerical dignity of much breadth and substance, aged and infirm, and was ushered out of the choir with a great deal of ceremony. we took him for the bishop, but he proved to be only a canon. we now engaged an attendant to show us through the lady chapel and the other penetralia, which it did not take him long to accomplish. one of the first things he showed us was the tombstone, in the pavement of the southern aisle, beneath which mary, queen of scots, had been originally buried, and where she lay for a quarter of a century, till borne to her present resting-place in westminster abbey. it is a plain marble slab, with no inscription. near this, there was a saxon monument of the date , with sculpture in relief upon it,--the memorial of an abbot hedda, who was killed by the danes when they destroyed the monastery that preceded the abbey and church. i remember, likewise, the recumbent figure of the prelate, whose face has been quite obliterated by puritanic violence; and i think that there is not a single tomb older than the parliamentary wars, which has not been in like manner battered and shattered, except the saxon abbot's just mentioned. the most pretentious monument remaining is that of a mr. deacon, a gentleman of george i.'s time, in wig and breeches, leaning on his elbow, and resting one hand upon a skull. in the north aisle, precisely opposite to that of queen mary, the attendant pointed out to us the slab beneath which lie the ashes of catharine of aragon, the divorced queen of henry viii. in the nave there was an ancient font, a venerable and beautiful relic, which has been repaired not long ago, but in such a way as not to lessen its individuality. this sacred vessel suffered especial indignity from cromwell's soldiers; insomuch that if anything could possibly destroy its sanctity, they would have effected that bad end. on the eastern wall of the nave, and near the entrance, hangs the picture of old scarlet, the sexton who buried both mary of scotland and catharine of aragon, and not only these two queens, but everybody else in peterborough, twice over. i think one feels a sort of enmity and spite against these grave-diggers, who live so long, and seem to contract a kindred and partnership with death, being boon companions with him, and taking his part against mankind. in a chapel or some side apartment, there were two pieces of tapestry wretchedly faded, the handiwork of two nuns, and copied from two of raphael's cartoons. we now emerged from the cathedral, and walked round its exterior, admiring it to our utmost capacity, and all the more because we had not heard of it beforehand, and expected to see nothing so huge, majestic, grand, and gray. and of all the lovely closes that i ever beheld, that of peterborough cathedral is to me the most delightful; so quiet it is, so solemnly and nobly cheerful, so verdant, so sweetly shadowed, and so presided over by the stately minster, and surrounded by ancient and comely habitations of christian men. the most enchanting place, the most enviable as a residence in all this world, seemed to me that of the bishop's secretary, standing in the rear of the cathedral, and bordering on the churchyard; so that you pass through hallowed precincts in order to come at it, and find it a paradise, the holier and sweeter for the dead men who sleep so near. we looked through the gateway into the lawn, which really seemed hardly to belong to this world, so bright and soft the sunshine was, so fresh the grass, so lovely the trees, so trained and refined and mellowed down was the whole nature of the spot, and so shut in and guarded from all intrusion. it is in vain to write about it; nowhere but in england can there be such a spot, nor anywhere but in the close of peterborough cathedral. may th.--i walked up into the town this morning, and again visited the cathedral. on the way, i observed the falcon inn, a very old-fashioned hostelry, with a thatched roof, and what looked like the barn door or stable door in a side front. very likely it may have been an inn ever since queen elizabeth's time. the guildhall, as i supposed it to be, in the market-place, has a basement story entirely open on all sides, but from its upper story it communicates with a large old house in the rear. i have not seen an older-looking town than peterborough; but there is little that is picturesque about it, except within the domain of the cathedral. it was very fortunate for the beauty and antiquity of these precincts, that henry viii. did not suffer the monkish edifices of the abbey to be overthrown and utterly destroyed, as was the case with so many abbeys, at the reformation; but, converting the abbey church into a cathedral, he preserved much of the other arrangement of the buildings connected with it. and so it happens that to this day we have the massive and stately gateway, with its great pointed arch, still keeping out the world from those who have inherited the habitations of the old monks; for though the gate is never closed, one feels himself in a sacred seclusion the instant he passes under the archway. and everywhere there are old houses that appear to have been adapted from the monkish residences, or from their spacious offices, and made into convenient dwellings for ecclesiastics, or vergers, or great or small people connected with the cathedral; and with all modern comfort they still retain much of the quaintness of the olden time,--arches, even rows of arcades, pillars, walls, beautified with patches of gothic sculpture, not wilfully put on by modern taste, but lingering from a long past; deep niches, let into the fronts of houses, and occupied by images of saints; a growth of ivy, overspreading walls, and just allowing the windows to peep through,--so that no novelty, nor anything of our hard, ugly, and actual life comes into these limits, through the defences of the gateway, without being mollified and modified. except in some of the old colleges of oxford, i have not seen any other place that impressed me in this way; and the grounds of peterborough cathedral have the advantage over even the oxford colleges, insomuch that the life is here domestic,--that of the family, that of the affections,--a natural life, which one deludes himself with imagining may be made into something sweeter and purer in this beautiful spot than anywhere else. doubtless the inhabitants find it a stupid and tiresome place enough, and get morbid and sulky, and heavy and obtuse of head and heart, with the monotony of their life. but still i must needs believe that a man with a full mind, and objects to employ his affection, ought to be very happy here. and perhaps the forms and appliances of human life are never fit to make people happy until they cease to be used for the purposes for which they were directly intended, and are taken, as it were, in a sidelong application. i mean that the monks, probably, never enjoyed their own edifices while they were a part of the actual life of the day, so much as these present inhabitants now enjoy them when a new use has grown up apart from the original one. towards noon we all walked into the town again, and on our way went into the old church with the projecting portal, which i mentioned yesterday. a woman came hastening with the keys when she saw us looking up at the door. the interior had an exceeding musty odor, and was very ancient, with side aisles opening by a row of pointed arches into the nave, and a gallery of wood on each side, and built across the two rows of arches. it was paved with tombstones, and i suppose the dead people contributed to the musty odor. very naked and unadorned it was, except with a few mural monuments of no great interest. we stayed but a little while, and amply rewarded the poor woman with a sixpence. thence we proceeded to the cathedral, pausing by the way to look at the old guildhall, which is no longer a guildhall, but a butter-market; and then we bought some prints of exterior and interior views of the minster, of which there are a great variety on note-paper, letter-sheets, large engravings, and lithographs. it is very beautiful; there seems to be nothing better than to say this over again. we found the doors most hospitably open, and every part entirely free to us,--a kindness and liberality which we have nowhere else experienced in england, whether as regards cathedrals or any other public buildings. my wife sat down to draw the font, and i walked through the lady chapel meanwhile, pausing over the empty bed of queen mary, and the grave of queen catharine, and looking at the rich and sumptuous roof, where a fountain, as it were, of groins of arches spouts from numberless pilasters, intersecting one another in glorious intricacy. under the central tower, opening to either transept, to the nave, and to the choir, are four majestic arches, which i think must equal in height those of which i saw the ruins, and one, all but perfect, at furness abbey. they are about eighty feet high. i may as well give up peterborough here, though i hate to leave it undescribed even to the tufts of yellow flowers, which grow on the projections high out of reach, where the winds have sown their seeds in soil made by the aged decay of the edifice. i could write a page, too, about the rooks or jackdaws that flit and clamor about the pinnacles, and dart in and out of the eyelet-holes, the piercings,--whatever they are called,--in the turrets and buttresses. on our way back to the hotel, j----- saw an advertisement of some knights in armor that were to tilt to-day; so he and i waited, and by and by a procession appeared, passing through the antique market-place, and in front of the abbey gateway, which might have befitted the same spot three hundred years ago. they were about twenty men-at-arms on horseback, with lances and banners. we were a little too near for the full enjoyment of the spectacle; for, though some of the armor was real, i could not help observing that other suits were made of silver paper or gold tinsel. a policeman (a queer anomaly in reference to such a mediaeval spectacle) told us that they were going to joust and run at the ring, in a field a little beyond the bridge. to nottingham. may th.--we left peterborough this afternoon, and, however reluctant to leave the cathedral, we were glad to get away from the hotel; for, though outwardly pretentious, it is a wretched and uncomfortable place, with scanty table, poor attendance, and enormous charges. the first stage of our journey to-day was to grantham, through a country the greater part of which was as level as the lincolnshire landscapes have been, throughout our experience of them. we saw several old villages, gathered round their several churches; and one of these little communities, "little byforth," had a very primitive appearance,--a group of twenty or thirty dwellings of stone and thatch, without a house among them that could be so modern as a hundred years. it is a little wearisome to think of people living from century to century in the same spot, going in and out of the same doors, cultivating the same fields, meeting the same faces, and marrying one another over and over again; and going to the same church, and lying down in the same churchyard,--to appear again, and go through the same monotonous round in the next generation. at grantham, our route branches off from the main line; and there was a delay of about an hour, during which we walked up into the town, to take a nearer view of a tall gray steeple which we saw from the railway station. the streets that led from the station were poor and commonplace; and, indeed, a railway seems to have the effect of making its own vicinity mean. we noticed nothing remarkable until we got to the marketplace, in the centre of which there is a cross, doubtless of great antiquity, though it is in too good condition not to have been recently repaired. it consists of an upright pillar, with a pedestal of half a dozen stone steps, which are worn hollow by the many feet that have scraped their hobnailed shoes upon them. among these feet, it is highly probable, may have been those of sir isaac newton, who was a scholar of the free school of this town; and when j----- scampered up the steps, we told him so. visible from the market-place also stands the angel inn, which seems to be a wonderfully old inn, being adorned with gargoyles and other antique sculpture, with projecting windows, and an arched entrance, and presenting altogether a frontispiece of so much venerable state that i feel curious to know its history. had i been aware that the chief hotel of grantham were such a time-honored establishment, i should have arranged to pass the night there, especially as there were interesting objects enough in the town to occupy us pleasantly. the church--the steeple of which is seen over the market-place, but is removed from it by a street or two--is very fine; the tower and spire being adorned with arches, canopies, and niches,--twelve of the latter for the twelve apostles, all of whom have now vanished,--and with fragments of other gothic ornaments. the jackdaws have taken up their abodes in the crevices and crannies of the upper half of the steeple. we left grantham at nearly seven, and reached nottingham just before eight. the castle, situated on a high and precipitous rock, directly over the edge of which look the walls, was visible, as we drove from the station to our hotel. we followed the advice of a railway attendant in going first to the may pole, which proved to be a commercial inn, with the air of a drinking-shop, in a by-alley; and, furthermore, they could not take us in. so we drove to the george the fourth, which seems to be an excellent house; and here i have remained quiet, the size of the town discouraging me from going out in the twilight which was fast coming on after tea. these are glorious long days for travel; daylight fairly between four in the morning and nine at night, and a margin of twilight on either side. may th.--after breakfast, this morning, i wandered out and lost myself; but at last found the post-office, and a letter from mr. wilding, with some perplexing intelligence. nottingham is an unlovely and uninteresting town. the castle i did not see; but, i happened upon a large and stately old church, almost cathedralic in its dimensions. on returning to the hotel, we deliberated on the mode of getting to newstead abbey, and we finally decided upon taking a fly, in which conveyance, accordingly, we set out before twelve. it was a slightly overcast day, about half intermixed of shade and sunshine, and rather cool, but not so cool that we could exactly wish it warmer. our drive to newstead lay through what was once a portion of sherwood forest, though all of it, i believe, has now become private property, and is converted into fertile fields, except where the owners of estates have set out plantations. we have now passed out of the fen-country, and the land rises and falls in gentle swells, presenting a pleasant, but not striking, character of scenery. i remember no remarkable object on the road,--here and there an old inn, a gentleman's seat of moderate pretension, a great deal of tall and continued hedge, a quiet english greenness and rurality, till, drawing near newstead abbey, we began to see copious plantations, principally of firs, larches, and trees of that order, looking very sombre, though with some intermingling of lighter foliage. it was after one when we reached "the hut,"--a small, modern wayside inn, almost directly across the road from the entrance-gate of newstead. the post-boy calls the distance ten miles from nottingham. he also averred that it was forbidden to drive visitors within the gates; so we left the fly at the inn, and set out to walk from the entrance to the house. there is no porter's lodge; and the grounds, in this outlying region, had not the appearance of being very primly kept, but were well wooded with evergreens, and much overgrown with ferns, serving for cover for hares, which scampered in and out of their hiding-places. the road went winding gently along, and, at the distance of nearly a mile, brought us to a second gate, through which we likewise passed, and walked onward a good way farther, seeing much wood, but as yet nothing of the abbey. at last, through the trees, we caught a glimpse of its battlements, and saw, too, the gleam of water, and then appeared the abbey's venerable front. it comprises the western wall of the church, which is all that remains of that fabric,--a great, central window, entirely empty, without tracery or mullions; the ivy clambering up on the inside of the wall, and hanging over in front. the front of the inhabited part of the house extends along on a line with this church wall, rather low, with battlements along its top, and all in good keeping with the ruinous remnant. we met a servant, who replied civilly to our inquiries about the mode of gaining admittance, and bade us ring a bell at the corner of the principal porch. we rang accordingly, and were forthwith admitted into a low, vaulted basement, ponderously wrought with intersecting arches, dark and rather chilly, just like what i remember to have seen at battle abbey; and, after waiting here a little while, a respectable elderly gentlewoman appeared, of whom we requested to be shown round the abbey. she courteously acceded, first presenting us to a book in which to inscribe our names. i suppose ten thousand people, three fourths of them americans, have written descriptions of newstead abbey; and none of them, so far as i have read, give any true idea of the place; neither will my description, if i write one. in fact, i forget very much that i saw, and especially in what order the objects came. in the basement was byron's bath,--a dark and cold and cellarlike hole, which it must have required good courage to plunge into; in this region, too, or near it, was the chapel, which colonel wildman has decorously fitted up, and where service is now regularly performed, but which was used as a dog's kennel in byron's time. after seeing this, we were led to byron's own bedchamber, which remains just as when he slept in it,--the furniture and all the other arrangements being religiously preserved. it was in the plainest possible style, homely, indeed, and almost mean,--an ordinary paper-hanging, and everything so commonplace that it was only the deep embrasure of the window that made it look unlike a bedchamber in a middling-class lodging-house. it would have seemed difficult, beforehand, to fit up a room in that picturesque old edifice so that it should be utterly void of picturesqueness; but it was effected in this apartment, and i suppose it is a specimen of the way in which old mansions used to be robbed of their antique character, and adapted to modern tastes, before mediaeval antiquities came into fashion. some prints of the cambridge colleges, and other pictures indicating byron's predilections at the time, and which he himself had hung there, were on the walls. this, the housekeeper told us, had been the abbot's chamber, in the monastic time. adjoining it is the haunted room, where the ghostly monk, whom byron introduces into don juan, is said to have his lurking-place. it is fitted up in the same style as byron's, and used to be occupied by his valet or page. no doubt in his lordship's day, these were the only comfortable bedrooms in the abbey; and by the housekeeper's account of what colonel wildman has done, it is to be inferred that the place must have been in a most wild, shaggy, tumble-down condition, inside and out, when he bought it. it is very different now. after showing us these two apartments of byron and his servant, the housekeeper led us from one to another and another magnificent chamber fitted up in antique style, with oak panelling, and heavily carved bedsteads, of queen elizabeth's time, or of the stuarts, hung with rich tapestry curtains of similar date, and with beautiful old cabinets of carved wood, sculptured in relief, or tortoise-shell and ivory. the very pictures and realities, these rooms were, of stately comfort; and they were called by the name of kings,--king edward's, king charles ii's, king henry vii's chamber; and they were hung with beautiful pictures, many of them portraits of these kings. the chimney-pieces were carved and emblazoned; and all, so far as i could judge, was in perfect keeping, so that if a prince or noble of three centuries ago were to come to lodge at newstead abbey, he would hardly know that he had strayed out of his own century. and yet he might have known by some token, for there are volumes of poetry and light literature on the tables in these royal bedchambers, and in that of henry vii. i saw the house of the seven gables and the scarlet letter in routledge's edition. certainly the house is admirably fitted up; and there must have been something very excellent and comprehensive in the domestic arrangements of the monks, since they adapt themselves so well to a state of society entirely different from that in which they originated. the library is a very comfortable room, and provocative of studious ideas, though lounging and luxurious. it is long, and rather low, furnished with soft couches, and, on the whole, though a man might dream of study, i think he would be most likely to read nothing but novels there. i know not what the room was in monkish times, but it was waste and ruinous in lord byron's. here, i think, the housekeeper unlocked a beautiful cabinet, and took out the famous skull which lord byron transformed into a drinking-goblet. it has a silver rim and stand, but still the ugly skull is bare and evident, and the naked inner bone receives the wine. i should think it would hold at least a quart,--enough to overpower any living head into which this death's-head should transfer its contents; and a man must be either very drunk or very thirsty, before he would taste wine out of such a goblet. i think byron's freak was outdone by that of a cousin of my own, who once solemnly assured me that he had a spittoon made out of the skull of his enemy. the ancient coffin in which the goblet-skull was found was shown us in the basement of the abbey. there was much more to see in the house than i had any previous notion of; but except the two chambers already noticed, nothing remained the least as byron left it. yes, another place there was,--his own small dining-room, with a table of moderate size, where, no doubt, the skull-goblet has often gone its rounds. colonel wildman's dining-room was once byron's shooting-gallery, and the original refectory of the monks. it is now magnificently arranged, with a vaulted roof, a music-gallery at one end, suits of armor and weapons on the walls, and mailed arms extended, holding candelabras. there are one or two painted windows, commemorative of the peninsular war, and the battles in which the colonel and his two brothers fought,--for these wildmen seem to have been mighty troopers, and colonel wildman is represented as a fierce-looking mustachioed hussar at two different ages. the housekeeper spoke of him affectionately, but says that he is now getting into years, and that they fancy him failing. he has no children. he appears to have been on good terms with byron, and had the latter ever returned to england, he was under promise to make his first visit to his old home, and it was in such an expectation that colonel wildman had kept byron's private apartments in the same condition in which he found them. byron was informed of all the colonel's fittings up and restorations, and when he introduces the abbey in don juan, the poet describes it, not as he himself left it, but as colonel wildman has restored it. there is a beautiful drawing-room, and all these apartments are adorned with pictures, the collection being especially rich in portraits by sir peter lely,--that of nell gwynn being one, who is one of the few beautiful women whom i have seen on canvas. we parted with the housekeeper, and i with a good many shillings, at the door by which we entered; and our next business was to see the private grounds and gardens. a little boy attended us through the first part of our progress, but soon appeared the veritable gardener,--a shrewd and sensible old man, who has been very many years on the place. there was nothing of special interest as concerning byron until we entered the original old monkish garden, which is still laid out in the same fashion as the monks left it, with a large, oblong piece of water in the centre, and terraced banks rising at two or three different stages with perfect regularity around it; so that the sheet of water looks like the plate of an immense looking-glass, of which the terraces form the frame. it seems as if, were there any giant large enough, he might raise up this mirror and set it on end. in the monks' garden, there is a marble statue of pan, which, the gardener told us, was brought by the "wicked lord" (great-uncle of byron) from italy, and was supposed by the country people to represent the devil, and to be the object of his worship,--a natural idea enough, in view of his horns and cloven feet and tail, though this indicates, at all events, a very jolly devil. there is also a female statue, beautiful from the waist upward, but shaggy and cloven-footed below, and holding a little cloven-footed child by the hand. this, the old gardener assured us, was pandora, wife of the above-mentioned pan, with her son. not far from this spot, we came to the tree on which byron carved his own name and that of his sister augusta. it is a tree of twin stems,--a birch-tree, i think,--growing up side by side. one of the stems still lives and flourishes, but that on which he carved the two names is quite dead, as if there had been something fatal in the inscription that has made it forever famous. the names are still very legible, although the letters had been closed up by the growth of the bark before the tree died. they must have been deeply cut at first. there are old yew-trees of unknown antiquity in this garden, and many other interesting things; and among them may be reckoned a fountain of very pure water, called the "holy well," of which we drank. there are several fountains, besides the large mirror in the centre of the garden; and these are mostly inhabited by carp, the genuine descendants of those which peopled the fish-ponds in the days of the monks. coming in front of the abbey, the gardener showed us the oak that byron planted, now a vigorous young tree; and the monument which he erected to his newfoundland dog, and which is larger than most christians get, being composed of a marble, altar-shaped tomb, surrounded by a circular area of steps, as much as twenty feet in diameter. the gardener said, however, that byron intended this, not merely as the burial-place of his dog, but for himself too, and his sister. i know not how this may have been, but this inconvenience would have attended his being buried there, that, on transfer of the estate, his mortal remains would have become the property of some other man. we had now come to the empty space,--a smooth green lawn, where had once been the abbey church. the length had been sixty-four yards, the gardener said, and within his remembrance there had been many remains of it, but now they are quite removed, with the exception of the one ivy-grown western wall, which, as i mentioned, forms a picturesque part of the present front of the abbey. through a door in this wall the gardener now let us out. . . . . in the evening our landlady, who seems to be a very intelligent woman, of a superior class to most landladies, came into our parlor, while i was out, and talked about the present race of byrons and lovelaces, who have often been at this house. there seems to be a taint in the byron blood which makes those who inherit it wicked, mad, and miserable. even colonel wildman comes in for a share of this ill luck, for he has almost ruined himself by his expenditure on the estate, and by his lavish hospitality, especially to the duke of sussex, who liked the colonel, and used often to visit him during his lifetime, and his royal highness's gentlemen ate and drank colonel wildman almost up. so says our good landlady. at any rate, looking at this miserable race of byrons, who held the estate so long, and at colonel wildman, whom it has ruined in forty years, we might see grounds for believing in the evil fate which is supposed to attend confiscated church property. nevertheless, i would accept the estate, were it offered me. . . . . glancing back, i see that i have omitted some items that were curious in describing the house; for instance, one of the cabinets had been the personal property of queen elizabeth. it seems to me that the fashion of modern furniture has nothing to equal these old cabinets for beauty and convenience. in the state apartments, the floors were so highly waxed and polished that we slid on them as if on ice, and could only make sure of our footing by treading on strips of carpeting that were laid down. june th.--we left nottingham a week ago, and made our first stage to derby, where we had to wait an hour or two at a great, bustling, pell-mell, crowded railway station. it was much thronged with second and third class passengers, coming and departing in continual trains; for these were the whitsuntide holidays, which set all the lower orders of english people astir. this time of festival was evidently the origin of the old "election" holidays in massachusetts; the latter occurring at the same period of the year, and being celebrated (so long as they could be so) in very much the same way, with games, idleness, merriment of set purpose, and drunkenness. after a weary while we took the train for matlock, via ambergate, and arrived of the former place late in the afternoon. the village of matlock is situated on the banks of the derwent, in a delightful little nook among the hills, which rise above it in steeps, and in precipitous crags, and shut out the world so effectually that i wonder how the railway ever found it out. indeed, it does make its approach to this region through a long tunnel. it was a beautiful, sunny afternoon when we arrived, and my present impressions are, that i have never seen anywhere else such exquisite scenery as that which surrounds the village. the street itself, to be sure, is commonplace enough, and hot, dusty, and disagreeable; but if you look above it, or on either side, there are green hills descending abruptly down, and softened with woods, amid which are seen villas, cottages, castles; and beyond the river is a line of crags, perhaps three hundred feet high, clothed with shrubbery in some parts from top to bottom, but in other places presenting a sheer precipice of rock, over which tumbles, as it were, a cascade of ivy and creeping plants. it is very beautiful, and, i might almost say, very wild; but it has those characteristics of finish, and of being redeemed from nature, and converted into a portion of the adornment of a great garden, which i find in all english scenery. not that i complain of this; on the contrary, there is nothing that delights an american more, in contrast with the roughness and ruggedness of his native scenes,--to which, also, he might be glad to return after a while. we put up at the old bath hotel,--an immense house, with passages of such extent that at first it seemed almost a day's journey from parlor to bedroom. the house stands on a declivity, and after ascending one pair of stairs, we came, in travelling along the passageway, to a door that opened upon a beautifully arranged garden, with arbors and grottos, and the hillside rising steep above. during all the time of our stay at matlock there was brilliant sunshine, and, the grass and foliage being in their freshest and most luxuriant phase, the place has left as bright a picture as i have anywhere in my memory. the morning after our arrival we took a walk, and, following the sound of a church-bell, entered what appeared to be a park, and, passing along a road at the base of a line of crags, soon came in sight of a beautiful church. i rather imagine it to be the place of worship of the arkwright family, whose seat is in this vicinity,--the descendants of the famous arkwright who contributed so much towards turning england into a cotton manufactory. we did not enter the church, but passed beyond it, and over a bridge, and along a road that ascended among the hills and finally brought us out by a circuit to the other end of matlock village, after a walk of three or four miles. in the afternoon we took a boat across the derwent,--a passage which half a dozen strokes of the oars accomplished, --and reached a very pleasant seclusion called "the lovers' walk." a ferriage of twopence pays for the transit across the river, and gives the freedom of these grounds, which are threaded with paths that meander and zigzag to the top of the precipitous ridge, amid trees and shrubbery, and the occasional ease of rustic seats. it is a sweet walk for lovers, and was so for us; although j-----, with his scramblings and disappearances, and shouts from above, and headlong scamperings down the precipitous paths, occasionally frightened his mother. after gaining the heights, the path skirts along the precipice, allowing us to see down into the village street, and, nearer, the derwent winding through the valley so close beneath us that we might have flung a stone into it. these crags would be very rude and harsh if left to themselves, but they are quite softened and made sweet and tender by the great deal of foliage that clothes their sides, and creeps and clambers over them, only letting a stern face of rock be seen here and there, and with a smile rather than a frown. the next day, monday, we went to see the grand cavern. the entrance is high up on the hillside, whither we were led by a guide, of whom there are many, and they all pay tribute to the proprietor of the cavern. there is a small shed by the side of the cavern mouth, where the guide provided himself and us with tallow candles, and then led us into the darksome and ugly pit, the entrance of which is not very imposing, for it has a door of rough pine boards, and is kept under lock and key. this is the disagreeable phase-one of the disagreeable phases--of man's conquest over nature in england,--cavern mouths shut up with cellar doors, cataracts under lock and key, precipitous crags compelled to figure in ornamented gardens,--and all accessible at a fixed amount of shillings or pence. it is not possible to draw a full free breath under such circumstances. when you think of it, it makes the wildest scenery look like the artificial rock-work which englishmen are so fond of displaying in the little bit of grass-plot under their suburban parlor windows. however, the cavern was dreary enough and wild enough, though in a mean sort of way; for it is but a long series of passages and crevices, generally so narrow that you scrape your elbows, and so low that you hit your head. it has nowhere a lofty height, though sometimes it broadens out into ample space, but not into grandeur, the roof being always within reach, and in most places smoky with the tallow candles that have been held up to it. a very dirty, sordid, disagreeable burrow, more like a cellar gone mad than anything else; but it served to show us how the crust of the earth is moulded. this cavern was known to the romans, and used to be worked by them as a lead-mine. derbyshire spar is now taken from it; and in some of its crevices the gleam of the tallow candles is faintly reflected from the crystallizations; but, on the whole, i felt like a mole, as i went creeping along, and was glad when we came into the sunshine again. i rather think my idea of a cavern is taken from the one in the forty thieves, or in gil blas,--a vast, hollow womb, roofed and curtained with obscurity. this reality is very mean. leaving the cavern, we went to the guide's cottage, situated high above the village, where he showed us specimens of ornaments and toys manufactured by himself from derbyshire spar and other materials. there was very pretty mosaic work, flowers of spar, and leaves of malachite, and miniature copies of cleopatra's needle, and other egyptian monuments, and vases of graceful pattern, brooches, too, and many other things. the most valuable spar is called blue john, and is only to be found in one spot, where, also, the supply is said to be growing scant. we bought a number of articles, and then came homeward, still with our guide, who showed us, on the way, the romantic rocks. these are some crags which have been rent away and stand insulated from the hillside, affording a pathway between it and then; while the places can yet be seen where the sundered rocks would fit into the craggy hill if there were but a titan strong enough to adjust them again. it is a very picturesque spot, and the price for seeing it is twopence; though in our case it was included in the four shillings which we had paid for seeing the cavern. the representative men of england are the showmen and the policemen; both very good people in their way. returning to the hotel, j----- and his mother went through the village to the river, near the railway, where j----- set himself to fishing, and caught three minnows. i followed, after a while, to fetch them back, and we called into one or two of the many shops in the village, which have articles manufactured of the spar for sale. some of these are nothing short of magnificent. there was an inlaid table, valued at sixty guineas, and a splendid ornament for any drawing-room; another, inlaid with the squares of a chess-board. we heard of a table in the possession of the marquis of westminster, the value of which is three hundred guineas. it would be easy and pleasant to spend a great deal of money in such things as we saw there; but all our purchases in matlock did not amount to more than twenty shillings, invested in brooches, shawl-pins, little vases and toys, which will be valuable to us as memorials on the other side of the water. after this, we visited a petrifying cave, of which there are several hereabouts. the process of petrifaction requires some months, or perhaps a year or two, varying with the size of the article to be operated upon. the articles are placed in the cave, under the drippings from the roof, and a hard deposit is formed upon them, and sometimes, as in the case of a bird's-nest, causes a curious result,-- every straw and hair being immortalized and stiffened into stone. a horse's head was in process of petrifaction; and j----- bought a broken eggshell for a penny, though larger articles are expensive. the process would appear to be entirely superficial,--a mere crust on the outside of things,--but we saw some specimens of petrified oak, where the stony substance seemed to be intimately incorporated with the wood, and to have really changed it into stone. these specimens were immensely ponderous, and capable of a high polish, which brought out beautiful streaks and shades. one might spend a very pleasant summer in matlock, and i think there can be no more beautiful place in the world; but we left it that afternoon, and railed to manchester, where we arrived between ten and eleven at night. the next day i left s----- to go to the art exhibition, and took j----- with me to liverpool, where i had an engagement that admitted of no delay. thus ended our tour, in which we had seen but a little bit of england, yet rich with variety and interest. what a wonderful land! it is our forefathers' land; our land, for i will not give up such a precious inheritance. we are now back again in flat and sandy southport, which, during the past week, has been thronged with whitsuntide people, who crowd the streets, and pass to and fro along the promenade, with a universal and monotonous air of nothing to do, and very little enjoyment. it is a pity that poor folks cannot employ their little hour of leisure to better advantage, in a country where the soil is so veined with gold. these are delightfully long days. last night, at half past nine, i could read with perfect ease in parts of the room remote from the window; and at nearly half past eleven there was a broad sheet of daylight in the west, gleaming brightly over the plashy sands. i question whether there be any total night at this season. june st.--southport, i presume, is now in its most vivid aspect; there being a multitude of visitors here, principally of the middling classes, and a frequent crowd, whom i take to be working-people from manchester and other factory towns. it is the strangest place to come to for the pleasures of the sea, of which we scarcely have a glimpse from month's end to mouth's end, nor any fresh, exhilarating breath from it, but a lazy, languid atmosphere, brooding over the waste of sands; or even if there be a sulky and bitter wind blowing along the promenade, it still brings no salt elixir. i never was more weary of a place in all my life, and never felt such a disinterested pity as for the people who come here for pleasure. nevertheless, the town has its amusements; in the first place, the daylong and perennial one of donkey-riding along the sands, large parties of men and girls pottering along together; the flying dutchman trundles hither and thither when there is breeze enough; an arch cry-man sets up his targets on the beach; the bathing-houses stand by scores and fifties along the shore, and likewise on the banks of the ribble, a mile seaward; the hotels have their billiard-rooms; there is a theatre every evening; from morning till night comes a succession of organ-grinders, playing interminably under your window; and a man with a bassoon and a monkey, who takes your pennies and pulls off his cap in acknowledgment; and wandering minstrels, with guitar and voice; and a highland bagpipe, squealing out a tangled skein of discord, together with a highland maid, who dances a hornpipe; and punch and judy,--in a word, we have specimens of all manner of vagrancy that infests england. in these long days, and long and pleasant ones, the promenade is at its liveliest about nine o'clock, which is but just after sundown; and our little r----- finds it difficult to go to sleep amid so much music as comes to her ears from bassoon, bagpipe, organ, guitar, and now and then a military band. one feature of the place is the sick and infirm people, whom we see dragged along in bath-chairs, or dragging their own limbs languidly; or sitting on benches; or meeting in the streets, and making acquaintance on the strength of mutual maladies,--pale men leaning on their ruddy wives; cripples, three or four together in a ring, and planting their crutches in the centre. i don't remember whether i have ever mentioned among the notabilities of southport the town crier,--a meek-looking old man, who sings out his messages in a most doleful tone, as if he took his title in a literal sense, and were really going to cry, or crying in the world's behalf; one other stroller, a foreigner with a dog, shaggy round the head and shoulders, and closely shaven behind. the poor little beast jumped through hoops, ran about on two legs of one side, danced on its hind legs, or on its fore paws, with its hind ones straight up in the air,--all the time keeping a watch on his master's eye, and evidently mindful of many a beating. june th.--the war-steamer niagara came up the mersey a few days since, and day before yesterday captain hudson called at my office,--a somewhat meagre, elderly gentleman, of simple and hearty manners and address, having his purser, mr. eldredge, with him, who, i think, rather prides himself upon having a napoleonic profile. the captain is an old acquaintance of mrs. blodgett, and has cone ashore principally with a view to calling on her; so, after we had left our cards for the mayor, i showed these naval gentlemen the way to her house. mrs. blodgett and miss w------ were prodigiously glad to see him and they all three began to talk of old times and old acquaintances; for when mrs. blodgett was a rich lady at gibraltar, she used to have the whole navy-list at her table,--young midshipmen and lieutenants then perhaps, but old, gouty, paralytic commodores now, if still even partly alive. it was arranged that mrs. blodgett, with as many of the ladies of her family as she chose to bring, should accompany me on my official visit to the ship the next day; and yesterday we went accordingly, mrs. blodgett, miss w------, and six or seven american captains' wives, their husbands following in another boat. i know too little of ships to describe one, or even to feel any great interest in the details of this or of any other ship; but the nautical people seemed to see much to admire. she lay in the sloyne, in the midst of a broad basin of the mersey, with a pleasant landscape of green england, now warm with summer sunshine, on either side, with churches and villa residences, and suburban and rural beauty. the officers of the ship are gentlemanly men, externally very well mannered, although not polished and refined to any considerable extent. at least, i have not found naval men so, in general; but still it is pleasant to see americans who are not stirred by such motives as usually interest our countrymen,--no hope nor desire of growing rich, but planting their claims to respectability on other grounds, and therefore acquiring a certain nobleness, whether it be inherent in their nature or no. it always seems to me they look down upon civilians with quiet and not ill-natured scorn, which one has the choice of smiling or being provoked at. it is not a true life which they lead, but shallow and aimless; and unsatisfactory it must be to the better minds among them; nor do they appear to profit by what would seem the advantages presented to them in their world-wide, though not world-deep experience. they get to be very clannish too. after seeing the ship, we landed, all of us, ladies and captain, and went to the gardens of the rock ferry hotel, where j----- and i stayed behind the rest. to scotland. june th.--on the th my wife, j-----, and i left southport, taking the train for preston, and as we had to stop an hour or two before starting for carlisle, i walked up into the town. the street through which most of my walk lay was brick-built, lively, bustling, and not particularly noteworthy; but, turning a little way down another street, the town had a more ancient aspect. the day was intensely hot, the sun lying bright and broad as ever i remember it in an american city; so that i was glad to get back again to the shade and shelter of the station. the heat and dust, moreover, made our journey to carlisle very uncomfortable. it was through very pretty, and sometimes picturesque scenery, being on the confines of the hill-country, which we could see on our left, dim and blue; and likewise we had a refreshing breath from the sea in passing along the verge of morecambe bay. we reached carlisle at about five o'clock, and, after taking tea at the bush hotel, set forth to look at the town. the notable objects were a castle and a cathedral; and we first found our way to the castle, which stands on elevated ground, on the side of the city towards scotland. a broad, well-constructed path winds round the castle at the base of the wall, on the verge of a steep descent to the plain beneath, through which winds the river eden. along this path we walked quite round the castle, a circuit of perhaps half a mile,-- pleasant, being shaded by the castle's height and by the foliage of trees. the walls have been so much rebuilt and restored that it is only here and there that we see an old buttress, or a few time-worn stones intermixed with the new facing with which the aged substance is overlaid. the material is red freestone, which seems to be very abundant in this part of the country. we found no entrance to the castle till the path had led us from the free and airy country into a very mean part of the town, where the wretched old houses thrust themselves between us and the castle wall, and then, passing through a narrow street, we walked up what appeared like a by-lane, and the portal of the castle was before us. there was a sentry-box just within the gate, and a sentinel was on guard, for carlisle castle is a national fortress, and has usually been a depot for arms and ammunition. the sergeant, or corporal of the guard, sat reading within the gateway, and, on my request for admittance, he civilly appointed one of the soldiers to conduct us to the castle. as i recollect, the chief gateway of the castle, with the guard-room in the thickness of the wall, is situated some twenty yards behind the first entrance where we met the sentinel. it was an intelligent young soldier who showed as round the castle, and very civil, as i always find soldiers to be. he had not anything particularly interesting to show, nor very much to say about it; and what be did say, so far as it referred to the history of the castle, was probably apocryphal. the castle has an inner and outer ward on the descent of the hill; and included within the circuit of the exterior wall. having been always occupied by soldiers, it has not been permitted to assume the picturesque aspect of a ruin, but the buildings of the interior have either been constantly repaired, as they required it, or have been taken down when past repair. we saw a small part of the tower where mary, queen of scots, was confined on her first coming to england; these remains consist only of a portion of a winding stone staircase, at which we glanced through a window. the keep is very large and massive, and, no doubt, old in its inner substance. we ascended to the castle walls, and looked out over the river towards the scottish hills, which are visible in the distance,--the scottish border being not more than eight or nine miles off. carlisle castle has stood many sieges, and witnessed many battles under its walls. there are now, on its ramparts, only some half a dozen old-fashioned guns, which our soldier told us had gone quite out of use in these days. they were long iron twelve-pounders, with one or two carronades. the soldier was of an artillery regiment, and wore the crimean medal. he said the garrison now here consists only of about twenty men, all of whom had served in the crimea, like himself. they seem to lead a very dull and monotonous life, as indeed it must be, without object or much hope, or any great employment of the present, like prisoners, as indeed they are. our guide showed us on the rampart a place where the soldiers had been accustomed to drop themselves down at night, hanging by their hands from the top of the wall, and alighting on their feet close beside the path on the outside. the height seemed at least that of an ordinary house, but the soldier said that nine times out of ten the fall might be ventured without harm; and he spoke from experience, having himself got out of the castle in this manner. the place is now boarded up, so as to make egress difficult or impossible. the castle, after all, was not particularly worth seeing. the soldier's most romantic story was of a daughter of lord scroope, a former governor of the castle, when mary of scotland was confined here. she attempted to assist the queen in escaping, but was shot dead in the gateway by the warder; and the soldier pointed out the very spot where the poor young lady fell and died;--all which would be very interesting were there a word of truth in the story. but we liked our guide for his intelligence, simplicity, and for the pleasure which he seemed to take, as an episode of his dull daily life, in talking to strangers. he observed that the castle walls were solid, and, indeed, there was breadth enough to drive a coach and four along the top; but the artillery of the crimea would have shelled them into ruins in a very few hours. when we got back to the guard-house, he took us inside, and showed the dismal and comfortless rooms where soldiers are confined for drunkenness, and other offences against military laws, telling us that he himself had been confined there, and almost perished with cold. i should not much wonder if he were to get into durance again, through misuse of the fee which i put into his hand at parting. the cathedral is at no great distance from the castle; and though the streets are mean and sordid in the vicinity, the close has the antique repose and shadowy peace, at once domestic and religious, which seem peculiar and universal in cathedral closes. the foundation of this cathedral church is very ancient, it having been the church portion of an old abbey, the refectory and other remains of which are still seen around the close. but the whole exterior of the building, except here and there a buttress, and one old patch of gray stones, seems to have been renewed within a very few years with red freestone; and, really, i think it is all the more beautiful for being new,--the ornamental parts being so sharply cut, and the stone, moreover, showing various shadings, which will disappear when it gets weatherworn. there is a very large and fine east window, of recent construction, wrought with delicate stone tracery. the door of the south transept stood open, though barred by an iron grate. we looked in, and saw a few monuments on the wall, but found nobody to give us admittance. the portal of this entrance is very lovely with wreaths of stone foliage and flowers round the arch, recently carved; yet not so recently but that the swallows have given their sanction to it, as if it were a thousand years old, and have built their nests in the deeply carved recesses. while we were looking, a little bird flew into the small opening between two of these petrified flowers, behind which was his nest, quite out of sight. after some attempts to find the verger, we went back to the hotel. . . . . in the morning my wife and j----- went back to see the interior of the cathedral, while i strayed at large about the town, again passing round the castle site, and thence round the city, where i found some inconsiderable portions of the wall which once girt it about. it was market-day in carlisle, and the principal streets were much thronged with human life and business on that account; and in as busy a street as any stands a marble statue, in robes of antique state, fitter for a niche in westminster abbey than for the thronged street of a town. it is a statue of the earl of lonsdale, lord lieutenant of cumberland, who died about twenty years ago. [here follows the record of the visits to the "haunts of burns," already published in our old home.--ed.] glasgow. july st.--immediately after our arrival yesterday, we went out and inquired our way to the cathedral, which we reached through a good deal of scotch dirt, and a rabble of scotch people of all sexes and ages. the women of scotland have a faculty of looking exceedingly ugly as they grow old. the cathedral i have already noticed in the record of my former visit to scotland. i did it no justice then, nor shall do it any better justice now; but it is a fine old church, although it makes a colder and severer impression than most of the gothic architecture which i have elsewhere seen. i do not know why this should be so; for portions of it are wonderfully rich, and everywhere there are arches opening beyond arches, and clustered pillars and groined roofs, and vistas, lengthening along the aisles. the person who shows it is an elderly man of jolly aspect and demeanor; he is enthusiastic about the edifice, and makes it the thought and object of his life; and being such a merry sort of man, always saying something mirthfully, and yet, in all his thoughts, words, and actions, having reference to this solemn cathedral, he has the effect of one of the corbels or gargoyles,--those ludicrous, strange sculptures which the gothic architects appended to their arches. the upper portion of the minster, though very stately and beautiful, is not nearly so extraordinary as the crypts. here the intricacy of the arches, and the profound system on which they are arranged, is inconceivable, even when you see them,--a whole company of arches uniting in one keystone; arches uniting to form a glorious canopy over the shrine or tomb of a prelate; arches opening through and beyond one another, whichever way you look,-- all amidst a shadowy gloom, yet not one detail wrought out the less beautifully and delicately because it could scarcely be seen. the wreaths of flowers that festoon one of the arches are cut in such relief that they do but just adhere to the stone on which they grow. the pillars are massive, and the arches very low, the effect being a twilight, which at first leads the spectator to imagine himself underground; but by and by i saw that the sunshine came in through the narrow windows, though it scarcely looked like sunshine then. for many years these crypts were used as burial-ground, and earth was brought in, for the purpose of making graves; so that the noble columns were half buried, and the beauty of the architecture quite lost and forgotten. now the dead men's bones and the earth that covered them have all been removed, leaving the original pavement of the crypt, or a new one in its stead, with only the old relics of saints, martyrs, and heroes underneath, where they have lain so long that they have become a part of the spot. . . . . i was quite chilled through, and the old verger regretted that we had not come during the late hot weather, when the everlasting damp and chill of the spot would have made us entirely comfortable. these crypts originated in the necessity of keeping the floor of the upper cathedral on one level, the edifice being built on a declivity, and the height of the crypt being measured by the descent of the site. after writing the above, we walked out and saw something of the newer portion of glasgow; and, really, i am inclined to think it the stateliest of cities. the exchange and other public buildings, and the shops in buchanan street, are very magnificent; the latter, especially, excelling those of london. there is, however, a pervading sternness and grimness resulting from the dark gray granite, which is the universal building-material both of the old and new edifices. later in the forenoon we again walked out, and went along argyle street, and through the trongate and the salt-market. the two latter were formerly the principal business streets, and together with high street, the abode of the rich merchants and other great people of the town. high street, and, still more, the salt-market, now swarm with the lower orders to a degree which i never witnessed elsewhere; so that it is difficult to make one's way among the sullen and unclean crowd, and not at all pleasant to breathe in the noisomeness of the atmosphere. the children seem to have been unwashed from birth. some of the gray houses appear to have once been stately and handsome, and have their high gable ends notched at the edges, like a flight of stairs. we saw the tron steeple, and the statue of king william iii., and searched for the old tolbooth. . . . . wandering up the high street, we turned once more into the quadrangle of the university, and mounted a broad stone staircase which ascends square, and with right-angular turns on one corner, on the outside of the edifices. it is very striking in appearance, being ornamented with a balustrade, on which are large globes of stone, and a great lion and unicorn curiously sculptured on the opposite side. while we waited here, staring about us, a man approached, and offered to show us the interior. he seemed to be in charge of the college buildings. we accepted his offer, and were led first up this stone staircase, and into a large and stately hall, panelled high towards the ceiling with dark oak, and adorned with elaborately carved cornices, and other wood-work. there was a long reading-table towards one end of the hall, on which were laid pamphlets and periodicals; and a venerable old gentleman, with white head and bowed shoulders, sat there reading a newspaper. this was the principal of the university, and as he looked towards us graciously, yet as if expecting some explanation of our entrance, i approached and apologized for intruding on the plea of our being strangers and anxious to see the college. he made a courteous response, though in exceedingly decayed and broken accents, being now eighty-six years old, and gave us free leave to inspect everything that was to be seen. this hall was erected two years after the restoration of charles ii., and has been the scene, doubtless, of many ceremonials and high banquetings since that period; and, among other illustrious personages, queen victoria has honored it with her presence. thence we went into several recitation or lecture rooms in various parts of the buildings; but they were all of an extreme plainness, very unlike the rich old gothic libraries and chapels and halls which we saw in oxford. indeed, the contrast between this scotch severity and that noble luxuriance, and antique majesty, and rich and sweet repose of oxford, is very remarkable, both within the edifices and without. but we saw one or two curious things,--for instance, a chair of mahogany, elaborately carved with the arms of scotland and other devices, and having a piece of the kingly stone of scone inlaid in its seat. this chair is used by the principal on certain high occasions, and we ourselves, of course, sat down in it. our guide assigned to it a date preposterously earlier than could have been the true one, judging either by the character of the carving or by the fact that mahogany has not been known or used much more than a century and a half. afterwards he led us into the divinity hall, where, he said, there were some old portraits of historic people, and among them an original picture of mary, queen of scots. there was, indeed, a row of old portraits at each end of the apartment,--for instance, zachariah boyd, who wrote the rhyming version of the bible, which is still kept, safe from any critical eye, in the library of the university to which he presented this, besides other more valuable benefactions,--for which they have placed his bust in a niche in the principal quadrangle; also, john knox makes one of the row of portraits; and a dozen or two more of scotch worthies, all very dark and dingy. as to the picture of mary of scotland, it proved to be not hers at all, but a picture of queen mary, the consort of william iii., whose portrait, together with that of her sister, queen anne, hangs in the same row. we told our guide this, but he seemed unwilling to accept it as a fact. there is a museum belonging to the university; but this, for some reason or other, could not be shown to us just at this time, and there was little else to show. we just looked at the gardens, but, though of large extent, they are so meagre and bare--so unlike that lovely shade of the oxford gardens--that we did not care to make further acquaintance with them. then we went back to our hotel, and if there were not already more than enough of description, both past and to come, i should describe george's square, on one side of which the hotel is situated. a tall column rises in the grassy centre of it, lifting far into the upper air a fine statue of sir walter scott, which we saw to great advantage last night, relieved against the sunset sky; and there are statues of sir john moore, a native of glasgow, and of james watt, at corners of the square. glasgow is certainly a noble city. after lunch we embarked on board the steamer, and came up the clyde. ben lomond, and other highland hills, soon appeared on the horizon; we passed douglas castle on a point of land projecting into the river; and, passing under the precipitous height of dumbarton castle, which we had long before seen, came to our voyage's end at this village, where we have put up at the elephant hotel. july d.--after tea, not far from seven o'clock, it being a beautiful decline of day, we set out to walk to dumbarton castle, which stands apart from the town, and is said to have been once surrounded by the waters of the clyde. the rocky height on which the castle stands is a very striking object, bulging up out of the clyde, with abrupt decision, to the elevation of five hundred feet. the summit is cloven in twain, the cleft reaching nearly to the bottom on the side towards the river, but not coming down so deeply on the landward side. it is precipitous all around; and wherever the steepness admits, or does not make assault impossible, there are gray ramparts round the hill, with cannon threatening the lower world. our path led its beneath one of these precipices several hundred feet sheer down, and with an ivied fragment of ruined wall at the top. a soldier who sat by the wayside told us that this was called the "lover's leap," because a young girl, in some love-exigency, had once jumped down from it, and came safely to the bottom. we reached the castle gate, which is near the shore of the clyde, and there found another artillery soldier, who guided us through the fortress. he said that there were now but about a dozen soldiers stationed in the castle, and no officer. the lowest battery looks towards the river, and consists of a few twelve-pound cannon; but probably the chief danger of attack was from the land, and the chief pains have been taken to render the castle defensible in that quarter. there are flights of stone stairs ascending up through the natural avenue, in the cleft of the double-summited rock; and about midway there is an arched doorway, beneath which there used to be a portcullis,--so that if an enemy had won the lower part of the fortress, the upper portion was still inaccessible. where the cleft of the rock widens into a gorge, there are several buildings, old, but not appertaining to the ancient castle, which has almost entirely disappeared. we ascended both summits, and, reaching the loftiest point on the right, stood upon the foundation of a tower that dates back to the fifth century, whence we had a glorious prospect of highlands and lowlands; the chief object being ben lomond, with its great dome, among a hundred other blue and misty hills, with the sun going down over them; and, in another direction, the clyde, winding far downward through the plain, with the headland of dumbeck close at hand, and douglas castle at no great distance. on the ramparts beneath us the soldier pointed out the spot where wallace scaled the wall, climbing an apparently inaccessible precipice, and taking the castle. the principal parts of the ancient castle appear to have been on the other and lower summit of the hill, and thither we now went, and traced the outline of its wall, although none of it is now remaining. here is the magazine, still containing some powder, and here is a battery of eighteen-pound guns, with pyramids of balls, all in readiness against an assault; which, however, hardly any turn of human affairs can hereafter bring about. the appearance of a fortress is kept up merely for ceremony's sake; and these cannon have grown antiquated. moreover, as the soldier told us, they are seldom or never fired, even for purposes of rejoicing or salute, because their thunder produces the singular effect of depriving the garrison of water. there is a large tank, and the concussion causes the rifts of the stone to open, and thus lets the water out. above this battery, and elsewhere about the fortress, there are warders' turrets of stone, resembling great pepper-boxes. when dr. johnson visited the castle, he introduced his bulky person into one of these narrow receptacles, and found it difficult to get out again. a gentleman who accompanied him was just stepping forward to offer his assistance, but boswell whispered him to take no notice, lest johnson should be offended; so they left him to get out as he could. he did finally extricate himself, else we might have seen his skeleton in the turret. boswell does not tell this story, which seems to have been handed down by local tradition. the less abrupt declivities of the rock are covered with grass, and afford food for a few sheep, who scamper about the heights, and seem to have attained the dexterity of goats in clambering. i never knew a purer air than this seems to be, nor a lovelier golden sunset. descending into the gorge again, we went into the armory, which is in one of the buildings occupying the space between the two hill-tops. it formerly contained a large collection of arms; but these have been removed to the tower of london, and there are now only some tattered banners, of which i do not know the history, and some festoons of pistols, and grenades, shells, and grape and canister shot, kept merely as curiosities; and, far more interesting than the above, a few battle-axes, daggers, and spear-heads from the field of bannockburn; and, more interesting still, the sword of william wallace. it is a formidable-looking weapon, made for being swayed with both hands, and, with its hilt on the floor, reached about to my chin; but the young girl who showed us the armory said that about nine inches had been broken off the point. the blade was not massive, but somewhat thin, compared with its great length; and i found that i could blandish it, using both hands, with perfect ease. it is two-edged, without any gaps, and is quite brown and lustreless with old rust, from point to hilt. these were all the memorables of our visit to dumbarton castle, which is a most interesting spot, and connected with a long series of historical events. it was first besieged by the danes, and had a prominent share in all the warfare of scotland, so long as the old warlike times and manners lasted. our soldier was very intelligent and courteous, but, as usual with these guides, was somewhat apocryphal in his narrative; telling us that mary, queen of scots, was confined here before being taken to england, and that the cells in which she then lived are still extant, under one of the ramparts. the fact is, she was brought here when a child of six years old, before going to france, and doubtless scrambled up and down these heights as freely and merrily as the sheep we saw. we now returned to our hotel, a very nice one, and found the street of dumbarton all alive in the summer evening with the sports of children and the gossip of grown people. there was almost no night, for at twelve o'clock there was still a golden daylight, and yesterday, before it died, must have met the morrow. in the lower part of the fortress there is a large sun-dial of stone, which was made by a french officer imprisoned here during the peninsular war. it still numbers faithfully the hours that are sunny, and it is a lasting memorial of him, in the stronghold of his enemies. inverannan. evening.--after breakfast at dumbarton, i went out to look at the town, which is of considerable size, and possesses both commerce and manufactures. there was a screw-steamship at the pier, and many sailor-looking people were seen about the streets. there are very few old houses, though still the town retains an air of antiquity which one does not well see how to account for, when everywhere there is a modern front, and all the characteristics of a street built to-day. turning from the main thoroughfare i crossed a bridge over the clyde, and gained from it the best view of the cloven crag of dumbarton castle that i had yet found. the two summits are wider apart, more fully relieved from each other, than when seen from other points; and the highest ascends into a perfect pyramid, the lower one being obtusely rounded. there seem to be iron-works, or some kind of manufactory, on the farther side of the bridge; and i noticed a quaint, chateau-like mansion, with hanging turrets standing apart from the street, probably built by some person enriched by business. we left dumbarton at noon, taking the rail to balloch, and the steamer to the head of loch lomond. wild mountain scenery is not very good to describe, nor do i think any distinct impressions are ever conveyed by such attempts; so i mean to be brief in what i saw about this part of our tour, especially as i suspect that i have said whatever i knew how to say in the record of my former visit to the highlands. as for loch lomond, it lies amidst very striking scenery, being poured in among the gorges of steep and lofty mountains, which nowhere stand aside to give it room, but, on the contrary, do their best to shut it in. it is everywhere narrow, compared with its length of thirty miles; but it is the beauty of a lake to be of no greater width than to allow of the scenery of one of its shores being perfectly enjoyed from the other. the scenery of the highlands, so far as i have seen it, cannot properly be called rich, but stern and impressive, with very hard outlines, which are unsoftened, mostly, by any foliage, though at this season they are green to their summits. they have hardly flesh enough to cover their bones,--hardly earth enough to lie over their rocky substance,--as may be seen by the minute variety,--the notched and jagged appearance of the profile of their sides and tops; this being caused by the scarcely covered rocks wherewith these great hills are heaped together. our little steamer stopped at half a dozen places on its voyage up the lake, most of them being stations where hotels have been established. morally, the highlands must have been more completely sophisticated by the invention of railways and steamboats than almost any other part of the world; but physically it can have wrought no great change. these mountains, in their general aspect, must be very much the same as they were thousands of years ago; for their sides never were capable of cultivation, nor even with such a soil and so bleak an atmosphere could they have been much more richly wooded than we see them now. they seem to me to be among the unchangeable things of nature, like the sea and sky; but there is no saying what use human ingenuity may hereafter put them to. at all events, i have no doubt in the world that they will go out of fashion in due time; for the taste for mountains and wild scenery is, with most people, an acquired taste, and it was easy to see to-day that nine people in ten care nothing about them. one group of gentlemen and ladies--at least, men and women--spent the whole time in listening to a trial for murder, which was read aloud by one of their number from a newspaper. i rather imagine that a taste for trim gardens is the most natural and universal taste as regards landscape. but perhaps it is necessary for the health of the human mind and heart that there should be a possibility of taking refuge in what is wild and uncontaminated by any meddling of man's hand, and so it has been ordained that science shall never alter the aspect of the sky, whether stern, angry, or beneficent,-- nor of the awful sea, either in calm or tempest,--nor of these rude highlands. but they will go out of general fashion, as i have said, and perhaps the next fashionable taste will be for cloud land,--that is, looking skyward, and observing the wonderful variety of scenery, that now constantly passes unnoticed, among the clouds. at the head of the lake, we found that there was only a horse-cart to convey our luggage to the hotel at inverannan, and that we ourselves must walk, the distance being two miles. it had sprinkled occasionally during our voyage, but was now sunshiny, and not excessively warm; so we set forth contentedly enough, and had an agreeable walk along an almost perfectly level road; for it is one of the beauties of these hills, that they descend abruptly down, instead of undulating away forever. there were lofty heights on each side of us, but not so lofty as to have won a distinctive name; and adown their sides we could see the rocky pathways of cascades, which, at this season, are either quite dry, or mere trickles of a rill. the hills and valleys abound in streams, sparkling through pebbly beds, and forming here and there a dark pool; and they would be populous with trout if all england, with one fell purpose, did not come hither to fish them. a fisherman must find it difficult to gratify his propensities in these days; for even the lakes and streams in norway are now preserved. j-----, by the way, threatens ominously to be a fisherman. he rode the latter portion of the way to the hotel on the luggage-cart; and when we arrived, we found that he had already gone off to catch fish, or to attempt it (for there is as much chance of his catching a whale as a trout), in a mountain stream near the house. i went in search of him, but without success, and was somewhat startled at the depth and blackness of some of the pools into which the stream settled itself and slept. finally, he came in while we were at dinner. we afterwards walked out with him, to let him play at fishing again, and discovered on the bank of the stream a wonderful oak, with as many as a dozen holes springing either from close to the ground or within a foot or two of it, and looking like twelve separate trees, at least, instead of one. inversnaid. july d.--last night seemed to close in clear, and even at midnight it was still light enough to read; but this morning rose on us misty and chill, with spattering showers of rain. clouds momentarily settled and shifted on the hill-tops, shutting us in even more completely than these steep and rugged green walls would be sure to do, even in the clearest weather. often these clouds came down and enveloped us in a drizzle, or rather a shower, of such minute drops that they had not weight enough to fall. this, i suppose, was a genuine scotch mist; and as such it is well enough to have experienced it, though i would willingly never see it again. such being the state of the weather, my wife did not go out at all, but i strolled about the premises, in the intervals of rain-drops, gazing up at the hillsides, and recognizing that there is a vast variety of shape, of light and shadow, and incidental circumstance, even in what looks so monotonous at first as the green slope of a hill. the little rills that come down from the summits were rather more distinguishable than yesterday, having been refreshed by the night's rain; but still they were very much out of proportion with the wide pathways of bare rock adown which they ran. these little rivulets, no doubt, often lead through the wildest scenery that is to be found in the highlands, or anywhere else, and to the formation and wildness of which they have greatly contributed by sawing away for countless ages, and thus deepening the ravines. i suspect the american clouds are more picturesque than those of great britain, whatever our mountains may be; at least, i remember the berkshire hills looking grander, under the influence of mist and cloud, than the highlands did to-day. our clouds seem to be denser and heavier, and more decided, and form greater contrasts of light and shade. i have remarked in england that the cloudy firmament, even on a day of settled rain, always appears thinner than those i had been accustomed to at home, so as to deceive me with constant expectations of better weather. it has been the same to-day. whenever i looked upward, i thought it might be going to clear up; but, instead of that, it began to rain more in earnest after midday, and at half past two we left inverannan in a smart shower. at the head of the lake, we took the steamer, with the rain pouring more heavily than ever, and landed at inversnaid under the same dismal auspices. we left a very good hotel behind us, and have come to another that seems also good. we are more picturesquely situated at this spot than at inverannan, our hotel being within a short distance of the lake shore, with a glen just across the water, which will doubtless be worth looking at when the mist permits us to see it. a good many tourists were standing about the door when we arrived, and looked at us with the curiosity of idle and weather-bound people. the lake is here narrow, but a hundred fathoms deep; so that a great part of the height of the mountains which beset it round is hidden beneath its surface. july th.--this morning opened still misty, but with a more hopeful promise than yesterday, and when i went out, after breakfast, there were gleams of sunshine here and there on the hillsides, falling, one did not exactly see how, through the volumes of cloud. close beside the hotel of inversnaid is the waterfall; all night, my room being on that side of the house, i had heard its voice, and now i ascended beside it to a point where it is crossed by a wooden bridge. there is thence a view, upward and downward, of the most striking descents of the river, as i believe they call it, though it is but a mountain-stream, which tumbles down an irregular and broken staircase in its headlong haste to reach the lake. it is very picturesque, however, with its ribbons of white foam over the precipitous steps, and its deep black pools, overhung by black rocks, which reverberate the rumble of the falling water. j----- and i ascended a little distance along the cascade, and then turned aside; he going up the hill, and i taking a path along its side which gave me a view across the lake. i rather think this particular stretch of loch lomond, in front of inversnaid, is the most beautiful lake and mountain view that i have ever seen. it is so shut in that you can see nothing beyond, nor would suspect anything more to exist than this watery vale among the hills; except that, directly opposite, there is the beautiful glen of invernglass, which winds away among the feet of ben crook, ben ein, ben vain, and ben voirlich, standing mist-inwreathed together. the mists, this morning, had a very soft and beautiful effect, and made the mountains tenderer than i have hitherto felt them to be; and they lingered about their heads like morning-dreams, flitting and retiring, and letting the sunshine in, and snatching it away again. my wife came up, and we enjoyed it together, till the steamer came smoking its pipe along the loch, stopped to land some passengers, and steamed away again. while we stood there, a highlander passed by us, with a very dark tartan, and bare shanks, most enormously calved. i presume he wears the dress for the sole purpose of displaying those stalwart legs; for he proves to be no genuine gael, but a manufacturer, who has a shooting-box, or a share in one, on the hill above the hotel. we now engaged a boat, and were rowed to rob roy's cave, which is perhaps half a mile distant up the lake. the shores look much more striking from a rowboat, creeping along near the margin, than from a steamer in the middle of the loch; and the ridge, beneath which rob's cave lies, is precipitous with gray rocks, and clothed, too, with thick foliage. over the cave itself there is a huge ledge of rock, from which immense fragments have tumbled down, ages and ages ago, and fallen together in such a way as to leave a large irregular crevice in rob roy's cave. we scrambled up to its mouth by some natural stairs, and scrambled down into its depths by the aid of a ladder. i suppose i have already described this hole in the record of my former visit. certainly, rob roy, and robert bruce, who is said to have inhabited it before him, were not to be envied their accommodations; yet these were not so very intolerable when compared with a highland cabin, or with cottages such as burns lived in. j----- had chosen to remain to fish. on our return from the cave, we found that he had caught nothing; but just as we stepped into the boat, a fish drew his float far under water, and j------ tugging at one end of the line, and the fish at the other, the latter escaped, with the hook in his month. j------ avers that he saw the fish, and gives its measurement as about eighteen inches; but the fishes that escape us are always of tremendous size. the boatman thought, however, that it might have been a pike. the trosachs' hotel.--ardcheanochrochan. july th.--not being able to get a post-chaise, we took places in the omnibus for the bead of loch katrine. going up to pay a parting visit to the waterfall before starting, i met with miss c------, as she lately was, who is now on her wedding tour as mrs. b------. she was painting the falls in oil, with good prospect of a successful picture. she came down to the hotel to see my wife, and soon afterwards j----- and i set out to ascend the steep hill that comes down upon the lake of inversnaid, leaving the omnibus to follow at leisure. the highlander who took us to rob roy's cave had foreboded rain, from the way in which the white clouds hung about the mountain-tops; nor was his augury at fault, for just at three o'clock, the time he foretold, there were a few rain-drops, and a more defined shower during the afternoon, while we were on loch katrine. the few drops, however, did not disturb us; and, reaching the top of the hill, j----- and i turned aside to examine the old stone fortress which was erected in this mountain pass to bridle the highlanders after the rebellion of . it stands in a very desolate and dismal situation, at the foot of long bare slopes, on mossy ground, in the midst of a disheartening loneliness, only picturesque because it is so exceedingly ungenial and unlovely. the chief interest of this spot in the fact that wolfe, in his earlier military career, was stationed here. the fortress was a very plain structure, built of rough stones, in the form of a parallelogram, one side of which i paced, and found it between thirty and forty of my paces long. the two ends have fallen down; the two sides that remain are about twenty feet high, and have little port-holes for defence, but no openings of the size of windows. the roof is gone, and the interior space overgrown with grass. two little girls were at play in one corner, and, going round to the rear of the ruin, i saw that a small highland cabin had been built against the wall. a dog sat in the doorway, and gave notice of my approach, and some hens kept up their peculiarly domestic converse about the door. we kept on our way, often looking back towards loch lomond, and wondering at the grandeur which ben vain and ben voirlich, and the rest of the ben fraternity, had suddenly put on. the mists which had hung about them all day had now descended lower, and lay among the depths and gorges of the hills, where also the sun shone softly down among them, and filled those deep mountain laps, as it were, with a dimmer sunshine. ben vain, too, and his brethren, had a veil of mist all about them, which seemed to render them really transparent; and they had unaccountably grown higher, vastly higher, than when we viewed them from the shore of the lake. it was as if we were looking at them through the medium of a poet's imagination. all along the road, since we left inversnaid, there had been the stream, which there formed the waterfall, and which here was brawling down little declivities, and sleeping in black pools, which we disturbed by flinging stones into them from the roadside. we passed a drunken old gentleman, who civilly bade me "good day"; and a man and woman at work in a field, the former of whom shouted to inquire the hour; and we had come in sight of little loch arklet before the omnibus came up with us. it was about five o'clock when we reached the head of loch katrine, and went on board the steamer rob roy; and, setting forth on our voyage, a highland piper made music for us the better part of the way. we did not see loch katrine, perhaps, under its best presentment; for the surface was roughened with a little wind, and darkened even to inky blackness by the clouds that overhung it. the hill-tops, too, wore a very dark frown. a lake of this size cannot be terrific, and is therefore seen to best advantage when it is beautiful. the scenery of its shores is not altogether so rich and lovely as i had preimagined; not equal, indeed, to the best parts of loch lomond,--the hills being lower and of a more ridgy shape, and exceedingly bare, at least towards the lower end. but they turn the lake aside with headland after headland, and shut it in closely, and open one vista after another, so that the eye is never weary, and, least of all, as we approach the end. the length of the loch is ten miles, and at its termination it meets the pass of the trosachs, between ben an and ben venue, which are the rudest and shaggiest of hills. the steamer passes ellen's isle, but to the right, which is the side opposite to that on which fitz-james must be supposed to have approached it. it is a very small island, situated where the loch narrows, and is perhaps less than a quarter of a mile distant from either shore. it looks like a lump of rock, with just soil enough to support a crowd of dwarf oaks, birches, and firs, which do not grow so high as to be shadowy trees. our voyage being over, we landed, and found two omnibuses, one of which took us through the famous pass of the trosachs, a distance of a mile and a quarter, to a hotel, erected in castellated guise by lord willoughby d'eresby. we were put into a parlor within one of the round towers, panelled all round, and with four narrow windows, opening through deep embrasures. no play-castle was ever more like the reality, and it is a very good hotel, like all that we have had experience of in the highlands. after tea we walked out, and visited a little kirk that stands near the shore of loch achray, at a good point of view for seeing the hills round about. this morning opened cloudily; but after breakfast i set out alone, and walked through the pass of the trosachs, and thence by a path along the right shore of the lake. it is a very picturesque and beautiful path, following the windings of the lake,--now along the beach, now over an impending bank, until it comes opposite to ellen's isle, which on this side looks more worthy to be the island of the poem than as we first saw it. its shore is craggy and precipitous, but there was a point where it seemed possible to land, nor was it too much to fancy that there might be a rustic habitation among the shrubbery of this rugged spot. it is foolish to look into these matters too strictly. scott evidently used as much freedom with his natural scenery as he did with his historic incidents; and he could have made nothing of either one or the other if he had been more scrupulous in his arrangement and adornment of them. in his description of the trosachs, he has produced something very beautiful, and as true as possible, though certainly its beauty has a little of the scene-painter's gloss on it. nature is better, no doubt, but nature cannot be exactly reproduced on canvas or in print; and the artist's only resource is to substitute something that may stand instead of and suggest the truth. the path still kept onward, after passing ellen's isle, and i followed it, finding it wilder, more shadowy with overhanging foliage of trees, old and young,--more like a mountain-path in berkshire or new hampshire, yet still with an old world restraint and cultivation about it,--the farther i went. at last i came upon some bars, and though the track was still seen beyond, i took this as a hint to stop, especially as i was now two or three miles from the hotel, and it just then began to rain. my umbrella was a poor one at best, and had been tattered and turned inside out, a day or two ago, by a gust on loch lomond; but i spread it to the shower, and, furthermore, took shelter under the thickest umbrage i could find. the rain came straight down, and bubbled in the loch; the little rills gathered force, and plashed merrily over the stones; the leaves of the trees condensed the shower into large drops, and shed them down upon me where i stood. still i was comfortable enough in a thick skye tweed, and waited patiently till the rain abated; then took my way homeward, and admired the pass of the trosachs more than when i first traversed it. if it has a fault, it is one that few scenes in great britain share with it,--that is, the trees and shrubbery, with which the precipices are shagged, conceal them a little too much. a crag, streaked with black and white, here and there shows its head aloft, or its whole height from base to summit, and suggests that more of such sublimity is bidden than revealed. i think, however, that it is this unusual shagginess which made the scene a favorite with scott, and with the people on this side of the ocean generally. there are many scenes as good in america, needing only the poet. july th.--we dined yesterday at the table d'hote, at the suggestion of the butler, in order to give less trouble to the servants of the hotel, and afford them an opportunity to go to kirk. the dining-room is in accordance with the rest of the architecture and fittings up of the house, and is a very good reproduction of an old baronial hall, with high panellings and a roof of dark, polished wood. there were about twenty guests at table; and if they and the waiters had been dressed in mediaeval costume, we might have imagined ourselves banqueting in the middle ages. after dinner we all took a walk through the trosachs' pass again, and by the right-hand path along the lake as far as ellen's isle. it was very pleasant, there being gleams of calm evening sunshine gilding the mountain-sides, and putting a golden crown occasionally on the tread of ben venue. it is wonderful how many aspects a mountain has,--how many mountains there are in every single mountain!---how they vary too, in apparent attitude and bulk. when we reached the lake its surface was almost unruffled, except by now and then the narrow pathway of a breeze, as if the wing of an unseen spirit had just grazed it in flitting across. the scene was very beautiful, and, on the whole, i do not know that walter scott has overcharged his description, although he has symbolized the reality by types and images which it might not precisely suggest to other minds. we were reluctant to quit the spot, and cherish still a hope of seeing it again, though the hope does not seem very likely to be gratified. this was a lowering and sullen morning, but soon after breakfast i took a walk in the opposite direction to loch katrine, and reached the brig of turk, a little beyond which is the new trosachs' hotel, and the little rude village of duncraggan, consisting of a few hovels of stone, at the foot of a bleak and dreary hill. to the left, stretching up between this and other hills, is the valley of glenfinlas,--a very awful region in scott's poetry and in highland tradition, as the haunt of spirits and enchantments. it presented a very desolate prospect. the walk back to the trosachs showed me ben venue and ben an under new aspects,--the bare summit of the latter rising in a perfect pyramid, whereas from other points of view it looks like quite a different mountain. sometimes a gleam of sunshine came out upon the rugged side of ben venue, but his prevailing mood, like that of the rest of the landscape, was stern and gloomy. i wish i could give an idea of the variety of surface upon one of these hillsides,--so bulging out and hollowed in, so bare where the rock breaks through, so shaggy in other places with heath, and then, perhaps, a thick umbrage of birch, oak, and ash ascending from the base high upward. when i think i have described them, i remember quite a different aspect, and find it equally true, and yet lacking something to make it the whole or an adequate truth. j----- had gone with me part of the way, but stopped to fish with a pin-hook in loch achray, which bordered along our path. when i returned, i found him much elated at having caught a fish, which, however, had got away, carrying his pin-hook along with it. then he had amused himself with taking some lizards by the tail, and had collected several in a small hollow of the rocks. we now walked home together, and at half past three we took our seats in a genuine old-fashioned stage-coach, of which there are few specimens now to be met with. the coachman was smartly dressed in the queen's scarlet, and was a very pleasant and affable personage, conducting himself towards the passengers with courteous authority. inside we were four, including j-----, but on the top there were at least a dozen, and i would willingly have been there too, but had taken an inside seat, under apprehension of rain, and was not allowed to change it. our drive was not marked by much describable incident. on changing horses at callender, we alighted, and saw ben ledi behind us, making a picturesque background to the little town, which seems to be the meeting-point of the highlands and lowlands. we again changed horses at doune, an old town, which would doubtless have been well worth seeing, had time permitted. thence we kept on till the coach drew up at a spacious hotel, where we alighted, fancying that we had reached stirling, which was to have been our journey's end; but, after fairly establishing ourselves, we found that it was the brig of allan. the place is three miles short of stirling. nevertheless, we did not much regret the mistake, finding that the brig of allan is the principal spa of scotland, and a very pleasant spot, to all outward appearance. after tea we walked out, both up and down the village street, and across the bridge, and up a gentle eminence beyond it, whence we had a fine view of a glorious plain, out of which rose several insulated headlands. one of these was the height on which stands stirling castle, and which reclines on the plain like a hound or a lion or a sphinx, holding the castle on the highest part, where its head should be. a mile or two distant from this picturesque hill rises another, still more striking, called the abbey craig, on which is a ruin, and where is to be built the monument to william wallace. i cannot conceive a nobler or more fitting pedestal. the sullenness of the day had vanished, the air was cool but invigorating, and the cloud scenery was as fine as that below it. . . . . though it was nearly ten o'clock, the boys of the village were in full shout and play, for these long and late summer evenings keep the children out of bed interminably. stirling. july th.--we bestirred ourselves early this morning, . . . . and took the rail for stirling before eight. it is but a few minutes' ride, so that doubtless we were earlier on the field than if we had slept at stirling. after our arrival our first call was at the post-office, where i found a large package containing letters from america, but none from u----. we then went to a bookseller's shop, and bought some views of stirling and the neighborhood; and it is surprising what a quantity and variety of engravings there are of every noted place that we have visited. you seldom find two sets alike. it is rather nauseating to find that what you came to see has already been looked at in all its lights, over and over again, with thousand-fold repetition; and, beyond question, its depictment in words has been attempted still oftener than with the pencil. it will be worth while to go back to america, were it only for the chance of finding a still virgin scene. we climbed the steep slope of the castle hill, sometimes passing an antique-looking house, with a high, notched gable, perhaps with an ornamented front, until we came to the sculptures and battlemented wall, with an archway, that stands just below the castle. . . . . a shabby-looking man now accosted us, and could hardly be shaken off. i have met with several such boors in my experience of sight-seeing. he kept along with us, in spite of all hints to the contrary, and insisted on pointing out objects of interest. he showed us a house in broad street, below the castle and cathedral, which he said had once been inhabited by henry darnley, queen mary's husband. there was little or nothing peculiar in its appearance; a large, gray, gabled house standing lengthwise to the street, with three windows in the roof, and connected with other houses on each side. almost directly across the street, he pointed to an archway, through the side of a house, and, peeping through it, we found a soldier on guard in a court-yard, the sides of which were occupied by an old mansion of the argyle family, having towers at the corners, with conical tops, like those reproduced in the hotel at the trosachs. it is now occupied as a military hospital. shaking off our self-inflicted guide, we now made our way to the castle parade, and to the gateway, where a soldier with a tremendously red nose and two medals at once took charge of us. beyond all doubt, i have written quite as good a description of the castle and carse of stirling in a former portion of my journal as i can now write. we passed through the outer rampart of queen anne; through the old round gate-tower of an earlier day, and beneath the vacant arch where the portcullis used to fall, thus reaching the inner region, where stands the old palace on one side, and the old parliament house on the other. the former looks aged, ragged, and rusty, but makes a good appearance enough pictorially, being adorned all round about with statues, which may have been white marble once, but are as gray as weather-beaten granite now, and look down from between the windows above the basement story. a photograph would give the idea of very rich antiquity, but as it really stands, looking on a gravelled court-yard, and with "canteen" painted on one of its doors, the spectator does not find it very impressive. the great hall of this palace is now partitioned off into two or three rooms, and the whole edifice is arranged to serve as barracks. of course, no trace of ancient magnificence, if anywise destructible, can be left in the interior. we were not shown into this palace, nor into the parliament house, nor into the tower, where king james stabbed the earl of douglas. when i was here a year ago, i went up the old staircase and into the room where the murder was committed, although it had recently been the scene of a fire, which consumed as much of it as was inflammable. the window whence the earl's body was thrown then remained; but now the whole tower seems to have been renewed, leaving only the mullions of the historic window. we merely looked up at the new, light-colored freestone of the restored tower in passing, and ascended to the ramparts, where we found one of the most splendid views, morally and materially, that this world can show. indeed, i think there cannot be such a landscape as the carse of stirling, set in such a frame as it is,--the highlands, comprehending our friends, ben lomond, ben venue, ben an, and the whole ben brotherhood, with the grampians surrounding it to the westward and northward, and in other directions some range of prominent objects to shut it in; and the plain itself, so worthy of the richest setting, so fertile, so beautiful, so written over and over again with histories. the silver links of forth are as sweet and gently picturesque an object as a man sees in a lifetime. i do not wonder that providence caused great things to happen on this plain; it was like choosing a good piece of canvas to paint a great picture upon. the battle of bannockburn (which we saw beneath us, with the gillie's hill on the right) could not have been fought upon a meaner plain, nor wallace's victory gained; and if any other great historic act still remains to be done in this country, i should imagine the carse of stirling to be the future scene of it. scott seems to me hardly to have done justice--to this landscape, or to have bestowed pains enough to put it in strong relief before the world; although it is from the light shed on it, and so much other scottish scenery, by his mind, that we chiefly see it, and take an interest in it. . . . . i do not remember seeing the hill of execution before,--a mound on the same level as the castle's base, looking towards the highlands. a solitary cow was now feeding upon it. i should imagine that no person could ever have been unjustly executed there; the spot is too much in the sight of heaven and earth to countenance injustice. descending from the ramparts, we went into the armory, which i did not see on my former visit. the superintendent of this department is an old soldier of very great intelligence and vast communicativeness, and quite absorbed in thinking of and handling weapons; for he is a practical armorer. he had few things to show us that were very interesting,--a helmet or two, a bomb and grenade from the crimea; also some muskets from the same quarter, one of which, with a sword at the end, he spoke of admiringly, as the best weapon in the collection, its only fault being its extreme weight. he showed us, too, some minie rifles, and whole ranges of the old-fashioned brown bess, which had helped to win wellington's victories; also the halberts of sergeants now laid aside, and some swords that had been used at the battle of sheriffmuir. these latter were very short, not reaching to the floor, when i held one of them, point downward, in my hand. the shortness of the blade and consequent closeness of the encounter must have given the weapon a most dagger-like murderousness. ranging in the hall of arms, there were two tattered banners that had gone through the peninsular battles, one of them belonging to the gallant d regiment. the armorer gave my wife a rag from each of these banners, consecrated by so much battle-smoke; also a piece of old oak, half burned to charcoal, which had been rescued from the panelling of the douglas tower. we saw better things, moreover, than all these rusty weapons and ragged flags; namely, the pulpit and communion-table of john knox. the frame of the former, if i remember aright, is complete; but one or two of the panels are knocked out and lost, and, on the whole, it looks as if it had been shaken to pieces by the thunder of his holdings forth,--much worm-eaten, too, is the old oak wood, as well it may be, for the letters md ( ) are carved on its front. the communion-table is polished, and in much better preservation. then the armorer showed us a damascus blade, of the kind that will cut a delicate silk handkerchief while floating in the air; and some inlaid matchlock guns. a child's little toy-gun was lying on a workbench among all this array of weapons; and when i took it up and smiled, he said that it was his son's. so he called in a little fellow four years old, who was playing in the castle yard, and made him go through the musket exercise, which he did with great good-will. this small son of a gun, the father assured us, cares for nothing but arms, and has attained all his skill with the musket merely by looking at the soldiers on parade. . . . . our soldier, who had resigned the care of us to the armorer, met us again at the door, and led us round the remainder of the ramparts, dismissing us finally at the gate by which we entered. all the time we were in the castle there had been a great discordance of drums and fifes, caused by the musicians who were practising just under the walls; likewise the sergeants were drilling their squads of men, and putting them through strange gymnastic motions. most, if not all, of the garrison belongs to a highland regiment, and those whom we saw on duty, in full costume, looked very martial and gallant. emerging from the castle, we took the broad and pleasant footpath, which circles it about midway on the grassy steep which descends from the rocky precipice on which the walls are built. this is a very beautiful walk, and affords a most striking view of the castle, right above our heads, the height of its wall forming one line with the precipice. the grassy hillside is almost as precipitous as the dark gray rock that rises out of it, to form the foundations of the castle; but wild rose-bushes, both of a white and red variety, are abundant here, and all in bloom; nor are these the only flowers. there is also shrubbery in some spots, tossing up green waves against the precipice; and broad sheets of ivy here and there mantle the headlong rock, which also has a growth of weeds in its crevices. the castle walls above, however, are quite bare of any such growth. thus, looking up at the old storied fortress, and looking down over the wide, historic plain, we wandered half-way round the castle, and then, retracing our steps, entered the town close by an old hospital. a hospital it was, or had been intended for; but the authorities of the town had made some convenient arrangement with those entitled to its charity, and had appropriated the ancient edifice to themselves. so said a boy who showed us into the guildhall,--an apartment with a vaulted oaken roof, and otherwise of antique aspect and furniture; all of which, however, were modern restorations. we then went into an old church or cathedral, which was divided into two parts; one of them, in which i saw the royal arms, being probably for the church-of-england service, and the other for the kirk of scotland. i remember little or nothing of this edifice, except that the covenanters had uplifted it with pews and a gallery, and whitewash; though i doubt not it was a stately gothic church, with innumerable enrichments and incrustations of beauty, when it passed from popish hands into theirs. thence we wandered downward, through a back street, amid very shabby houses, some of which bore tokens of having once been the abodes of courtly and noble personages. we paused before one that displayed, i think, the sign of a spirit-retailer, and looked as disreputable as a house could, yet was built of stalwart stone, and had two circular towers in front, once, doubtless, crowned with conical tops. we asked an elderly man whether he knew anything of the history of this house; and he said that he had been acquainted with it for almost fifty years, but never knew anything noteworthy about it. reaching the foot of the hill, along whose back the streets of stirling run, and which blooms out into the castle craig, we returned to the railway, and at noon took leave of stirling. i forgot to tell of the things that awakened rather more sympathy in us than any other objects in the castle armory. these were some rude weapons--pikes, very roughly made; and old rusty muskets, broken and otherwise out of order; and swords, by no means with damascus blades-- that had been taken from some poor weavers and other handicraft men who rose against the government in . i pitied the poor fellows much, seeing how wretched were their means of standing up against the cannon, bayonets, swords, shot, shell, and all manner of murderous facilities possessed by their oppressors. afterwards, our guide showed, in a gloomy quadrangle of the castle, the low windows of the dungeons where two of the leaders of the insurrectionists had been confined before their execution. i have not the least shadow of doubt that these men had a good cause to fight for; but what availed it with such weapons! and so few even of those! . . . . i believe i cannot go on to recount any further this evening the experiences of to-day. it has been a very rich day; only that i have seen more than my sluggish powers of reception can well take in at once. after quitting stirling, we came in somewhat less than an hour to linlithgow, and, alighting, took up our quarters at the star and garter hotel, which, like almost all the scottish caravan-saries of which we have had experience, turns out a comfortable one. . . . . we stayed within doors for an hour or two, and i busied myself with writing up my journal. at about three, however, the sky brightened a little, and we set forth through the ancient, rusty, and queer-looking town of linlithgow, towards the palace and the ancient church, which latter was one of st. david's edifices, and both of which stand close together, a little removed from the long street of the village. but i can never describe them worthily, and shall make nothing of the description if i attempt it now. july th.--at about three o'clock yesterday, as i said, we walked forth through the ancient street of linlithgow, and, coming to the market-place, stopped to look at an elaborate and heavy stone fountain, which we found by an inscription to be the fac-simile of an old one that used to stand on the same site. turning to the right, the outer entrance to the palace fronts on this market-place, if such it be; and close to it, a little on one side, is the church. a young woman, with a key in her hand, offered to admit us into the latter; so we went in, and found it divided by a wall across the middle into two parts. the hither portion, being the nave, was whitewashed, and looked as bare and uninteresting as an old gothic church of st. david's epoch possibly could do. the interior portion, being the former choir, is covered with pews over the whole floor, and further defaced by galleries, that unmercifully cut midway across the stately and beautiful arches. it is likewise whitewashed. there were, i believe, some mural monuments of bailies and other such people stuck up about the walls, but nothing that much interested me, except an ancient oaken chair, which the girl said was the chair of st. crispin, and it was fastened to the wall, in the holiest part of the church. i know not why it was there; but as it had been the chair of so distinguished a personage, we all sat down in it. it was in this church that the apparition of st. james appeared to king james iv., to warn him against engaging in that war which resulted in the battle of flodden, where he and the flower of his nobility were slain. the young woman showed us the spot where the apparition spake to him,--a side chapel, with a groined roof, at the end of the choir next the nave. the covenanters seem to have shown some respect to this one chapel, by refraining from drawing the gallery across its height; so that, except for the whitewash, and the loss of the painted glass in the window, and probably of a good deal of rich architectural detail, it looks as it did when the ghostly saint entered beneath its arch, while the king was kneeling there. we stayed but a little while in the church, and then proceeded to the palace, which, as i said, is close at hand. on entering the outer enclosure through an ancient gateway, we were surprised to find how entire the walls seemed to be; but the reason is, i suppose, that the ruins have not been used as a stone-quarry, as has almost always been the case with old abbeys and castles. the palace took fire and was consumed, so far as consumable, in , while occupied by the soldiers of general hawley; but even yet the walls appear so stalwart that i should imagine it quite possible to rebuild and restore the stately rooms on their original plan. it was a noble palace, one hundred and seventy-five feet in length by one hundred and sixty-five in breadth, and though destitute of much architectural beauty externally, yet its aspect from the quadrangle which the four sides enclose is venerable and sadly beautiful. at each of the interior angles there is a circular tower, up the whole height of the edifice and overtopping it, and another in the centre of one of the sides, all containing winding staircases. the walls facing upon the enclosed quadrangle are pierced with many windows, and have been ornamented with sculpture, rich traces of which still remain over the arched entrance-ways; and in the grassy centre of the court there is the ruin and broken fragments of a fountain, which once used to play for the delight of the king and queen, and lords and ladies, who looked down upon it from hall and chamber. many old carvings that belonged to it are heaped together there; but the water has disappeared, though, had it been a natural spring, it would have outlasted all the heavy stone-work. as far as we were able, and could find our way, we went through every room of the palace, all round the four sides. from the first floor upwards it is entirely roofless. in some of the chambers there is an accumulation of soil, and a goodly crop of grass; in others there is still a flooring of flags or brick tiles, though damp and moss-grown, and with weeds sprouting between the crevices. grass and weeds, indeed, have found soil enough to flourish in, even on the highest ranges of the walls, though at a dizzy height above the ground; and it was like an old and trite touch of romance, to see how the weeds sprouted on the many hearth-stones and aspired under the chimney-flues, as if in emulation of the long-extinguished flame. it was very mournful, very beautiful, very delightful, too, to see how nature takes back the palace, now that kings have done with it, and adopts it as a part of her great garden. on one side of the quadrangle we found the roofless chamber where mary, queen of scots, was born, and in the same range the bedchamber that was occupied by several of the scottish jameses; and in one corner of the latter apartment there is a narrow, winding staircase, down which i groped, expecting to find a door, either into the enclosed quadrangle or to the outside of the palace. but it ends in nothing, unless it be a dungeon; and one does not well see why the bedchamber of the king should be so convenient to a dungeon. it is said that king james iii. once escaped down this secret stair, and lay concealed from some conspirators who had entered his chamber to murder him. this range of apartments is terminated, like the other sides of the palace, by a circular tower enclosing a staircase, up which we mounted, winding round and round, and emerging at various heights, until at last we found ourselves at the very topmost point of the edifice; and here there is a small pepper-box of a turret, almost as entire as when the stones were first laid. it is called queen margaret's bower, and looks forth on a lovely prospect of mountain and plain, and on the old red roofs of linlithgow town, and on the little loch that lies within the palace grounds. the cold north-wind blew chill upon us through the empty window-frames, which very likely were never glazed; but it must be a delightful nook in a calmer and warmer summer evening. descending from this high perch, we walked along ledges and through arched corridors, and stood, contemplative, in the dampness of the banqueting-hall, and sat down on the seats that still occupy the embrasures of the deep windows. in one of the rooms, the sculpture of a huge fireplace has recently been imitated and restored, so as to give an idea of what the richness of the adornments must have been when the building was perfect. we burrowed down, too, a little way, in the direction of the cells, where prisoners used to be confined; but these were too ugly and too impenetrably dark to tempt us far. one vault, exactly beneath a queen's very bedchamber, was designated as a prison. i should think bad dreams would have winged up, and made her pillow an uncomfortable one. there seems to be no certain record as respects the date of this palace, except that the most recent part was built by james i., of england, and bears the figures on its central tower. in this part were the kitchens and other domestic offices. in robert bruce's time there was a castle here, instead of a palace, and an ancestor of our friend bennoch was the means of taking it from the english by a stratagem in which valor went halves. four centuries afterwards, it was a royal residence, and might still have been nominally so, had not hawley's dragoons lighted their fires on the floors of the magnificent rooms; but, on the whole, i think it more valuable as a ruin than if it were still perfect. scotland, and the world, needs only one holyrood; and linlithgow, were it still a perfect palace, must have been second in interest to that, from its lack of association with historic events so grand and striking. after tea we took another walk, and this time went along the high street, in quest of the house whence bothwellhaugh fired the shot that killed the regent murray. it has been taken down, however; or, if any part of it remain, it has been built into and incorporated with a small house of dark stone, which forms one range with two others that stand a few feet back from the general line of the street. it is as mean-looking and commonplace an edifice as is anywhere to be seen, and is now occupied by one steele, a tailor. we went under a square arch (if an arch can be square), that goes quite through the house, and found ourselves in a little court; but it was not easy to identify anything as connected with the historic event, so we did but glance about us, and returned into the street. it is here narrow, and as bothwellhaugh stood in a projecting gallery, the regent must have been within a few yards of the muzzle of his carbine. the street looks as old as any that i have seen, except, perhaps, a vista here and there in chester,--the houses all of stone, many of them tall, with notched gables, and with stone staircases going up outside, the steps much worn by feet now dust; a pervading ugliness, which yet does not fail to be picturesque; a general filth and evil odor of gutters and people, suggesting sorrowful ideas of what the inner houses must be, when the outside looks and smells so badly; and, finally, a great rabble of the inhabitants, talking, idling, sporting, staring about their own thresholds and those of dram-shops, the town being most alive in the long twilight of the summer evening. there was nothing uncivil in the deportment of these dirty people, old or young; but they did stare at us most unmercifully. we walked very late, entering, after all that we had seen, into the palace grounds, and skirting along linlithgow loch, which would be very beautiful if its banks were made shadowy with trees, instead of being almost bare. we viewed the palace on the outside, too, and saw what had once been the principal entrance, but now looked like an arched window, pretty high in the wall; for it had not been accessible except by a drawbridge. i might write pages in telling how venerable the ruin, looked, as the twilight fell deeper and deeper around it; but we have had enough of linlithgow, especially as there have been so many old palaces and old towns to write about, and there will still be more. we left linlithgow early this morning, and reached edinburgh in half an hour. to-morrow i suppose i shall try to set down what i see; at least, some points of it. july th.--arriving at edinburgh, and acting under advice of the cabman, we drove to addison's alma hotel, which we find to be in prince's street, having scott's monument a few hundred yards below, and the castle hill about as much above. the edinburgh people seem to be accustomed to climb mountains within their own houses; so we had to mount several staircases before we reached our parlor, which is a very good one, and commands a beautiful view of prince's street, and of the picturesque old town, and the valley between, and of the castle on its hill. our first visit was to the castle, which we reached by going across the causeway that bridges the valley, and has some edifices of grecian architecture on it, contrasting strangely with the nondescript ugliness of the old town, into which we immediately pass. as this is my second visit to edinburgh, i surely need not dwell upon describing it at such length as if i had never been here before. after climbing up through various wards of the castle to the topmost battery, where mons meg holds her station, looking like an uncouth dragon,--with a pile of huge stone balls beside her for eggs,--we found that we could not be admitted to queen mary's apartments, nor to the crown-room, till twelve o'clock; moreover, that there was no admittance to the crown-room without tickets from the crown-office, in parliament square. there being no help for it, i left my wife and j----- to wander through the fortress, and came down through high street in quest of parliament square, which i found after many inquiries of policemen, and after first going to the justiciary court, where there was a great throng endeavoring to get in; for the trial of miss smith for the murder of her lover is causing great excitement just now. there was no difficulty made about the tickets, and, returning, found s----- and j-----; but j----- grew tired of waiting, and set out to return to our hotel, through the great strange city, all by himself. through means of an attendant, we were admitted into queen margaret's little chapel, on the top of the rock; and then we sat down, in such shelter as there was, to avoid the keen wind, blowing through the embrasures of the ramparts, and waited as patiently as we could. twelve o'clock came, and we went into the crown-room, with a throng of other visitors,--so many that they could only be admitted in separate groups. the regalia of scotland lie on a circular table within an iron railing, round and round which the visitors pass, gazing with all their eyes. the room was dark, however, except for the dim twinkle of a candle or gaslight; and the regalia did not show to any advantage, though there are some rich jewels, set in their ancient gold. the articles consist of a two-handed sword, with a hilt and scabbard of gold, ornamented with gems, and a mace, with a silver handle, all very beautifully made; besides the golden collar and jewelled badge of the garter, and something else which i forget. why they keep this room so dark i cannot tell; but it is a poor show, and gives the spectator an idea of the poverty of scotland, and the minuteness of her sovereignty, which i had not gathered from her royal palaces. thence we went into queen mary's room, and saw that beautiful portrait-- that very queen and very woman--with which i was so much impressed at my last visit. it is wonderful that this picture does not drive all the other portraits of mary out of the field, whatever may be the comparative proofs of their authenticity. i do not know the history of this one, except that it is a copy by sir william gordon of a picture by an italian, preserved at dunrobin castle. after seeing what the castle had to show, which is but little except itself, its rocks, and its old dwellings of princes and prisoners, we came down through the high street, inquiring for john knox's house. it is a strange-looking edifice, with gables on high, projecting far, and some sculpture, and inscriptions referring to knox. there is a tobacconist's shop in the basement story, where i learned that the house used to be shown to visitors till within three months, but it is now closed, for some reason or other. thence we crossed a bridge into the new town, and came back through prince's street to the hotel, and had a good dinner, as preparatory to fresh wearinesses; for there is no other weariness at all to be compared to that of sight-seeing. in mid afternoon we took a cab and drove to holyrood palace, which i have already described, as well as the chapel, and do not mean to meddle with either of them again. we looked at our faces in the old mirrors that queen mary brought from france with her, and which had often reflected her own lovely face and figure; and i went up the winding stair through which the conspirators ascended. this, i think, was not accessible at my former visit. before leaving the palace, one of the attendants advised us to see some pictures in the apartments occupied by the marquis of breadalbane during the queen's residence here. we found some fine old portraits and other paintings by vandyke, sir peter lely, sir godfrey kneller, and a strange head by rubens, amid all which i walked wearily, wishing that there were nothing worth looking at in the whole world. my wife differs altogether from me in this matter; . . . . but we agreed, on this occasion, in being tired to death. just as we got through with the pictures, i became convinced of what i had been dimly suspecting all the while, namely, that at my last visit to the palace i had seen these selfsame pictures, and listened to the selfsame woman's civil answers, in just the selfsame miserable weariness of mood. we left the palace, and toiled up through the dirty canongate, looking vainly for a fly, and employing our time, as well as we could, in looking at the squalid mob of edinburgh, and peeping down the horrible vistas of the closes, which were swarming with dirty life, as some mouldy and half-decayed substance might swarm with insects,--vistas down alleys where sin, sorrow, poverty, drunkenness, all manner of sombre and sordid earthly circumstances, had imbued the stone, brick, and wood of the habitations for hundreds of years. and such a multitude of children too; that was a most striking feature. after tea i went down into the valley between the old town and the new, which is now laid out as an ornamental garden, with grass, shrubbery, flowers, gravelled walks, and frequent seats. here the sun was setting, and gilded the old town with its parting rays, making it absolutely the most picturesque scene possible to be seen. the mass of tall, ancient houses, heaped densely together, looked like a gothic dream; for there seemed to be towers and all sorts of stately architecture, and spires ascended out of the mass; and above the whole was the castle, with a diadem of gold on its topmost turret. it wanted less than a quarter of nine when the last gleam faded from the windows of the old town, and left the crowd of buildings dim and indistinguishable, to reappear on the morrow in squalor, lifting their meanness skyward, the home of layer upon layer of unfortunate humanity. the change symbolized the difference between a poet's imagination of life in the past--or in a state which he looks at through a colored and illuminated medium--and the sad reality. this morning we took a cab, and set forth between ten and eleven to see edinburgh and its environs; driving past the university, and other noticeable objects in the old town, and thence out to arthur's seat. salisbury crags are a very singular feature of the outskirts. from the heights, beneath arthur's seat, we had a fine prospect of the sea, with leith and portobello in the distance, and of a fertile plain at the foot of the hill. in the course of our drive our cabman pointed out dumbiedikes' house; also the cottage of jeanie deans,--at least, the spot where it formerly stood; and muschat's cairn, of which a small heap of stones is yet remaining. near this latter object are the ruins of st. anthony's chapel, a roofless gable, and other remains, standing on the abrupt hillside. we drove homeward past a parade-ground on which a body of cavalry was exercising, and we met a company of infantry on their route thither. then we drove near calton hill, which seems to be not a burial-ground, although the site of stately monuments. in fine, we passed through the grass-market, where we saw the cross in the pavement in the street, marking the spot, as i recorded before, where porteous was executed. thence we passed through the cowgate, all the latter part of our drive being amongst the tall, quaint edifices of the old town, alike venerable and squalid. from the grass-market the rock of the castle looks more precipitous than as we had hitherto seen it, and its prisons, palaces, and barracks approach close to its headlong verge, and form one steep line with its descent. we drove quite round the castle hill, and returned down prince's street to our hotel. there can be no other city in the world that affords more splendid scenery, both natural and architectural, than edinburgh. then we went to st. giles's cathedral, which i shall not describe, it having been kirkified into three interior divisions by the covenanters; and i left my wife to take drawings, while j----- and i went to short's observatory, near the entrance of the castle. here we saw a camera-obscura, which brought before us, without our stirring a step, almost all the striking objects which we had been wandering to and fro to see. we also saw the mites in cheese, gigantically magnified by a solar microscope; likewise some dioramic views, with all which i was mightily pleased, and for myself, being tired to death of sights, i would as lief see them as anything else. we found, on calling for mamma at st. giles's, that she had gone away; but she rejoined us between four and five o'clock at our hotel, where the next thing we did was to dine. again after dinner we walked out, looking at the shop-windows of jewellers, where ornaments made of cairngorm pebbles are the most peculiar attraction. as it was our wedding-day, . . . . i gave s----- a golden and amethyst-bodied cairngorm beetle with a ruby head; and after sitting awhile in prince's street gardens, we came home. july th.--last evening i walked round the castle rock, and through the grass-market, where i stood on the inlaid cross in the pavement, thence down the high street beyond john knox's house. the throng in that part of the town was very great. there is a strange fascination in these old streets, and in the peeps down the closes; but it doubtless would be a great blessing were a fire to sweep through the whole of ancient edinburgh. this system of living on flats, up to i know not what story, must be most unfavorable to cleanliness, since they have to fetch their water all that distance towards heaven, and how they get rid of their rubbish is best known to themselves. my wife has gone to roslin this morning, and since her departure it has been drizzly, so that j----- and i, after a walk through the new part of the town, are imprisoned in our parlor with little resource except to look across the valley to the castle, where mons meg is plainly visible on the upper platform, and the lower ramparts, zigzagging about the edge of the precipice, which nearly in front of us is concealed or softened by a great deal of shrubbery, but farther off descends steeply down to the grass below. somewhere on this side of the rock was the point where claverhouse, on quitting edinburgh before the battle of killiecrankie, clambered up to hold an interview with the duke of gordon. what an excellent thing it is to have such striking and indestructible landmarks and time-marks that they serve to affix historical incidents to, and thus, as it were, nail down the past for the benefit of all future ages! the old town of edinburgh appears to be situated, in its densest part, on the broad back of a ridge, which rises gradually to its termination in the precipitous rock, on which stands the castle. between the old town and the new is the valley, which runs along at the base of this ridge, and which, in its natural state, was probably rough and broken, like any mountain gorge. the lower part of the valley, adjacent to the canongate, is now a broad hollow space, fitted up with dwellings, shops, or manufactories; the next portion, between two bridges, is converted into an ornamental garden free to the public, and contains scott's beautiful monument,--a canopy of gothic arches and a fantastic spire, beneath which he sits, thoughtful and observant of what passes in the contiguous street; the third portion of the valley, above the last bridge, is another ornamental garden, open only to those who have pass-keys. it is an admirable garden, with a great variety of surface, and extends far round the castle rock, with paths that lead up to its very base, among leafy depths of shrubbery, and winds beneath the sheer, black precipice. j----- and i walked there this forenoon, and took refuge from a shower beneath an overhanging jut of the rock, where a bench had been placed, and where a curtain of hanging ivy helped to shelter us. on our return to the hotel, we found mamma just alighting from a cab. she had had very bad fortune in her excursion to roslin, having had to walk a long distance to the chapel, and being caught in the rain; and, after all, she could only spend seven minutes in viewing the beautiful roslin architecture. melrose. july th.--we left edinburgh, where we had found at addison's, prince's street, the most comfortable hotel in great britain, and went to melrose, where we put up at the george. this is all travelled ground with me, so that i need not much perplex myself with further description, especially as it is impossible, by any repetition of attempts, to describe melrose abbey. we went thither immediately after tea, and were shown over the ruins by a very delectable old scotchman, incomparably the best guide i ever met with. i think he must take pains to speak the scotch dialect, he does it with such pungent felicity and effect, and it gives a flavor to everything he says, like the mustard and vinegar in a salad. this is not the man i saw when here before. the scotch dialect is still, in a greater or less degree, universally prevalent in scotland, insomuch that we generally find it difficult to comprehend the answers to our questions, though more, i think, from the unusual intonation than either from strange words or pronunciation. but this old man, though he spoke the most unmitigated scotch, was perfectly intelligible,--perhaps because his speech so well accorded with the classic standard of the waverley novels. moreover, he is thoroughly acquainted with the abbey, stone by stone; and it was curious to see him, as we walked among its aisles, and over the grass beneath its roofless portions, pick up the withered leaves that had fallen there, and do other such little things, as a good housewife might do to a parlor. i have met with two or three instances where the guardian of an old edifice seemed really to love it, and this was one, although the old man evidently had a scotch covenanter's contempt and dislike of the faith that founded the abbey. he repeated king david's dictum that king david the first was "a sair saint for the crown," as bestowing so much wealth on religious edifices; but really, unless it be walter scott, i know not any scotchman who has done so much for his country as this same st. david. as the founder of melrose and many other beautiful churches and abbeys, he left magnificent specimens of the only kind of poetry which the age knew how to produce; and the world is the better for him to this day,--which is more, i believe, than can be said of any hero or statesman in scottish annals. we went all over the ruins, of course, and saw the marble stone of king alexander, and the spot where bruce's heart is said to be buried, and the slab of michael scott, with the cross engraved upon it; also the exquisitely sculptured kail-leaves, and other foliage and flowers, with which the gothic artists inwreathed this edifice, bestowing more minute and faithful labor than an artist of these days would do on the most delicate piece of cabinet-work. we came away sooner than we wished, but we hoped to return thither this morning; and, for my part, i cherish a presentiment that this will not be our last visit to scotland and melrose. . . . . j----- and i then walked to the tweed, where we saw two or three people angling, with naked legs, or trousers turned up, and wading among the rude stones that make something like a dam over the wide and brawling stream. i did not observe that they caught any fish, but j----- was so fascinated with the spectacle that he pulled out his poor little fishing-line, and wished to try his chance forthwith. i never saw the angler's instinct stronger in anybody. we walked across the foot-bridge that here spans the tweed; and j----- observed that he did not see how william of deloraine could have found so much difficulty in swimming his horse across so shallow a river. neither do i. it now began to sprinkle, and we hastened back to the hotel. it was not a pleasant morning; but we started immediately after breakfast for abbotsford, which is but about three miles distant. the country between melrose and that place is not in the least beautiful, nor very noteworthy,--one or two old irregular villages; one tower that looks principally domestic, yet partly warlike, and seems to be of some antiquity; and an undulation, or rounded hilly surface of the landscape, sometimes affording wide vistas between the slopes. these hills, which, i suppose, are some of them on the abbotsford estate, are partly covered with woods, but of scotch fir, or some tree of that species, which creates no softened undulation, but overspreads the hill like a tightly fitting wig. it is a cold, dreary, disheartening neighborhood, that of abbotsford; at least, it has appeared so to me at both of my visits,--one of which was on a bleak and windy may morning, and this one on a chill, showery morning of midsummer. the entrance-way to the house is somewhat altered since my last visit; and we now, following the direction of a painted finger on the wall, went round to a side door in the basement story, where we found an elderly man waiting as if in expectation of visitors. he asked us to write our names in a book, and told us that the desk on the leaf of which it lay was the one in which sir walter found the forgotten manuscript of waverley, while looking for some fishing-tackle. there was another desk in the room, which had belonged to the colonel gardiner who appears in waverley. the first apartment into which our guide showed us was sir walter's study, where i again saw his clothes, and remarked how the sleeve of his old green coat was worn at the cuff,--a minute circumstance that seemed to bring sir walter very near me. thence into the library; thence into the drawing-room, whence, methinks, we should have entered the dining-room, the most interesting of all, as being the room where he died. but this room seems not to be shown now. we saw the armory, with the gun of rob roy, into the muzzle of which i put my finger, and found the bore very large; the beautifully wrought pistol of claverhouse, and a pair of pistols that belonged to napoleon; the sword of montrose, which i grasped, and drew half out of the scabbard; and queen mary's iron jewel-box, six or eight inches long, and two or three high, with a lid rounded like that of a trunk, and much corroded with rust. there is no use in making a catalogue of these curiosities. the feeling in visiting abbotsford is not that of awe; it is little more than going to a museum. i do abhor this mode of making pilgrimages to the shrines of departed great men. there is certainly something wrong in it, for it seldom or never produces (in me, at least) the right feeling. it is an odd truth, too, that a house is forever after spoiled and ruined as a home, by having been the abode of a great man. his spirit haunts it, as it were, with a malevolent effect, and takes hearth and hall away from the nominal possessors, giving all the world the right to enter there because he had such intimate relations with all the world. we had intended to go to dryburgh abbey; but as the weather more than threatened rain, . . . . we gave up the idea, and so took the rail for berwick, after one o'clock. on our road we passed several ruins in scotland, and some in england,--one old castle in particular, beautifully situated beside a deep-banked stream. the road lies for many miles along the coast, affording a fine view of the german ocean, which was now blue, sunny, and breezy, the day having risen out of its morning sulks. we waited an hour or more at berwick, and j----- and i took a hasty walk into the town. it is a rough and rude assemblage of rather mean houses, some of which are thatched. there seems to have been a wall about the town at a former period, and we passed through one of the gates. the view of the river tweed here is very fine, both above and below the railway bridge, and especially where it flows, a broad tide, and between high banks, into the sea. thence we went onward along the coast, as i have said, pausing a few moments in smoky newcastle, and reaching durham about eight o'clock. durham. i wandered out in the dusk of the evening,--for the dusk comes on comparatively early as we draw southward,--and found a beautiful and shadowy path along the river-side, skirting its high banks, up and adown which grow noble elms. i could not well see, in that obscurity of twilight boughs, whither i was going, or what was around me; but i judged that the castle or cathedral, or both, crowned the highest line of the shore, and that i was walking at the base of their walls. there was a pair of lovers in front of me, and i passed two or three other tender couples. the walk appeared to go on interminably by the river-side, through the same sweet shadow; but i turned and found my way into the cathedral close, beneath an ancient archway, whence, issuing again, i inquired my way to the waterloo hotel, where we had put up. items.--we saw the norham castle of marmion, at a short distance from the station of the same name. viewed from the railway, it has not a very picturesque appearance,--a high, square ruin of what i suppose was the keep.--at abbotsford, treasured up in a glass case in the drawing-room, were memorials of sir walter scott's servants and humble friends,--for instance, a brass snuff-box of tom purdie,--there, too, among precious relics of illustrious persons.--in the armory, i grasped with some interest the sword of sir adam ferguson, which he had worn in the peninsular war. our guide said, of his own knowledge, that "he was a very funny old gentleman." he died only a year or two since. july th.--the morning after our arrival in durham being sunday, we attended service in the cathedral. . . . . we found a tolerable audience, seated on benches, within and in front of the choir; and people continually strayed in and out of the sunny churchyard and sat down, or walked softly and quietly up and down the side aisle. sometimes, too, one of the vergers would come in with a handful of little boys, whom he had caught playing among the tombstones. durham cathedral has one advantage over the others which i have seen, there being no organ-screen, nor any sort of partition between the choir and nave; so that we saw its entire length, nearly five hundred feet, in one vista. the pillars of the nave are immensely thick, but hardly of proportionate height, and they support the round norman arch; nor is there, as far as i remember, a single pointed arch in the cathedral. the effect is to give the edifice an air of heavy grandeur. it seems to have been built before the best style of church architecture had established itself; so that it weighs upon the soul, instead of helping it to aspire. first, there are these round arches, supported by gigantic columns; then, immediately above, another row of round arches, behind which is the usual gallery that runs, as it were, in the thickness of the wall, around the nave of the cathedral; then, above all, another row of round arches, enclosing the windows of the clere-story. the great pillars are ornamented in various ways,--some with a great spiral groove running from bottom to top; others with two spirals, ascending in different directions, so as to cross over one another; some are fluted or channelled straight up and down; some are wrought with chevrons, like those on the sleeve of a police-inspector. there are zigzag cuttings and carvings, which i do not know how to name scientifically, round the arches of the doors and windows; but nothing that seems to have flowered out spontaneously, as natural incidents of a grand and beautiful design. in the nave, between the columns of the side aisles, i saw one or two monuments. . . . . the cathedral service is very long; and though the choral part of it is pleasant enough, i thought it not best to wait for the sermon, especially as it would have been quite unintelligible, so remotely as i sat in the great space. so i left my seat, and after strolling up and down the aisle a few times, sallied forth into the churchyard. on the cathedral door there is a curious old knocker, in the form of a monstrous face, which was placed there, centuries ago, for the benefit of fugitives from justice, who used to be entitled to sanctuary here. the exterior of the cathedral, being huge, is therefore grand; it has a great central tower, and two at the western end; and reposes in vast and heavy length, without the multitude of niches, and crumbling statues, and richness of detail, that make the towers and fronts of some cathedrals so endlessly interesting. one piece of sculpture i remember,--a carving of a cow, a milk-maid, and a monk, in reference to the legend that the site of the cathedral was, in some way, determined by a woman bidding her cow go home to dunholme. cadmus was guided to the site of his destined city in some such way as this. it was a very beautiful day, and though the shadow of the cathedral fell on this side, yet, it being about noontide, it did not cover the churchyard entirely, but left many of the graves in sunshine. there were not a great many monuments, and these were chiefly horizontal slabs, some of which looked aged, but on closer inspection proved to be mostly of the present century. i observed an old stone figure, however, half worn away, which seemed to have something like a bishop's mitre on its head, and may perhaps have lain in the proudest chapel of the cathedral before occupying its present bed among the grass. about fifteen paces from the central tower, and within its shadow, i found a weather-worn slab of marble, seven or eight feet long, the inscription on which interested me somewhat. it was to the memory of robert dodsley, the bookseller, johnson's acquaintance, who, as his tombstone rather superciliously avers, had made a much better figure as an author than "could have been expected in his rank of life." but, after all, it is inevitable that a man's tombstone should look down on him, or, at all events, comport itself towards him "de haut en bas." i love to find the graves of men connected with literature. they interest me more, even though of no great eminence, than those of persons far more illustrious in other walks of life. i know not whether this is because i happen to be one of the literary kindred, or because all men feel themselves akin, and on terms of intimacy, with those whom they know, or might have known, in books. i rather believe that the latter is the case. my wife had stayed in the cathedral, but she came out at the end of the sermon, and told me of two little birds, who had got into the vast interior, and were in great trouble at not being able to find their way out again. thus, two winged souls may often have been imprisoned within a faith of heavy ceremonials. we went round the edifice, and, passing into the close, penetrated through an arched passage into the crypt, which, methought, was in a better style of architecture than the nave and choir. at one end stood a crowd of venerable figures leaning against the wall, being stone images of bearded saints, apostles, patriarchs, kings,--personages of great dignity, at all events, who had doubtless occupied conspicuous niches in and about the cathedral till finally imprisoned in this cellar. i looked at every one, and found not an entire nose among them, nor quite so many heads as they once had. thence we went into the cloisters, which are entire, but not particularly interesting. indeed, this cathedral has not taken hold of my affections, except in one aspect, when it was exceedingly grand and beautiful. after looking at the crypt and the cloisters, we returned through the close and the churchyard, and went back to the hotel through a path by the river-side. this is the same dim and dusky path through which i wandered the night before, and in the sunshine it looked quite as beautiful as i knew it must,-- a shadow of elm-trees clothing the high bank, and overarching the paths above and below; some of the elms growing close to the water-side, and flinging up their topmost boughs not nearly so high as where we stood, and others climbing upward and upward, till our way wound among their roots; while through the foliage the quiet river loitered along, with this lovely shade on both its banks, to pass through the centre of the town. the stately cathedral rose high above us, and farther onward, in a line with it, the battlemented walls of the old norman castle, gray and warlike, though now it has become a university. this delightful walk terminates at an old bridge in the heart of the town; and the castle hangs immediately over its busiest street. on this bridge, last night, in the embrasure, or just over the pier, where there is a stone seat, i saw some old men seated, smoking their pipes and chatting. in my judgment, a river flowing through the centre of a town, and not too broad to make itself familiar, nor too swift, but idling along, as if it loved better to stay there than to go, is the pleasantest imaginable piece of scenery; so transient as it is, and yet enduring,--just the same from life's end to life's end; and this river wear, with its sylvan wildness, and yet so sweet and placable, is the best of all little rivers,--not that it is so very small, but with a bosom broad enough to be crossed by a three-arched bridge. just above the cathedral there is a mill upon its shore, as ancient as the times of the abbey. we went homeward through the market-place and one or two narrow streets; for the town has the irregularity of all ancient settlements, and, moreover, undulates upward and downward, and is also made more unintelligible to a stranger, in its points and bearings, by the tortuous course of the river. after dinner j----- and i walked along the bank opposite to that on which the cathedral stands, and found the paths there equally delightful with those which i have attempted to describe. we went onward while the river gleamed through the foliage beneath us, and passed so far beyond the cathedral that we began to think we were getting into the country, and that it was time to return; when all at once we saw a bridge before us, and beyond that, on the opposite bank of the wear, the cathedral itself! the stream had made a circuit without our knowing it. we paused upon the bridge, and admired and wondered at the beauty and glory of the scene, with those vast, ancient towers rising out of the green shade, and looking as if they were based upon it. the situation of durham cathedral is certainly a noble one, finer even than that of lincoln, though the latter stands even at a more lordly height above the town. but as i saw it then, it was grand, venerable, and sweet, all at once; and i never saw so lovely and magnificent a scene, nor, being content with this, do i care to see a better. the castle beyond came also into the view, and the whole picture was mirrored in the tranquil stream below. and so, crossing the bridge, the path led us back through many a bower of hollow shade; and we then quitted the hotel, and took the rail for york, where we arrived at about half past nine. we put up at the black swan, with which we had already made acquaintance at our previous visit to york. it is a very ancient hotel; for in the coffee-room i saw on the wall an old printed advertisement, announcing that a stage-coach would leave the black swan in london, and arrive at the black swan in york, with god's permission, in four days. the date was ; and still, after a hundred and fifty years, the black swan receives travellers in coney street. it is a very good hotel, and was much thronged with guests when we arrived, as the sessions come on this week. we found a very smart waiter, whose english faculties have been brightened by a residence of several years in america. in the morning, before breakfast, i strolled out, and walked round the cathedral, passing on my way the sheriff's javelin-men, in long gowns of faded purple embroidered with gold, carrying halberds in their hands; also a gentleman in a cocked hat, gold-lace, and breeches, who, no doubt, had something to do with the ceremonial of the sessions. i saw, too, a procession of a good many old cabs and other carriages, filled with people, and a banner flaunting above each vehicle. these were the piano-forte makers of york, who were going out of town to have a jollification together. after breakfast we all went to the cathedral, and no sooner were we within it than we found how much our eyes had recently been educated, by our greater power of appreciating this magnificent interior; for it impressed us both with a joy that we never felt before. j----- felt it too, and insisted that the cathedral must have been altered and improved since we were last here. but it is only that we have seen much splendid architecture since then, and so have grown in some degree fitted to enjoy it. york cathedral (i say it now, for it is my present feeling) is the most wonderful work that ever came from the hands of man. indeed, it seems like "a house not made with hands," but rather to have come down from above, bringing an awful majesty and sweetness with it and it is so light and aspiring, with all its vast columns and pointed arches, that one would hardly wonder if it should ascend back to heaven again by its mere spirituality. positively the pillars and arches of the choir are so very beautiful that they give the impression of being exquisitely polished, though such is not the fact; but their beauty throws a gleam around them. i thank god that i saw this cathedral again, and i thank him that he inspired the builder to make it, and that mankind has so long enjoyed it, and will continue to enjoy it. july th.--we left york at twelve o'clock, and were delayed an hour or two at leeds, waiting for a train. i strolled up into the town, and saw a fair, with puppet-shows, booths of penny actors, merry-go-rounds, clowns, boxers, and other such things as i saw, above a year ago, at greenwich fair, and likewise at tranmere, during the whitsuntide holidays. we resumed our journey, and reached southport in pretty good trim at about nine o'clock. it has been a very interesting tour. we find southport just as we left it, with its regular streets of little and big lodging-houses, where the visitors perambulate to and fro without any imaginable object. the tide, too, seems not to have been up over the waste of sands since we went away; and far seaward stands the same row of bathing-machines, and just on the verge of the horizon a gleam of water, --even this being not the sea, but the mouth of the river ribble, seeking the sea amid the sandy desert. but we shall soon say good-by to southport. old trafford, manchester. july d.--we left southport for good on the th, and have established ourselves in this place, in lodgings that had been provided for us by mr. swain; our principal object being to spend a few weeks in the proximity of the arts' exhibition. we are here, about three miles from the victoria railway station in manchester on one side, and nearly a mile from the exhibition on the other. this is a suburb of manchester, and consists of a long street, called the stratford road, bordered with brick houses two stories high, such as are usually the dwellings of tradesmen or respectable mechanics, but which are now in demand for lodgings, at high prices, on account of the exhibition. it seems to be rather a new precinct of the city, and the houses, though ranged along a continuous street, are but a brick border of the green fields in the rear. occasionally you get a glimpse of this country aspect between two houses; but the street itself, even with its little grass-plots and bits of shrubbery under the front windows, is as ugly as it can be made. some of the houses are better than i have described; but the brick used here in building is very unsightly in hue and surface. betimes in the morning the exhibition omnibuses begin to trundle along, and pass at intervals of two and a half minutes through the day,--immense vehicles constructed to carry thirty-nine passengers, and generally with a good part of that number inside and out. the omnibuses are painted scarlet, bordered with white, have three horses abreast, and a conductor in a red coat. they perform the journey from this point into town in about half an hour; and yesterday morning, being in a hurry to get to the railway station, i found that i could outwalk them, taking into account their frequent stoppages. we have taken the whole house (except some inscrutable holes, into which the family creeps), of respectable people, who never took lodgers until this juncture. their furniture, however, is of the true lodging-house pattern, sofas and chairs which have no possibility of repose in them; rickety tables; an old piano and old music, with "lady helen elizabeth" somebody's name written on it. it is very strange how nothing but a genuine home can ever look homelike. they appear to be good people; a little girl of twelve, a daughter, waits on table; and there is an elder daughter, who yesterday answered the door-bell, looking very like a young lady, besides five or six smaller children, who make less uproar of grief or merriment than could possibly be expected. the husband is not apparent, though i see his hat in the hall. the house is new, and has a trim, light-colored interior of half-gentility. i suppose the rent, in ordinary times, might be pounds per annum; but we pay at the rate of pounds for the part which we occupy. this, like all the other houses in the neighborhood, was evidently built to be sold or let; the builder never thought of living in it himself, and so that subtile element, which would have enabled him to create a home, was entirely left out. this morning, j----- and i set forth on a walk, first towards the palace of the arts' exhibition, which looked small compared with my idea of it, and seems to be of the crystal palace order of architecture, only with more iron to its glass. its front is composed of three round arches in a row. we did not go in. . . . . turning to the right, we walked onward two or three miles, passing the botanic garden, and thence along by suburban villas, belgrave terraces, and other such prettinesses in the modern gothic or elizabethan style, with fancifully ornamented flower-plats before them; thence by hedgerows and fields, and through two or three villages, with here and there an old plaster and timber-built thatched house, among a street full of modern brick-fronts,--the alehouse, or rural inn, being generally the most ancient house in the village. it was a sultry, heavy day, and i walked without much enjoyment of the air and exercise. we crossed a narrow and swift river, flowing between deep banks. it must have been either the mersey, still an infant stream, and little dreaming of the thousand mighty ships that float on its farther tide, or else the irwell, which empties into the mersey. we passed through the village beyond this stream, and went to the railway station, and then were brought back to old trafford, and deposited close by the exhibition. it has showered this afternoon; and i beguiled my time for half an hour by setting down the vehicles that went past; not that they were particularly numerous, but for the sake of knowing the character of the travel along the road. july th.--day before yesterday we went to the arts' exhibition, of which i do not think that i have a great deal to say. the edifice, being built more for convenience than show, appears better in the interior than from without,--long vaulted vistas, lighted from above, extending far away, all hung with pictures; and, on the floor below, statues, knights in armor, cabinets, vases, and all manner of curious and beautiful things, in a regular arrangement. scatter five thousand people through the scene, and i do not know how to make a better outline sketch. i was unquiet, from a hopelessness of being able to enjoy it fully. nothing is more depressing to me than the sight of a great many pictures together; it is like having innumerable books open before you at once, and being able to read only a sentence or two in each. they bedazzle one another with cross lights. there never should be more than one picture in a room, nor more than one picture to be studied in one day. galleries of pictures are surely the greatest absurdities that ever were contrived, there being no excuse for them, except that it is the only way in which pictures can be made generally available and accessible. we went first into the gallery of british painters, where there were hundreds of pictures, every one of which would have interested me by itself; but i could not fix nay mind on one more than another, so i wandered about, to get a general idea of the exhibition. truly it is very fine; truly, also, every great show is a kind of humbug. i doubt whether there were half a dozen people there who got the kind of enjoyment that it was intended to create,--very respectable people they seemed to be, and very well behaved, but all skimming the surface, as i did, and none of them so feeding on what was beautiful as to digest it, and make it a part of themselves. such a quantity of objects must be utterly rejected before you can get any real profit from one! it seemed like throwing away time to look twice even at whatever was most precious; and it was dreary to think of not fully enjoying this collection, the very flower of time, which never bloomed before, and never, by any possibility, can bloom again. viewed hastily, moreover, it is somewhat sad to think that mankind, after centuries of cultivation of the beautiful arts, can produce no more splendid spectacle than this. it is not so very grand, although, poor as it is, i lack capacity to take in even the whole of it. what gave me most pleasure (because it required no trouble nor study to come at the heart of it) were the individual relics of antiquity, of which there are some very curious ones in the cases ranged along the principal saloon or nave of the building. for example, the dagger with which felton killed the duke of buckingham,--a knife with a bone handle and a curved blade, not more than three inches long; sharp-pointed, murderous-looking, but of very coarse manufacture. also, the duke of alva's leading staff of iron; and the target of the emperor charles v., which seemed to be made of hardened leather, with designs artistically engraved upon it, and gilt. i saw wolsey's portrait, and, in close proximity to it, his veritable cardinal's hat in a richly ornamented glass case, on which was an inscription to the effect that it had been bought by charles kean at the sale of horace walpole's collection. it is a felt hat with a brim about six inches wide all round, and a rather high crown; the color was, doubtless, a bright red originally, but now it is mottled with a grayish hue, and there are cracks in the brim, as if the hat had seen a good deal of wear. i suppose a far greater curiosity than this is the signet-ring of one of the pharaohs, who reigned over egypt during joseph's prime ministry,--a large ring to be worn on the thumb, if at all,--of massive gold, seal part and all, and inscribed with some characters that looked like hebrew. i had seen this before in mr. mayer's collection in liverpool. the mediaeval and english relics, however, interested me more,--such as the golden and enamelled george worn by sir thomas more; or the embroidered shirt of charles i.,--the very one, i presume, which he wore at his execution. there are no blood-marks on it, it being very nicely washed and folded. the texture of the linen cloth--if linen it be--is coarser than any peasant would wear at this day, but the needle-work is exceedingly fine and elaborate. another relic of the same period,--the cavalier general sir jacob astley's buff-coat, with his belt and sword; the leather of the buff-coat, for i took it between my fingers, is about a quarter of an inch thick, of the same material as a wash-leather glove, and by no means smoothly dressed, though the sleeves are covered with silver-lace. of old armor, there are admirable specimens; and it makes one's head ache to look at the iron pots which men used to thrust their heads into. indeed, at one period they seem to have worn an inner iron cap underneath the helmet. i doubt whether there ever was any age of chivalry. . . . . it certainly was no chivalric sentiment that made men case themselves in impenetrable iron, and ride about in iron prisons, fearfully peeping at their enemies through little slits and gimlet-holes. the unprotected breast of a private soldier must have shamed his leaders in those days. the point of honor is very different now. i mean to go again and again, many times more, and will take each day some one department, and so endeavor to get some real use and improvement out of what i see. much that is most valuable must be immitigably rejected; but something, according to the measure of my poor capacity, will really be taken into my mind. after all, it was an agreeable day, and i think the next one will be more so. july th.--day before yesterday i paid a second visit to the exhibition, and devoted the day mainly to seeing the works of british painters, which fill a very large space,--two or three great saloons at the right side of the nave. among the earliest are hogarth's pictures, including the sigismunda, which i remember to have seen before, with her lover's heart in her hand, looking like a monstrous strawberry; and the march to finchley, than which nothing truer to english life and character was ever painted, nor ever can be; and a large stately portrait of captain coram, and others, all excellent in proportion as they come near to ordinary life, and are wrought out through its forms. all english painters resemble hogarth in this respect. they cannot paint anything high, heroic, and ideal, and their attempts in that direction are wearisome to look at; but they sometimes produce good effects by means of awkward figures in ill-made coats and small-clothes, and hard, coarse-complexioned faces, such as they might see anywhere in the street. they are strong in homeliness and ugliness, weak in their efforts at the beautiful. sir thomas lawrence attains a sort of grace, which you feel to be a trick, and therefore get disgusted with it. reynolds is not quite genuine, though certainly he has produced some noble and beautiful heads. but hogarth is the only english painter, except in the landscape department; there are no others who interpret life to me at all, unless it be some of the modern pre-raphaelites. pretty village scenes of common life,--pleasant domestic passages, with a touch of easy humor in them,--little pathoses and fancynesses, are abundant enough; and wilkie, to be sure, has done more than this, though not a great deal more. his merit lies, not in a high aim, but in accomplishing his aim so perfectly. it is unaccountable that the english painters' achievements should be so much inferior to those of the english poets, who have really elevated the human mind; but, to be sure, painting has only become an english art subsequently to the epochs of the greatest poets, and since the beginning of the last century, during which england had no poets. i respect haydon more than i once did, not for his pictures, they being detestable to see, but for his heroic rejection of whatever his countrymen and he himself could really do, and his bitter resolve to achieve something higher,-- failing in which, he died. no doubt i am doing vast injustice to a great many gifted men in what i have here written,--as, for instance, copley, who certainly has painted a slain man to the life; and to a crowd of landscape-painters, who have made wonderful reproductions of little english streams and shrubbery, and cottage doors and country lanes. and there is a picture called "the evening gun" by danby,--a ship of war on a calm, glassy tide, at sunset, with the cannon-smoke puffing from her porthole; it is very beautiful, and so effective that you can even hear the report breaking upon the stillness, with so grand a roar that it is almost like stillness too. as for turner, i care no more for his light-colored pictures than for so much lacquered ware or painted gingerbread. doubtless this is my fault, my own deficiency; but i cannot help it,--not, at least, without sophisticating myself by the effort. the only modern pictures that accomplish a higher end than that of pleasing the eye--the only ones that really take hold of my mind, and with a kind of acerbity, like unripe fruit--are the works of hunt, and one or two other painters of the pre-raphaelite school. they seem wilfully to abjure all beauty, and to make their pictures disagreeable out of mere malice; but at any rate, for the thought and feeling which are ground up with the paint, they will bear looking at, and disclose a deeper value the longer you look. never was anything so stiff and unnatural as they appear; although every single thing represented seems to be taken directly out of life and reality, and, as it were, pasted down upon the canvas. they almost paint even separate hairs. accomplishing so much, and so perfectly, it seems unaccountable that the picture does not live; but nature has an art beyond these painters, and they leave out some medium,--some enchantment that should intervene, and keep the object from pressing so baldly and harshly upon the spectator's eyeballs. with the most lifelike reproduction, there is no illusion. i think if a semi-obscurity were thrown over the picture after finishing it to this nicety, it might bring it nearer to nature. i remember a heap of autumn leaves, every one of which seems to have been stiffened with gum and varnish, and then put carefully down into the stiffly disordered heap. perhaps these artists may hereafter succeed in combining the truth of detail with a broader and higher truth. coming from such a depth as their pictures do, and having really an idea as the seed of them, it is strange that they should look like the most made-up things imaginable. one picture by hunt that greatly interested me was of some sheep that had gone astray among heights and precipices, and i could have looked all day at these poor, lost creatures,--so true was their meek alarm and hopeless bewilderment, their huddling together, without the slightest confidence of mutual help; all that the courage and wisdom of the bravest and wisest of them could do being to bleat, and only a few having spirits enough even for this. after going through these modern masters, among whom were some french painters who do not interest me at all, i did a miscellaneous business, chiefly among the water-colors and photographs, and afterwards among the antiquities and works of ornamental art. i have forgotten what i saw, except the breastplate and helmet of henry of navarre, of steel, engraved with designs that have been half obliterated by scrubbing. i remember, too, a breastplate of an elector of saxony, with a bullet-hole through it. he received his mortal wound through that hole, and died of it two days afterwards, three hundred years ago. there was a crowd of visitors, insomuch that, it was difficult to get a satisfactory view of the most interesting objects. they were nearly all middling-class people; the exhibition, i think, does not reach the lower classed at all; in fact, it could not reach them, nor their betters either, without a good deal of study to help it out. i shall go to-day, and do my best to get profit out of it. july th.--we all, with r----- and fanny, went to the exhibition yesterday, and spent the day there; not j-----, however, for he went to the botanical gardens. after some little skirmishing with other things, i devoted myself to the historical portraits, which hang on both sides of the great nave, and went through them pretty faithfully. the oldest are pictures of richard ii. and henry iv. and edward iv. and jane shore, and seem to have little or no merit as works of art, being cold and stiff, the life having, perhaps, faded out of them; but these older painters were trustworthy, inasmuch as they had no idea of making a picture, but only of getting the face before them on canvas as accurately as they could. all english history scarcely supplies half a dozen portraits before the time of henry viii.; after that period, and through the reigns of elizabeth and james, there are many ugly pictures by dutchmen and italians; and the collection is wonderfully rich in portraits of the time of charles i. and the commonwealth. vandyke seems to have brought portrait-painting into fashion; and very likely the king's love of art diffused a taste for it throughout the nation, and remotely suggested, even to his enemies, to get their pictures painted. elizabeth has perpetuated her cold, thin visage on many canvases, and generally with some fantasy of costume that makes her ridiculous to all time. there are several of mary of scotland, none of which have a gleam of beauty; but the stiff old brushes of these painters could not catch the beautiful. of all the older pictures, the only one that i took pleasure in looking at was a portrait of lord deputy falkland, by vansomer, in james i.'s time,--a very stately, full-length figure in white, looking out of the picture as if he saw you. the catalogue says that this portrait suggested an incident in horace walpole's castle of otranto; but i do not remember it. i have a haunting doubt of the value of portrait-painting; that is to say, whether it gives you a genuine idea of the person purporting to be represented. i do not remember ever to have recognized a man by having previously seen his portrait. vandyke's pictures are full of grace and nobleness, but they do not look like englishmen,--the burly, rough, wine-flushed and weather-reddened faces, and sturdy flesh and blood, which we see even at the present day, when they must naturally have become a good deal refined from either the country gentleman or the courtier of the stuarts' age. there is an old, fat portrait of gervoyse holles, in a buff-coat,--a coarse, hoggish, yet manly man. the painter is unknown; but i honor him, and gervoyse holles too,--for one was willing to be truly rendered, and the other dared to do it. it seems to be the aim of portrait-painters generally, especially of those who have been most famous, to make their pictures as beautiful and noble as can anywise consist with retaining the very slightest resemblance to the person sitting to them. they seldom attain even the grace and beauty which they aim at, but only hit some temporary or individual taste. vandyke, however, achieved graces that rise above time and fashion, and so did sir peter lely, in his female portraits; but the doubt is, whether the works of either are genuine history. not more so, i suspect, than the narrative of a historian who should seek to make poetry out of the events which he relates, rejecting those which could not possibly be thus idealized. i observe, furthermore, that a full-length portrait has seldom face enough; not that it lacks its fair proportion by measurement, but the artist does not often find it possible to make the face so intellectually prominent as to subordinate the figure and drapery. vandyke does this, however. in his pictures of charles i., for instance, it is the melancholy grace of the visage that attracts the eye, and it passes to the rest of the composition only by an effort. earlier and later pictures are but a few inches of face to several feet of figure and costume, and more insignificant than the latter because seldom so well done; and i suspect the same would generally be the case now, only that the present simplicity of costume gives the face a chance to be seen. i was interrupted here, and cannot resume the thread; but considering how much of his own conceit the artist puts into a portrait, how much affectation the sitter puts on, and then again that no face is the same to any two spectators; also, that these portraits are darkened and faded with age, and can seldom be more than half seen, being hung too high, or somehow or other inconvenient, on the whole, i question whether there is much use in looking at them. the truest test would be, for a man well read in english history and biography, and himself an observer of insight, to go through the series without knowing what personages they represented, and write beneath each the name which the portrait vindicated for itself. after getting through the portrait-gallery, i went among the engravings and photographs, and then glanced along the old masters, but without seriously looking at anything. while i was among the dutch painters, a gentleman accosted me. it was mr. j------, whom i once met at dinner with bennoch. he told me that "the poet laureate" (as he called him) was in the exhibition rooms; and as i expressed great interest, mr. j------ was kind enough to go in quest of him. not for the purpose of introduction, however, for he was not acquainted with tennyson. soon mr. j------ returned, and said that he had found the poet laureate,--and, going into the saloon of the old masters, we saw him there, in company with mr. woolner, whose bust of him is now in the exhibition. gazing at him with all my eyes, i liked him well, and rejoiced more in him than in all the other wonders of the exhibition. how strange that in these two or three pages i cannot get one single touch that may call him up hereafter! i would most gladly have seen more of this one poet of our day, but forbore to follow him; for i must own that it seemed mean to be dogging him through the saloons, or even to look at him, since it was to be done stealthily, if at all. he is as un-english as possible; indeed an englishman of genius usually lacks the national characteristics, and is great abnormally. even the great sailor, nelson, was unlike his countrymen in the qualities that constituted him a hero; he was not the perfection of an englishman, but a creature of another kind,--sensitive, nervous, excitable, and really more like a frenchman. un-english as he was, tennyson had not, however, an american look. i cannot well describe the difference; but there was something more mellow in him,--softer, sweeter, broader, more simple than we are apt to be. living apart from men as he does would hurt any one of us more than it does him. i may as well leave him here, for i cannot touch the central point. august d.--day before yesterday i went again to the exhibition, and began the day with looking at the old masters. positively, i do begin to receive some pleasure from looking at pictures; but as yet it has nothing to do with any technical merit, nor do i think i shall ever get so far as that. some landscapes by ruysdael, and some portraits by murillo, velasquez, and titian, were those which i was most able to appreciate; and i see reason for allowing, contrary to my opinion, as expressed a few pages back, that a portrait may preserve some valuable characteristics of the person represented. the pictures in the english portrait-gallery are mostly very bad, and that may be the reason why i saw so little in them. i saw too, at this last visit, a virgin and child, which appeared to me to have an expression more adequate to the subject than most of the innumerable virgins and children, in which we see only repetitions of simple maternity; indeed, any mother, with her first child, would serve an artist for one of them. but, in this picture the virgin had a look as if she were loving the infant as her own child, and at the same time rendering him an awful worship, as to her creator. while i was sitting in the central saloon, listening to the music, a young man accosted me, presuming that i was so-and-so, the american author. he himself was a traveller for a publishing firm; and he introduced conversation by talking of uttoxeter, and my description of it in an annual. he said that the account had caused a good deal of pique among the good people of uttoxeter, because of the ignorance which i attribute to them as to the circumstance which connects johnson with their town. the spot where johnson stood can, it appears, still be pointed out. it is on one side of the market-place, and not in the neighborhood of the church. i forget whether i recorded, at the time, that an uttoxeter newspaper was sent me, containing a proposal that a statue or memorial should be erected on the spot. it would gratify me exceedingly if such a result should come from my pious pilgrimage thither. my new acquaintance, who was cockneyish, but very intelligent and agreeable, went on to talk about many literary matters and characters; among others, about miss bronte, whom he had seen at the chapter coffee-house, when she and her sister anne first went to london. he was at that time connected with the house of ------ and ------, and he described the surprise and incredulity of mr.------, when this little, commonplace-looking woman presented herself as the author of jane eyre. his story brought out the insignificance of charlotte bronte's aspect, and the bluff rejection of her by mr. ------, much more strongly than mrs. gaskell's narrative. chorlton road, august th.--we have changed our lodgings since my last date, those at old trafford being inconvenient, and the landlady a sharp, peremptory housewife, better fitted to deal with her own family than to be complaisant to guests. we are now a little farther from the exhibition, and not much better off as regards accommodation, but the housekeeper is a pleasant, civil sort of a woman, auspiciously named mrs. honey. the house is a specimen of the poorer middle-class dwellings as built nowadays,--narrow staircase, thin walls, and, being constructed for sale, very ill put together indeed,--the floors with wide cracks between the boards, and wide crevices admitting both air and light over the doors, so that the house is full of draughts. the outer walls, it seems to me, are but of one brick in thickness, and the partition walls certainly no thicker; and the movements, and sometimes the voices, of people in the contiguous house are audible to us. the exhibition has temporarily so raised the value of lodgings here that we have to pay a high price for even such a house as this. mr. wilding having gone on a tour to scotland, i had to be at the consulate every day last week till yesterday; when i absented myself from duty, and went to the exhibition. u---- and i spent an hour together, looking principally at the old dutch masters, who seem to me the most wonderful set of men that ever handled a brush. such lifelike representations of cabbages, onions, brass kettles, and kitchen crockery; such blankets, with the woollen fuzz upon them; such everything i never thought that the skill of man could produce! even the photograph cannot equal their miracles. the closer you look, the more minutely true the picture is found to be, and i doubt if even the microscope could see beyond the painter's touch. gerard dow seems to be the master among these queer magicians. a straw mat, in one of his pictures, is the most miraculous thing that human art has yet accomplished; and there is a metal vase, with a dent in it, that is absolutely more real than reality. these painters accomplish all they aim at,--a praise, methinks, which can be given to no other men since the world began. they must have laid down their brushes with perfect satisfaction, knowing that each one of their million touches had been necessary to the effect, and that there was not one too few nor too many. and it is strange how spiritual and suggestive the commonest household article--an earthen pitcher, for example-- becomes, when represented with entire accuracy. these dutchmen got at the soul of common things, and so made them types and interpreters of the spiritual world. afterwards i looked at many of the pictures of the old masters, and found myself gradually getting a taste for them; at least, they give me more and more pleasure the oftener i come to see them. doubtless, i shall be able to pass for a man of taste by the time i return to america. it is an acquired taste, like that for wines; and i question whether a man is really any truer, wiser, or better for possessing it. from the old masters, i went among the english painters, and found myself more favorably inclined towards some of them than at my previous visits; seeing something wonderful even in turner's lights and mists and yeasty waves, although i should like him still better if his pictures looked in the least like what they typify. the most disagreeable of english painters is etty, who had a diseased appetite for woman's flesh, and spent his whole life, apparently, in painting them with enormously developed busts. i do not mind nudity in a modest and natural way; but etty's women really thrust their nudity upon you with malice aforethought, . . . . and the worst of it is they are not beautiful. among the last pictures that i looked at was hogarth's march to finchley; and surely nothing can be covered more thick and deep with english nature than that piece of canvas. the face of the tall grenadier in the centre, between two women, both of whom have claims on him, wonderfully expresses trouble and perplexity; and every touch in the picture meant something and expresses what it meant. the price of admission, after two o'clock, being sixpence, the exhibition was thronged with a class of people who do not usually come in such large numbers. it was both pleasant and touching to see how earnestly some of them sought to get instruction from what they beheld. the english are a good and simple people, and take life in earnest. august th.--passing by the gateway of the manchester cathedral the other morning, on my way to the station, i found a crowd collected, and, high overhead, the bells were chiming for a wedding. these chimes of bells are exceedingly impressive, so broadly gladsome as they are, filling the whole air, and every nook of one's heart with sympathy. they are good for a people to rejoice with, and good also for a marriage, because through all their joy there is something solemn,--a tone of that voice which we have heard so often at funerals. it is good to see how everybody, up to this old age of the world, takes an interest in weddings, and seems to have a faith that now, at last, a couple have come together to make each other happy. the high, black, rough old cathedral tower sent out its chime of bells as earnestly as for any bridegroom and bride that came to be married five hundred years ago. i went into the churchyard, but there was such a throng of people on its pavement of flat tombstones, and especially such a cluster along the pathway by which the bride was to depart, that i could only see a white dress waving along, and really do not know whether she was a beauty or a fright. the happy pair got into a post-chaise that was waiting at the gate, and immediately drew some crimson curtains, and so vanished into their paradise. there were two other post-chaises and pairs, and all three had postilions in scarlet. this is the same cathedral where, last may, i saw a dozen couples married in the lump. in a railway carriage, two or three days ago, an old merchant made rather a good point of one of the uncomfortable results of the electric telegraph. he said that formerly a man was safe from bad news, such as intelligence of failure of debtors, except at the hour of opening his letters in the morning; and then he was in some degree prepared for it, since, among (say) fifteen letters, he would be pretty certain to find some "queer" one. but since the telegraph has come into play, he is never safe, and may be hit with news of failure, shipwreck, fall of stocks, or whatever disaster, at all hours of the day. i went to the exhibition on wednesday with u----, and looked at the pencil sketches of the old masters; also at the pictures generally, old and new. i particularly remember a spring landscape, by john linnell the younger. it is wonderfully good; so tender and fresh that the artist seems really to have caught the evanescent april and made her permanent. here, at least, is eternal spring. i saw a little man, behind an immense beard, whom i take to be the duke of newcastle; at least, there was a photograph of him in the gallery, with just such a beard. he was at the palace on that day. august th.--i went again to the exhibition day before yesterday, and looked much at both the modern and ancient pictures, as also at the water-colors. i am making some progress as a connoisseur, and have got so far as to be able to distinguish the broader differences of style,-- as, for example, between rubens and rembrandt. i should hesitate to claim any more for myself thus far. in fact, however, i do begin to have a liking for good things, and to be sure that they are good. murillo seems to me about the noblest and purest painter that ever lived, and his "good shepherd" the loveliest picture i have seen. it is a hopeful symptom, moreover, of improving taste, that i see more merit in the crowd of painters than i was at first competent to acknowledge. i could see some of their defects from the very first; but that is the earliest stage of connoisseurship, after a formal and ignorant admiration. mounting a few steps higher, one sees beauties. but how much study, how many opportunities, are requisite to form and cultivate a taste! the exhibition must be quite thrown away on the mass of spectators. both they and i are better able to appreciate the specimens of ornamental art contained in the oriental room, and in the numerous cases that are ranged up and down the nave. the gewgaws of all time are here, in precious metals, glass, china, ivory, and every other material that could be wrought into curious and beautiful shapes; great basins and dishes of embossed gold from the queen's sideboard, or from the beaufets of noblemen; vessels set with precious stones; the pastoral staffs of prelates, some of them made of silver or gold, and enriched with gems, and what have been found in the tombs of the bishops; state swords, and silver maces; the rich plate of colleges, elaborately wrought,--great cups, salvers, tureens, that have been presented by loving sons to their alma mater; the heirlooms of old families, treasured from generation to generation, and hitherto only to be seen by favored friends; famous historical jewels, some of which are painted in the portraits of the historical men and women that hang on the walls; numerous specimens of the beautiful old venetian glass, some of which looks so fragile that it is a wonder how it could bear even the weight of the wine, that used to be poured into it, without breaking. these are the glasses that tested poison, by being shattered into fragments at its touch. the strangest and ugliest old crockery, pictured over with monstrosities,--the palissy ware, embossed with vegetables, fishes, lobsters, that look absolutely real; the delicate sevres china, each piece made inestimable by pictures from a master's hand;--in short, it is a despair and misery to see so much that is curious and beautiful, and to feel that far the greater portion of it will slip out of the memory, and be as if we had never seen it. but i mean to look again and again at these things. we soon perceive that the present day does not engross all the taste and ingenuity that has ever existed in the mind of man; that, in fact, we are a barren age in that respect. august th.--i went to the exhibition on monday, and again yesterday, and measurably enjoyed both visits. i continue to think, however, that a picture cannot be fully enjoyed except by long and intimate acquaintance with it, nor can i quite understand what the enjoyment of a connoisseur is. he is not usually, i think, a man of deep, poetic feeling, and does not deal with the picture through his heart, nor set it in a poem, nor comprehend it morally. if it be a landscape, he is not entitled to judge of it by his intimacy with nature; if a picture of human action, he has no experience nor sympathy of life's deeper passages. however, as my acquaintance with pictures increases, i find myself recognizing more and more the merit of the acknowledged masters of the art; but, possibly, it is only because i adopt the wrong principles which may have been laid down by the connoisseurs. but there can be no mistake about murillo,-- not that i am worthy to admire him yet, however. seeing the many pictures of holy families, and the virgin and child, which have been painted for churches and convents, the idea occurs, that it was in this way that the poor monks and nuns gratified, as far as they could, their natural longing for earthly happiness. it was not mary and her heavenly child that they really beheld, or wished for; but an earthly mother rejoicing over her baby, and displaying it probably to the world as an object worthy to be admired by kings,--as mary does, in the adoration of the magi. every mother, i suppose, feels as if her first child deserved everybody's worship. i left the exhibition at three o'clock, and went to manchester, where i sought out mr. c s------- in his little office. he greeted me warmly, and at five we took the omnibus for his house, about four miles from town. he seems to be on pleasant terms with his neighbors, for almost everybody that got into the omnibus exchanged kindly greetings with him, and indeed his kindly, simple, genial nature comes out so evidently that it would be difficult not to like him. his house stands, with others, in a green park,--a small, pretty, semi-detached suburban residence of brick, with a lawn and garden round it. in close vicinity, there is a deep clough or dell, as shaggy and wild as a poet could wish, and with a little stream running through it, as much as five miles long. the interior of the house is very pretty, and nicely, even handsomely and almost sumptuously, furnished; and i was very glad to find him so comfortable. his recognition as a poet has been hearty enough to give him a feeling of success, for he showed me various tokens of the estimation in which he is held,--for instance, a presentation copy of southey's works, in which the latter had written "amicus amico,--poeta poetae." he said that southey had always been most kind to him. . . . . there were various other testimonials from people of note, american as well as english. in his parlor there is a good oil-painting of himself, and in the drawing-room a very fine crayon sketch, wherein his face, handsome and agreeable, is lighted up with all a poet's ecstasy; likewise a large and fine engraving from the picture. the government has recognized his poetic merit by a pension of fifty pounds,--a small sung, it is true, but enough to mark him out as one who has deserved well of his country. . . . . the man himself is very good and lovable. . . . . i was able to gratify him by saying that i had recently seen many favorable notices of his poems in the american newspapers; an edition having been published a few months since on our side of the ocean. he was much pleased at this, and asked me to send him the notices. . . . . august th.--i have been two or three times to the exhibition since my last date, and enjoy it more as i become familiar with it. there is supposed to be about a third of the good pictures here which england contains; and it is said that the tory nobility and gentry have contributed to it much more freely and largely than the whigs. the duke of devonshire, for instance, seems to have sent nothing. mr. ticknor, the spanish historian, whom i met yesterday, observed that we should not think quite so much of this exhibition as the english do after we have been to italy, although it is a good school in which to gain a preparatory knowledge of the different styles of art. i am glad to hear that there are better things still to be seen. nevertheless, i should suppose that certain painters are better represented here than they ever have been or will be elsewhere. vandyke, certainly, can be seen nowhere else so well; rembrandt and rubens have satisfactory specimens; and the whole series of english pictorial achievement is shown more perfectly than within any other walls. perhaps it would be wise to devote myself to the study of this latter, and leave the foreigners to be studied on their own soil. murillo can hardly have done better than in the pictures by him which we see here. there is nothing of raphael's here that is impressive. titian has some noble portraits, but little else that i care to see. in all these old masters, murillo only excepted, it is very rare, i must say, to find any trace of natural feeling and passion; and i am weary of naked goddesses, who never had any real life and warmth in the painter's imagination,--or, if so, it was the impure warmth of an unchaste woman, who sat for him. last week i dined at mr. f. heywood's to meet mr. adolphus, the author of a critical work on the waverley novels, published long ago, and intended to prove, from internal evidence, that they were written by sir walter scott. . . . . his wife was likewise of the party, . . . . and also a young spanish lady, their niece, and daughter of a spaniard of literary note. she herself has literary tastes and ability, and is well known to prescott, whom, i believe, she has assisted in his historical researches, and also to professor ticknor; and furthermore she is very handsome and unlike an english damsel, very youthful and maiden-like; and her manners have all ardor and enthusiasm that were pleasant to see, especially as she spoke warmly of my writings; and yet i should wrong her if i left the impression of her being forthputting and obtrusive, for it was not the fact in the least. she speaks english like a native, insomuch that i should never have suspected her to be anything else. my nerves recently have not been in an exactly quiet and normal state. i begin to weary of england and need another clime. september th.--i think i paid my last visit to the exhibition, and feel as if i had had enough of it, although i have got but a small part of the profit it might have afforded me. but pictures are certainly quite other things to me now from what they were at my first visit; it seems even as if there were a sort of illumination within them, that makes me see them more distinctly. speaking of pictures, the miniature of anne of cleves is here, on the faith of which henry viii. married her; also, the picture of the infanta of spain, which buckingham brought over to charles i. while prince of wales. this has a delicate, rosy prettiness. one rather interesting portion of the exhibition is the refreshment-room, or rather rooms; for very much space is allowed both to the first and second classes. i have looked most at the latter, because there john ball and his wife may be seen in full gulp aid guzzle, swallowing vast quantities of cold boiled beef, thoroughly moistened with porter or bitter ale; and very good meat and drink it is. at my last visit, on friday, i met judge pollock of liverpool, who introduced me to a gentleman in a gray slouched hat as mr. du val, an artist, resident in manchester; and mr. du val invited me to dine with him at six o'clock. so i went to carlton grove, his residence, and found it a very pretty house, with its own lawn and shrubbery about it. . . . . there was a mellow fire in the grate, which made the drawing-room very cosey and pleasant, as the dusk came on before dinner. mr. du val looked like an artist, and like a remarkable man. . . . . we had very good talk, chiefly about the exhibition, and du val spoke generously and intelligently of his brother-artists. he says that england might furnish five exhibitions, each one as rich as the present. i find that the most famous picture here is one that i have hardly looked at, "the three marys," by annibal caracci. in the drawing-room there were several pictures and sketches by du val, one of which i especially liked,--a misty, moonlight picture of the mersey, near seacombe. i never saw painted such genuine moonlight. . . . . i took my leave at half past ten, and found my cab at the door, and my cabman snugly asleep inside of it; and when mr. du val awoke him, he proved to be quite drunk, insomuch that i hesitated whether to let him clamber upon the box, or to take post myself, and drive the cabman home. however, i propounded two questions to him: first, whether his horse would go of his own accord; and, secondly, whether be himself was invariably drunk at that time of night, because, if it were his normal state, i should be safer with him drunk than sober. being satisfied on these points, i got in, and was driven home without accident or adventure; except, indeed, that the cabman drew up and opened the door for me to alight at a vacant lot on stratford road, just as if there had been a house and home and cheerful lighted windows in that vacancy. on my remonstrance he resumed the whip and reins, and reached boston terrace at last; and, thanking me for an extra sixpence as well as he could speak, he begged me to inquire for "little john" whenever i next wanted a cab. cabmen are, as a body, the most ill-natured and ungenial men in the world; but this poor little man was excellently good-humored. speaking of the former rudeness of manners, now gradually refining away, of the manchester people, judge ------ said that, when he first knew manchester, women, meeting his wife in the street, would take hold of her dress and say, "ah, three and sixpence a yard!" the men were very rough, after the old lancashire fashion. they have always, however, been a musical people, and this may have been a germ of refinement in them. they are still much more simple and natural than the liverpool people, who love the aristocracy, and whom they heartily despise. it is singular that the great art-exhibition should have come to pass in the rudest great town in england. leamington. lansdowne cirrus, september th.--we have become quite weary of our small, mean, uncomfortable, and unbeautiful lodgings at chorlton road, with poor and scanty furniture within doors, and no better prospect from the parlor windows than a mud-puddle, larger than most english lakes, on a vacant building-lot opposite our house. the exhibition, too, was fast becoming a bore; for you must really love a picture, in order to tolerate the sight of it many times. moreover, the smoky and sooty air of that abominable manchester affected my wife's throat disadvantageously; so, on a tuesday morning, we struck our tent and set forth again, regretting to leave nothing except the kind disposition of mrs. honey, our housekeeper. i do not remember meeting with any other lodging-house keeper who did not grow hateful and fearful on short acquaintance; but i attribute this, not so much to the people themselves, as, primarily, to the unfair and ungenerous conduct of some of their english guests, who feel so sure of being cheated that they always behave as if in an enemy's country, and therefore they find it one. the rain poured down upon us as we drove away in two cabs, laden with mountainous luggage to the london road station; and the whole day was grim with cloud and moist with showers. we went by way of birmingham, and stayed three hours at the great dreary station there, waiting for the train to leamington, whither fanny had gone forward the day before to secure lodgings for us (as she is english, and understands the matter) we all were tired and dull by the time we reached the leamington station, where a note from fanny gave us the address of our lodgings. lansdowne circus is really delightful after that ugly and grimy suburb of manchester. indeed, there could not possibly be a greater contrast than between leamington and manchester,--the latter built only for dirty uses, and scarcely intended as a habitation for man; the former so cleanly, so set out with shade trees, so regular in its streets, so neatly paved, its houses so prettily contrived and nicely stuccoed, that it does not look like a portion of the work-a-day world. kenilworth. september th.--the weather was very uncertain through the last week, and yesterday morning, too, was misty and sunless; notwithstanding which we took the rail for kenilworth before eleven. the distance from leamington is less than five miles, and at the kenilworth station we found a little bit of an omnibus, into which we packed ourselves, together with two ladies, one of whom, at least, was an american. i begin to agree partly with the english, that we are not a people of elegant manners. at all events there is sometimes a bare, hard, meagre sort of deportment, especially in our women, that has not its parallel elsewhere. but perhaps what sets off this kind of behavior, and brings it into alto relievo, is the fact of such uncultivated persons travelling abroad, and going to see sights that would not be interesting except to people of some education and refinement. we saw but little of the village of kenilworth, passing through it sidelong fashion, in the omnibus; but i learn that it has between three and four thousand inhabitants, and is of immemorial antiquity. we saw a few old, gabled, and timber-framed houses; but generally the town was of modern aspect, although less so in the immediate vicinity of the castle gate, across the road from which there was an inn, with bowling-greens, and a little bunch of houses and shops. apart from the high road there is a gate-house, ancient, but in excellent repair, towered, turreted, and battlemented, and looking like a castle in itself. until cromwell's time, the entrance to the castle used to be beneath an arch that passed through this structure; but the gate-house being granted to one of the parliament officers, he converted it into a residence, and apparently added on a couple of gables, which now look quite as venerable as the rest of the edifice. admission within the outer grounds of the castle is now obtained through a little wicket close beside the gate-house, at which sat one or two old men, who touched their hats to us in humble willingness to accept a fee. one of them had guide-books for sale; and, finding that we were not to be bothered by a cicerone, we bought one of his books. the ruins are perhaps two hundred yards from the gate-house and the road, and the space between is a pasture for sheep, which also browse in the inner court, and shelter themselves in the dungeons and state apartments of the castle. goats would be fitter occupants, because they would climb to the tops of the crumbling towers, and nibble the weeds and shrubbery that grow there. the first part of the castle which we reach is called caesar's tower, being the oldest portion of the ruins, and still very stalwart and massive, and built of red freestone, like all the rest. caesar's tower being on the right, leicester's buildings, erected by the earl of leicester, queen elizabeth's favorite, are on the left; and between these two formerly stood other structures which have now as entirely disappeared as if they had never existed; and through the wide gap, thus opened, appears the grassy inner court, surrounded on three sides by half-fallen towers and shattered walls. some of these were erected by john of gaunt; and among these ruins is the banqueting-hall,-- or rather was,--for it has now neither floor nor roof, but only the broken stone-work of some tall, arched windows, and the beautiful, old ivied arch of the entrance-way, now inaccessible from the ground. the ivy is very abundant about the ruins, and hangs its green curtains quite from top to bottom of some of the windows. there are likewise very large and aged trees within the castle, there being no roof nor pavement anywhere, except in some dungeon-like nooks; so that the trees having soil and air enough, and being sheltered from unfriendly blasts, can grow as if in a nursery. hawthorn, however, next to ivy, is the great ornament and comforter of these desolate ruins. i have not seen so much nor such thriving hawthorn anywhere else,--in the court, high up on crumbly heights, on the sod that carpets roofless rooms,--everywhere, indeed, and now rejoicing in plentiful crops of red berries. the ivy is even more wonderfully luxuriant; its trunks being, in some places, two or three feet in diameter, and forming real buttresses against the walls, which are actually supported and vastly strengthened by this parasite, that clung to them at first only for its own convenience, and now holds them up, lest it should be ruined by their fall. thus an abuse has strangely grown into a use, and i think we may sometimes see the same fact, morally, in english matters. there is something very curious in the close, firm grip which the ivy fixes upon the wall, closer and closer for centuries. neither is it at all nice as to what it clutches, in its necessity for support. i saw in the outer court an old hawthorn-tree, to which a plant of ivy had married itself, and the ivy trunk and the hawthorn trunk were now absolutely incorporated, and in their close embrace you could not tell which was which. at one end of the banqueting-hall, there are two large bay-windows, one of which looks into the inner court, and the other affords a view of the surrounding country. the former is called queen elizabeth's dressing-room. beyond the banqueting-hall is what is called the strong tower, up to the top of which we climbed principally by the aid of the stones that have tumbled down from it. a lady sat half-way down the crumbly descent, within the castle, on a camp-stool, and before an easel, sketching this tower, on the summit of which we sat. she said it was amy robsart's tower; and within it, open to the day, and quite accessible, we saw a room that we were free to imagine had been occupied by her. i do not find that these associations of real scenes with fictitious events greatly heighten the charm of them. by this time the sun had come out brightly, and with such warmth that we were glad to sit down in the shadow. several sight-seers were now rambling about, and among them some school-boys, who kept scrambling up to points whither no other animal, except a goat, would have ventured. their shouts and the sunshine made the old castle cheerful; and what with the ivy and the hawthorn, and the other old trees, it was very beautiful and picturesque. but a castle does not make nearly so interesting and impressive a ruin as an abbey, because the latter was built for beauty, and on a plan in which deep thought and feeling were involved; and having once been a grand and beautiful work, it continues grand and beautiful through all the successive stages of its decay. but a castle is rudely piled together for strength and other material conveniences; and, having served these ends, it has nothing left to fall back upon, but crumbles into shapeless masses, which are often as little picturesque as a pile of bricks. without the ivy and the shrubbery, this huge kenilworth would not be a pleasant object, except for one or two window-frames, with broken tracery, in the banqueting-hall. . . . . we stayed from eleven till two, and identified the various parts of the castle as well as we could by the guide-book. the ruins are very extensive, though less so than i should have imagined, considering that seven acres were included within the castle wall. but a large part of the structures have been taken away to build houses in kenilworth village and elsewhere, and much, too, to make roads with, and a good deal lies under the green turf in the court-yards, inner and outer. as we returned to the gate, my wife and u---- went into the gate-house to see an old chimney-piece, and other antiquities, and j----- and i proceeded a little way round the outer wall, and saw the remains of the moat, and lin's tower,--a real and shattered fabric of john of gaunt. the omnibus now drove up, and one of the old men at the gate came hobbling up to open the door, and was rewarded with a sixpence, and we drove down to the king's head. . . . . we then walked out and bought prints of the castle, and inquired our way to the church and to the ruins of the priory. the latter, so far as we could discover them, are very few and uninteresting; and the church, though it has a venerable exterior, and an aged spire, has been so modernized within, and in so plain a fashion, as to have lost what beauty it may once have had. there were a few brasses and mural monuments, one of which was a marble group of a dying woman and her family by westmacott. the sexton was a cheerful little man, but knew very little about his church, and nothing of the remains of the priory. the day was spent very pleasantly amid this beautiful green english scenery, these fine old warwickshire trees, and broad, gently swelling fields. liverpool. september th.--i took the train for rugby, and thence to liverpool. the most noticeable character at mrs. blodgett's now is mr. t------, a yankee, who has seen the world, and gathered much information and experience already, though still a young man,--a handsome man, with black curly hair, a dark, intelligent, bright face, and rather cold blue eyes, but a very pleasant air and address. his observing faculties are very strongly developed in his forehead, and his reflective ones seem to be adequate to making some, if not the deepest, use of what he sees. he has voyaged and travelled almost all over the world, and has recently published a book of his peregrinations, which has been well received. he is of exceeding fluent talk, though rather too much inclined to unfold the secret springs of action in louis napoleon, and other potentates, and to tell of revolutions that are coming at some unlooked-for moment, but soon. still i believe in his wisdom and foresight about as much as in any other man's. there are no such things. he is a merchant, and meditates settling in london, and making a colossal fortune there during the next ten or twenty years; that being the period during which london is to hold the exchanges of the world, and to continue its metropolis. after that, new york is to be the world's queen city. there is likewise here a young american, named a------, who has been at a german university, and favors us with descriptions of his student life there, which seems chiefly to have consisted in drinking beer and fighting duels. he shows a cut on his nose as a trophy of these combats. he has with him a dog of st. bernard, who is a much more remarkable character than himself,--an immense dog, a noble and gentle creature; and really it touches my heart that his master is going to take him from his native snow-mountain to a southern plantation to die. mr. a------ says that there are now but five of these dogs extant at the convent; there having, within two or three years, been a disease among them, with which this dog also has suffered. his master has a certificate of his genuineness, and of himself being the rightful purchaser; and he says that as he descended the mountain, every peasant along the road stopped him, and would have compelled him to give up the dog had he not produced this proof of property. the neighboring mountaineers are very jealous of the breed being taken away, considering them of such importance to their own safety. this huge animal, the very biggest dog i ever saw, though only eleven months old, and not so high by two or three inches as he will be, allows mr. ------ to play with him, and take him on his shoulders (he weighs, at least, a hundred pounds), like any lapdog. leamington. lansdowne circus, october th.--i returned hither from liverpool last week, and have spent the time idly since then, reposing myself after the four years of unnatural restraint in the consulate. being already pretty well acquainted with the neighborhood of leamington, i have little or nothing to record about the prettiest, cheerfullest, cleanest of english towns. on saturday we took the rail for coventry, about a half-hour's travel distant. i had been there before, more than two years ago. . . . . no doubt i described it on my first visit; and it is not remarkable enough to be worth two descriptions,--a large town of crooked and irregular streets and lanes, not looking nearly so ancient as it is, because of new brick and stuccoed fronts which have been plastered over its antiquity; although still there are interspersed the peaked gables of old-fashioned, timber-built houses; or an archway of worn stone, which, if you pass through it, shows like an avenue from the present to the past; for just in the rear of the new-fangled aspect lurks the old arrangement of court-yards, and rustiness, and grimness, that would not be suspected from the exterior. right across the narrow street stands st. michael's church with its tall, tall tower and spire. the body of the church has been almost entirely recased with stone since i was here before; but the tower still retains its antiquity, and is decorated with statues that look down from their lofty niches seemingly in good preservation. the tower and spire are most stately and beautiful, the whole church very noble. we went in, and found that the vulgar plaster of cromwell's time has been scraped from the pillars and arches, leaving them all as fresh and splendid as if just made. we looked also into trinity church, which stands close by st. michael's, separated only, i think, by the churchyard. we also visited st. john's church, which is very venerable as regards its exterior, the stone being worn and smoothed--if not roughened, rather--by centuries of storm and fitful weather. this wear and tear, however, has almost ceased to be a charm to my mind, comparatively to what it was when i first began to see old buildings. within, the church is spoiled by wooden galleries, built across the beautiful pointed arches. we saw nothing else particularly worthy of remark except ford's hospital, in grey friars' street. it has an elizabethan front of timber and plaster, facing on the street, with two or three peaked gables in a row, beneath which is a low, arched entrance, giving admission into a small paved quadrangle, open to the sky above, but surrounded by the walls, lozenge-paned windows, and gables of the hospital. the quadrangle is but a few paces in width, and perhaps twenty in length; and, through a half-closed doorway, at the farther end, there was a glimpse into a garden. just within the entrance, through an open door, we saw the neat and comfortable apartment of the matron of the hospital; and, along the quadrangle, on each side, there were three or four doors, through which we glanced into little rooms, each containing a fireplace, a bed, a chair or two,--a little, homely, domestic scene, with one old woman in the midst of it; one old woman in each room. they are destitute widows, who have their lodging and home here,--a small room for each one to sleep, cook, and be at home in,--and three and sixpence a week to feed and clothe themselves with,--a cloak being the only garment bestowed on them. when one of the sisterhood dies each old woman has to pay twopence towards the funeral; and so they slowly starve and wither out of life, and claim each their twopence contribution in turn. i am afraid they have a very dismal time. there is an old man's hospital in another part of the town, on a similar plan. a collection of sombre and lifelike tales might be written on the idea of giving the experiences of these hospitallers, male and female; and they might be supposed to be written by the matron of one, who had acquired literary taste and practice as a governess,--and by the master of the other, a retired school-usher. it was market-day in coventry, and far adown the street leading from it there were booths and stalls, and apples, pears, toys, books, among which i saw my twice-told tales, with an awful portrait of myself as frontispiece,--and various country produce, offered for sale by men, women, and girls. the scene looked lively, but had not much vivacity in it. october th.--the autumn has advanced progressively, and is now fairly established, though still there is much green foliage, in spite of many brown trees, and an enormous quantity of withered leaves, too damp to rustle, strewing the paths,--whence, however, they are continually swept up and carried off in wheelbarrows, either for neatness or for the agricultural worth, as manure, of even a withered leaf. the pastures look just as green as ever,--a deep, bright verdure, that seems almost sunshine in itself, however sombre the sky may be. the little plats of grass and flowers, in front of our circle of houses, might still do credit to an american midsummer; for i have seen beautiful roses here within a day or two; and dahlias, asters, and such autumnal flowers, are plentiful; and i have no doubt that the old year's flowers will bloom till those of the new year appear. really, the english winter is not so terrible as ours. october th.--wednesday was one of the most beautiful of all days, and gilded almost throughout with the precious english sunshine,--the most delightful sunshine ever made, both for its positive fine qualities and because we seldom get it without too great an admixture of water. we made no use of this lovely day, except to walk to an arboretum and pinetum on the outskirts of the town. u---- and mrs. shepard made an excursion to guy's cliff. [here comes in the visit to leicester's hospital and redfern's shop, and st. mary's church, printed in our old home.--ed.] from redfern's we went back to the market-place, expecting to find j----- at the museum, but the keeper said he had gone away. we went into this museum, which contains the collections in natural history, etc., of a county society. it is very well arranged, and is rich in specimens of ornithology, among which was an albatross, huge beyond imagination. i do not think that coleridge could have known the size of the fowl when he caused it to be hung round the neck of his ancient mariner. there were a great many humming-birds from various parts of the world, and some of their breasts actually gleamed and shone as with the brightest lustre of sunset. also, many strange fishes, and a huge pike taken from the river avon, and so long that i wonder how he could turn himself about in such a little river as the avon is near warwick. a great curiosity was a bunch of skeleton leaves and flowers, prepared by a young lady, and preserving all the most delicate fibres of the plant, looking like inconceivably fine lace-work, white as snow, while the substance was quite taken away. in another room there were minerals, shells, and a splendid collection of fossils, among which were remains of antediluvian creatures, several feet long. in still another room, we saw some historical curiosities,--the most interesting of which were two locks of reddish-brown hair, one from the head and one from the beard of edward iv. they were fastened to a manuscript letter which authenticates the hair as having been taken from king edward's tomb in . near these relics was a seal of the great earl of warwick, the mighty kingmaker; also a sword from bosworth field, smaller and shorter than those now in use; for, indeed, swords seem to have increased in length, weight, and formidable aspect, now that the weapon has almost ceased to be used in actual warfare. the short roman sword was probably more murderous than any weapon of the same species, except the bowie-knife. here, too, were parliamentary cannon-balls, etc. . . . . [the visit to whitnash intervenes here.--ed.] london. great russell street, november th.--we have been thinking and negotiating about taking lodgings in london lately, and this morning we left leamington and reached london with no other misadventure than that of leaving the great bulk of our luggage behind us,--the van which we hired to take it to the railway station having broken down under its prodigious weight, in the middle of the street. on our journey we saw nothing particularly worthy of note,--but everywhere the immortal verdure of england, scarcely less perfect than in june, so far as the fields are concerned, though the foliage of the trees presents pretty much the same hues as those of our own forests, after the gayety and gorgeousness have departed from them. our lodgings are in close vicinity to the british museum, which is the great advantage we took them for. i felt restless and uncomfortable, and soon strolled forth, without any definite object, and walked as far as charing cross. very dull and dreary the city looked, and not in the least lively, even where the throng was thickest and most brisk. as i trudged along, my reflection was, that never was there a dingier, uglier, less picturesque city than london; and that it is really wonderful that so much brick and stone, for centuries together, should have been built up with so poor a result. yet these old names of the city--fleet street, ludgate hill, the strand-used to throw a glory over these homely precincts when i first saw them, and still do so in a less degree. where farrington street opens upon fleet street, moreover, i had a glimpse of st. paul's, along ludgate street, in the gathering dimness, and felt as if i saw an old friend. in that neighborhood--speaking of old friends--i met mr. parker of boston, who told me sad news of a friend whom i love as much as if i had known him for a lifetime, though he is, indeed, but of two or three years' standing. he said that my friend's bankruptcy is in to-day's gazette. of all men on earth, i had rather this misfortune should have happened to any other; but i hope and think he has sturdiness and buoyancy enough to rise up beneath it. i cannot conceive of his face otherwise than with a glow on it, like that of the sun at noonday. before i reached our lodgings, the dusk settled into the streets, and a mist bedewed and bedamped me, and i went astray, as is usual with me, and had to inquire my way; indeed, except in the principal thoroughfares, london is so miserably lighted that it is impossible to recognize one's whereabouts. on my arrival i found our parlor looking cheerful with a brisk fire; . . . . but the first day or two in new lodgings is at best an uncomfortable time. fanny has just come in with more unhappy news about ------. pray heaven it may not be true! . . . . troubles are a sociable brotherhood; they love to come hand in hand, or sometimes, even, to come side by side, with long looked-for and hoped-for good fortune. . . . . november th.--this morning we all went to the british museum, always a most wearisome and depressing task to me. i strolled through the lower rooms with a good degree of interest, looking at the antique sculptures, some of which were doubtless grand and beautiful in their day. . . . . the egyptian remains are, on the whole, the more satisfactory; for, though inconceivably ugly, they are at least miracles of size and ponderosity,--for example, a hand and arm of polished granite, as much as ten feet in length. the upper rooms, containing millions of specimens of natural history, in all departments, really made my heart ache with a pain and woe that i have never felt anywhere but in the british museum, and i hurried through them as rapidly as i could persuade j----- to follow me. we had left the rest of the party still intent on the grecian sculptures; and though j----- was much interested in the vast collection of shells, he chose to quit the museum with me in the prospect of a stroll about london. he seems to have my own passion for thronged streets, and the utmost bustle of human life. we went first to the railway station, in quest of our luggage, which we found. then we made a pretty straight course down to holborn, and through newgate street, stopping a few moments to look through the iron fence at the christ's hospital boys, in their long blue coats and yellow petticoats and stockings. it was between twelve and one o'clock; and i suppose this was their hour of play, for they were running about the enclosed space, chasing and overthrowing one another, without their caps, with their yellow petticoats tucked up, and all in immense activity and enjoyment. they were eminently a healthy and handsome set of boys. then we went into cheapside, where i called at mr. bennett's shop, to inquire what are the facts about ------. when i mentioned his name, mr. bennett shook his head and expressed great sorrow; but, on further talk, i found that he referred only to the failure, and had heard nothing about the other rumor. it cannot, therefore, be true; for bennett lives in his neighborhood, and could not have remained ignorant of such a calamity. there must be some mistake; none, however, in regard to the failure, it having been announced in the times. from bennett's shop--which is so near the steeple of bow church that it would tumble upon it if it fell over--we strolled still eastward, aiming at london bridge; but missed it, and bewildered ourselves among many dingy and frowzy streets and lanes. i bore towards the right, however, knowing that that course must ultimately bring me to the thames; and at last i saw before me ramparts, towers, circular and square, with battlemented summits, large sweeps and curves of fortification, as well as straight and massive walls and chimneys behind them (all a great confusion--to my eye), of ancient and more modern structure, and four loftier turrets rising in the midst; the whole great space surrounded by a broad, dry moat, which now seemed to be used as an ornamental walk, bordered partly with trees. this was the tower; but seen from a different and more picturesque point of view than i have heretofore gained of it. being so convenient for a visit, i determined to go in. at the outer gate, which is not a part of the fortification, a sentinel walks to and fro, besides whom there was a warder, in the rich old costume of henry viii's time, looking very gorgeous indeed,--as much so as scarlet and gold can make him. as j----- and i were not going to look at the jewel-room, we loitered about in the open space, before the white tower, while the tall, slender, white-haired, gentlemanly warder led the rest of the party into that apartment. we found what one might take for a square in a town, with gabled houses lifting their peaks on one side, and various edifices enclosing the other sides, and the great white tower,--now more black than white,--rising venerable, and rather picturesque than otherwise, the most prominent object in the scene. i have no plan nor available idea of it whatever in my mind, but it seems really to be a town within itself, with streets, avenues, and all that pertains to human life. there were soldiers going through their exercise in the open space, and along at the base of the white tower lay a great many cannon and mortars, some of which were of turkish manufacture, and immensely long and ponderous. others, likewise of mighty size, had once belonged to the famous ship great harry, and had lain for ages under the sea. others were east-indian. several were beautiful specimens of workmanship. the mortars--some so large that a fair-sized man might easily be rammed into them--held their great mouths slanting upward to the sky, and mostly contained a quantity of rain-water. while we were looking at these warlike toys,--for i suppose not one of them will ever thunder in earnest again,--the warder reappeared with his ladies, and, leading us all to a certain part of the open space, he struck his foot on the small stones with which it is paved, and told us that we were standing on the spot where anne boleyn and catharine parr were beheaded. it is not exactly in the centre of the square, but on a line with one of the angles of the white tower. i forgot to mention that the middle of the open space is occupied by a marble statue of wellington, which appeared to me very poor and laboriously spirited. lastly, the warder led us under the bloody tower, and by the side of the wakefield tower, and showed us the traitor's gate, which is now closed up, so as to afford no access to the thames. no; we first visited the beauchamp tower, famous as the prison of many historical personages. some of its former occupants have left their initials or names, and inscriptions of piety and patience, cut deep into the freestone of the walls, together with devices--as a crucifix, for instance--neatly and skilfully done. this room has a long, deep fireplace; it is chiefly lighted by a large window, which i fancy must have been made in modern times; but there are four narrow apertures, throwing in a little light through deep alcoves in the thickness of the octagon wall. one would expect such a room to be picturesque; but it is really not of striking aspect, being low, with a plastered ceiling,--the beams just showing through the plaster,--a boarded floor, and the walls being washed over with a buff color. a warder sat within a railing, by the great window, with sixpenny books to sell, containing transcripts of the inscriptions on the walls. we now left the tower, and made our way deviously westward, passing st. paul's, which looked magnificently and beautifully, so huge and dusky as it was, with here and there a space on its vast form where the original whiteness of the marble came out like a streak of moonshine amid the blackness with which time has made it grander than it was in its newness. it is a most noble edifice; and i delight, too, in the statues that crown some of its heights, and in the wreaths of sculpture which are hung around it. november th.--this morning began with such fog, that at the window of my chamber, lighted only from a small court-yard, enclosed by high, dingy walls, i could hardly see to dress. it kept alternately darkening, and then brightening a little, and darkening again, so much that we could but just discern the opposite houses; but at eleven or thereabouts it grew so much clearer that we resolved to venture out. our plan for the day was to go in the first place to westminster abbey; and to the national gallery, if we should find time. . . . . the fog darkened again as we went down regent street, and the duke of york's column was but barely visible, looming vaguely before us; nor, from pall mall, was nelson's pillar much more distinct, though methought his statue stood aloft in a somewhat clearer atmosphere than ours. passing whitehall, however, we could scarcely see inigo jones's banqueting-house, on the other side of the street; and the towers and turrets of the new houses of parliament were all but invisible, as was the abbey itself; so that we really were in some doubt whither we were going. we found our way to poets' corner, however, and entered those holy precincts, which looked very dusky and grim in the smoky light. . . . . i was strongly impressed with the perception that very commonplace people compose the great bulk of society in the home of the illustrious dead. it is wonderful how few names there are that one cares anything about a hundred years after their departure; but perhaps each generation acts in good faith in canonizing its own men. . . . . but the fame of the buried person does not make the marble live,--the marble keeps merely a cold and sad memory of a man who would else be forgotten. no man who needs a monument ever ought to have one. the painted windows of the abbey, though mostly modern, are exceedingly rich and beautiful; and i do think that human art has invented no other such magnificent method of adornment as this. our final visit to-day was to the national gallery, where i came to the conclusion that murillo's st. john was the most lovely picture i have ever seen, and that there never was a painter who has really made the world richer, except murillo. november th.--this morning we issued forth, and found the atmosphere chill and almost frosty, tingling upon our cheeks. . . . . the gateway of somerset house attracted us, and we walked round its spacious quadrangle, encountering many government clerks hurrying to their various offices. at least, i presumed them to be so. this is certainly a handsome square of buildings, with its grecian facades and pillars, and its sculptured bas-reliefs, and the group of statuary in the midst of the court. besides the part of the edifice that rises above ground, there appear to be two subterranean stories below the surface. from somerset house we pursued our way through temple bar, but missed it, and therefore entered by the passage from what was formerly alsatia, but which now seems to be a very respectable and humdrum part of london. we came immediately to the temple gardens, which we walked quite round. the grass is still green, but the trees are leafless, and had an aspect of not being very robust, even at more genial seasons of the year. there were, however, large quantities of brilliant chrysanthemums, golden, and of all hues, blooming gorgeously all about the borders; and several gardeners were at work, tending these flowers, and sheltering them from the weather. i noticed no roses, nor even rose-bushes, in the spot where the factions of york and lancaster plucked their two hostile flowers. leaving these grounds, we went to the hall of the middle temple, where we knocked at the portal, and, finding it not fastened, thrust it open. a boy appeared within, and the porter or keeper, at a distance, along the inner passage, called to us to enter; and, opening the door of the great hall, left us to view it till he should be at leisure to attend to us. truly it is a most magnificent apartment; very lofty,--so lofty, indeed, that the antique oak roof was quite hidden, as regarded all its details, in the sombre gloom that brooded under its rafters. the hall was lighted by four great windows, i think, on each of the two sides, descending half-way from the ceiling to the floor, leaving all beneath enclosed by oaken panelling, which, on three sides, was carved with escutcheons of such members of the society as have held the office of reader. there is likewise, in a large recess or transept, a great window, occupying the full height of the hall, and splendidly emblazoned with the arms of the templars who have attained to the dignity of chief justices. the other windows are pictured, in like manner, with coats of arms of local dignitaries connected with the temple; and besides all these there are arched lights, high towards the roof, at either end full of richly and chastely colored glass, and all the illumination that the great hall had come through these glorious panes, and they seemed the richer for the sombreness in which we stood. i cannot describe, or even intimate, the effect of this transparent glory, glowing down upon us in that gloomy depth of the hall. the screen at the lower end was of carved oak, very dark and highly polished, and as old as queen elizabeth's time. the keeper told us that the story of the armada was said to be represented in these carvings, but in the imperfect light we could trace nothing of it out. along the length of the apartment were set two oaken tables for the students of law to dine upon; and on the dais, at the upper end, there was a cross-table for the big-wigs of the society; the latter being provided with comfortable chairs, and the former with oaken benches. from a notification, posted near the door, i gathered that the cost of dinners is two shillings to each gentleman, including, as the attendant told me, ale and wine. i am reluctant to leave this hall without expressing how grave, how grand, how sombre, and how magnificent i feel it to be. as regards historical association, it was a favorite dancing-hall of queen elizabeth, and sir christopher hatton danced himself into her good graces here. we next went to the temple church, and, finding the door ajar, made free to enter beneath its norman arches, which admitted us into a circular vestibule, very ancient and beautiful. in the body of the church beyond we saw a boy sitting, but nobody either forbade or invited our entrance. on the floor of the vestibule lay about half a score of templars,--the representatives of the warlike priests who built this church and formerly held these precincts,--all in chain armor, grasping their swords, and with their shields beside them. except two or three, they lay cross-legged, in token that they had really fought for the holy sepulchre. i think i have seen nowhere else such well-preserved monumental knights as these. we proceeded into the interior of the church, and were greatly impressed with its wonderful beauty,--the roof springing, as it were, in a harmonious and accordant fountain, out of the clustered pillars that support its groined arches; and these pillars, immense as they are, are polished like so many gems. they are of purbeck marble, and, if i mistake not, had been covered with plaster for ages until latterly redeemed and beautified anew. but the glory of the church is its old painted windows; and, positively, those great spaces over the chancel appeared to be set with all manner of precious stones,--or it was as if the many-colored radiance of heaven were breaking upon us,--or as if we saw the wings of angels, storied over with richly tinted pictures of holy things. but it is idle to talk of this marvellous adornment; it is to be seen and wondered at, not written about. before we left the church, the porter made his appearance, in time to receive his fee,-- which somebody, indeed, is always ready to stretch out his hand for. and so ended our visit to the temple, which, by the by, though close to the midmost bustle of london, is as quiet as if it were always sunday there. we now went to st. paul's. u---- and miss shepard ascended to the whispering gallery, and we, sitting under the dome, at the base of one of the pillars, saw them far above us, looking very indistinct, for those misty upper-depths seemed almost to be hung with clouds. this cathedral, i think, does not profit by gloom, but requires cheerful sunshine to show it to the best advantage. the statues and sculptures in st. paul's are mostly covered with years of dust, and look thereby very grim and ugly; but there are few memories there from which i should care to brush away the dust, they being, in nine cases out of ten, naval and military heroes of second or third class merit. i really remember no literary celebrity admitted solely on that account, except dr. johnson. the crimean war has supplied two or three monuments, chiefly mural tablets; and doubtless more of the same excrescences will yet come out upon the walls. one thing that i newly noticed was the beautiful shape of the great, covered marble vase that serves for a font. from st. paul's we went down cheapside, and, turning into king street, visited guildhall, which we found in process of decoration for a public ball, to take place next week. it looked rather gewgawish thus gorgeous, being hung with flags of all nations, and adorned with military trophies; and the scene was repeated by a range of looking-glasses at one end of the room. the execrably painted windows really shocked us by their vulgar glare, after those of the temple hall and church; yet, a few years ago, i might very likely have thought them beautiful. our own national banner, i must remember to say, was hanging in guildhall, but with only ten stars, and an insufficient number of stripes. november th.--yesterday morning we went to london bridge and along lower thames street, and quickly found ourselves in billingsgate market, --a dirty, evil-smelling, crowded precinct, thronged with people carrying fish on their heads, and lined with fish-shops and fish-stalls, and pervaded with a fishy odor. the footwalk was narrow,--as indeed was the whole street,--and filthy to travel upon; and we had to elbow our way among rough men and slatternly women, and to guard our heads from the contact of fish-trays; very ugly, grimy, and misty, moreover, is billingsgate market, and though we heard none of the foul language of which it is supposed to be the fountain-head, yet it has its own peculiarities of behavior. for instance, u---- tells me that one man, staring at her and her governess as they passed, cried out, "what beauties!"--another, looking under her veil, greeted her with, "good morning, my love!" we were in advance, and heard nothing of these civilities. struggling through this fishy purgatory, we caught sight of the tower, as we drew near the end of the street; and i put all my party under charge of one of the trump cards, not being myself inclined to make the rounds of the small part of the fortress that is shown, so soon after my late visit. when they departed with the warder, i set out by myself to wander about the exterior of the tower, looking with interest at what i suppose to be tower hill,--a slight elevation of the large open space into which great tower street opens; though, perhaps, what is now called trinity square may have been a part of tower hill, and possibly the precise spot where the executions took place. keeping to the right, round the tower, i found the moat quite surrounded by a fence of iron rails, excluding me from a pleasant gravel-path, among flowers and shrubbery, on the inside, where i could see nursery-maids giving children their airings. possibly these may have been the privileged inhabitants of the tower, which certainly might contain the population of a large village. the aspect of the fortress has so much that is new and modern about it that it can hardly be called picturesque, and yet it seems unfair to withhold that epithet from such a collection of gray ramparts. i followed the iron fence quite round the outer grounds, till it approached the thames, and in this direction the moat and the pleasure-ground terminate in a narrow graveyard, which extends beneath the walls, and looks neglected and shaggy with long grass. it appeared to contain graves enough, but only a few tombstones, of which i could read the inscription of but one; it commemorated a mr. george gibson, a person of no note, nor apparently connected with the place. st. katharine's dock lies along the thames, in this vicinity; and while on one side of me were the tower, the quiet gravel-path, and the shaggy graveyard, on the other were draymen and their horses, dock-laborers, sailors, empty puncheons, and a miscellaneous spectacle of life,--including organ-grinders, men roasting chestnuts over small ovens on the sidewalk, boys and women with boards or wheelbarrows of apples, oyster-stands, besides pedlers of small wares, dirty children at play, and other figures and things that a dutch painter would seize upon. i went a little way into st. katharine's dock, and found it crowded with great ships; then, returning, i strolled along the range of shops that front towards this side of the tower. they have all something to do with ships, sailors, and commerce; being for the sale of ships' stores, nautical instruments, arms, clothing, together with a tavern and grog-shop at every other door; bookstalls, too, covered with cheap novels and song-books; cigar-shops in great numbers; and everywhere were sailors, and here and there a soldier, and children at the doorsteps, and women showing themselves at the doors or windows of their domiciles. these latter figures, however, pertain rather to the street up which i walked, penetrating into the interior of this region, which, i think, is blackwall--no, i forget what its name is. at all events, it has an ancient and most grimy and rough look, with its old gabled houses, each of them the seat of some petty trade and business in its basement story. among these i saw one house with three or four peaks along its front,--a second story projecting over the basement, and the whole clapboarded over. . . . . there was a butcher's stall in the lower story, with a front open to the street, in the ancient fashion, which seems to be retained only by butchers' shops. this part of london having escaped the great fire, i suppose there may be many relics of architectural antiquity hereabouts. at the end of an hour i went back to the refreshment-room, within the outer gate of the tower, where the rest of us shortly appeared. we now returned westward by way of great tower street, eastcheap, and cannon street, and, entering st. paul's, sat down beneath the misty dome to rest ourselves. the muffled roar of the city, as we heard it there, is very soothing, and keeps one listening to it, somewhat as the flow of a river keeps us looking at it. it is a grand and quiet sound; and, ever and anon, a distant door slammed somewhere in the cathedral, and reverberated long and heavily, like the roll of thunder or the boom of cannon. every noise that is loud enough to be heard in so vast an edifice melts into the great quietude. the interior looked very sombre, and the dome hung over us like a cloudy sky. i wish it were possible to pass directly from st. paul's into york minster, or from the latter into the former; that is, if one's mind could manage to stagger under both in the same day. there is no other way of judging of their comparative effect. under the influence of that grand lullaby,--the roar of the city,--we sat for some time after we were sufficiently rested; but at last plunged forth again, and went up newgate street, pausing to look through the iron railings of christ's hospital. the boys, however, were not at play; so we went onward, in quest of smithfield, and on our way had a greeting from mr. silsbee, a gentleman of our own native town. parting with him, we found smithfield, which is still occupied with pens for cattle, though i believe it has ceased to be a cattle-market. except it be st. bartholomew's hospital on one side, there is nothing interesting in this ugly square; though, no doubt, a few feet under the pavement there are bones and ashes as precious as anything of the kind on earth. i wonder when men will begin to erect monuments to human error; hitherto their pillars and statues have only been for the sake of glorification. but, after all, the present fashion may be the better and wholesomer. . . . . november th.--mr. silsbee called yesterday, and talked about matters of art, in which he is deeply interested, and which he has had good opportunities of becoming acquainted with, during three years' travel on the continent. he is a man of great intelligence and true feeling, and absolutely brims over with ideas,--his conversation flowing in a constant stream, which it appears to be no trouble whatever to him to keep up. . . . . he took his leave after a long call, and left with us a manuscript, describing a visit to berlin, which i read to my wife in the evening. it was well worth reading. he made an engagement to go with us to the crystal palace, and came rather for that purpose this morning. we drove to the london bridge station, where we bought return tickets that entitled us to admission to the palace, as well as conveyance thither, for half a crown apiece. on our arrival we entered by the garden front, thus gaining a fine view of the ornamental grounds, with their fountains and stately pathways, bordered with statues; and of the edifice itself, so vast and fairy-like, looking as if it were a bubble, and might vanish at a touch. there is as little beauty in the architecture of the crystal palace, however, as was possible to be with such gigantic use of such a material. no doubt, an architectural order of which we have as yet little or no idea is to be developed from the use of glass as a building-material, instead of brick and stone. it will have its own rules and its own results; but, meanwhile, even the present palace is positively a very beautiful object. on entering we found the atmosphere chill and comfortless,--more so, it seemed to me, than the open air itself. it was not a genial day; though now and then the sun gleamed out, and once caused fine effects in the glasswork of a crystal fountain in one of the courts. we were under mr. silshee's guidance for the day, . . . . and first we looked at the sculpture, which is composed chiefly of casts or copies of the most famous statues of all ages, and likewise of those crumbs and little fragments which have fallen from time's jaw,--and half-picked bones, as it were, that have been gathered up from spots where he has feasted full,--torsos, heads and broken limbs, some of them half worn away, as if they had been rolled over and over in the sea. i saw nothing in the sculptural way, either modern or antique, that impressed me so much as a statue of a nude mother by a french artist. in a sitting posture, with one knee over the other, she was clasping her highest knee with both hands; and in the hollow cradle thus formed by her arms lay two sweet little babies, as snug and close to her heart as if they had not yet been born,--two little love-blossoms,--and the mother encircling them and pervading them with love. but an infinite pathos and strange terror are given to this beautiful group by some faint bas-reliefs on the pedestal, indicating that the happy mother is eve, and cain and abel the two innocent babes. then we went to the alhambra, which looks like an enchanted palace. if it had been a sunny day, i should have enjoyed it more; but it was miserable to shiver and shake in the court of the lions, and in those chambers which were contrived as places of refuge from a fervid temperature. furthermore, it is not quite agreeable to see such clever specimens of stage decoration; they are so very good that it gets to be past a joke, without becoming actual earnest. i had not a similar feeling in respect to the reproduction of mediaeval statues, arches, doorways, all brilliantly colored as in the days of their first glory; yet i do not know but that the first is as little objectionable as the last. certainly, in both cases, scenes and objects of a past age are here more vividly presented to the dullest mind than without such material facilities they could possibly be brought before the most powerful imagination. truly, the crystal palace, in all its departments, offers wonderful means of education. i marvel what will come of it. among the things that i admired most was benvenuto cellini's statue of perseus holding the head of medusa, and standing over her headless and still writhing body, out of which, at the severed neck, gushed a vast exuberance of snakes. likewise, a sitting statue, by michel angelo, of one of the medici, full of dignity and grace and reposeful might. also the bronze gate of a baptistery in florence, carved all over with relieves of scripture subjects, executed in the most lifelike and expressive manner. the cast itself was a miracle of art. i should have taken it for the genuine original bronze. we then wandered into the house of diomed, which seemed to me a dismal abode, affording no possibility of comfort. we sat down in one of the rooms, on an iron bench, very cold. it being by this time two o'clock, we went to the refreshment-room and lunched; and before we had finished our repast, my wife discovered that she had lost her sable tippet, which she had been carrying on her arm. mr. silsbee most kindly and obligingly immediately went in quest of it, . . . . but to no purpose. . . . . upon entering the tropical saloon, we found a most welcome and delightful change of temperature among those gigantic leaves of banyan-trees, and the broad expanse of water-plants, floating on lakes, and spacious aviaries, where birds of brilliant plumage sported and sang amid such foliage as they knew at home. howbeit, the atmosphere was a little faint and sickish, perhaps owing to the odor of the half-tepid water. the most remarkable object here was the trunk of a tree, huge beyond imagination, --a pine-tree from california. it was only the stripped-off bark, however, which had been conveyed hither in segments, and put together again beyond the height of the palace roof; and the hollow interior circle of the tree was large enough to contain fifty people, i should think. we entered and sat down in all the remoteness from one another that is attainable in a good-sized drawing-room. we then ascended the gallery to get a view of this vast tree from a more elevated position, and found it looked even bigger from above. then we loitered slowly along the gallery as far as it extended, and afterwards descended into the nave; for it was getting dusk, and a horn had sounded, and a bell rung a warning to such as delayed in the remote regions of the building. mr. silsbee again most kindly went in quest of the sables, but still without success. . . . . i have not much enjoyed the crystal palace, but think it a great and admirable achievement. november th.--on tuesday evening mr. silsbee came to read some letters which he has written to his friends, chiefly giving his observations on art, together with descriptions of venice and other cities on the continent. they were very good, and indicate much sensibility and talent. after the reading we had a little oyster-supper and wine. i had written a note to ------, and received an answer, indicating that he was much weighed down by his financial misfortune. . . . . however, he desired me to come and see him; so yesterday morning i wended my way down into the city, and after various reluctant circumlocutions arrived at his house. the interior looked confused and dismal. it seems to me nobody else runs such risks as a man of business, because he risks everything. every other man, into whatever depth of poverty he may sink, has still something left, be he author, scholar, handicraftman, or what not; the merchant has nothing. we parted with a long and strong grasp of the hand, and ------ promised to come and see us soon. . . . . on my way home i called at truebner's in pater noster row. . . . . i waited a few minutes, he being busy with a tall, muscular, english-built man, who, after he had taken leave, truebner told me was charles reade. i once met him at an evening party, but should have been glad to meet him again, now that i appreciate him so much better after reading never too late to mend. december th.--all these days, since my last date, have been marked by nothing very well worthy of detail and description. i have walked the streets a great deal in the dull november days, and always take a certain pleasure in being in the midst of human life,--as closely encompassed by it as it is possible to be anywhere in this world; and in that way of viewing it there is a dull and sombre enjoyment always to be had in holborn, fleet street, cheapside, and the other busiest parts of london. it is human life; it is this material world; it is a grim and heavy reality. i have never had the same sense of being surrounded by materialisms and hemmed in with the grossness of this earthly existence anywhere else; these broad, crowded streets are so evidently the veins and arteries of an enormous city. london is evidenced in every one of them, just as a megatherium is in each of its separate bones, even if they be small ones. thus i never fail of a sort of self-congratulation in finding myself, for instance, passing along ludgate hill; but, in spite of this, it is really an ungladdened life to wander through these huge, thronged ways, over a pavement foul with mud, ground into it by a million of footsteps; jostling against people who do not seem to be individuals, but all one mass, so homogeneous is the street-walking aspect of them; the roar of vehicles pervading me,--wearisome cabs and omnibuses; everywhere the dingy brick edifices heaving themselves up, and shutting out all but a strip of sullen cloud, that serves london for a sky,--in short, a general impression of grime and sordidness; and at this season always a fog scattered along the vista of streets, sometimes so densely as almost to spiritualize the materialism and make the scene resemble the other world of worldly people, gross even in ghostliness. it is strange how little splendor and brilliancy one sees in london,--in the city almost none, though some in the shops of regent street. my wife has had a season of indisposition within the last few weeks, so that my rambles have generally been solitary, or with j----- only for a companion. i think my only excursion with my wife was a week ago, when we went to lincoln's inn fields, which truly are almost fields right in the heart of london, and as retired and secluded as if the surrounding city were a forest, and its heavy roar were the wind among the branches. we gained admission into the noble hall, which is modern, but built in antique style, and stately and beautiful exceedingly. i have forgotten all but the general effect, with its lofty oaken roof, its panelled walls, with the windows high above, and the great arched window at one end full of painted coats of arms, which the light glorifies in passing through them, as if each were the escutcheon of some illustrious personage. thence we went to the chapel of lincoln's inn, where, on entering, we found a class of young choristers receiving instruction from their music-master, while the organ accompanied their strains. these young, clear, fresh, elastic voices are wonderfully beautiful; they are like those of women, yet have something more birdlike and aspiring, more like what one conceives of the singing of angels. as for the singing of saints and blessed spirits that have once been human, it never can resemble that of these young voices; for no duration of heavenly enjoyments will ever quite take the mortal sadness out of it. in this chapel we saw some painted windows of the time of james i., a period much subsequent, to the age when painted glass was in its glory; but the pictures of scriptural people in these windows were certainly very fine,--the figures being as large as life, and the faces having much expression. the sunshine came in through some of them, and produced a beautiful effect, almost as if the painted forms were the glorified spirits of those holy personages. after leaving lincoln's inn, we looked at gray's inn, which is a great, quiet domain, quadrangle beyond quadrangle, close beside holborn, and a large space of greensward enclosed within it. it is very strange to find so much of ancient quietude right in the monster city's very jaws, which yet the monster shall not eat up,--right in its very belly, indeed, which yet, in all these ages, it shall not digest and convert into the same substance as the rest of its bustling streets. nothing else in london is so like the effect of a spell, as to pass under one of these archways, and find yourself transported from the jumble, mob, tumult, uproar, as of an age of week-days condensed into the present hour, into what seems an eternal sabbath. thence we went into staple inn, i think it was,--which has a front upon holborn of four or five ancient gables in a row, and a low arch under the impending story, admitting you into a paved quadrangle, beyond which you have the vista of another. i do not understand that the residences and chambers in these inns of court are now exclusively let to lawyers; though such inhabitants certainly seem to preponderate there. since then j----- and i walked down into the strand, and found ourselves unexpectedly mixed up with a crowd that grew denser as we approached charing cross, and became absolutely impermeable when we attempted to make our way to whitehall. the wicket in the gate of northumberland house, by the by, was open, and gave me a glimpse of the front of the edifice within,--a very partial glimpse, however, and that obstructed by the solid person of a footman, who, with some women, were passing out from within. the crowd was a real english crowd, perfectly undemonstrative, and entirely decorous, being composed mostly of well-dressed people, and largely of women. the cause of the assemblage was the opening of parliament by the queen, but we were too late for any chance of seeing her majesty. however, we extricated ourselves from the multitude, and, going along pall mall, got into the park by the steps at the foot of the duke of york's column, and thence went to the whitehall gateway, outside of which we found the horse guards drawn up,--a regiment of black horses and burnished cuirasses. on our way thither an open carriage came through the gateway into the park, conveying two ladies in court dresses; and another splendid chariot pressed out through the gateway,--the coachman in a cocked hat and scarlet and gold embroidery, and two other scarlet and gold figures hanging behind. it was one of the queen's carriages, but seemed to have nobody in it. i have forgotten to mention what, i think, produced more effect on me than anything else, namely, the clash of the bells from the steeple of st. martin's church and those of st. margaret. really, london seemed to cry out through them, and bid welcome to the queen. december th.--this being a muddy and dismal day, i went only to the british museum, which is but a short walk down the street (great russell street). i have now visited it often enough to be on more familiar terms with it than at first, and therefore do not feel myself so weighed down by the many things to be seen. i have ceased to expect or hope or wish to devour and digest the whole enormous collection; so i content myself with individual things, and succeed in getting now and then a little honey from them. unless i were studying some particular branch of history or science or art, this is the best that can be done with the british museum. i went first to-day into the townley gallery, and so along through all the ancient sculpture, and was glad to find myself able to sympathize more than heretofore with the forms of grace and beauty which are preserved there,--poor, maimed immortalities as they are,--headless and legless trunks, godlike cripples, faces beautiful and broken-nosed,-- heroic shapes which have stood so long, or lain prostrate so long, in the open air, that even the atmosphere of greece has almost dissolved the external layer of the marble; and yet, however much they may be worn away, or battered and shattered, the grace and nobility seem as deep in them as the very heart of the stone. it cannot be destroyed, except by grinding them to powder. in short, i do really believe that there was an excellence in ancient sculpture, which has yet a potency to educate and refine the minds of those who look at it even so carelessly and casually as i do. as regards the frieze of the parthenon, i must remark that the horses represented on it, though they show great spirit and lifelikeness, are rather of the pony species than what would be considered fine horses now. doubtless, modern breeding has wrought a difference in the animal. flaxman, in his outlines, seems to have imitated these classic steeds of the parthenon, and thus has produced horses that always appeared to me affected and diminutively monstrous. from the classic sculpture, i passed through an assyrian room, where the walls are lined with great slabs of marble sculptured in bas-relief with scenes in the life of senmacherib, i believe; very ugly, to be sure, yet artistically done in their own style, and in wonderfully good preservation. indeed, if the chisel had cut its last stroke in them yesterday, the work could not be more sharp and distinct. in glass cases, in this room, are little relics and scraps of utensils, and a great deal of fragmentary rubbish, dug up by layard in his researches,-- things that it is hard to call anything but trash, but which yet may be of great significance as indicating the modes of life of a long-past race. i remember nothing particularly just now, except some pieces of broken glass, iridescent with certainly the most beautiful hues in the world,--indescribably beautiful, and unimaginably, unless one can conceive of the colors of the rainbow, and a thousand glorious sunsets, and the autumnal forest-leaves of america, all condensed upon a little fragment of a glass cup,--and that, too, without becoming in the least glaring or flagrant, but mildly glorious, as we may fancy the shifting lines of an angel's wing may be. i think this chaste splendor will glow in my memory for years to come. it is the effect of time, and cannot be imitated by any known process of art. i have seen it in specimens of old roman glass, which has been famous here in england; but never in anything is there the brilliancy of these oriental fragments. how strange that decay, in dark places, and underground, and where there are a billion chances to one that nobody will ever see its handiwork, should produce these beautiful effects! the glass seems to become perfectly brittle, so that it would vanish, like a soap-bubble, if touched. ascending the stairs, i went through the halls of fossil remains,--which i care little for, though one of them is a human skeleton in limestone,-- and through several rooms of mineralogical specimens, including all the gems in the world, among which is seen, not the koh-i-noor itself, but a fac-simile of it in crystal. i think the aerolites are as interesting as anything in this department, and one piece of pure iron, laid against the wall of the room, weighs about fourteen hundred pounds. whence could it have come? if these aerolites are bits of other planets, how happen they to be always iron? but i know no more of this than if i were a philosopher. then i went through rooms of shells and fishes and reptiles and tortoises, crocodiles and alligators and insects, including all manner of butterflies, some of which had wings precisely like leaves, a little withered and faded, even the skeleton and fibres of the leaves represented; and immense hairy spiders, covering, with the whole circumference of their legs, a space as big as a saucer; and centipedes little less than a foot long; and winged insects that look like jointed twigs of a tree. in america, i remember, when i lived in lenox, i found an insect of this species, and at first really mistook it for a twig. it was smaller than these specimens in the museum. i suppose every creature, almost, that runs or creeps or swims or flies, is represented in this collection of natural history; and it puzzles me to think what they were all made for, though it is quite as mysterious why man himself was made. by and by i entered the room of egyptian mummies, of which there are a good many, one of which, the body of a priestess, is unrolled, except the innermost layer of linen. the outline of her face is perfectly visible. mummies of cats, dogs, snakes, and children are in the wall-cases, together with a vast many articles of egyptian manufacture and use,--even children's toys; bread, too, in flat cakes; grapes, that have turned to raisins in the grave; queerest of all, methinks, a curly wig, that is supposed to have belonged to a woman,--together with the wooden box that held it. the hair is brown, and the wig is as perfect as if it had been made for some now living dowager. from egypt we pass into rooms containing vases and other articles of grecian and roman workmanship, and funeral urns, and beads, and rings, none of them very beautiful. i saw some splendid specimens, however, at a former visit, when i obtained admission to a room not indiscriminately shown to visitors. what chiefly interested me in that room was a cast taken from the face of cromwell after death; representing a wide-mouthed, long-chinned, uncomely visage, with a triangular english nose in the very centre. there were various other curiosities, which i fancied were safe in my memory, but they do not now come uppermost. to return to my to-day's progress through the museum;--next to the classic rooms are the collections of saxon and british and early english antiquities, the earlier portions of which are not very interesting to me, possessing little or no beauty in themselves, and indicating a kind of life too remote from our own to be readily sympathized with. who cares for glass beads and copper brooches, and knives, spear-heads, and swords, all so rusty that they look as much like pieces of old iron hoop as anything else? the bed of the thames has been a rich treasury of antiquities, from the time of the roman conquest downwards; it seems to preserve bronze in considerable perfection, but not iron. among the mediaeval relics, the carvings in ivory are often very exquisite and elaborate. there are likewise caskets and coffers, and a thousand other old world ornamental works; but i saw so many and such superior specimens of them at the manchester exhibition, that i shall say nothing of them here. the seal-ring of mary, queen of scots, is in one of the cases; it must have been a thumb-ring, judging from its size, and it has a dark stone, engraved with armorial bearings. in another case is the magic glass formerly used by dr. doe, and in which, if i rightly remember, used to be seen prophetic visions or figures of persons and scenes at a distance. it is a round ball of glass or crystal, slightly tinged with a pinkish hue, and about as big as a small apple, or a little bigger than an egg would be if perfectly round. this ancient humbug kept me looking at it perhaps ten minutes; and i saw my own face dimly in it, but no other vision. lastly, i passed through the ethnographical rooms; but i care little for the varieties of the human race,--all that is really important and interesting being found in our own variety. perhaps equally in any other. this brought me to the head of one of the staircases, descending which i entered the library. here--not to speak of the noble rooms and halls--there are numberless treasures beyond all price; too valuable in their way for me to select any one as more curious and valuable than many others. letters of statesmen and warriors of all nations, and several centuries back,--among which, long as it has taken europe to produce them, i saw none so illustrious as those of washington, nor more so than franklin's, whom america gave to the world in her nonage; and epistles of poets and artists, and of kings, too, whose chirography appears to have been much better than i should have expected from fingers so often cramped in iron gauntlets. in another case there were the original autograph copies of several famous works,--for example, that of pope's homer, written on the backs of letters, the direction and seals of which appear in the midst of "the tale of troy divine," which also is much scratched and interlined with pope's corrections; a manuscript of one of ben jonson's masques; of the sentimental journey, written in much more careful and formal style than might be expected, the book pretending to be a harum-scarum; of walter scott's kenilworth, bearing such an aspect of straightforward diligence that i shall hardly think of it again as a romance;--in short, i may as well drop the whole matter here. all through the long vista of the king's library, we come to cases in which--with their pages open beneath the glass--we see books worth their weight in gold, either for their uniqueness or their beauty, or because they have belonged to illustrious men, and have their autographs in them. the copy of the english translation of montaigne, containing the strange scrawl of shakespeare's autograph, is here. bacon's name is in another book; queen elizabeth's in another; and there is a little devotional volume, with lady jane grey's writing in it. she is supposed to have taken it to the scaffold with her. here, too, i saw a copy, which was printed at a venetian press at the time, of the challenge which the admirable crichton caused to be posted on the church doors of venice, defying all the scholars of italy to encounter him. but if i mention one thing, i find fault with myself for not putting down fifty others just as interesting,--and, after all, there is an official catalogue, no doubt, of the whole. as i do not mean to fill any more pages with the british museum, i will just mention the hall of egyptian antiquities on the ground-floor of the edifice, though i did not pass through it to-day. they consist of things that would be very ugly and contemptible if they were not so immensely magnified; but it is impossible not to acknowledge a certain grandeur, resulting from the scale on which those strange old sculptors wrought. for instance, there is a granite fist of prodigious size, at least a yard across, and looking as if it were doubled in the face of time, defying him to destroy it. all the rest of the statue to which it belonged seems to have vanished; but this fist will certainly outlast the museum, and whatever else it contains, unless it be some similar egyptian ponderosity. there is a beetle, wrought out of immensely hard black stone, as big as a hogshead. it is satisfactory to see a thing so big and heavy. then there are huge stone sarcophagi, engraved with hieroglyphics within and without, all as good as new, though their age is reckoned by thousands of years. these great coffins are of vast weight and mass, insomuch that when once the accurately fitting lids were shut down, there might have seemed little chance of their being lifted again till the resurrection. i positively like these coffins, they are so faithfully made, and so black and stern,--and polished to such a nicety, only to be buried forever; for the workmen, and the kings who were laid to sleep within, could never have dreamed of the british museum. there is a deity named pasht, who sits in the hall, very big, very grave, carved of black stone, and very ludicrous, wearing a dog's head. i will just mention the rosetta stone, with a greek inscription, and another in egyptian characters which gave the clew to a whole field of history; and shall pretermit all further handling of this unwieldy subject. in all the rooms i saw people of the poorer classes, some of whom seemed to view the objects intelligently, and to take a genuine interest in them. a poor man in london has great opportunities of cultivating himself if he will only make the best of them; and such an institution as the british museum can hardly fail to attract, as the magnet does steel, the minds that are likeliest to be benefited by it in its various departments. i saw many children there, and some ragged boys. it deserves to be noticed that some small figures of indian thugs, represented as engaged in their profession and handiwork of cajoling and strangling travellers, have been removed from the place which they formerly occupied in the part of the museum shown to the general public. they are now in the more private room, and the reason of their withdrawal is, that, according to the chaplain of newgate, the practice of garroting was suggested to the english thieves by this representation of indian thugs. it is edifying, after what i have written in the preceding paragraph, to find that the only lesson known to have been inculcated here is that of a new mode of outrage. december th.--this morning, when it was time to rise, there was but a glimmering of daylight, and we had candles on the breakfast-table at nearly ten o'clock. all abroad there was a dense dim fog brooding through the atmosphere, insomuch that we could hardly see across the street. at eleven o'clock i went out into the midst of the fog-bank, which for the moment seemed a little more interfused with daylight; for there seem to be continual changes in the density of this dim medium, which varies so much that now you can but just see your hand before you, and a moment afterwards you can see the cabs dashing out of the duskiness a score of yards off. it is seldom or never, moreover, an unmitigated gloom, but appears to be mixed up with sunshine in different proportions; sometimes only one part sun to a thousand of smoke and fog, and sometimes sunshine enough to give the whole mass a coppery line. this would have been a bright sunny day but for the interference of the fog; and before i had been out long, i actually saw the sun looking red and rayless, much like the millionth magnification of a new halfpenny. i was bound towards bennoch's; for he had written a note to apologize for not visiting us, and i had promised to call and see him to-day. i went to marlborough house to look at the english pictures, which i care more about seeing, here in england, than those of foreign artists, because the latter will be found more numerously and better on the continent. i saw many pictures that pleased me; nothing that impressed me very strongly. pictorial talent seems to be abundant enough, up to a certain point; pictorial genius, i should judge, is among the rarest of gifts. to be sure, i very likely might not recognize it where it existed; and yet it ought to have the power of making itself known even to the uninstructed mind, as literary genius does. if it exist only for connoisseurs, it is a very suspicious matter. i looked at all turner's pictures, and at many of his drawings; and must again confess myself wholly unable to understand more than a very few of them. even those few are tantalizing. at a certain distance you discern what appears to be a grand and beautiful picture, which you shall admire and enjoy infinitely if you can get within the range of distinct vision. you come nearer, and find only blotches of color and dabs of the brush, meaning nothing when you look closely, and meaning a mystery at the point where the painter intended to station you. some landscapes there were, indeed, full of imaginative beauty, and of the better truth etherealized out of the prosaic truth of nature; only it was still impossible actually to see it. there was a mist over it; or it was like a tract of beautiful dreamland, seen dimly through sleep, and glimmering out of sight, if looked upon with wide-open eyes. these were the more satisfactory specimens. there were many others which i could not comprehend in the remotest degree; not even so far as to conjecture whether they purported to represent earth, sea, or sky. in fact, i should not have known them to be pictures at all, but might have supposed that the artist had been trying his brush on the canvas, mixing up all sorts of hues, but principally white paint, and now and then producing an agreeable harmony of color without particularly intending it. now that i have done my best to understand them without an interpreter, i mean to buy ruskin's pamphlet at my next visit, and look at them through his eyes. but i do not think that i can be driven out of the idea that a picture ought to have something in common with what the spectator sees in nature. marlborough house may be converted, i think, into a very handsome residence for the young prince of wales. the entrance from the court-yard is into a large, square central hall, the painted ceiling of which is at the whole height of the edifice, and has a gallery on one side, whence it would be pleasant to look down on a festal scene below. the rooms are of fine proportions, with vaulted ceilings, and with fireplaces and mantel-pieces of great beauty, adorned with pillars and terminal figures of white and of variegated marble; and in the centre of each mantel-piece there is a marble tablet, exquisitely sculptured with classical designs, done in such high relief that the figures are sometimes almost disengaged from the background. one of the subjects was androcles, or whatever was his name, taking the thorn out of the lion's foot. i suppose these works are of the era of the first old duke and duchess. after all, however, for some reason or other, the house does not at first strike you as a noble and princely one, and you have to convince yourself of it by examining it more in detail. on leaving marlborough house, i stepped for a few moments into the national gallery, and looked, among other things, at the turners and claudes that hung there side by side. these pictures, i think, are quite the most comprehensible of turner's productions; but i must say i prefer the claudes. the latter catches "the light that never was on sea or land" without taking you quite away from nature for it. nevertheless, i will not be quite certain that i care for any painter except murillo, whose st. john i should like to own. as far as my own pleasure is concerned, i could not say as much for any other picture; for i have always found an infinite weariness and disgust resulting from a picture being too frequently before my eyes. i had rather see a basilisk, for instance, than the very best of those old, familiar pictures in the boston athenaeum; and most of those in the national gallery might soon affect me in the same way. from the gallery i almost groped my way towards the city, for the fog seemed to grow denser and denser as i advanced; and when i reached st. paul's, the sunny intermixture above spoken of was at its minimum, so that, the smoke-cloud grew really black about the dome and pinnacles, and the statues of saints looked down dimly from their standpoints on high. it was very grand, however, to see the pillars and porticos, and the huge bulk of the edifice, heaving up its dome from an obscure foundation into yet more shadowy obscurity; and by the time i reached the corner of the churchyard nearest cheapside, the whole vast cathedral had utterly vanished, leaving "not a wrack behind," unless those thick, dark vapors were the elements of which it had been composed, and into which it had again dissolved. it is good to think, nevertheless,--and i gladly accept the analogy and the moral,--that the cathedral was really there, and as substantial as ever, though those earthly mists had hidden it from mortal eyes. i found ------ in better spirits than when i saw him last, but his misfortune has been too real not to affect him long and deeply. he was cheerful, however, and his face shone with almost its old lustre. it has still the cheeriest glow that i ever saw in any human countenance. i went home by way of holborn, and the fog was denser than ever,--very black, indeed more like a distillation of mud than anything else; the ghost of mud,--the spiritualized medium of departed mud, through which the dead citizens of london probably tread in the hades whither they are translated. so heavy was the gloom, that gas was lighted in all the shop-windows; and the little charcoal-furnaces of the women and boys, roasting chestnuts, threw a ruddy, misty glow around them. and yet i liked it. this fog seems an atmosphere proper to huge, grimy london; as proper to london as that light neither of the sun nor moon is to the new jerusalem. on reaching home, i found the same fog diffused through the drawing-room, though how it could have got in is a mystery. since nightfall, however, the atmosphere is clear again. december th.--here we are still in london, at least a month longer than we expected, and at the very dreariest and dullest season of the year. had i thought of it sooner, i might have found interesting people enough to know, even when all london is said to be out of town; but meditating a stay only of a week or two (on our way to rome), it did not seem worth while to seek acquaintances. i have been out only for one evening; and that was at dr. ------'s, who had been attending all the children in the measles. (their illness was what detained us.) he is a homoeopathist, and is known in scientific or general literature; at all events, a sensible and enlightened man, with an un-english freedom of mind on some points. for example, he is a swedenborgian, and a believer in modern spiritualism. he showed me some drawings that had been made under the spiritual influence by a miniature-painter who possesses no imaginative power of his own, and is merely a good mechanical and literal copyist; but these drawings, representing angels and allegorical people, were done by an influence which directed the artist's hand, he not knowing what his next touch would be, nor what the final result. the sketches certainly did show a high and fine expressiveness, if examined in a trustful mood. dr. ------ also spoke of mr. harris, the american poet of spiritualism, as being the best poet of the day; and he produced his works in several volumes, and showed me songs, and paragraphs of longer poems, in support of his opinion. they seemed to me to have a certain light and splendor, but not to possess much power, either passionate or intellectual. mr. harris is the medium of deceased poets, milton and lord byron among the rest; and dr. ------ said that lady byron--who is a devoted admirer of her husband, in spite of their conjugal troubles--pronounced some of these posthumous strains to be worthy of his living genius. then the doctor spoke of various strange experiences which he himself has had in these spiritual matters; for he has witnessed the miraculous performances of home, the american medium, and he has seen with his own eyes, and felt with his own touch, those ghostly hands and arms the reality of which has been certified to me by other beholders. dr. ------ tells me that they are cold, and that it is a somewhat awful matter to see and feel them. i should think so, indeed. do i believe in these wonders? of course; for how is it possible to doubt either the solemn word or the sober observation of a learned and sensible man like dr. ------? but again, do i really believe it? of course not; for i cannot consent to have heaven and earth, this world and the next, beaten up together like the white and yolk of an egg, merely out of respect to dr. ------'s sanity and integrity. i would not believe my own sight, nor touch of the spiritual hands; and it would take deeper and higher strains than those of mr. harris to convince me. i think i might yield to higher poetry or heavenlier wisdom than mortals in the flesh have ever sung or uttered. meanwhile, this matter of spiritualism is surely the strangest that ever was heard of; and yet i feel unaccountably little interest in it,--a sluggish disgust, and repugnance to meddle with it,--insomuch that i hardly feel as if it were worth this page or two in my not very eventful journal. one or two of the ladies present at dr. ------'s little party seemed to be mediums. i have made several visits to the picture-galleries since my last date; and i think it fair towards my own powers of appreciation to record that i begin to appreciate turner's pictures rather better than at first. not that i have anything to recant as respects those strange, white-grounded performances in the chambers at the marlborough house; but some of his happier productions (a large landscape illustrative of childe harold, for instance) seem to me to have more magic in them than any other pictures. i admire, too, that misty, morning landscape in the national gallery; and, no doubt, his very monstrosities are such as only he could have painted, and may have an infinite value for those who can appreciate the genius in them. the shops in london begin to show some tokens of approaching christmas; especially the toy-shops, and the confectioners',--the latter ornamenting their windows with a profusion of bonbons and all manner of pygmy figures in sugar; the former exhibiting christmas-trees, hung with rich and gaudy fruit. at the butchers' shops, there is a great display of fat carcasses, and an abundance of game at the poulterers'. we think of going to the crystal palace to spend the festival day, and eat our christmas dinner; but, do what we may, we shall have no home feeling or fireside enjoyment. i am weary, weary of london and of england, and can judge now how the old loyalists must have felt, condemned to pine out their lives here, when the revolution had robbed them of their native country. and yet there is still a pleasure in being in this dingy, smoky, midmost haunt of men; and i trudge through fleet street and ludgate street and along cheapside with an enjoyment as great as i ever felt in a wood-path at home; and i have come to know these streets as well, i believe, as i ever knew washington street in boston, or even essex street in my stupid old native town. for piccadilly or for regent street, though more brilliant promenades, i do not care nearly so much. december th.--still leading an idle life, which, however, may not be quite thrown away, as i see some things, and think many thoughts. the other day we went to westminster abbey, and through the chapels; and it being as sunny a day as could well be in london, and in december, we could judge, in some small degree, what must have been the splendor of those tombs and monuments when first erected there. i presume i was sufficiently minute in describing my first visit to the chapels, so i shall only mention the stiff figure of a lady of queen elizabeth's court, reclining on the point of her elbow under a mural arch through all these dusty years; . . . . and the old coronation-chair, with the stone of scone beneath the seat, and the wood-work cut and scratched all over with names and initials. . . . . i continue to go to the picture-galleries. i have an idea that the face of murillo's st. john has a certain mischievous intelligence in it. this has impressed me almost from the first. it is a boy's face, very beautiful and very pleasant too, but with an expression that one might fairly suspect to be roguish if seen in the face of a living boy. about equestrian statues, as those of various kings at charing cross, and otherwhere about london, and of the duke of wellington opposite apsley house, and in front of the exchange, it strikes me as absurd, the idea of putting a man on horseback on a place where one movement of the steed forward or backward or sideways would infallibly break his own and his rider's neck. the english sculptors generally seem to have been aware of this absurdity, and have endeavored to lessen it by making the horse as quiet as a cab-horse on the stand, instead of rearing rampant, like the bronze group of jackson at washington. the statue of wellington, at the piccadilly corner of the park, has a stately and imposing effect, seen from far distances, in approaching either through the green park, or from the oxford street corner of hyde park. january d, .--on thursday we had the pleasure of a call from mr. coventry patmore, to whom dr. wilkinson gave me a letter of introduction, and on whom i had called twice at the british museum without finding him. we had read his betrothal and angel in the house with unusual pleasure and sympathy, and therefore were very glad to make his personal acquaintance. he is a man of much more youthful aspect than i had expected, . . . . a slender person to be an englishman, though not remarkably so had he been an american; with an intelligent, pleasant, and sensitive face,--a man very evidently of refined feelings and cultivated mind. . . . . he is very simple and agreeable in his manners; a little shy, yet perfectly frank, and easy to meet on real grounds. . . . . he said that his wife had proposed to come with him, and had, indeed, accompanied him to town, but was kept away. . . . . we were very sorry for this, because mr. patmore seems to acknowledge her as the real "angel in the house," although he says she herself ignores all connection with the poem. it is well for her to do so, and for her husband to feel that the character is her real portrait; and both, i suppose, are right. it is a most beautiful and original poem,--a poem for happy married people to read together, and to understand by the light of their own past and present life; but i doubt whether the generality of english people are capable of appreciating it. i told mr. patmore that i thought his popularity in america would be greater than at home, and he said that it was already so; and he appeared to estimate highly his american fame, and also our general gift of quicker and more subtle recognition of genius than the english public. . . . . we mutually gratified each other by expressing high admiration of one another's works, and mr. patmore regretted that in the few days of our further stay here we should not have time to visit him at his home. it would really give me pleasure to do so. . . . . i expressed a hope of seeing him in italy during our residence there, and he seemed to think it possible, as his friend, and our countryman, thomas buchanan read, had asked him to come thither and be his guest. he took his leave, shaking hands with all of us because he saw that we were of his own people, recognizing him as a true poet. he has since given me the new edition of his poems, with a kind rote. we are now making preparations for our departure, which we expect will take place on tuesday; and yesterday i went to our minister's to arrange about the passport. the very moment i rang at his door, it swung open, and the porter ushered me with great courtesy into the anteroom; not that he knew me, or anything about me, except that i was an american citizen. this is the deference which an american servant of the public finds it expedient to show to his sovereigns. thank heaven, i am a sovereign again, and no longer a servant; and really it is very singular how i look down upon our ambassadors and dignitaries of all sorts, not excepting the president himself. i doubt whether this is altogether a good influence of our mode of government. i did not see, and, in fact, declined seeing, the minister himself, but only his son, the secretary of legation, and a dr. p------, an american traveller just from the continent. he gave a fearful account of the difficulties that beset a person landing with much luggage in italy, and especially at civita vecchia, the very port at which we intended to debark. i have been so long in england that it seems a cold and shivery thing to go anywhere else. bennoch came to take tea with us on the th, it being his first visit since we came to london, and likewise his farewell visit on our leaving for the continent. on his departure, j----- and i walked a good way down oxford street and holborn with him, and i took leave of him with the kindest wishes for his welfare. end of vol. ii. the dolliver romance by nathaniel hawthorne contents. introductory note to the dolliver romance a scene from the dolliver romance another scene from the dolliver romance another fragment of the dolliver romance introductory note. the dolliver romance. in "the dolliver romance," only three chapters of which the author lived to complete, we get an intimation as to what would have been the ultimate form given to that romance founded on the elixir of life, for which "septimius felton" was the preliminary study. having abandoned this study, and apparently forsaken the whole scheme in , hawthorne was moved to renew his meditation upon it in the following year; and as the plan of the romance had now seemingly developed to his satisfaction, he listened to the publisher's proposal that it should begin its course as a serial story in the "atlantic monthly" for january, --the first instance in which he had attempted such a mode of publication. but the change from england to massachusetts had been marked by, and had perhaps in part caused, a decline in his health. illness in his family, the depressing and harrowing effect of the civil war upon his sensibilities, and anxiety with regard to pecuniary affairs, all combined to make still further inroads upon his vitality; and so early as the autumn of mrs. hawthorne noted in her private diary that her husband was looking "miserably ill." at no time since boyhood had he suffered any serious sickness, and his strong constitution enabled him to rally from this first attack; but the gradual decline continued. after sending forth "our old home," he had little strength for any employment more arduous than reading, or than walking his accustomed path among the pines and sweetfern on the hill behind the wayside, known to his family as the mount of vision. the projected work, therefore, advanced but slowly. he wrote to mr. fields:-- "i don't see much probability of my having the first chapter of the romance ready so soon as you want it. there are two or three chapters ready to be written, but i am not yet robust enough to begin, and i feel as if i should never carry it through." the presentiment proved to be only too well founded. he had previously written:-- "there is something preternatural in my reluctance to begin. i linger at the threshold, and have a perception of very disagreeable phantasms to be encountered if i enter. i wish god had given me the faculty of writing a sunshiny book." and again, in november, he says: "i foresee that there is little probability of my getting the first chapter ready by the th, although i have a resolute purpose to write it by the end of the month." he did indeed send it by that time, but it began to be apparent in january that he could not go on. "seriously," he says, in one letter, "my mind has, for the present, lost its temper and its fine edge, and i have an instinct that i had better keep quiet. perhaps i shall have a new spirit of vigor if i wait quietly for it; perhaps not." in another: "i hardly know what to say to the public about this abortive romance, though i know pretty well what the case will be. i shall never finish it.... i cannot finish it unless a great change comes over me; and if i make too great an effort to do so, it will be my death." finally, work had to be given over indefinitely. in april he went southward with mr. ticknor, the senior partner of his publishing house; but mr. ticknor died suddenly in philadelphia, and hawthorne returned to the wayside more feeble than ever. he lingered there a little while. then, early in may, came the last effort to recover tone, by means of a carriage-journey, with his friend ex-president pierce, through the southern part of new hampshire. a week passed, and all was ended: at the hotel in plymouth, new hampshire, where he and his companion had stopped to rest, he died in the night, between the th and the th of may, . like thackeray and dickens, he was touched by death's "petrific mace" before he had had time to do more than lay the groundwork and begin the main structure of the fiction he had in hand; and, as in the case of thackeray, the suddenness of his decease has never been clearly accounted for. the precise nature of his malady was not known, since with quiet hopelessness he had refused to take medical advice. his friend dr. oliver wendell holmes was the only physician who had an opportunity to take even a cursory view of his case, which he did in the course of a brief walk and conversation in boston before hawthorne started with mr. pierce; but he was unable, with that slight opportunity, to reach any definite conclusion. dr. holmes prescribed and had put up for him a remedy to palliate some of the poignant symptoms, and this hawthorne carried with him; but "i feared," dr. holmes writes to the editor, "that there was some internal organic--perhaps malignant--disease; for he looked wasted and as if stricken with a mortal illness." the manuscript of the unfinished "dolliver romance" lay upon his coffin during the funeral services at concord, but, contrary to the impression sometimes entertained on this point, was not buried with him. it is preserved in the concord public library. the first chapter was published in the "atlantic" as an isolated portion, soon after his death; and subsequently the second chapter, which he had been unable to revise, appeared in the same periodical. between this and the third fragment there is a gap, for bridging which no material was found among his papers; but, after hesitating for several years, mrs. hawthorne copied and placed in the publishers' hands that final portion, which, with the two parts previously printed, constitutes the whole of what hawthorne had put into tangible form. hawthorne had purposed prefixing a sketch of thoreau, "because, from a tradition which he told me about this house of mine, i got the idea of a deathless man, which is now taking a shape very different from the original one." this refers to the tradition mentioned in the editor's note to "septimius felton," and forms a link in the interesting chain of evidence connecting that romance with the "dolliver romance." with the plan respecting thoreau he combined the idea of writing an autobiographical preface, wherein the wayside was to be described, after the manner of his introduction to the "mosses from an old manse"; but, so far as is known, nothing of this was ever actually committed to paper. beginning with the idea of producing an english romance, fragments of which remain to us in "the ancestral footstep," and the incomplete work known as "doctor grimshawe's secret," he replaced these by another design, of which "septimius felton" represents the partial execution. but that elaborate study yielded, in its turn, to "the dolliver romance." the last-named work, had the author lived to carry it out, would doubtless have become the vehicle of a profound and pathetic drama, based on the instinctive yearning of man for an immortal existence, the attempted gratification of which would have been set forth in a variety of ways: first, through the selfish old sensualist, colonel dabney, who greedily seized the mysterious elixir and took such a draught of it that he perished on the spot; then, through the simple old grandsir, anxious to live for pansie's sake; and, perhaps, through pansie herself, who, coming into the enjoyment of some ennobling love, would wish to defeat death, so that she might always keep the perfection of her mundane happiness,--all these forms of striving to be made the adumbration of a higher one, the shadow-play that should direct our minds to the true immortality beyond this world. g. p. l. the dolliver romance. a scene from the dolliver romance. dr. dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused rather prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child pansie, in an adjoining chamber, summoning old martha (who performed the duties of nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the doctor's establishment) to take up her little ladyship and dress her. the old gentleman woke with more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking a moment to gather his wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen curtains of his ancient bed, and thrust his head into a beam of sunshine that caused him to wink and withdraw it again. this transitory glimpse of good dr. dolliver showed a flannel night-cap, fringed round with stray locks of silvery white hair, and surmounting a meagre and duskily yellow visage, which was crossed and criss-crossed with a record of his long life in wrinkles, faithfully written, no doubt, but with such cramped chirography of father time that the purport was illegible. it seemed hardly worth while for the patriarch to get out of bed any more, and bring his forlorn shadow into the summer day that was made for younger folks. the doctor, however, was by no means of that opinion, being considerably encouraged towards the toil of living twenty-four hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty joints (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that should have made them pliable) and putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the floor. nor was he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, ablutionary, and personally decorative labors which are apt to become so intolerably irksome to an old gentleman, after performing them daily and daily for fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and finding them still as immitigably recurrent as at first. dr. dolliver could nowise account for this happy condition of his spirits and physical energies, until he remembered taking an experimental sip of a certain cordial which was long ago prepared by his grandson, and carefully sealed up in a bottle, and had been reposited in a dark closet, among a parcel of effete medicines, ever since that gifted young man's death. "it may have wrought effect upon me," thought the doctor, shaking his head as he lifted it again from the pillow. "it may be so; for poor edward oftentimes instilled a strange efficacy into his perilous drugs. but i will rather believe it to be the operation of god's mercy, which may have temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little pansie's sake." a twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, taught him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's respite from the intrusive family of aches and infirmities, which, with their proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the closest acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. nevertheless, he fancied the twinge a little less poignant than those of yesterday; and, moreover, after stinging him pretty smartly, it passed gradually off with a thrill, which, in its latter stages, grew to be almost agreeable. pain is but pleasure too strongly emphasized. with cautious movements, and only a groan or two, the good doctor transferred himself from the bed to the floor, where he stood awhile, gazing from one piece of quaint furniture to another (such as stiff-backed mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers carved cunningly with shapes of animals and wreaths of foliage, a table with multitudinous legs, a family record in faded embroidery, a shelf of black-bound books, a dirty heap of gallipots and phials in a dim corner),--gazing at these things, and steadying himself by the bedpost, while his inert brain, still partially benumbed with sleep, came slowly into accordance with the realities about him. the object which most helped to bring dr. dolliver completely to his waking perceptions was one that common observers might suppose to have been snatched bodily out of his dreams. the same sunbeam that had dazzled the doctor between the bed-curtains gleamed on the weather-beaten gilding which had once adorned this mysterious symbol, and showed it to be an enormous serpent, twining round a wooden post, and reaching quite from the floor of the chamber to its ceiling. it was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable antiquity, the dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed away the tip of its tail; and it must have stood long exposed to the atmosphere, for a kind of gray moss had partially overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a swallow, or other familiar little bird in some by-gone summer, seemed to have built its nest in the yawning and exaggerated mouth. it looked like a kind of manichean idol, which might have been elevated on a pedestal for a century or so, enjoying the worship of its votaries in the open air, until the impious sect perished from among men,--all save old dr. dolliver, who had set up the monster in his bedchamber for the convenience of private devotion. but we are unpardonable in suggesting such a fantasy to the prejudice of our venerable friend, knowing him to have been as pious and upright a christian, and with as little of the serpent in his character, as ever came of puritan lineage. not to make a further mystery about a very simple matter, this bedimmed and rotten reptile was once the medical emblem or apothecary's sign of the famous dr. swinnerton, who practised physic in the earlier days of new england, when a head of aesculapius or hippocrates would have vexed the souls of the righteous as savoring of heathendom. the ancient dispenser of drugs had therefore set up an image of the brazen serpent, and followed his business for many years with great credit, under this scriptural device; and dr. dolliver, being the apprentice, pupil, and humble friend of the learned swinnerton's old age, had inherited the symbolic snake, and much other valuable property by his bequest. while the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he took care to stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine that fell upon the uncarpeted floor. the summer warmth was very genial to his system, and yet made him shiver; his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the reviving blood tingled through them with a half-painful and only half-pleasurable titillation. for the first few moments after creeping out of bed, he kept his back to the sunny window, and seemed mysteriously shy of glancing thitherward; but, as the june fervor pervaded him more and more thoroughly, he turned bravely about, and looked forth at a burial-ground on the corner of which he dwelt. there lay many an old acquaintance, who had gone to sleep with the flavor of dr. dolliver's tinctures and powders upon his tongue; it was the patient's final bitter taste of this world, and perhaps doomed to be a recollected nauseousness in the next. yesterday, in the chill of his forlorn old age, the doctor expected soon to stretch out his weary bones among that quiet community, and might scarcely have shrunk from the prospect on his own account, except, indeed, that he dreamily mixed up the infirmities of his present condition with the repose of the approaching one, being haunted by a notion that the damp earth, under the grass and dandelions, must needs be pernicious for his cough and his rheumatism. but, this morning, the cheerful sunbeams, or the mere taste of his grandson's cordial that he had taken at bedtime, or the fitful vigor that often sports irreverently with aged people, had caused an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere within him, to expand. "hem! ahem!" quoth the doctor, hoping with one effort to clear his throat of the dregs of a ten-years' cough. "matters are not so far gone with me as i thought. i have known mighty sensible men, when only a little age-stricken or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere faint-heartedness, a great deal sooner than they need." he shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass, as if to impress the apothegm on that shadowy representative of himself; and, for his part, he determined to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he possibly could, if it were only for the sake of little pansie, who stood as close to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather to the other. this child of three years old occupied all the unfossilized portion of dr. dolliver's heart. every other interest that he formerly had, and the entire confraternity of persons whom he once loved, had long ago departed; and the poor doctor could not follow them, because the grasp of pansie's baby-fingers held him back. so he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and drew on a patchwork morning-gown of an ancient fashion. its original material was said to have been the embroidered front of his own wedding-waistcoat and the silken skirt of his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest granddaughter had taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor bessie, the beloved of his youth, had been half a century in the grave. throughout many of the intervening years, as the garment got ragged, the spinsters of the old man's family had quilted their duty and affection into it in the shape of patches upon patches, rose-color, crimson, blue, violet, and green, and then (as their hopes faded, and their life kept growing shadier, and their attire took a sombre hue) sober gray and great fragments of funereal black, until the doctor could revive the memory of most things that had befallen him by looking at his patchwork-gown, as it hung upon a chair. and now it was ragged again, and all the fingers that should have mended it were cold. it had an eastern fragrance, too, a smell of drugs, strong-scented herbs, and spicy gums, gathered from the many potent infusions that had from time to time been spilt over it; so that, snuffing him afar off, you might have taken dr. dolliver for a mummy, and could hardly have been undeceived by his shrunken and torpid aspect, as he crept nearer. wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took staff in hand, and moved pretty vigorously to the head of the staircase. as it was somewhat steep, and but dimly lighted, he began cautiously to descend, putting his left hand on the banister, and poking down his long stick to assist him in making sure of the successive steps; and thus he became a living illustration of the accuracy of scripture, where it describes the aged as being "afraid of that which is high,"--a truth that is often found to have a sadder purport than its external one. half-way to the bottom, however, the doctor heard the impatient and authoritative tones of little pansie,--queen pansie, as she might fairly have been styled, in reference to her position in the household,--calling amain for grandpapa and breakfast. he was startled into such perilous activity by the summons, that his heels slid on the stairs, the slippers were shuffled off his feet, and he saved himself from a tumble only by quickening his pace, and coming down at almost a run. "mercy on my poor old bones!" mentally exclaimed the doctor, fancying himself fractured in fifty places. "some of them are broken, surely, and, methinks, my heart has leaped out of my mouth! what! all right? well, well! but providence is kinder to me than i deserve, prancing down this steep staircase like a kid of three months old!" he bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and meanwhile pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's descent, and was pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her haste to come at him. the doctor opened it, and there she stood, a rather pale and large-eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might well be the case with a motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful house, with no other playmates than a decrepit old man and a kitten, and no better atmosphere within-doors than the odor of decayed apothecary's stuff, nor gayer neighborhood than that of the adjacent burial-ground, where all her relatives, from her great-grandmother downward, lay calling to her, "pansie, pansie, it is bedtime!" even in the prime of the summer morning. for those dead women-folk, especially her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand-aunts, could not but be anxious about the child, knowing that little pansie would be far safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, as she soon must be, in this difficult and deceitful world. yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable progenitor. she shouted out her satisfaction, moreover (as her custom was, having never had any oversensitive auditors about her to tame down her voice), till even the doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor. "pansie, darling," said dr. dolliver, cheerily, patting her brown hair with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! dost know, child, that he came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? what wouldst thou have done then, little pansie?" "kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, remembering the doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to herself. "it shall do poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her mouth to apply the remedy. "ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever i had in my drugs," replied the patriarch, with a giggle, surprised and delighted at his own readiness of response. "but the kiss is good for my feeble old heart, pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken neck; so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast." in this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and pansie side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third in the party. first, she showed her mottled head out of pansie's lap, delicately sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke: then she took post on the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a spinning-wheel, trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, and still more impressively reminding him of her presence by putting out a paw to intercept a warmed-over morsel of yesterday's chicken on its way to the doctor's mouth. after skilfully achieving this feat, she scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and hands. evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no worldly necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the early playtime of the kitten and the child. old dr. dolliver and his great-granddaughter (a ponderous title, which seemed quite to overwhelm the tiny figure of pansie) had met one another at the two extremities of the life-circle: her sunrise served him for a sunset, illuminating his locks of silver and hers of golden brown with a homogeneous shimmer of twinkling light. little pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited a drop of the dolliver blood. the doctor's only child, poor bessie's offspring, had died the better part of a hundred years before, and his grandchildren, a numerous and dimly remembered brood, had vanished along his weary track in their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing, how it had all happened, he found himself tottering onward with an infant's small fingers in his nerveless grasp. so mistily did his dead progeny come and go in the patriarch's decayed recollection, that this solitary child represented for him the successive babyhoods of the many that had gone before. the emotions of his early paternity came back to him. she seemed the baby of a past age oftener than she seemed pansie. a whole family of grand-aunts (one of whom had perished in her cradle, never so mature as pansie now, another in her virgin bloom, another in autumnal maidenhood, yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, and still another, a forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its vitality, and grew to be merely a torpid habit, and was saddest then),--all their hitherto forgotten features peeped through the face of the great-grandchild, and their long-inaudible voices sobbed, shouted, or laughed, in her familiar tones. but it often happened to dr. dolliver, while frolicking amid this throng of ghosts, where the one reality looked no more vivid than its shadowy sisters,--it often happened that his eyes filled with tears at a sudden perception of what a sad and poverty-stricken old man he was, already remote from his own generation, and bound to stray further onward as the sole playmate and protector of a child! as dr. dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is likely to remain a considerable time longer upon our hands, we deem it expedient to give a brief sketch of his position, in order that the story may get onward with the greater freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. deeming it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary title of doctor, as did all his towns-people and contemporaries, except, perhaps, one or two formal old physicians, stingy of civil phrases and over-jealous of their own professional dignity. nevertheless, these crusty graduates were technically right in excluding dr. dolliver from their fraternity. he had never received the degree of any medical school, nor (save it might be for the cure of a toothache, or a child's rash, or a whitlow on a seamstress's finger, or some such trifling malady) had he ever been even a practitioner of the awful science with which his popular designation connected him. our old friend, in short, even at his highest social elevation, claimed to be nothing more than an apothecary, and, in these later and far less prosperous days, scarcely so much. since the death of his last surviving grandson (pansie's father, whom he had instructed in all the mysteries of his science, and who, being distinguished by an experimental and inventive tendency, was generally believed to have poisoned himself with an infallible panacea of his own distillation),--since that final bereavement, dr. dolliver's once pretty flourishing business had lamentably declined. after a few months of unavailing struggle, he found it expedient to take down the brazen serpent from the position to which dr. swinnerton had originally elevated it, in front of his shop in the main street, and to retire to his private dwelling, situated in a by-lane and on the edge of a burial-ground. this house, as well as the brazen serpent, some old medical books, and a drawer full of manuscripts, had come to him by the legacy of dr. swinnerton. the dreariness of the locality had been of small importance to our friend in his young manhood, when he first led his fair wife over the threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship with the human dust that rose into little hillocks, and still kept accumulating beneath their window. but, too soon afterwards, when poor bessie herself had gone early to rest there, it is probable that an influence from her grave may have prematurely calmed and depressed her widowed husband, taking away much of the energy from what should have been the most active portion of his life. thus he never grew rich. his thrifty townsmen used to tell him, that, in any other man's hands, dr. swinnerton's brazen serpent (meaning, i presume, the inherited credit and good-will of that old worthy's trade) would need but ten years' time to transmute its brass into gold. in dr. dolliver's keeping, as we have seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the greater part of what superficial gilding it originally had. matters had not mended with him in more advanced life, after he had deposited a further and further portion of his heart and its affections in each successive one of a long row of kindred graves; and as he stood over the last of them, holding pansie by the hand and looking down upon the coffin of his grandson, it is no wonder that the old man wept, partly for those gone before, but not so bitterly as for the little one that stayed behind. why had not god taken her with the rest? and then, so hopeless as he was, so destitute of possibilities of good, his weary frame, his decrepit bones, his dried-up heart, might have crumbled into dust at once, and have been scattered by the next wind over all the heaps of earth that were akin to him. this intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive a character to be long sustained by a person of dr. dolliver's original gentleness and simplicity, and now so completely tamed by age and misfortune. even before he turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly cheering and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the child's warm little hand. feeble as he was, she seemed to adopt him willingly for her protector. and the doctor never afterwards shrank from his duty nor quailed beneath it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the sloth of age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency which he had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous days. to the extent of securing a present subsistence for pansie and himself, he was successful. after his son's death, when the brazen serpent fell into popular disrepute, a small share of tenacious patronage followed the old man into his retirement. in his prime, he had been allowed to possess more skill than usually fell to the share of a colonial apothecary, having been regularly apprenticed to dr. swinnerton, who, throughout his long practice, was accustomed personally to concoct the medicines which he prescribed and dispensed. it was believed, indeed, that the ancient physician had learned the art at the world-famous drug-manufactory of apothecary's hall, in london, and, as some people half-malignly whispered, had perfected himself under masters more subtle than were to be found even there. unquestionably, in many critical cases he was known to have employed remedies of mysterious composition and dangerous potency, which, in less skilful hands, would have been more likely to kill than cure. he would willingly, it is said, have taught his apprentice the secrets of these prescriptions, but the latter, being of a timid character and delicate conscience, had shrunk from acquaintance with them. it was probably as the result of the same scrupulosity that dr. dolliver had always declined to enter the medical profession, in which his old instructor had set him such heroic examples of adventurous dealing with matters of life and death. nevertheless, the aromatic fragrance, so to speak, of the learned swinnerton's reputation, had clung to our friend through life; and there were elaborate preparations in the pharmacopoeia of that day, requiring such minute skill and conscientious fidelity in the concocter that the physicians were still glad to confide them to one in whom these qualities were so evident. moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and mindful of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders, pomanders, and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about their toilet-tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were beautiful. among this class of customers there was still a demand for certain comfortable little nostrums (delicately sweet and pungent to the taste, cheering to the spirits, and fragrant in the breath), the proper distillation of which was the airiest secret that the mystic swinnerton had left behind him. and, besides, these old ladies had always liked the manners of dr. dolliver, and used to speak of his gentle courtesy behind the counter as having positively been something to admire; though of later years, an unrefined, and almost rustic simplicity, such as belonged to his humble ancestors, appeared to have taken possession of him, as it often does of prettily mannered men in their late decay. but it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the doctor's marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably damaged by a crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional intimacy with the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in his delicate scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such minute quantities, that his tremulous fingers should not put in too little or too much, leaving out life with the deficiency, or spilling in death with the surplus. to say the truth, his stanchest friends were beginning to think that dr. dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind appeared absolutely to depart from him, while his frail old body worked on mechanically) rendered him not quite trustworthy without a close supervision of his proceedings. it was impossible, however, to convince the aged apothecary of the necessity for such vigilance; and if anything could stir up his gentle temper to wrath, or, as oftener happened, to tears, it was the attempt (which he was marvellously quick to detect) thus to interfere with his long-familiar business. the public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard dr. dolliver in his professional aspect, had begun to take an interest in him as perhaps their oldest fellow-citizen. it was he that remembered the great fire and the great snow, and that had been a grown-up stripling at the terrible epoch of witch-times, and a child just breeched at the breaking out of king philip's indian war. he, too, in his school-boy days, had received a benediction from the patriarchal governor bradstreet, and thus could boast (somewhat as bishops do of their unbroken succession from the apostles) of a transmitted blessing from the whole company of sainted pilgrims, among whom the venerable magistrate had been an honored companion. viewing their townsman in this aspect, the people revoked the courteous doctorate with which they had heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most familiarly as grandsir dolliver. his white head, his puritan band, his threadbare garb (the fashion of which he had ceased to change, half a century ago), his gold-headed staff, that had been dr. swinnerton's, his shrunken, frosty figure, and its feeble movement,--all these characteristics had a wholeness and permanence in the public recognition, like the meeting-house steeple or the town-pump. all the younger portion of the inhabitants unconsciously ascribed a sort of aged immortality to grandsir dolliver's infirm and reverend presence. they fancied that he had been born old (at least, i remember entertaining some such notions about age-stricken people, when i myself was young), and that he could the better tolerate his aches and incommodities, his dull ears and dim eyes, his remoteness from human intercourse within the crust of indurated years, the cold temperature that kept him always shivering and sad, the heavy burden that invisibly bent down his shoulders,--that all these intolerable things might bring a kind of enjoyment to grandsir dolliver, as the lifelong conditions of his peculiar existence. but, alas! it was a terrible mistake. this weight of years had a perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. he never grew accustomed to it, but, long as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning life, and patient as he seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that these stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men and affairs, were troublesome accidents that did not really belong to him. he possibly cherished a half-recognized idea that they might pass away. youth, however eclipsed for a season, is undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into this dreary delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never absolutely succeeds in laying hold of our innermost convictions. a sombre garment, woven of life's unrealities, has muffled us from our true self, but within it smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes of many perishable things have fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath them lurk the seeds of inextinguishable flame. so powerful is this instinctive faith, that men of simple modes of character are prone to antedate its consummation. and thus it happened with poor grandsir dolliver, who often awoke from an old man's fitful sleep with a sense that his senile predicament was but a dream of the past night; and hobbling hastily across the cold floor to the looking-glass, he would be grievously disappointed at beholding the white hair, the wrinkles and furrows, the ashen visage and bent form, the melancholy mask of age, in which, as he now remembered, some strange and sad enchantment had involved him for years gone by! to other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman looked as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too artfully wrought disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping figure should be straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his brows, and his much-enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green coverlet spread over them, beside his bessie, who doubtless would recognize her youthful companion in spite of his ugly garniture of decay. he longed to be gazed at by the loving eyes now closed; he shrank from the hard stare of them that loved him not. walking the streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt a dreary impulse to elude the people's observation, as if with a sense that he had gone irrevocably out of fashion, and broken his connecting links with the net-work of human life; or else it was that nightmare-feeling which we sometimes have in dreams, when we seem to find ourselves wandering through a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun upon us, in some wild extravagance of dress or nudity. he was conscious of estrangement from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor wherefore, nor why he should be thus groping through the twilight mist in solitude. if they spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the greeting translated itself faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they shook him by the hand, it was as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed the kindly pressure and the warmth. when little pansie was the companion of his walk, her childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him into closer relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that region of indefinable remoteness, that dismal fairy-land of aged fancy, into which old grandsir dolliver had so strangely crept away. yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. it was as if his faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and pansie moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. his chilled sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as it stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. while that music lasted, the old man was alive and happy. and there were seasons, it might be, happier than even these, when pansie had been kissed and put to bed, and grandsir dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses with which all men communicate. hence come angels or fiends into our twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone years. over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child pansie on her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet not so vividly as to break his evening quietude. the gate of heaven had been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse within. all the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them. another scene from the dolliver romance [footnote: this scene was not revised by the author, but is printed from his first draught.] we may now suppose grandsir dolliver to have finished his breakfast, with a better appetite and sharper perception of the qualities of his food than he has generally felt of late years, whether it were due to old martha's cookery or to the cordial of the night before. little pansie had also made an end of her bread and milk with entire satisfaction, and afterwards nibbled a crust, greatly enjoying its resistance to her little white teeth. how this child came by the odd name of pansie, and whether it was really her baptismal name, i have not ascertained. more probably it was one of those pet appellations that grow out of a child's character, or out of some keen thrill of affection in the parents, an unsought-for and unconscious felicity, a kind of revelation, teaching them the true name by which the child's guardian angel would know it,--a name with playfulness and love in it, that we often observe to supersede, in the practice of those who love the child best, the name that they carefully selected, and caused the clergyman to plaster indelibly on the poor little forehead at the font,--the love-name, whereby, if the child lives, the parents know it in their hearts, or by which, if it dies, god seems to have called it away, leaving the sound lingering faintly and sweetly through the house. in pansie's case, it may have been a certain pensiveness which was sometimes seen under her childish frolic, and so translated itself into french (_pensée_), her mother having been of acadian kin; or, quite as probably, it alluded merely to the color of her eyes, which, in some lights, were very like the dark petals of a tuft of pansies in the doctor's garden. it might well be, indeed, on account of the suggested pensiveness; for the child's gayety had no example to sustain it, no sympathy of other children or grown people,--and her melancholy, had it been so dark a feeling, was but the shadow of the house, and of the old man. if brighter sunshine came, she would brighten with it. this morning, surely, as the three companions, pansie, puss, and grandsir dolliver, emerged from the shadow of the house into the small adjoining enclosure, they seemed all frolicsome alike. the doctor, however, was intent over something that had reference to his lifelong business of drugs. this little spot was the place where he was wont to cultivate a variety of herbs supposed to be endowed with medicinal virtue. some of them had been long known in the pharmacop�ia of the old world; and others, in the early days of the country, had been adopted by the first settlers from the indian medicine-men, though with fear and even contrition, because these wild doctors were supposed to draw their pharmaceutic knowledge from no gracious source, the black man himself being the principal professor in their medical school. from his own experience, however, dr. dolliver had long since doubted, though he was not bold enough quite to come to the conclusion, that indian shrubs, and the remedies prepared from them, were much less perilous than those so freely used in european practice, and singularly apt to be followed by results quite as propitious. into such heterodoxy our friend was the more liable to fall, because it had been taught him early in life by his old master, dr. swinnerton, who, at those not infrequent times when he indulged a certain unhappy predilection for strong waters, had been accustomed to inveigh in terms of the most cynical contempt and coarsest ridicule against the practice by which he lived, and, as he affirmed, inflicted death on his fellow-men. our old apothecary, though too loyal to the learned profession with which he was connected fully to believe this bitter judgment, even when pronounced by his revered master, was still so far influenced that his conscience was possibly a little easier when making a preparation from forest herbs and roots than in the concoction of half a score of nauseous poisons into a single elaborate drug, as the fashion of that day was. but there were shrubs in the garden of which he had never ventured to make a medical use, nor, indeed, did he know their virtue, although from year to year he had tended and fertilized, weeded and pruned them, with something like religious care. they were of the rarest character, and had been planted by the learned and famous dr. swinnerton, who, on his death-bed, when he left his dwelling and all his abstruse manuscripts to his favorite pupil, had particularly directed his attention to this row of shrubs. they had been collected by himself from remote countries, and had the poignancy of torrid climes in them; and he told him, that, properly used, they would be worth all the rest of the legacy a hundred-fold. as the apothecary, however, found the manuscripts, in which he conjectured there was a treatise on the subject of these shrubs, mostly illegible, and quite beyond his comprehension in such passages as he succeeded in puzzling out (partly, perhaps, owing to his very imperfect knowledge of latin, in which language they were written), he had never derived from them any of the promised benefit. and, to say the truth, remembering that dr. swinnerton himself never appeared to triturate or decoct or do anything else with the mysterious herbs, our old friend was inclined to imagine the weighty commendation of their virtues to have been the idly solemn utterance of mental aberration at the hour of death. so, with the integrity that belonged to his character, he had nurtured them as tenderly as was possible in the ungenial climate and soil of new england, putting some of them into pots for the winter; but they had rather dwindled than flourished, and he had reaped no harvests from them, nor observed them with any degree of scientific interest. his grandson, however, while yet a school-boy, had listened to the old man's legend of the miraculous virtues of these plants; and it took so firm a hold of his mind, that the row of outlandish vegetables seemed rooted in it, and certainly flourished there with richer luxuriance than in the soil where they actually grew. the story, acting thus early upon his imagination, may be said to have influenced his brief career in life, and, perchance, brought about its early close. the young man, in the opinion of competent judges, was endowed with remarkable abilities, and according to the rumor of the people had wonderful gifts, which were proved by the cures he had wrought with remedies of his own invention. his talents lay in the direction of scientific analysis and inventive combination of chemical powers. while under the pupilage of his grandfather, his progress had rapidly gone quite beyond his instructor's hope,--leaving him even to tremble at the audacity with which he overturned and invented theories, and to wonder at the depth at which he wrought beneath the superficialness and mock-mystery of the medical science of those days, like a miner sinking his shaft and running a hideous peril of the earth caving in above him. especially did he devote himself to these plants; and under his care they had thriven beyond all former precedent, bursting into luxuriance of bloom, and most of them bearing beautiful flowers, which, however, in two or three instances, had the sort of natural repulsiveness that the serpent has in its beauty, compelled against its will, as it were, to warn the beholder of an unrevealed danger. the young man had long ago, it must be added, demanded of his grandfather the documents included in the legacy of professor swinnerton, and had spent days and nights upon them, growing pale over their mystic lore, which seemed the fruit not merely of the professor's own labors, but of those of more ancient sages than he; and often a whole volume seemed to be compressed within the limits of a few lines of crabbed manuscript, judging from the time which it cost even the quick-minded student to decipher them. meantime these abstruse investigations had not wrought such disastrous effects as might have been feared, in causing edward dolliver to neglect the humble trade, the conduct of which his grandfather had now relinquished almost entirely into his hands. on the contrary, with the mere side results of his study, or what may be called the chips and shavings of his real work, he created a prosperity quite beyond anything that his simple-minded predecessor had ever hoped for, even at the most sanguine epoch of his life. the young man's adventurous endowments were miraculously alive, and connecting themselves with his remarkable ability for solid research, and perhaps his conscience being as yet imperfectly developed (as it sometimes lies dormant in the young), he spared not to produce compounds which, if the names were anywise to be trusted, would supersede all other remedies, and speedily render any medicine a needless thing, making the trade of apothecary an untenable one, and the title of doctor obsolete. whether there was real efficacy in these nostrums, and whether their author himself had faith in them, is more than can safely be said; but, at all events, the public believed in them, and thronged to the old and dim sign of the brazen serpent, which, though hitherto familiar to them and their forefathers, now seemed to shine with auspicious lustre, as if its old scriptural virtues were renewed. if any faith was to be put in human testimony, many marvellous cures were really performed, the fame of which spread far and wide, and caused demands for these medicines to come in from places far beyond the precincts of the little town. our old apothecary, now degraded by the overshadowing influence of his grandson's character to a position not much above that of a shop-boy, stood behind the counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with an odd kind of fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to enjoy this new prosperity, had he dared. then his venerable figure was to be seen dispensing these questionable compounds by the single bottle and by the dozen, wronging his simple conscience as he dealt out what he feared was trash or worse, shrinking from the reproachful eyes of every ancient physician who might chance to be passing by, but withal examining closely the silver, or the new england coarsely printed bills, which he took in payment, as if apprehensive that the delusive character of the commodity which he sold might be balanced by equal counterfeiting in the money received, or as if his faith in all things were shaken. is it not possible that this gifted young man had indeed found out those remedies which nature has provided and laid away for the cure of every ill? the disastrous termination of the most brilliant epoch that ever came to the brazen serpent must be told in a few words. one night, edward dolliver's young wife awoke, and, seeing the gray dawn creeping into the chamber, while her husband, it should seem, was still engaged in his laboratory, arose in her nightdress, and went to the door of the room to put in her gentle remonstrance against such labor. there she found him dead,--sunk down out of his chair upon the hearth, where were some ashes, apparently of burnt manuscripts, which appeared to comprise most of those included in dr. swinnerton's legacy, though one or two had fallen near the heap, and lay merely scorched beside it. it seemed as if he had thrown them into the fire, under a sudden impulse, in a great hurry and passion. it may be that he had come to the perception of something fatally false and deceptive in the successes which he had appeared to win, and was too proud and too conscientious to survive it. doctors were called in, but had no power to revive him. an inquest was held, at which the jury, under the instruction, perhaps, of those same revengeful doctors, expressed the opinion that the poor young man, being given to strange contrivances with poisonous drugs, had died by incautiously tasting them himself. this verdict, and the terrible event itself, at once deprived the medicines of all their popularity; and the poor old apothecary was no longer under any necessity of disturbing his conscience by selling them. they at once lost their repute, and ceased to be in any demand. in the few instances in which they were tried the experiment was followed by no good results; and even those individuals who had fancied themselves cured, and had been loudest in spreading the praises of these beneficent compounds, now, as if for the utter demolition of the poor youth's credit, suffered under a recurrence of the worst symptoms, and, in more than one case, perished miserably: insomuch (for the days of witchcraft were still within the memory of living men and women) it was the general opinion that satan had been personally concerned in this affliction, and that the brazen serpent, so long honored among them, was really the type of his subtle malevolence and perfect iniquity. it was rumored even that all preparations that came from the shop were harmful: that teeth decayed that had been made pearly white by the use of the young chemist's dentifrice; that cheeks were freckled that had been changed to damask roses by his cosmetics; that hair turned gray or fell off that had become black, glossy, and luxuriant from the application of his mixtures; that breath which his drugs had sweetened had now a sulphurous smell. moreover, all the money heretofore amassed by the sale of them had been exhausted by edward dolliver in his lavish expenditure for the processes of his study; and nothing was left for pansie, except a few valueless and unsalable bottles of medicine, and one or two others, perhaps more recondite than their inventor had seen fit to offer to the public. little pansie's mother lived but a short time after the shock of the terrible catastrophe; and, as we began our story with saying, she was left with no better guardianship or support than might be found in the efforts of a long superannuated man. nothing short of the simplicity, integrity, and piety of grandsir dolliver's character, known and acknowledged as far back as the oldest inhabitants remembered anything, and inevitably discoverable by the dullest and most prejudiced observers, in all its natural manifestations, could have protected him in still creeping about the streets. so far as he was personally concerned, however, all bitterness and suspicion had speedily passed away; and there remained still the careless and neglectful good-will, and the prescriptive reverence, not altogether reverential, which the world heedlessly awards to the unfortunate individual who outlives his generation. and now that we have shown the reader sufficiently, or at least to the best of our knowledge, and perhaps at tedious length, what was the present position of grandsir dolliver, we may let our story pass onward, though at such a pace as suits the feeble gait of an old man. the peculiarly brisk sensation of this morning, to which we have more than once alluded, enabled the doctor to toil pretty vigorously at his medicinal herbs,--his catnip, his vervain, and the like; but he did not turn his attention to the row of mystic plants, with which so much of trouble and sorrow either was, or appeared to be, connected. in truth, his old soul was sick of them, and their very fragrance, which the warm sunshine made strongly perceptible, was odious to his nostrils. but the spicy, homelike scent of his other herbs, the english simples, was grateful to him, and so was the earth-smell, as he turned up the soil about their roots, and eagerly snuffed it in. little pansie, on the other hand, perhaps scandalized at great-grandpapa's neglect of the prettiest plants in his garden, resolved to do her small utmost towards balancing his injustice; so with an old shingle, fallen from the roof, which she had appropriated as her agricultural tool, she began to dig about them, pulling up the weeds, as she saw grandpapa doing. the kitten, too, with a look of elfish sagacity, lent her assistance, plying her paws with vast haste and efficiency at the roots of one of the shrubs. this particular one was much smaller than the rest, perhaps because it was a native of the torrid zone, and required greater care than the others to make it flourish; so that, shrivelled, cankered, and scarcely showing a green leaf, both pansie and the kitten probably mistook it for a weed. after their joint efforts had made a pretty big trench about it, the little girl seized the shrub with both hands, bestriding it with her plump little legs, and giving so vigorous a pull, that, long accustomed to be transplanted annually, it came up by the roots, and little pansie came down in a sitting posture, making a broad impress on the soft earth. "see, see, doctor!" cries pansie, comically enough giving him his title of courtesy,--"look, grandpapa, the big, naughty weed!" now the doctor had at once a peculiar dread and a peculiar value for this identical shrub, both because his grandson's investigations had been applied more ardently to it than to all the rest, and because it was associated in his mind with an ancient and sad recollection. for he had never forgotten that his wife, the early lost, had once taken a fancy to wear its flowers, day after day, through the whole season of their bloom, in her bosom, where they glowed like a gem, and deepened her somewhat pallid beauty with a richness never before seen in it. at least such was the effect which this tropical flower imparted to the beloved form in his memory, and thus it somehow both brightened and wronged her. this had happened not long before her death; and whenever, in the subsequent years, this plant had brought its annual flower, it had proved a kind of talisman to bring up the image of bessie, radiant with this glow that did not really belong to her naturally passive beauty, quickly interchanging with another image of her form, with the snow of death on cheek and forehead. this reminiscence had remained among the things of which the doctor was always conscious, but had never breathed a word, through the whole of his long life,--a sprig of sensibility that perhaps helped to keep him tenderer and purer than other men, who entertain no such follies. and the sight of the shrub often brought back the faint, golden gleam of her hair, as if her spirit were in the sunlights of the garden, quivering into view and out of it. and therefore, when he saw what pansie had done, he sent forth a strange, inarticulate, hoarse, tremulous exclamation, a sort of aged and decrepit cry of mingled emotion. "naughty pansie, to pull up grandpapa's flower!" said he, as soon as he could speak. "poison, pansie, poison! fling it away, child!" and dropping his spade, the old gentleman scrambled towards the little girl as quickly as his rusty joints would let him,--while pansie, as apprehensive and quick of motion as a fawn, started up with a shriek of mirth and fear to escape him. it so happened that the garden-gate was ajar; and a puff of wind blowing it wide open, she escaped through this fortuitous avenue, followed by great-grandpapa and the kitten. "stop, naughty pansie, stop!" shouted our old friend. "you will tumble into the grave!" the kitten, with the singular sensitiveness that seems to affect it at every kind of excitement, was now on her back. and, indeed, this portentous warning was better grounded and had a more literal meaning than might be supposed; for the swinging gate communicated with the burial-ground, and almost directly in little pansie's track there was a newly dug grave, ready to receive its tenant that afternoon. pansie, however, fled onward with outstretched arms, half in fear, half in fun, plying her round little legs with wonderful promptitude, as if to escape time or death, in the person of grandsir dolliver, and happily avoiding the ominous pitfall that lies in every person's path, till, hearing a groan from her pursuer, she looked over her shoulder, and saw that poor grandpapa had stumbled over one of the many hillocks. she then suddenly wrinkled up her little visage, and sent forth a full-breathed roar of sympathy and alarm. "grandpapa has broken his neck now!" cried little pansie, amid her sobs. "kiss grandpapa, and make it well, then," said the old gentleman, recollecting her remedy, and scrambling up more readily than could be expected. "well," he murmured to himself, "a hair's-breadth more, and i should have been tumbled into yonder grave. poor little pansie! what wouldst thou have done then?" "make the grass grow over grandpapa," answered pansie, laughing up in his face. "poh, poh, child, that is not a pretty thing to say," said grandpapa, pettishly and disappointed, as people are apt to be when they try to calculate on the fitful sympathies of childhood. "come, you must go in to old martha now." the poor old gentleman was in the more haste to leave the spot because he found himself standing right in front of his own peculiar row of gravestones, consisting of eight or nine slabs of slate, adorned with carved borders rather rudely cut, and the earliest one, that of his bessie, bending aslant, because the frost of so many winters had slowly undermined it. over one grave of the row, that of his gifted grandson, there was no memorial. he felt a strange repugnance, stronger than he had ever felt before, to linger by these graves, and had none of the tender sorrow, mingled with high and tender hopes, that had sometimes made it seem good to him to be there. such moods, perhaps, often come to the aged, when the hardened earth-crust over their souls shuts them out from spiritual influences. taking the child by the hand,--her little effervescence of infantile fun having passed into a downcast humor, though not well knowing as yet what a dusky cloud of disheartening fancies arose from these green hillocks,--he went heavily toward the garden-gate. close to its threshold, so that one who was issuing forth or entering must needs step upon it or over it, lay a small flat stone, deeply imbedded in the ground, and partly covered with grass, inscribed with the name of "dr. john swinnerton, physician." "ay," said the old man, as the well-remembered figure of his ancient instructor seemed to rise before him in his grave-apparel, with beard and gold-headed cane, black velvet doublet and cloak, "here lies a man who, as people have thought, had it in his power to avoid the grave! he had no little grandchild to tease him. he had the choice to die, and chose it." so the old gentleman led pansie over the stone, and carefully closed the gate; and, as it happened, he forgot the uprooted shrub, which pansie, as she ran, had flung away, and which had fallen into the open grave; and when the funeral came that afternoon, the coffin was let down upon it, so that its bright, inauspicious flower never bloomed again. another fragment of the dolliver romance. "be secret!" and he kept his stern eye fixed upon him, as the coach began to move. "be secret!" repeated the apothecary. "i know not any secret that he has confided to me thus far, and as for his nonsense (as i will be bold to style it now he is gone) about a medicine of long life, it is a thing i forget in spite of myself, so very empty and trashy it is. i wonder, by the by, that it never came into my head to give the colonel a dose of the cordial whereof i partook last night. i have no faith that it is a valuable medicine--little or none--and yet there has been an unwonted briskness in me all the morning." then a simple joy broke over his face--a flickering sunbeam among his wrinkles--as he heard the laughter of the little girl, who was running rampant with a kitten in the kitchen. "pansie! pansie!" cackled he, "grandpapa has sent away the ugly man now. come, let us have a frolic in the garden." and he whispered to himself again, "that is a cordial yonder, and i will take it according to the prescription, knowing all the ingredients." then, after a moment's thought, he added, "all, save one." so, as he had declared to himself his intention, that night, when little pansie had long been asleep, and his small household was in bed, and most of the quiet, old-fashioned townsfolk likewise, this good apothecary went into his laboratory, and took out of a cupboard in the wall a certain ancient-looking bottle, which was cased over with a net-work of what seemed to be woven silver, like the wicker-woven bottles of our days. he had previously provided a goblet of pure water. before opening the bottle, however, he seemed to hesitate, and pondered and babbled to himself; having long since come to that period of life when the bodily frame, having lost much of its value, is more tenderly cared for than when it was a perfect and inestimable machine. "i triturated, i infused, i distilled it myself in these very rooms, and know it--know it all--all the ingredients, save one. they are common things enough--comfortable things--some of them a little queer--one or two that folks have a prejudice against--and then there is that one thing that i don't know. it is foolish in me to be dallying with such a mess, which i thought was a piece of quackery, while that strange visitor bade me do it,--and yet, what a strength has come from it! he said it was a rare cordial, and, methinks, it has brightened up my weary life all day, so that pansie has found me the fitter playmate. and then the dose--it is so absurdly small! i will try it again." he took the silver stopple from the bottle, and with a practised hand, tremulous as it was with age, so that one would have thought it must have shaken the liquor into a perfect shower of misapplied drops, he dropped--i have heard it said--only one single drop into the goblet of water. it fell into it with a dazzling brightness, like a spark of ruby flame, and subtly diffusing itself through the whole body of water, turned it to a rosy hue of great brilliancy. he held it up between his eyes and the light, and seemed to admire and wonder at it. "it is very odd," said he, "that such a pure, bright liquor should have come out of a parcel of weeds that mingled their juices here. the thing is a folly,--it is one of those compositions in which the chemists--the cabalists, perhaps--used to combine what they thought the virtues of many plants, thinking that something would result in the whole, which was not in either of them, and a new efficacy be created. whereas, it has been the teaching of my experience that one virtue counteracts another, and is the enemy of it. i never believed the former theory, even when that strange madman bade me do it. and what a thick, turbid matter it was, until that last ingredient,--that powder which he put in with his own hand! had he let me see it, i would first have analyzed it, and discovered its component parts. the man was mad, undoubtedly, and this may have been poison. but its effect is good. poh! i will taste again, because of this weak, agued, miserable state of mine; though it is a shame in me, a man of decent skill in my way, to believe in a quack's nostrum. but it is a comfortable kind of thing." meantime, that single drop (for good dr. dolliver had immediately put a stopper into the bottle) diffused a sweet odor through the chamber, so that the ordinary fragrances and scents of apothecaries' stuff seemed to be controlled and influenced by it, and its bright potency also dispelled a certain dimness of the antiquated room. the doctor, at the pressure of a great need, had given incredible pains to the manufacture of this medicine; so that, reckoning the pains rather than the ingredients (all except one, of which he was not able to estimate the cost nor value), it was really worth its weight in gold. and, as it happened, he had bestowed upon it the hard labor of his poor life, and the time that was necessary for the support of his family, without return; for the customers, after playing off this cruel joke upon the old man, had never come back; and now, for seven years, the bottle had stood in a corner of the cupboard. to be sure, the silver-cased bottle was worth a trifle for its silver, and still more, perhaps, as an antiquarian knick-knack. but, all things considered, the honest and simple apothecary thought that he might make free with the liquid to such small extent as was necessary for himself. and there had been something in the concoction that had struck him; and he had been fast breaking lately; and so, in the dreary fantasy and lonely recklessness of his old age, he had suddenly bethought himself of this medicine (cordial,--as the strange man called it, which had come to him by long inheritance in his family) and he had determined to try it. and again, as the night before, he took out the receipt--a roll of antique parchment, out of which, provokingly, one fold had been lost--and put on his spectacles to puzzle out the passage. guttam unicam in aquam puram, two gills. "if the colonel should hear of this," said dr. dolliver, "he might fancy it his nostrum of long life, and insist on having the bottle for his own use. the foolish, fierce old gentleman! he has grown very earthly, of late, else he would not desire such a thing. and a strong desire it must be to make him feel it desirable. for my part, i only wish for something that, for a short time, may clear my eyes, so that i may see little pansie's beauty, and quicken my ears, that i may hear her sweet voice, and give me nerve, while god keeps me here, that i may live longer to earn bread for dear pansie. she provided for, i would gladly lie down yonder with bessie and our children. ah! the vanity of desiring lengthened days!--there!--i have drunk it, and methinks its final, subtle flavor hath strange potency in it." the old man shivered a little, as those shiver who have just swallowed good liquor, while it is permeating their vitals. yet he seemed to be in a pleasant state of feeling, and, as was frequently the case with this simple soul, in a devout frame of mind. he read a chapter in the bible, and said his prayers for pansie and himself, before he went to bed, and had much better sleep than usually comes to people of his advanced age; for, at that period, sleep is diffused through their wakefulness, and a dim and tiresome half-perception through their sleep, so that the only result is weariness. nothing very extraordinary happened to dr. dolliver or his small household for some time afterwards. he was favored with a comfortable winter, and thanked heaven for it, and put it to a good use (at least he intended it so) by concocting drugs; which perhaps did a little towards peopling the graveyard, into which his windows looked; but that was neither his purpose nor his fault. none of the sleepers, at all events, interrupted their slumbers to upbraid him. he had done according to his own artless conscience and the recipes of licensed physicians, and he looked no further, but pounded, triturated, infused, made electuaries, boluses, juleps, or whatever he termed his productions, with skill and diligence, thanking heaven that he was spared to do so, when his contemporaries generally were getting incapable of similar efforts. it struck him with some surprise, but much gratitude to providence, that his sight seemed to be growing rather better than worse. he certainly could read the crabbed handwriting and hieroglyphics of the physicians with more readiness than he could a year earlier. but he had been originally near-sighted, with large, projecting eyes; and near-sighted eyes always seem to get a new lease of light as the years go on. one thing was perceptible about the doctor's eyes, not only to himself in the glass, but to everybody else; namely, that they had an unaccustomed gleaming brightness in them; not so very bright either, but yet so much so, that little pansie noticed it, and sometimes, in her playful, roguish way, climbed up into his lap, and put both her small palms over them; telling grandpapa that he had stolen somebody else's eyes, and given away his own, and that she liked his old ones better. the poor old doctor did his best to smile through his eyes, and so to reconcile pansie to their brightness: but still she continually made the same silly remonstrance, so that he was fain to put on a pair of green spectacles when he was going to play with pansie, or took her on his knee. nay, if he looked at her, as had always been his custom, after she was asleep, in order to see that all was well with her, the little child would put up her hands, as if he held a light that was flashing on her eyeballs; and unless he turned away his gaze quickly, she would wake up in a fit of crying. on the whole, the apothecary had as comfortable a time as a man of his years could expect. the air of the house and of the old graveyard seemed to suit him. what so seldom happens in man's advancing age, his night's rest did him good, whereas, generally, an old man wakes up ten times as nervous and dispirited as he went to bed, just as if, during his sleep he had been working harder than ever he did in the daytime. it had been so with the doctor himself till within a few months. to be sure, he had latterly begun to practise various rules of diet and exercise, which commended themselves to his approbation. he sawed some of his own fire-wood, and fancied that, as was reasonable, it fatigued him less day by day. he took walks with pansie, and though, of course, her little footsteps, treading on the elastic air of childhood, far outstripped his own, still the old man knew that he was not beyond the recuperative period of life, and that exercise out of doors and proper food can do somewhat towards retarding the approach of age. he was inclined, also, to impute much good effect to a daily dose of santa cruz rum (a liquor much in vogue in that day), which he was now in the habit of quaffing at the meridian hour. all through the doctor's life he had eschewed strong spirits: "but after seventy," quoth old dr. dolliver, "a man is all the better in head and stomach for a little stimulus"; and it certainly seemed so in his case. likewise, i know not precisely how often, but complying punctiliously with the recipe, as an apothecary naturally would, he took his drop of the mysterious cordial. he was inclined, however, to impute little or no efficacy to this, and to laugh at himself for having ever thought otherwise. the dose was so very minute! and he had never been sensible of any remarkable effect on taking it, after all. a genial warmth, he sometimes fancied, diffused itself throughout him, and perhaps continued during the next day. a quiet and refreshing night's rest followed, and alacritous waking in the morning; but all this was far more probably owing, as has been already hinted, to excellent and well-considered habits of diet and exercise. nevertheless he still continued the cordial with tolerable regularity,--the more, because on one or two occasions, happening to omit it, it so chanced that he slept wretchedly, and awoke in strange aches and pains, torpors, nervousness, shaking of the hands, bleared-ness of sight, lowness of spirits and other ills, as is the misfortune of some old men,--who are often threatened by a thousand evil symptoms that come to nothing, foreboding no particular disorder, and passing away as unsatisfactorily as they come. at another time, he took two or three drops at once, and was alarmingly feverish in consequence. yet it was very true, that the feverish symptoms were pretty sure to disappear on his renewal of the medicine. "still it could not be that," thought the old man, a hater of empiricism (in which, however, is contained all hope for man), and disinclined to believe in anything that was not according to rule and art. and then, as aforesaid, the dose was so ridiculously small! sometimes, however, he took, half laughingly, another view of it, and felt disposed to think that chance might really have thrown in his way a very remarkable mixture, by which, if it had happened to him earlier in life, he might have amassed a larger fortune, and might even have raked together such a competency as would have prevented his feeling much uneasiness about the future of little pansie. feeling as strong as he did nowadays, he might reasonably count upon ten years more of life, and in that time the precious liquor might be exchanged for much gold. "let us see!" quoth he, "by what attractive name shall it be advertised? 'the old man's cordial?' that promises too little. poh, poh! i would stain my honesty, my fair reputation, the accumulation of a lifetime, and befool my neighbor and the public, by any name that would make them imagine i had found that ridiculous talisman that the alchemists have sought. the old man's cordial,--that is best. and five shillings sterling the bottle. that surely were not too costly, and would give the medicine a better reputation and higher vogue (so foolish is the world) than if i were to put it lower. i will think further of this. but pshaw, pshaw!" "what is the matter. grandpapa," said little pansie, who had stood by him, wishing to speak to him at least a minute, but had been deterred by his absorption; "why do you say 'pshaw'?" "pshaw!" repeated grandpapa, "there is one ingredient that i don't know." so this very hopeful design was necessarily given up, but that it had occurred to dr. dolliver was perhaps a token that his mind was in a very vigorous state; for it had been noted of him through life, that he had little enterprise, little activity, and that, for the want of these things, his very considerable skill in his art had been almost thrown away, as regarded his private affairs, when it might easily have led him to fortune. whereas, here in his extreme age, he had first bethought himself of a way to grow rich. sometimes this latter spring causes--as blossoms come on the autumnal tree--a spurt of vigor, or untimely greenness, when nature laughs at her old child, half in kindness and half in scorn. it is observable, however, i fancy, that after such a spurt, age comes on with redoubled speed, and that the old man has only run forward with a show of force, in order to fall into his grave the sooner. sometimes, as he was walking briskly along the street, with little pansie clasping his hand, and perhaps frisking rather more than became a person of his venerable years, he had met the grim old wreck of colonel dabney, moving goutily, and gathering wrath anew with every touch of his painful foot to the ground; or driving by in his carriage, showing an ashen, angry, wrinkled face at the window, and frowning at him--the apothecary thought--with a peculiar fury, as if he took umbrage at his audacity in being less broken by age than a gentleman like himself. the apothecary could not help feeling as if there were some unsettled quarrel or dispute between himself and the colonel, he could not tell what or why. the colonel always gave him a haughty nod of half-recognition; and the people in the street, to whom he was a familiar object, would say, "the worshipful colonel begins to find himself mortal like the rest of us. he feels his years." "he'd be glad, i warrant," said one, "to change with you, doctor. it shows what difference a good life makes in men, to look at him and you. you are half a score of years his elder, me-thinks, and yet look what temperance can do for a man. by my credit, neighbor, seeing how brisk you have been lately, i told my wife you seemed to be growing younger. it does me good to see it. we are about of an age, i think, and i like to notice how we old men keep young and keep one another in heart. i myself--ahem--ahem--feel younger this season than for these five years past." "it rejoices me that you feel so," quoth the apothecary, who had just been thinking that this neighbor of his had lost a great deal, both in mind and body, within a short period, and rather scorned him for it. "indeed, i find old age less uncomfortable than i supposed. little pansie and i make excellent companions for one another." and then, dragged along by pansie's little hand, and also impelled by a certain alacrity that rose with him in the morning, and lasted till his healthy rest at night, he bade farewell to his contemporary, and hastened on; while the latter, left behind, was somewhat irritated as he looked at the vigorous movement of the apothecary's legs. "he need not make such a show of briskness neither," muttered he to himself. "this touch of rheumatism troubles me a bit just now, but try it on a good day, and i'd walk with him for a shilling. pshaw! i'll walk to his funeral yet." one day, while the doctor, with the activity that bestirred itself in him nowadays, was mixing and manufacturing certain medicaments that came in frequent demand, a carriage stopped at his door, and he recognized the voice of colonel dabney, talking in his customary stern tone to the woman who served him. and, a moment afterwards, the coach drove away, and he actually heard the old dignitary lumbering up stairs, and bestowing a curse upon each particular step, as if that were the method to make them soften and become easier when he should come down again. "pray, your worship," said the doctor from above, "let me attend you below stairs." "no," growled the colonel, "i'll meet you on your own ground. i can climb a stair yet, and be hanged to you." so saying, he painfully finished the ascent, and came into the laboratory, where he let himself fall into the doctor's easy-chair, with an anathema on the chair, the doctor, and himself; and, staring round through the dusk, he met the wide-open, startled eyes of little pansie, who had been reading a gilt picture-book in the corner. "send away that child, dolliver," cried the colonel, angrily. "confound her, she makes my bones ache. i hate everything young." "lord, colonel," the poor apothecary ventured to say, "there must be young people in the world as well as old ones. 't is my mind, a man's grandchildren keep him warm round about him." "i have none, and want none," sharply responded the colonel; "and as for young people, let me be one of them, and they may exist, otherwise not. it is a cursed bad arrangement of the world, that there are young and old here together." when pansie had gone away, which she did with anything but reluctance, having a natural antipathy to this monster of a colonel, the latter personage tapped with his crutch-handled cane on a chair that stood near, and nodded in an authoritative way to the apothecary to sit down in it. dr. dolliver complied submissively, and the colonel, with dull, unkindly eyes, looked at him sternly, and with a kind of intelligence amid the aged stolidity of his aspect, that somewhat puzzled the doctor. in this way he surveyed him all over, like a judge, when he means to hang a man, and for some reason or none, the apothecary felt his nerves shake, beneath this steadfast look. "aha! doctor!" said the colonel at last, with a doltish sneer, "you bear your years well." "decently well, colonel; i thank providence for it," answered the meek apothecary. "i should say," quoth the colonel, "you are younger at this moment than when we spoke together two or three years ago. i noted then that your eyebrows were a handsome snow-white, such as befits a man who has passed beyond his threescore years and ten, and five years more. why, they are getting dark again, mr. apothecary." "nay, your worship must needs be mistaken there," said the doctor, with a timorous chuckle. "it is many a year since i have taken a deliberate note of my wretched old visage in a glass, but i remember they were white when i looked last." "come, doctor, i know a thing or two," said the colonel, with a bitter scoff; "and what's this, you old rogue? why, you've rubbed away a wrinkle since we met. take off those infernal spectacles, and look me in the face. ha! i see the devil in your eye. how dare you let it shine upon me so?" "on my conscience, colonel," said the apothecary, strangely struck with the coincidence of this accusation with little pansie's complaint, "i know not what you mean. my sight is pretty well for a man of my age. we near-sighted people begin to know our best eyesight, when other people have lost theirs." "ah! ah! old rogue," repeated the insufferable colonel, gnashing his ruined teeth at him, as if, for some incomprehensible reason, he wished to tear him to pieces and devour him. "i know you. you are taking the life away from me, villain! and i told you it was my inheritance. and i told you there was a bloody footstep, bearing its track down through my race. "i remember nothing of it," said the doctor, in a quake, sure that the colonel was in one of his mad fits. "and on the word of an honest man, i never wronged you in my life, colonel." "we shall see," said the colonel, whose wrinkled visage grew absolutely terrible with its hardness; and his dull eyes, without losing their dulness, seemed to look through him. "listen to me, sir. some ten years ago, there came to you a man on a secret business. he had an old musty bit of parchment, on which were written some words, hardly legible, in an antique hand,--an old deed, it might have been,--some family document, and here and there the letters were faded away. but this man had spent his life over it, and he had made out the meaning, and he interpreted it to you, and left it with you, only there was one gap,--one torn or obliterated place. well, sir,--and he bade you, with your poor little skill at the mortar, and for a certain sum,--ample repayment for such a service,--to manufacture this medicine,--this cordial. it was an affair of months. and just when you thought it finished, the man came again, and stood over your cursed beverage, and shook a powder, or dropped a lump into it, or put in some ingredient, in which was all the hidden virtue,--or, at least, it drew out all the hidden virtue of the mean and common herbs, and married them into a wondrous efficacy. this done, the man bade you do certain other things with the potation, and went away"--the colonel hesitated a moment--"and never came back again." "surely, colonel, you are correct," said the apothecary; much startled, however, at the colonel's showing himself so well acquainted with an incident which he had supposed a secret with himself alone. yet he had a little reluctance in owning it, although he did not exactly understand why, since the colonel had, apparently, no rightful claim to it, at all events. "that medicine, that receipt," continued his visitor, "is my hereditary property, and i challenge you, on your peril, to give it up." "but what if the original owner should call upon me for it," objected dr. dolliver. "i'll warrant you against that," said the colonel; and the apothecary thought there was something ghastly in his look and tone. "why, 't is ten year, you old fool; and do you think a man with a treasure like that in his possession would have waited so long?" "seven years it was ago," said the apothecary. "septem annis passatis: so says the latin." "curse your latin," answers the colonel. "produce the stuff. you have been violating the first rule of your trade,--taking your own drugs,--your own, in one sense; mine by the right of three hundred years. bring it forth, i say!" "pray excuse me, worthy colonel," pleaded the apothecary; for though convinced that the old gentleman was only in one of his insane fits, when he talked of the value of this concoction, yet he really did not like to give up the cordial, which perhaps had wrought him some benefit. besides, he had at least a claim upon it for much trouble and skill expended in its composition. this he suggested to the colonel, who scornfully took out of his pocket a net-work purse, with more golden guineas in it than the apothecary had seen in the whole seven years, and was rude enough to fling it in his face. "take that," thundered he, "and give up the thing, or i will have you in prison before you are an hour older. nay," he continued, growing pale, which was his mode of showing terrible wrath; since all through life, till extreme age quenched it, his ordinary face had been a blazing-red, "i'll put you to death, you villain, as i've a right!" and thrusting his hand into his waistcoat pocket, lo! the madman took a small pistol from it, which he cocked, and presented at the poor apothecary. the old fellow, quaked and cowered in his chair, and would indeed have given his whole shopful of better concocted medicines than this, to be out of this danger. besides, there were the guineas; the colonel had paid him a princely sum for what was probably worth nothing. "hold! hold!" cried he as the colonel, with stern eye pointed the pistol at his head. "you shall have it." so he rose all trembling, and crept to that secret cupboard, where the precious bottle--since precious it seemed to be--was reposited. in all his life, long as it had been, the apothecary had never before been threatened by a deadly weapon; though many as deadly a thing had he seen poured into a glass, without winking. and so it seemed to take his heart and life away, and he brought the cordial forth feebly, and stood tremulously before the colonel, ashy pale, and looking ten years older than his real age, instead of five years younger, as he had seemed just before this disastrous interview with the colonel. "you look as if you needed a drop of it yourself," said colonel dabney, with great scorn. "but not a drop shall you have. already have you stolen too much," said he, lifting up the bottle, and marking the space to which the liquor had subsided in it in consequence of the minute doses with which the apothecary had made free. "fool, had you taken your glass like a man, you might have been young again. now, creep on, the few months you have left, poor, torpid knave, and die! come--a goblet! quick!" he clutched the bottle meanwhile voraciously, miserly, eagerly, furiously, as if it were his life that he held in his grasp; angry, impatient, as if something long sought were within his reach, and not yet secure,--with longing thirst and desire; suspicious of the world and of fate; feeling as if an iron hand were over him, and a crowd of violent robbers round about him, struggling for it. at last, unable to wait longer, just as the apothecary was tottering away in quest of a drinking-glass, the colonel took out the stopple, and lifted the flask itself to his lips. "for heaven's sake, no!" cried the doctor. "the dose is one single drop!--one drop, colonel, one drop!" "not a drop to save your wretched old soul," responded the colonel; probably thinking that the apothecary was pleading for a small share of the precious liquor. he put it to his lips, and, as if quenching a lifelong thirst, swallowed deep draughts, sucking it in with desperation, till, void of breath, he set it down upon the table. the rich, poignant perfume spread itself through the air. the apothecary, with an instinctive carefulness that was rather ludicrous under the circumstances, caught up the stopper, which the colonel had let fall, and forced it into the bottle to prevent any farther escape of virtue. he then fearfully watched the result of the madman's potation. the colonel sat a moment in his chair, panting for breath; then started to his feet with a prompt vigor that contrasted widely with the infirm and rheumatic movements that had heretofore characterized him. he struck his forehead violently with one hand, and smote his chest with the other: he stamped his foot thunderously on the ground; then he leaped up to the ceiling, and came down with an elastic bound. then he laughed, a wild, exulting ha! ha! with a strange triumphant roar that filled the house and reechoed through it; a sound full of fierce, animal rapture,--enjoyment of sensual life mixed up with a sort of horror. after all, real as it was, it was like the sounds a man makes in a dream. and this, while the potent draught seemed still to be making its way through his system; and the frightened apothecary thought that he intended a revengeful onslaught upon himself. finally, he uttered a loud unearthly screech, in the midst of which his voice broke, as if some unseen hand were throttling him, and, starting forward, he fought frantically, as if he would clutch the life that was being rent away,--and fell forward with a dead thump upon the floor. "colonel! colonel!" cried the terrified doctor. the feeble old man, with difficulty, turned over the heavy frame, and saw at once, with practised eye, that he was dead. he set him up, and the corpse looked at him with angry reproach. he was so startled, that his subsequent recollections of the moment were neither distinct nor steadfast; but he fancied, though he told the strange impression to no one, that on his first glimpse of the face, with a dark flush of what looked like rage still upon it, it was a young man's face that he saw,--a face with all the passionate energy of early manhood,--the capacity for furious anger which the man had lost half a century ago, crammed to the brim with vigor till it became agony. but the next moment, if it were so (which it could not have been), the face grew ashen, withered, shrunken, more aged than in life, though still the murderous fierceness remained, and seemed to be petrified forever upon it. after a moment's bewilderment, dolliver ran to the window looking to the street, threw it open, and called loudly for assistance. he opened also another window, for the air to blow through, for he was almost stifled with the rich odor of the cordial which filled the room, and was now exuded from the corpse. he heard the voice of pansie, crying at the door, which was locked, and, turning the key, he caught her in his arms, and hastened with her below stairs, to give her into the charge of martha, who seemed half stupefied with a sense of something awful that had occurred. meanwhile there was a rattling and a banging at the street portal, to which several people had been attracted both by the doctor's outcry from the window, and by the awful screech in which the colonel's spirit (if, indeed, he had that divine part) had just previously taken its flight. he let them in, and, pale and shivering, ushered them up to the death-chamber, where one or two, with a more delicate sense of smelling than the rest, snuffed the atmosphere, as if sensible of an unknown fragrance, yet appeared afraid to breathe, when they saw the terrific countenance leaning back against the chair, and eying them so truculently. i would fain quit the scene and have done with the colonel, who, i am glad, has happened to die at so early a period of the narrative. i therefore hasten to say that a coroner's inquest was held on the spot, though everybody felt that it was merely ceremonial, and that the testimony of their good and ancient townsman, dr. dolliver, was amply sufficient to settle the matter. the verdict was, "death by the visitation of god." the apothecary gave evidence that the colonel, without asking leave, and positively against his advice, had drunk a quantity of distilled spirits; and one or two servants, or members of the colonel's family, testified that he had been in a very uncomfortable state of mind for some days past, so that they fancied he was insane. therefore nobody thought of blaming dr. dolliver for what had happened; and, if the plain truth must be told, everybody who saw the wretch was too well content to be rid of him, to trouble themselves more than was quite necessary about the way in which the incumbrance had been removed. the corpse was taken to the mansion in order to receive a magnificent funeral; and dr. dolliver was left outwardly in quiet, but much disturbed, and indeed almost overwhelmed inwardly, by what had happened. yet it is to be observed, that he had accounted for the death with a singular dexterity of expression, when he attributed it to a dose of distilled spirits. what kind of distilled spirits were those, doctor? and will you venture to take any more of them? passages from the french and italian note-books of nathaniel hawthorne vol. i. passages from hawthorne's note-books in france and italy. france. hotel de louvre, january th, .--on tuesday morning, our dozen trunks and half-dozen carpet-bags being already packed and labelled, we began to prepare for our journey two or three hours before light. two cabs were at the door by half past six, and at seven we set out for the london bridge station, while it was still dark and bitterly cold. there were already many people in the streets, growing more numerous as we drove city-ward; and, in newgate street, there was such a number of market-carts, that we almost came to a dead lock with some of them. at the station we found several persons who were apparently going in the same train with us, sitting round the fire of the waiting-room. since i came to england there has hardly been a morning when i should have less willingly bestirred myself before daylight; so sharp and inclement was the atmosphere. we started at half past eight, having taken through tickets to paris by way of folkestone and boulogne. a foot-warmer (a long, flat tin utensil, full of hot water) was put into the carriage just before we started; but it did not make us more than half comfortable, and the frost soon began to cloud the windows, and shut out the prospect, so that we could only glance at the green fields--immortally green, whatever winter can do against them--and at, here and there, a stream or pool with the ice forming on its borders. it was the first cold weather of a very mild season. the snow began to fall in scattered and almost invisible flakes; and it seemed as if we had stayed our english welcome out, and were to find nothing genial and hospitable there any more. at folkestone, we were deposited at a railway station close upon a shingly beach, on which the sea broke in foam, and which j----- reported as strewn with shells and star-fish; behind was the town, with an old church in the midst; and, close, at hand, the pier, where lay the steamer in which we were to embark. but the air was so wintry, that i had no heart to explore the town, or pick up shells with j----- on the beach; so we kept within doors during the two hours of our stay, now and then looking out of the windows at a fishing-boat or two, as they pitched and rolled with an ugly and irregular motion, such as the british channel generally communicates to the craft that navigate it. at about one o'clock we went on board, and were soon under steam, at a rate that quickly showed a long line of the white cliffs of albion behind us. it is a very dusky white, by the by, and the cliffs themselves do not seem, at a distance, to be of imposing height, and have too even an outline to be picturesque. as we increased our distance from england, the french coast came more and more distinctly in sight, with a low, wavy outline, not very well worth looking at, except because it was the coast of france. indeed, i looked at it but little; for the wind was bleak and boisterous, and i went down into the cabin, where i found the fire very comfortable, and several people were stretched on sofas in a state of placid wretchedness. . . . . i have never suffered from sea-sickness, but had been somewhat apprehensive of this rough strait between england and france, which seems to have more potency over people's stomachs than ten times the extent of sea in other quarters. our passage was of two hours, at the end of which we landed on french soil, and found ourselves immediately in the clutches of the custom-house officers, who, however, merely made a momentary examination of my passport, and allowed us to pass without opening even one of our carpet-bags. the great bulk of our luggage had been registered through to paris, for examination after our arrival there. we left boulogne in about an hour after our arrival, when it was already a darkening twilight. the weather had grown colder than ever, since our arrival in sunny france, and the night was now setting in, wickedly black and dreary. the frost hardened upon the carriage windows in such thickness that i could scarcely scratch a peep-hole through it; but, from such glimpses as i could catch, the aspect of the country seemed pretty much to resemble the december aspect of my dear native land,--broad, bare, brown fields, with streaks of snow at the foot of ridges, and along fences, or in the furrows of ploughed soil. there was ice wherever there happened to be water to form it. we had feet-warmers in the carriage, but the cold crept in nevertheless; and i do not remember hardly in my life a more disagreeable short journey than this, my first advance into french territory. my impression of france will always be that it is an arctic region. at any season of the year, the tract over which we passed yesterday must be an uninteresting one as regards its natural features; and the only adornment, as far as i could observe, which art has given it, consists in straight rows of very stiff-looking and slender-stemmed trees. in the dusk they resembled poplar-trees. weary and frost-bitten,--morally, if not physically,--we reached amiens in three or four hours, and here i underwent much annoyance from the french railway officials and attendants, who, i believe, did not mean to incommode me, but rather to forward my purposes as far as they well could. if they would speak slowly and distinctly i might understand them well enough, being perfectly familiar with the written language, and knowing the principles of its pronunciation; but, in their customary rapid utterance, it sounds like a string of mere gabble. when left to myself, therefore, i got into great difficulties. . . . . it gives a taciturn personage like myself a new conception as to the value of speech, even to him, when he finds himself unable either to speak or understand. finally, being advised on all hands to go to the hotel du rhin, we were carried thither in an omnibus, rattling over a rough pavement, through an invisible and frozen town; and, on our arrival, were ushered into a handsome salon, as chill as a tomb. they made a little bit of a wood-fire for us in a low and deep chimney-hole, which let a hundred times more heat escape up the flue than it sent into the room. in the morning we sallied forth to see the cathedral. the aspect of the old french town was very different from anything english; whiter, infinitely cleaner; higher and narrower houses, the entrance to most of which seeming to be through a great gateway, affording admission into a central court-yard; a public square, with a statue in the middle, and another statue in a neighboring street. we met priests in three-cornered hats, long frock-coats, and knee-breeches; also soldiers and gendarmes, and peasants and children, clattering over the pavements in wooden shoes. it makes a great impression of outlandishness to see the signs over the shop doors in a foreign tongue. if the cold had not been such as to dull my sense of novelty, and make all my perceptions torpid, i should have taken in a set of new impressions, and enjoyed them very much. as it was, i cared little for what i saw, but yet had life enough left to enjoy the cathedral of amiens, which has many features unlike those of english cathedrals. it stands in the midst of the cold, white town, and has a high-shouldered look to a spectator accustomed to the minsters of england, which cover a great space of ground in proportion to their height. the impression the latter gives is of magnitude and mass; this french cathedral strikes one as lofty. the exterior is venerable, though but little time-worn by the action of the atmosphere; and statues still keep their places in numerous niches, almost as perfect as when first placed there in the thirteenth century. the principal doors are deep, elaborately wrought, pointed arches; and the interior seemed to us, at the moment, as grand as any that we had seen, and to afford as vast an idea of included space; it being of such an airy height, and with no screen between the chancel and nave, as in all the english cathedrals. we saw the differences, too, betwixt a church in which the same form of worship for which it was originally built is still kept up, and those of england, where it has been superseded for centuries; for here, in the recess of every arch of the side aisles, beneath each lofty window, there was a chapel dedicated to some saint, and adorned with great marble sculptures of the crucifixion, and with pictures, execrably bad, in all cases, and various kinds of gilding and ornamentation. immensely tall wax candles stand upon the altars of these chapels, and before one sat a woman, with a great supply of tapers, one of which was burning. i suppose these were to be lighted as offerings to the saints, by the true believers. artificial flowers were hung at some of the shrines, or placed under glass. in every chapel, moreover, there was a confessional,--a little oaken structure, about as big as a sentry-box, with a closed part for the priest to sit in, and an open one for the penitent to kneel at, and speak, through the open-work of the priest's closet. monuments, mural and others, to long-departed worthies, and images of the saviour, the virgin, and saints, were numerous everywhere about the church; and in the chancel there was a great deal of quaint and curious sculpture, fencing in the holy of holies, where the high altar stands. there is not much painted glass; one or two very rich and beautiful rose-windows, however, that looked antique; and the great eastern window which, i think, is modern. the pavement has, probably, never been renewed, as one piece of work, since the structure was erected, and is foot-worn by the successive generations, though still in excellent repair. i saw one of the small, square stones in it, bearing the date of , and no doubt there are a thousand older ones. it was gratifying to find the cathedral in such good condition, without any traces of recent repair; and it is perhaps a mark of difference between french and english character, that the revolution in the former country, though all religious worship disappears before it, does not seem to have caused such violence to ecclesiastical monuments, as the reformation and the reign of puritanism in the latter. i did not see a mutilated shrine, or even a broken-nosed image, in the whole cathedral. but, probably, the very rage of the english fanatics against idolatrous tokens, and their smashing blows at them, were symptoms of sincerer religious faith than the french were capable of. these last did not care enough about their saviour to beat down his crucified image; and they preserved the works of sacred art, for the sake only of what beauty there was in them. while we were in the cathedral, we saw several persons kneeling at their devotions on the steps of the chancel and elsewhere. one dipped his fingers in the holy water at the entrance: by the by, i looked into the stone basin that held it, and saw it full of ice. could not all that sanctity at least keep it thawed? priests--jolly, fat, mean-looking fellows, in white robes--went hither and thither, but did not interrupt or accost us. there were other peculiarities, which i suppose i shall see more of in my visits to other churches, but now we were all glad to make our stay as brief as possible, the atmosphere of the cathedral being so bleak, and its stone pavement so icy cold beneath our feet. we returned to the hotel, and the chambermaid brought me a book, in which she asked me to inscribe my name, age, profession, country, destination, and the authorization under which i travelled. after the freedom of an english hotel, so much greater than even that of an american one, where they make you disclose your name, this is not so pleasant. we left amiens at half past one; and i can tell as little of the country between that place and paris, as between boulogne and amiens. the windows of our railway carriage were already frosted with french breath when we got into it, and the ice grew thicker and thicker continually. i tried, at various times, to rub a peep-hole through, as before; but the ice immediately shot its crystallized tracery over it again; and, indeed, there was little or nothing to make it worth while to look out, so bleak was the scene. now and then a chateau, too far off for its characteristics to be discerned; now and then a church, with a tall gray tower, and a little peak atop; here and there a village or a town, which we could not well see. at sunset there was just that clear, cold, wintry sky which i remember so well in america, but have never seen in england. at five we reached paris, and were suffered to take a carriage to the hotel de louvre, without any examination of the little luggage we had with us. arriving, we took a suite of apartments, and the waiter immediately lighted a wax candle in each separate room. we might have dined at the table d'hote, but preferred the restaurant connected with and within the hotel. all the dishes were very delicate, and a vast change from the simple english system, with its joints, shoulders, beefsteaks, and chops; but i doubt whether english cookery, for the very reason that it is so simple, is not better for men's moral and spiritual nature than french. in the former case, you know that you are gratifying your animal needs and propensities, and are duly ashamed of it; but, in dealing with these french delicacies, you delude yourself into the idea that you are cultivating your taste while satisfying your appetite. this last, however, it requires a good deal of perseverance to accomplish. in the cathedral at amiens there were printed lists of acts of devotion posted on the columns, such as prayers at the shrines of certain saints, whereby plenary indulgences might be gained. it is to be observed, however, that all these external forms were necessarily accompanied with true penitence and religious devotion. hotel de louvre, january th.--it was so fearfully cold this morning that i really felt little or no curiosity to see the city. . . . . until after one o'clock, therefore, i knew nothing of paris except the lights which i had seen beneath our window the evening before, far, far downward, in the narrow rue st. honore, and the rumble of the wheels, which continued later than i was awake to hear it, and began again before dawn. i could see, too, tall houses, that seemed to be occupied in every story, and that had windows on the steep roofs. one of these houses is six stories high. this rue st. honore is one of the old streets in paris, and is that in which henry iv. was assassinated; but it has not, in this part of it, the aspect of antiquity. after one o'clock we all went out and walked along the rue de rivoli. . . . . we are here, right in the midst of paris, and close to whatever is best known to those who hear or read about it,--the louvre being across the street, the palais royal but a little way off, the tuileries joining to the louvre, the place de la concorde just beyond, verging on which is the champs elysees. we looked about us for a suitable place to dine, and soon found the restaurant des echelles, where we entered at a venture, and were courteously received. it has a handsomely furnished saloon, much set off with gilding and mirrors; and appears to be frequented by english and americans; its carte, a bound volume, being printed in english as well as french. . . . . it was now nearly four o'clock, and too late to visit the galleries of the louvre, or to do anything else but walk a little way along the street. the splendor of paris, so far as i have seen, takes me altogether by surprise: such stately edifices, prolonging themselves in unwearying magnificence and beauty, and, ever and anon, a long vista of a street, with a column rising at the end of it, or a triumphal arch, wrought in memory of some grand event. the light stone or stucco, wholly untarnished by smoke and soot, puts london to the blush, if a blush could be seen on its dingy face; but, indeed, london is not to be mentioned, nor compared even, with paris. i never knew what a palace was till i had a glimpse of the louvre and the tuileries; never had my idea of a city been gratified till i trod these stately streets. the life of the scene, too, is infinitely more picturesque than that of london, with its monstrous throng of grave faces and black coats; whereas, here, you see soldiers and priests, policemen in cocked hats, zonaves with turbans, long mantles, and bronzed, half-moorish faces; and a great many people whom you perceive to be outside of your experience, and know them ugly to look at, and fancy them villanous. truly, i have no sympathies towards the french people; their eyes do not win me, nor do their glances melt and mingle with mine. but they do grand and beautiful things in the architectural way; and i am grateful for it. the place de la concorde is a most splendid square, large enough for a nation to erect trophies in of all its triumphs; and on one side of it is the tuileries, on the opposite side the champs elysees, and, on a third, the seine, adown which we saw large cakes of ice floating, beneath the arches of a bridge. the champs elysees, so far as i saw it, had not a grassy soil beneath its trees, but the bare earth, white and dusty. the very dust, if i saw nothing else, would assure me that i was out of england. we had time only to take this little walk, when it began to grow dusk; and, being so pitilessly cold, we hurried back to our hotel. thus far, i think, what i have seen of paris is wholly unlike what i expected; but very like an imaginary picture which i had conceived of st. petersburg,-- new, bright, magnificent, and desperately cold. a great part of this architectural splendor is due to the present emperor, who has wrought a great change in the aspect of the city within a very few years. a traveller, if he looks at the thing selfishly, ought to wish him a long reign and arbitrary power, since he makes it his policy to illustrate his capital with palatial edifices, which are, however, better for a stranger to look at, than for his own people to pay for. we have spent to-day chiefly in seeing some of the galleries of the louvre. i must confess that the vast and beautiful edifice struck me far more than the pictures, sculpture, and curiosities which it contains,-- the shell more than the kernel inside; such noble suites of rooms and halls were those through which we first passed, containing egyptian, and, farther onward, greek and roman antiquities; the walls cased in variegated marbles; the ceilings glowing with beautiful frescos; the whole extended into infinite vistas by mirrors that seemed like vacancy, and multiplied everything forever. the picture-rooms are not so brilliant, and the pictures themselves did not greatly win upon me in this one day. many artists were employed in copying them, especially in the rooms hung with the productions of french painters. not a few of these copyists were females; most of them were young men, picturesquely mustached and bearded; but some were elderly, who, it was pitiful to think, had passed through life without so much success as now to paint pictures of their own. from the pictures we went into a suite of rooms where are preserved many relics of the ancient and later kings of france; more relics of the elder ones, indeed, than i supposed had remained extant through the revolution. the french seem to like to keep memorials of whatever they do, and of whatever their forefathers have done, even if it be ever so little to their credit; and perhaps they do not take matters sufficiently to heart to detest anything that has ever happened. what surprised me most were the golden sceptre and the magnificent sword and other gorgeous relics of charlemagne,--a person whom i had always associated with a sheepskin cloak. there were suits of armor and weapons that had been worn and handled by a great many of the french kings; and a religious book that had belonged to st. louis; a dressing-glass, most richly set with precious stones, which formerly stood on the toilet-table of catherine de' medici, and in which i saw my own face where hers had been. and there were a thousand other treasures, just as well worth mentioning as these. if each monarch could have been summoned from hades to claim his own relics, we should have had the halls full of the old childerics, charleses, bourbons and capets, henrys and louises, snatching with ghostly hands at sceptres, swords, armor, and mantles; and napoleon would have seen, apparently, almost everything that personally belonged to him,--his coat, his cocked hats, his camp-desk, his field-bed, his knives, forks, and plates, and even a lock of his hair. i must let it all go. these things cannot be reproduced by pen and ink. hotel de louvre, january th.--. . . . last evening mr. fezaudie called. he spoke very freely respecting the emperor and the hatred entertained against him in france; but said that he is more powerful, that is, more firmly fixed as a ruler, than ever the first napoleon was. we, who look back upon the first napoleon as one of the eternal facts of the past, a great bowlder in history, cannot well estimate how momentary and insubstantial the great captain may have appeared to those who beheld his rise out of obscurity. they never, perhaps, took the reality of his career fairly into their minds, before it was over. the present emperor, i believe, has already been as long in possession of the supreme power as his uncle was. i should like to see him, and may, perhaps, do--so, as he is our neighbor, across the way. this morning miss ------, the celebrated astronomical lady, called. she had brought a letter of introduction to me, while consul; and her purpose now was to see if we could take her as one of our party to rome, whither she likewise is bound. we readily consented, for she seems to be a simple, strong, healthy-humored woman, who will not fling herself as a burden on our shoulders; and my only wonder is that a person evidently so able to take care of herself should wish to have an escort. we issued forth at about eleven, and went down the rue st. honore, which is narrow, and has houses of five or six stories on either side, between which run the streets like a gully in a rock. one face of our hotel borders and looks on this street. after going a good way, we came to an intersection with another street, the name of which i forget; but, at this point, ravaillac sprang at the carriage of henry iv. and plunged his dagger into him. as we went down the rue st. honore, it grew more and more thronged, and with a meaner class of people. the houses still were high, and without the shabbiness of exterior that distinguishes the old part of london, being of light-colored stone; but i never saw anything that so much came up to my idea of a swarming city as this narrow, crowded, and rambling street. thence we turned into the rue st. denis, which is one of the oldest streets in paris, and is said to have been first marked out by the track of the saint's footsteps, where, after his martyrdom, he walked along it, with his head under his arm, in quest of a burial-place. this legend may account for any crookedness of the street; for it could not reasonably be asked of a headless man that he should walk straight. through some other indirections we at last found the rue bergere, down which i went with j----- in quest of hottinguer et co., the bankers, while the rest of us went along the boulevards, towards the church of the madeleine. . . . . this business accomplished, j----- and i threaded our way back, and overtook the rest of the party, still a good distance from the madeleine. i know not why the boulevards are called so. they are a succession of broad walks through broad streets, and were much thronged with people, most of whom appeared to be bent more on pleasure than business. the sun, long before this, had come out brightly, and gave us the first genial and comfortable sensations which we have had in paris. approaching the madeleine, we found it a most beautiful church, that might have been adapted from heathenism to catholicism; for on each side there is a range of magnificent pillars, unequalled, except by those of the parthenon. a mourning-coach, arrayed in black and silver, was drawn up at the steps, and the front of the church was hung with black cloth, which covered the whole entrance. however, seeing the people going in, we entered along with them. glorious and gorgeous is the madeleine. the entrance to the nave is beneath a most stately arch; and three arches of equal height open from the nave to the side aisles; and at the end of the nave is another great arch, rising, with a vaulted half-dome, over the high altar. the pillars supporting these arches are corinthian, with richly sculptured capitals; and wherever gilding might adorn the church, it is lavished like sunshine; and within the sweeps of the arches there are fresco paintings of sacred subjects, and a beautiful picture covers the hollow of the vault over the altar; all this, besides much sculpture; and especially a group above and around the high altar, representing the magdalen smiling down upon angels and archangels, some of whom are kneeling, and shadowing themselves with their heavy marble wings. there is no such thing as making my page glow with the most distant idea of the magnificence of this church, in its details and in its whole. it was founded a hundred or two hundred years ago; then bonaparte contemplated transforming it into a temple of victory, or building it anew as one. the restored bourbons remade it into a church; but it still has a heathenish look, and will never lose it. when we entered we saw a crowd of people, all pressing forward towards the high altar, before which burned a hundred wax lights, some of which were six or seven feet high; and, altogether, they shone like a galaxy of stars. in the middle of the nave, moreover, there was another galaxy of wax candles burning around an immense pall of black velvet, embroidered with silver, which seemed to cover, not only a coffin, but a sarcophagus, or something still more huge. the organ was rumbling forth a deep, lugubrious bass, accompanied with heavy chanting of priests, out of which sometimes rose the clear, young voices of choristers, like light flashing out of the gloom. the church, between the arches, along the nave, and round the altar, was hung with broad expanses of black cloth; and all the priests had their sacred vestments covered with black. they looked exceedingly well; i never saw anything half so well got up on the stage. some of these ecclesiastical figures were very stately and noble, and knelt and bowed, and bore aloft the cross, and swung the censers in a way that i liked to see. the ceremonies of the catholic church were a superb work of art, or perhaps a true growth of man's religious nature; and so long as men felt their original meaning, they must have been full of awe and glory. being of another parish, i looked on coldly, but not irreverently, and was glad to see the funeral service so well performed, and very glad when it was over. what struck me as singular, the person who performed the part usually performed by a verger, keeping order among the audience, wore a gold-embroidered scarf, a cocked hat, and, i believe, a sword, and had the air of a military man. before the close of the service a contribution-box--or, rather, a black velvet bag--was handed about by this military verger; and i gave j----- a franc to put in, though i did not in the least know for what. issuing from the church, we inquired of two or three persons who was the distinguished defunct at whose obsequies we had been assisting, for we had some hope that it might be rachel, who died last week, and is still above ground. but it proved to be only a madame mentel, or some such name, whom nobody had ever before heard of. i forgot to say that her coffin was taken from beneath the illuminated pall, and carried out of the church before us. when we left the madeleine we took our way to the place de la concorde, and thence through the elysian fields (which, i suppose, are the french idea of heaven) to bonaparte's triumphal arch. the champs elysees may look pretty in summer; though i suspect they must be somewhat dry and artificial at whatever season,--the trees being slender and scraggy, and requiring to be renewed every few years. the soil is not genial to them. the strangest peculiarity of this place, however, to eyes fresh from moist and verdant england, is, that there is not one blade of grass in all the elysian fields, nothing but hard clay, now covered with white dust. it gives the whole scene the air of being a contrivance of man, in which nature has either not been invited to take any part, or has declined to do so. there were merry-go-rounds, wooden horses, and other provision for children's amusements among the trees; and booths, and tables of cakes, and candy-women; and restaurants on the borders of the wood; but very few people there; and doubtless we can form no idea of what the scene might become when alive with french gayety and vivacity. as we walked onward the triumphal arch began to loom up in the distance, looking huge and massive, though still a long way off. it was not, however, till we stood almost beneath it that we really felt the grandeur of this great arch, including so large a space of the blue sky in its airy sweep. at a distance it impresses the spectator with its solidity; nearer, with the lofty vacancy beneath it. there is a spiral staircase within one of its immense limbs; and, climbing steadily upward, lighted by a lantern which the doorkeeper's wife gave us, we had a bird's-eye view of paris, much obscured by smoke or mist. several interminable avenues shoot with painful directness right towards it. on our way homeward we visited the place vendome, in the centre of which is a tall column, sculptured from top to bottom, all over the pedestal, and all over the shaft, and with napoleon himself on the summit. the shaft is wreathed round and roundabout with representations of what, as far as i could distinguish, seemed to be the emperor's victories. it has a very rich effect. at the foot of the column we saw wreaths of artificial flowers, suspended there, no doubt, by some admirer of napoleon, still ardent enough to expend a franc or two in this way. hotel de louvre, january th.--we had purposed going to the cathedral of notre dame to-day, but the weather and walking were too unfavorable for a distant expedition; so we merely went across the street to the louvre. . . . . . our principal object this morning was to see the pencil drawings by eminent artists. of these the louvre has a very rich collection, occupying many apartments, and comprising sketches by annibale caracci, claude, raphael, leonardo da vinci, michel angelo, rubens, rembrandt, and almost all the other great masters, whether french, italian, dutch, or whatever else; the earliest drawings of their great pictures, when they had the glory of their pristine idea directly before their minds' eye,-- that idea which inevitably became overlaid with their own handling of it in the finished painting. no doubt the painters themselves had often a happiness in these rude, off-hand sketches, which they never felt again in the same work, and which resulted in disappointment, after they had done their best. to an artist, the collection must be most deeply interesting: to myself, it was merely curious, and soon grew wearisome. in the same suite of apartments, there is a collection of miniatures, some of them very exquisite, and absolutely lifelike, on their small scale. i observed two of franklin, both good and picturesque, one of them especially so, with its cloud-like white hair. i do not think we have produced a man so interesting to contemplate, in many points of view, as he. most of our great men are of a character that i find it impossible to warm into life by thought, or by lavishing any amount of sympathy upon them. not so franklin, who had a great deal of common and uncommon human nature in him. much of the time, while my wife was looking at the drawings, i sat observing the crowd of sunday visitors. they were generally of a lower class than those of week-days; private soldiers in a variety of uniforms, and, for the most part, ugly little men, but decorous and well behaved. i saw medals on many of their breasts, denoting crimean service; some wore the english medal, with queen victoria's head upon it. a blue coat, with red baggy trousers, was the most usual uniform. some had short-breasted coats, made in the same style as those of the first napoleon, which we had seen in the preceding rooms. the policemen, distributed pretty abundantly about the rooms, themselves looked military, wearing cocked hats and swords. there were many women of the middling classes; some, evidently, of the lowest, but clean and decent, in colored gowns and caps; and laboring men, citizens, sunday gentlemen, young artists, too, no doubt looking with educated eyes at these art-treasures, and i think, as a general thing, each man was mated with a woman. the soldiers, however, came in pairs or little squads, accompanied by women. i did not much like any of the french faces, and yet i am not sure that there is not more resemblance between them and the american physiognomy, than between the latter and the english. the women are not pretty, but in all ranks above the lowest they have a trained expression that supplies the place of beauty. i was wearied to death with the drawings, and began to have that dreary and desperate feeling which has often come upon me when the sights last longer than my capacity for receiving them. as our time in paris, however, is brief and precious, we next inquired our way to the galleries of sculpture, and these alone are of astounding extent, reaching, i should think, all round one quadrangle of the louvre, on the basement floor. hall after hall opened interminably before us, and on either side of us, paved and incrusted with variegated and beautifully polished marble, relieved against which stand the antique statues and groups, interspersed with great urns and vases, sarcophagi, altars, tablets, busts of historic personages, and all manner of shapes of marble which consummate art has transmuted into precious stones. not that i really did feel much impressed by any of this sculpture then, nor saw more than two or three things which i thought very beautiful; but whether it be good or no, i suppose the world has nothing better, unless it be a few world-renowned statues in italy. i was even more struck by the skill and ingenuity of the french in arranging these sculptural remains, than by the value of the sculptures themselves. the galleries, i should judge, have been recently prepared, and on a magnificent system,--the adornments being yet by no means completed,--for besides the floor and wall-casings of rich, polished marble, the vaulted ceilings of some of the apartments are painted in fresco, causing them to glow as if the sky were opened. it must be owned, however, that the statuary, often time-worn and darkened from its original brilliancy by weather-stains, does not suit well as furniture for such splendid rooms. when we see a perfection of modern finish around them, we recognize that most of these statues have been thrown down from their pedestals, hundreds of years ago, and have been battered and externally degraded; and though whatever spiritual beauty they ever had may still remain, yet this is not made more apparent by the contrast betwixt the new gloss of modern upholstery, and their tarnished, even if immortal grace. i rather think the english have given really the more hospitable reception to the maimed theseus, and his broken-nosed, broken-legged, headless companions, because flouting them with no gorgeous fittings up. by this time poor j----- (who, with his taste for art yet undeveloped, is the companion of all our visits to sculpture and picture galleries) was wofully hungry, and for bread we had given him a stone,--not one stone, but a thousand. we returned to the hotel, and it being too damp and raw to go to our restaurant des echelles, we dined at the hotel. in my opinion it would require less time to cultivate our gastronomic taste than taste of any other kind; and, on the whole, i am not sure that a man would not be wise to afford himself a little discipline in this line. it is certainly throwing away the bounties of providence, to treat them as the english do, producing from better materials than the french have to work upon nothing but sirloins, joints, joints, steaks, steaks, steaks, chops, chops, chops, chops! we had a soup to-day, in which twenty kinds of vegetables were represented, and manifested each its own aroma; a fillet of stewed beef, and a fowl, in some sort of delicate fricassee. we had a bottle of chablis, and renewed ourselves, at the close of the banquet, with a plate of chateaubriand ice. it was all very good, and we respected ourselves far more than if we had eaten a quantity of red roast beef; but i am not quite sure that we were right. . . . . among the relics of kings and princes, i do not know that there was anything more interesting than a little brass cannon, two or three inches long, which had been a toy of the unfortunate dauphin, son of louis xvi. there was a map,--a hemisphere of the world,--which his father had drawn for this poor boy; very neatly done, too. the sword of louis xvi., a magnificent rapier, with a beautifully damasked blade, and a jewelled scabbard, but without a hilt, is likewise preserved, as is the hilt of henry iv.'s sword. but it is useless to begin a catalogue of these things. what a collection it is, including charlemagne's sword and sceptre, and the last dauphin's little toy cannon, and so much between the two! hotel de louvre, january th.--this was another chill, raw day, characterized by a spitefulness of atmosphere which i do not remember ever to have experienced in my own dear country. we meant to have visited the hotel des invalides, but j----- and i walked to the tivoli, the place de la concorde, the champs elysees, and to the place de beaujou, and to the residence of the american minister, where i wished to arrange about my passport. after speaking with the secretary of legation, we were ushered into the minister's private room, where he received me with great kindness. mr. ------ is an old gentleman with a white head, and a large, florid face, which has an expression of amiability, not unmingled with a certain dignity. he did not rise from his arm-chair to greet me,--a lack of ceremony which i imputed to the gout, feeling it impossible that he should have willingly failed in courtesy to one of his twenty-five million sovereigns. in response to some remark of mine about the shabby way in which our government treats its officials pecuniarily, he gave a detailed account of his own troubles on that score; then expressed a hope that i had made a good thing out of my consulate, and inquired whether i had received a hint to resign; to which i replied that, for various reasons, i had resigned of my own accord, and before mr. buchanan's inauguration. we agreed, however, in disapproving the system of periodical change in our foreign officials; and i remarked that a consul or an ambassador ought to be a citizen both of his native country and of the one in which he resided; and that his possibility of beneficent influence depended largely on his being so. apropos to which mr. ------ said that he had once asked a diplomatic friend of long experience, what was the first duty of a minister. "to love his own country, and to watch over its interests," answered the diplomatist. "and his second duty?" asked mr. ------. "to love and to promote the interests of the country to which he is accredited," said his friend. this is a very christian and sensible view of the matter; but it can scarcely have happened once in our whole diplomatic history, that a minister can have had time to overcome his first rude and ignorant prejudice against the country of his mission; and if there were any suspicion of his having done so, it would be held abundantly sufficient ground for his recall. i like mr. ------, a good-hearted, sensible old man. j----- and i returned along the champs elysees, and, crossing the seine, kept on our way by the river's brink, looking at the titles of books on the long lines of stalls that extend between the bridges. novels, fairy-tales, dream books, treatises of behavior and etiquette, collections of bon-mots and of songs, were interspersed with volumes in the old style of calf and gilt binding, the works of the classics of french literature. a good many persons, of the poor classes, and of those apparently well to do, stopped transitorily to look at these books. on the other side of the street was a range of tall edifices with shops beneath, and the quick stir of french life hurrying, and babbling, and swarming along the sidewalk. we passed two or three bridges, occurring at short intervals, and at last we recrossed the seine by a bridge which oversteps the river, from a point near the national institute, and reaches the other side, not far from the louvre. . . . . though the day was so disagreeable, we thought it best not to lose the remainder of it, and therefore set out to visit the cathedral of notre dame. we took a fiacre in the place de carousel, and drove to the door. on entering, we found the interior miserably shut off from view by the stagings erected for the purpose of repairs. penetrating from the nave towards the chancel, an official personage signified to us that we must first purchase a ticket for each grown person, at the price of half a franc each. this expenditure admitted us into the sacristy, where we were taken in charge by a guide, who came down upon us with an avalanche or cataract of french, descriptive of a great many treasures reposited in this chapel. i understood hardly more than one word in ten, but gathered doubtfully that a bullet which was shown us was the one that killed the late archbishop of paris, on the floor of the cathedral. [but this was a mistake. it was the archbishop who was killed in the insurrection of . two joints of his backbone were also shown.] also, that some gorgeously embroidered vestments, which he drew forth, had been used at the coronation of napoleon i. there were two large, full-length portraits hanging aloft in the sacristy, and a gold or silver gilt, or, at all events, gilt image of the virgin, as large as life, standing on a pedestal. the guide had much to say about these, but, understanding him so imperfectly, i have nothing to record. the guide's supervision of us seemed not to extend beyond this sacristy, on quitting which he gave us permission to go where we pleased, only intimating a hope that we would not forget him; so i gave him half a franc, though thereby violating an inhibition on the printed ticket of entrance. we had been much disappointed at first by the apparently narrow limits of the interior of this famous church; but now, as we made our way round the choir, gazing into chapel after chapel, each with its painted window, its crucifix, its pictures, its confessional, and afterwards came back into the nave, where arch rises above arch to the lofty roof, we came to the conclusion that it was very sumptuous. it is the greatest of pities that its grandeur and solemnity should just now be so infinitely marred by the workmen's boards, timber, and ladders occupying the whole centre of the edifice, and screening all its best effects. it seems to have been already most richly ornamented, its roof being painted, and the capitals of the pillars gilded, and their shafts illuminated in fresco; and no doubt it will shine out gorgeously when all the repairs and adornments shall be completed. even now it gave to my actual sight what i have often tried to imagine in my visits to the english cathedrals,-- the pristine glory of those edifices, when they stood glowing with gold and picture, fresh from the architects' and adorners' hands. the interior loftiness of notre dame, moreover, gives it a sublimity which would swallow up anything that might look gewgawy in its ornamentation, were we to consider it window by window, or pillar by pillar. it is an advantage of these vast edifices, rising over us and spreading about us in such a firmamental way, that we cannot spoil them by any pettiness of our own, but that they receive (or absorb) our pettiness into their own immensity. every little fantasy finds its place and propriety in them, like a flower on the earth's broad bosom. when we emerged from the cathedral, we found it beginning to rain or snow, or both; and, as we had dismissed our fiacre at the door, and could find no other, we were at a loss what to do. we stood a few moments on the steps of the hotel dieu, looking up at the front of notre dame, with its twin towers, and its three deep-pointed arches, piercing through a great thickness of stone, and throwing a cavern-like gloom around these entrances. the front is very rich. though so huge, and all of gray stone, it is carved and fretted with statues and innumerable devices, as cunningly as any ivory casket in which relics are kept; but its size did not so much impress me. . . . . hotel de louvre, january th.--this has been a bright day as regards weather; but i have done little or nothing worth recording. after breakfast, i set out in quest of the consul, and found him up a court, at rue caumartin, in an office rather smaller, i think, than mine at liverpool; but, to say the truth, a little better furnished. i was received in the outer apartment by an elderly, brisk-looking man, in whose air, respectful and subservient, and yet with a kind of authority in it, i recognized the vice-consul. he introduced me to mr. ------, who sat writing in an inner room; a very gentlemanly, courteous, cool man of the world, whom i should take to be an excellent person for consul at paris. he tells me that he has resided here some years, although his occupancy of the consulate dates only from november last. consulting him respecting my passport, he gave me what appear good reasons why i should get all the necessary vises here; for example, that the vise of a minister carries more weight than that of a consul; and especially that an austrian consul will never vise a passport unless he sees his minister's name upon it. mr. ------ has travelled much in italy, and ought to be able to give me sound advice. his opinion was, that at this season of the year i had better go by steamer to civita veechia, instead of landing at leghorn, and thence journeying to rome. on this point i shall decide when the time comes. as i left the office the vice-consul informed me that there was a charge of five francs and some sous for the consul's vise, a tax which surprised me,--the whole business of passports having been taken from consuls before i quitted office, and the consular fee having been annulled even earlier. however, no doubt mr. ------ had a fair claim to my five francs; but, really, it is not half so pleasant to pay a consular fee as it used to be to receive it. afterwards i walked to notre dame, the rich front of which i viewed with more attention than yesterday. there are whole histories, carved in stone figures, within the vaulted arches of the three entrances in this west front, and twelve apostles in a row above, and as much other sculpture as would take a month to see. we then walked quite round it, but i had no sense of immensity from it, not even that of great height, as from many of the cathedrals in england. it stands very near the seine; indeed, if i mistake not, it is on an island formed by two branches of the river. behind it, is what seems to be a small public ground (or garden, if a space entirely denuded of grass or other green thing, except a few trees, can be called so), with benches, and a monument in the midst. this quarter of the city looks old, and appears to be inhabited by poor people, and to be busied about small and petty affairs; the most picturesque business that i saw being that of the old woman who sells crucifixes of pearl and of wood at the cathedral door. we bought two of these yesterday. i must again speak of the horrible muddiness, not only of this part of the city, but of all paris, so far as i have traversed it to-day. my ways, since i came to europe, have often lain through nastiness, but i never before saw a pavement so universally overspread with mud-padding as that of paris. it is difficult to imagine where so much filth can come from. after dinner i walked through the gardens of the tuileries; but as dusk was coming on, and as i was afraid of being shut up within the iron railing, i did not have time to examine them particularly. there are wide, intersecting walks, fountains, broad basins, and many statues; but almost the whole surface of the gardens is barren earth, instead of the verdure that would beautify an english pleasure-ground of this sort. in the summer it has doubtless an agreeable shade; but at this season the naked branches look meagre, and sprout from slender trunks. like the trees in the champs elysees, those, i presume, in the gardens of the tuileries need renewing every few years. the same is true of the human race,--families becoming extinct after a generation or two of residence in paris. nothing really thrives here; man and vegetables have but an artificial life, like flowers stuck in a little mould, but never taking root. i am quite tired of paris, and long for a home more than ever. marseilles. hotel d'angleterre, january th.--on tuesday morning, ( th) we took our departure from the hotel de louvre. it is a most excellent and perfectly ordered hotel, and i have not seen a more magnificent hall, in any palace, than the dining-saloon, with its profuse gilding, and its ceiling, painted in compartments; so that when the chandeliers are all alight, it looks a fit place for princes to banquet in, and not very fit for the few americans whom i saw scattered at its long tables. by the by, as we drove to the railway, we passed through the public square, where the bastille formerly stood; and in the centre of it now stands a column, surmounted by a golden figure of mercury (i think), which seems to be just on the point of casting itself from a gilt ball into the air. this statue is so buoyant, that the spectator feels quite willing to trust it to the viewless element, being as sure that it would be borne up as that a bird would fly. our first day's journey was wholly without interest, through a country entirely flat, and looking wretchedly brown and barren. there were rows of trees, very slender, very prim and formal; there was ice wherever there happened to be any water to form it; there were occasional villages, compact little streets, or masses of stone or plastered cottages, very dirty and with gable ends and earthen roofs; and a succession of this same landscape was all that we saw, whenever we rubbed away the congelation of our breath from the carriage windows. thus we rode on, all day long, from eleven o'clock, with hardly a five minutes' stop, till long after dark, when we came to dijon, where there was a halt of twenty-five minutes for dinner. then we set forth again, and rumbled forward, through cold and darkness without, until we reached lyons at about ten o'clock. we left our luggage at the railway station, and took an omnibus for the hotel de provence, which we chose at a venture, among a score of other hotels. as this hotel was a little off the direct route of the omnibus, the driver set us down at the corner of a street, and pointed to some lights, which he said designated the hotel do provence; and thither we proceeded, all seven of us, taking along a few carpet-bags and shawls, our equipage for the night. the porter of the hotel met us near its doorway, and ushered us through an arch, into the inner quadrangle, and then up some old and worn steps,--very broad, and appearing to be the principal staircase. at the first landing-place, an old woman and a waiter or two received us; and we went up two or three more flights of the same broad and worn stone staircases. what we could see of the house looked very old, and had the musty odor with which i first became acquainted at chester. after ascending to the proper level, we were conducted along a corridor, paved with octagonal earthen tiles; on one side were windows, looking into the courtyard, on the other doors opening into the sleeping-chambers. the corridor was of immense length, and seemed still to lengthen itself before us, as the glimmer of our conductor's candle went farther and farther into the obscurity. our own chamber was at a vast distance along this passage; those of the rest of the party were on the hither side; but all this immense suite of rooms appeared to communicate by doors from one to another, like the chambers through which the reader wanders at midnight, in mrs. radcliffe's romances. and they were really splendid rooms, though of an old fashion, lofty, spacious, with floors of oak or other wood, inlaid in squares and crosses, and waxed till they were slippery, but without carpets. our own sleeping-room had a deep fireplace, in which we ordered a fire, and asked if there were not some saloon already warmed, where we could get a cup of tea. hereupon the waiter led us back along the endless corridor, and down the old stone staircases, and out into the quadrangle, and journeyed with us along an exterior arcade, and finally threw open the door of the salle a manger, which proved to be a room of lofty height, with a vaulted roof, a stone floor, and interior spaciousness sufficient for a baronial hall, the whole bearing the same aspect of times gone by, that characterized the rest of the house. there were two or three tables covered with white cloth, and we sat down at one of them and had our tea. finally we wended back to our sleeping-rooms,--a considerable journey, so endless seemed the ancient hotel. i should like to know its history. the fire made our great chamber look comfortable, and the fireplace threw out the heat better than the little square hole over which we cowered in our saloon at the hotel de louvre. . . . . in the morning we began our preparations for starting at ten. issuing into the corridor, i found a soldier of the line, pacing to and fro there as sentinel. another was posted in another corridor, into which i wandered by mistake; another stood in the inner court-yard, and another at the porte-cochere. they were not there the night before, and i know not whence nor why they came, unless that some officer of rank may have taken up his quarters at the hotel. miss m------ says she heard at paris, that a considerable number of troops had recently been drawn together at lyons, in consequence of symptoms of disaffection that have recently shown themselves here. before breakfast i went out to catch a momentary glimpse of the city. the street in which our hotel stands is near a large public square; in the centre is a bronze equestrian statue of louis xiv.; and the square itself is called the place de louis le grand. i wonder where this statue hid itself while the revolution was raging in lyons, and when the guillotine, perhaps, stood on that very spot. the square was surrounded by stately buildings, but had what seemed to be barracks for soldiers,--at any rate, mean little huts, deforming its ample space; and a soldier was on guard before the statue of louis le grand. it was a cold, misty morning, and a fog lay throughout the area, so that i could scarcely see from one side of it to the other. returning towards our hotel, i saw that it had an immense front, along which ran, in gigantic letters, its title,-- hotel de provence et des ambassadeurs. the excellence of the hotel lay rather in the faded pomp of its sleeping-rooms, and the vastness of its salle a manger, than in anything very good to eat or drink. we left it, after a poor breakfast, and went to the railway station. looking at the mountainous heap of our luggage the night before, we had missed a great carpet-bag; and we now found that miss m------'s trunk had been substituted for it, and, there being the proper number of packages as registered, it was impossible to convince the officials that anything was wrong. we, of course, began to generalize forthwith, and pronounce the incident to be characteristic of french morality. they love a certain system and external correctness, but do not trouble themselves to be deeply in the right; and miss m------ suggested that there used to be parallel cases in the french revolution, when, so long as the assigned number were sent out of prison to be guillotined, the jailer did not much care whether they were the persons designated by the tribunal or not. at all events, we could get no satisfaction about the carpet-bag, and shall very probably be compelled to leave marseilles without it. this day's ride was through a far more picturesque country than that we saw yesterday. heights began to rise imminent above our way, with sometimes a ruined castle wall upon them; on our left, the rail-track kept close to the hills; on the other side there was the level bottom of a valley, with heights descending upon it a mile or a few miles away. farther off we could see blue hills, shouldering high above the intermediate ones, and themselves worthy to be called mountains. these hills arranged themselves in beautiful groups, affording openings between them, and vistas of what lay beyond, and gorges which i suppose held a great deal of romantic scenery. by and by a river made its appearance, flowing swiftly in the same direction that we were travelling,--a beautiful and cleanly river, with white pebbly shores, and itself of a peculiar blue. it rushed along very fast, sometimes whitening over shallow descents, and even in its calmer intervals its surface was all covered with whirls and eddies, indicating that it dashed onward in haste. i do not now know the name of this river, but have set it down as the "arrowy rhone." it kept us company a long while, and i think we did not part with it as long as daylight remained. i have seldom seen hill-scenery that struck me more than some that we saw to-day, and the old feudal towers and old villages at their feet; and the old churches, with spires shaped just like extinguishers, gave it an interest accumulating from many centuries past. still going southward, the vineyards began to border our track, together with what i at first took to be orchards, but soon found were plantations of olive-trees, which grow to a much larger size than i supposed, and look almost exactly like very crabbed and eccentric apple-trees. neither they nor the vineyards add anything to the picturesqueness of the landscape. on the whole, i should have been delighted with all this scenery if it had not looked so bleak, barren, brown, and bare; so like the wintry new england before the snow has fallen. it was very cold, too; ice along the borders of streams, even among the vineyards and olives. the houses are of rather a different shape here than, farther northward, their roofs being not nearly so sloping. they are almost invariably covered with white plaster; the farm-houses have their outbuildings in connection with the dwelling,--the whole surrounding three sides of a quadrangle. we travelled far into the night, swallowed a cold and hasty dinner at avignon, and reached marseilles sorely wearied, at about eleven o'clock. we took a cab to the hotel d'angleterre (two cabs, to be quite accurate), and find it a very poor place. to go back a little, as the sun went down, we looked out of the window of our railway carriage, and saw a sky that reminded us of what we used to see day after day in america, and what we have not seen since; and, after sunset, the horizon burned and glowed with rich crimson and orange lustre, looking at once warm and cold. after it grew dark, the stars brightened, and miss m------ from her window pointed out some of the planets to the children, she being as familiar with them as a gardener with his flowers. they were as bright as diamonds. we had a wretched breakfast, and j----- and i then went to the railway station to see about our luggage. on our walk back we went astray, passing by a triumphal arch, erected by the marseillais, in honor of louis napoleon; but we inquired our way of old women and soldiers, who were very kind and courteous,--especially the latter,--and were directed aright. we came to a large, oblong, public place, set with trees, but devoid of grass, like all public places in france. in the middle of it was a bronze statue of an ecclesiastical personage, stretching forth his hands in the attitude of addressing the people or of throwing a benediction over them. it was some archbishop, who had distinguished himself by his humanity and devotedness during the plague of . at the moment of our arrival the piazza was quite thronged with people, who seemed to be talking amongst themselves with considerable earnestness, although without any actual excitement. they were smoking cigars; and we judged that they were only loitering here for the sake of the sunshine, having no fires at home, and nothing to do. some looked like gentlemen, others like peasants; most of them i should have taken for the lazzaroni of this southern city,--men with cloth caps, like the classic liberty-cap, or with wide-awake hats. there were one or two women of the lower classes, without bonnets, the elder ones with white caps, the younger bareheaded. i have hardly seen a lady in marseilles; and i suspect, it being a commercial city, and dirty to the last degree, ill-built, narrow-streeted, and sometimes pestilential, there are few or no families of gentility resident here. returning to the hotel, we found the rest of the party ready to go out; so we all issued forth in a body, and inquired our way to the telegraph-office, in order to send my message about the carpet-bag. in a street through which we had to pass (and which seemed to be the exchange, or its precincts), there was a crowd even denser, yes, much denser, than that which we saw in the square of the archbishop's statue; and each man was talking to his neighbor in a vivid, animated way, as if business were very brisk to-day. at the telegraph-office, we discovered the cause that had brought out these many people. there had been attempts on the emperor's life,-- unsuccessful, as they seem fated to be, though some mischief was done to those near him. i rather think the good people of marseilles were glad of the attempt, as an item of news and gossip, and did not very greatly care whether it were successful or no. it seemed to have roused their vivacity rather than their interest. the only account i have seen of it was in the brief public despatch from the syndic (or whatever he be) of paris to the chief authority of marseilles, which was printed and posted in various conspicuous places. the only chance of knowing the truth with any fulness of detail would be to come across an english paper. we have had a banner hoisted half-mast in front of our hotel to-day as a token, the head-waiter tells me, of sympathy and sorrow for the general and other persons who were slain by this treasonable attempt. j----- and i now wandered by ourselves along a circular line of quays, having, on one side of us, a thick forest of masts, while, on the other, was a sweep of shops, bookstalls, sailors' restaurants and drinking-houses, fruit-sellers, candy-women, and all manner of open-air dealers and pedlers; little children playing, and jumping the rope, and such a babble and bustle as i never saw or heard before; the sun lying along the whole sweep, very hot, and evidently very grateful to those who basked in it. whenever i passed into the shade, immediately from too warm i became too cold. the sunshine was like hot air; the shade, like the touch of cold steel,--sharp, hard, yet exhilarating. from the broad street of the quays, narrow, thread-like lanes pierced up between the edifices, calling themselves streets, yet so narrow, that a person in the middle could almost touch the houses on either hand. they ascended steeply, bordered on each side by long, contiguous walls of high houses, and from the time of their first being built, could never have had a gleam of sunshine in them,--always in shadow, always unutterably nasty, and often pestiferous. the nastiness which i saw in marseilles exceeds my heretofore experience. there is dirt in the hotel, and everywhere else; and it evidently troubles nobody,--no more than if all the people were pigs in a pigsty. . . . . passing by all this sweep of quays, j----- and i ascended to an elevated walk, overlooking the harbor, and far beyond it; for here we had our first view of the mediterranean, blue as heaven, and bright with sunshine. it was a bay, widening forth into the open deep, and bordered with heights, and bold, picturesque headlands, some of which had either fortresses or convents on them. several boats and one brig were under sail, making their way towards the port. i have never seen a finer sea-view. behind the town, there seemed to be a mountainous landscape, imperfectly visible, in consequence of the intervening edifices. the mediterranean sea. steamer calabrese, january th.--if i had remained at marseilles, i might have found many peculiarities and characteristics of that southern city to notice; but i fear that these will not be recorded if i leave them till i touch the soil of italy. indeed, i doubt whether there be anything really worth recording in the little distinctions between one nation and another; at any rate, after the first novelty is over, new things seem equally commonplace with the old. there is but one little interval when the mind is in such a state that it can catch the fleeting aroma of a new scene. and it is always so much pleasanter to enjoy this delicious newness than to attempt arresting it, that it requires great force of will to insist with one's self upon sitting down to write. i can do nothing with marseilles, especially here on the mediterranean, long after nightfall, and when the steamer is pitching in a pretty lively way. (later.)--i walked out with j----- yesterday morning, and reached the outskirts of the city, whence we could see the bold and picturesque heights that surround marseilles as with a semicircular wall. they rise into peaks, and the town, being on their lower slope, descends from them towards the sea with a gradual sweep. adown the streets that descend these declivities come little rivulets, running along over the pavement, close to the sidewalks, as over a pebbly bed; and though they look vastly like kennels, i saw women washing linen in these streams, and others dipping up the water for household purposes. the women appear very much in public at marseilles. in the squares and places you see half a dozen of them together, sitting in a social circle on the bottoms of upturned baskets, knitting, talking, and enjoying the public sunshine, as if it were their own household fire. not one in a thousand of them, probably, ever has a household fire for the purpose of keeping themselves warm, but only to do their little cookery; and when there is sunshine they take advantage of it, and in the short season of rain and frost they shrug their shoulders, put on what warm garments they have, and get through the winter somewhat as grasshoppers and butterflies do,--being summer insects like then. this certainly is a very keen and cutting air, sharp as a razor, and i saw ice along the borders of the little rivulets almost at noonday. to be sure, it is midwinter, and yet in the sunshine i found myself uncomfortably warm, but in the shade the air was like the touch of death itself. i do not like the climate. there are a great number of public places in marseilles, several of which are adorned with statues or fountains, or triumphal arches or columns, and set out with trees, and otherwise furnished as a kind of drawing-rooms, where the populace may meet together and gossip. i never before heard from human lips anything like this bustle and babble, this thousand-fold talk which you hear all round about you in the crowd of a public square; so entirely different is it from the dulness of a crowd in england, where, as a rule, everybody is silent, and hardly half a dozen monosyllables will come from the lips of a thousand people. in marseilles, on the contrary, a stream of unbroken talk seems to bubble from the lips of every individual. a great many interesting scenes take place in these squares. from the window of our hotel (which looked into the place royale) i saw a juggler displaying his art to a crowd, who stood in a regular square about him, none pretending to press nearer than the prescribed limit. while the juggler wrought his miracles his wife supplied him with his magic materials out of a box; and when the exhibition was over she packed up the white cloth with which his table was covered, together with cups, cards, balls, and whatever else, and they took their departure. i have been struck with the idle curiosity, and, at the same time, the courtesy and kindness of the populace of marseilles, and i meant to exemplify it by recording how miss s------ and i attracted their notice, and became the centre of a crowd of at least fifty of them while doing no more remarkable thing than settling with a cab-driver. but really this pitch and swell is getting too bad, and i shall go to bed, as the best chance of keeping myself in an equable state. rome. palazzo larazani, via porta pinciana, january th.--we left marseilles in the neapolitan steamer calabrese, as noticed above, a week ago this morning. there was no fault to be found with the steamer, which was very clean and comfortable, contrary to what we had understood beforehand; except for the coolness of the air (and i know not that this was greater than that of the atlantic in july), our voyage would have been very pleasant; but for myself, i enjoyed nothing, having a cold upon me, or a low fever, or something else that took the light and warmth out of everything. i went to bed immediately after my last record, and was rocked to sleep pleasantly enough by the billows of the mediterranean; and, coming on deck about sunrise next morning, found the steamer approaching genoa. we saw the city, lying at the foot of a range of hills, and stretching a little way up their slopes, the hills sweeping round it in the segment of a circle, and looking like an island rising abruptly out of the sea; for no connection with the mainland was visible on either side. there was snow scattered on their summits and streaking their sides a good way down. they looked bold, and barren, and brown, except where the snow whitened them. the city did not impress me with much expectation of size or splendor. shortly after coming into the port our whole party landed, and we found ourselves at once in the midst of a crowd of cab-drivers, hotel-runnets, and coin missionaires, who assaulted us with a volley of french, italian, and broken english, which beat pitilessly about our ears; for really it seemed as if all the dictionaries in the world had been torn to pieces, and blown around us by a hurricane. such a pother! we took a commissionaire, a respectable-looking man, in a cloak, who said his name was salvator rosa; and he engaged to show us whatever was interesting in genoa. in the first place, he took us through narrow streets to an old church, the name of which i have forgotten, and, indeed, its peculiar features; but i know that i found it pre-eminently magnificent,--its whole interior being incased in polished marble, of various kinds and colors, its ceiling painted, and its chapels adorned with pictures. however, this church was dazzled out of sight by the cathedral of san lorenzo, to which we were afterwards conducted, whose exterior front is covered with alternate slabs of black and white marble, which were brought, either in whole or in part, from jerusalem. within, there was a prodigious richness of precious marbles, and a pillar, if i mistake not, from solomon's temple; and a picture of the virgin by st. luke; and others (rather more intrinsically valuable, i imagine), by old masters, set in superb marble frames, within the arches of the chapels. i used to try to imagine how the english cathedrals must have looked in their primeval glory, before the reformation, and before the whitewash of cromwell's time had overlaid their marble pillars; but i never imagined anything at all approaching what my eyes now beheld: this sheen of polished and variegated marble covering every inch of its walls; this glow of brilliant frescos all over the roof, and up within the domes; these beautiful pictures by great masters, painted for the places which they now occupied, and making an actual portion of the edifice; this wealth of silver, gold, and gems, that adorned the shrines of the saints, before which wax candles burned, and were kept burning, i suppose, from year's end to year's end; in short, there is no imagining nor remembering a hundredth part of the rich details. and even the cathedral (though i give it up as indescribable) was nothing at all in comparison with a church to which the commissionaire afterwards led us; a church that had been built four or five hundred years ago, by a pirate, in expiation of his sins, and out of the profit of his rapine. this last edifice, in its interior, absolutely shone with burnished gold, and glowed with pictures; its walls were a quarry of precious stones, so valuable were the marbles out of which they were wrought; its columns and pillars were of inconceivable costliness; its pavement was a mosaic of wonderful beauty, and there were four twisted pillars made out of stalactites. perhaps the best way to form some dim conception of it is to fancy a little casket, inlaid inside with precious stones, so that there shall not a hair's-breadth be left unprecious-stoned, and then to conceive this little bit of a casket iucreased to the magnitude of a great church, without losing anything of the excessive glory that was compressed into its original small compass, but all its pretty lustre made sublime by the consequent immensity. at any rate, nobody who has not seen a church like this can imagine what a gorgeous religion it was that reared it. in the cathedral, and in all the churches, we saw priests and many persons kneeling at their devotions; and our salvator rosa, whenever we passed a chapel or shrine, failed not to touch the pavement with one knee, crossing himself the while; and once, when a priest was going through some form of devotion, he stopped a few moments to share in it. he conducted us, too, to the balbi palace, the stateliest and most sumptuous residence, but not more so than another which he afterwards showed us, nor perhaps than many others which exist in genoa, the superb. the painted ceilings in these palaces are a glorious adornment; the walls of the saloons, incrusted with various-colored marbles, give an idea of splendor which i never gained from anything else. the floors, laid in mosaic, seem too precious to tread upon. in the royal palace, many of the floors were of various woods, inlaid by an english artist, and they looked like a magnification of some exquisite piece of tunbridge ware; but, in all respects, this palace was inferior to others which we saw. i say nothing of the immense pictorial treasures which hung upon the walls of all the rooms through which we passed; for i soon grew so weary of admirable things, that i could neither enjoy nor understand them. my receptive faculty is very limited, and when the utmost of its small capacity is full, i become perfectly miserable, and the more so the better worth seeing are the things i am forced to reject. i do not know a greater misery; to see sights, after such repletion, is to the mind what it would be to the body to have dainties forced down the throat long after the appetite was satiated. all this while, whenever we emerged into the vaultlike streets, we were wretchedly cold. the commissionaire took us to a sort of pleasure-garden, occupying the ascent of a hill, and presenting seven different views of the city, from as many stations. one of the objects pointed out to us was a large yellow house, on a hillside, in the outskirts of genoa, which was formerly inhabited for six months by charles dickens. looking down from the elevated part of the pleasure-gardens, we saw orange-trees beneath us, with the golden fruit hanging upon them, though their trunks were muffled in straw; and, still lower down, there was ice and snow. gladly (so far as i myself was concerned) we dismissed the commissionaire, after he had brought us to the hotel of the cross of malta, where we dined; needlessly, as it proved, for another dinner awaited us, after our return on board the boat. we set sail for leghorn before dark, and i retired early, feeling still more ill from my cold than the night before. the next morning we were in the crowded port of leghorn. we all went ashore, with some idea of taking the rail for pisa, which is within an hour's distance, and might have been seen in time for our departure with the steamer. but a necessary visit to a banker's, and afterwards some unnecessary formalities about our passports, kept us wandering through the streets nearly all day; and we saw nothing in the slightest degree interesting, except the tomb of smollett, in the burial-place attached to the english chapel. it is surrounded by an iron railing, and marked by a slender obelisk of white marble, the pattern of which is many times repeated over surrounding graves. we went into a jewish synagogue,--the interior cased in marbles, and surrounded with galleries, resting upon arches above arches. there were lights burning at the altar, and it looked very like a christian church; but it was dirty, and had an odor not of sanctity. in leghorn, as everywhere else, we were chilled to the heart, except when the sunshine fell directly upon us; and we returned to the steamer with a feeling as if we were getting back to our home; for this life of wandering makes a three days' residence in one place seem like home. we found several new passengers on board, and among others a monk, in a long brown frock of woollen cloth, with an immense cape, and a little black covering over his tonsure. he was a tall figure, with a gray beard, and might have walked, just as he stood, out of a picture by one of the old masters. this holy person addressed me very affably in italian; but we found it impossible to hold much conversation. the evening was beautiful, with a bright young moonlight, not yet sufficiently powerful to overwhelm the stars, and as we walked the deck, miss m------ showed the children the constellations, and told their names. j----- made a slight mistake as to one of them, pointing it out to me as "o'brien's belt!" elba was presently in view, and we might have seen many other interesting points, had it not been for our steamer's practice of resting by day, and only pursuing its voyage by night. the next morning we found ourselves in the harbor of civita vecchia, and, going ashore with our luggage, went through a blind turmoil with custom-house officers, inspectors of passports, soldiers, and vetturino people. my wife and i strayed a little through civita vecchia, and found its streets narrow, like clefts in a rock (which seems to be the fashion of italian towns), and smelling nastily. i had made a bargain with a vetturino to send us to rome in a carriage, with four horses, in eight hours; and as soon as the custom-house and passport people would let us, we started, lumbering slowly along with our mountain of luggage. we had heard rumors of robberies lately committed on this route; especially of a nova scotia bishop, who was detained on the road an hour and a half, and utterly pillaged; and certainly there was not a single mile of the dreary and desolate country over which we passed, where we might not have been robbed and murdered with impunity. now and then, at long distances, we came to a structure that was either a prison, a tavern, or a barn, but did not look very much like either, being strongly built of stone, with iron-grated windows, and of ancient and rusty aspect. we kept along by the seashore a great part of the way, and stopped to feed our horses at a village, the wretched street of which stands close along the shore of the mediterranean, its loose, dark sand being made nasty by the vicinity. the vetturino cheated us, one of the horses giving out, as he must have known it would do, half-way on our journey; and we staggered on through cold and darkness, and peril, too, if the banditti were not a myth,-- reaching rome not much before midnight. i perpetrated unheard-of briberies on the custom-house officers at the gates, and was permitted to pass through and establish myself at spillman's hotel, the only one where we could gain admittance, and where we have been half frozen ever since. and this is sunny italy, and genial rome! palazzo larazani, via porta pinciana, february d.--we have been in rome a fortnight to-day, or rather at eleven o'clock to-night; and i have seldom or never spent so wretched a time anywhere. our impressions were very unfortunate, arriving at midnight, half frozen in the wintry rain, and being received into a cold and cheerless hotel, where we shivered during two or three days; meanwhile seeking lodgings among the sunless, dreary alleys which are called streets in rome. one cold, bright day after another has pierced me to the heart, and cut me in twain as with a sword, keen and sharp, and poisoned at point and edge. i did not think that cold weather could have made me so very miserable. having caught a feverish influenza, i was really glad of being muffled up comfortably in the fever heat. the atmosphere certainly has a peculiar quality of malignity. after a day or two we settled ourselves in a suite of ten rooms, comprehending one flat, or what is called the second piano of this house. the rooms, thus far, have been very uncomfortable, it being impossible to warm them by means of the deep, old-fashioned, inartificial fireplaces, unless we had the great logs of a new england forest to burn in them; so i have sat in my corner by the fireside with more clothes on than i ever wore before, and my thickest great-coat over all. in the middle of the day i generally venture out for an hour or two, but have only once been warm enough even in the sunshine, and out of the sun never at any time. i understand now the force of that story of diogenes when he asked the conqueror, as the only favor he could do him, to stand out of his sunshine, there being such a difference in these southern climes of europe between sun and shade. if my wits had not been too much congealed, and my fingers too numb, i should like to have kept a minute journal of my feelings and impressions during the past fortnight. it would have shown modern rome in an aspect in which it has never yet been depicted. but i have now grown somewhat acclimated, and the first freshness of my discomfort has worn off, so that i shall never be able to express how i dislike the place, and how wretched i have been in it; and soon, i suppose, warmer weather will come, and perhaps reconcile me to rome against my will. cold, narrow lanes, between tall, ugly, mean-looking whitewashed houses, sour bread, pavements most uncomfortable to the feet, enormous prices for poor living; beggars, pickpockets, ancient temples and broken monuments, and clothes hanging to dry about them; french soldiers, monks, and priests of every degree; a shabby population, smoking bad cigars,--these would have been some of the points of my description. of course there are better and truer things to be said. . . . . it would be idle for me to attempt any sketches of these famous sites and edifices,--st. peter's, for example,--which have been described by a thousand people, though none of them have ever given me an idea of what sort of place rome is. . . . . the coliseum was very much what i had preconceived it, though i was not prepared to find it turned into a sort of christian church, with a pulpit on the verge of the open space. . . . . the french soldiers, who keep guard within it, as in other public places in rome, have an excellent opportunity to secure the welfare of their souls. february th.--i cannot get fairly into the current of my journal since we arrived, and already i perceive that the nice peculiarities of roman life are passing from my notice before i have recorded them. it is a very great pity. during the past week i have plodded daily, for an hour or two, through the narrow, stony streets, that look worse than the worst backside lanes of any other city; indescribably ugly and disagreeable they are, . . . . without sidewalks, but provided with a line of larger square stones, set crosswise to each other, along which there is somewhat less uneasy walking. . . . . ever and anon, even in the meanest streets, --though, generally speaking, one can hardly be called meaner than another,--we pass a palace, extending far along the narrow way on a line with the other houses, but distinguished by its architectural windows, iron-barred on the basement story, and by its portal arch, through which we have glimpses, sometimes of a dirty court-yard, or perhaps of a clean, ornamented one, with trees, a colonnade, a fountain, and a statue in the vista; though, more likely, it resembles the entrance to a stable, and may, perhaps, really be one. the lower regions of palaces come to strange uses in rome. . . . . in the basement story of the barberini palace a regiment of french soldiers (or soldiers of some kind [we find them to be retainers of the barberini family, not french]) seems to be quartered, while no doubt princes have magnificent domiciles above. be it palace or whatever other dwelling, the inmates climb through rubbish often to the comforts, such as they may be, that await them above. i vainly try to get down upon paper the dreariness, the ugliness, shabbiness, un-home-likeness of a roman street. it is also to be said that you cannot go far in any direction without coming to a piazza, which is sometimes little more than a widening and enlarging of the dingy street, with the lofty facade of a church or basilica on one side, and a fountain in the centre, where the water squirts out of some fantastic piece of sculpture into a great stone basin. these fountains are often of immense size and most elaborate design. . . . . there are a great many of these fountain-shapes, constructed under the orders of one pope or another, in all parts of the city; and only the very simplest, such as a jet springing from a broad marble or porphyry vase, and falling back into it again, are really ornamental. if an antiquary were to accompany me through the streets, no doubt he would point out ten thousand interesting objects that i now pass over unnoticed, so general is the surface of plaster and whitewash; but often i can see fragments of antiquity built into the walls, or perhaps a church that was a roman temple, or a basement of ponderous stones that were laid above twenty centuries ago. it is strange how our ideas of what antiquity is become altered here in rome; the sixteenth century, in which many of the churches and fountains seem to have been built or re-edified, seems close at hand, even like our own days; a thousand years, or the days of the latter empire, is but a modern date, and scarcely interests us; and nothing is really venerable of a more recent epoch than the reign of constantine. and the egyptian obelisks that stand in several of the piazzas put even the augustan or republican antiquities to shame. i remember reading in a new york newspaper an account of one of the public buildings of that city,--a relic of "the olden time," the writer called it; for it was erected in ! i am glad i saw the castles and gothic churches and cathedrals of england before visiting rome, or i never could have felt that delightful reverence for their gray and ivy-hung antiquity after seeing these so much older remains. but, indeed, old things are not so beautiful in this dry climate and clear atmosphere as in moist england. . . . . whatever beauty there may be in a roman ruin is the remnant of what was beautiful originally; whereas an english ruin is more beautiful often in its decay than even it was in its primal strength. if we ever build such noble structures as these roman ones, we can have just as good ruins, after two thousand years, in the united states; but we never can have a furness abbey or a kenilworth. the corso, and perhaps some other streets, does not deserve all the vituperation which i have bestowed on the generality of roman vias, though the corso is narrow, not averaging more than nine paces, if so much, from sidewalk to sidewalk. but palace after palace stands along almost its whole extent,--not, however, that they make such architectural show on the street as palaces should. the enclosed courts were perhaps the only parts of these edifices which the founders cared to enrich architecturally. i think linlithgow palace, of which i saw the ruins during my last tour in scotland, was built, by an architect who had studied these roman palaces. there was never any idea of domestic comfort, or of what we include in the name of home, at all implicated in such structures, they being generally built by wifeless and childless churchmen for the display of pictures and statuary in galleries and long suites of rooms. i have not yet fairly begun the sight-seeing of rome. i have been four or five times to st. peter's, and always with pleasure, because there is such a delightful, summerlike warmth the moment we pass beneath the heavy, padded leather curtains that protect the entrances. it is almost impossible not to believe that this genial temperature is the result of furnace-heat, but, really, it is the warmth of last summer, which will be included within those massive walls, and in that vast immensity of space, till, six months hence, this winter's chill will just have made its way thither. it would be an excellent plan for a valetudinarian to lodge during the winter in st. peter's, perhaps establishing his household in one of the papal tombs. i become, i think, more sensible of the size of st. peter's, but am as yet far from being overwhelmed by it. it is not, as one expects, so big as all out of doors, nor is its dome so immense as that of the firmament. it looked queer, however, the other day, to see a little ragged boy, the very least of human things, going round and kneeling at shrine after shrine, and a group of children standing on tiptoe to reach the vase of holy water. . . . . on coming out of st. peter's at my last visit, i saw a great sheet of ice around the fountain on the right hand, and some little romans awkwardly sliding on it. i, too, took a slide, just for the sake of doing what i never thought to do in rome. this inclement weather, i should suppose, must make the whole city very miserable; for the native romans, i am told, never keep any fire, except for culinary purposes, even in the severest winter. they flee from their cheerless houses into the open air, and bring their firesides along with them in the shape of small earthen vases, or pipkins, with a handle by which they carry them up and down the streets, and so warm at least their hands with the lighted charcoal. i have had glimpses through open doorways into interiors, and saw them as dismal as tombs. wherever i pass my summers, let me spend my winters in a cold country. we went yesterday to the pantheon. . . . . when i first came to rome, i felt embarrassed and unwilling to pass, with my heresy, between a devotee and his saint; for they often shoot their prayers at a shrine almost quite across the church. but there seems to be no violation of etiquette in so doing. a woman begged of us in the pantheon, and accused my wife of impiety for not giving her an alms. . . . . people of very decent appearance are often unexpectedly converted into beggars as you approach them; but in general they take a "no" at once. february th.--for three or four days it has been cloudy and rainy, which is the greater pity, as this should be the gayest and merriest part of the carnival. i go out but little,--yesterday only as far as pakenham's and hooker's bank in the piazza de' spagna, where i read galignani and the american papers. at last, after seeing in england more of my fellow-compatriots than ever before, i really am disjoined from my country. to-day i walked out along the pincian hill. . . . . as the clouds still threatened rain, i deemed it my safest course to go to st. peter's for refuge. heavy and dull as the day was, the effect of this great world of a church was still brilliant in the interior, as if it had a sunshine of its own, as well as its own temperature; and, by and by, the sunshine of the outward world came through the windows, hundreds of feet aloft, and fell upon the beautiful inlaid pavement. . . . . against a pillar, on one side of the nave, is a mosaic copy of raphael's transfiguration, fitly framed within a great arch of gorgeous marble; and, no doubt, the indestructible mosaic has preserved it far more completely than the fading and darkening tints in which the artist painted it. at any rate, it seemed to me the one glorious picture that i have ever seen. the pillar nearest the great entrance, on the left of the nave, supports the monument to the stuart family, where two winged figures, with inverted torches, stand on either side of a marble door, which is closed forever. it is an impressive monument, for you feel as if the last of the race had passed through that door. emerging from the church, i saw a french sergeant drilling his men in the piazza. these french soldiers are prominent objects everywhere about the city, and make up more of its sight and sound than anything else that lives. they stroll about individually; they pace as sentinels in all the public places; and they march up and down in squads, companies, and battalions, always with a very great din of drum, fife, and trumpet; ten times the proportion of music that the same number of men would require elsewhere; and it reverberates with ten times the noise, between the high edifices of these lanes, that it could make in broader streets. nevertheless, i have no quarrel with the french soldiers; they are fresh, healthy, smart, honest-looking young fellows enough, in blue coats and red trousers; . . . . and, at all events, they serve as an efficient police, making rome as safe as london; whereas, without them, it would very likely be a den of banditti. on my way home i saw a few tokens of the carnival, which is now in full progress; though, as it was only about one o'clock, its frolics had not commenced for the day. . . . . i question whether the romans themselves take any great interest in the carnival. the balconies along the corso were almost entirely taken by english and americans, or other foreigners. as i approached the bridge of st. angelo, i saw several persons engaged, as i thought, in fishing in the tiber, with very strong lines; but on drawing nearer i found that they were trying to hook up the branches, and twigs, and other drift-wood, which the recent rains might have swept into the river. there was a little heap of what looked chiefly like willow twigs, the poor result of their labor. the hook was a knot of wood, with the lopped-off branches projecting in three or four prongs. the tiber has always the hue of a mud-puddle; but now, after a heavy rain which has washed the clay into it, it looks like pease-soup. it is a broad and rapid stream, eddying along as if it were in haste to disgorge its impurities into the sea. on the left side, where the city mostly is situated, the buildings hang directly over the stream; on the other, where stand the castle of st. angelo and the church of st. peter, the town does not press so imminent upon the shore. the banks are clayey, and look as if the river had been digging them away for ages; but i believe its bed is higher than of yore. february th.--i went out to-day, and, going along the via felice and the via delle quattro fontane, came unawares to the basilica of santa maria maggiore, on the summit of the esquiline hill. i entered it, without in the least knowing what church it was, and found myself in a broad and noble nave, both very simple and very grand. there was a long row of ionic columns of marble, twenty or thereabouts on each side, supporting a flat roof. there were vaulted side aisles, and, at the farther end, a bronze canopy over the high altar; and all along the length of the side aisles were shrines with pictures, sculpture, and burning lamps; the whole church, too, was lined with marble: the roof was gilded; and yet the general effect of severe and noble simplicity triumphed over all the ornament. i should have taken it for a roman temple, retaining nearly its pristine aspect; but murray tells us that it was founded a. d. by pope liberius, on the spot precisely marked out by a miraculous fall of snow, in the month of august, and it has undergone many alterations since his time. but it is very fine, and gives the beholder the idea of vastness, which seems harder to attain than anything else. on the right hand, approaching the high altar, there is a chapel, separated from the rest of the church by an iron paling; and, being admitted into it with another party, i found it most elaborately magnificent. but one magnificence outshone another, and made itself the brightest conceivable for the moment. however, this chapel was as rich as the most precious marble could make it, in pillars and pilasters, and broad, polished slabs, covering the whole walls (except where there were splendid and glowing frescos; or where some monumental statuary or bas-relief, or mosaic picture filled up an arched niche). its architecture was a dome, resting on four great arches; and in size it would alone have been a church. in the centre of the mosaic pavement there was a flight of steps, down which we went, and saw a group in marble, representing the nativity of christ, which, judging by the unction with which our guide talked about it, must have been of peculiar sanctity. i hate to leave this chapel and church, without being able to say any one thing that may reflect a portion of their beauty, or of the feeling which they excite. kneeling against many of the pillars there were persons in prayer, and i stepped softly, fearing lest my tread on the marble pavement should disturb them,--a needless precaution, however, for nobody seems to expect it, nor to be disturbed by the lack of it. the situation of the church, i should suppose, is the loftiest in rome: it has a fountain at one end, and a column at the other; but i did not pay particular attention to either, nor to the exterior of the church itself. on my return, i turned aside from the via delle quattro fontane into the via quirinalis, and was led by it into the piazza di monte cavallo. the street through which i passed was broader, cleanlier, and statelier than most streets in rome, and bordered by palaces; and the piazza had noble edifices around it, and a fountain, an obelisk, and two nude statues in the centre. the obelisk was, as the inscription indicated, a relic of egypt; the basin of the fountain was an immense bowl of oriental granite, into which poured a copious flood of water, discolored by the rain; the statues were colossal,--two beautiful young men, each holding a fiery steed. on the pedestal of one was the inscription, opus phidiae; on the other, opus praxitelis. what a city is this, when one may stumble, by mere chance,--at a street corner, as it were,--on the works of two such sculptors! i do not know the authority on which these statues (castor and pollux, i presume) are attributed to phidias and praxiteles; but they impressed me as noble and godlike, and i feel inclined to take them for what they purport to be. on one side of the piazza is the pontifical palace; but, not being aware of this at the time, i did not look particularly at the edifice. i came home by way of the corso, which seemed a little enlivened by carnival time; though, as it was not yet two o'clock, the fun had not begun for the day. the rain throws a dreary damper on the festivities. february th.--day before yesterday we took j----- and r----- in a carriage, and went to see the carnival, by driving up and down the corso. it was as ugly a day, as respects weather, as has befallen us since we came to rome,--cloudy, with an indecisive wet, which finally settled into a rain; and people say that such is generally the weather in carnival time. there is very little to be said about the spectacle. sunshine would have improved it, no doubt; but a person must have very broad sunshine within himself to be joyous on such shallow provocation. the street, at all events, would have looked rather brilliant under a sunny sky, the balconies being hung with bright-colored draperies, which were also flung out of some of the windows. . . . . soon i had my first experience of the carnival in a handful of confetti, right slap in my face. . . . . many of the ladies wore loose white dominos, and some of the gentlemen had on defensive armor of blouses; and wire masks over the face were a protection for both sexes,--not a needless one, for i received a shot in my right eye which cost me many tears. it seems to be a point of courtesy (though often disregarded by americans and english) not to fling confetti at ladies, or at non-combatants, or quiet bystanders; and the engagements with these missiles were generally between open carriages, manned with youths, who were provided with confetti for such encounters, and with bouquets for the ladies. we had one real enemy on the corso; for our former friend mrs. t------ was there, and as often as we passed and repassed her, she favored us with a handful of lime. two or three times somebody ran by the carriage and puffed forth a shower of winged seeds through a tube into our faces and over our clothes; and, in the course of the afternoon, we were hit with perhaps half a dozen sugar-plums. possibly we may not have received our fair share of these last salutes, for j----- had on a black mask, which made him look like an imp of satan, and drew many volleys of confetti that we might otherwise have escaped. a good many bouquets were flung at our little r-----, and at us generally. . . . . this was what is called masking-day, when it is the rule to wear masks in the corso, but the great majority of people appeared without them. . . . . two fantastic figures, with enormous heads, set round with frizzly hair, came and grinned into our carriage, and j----- tore out a handful of hair (which proved to be sea-weed) from one of their heads, rather to the discomposure of the owner, who muttered his indignation in italian. . . . . on comparing notes with j----- and r-----, indeed with u---- too, i find that they all enjoyed the carnival much more than i did. only the young ought to write descriptions of such scenes. my cold criticism chills the life out of it. february th.--friday, th, was a sunny day, the first that we had had for some time; and my wife and i went forth to see sights as well as to make some calls that had long been due. we went first to the church of santa maria maggiore, which i have already mentioned, and, on our return, we went to the piazza di monte cavallo, and saw those admirable ancient statues of castor and pollux, which seem to me sons of the morning, and full of life and strength. the atmosphere, in such a length of time, has covered the marble surface of these statues with a gray rust, that envelops both the men and horses as with a garment; besides which, there are strange discolorations, such as patches of white moss on the elbows, and reddish streaks down the sides; but the glory of form overcomes all these defects of color. it is pleasant to observe how familiar some little birds are with these colossal statues,--hopping about on their heads and over their huge fists, and very likely they have nests in their ears or among their hair. we called at the barberini palace, where william story has established himself and family for the next seven years, or more, on the third piano, in apartments that afford a very fine outlook over rome, and have the sun in them through most of the day. mrs. s---- invited us to her fancy ball, but we declined. on the staircase ascending to their piano we saw the ancient greek bas-relief of a lion, whence canova is supposed to have taken the idea of his lions on the monument in st. peter's. afterwards we made two or three calls in the neighborhood of the piazza de' spagna, finding only mr. hamilton fish and family, at the hotel d'europe, at home, and next visited the studio of mr. c. g. thompson, whom i knew in boston. he has very greatly improved since those days, and, being always a man of delicate mind, and earnestly desiring excellence for its own sake, he has won himself the power of doing beautiful and elevated works. he is now meditating a series of pictures from shakespeare's "tempest," the sketches of one or two of which he showed us, likewise a copy of a small madonna, by raphael, wrought with a minute faithfulness which it makes one a better man to observe. . . . . mr. thompson is a true artist, and whatever his pictures have of beauty comes from very far beneath the surface; and this, i suppose, is one weighty reason why he has but moderate success. i should like his pictures for the mere color, even if they represented nothing. his studio is in the via sistina; and at a little distance on the other side of the same street is william story's, where we likewise went, and found him at work on a sitting statue of cleopatra. william story looks quite as vivid, in a graver way, as when i saw him last, a very young man. his perplexing variety of talents and accomplishments--he being a poet, a prose writer, a lawyer, a painter, a musician, and a sculptor--seems now to be concentrating itself into this latter vocation, and i cannot see why he should not achieve something very good. he has a beautiful statue, already finished, of goethe's margaret, pulling a flower to pieces to discover whether faust loves her; a very type of virginity and simplicity. the statue of cleopatra, now only fourteen days advanced in the clay, is as wide a step from the little maidenly margaret as any artist could take; it is a grand subject, and he is conceiving it with depth and power, and working it out with adequate skill. he certainly is sensible of something deeper in his art than merely to make beautiful nudities and baptize them by classic names. by the by, he told me several queer stories of american visitors to his studio: one of them, after long inspecting cleopatra, into which he has put all possible characteristics of her time and nation and of her own individuality, asked, "have you baptized your statue yet?" as if the sculptor were waiting till his statue were finished before he chose the subject of it,--as, indeed, i should think many sculptors do. another remarked of a statue of hero, who is seeking leander by torchlight, and in momentary expectation of finding his drowned body, "is not the face a little sad?" another time a whole party of americans filed into his studio, and ranged themselves round his father's statue, and, after much silent examination, the spokesman of the party inquired, "well, sir, what is this intended to represent?" william story, in telling these little anecdotes, gave the yankee twang to perfection. . . . . the statue of his father, his first work, is very noble, as noble and fine a portrait-statue as i ever saw. in the outer room of his studio a stone-cutter, or whatever this kind of artisan is called, was at work, transferring the statue of hero from the plaster-cast into marble; and already, though still in some respects a block of stone, there was a wonderful degree of expression in the face. it is not quite pleasant to think that the sculptor does not really do the whole labor on his statues, but that they are all but finished to his hand by merely mechanical people. it is generally only the finishing touches that are given by his own chisel. yesterday, being another bright day, we went to the basilica of st. john lateran, which is the basilica next in rank to st. peter's, and has the precedence of it as regards certain sacred privileges. it stands on a most noble site, on the outskirts of the city, commanding a view of the sabine and alban hills, blue in the distance, and some of them hoary with sunny snow. the ruins of the claudian aqueduct are close at hand. the church is connected with the lateran palace and museum, so that the whole is one edifice; but the facade of the church distinguishes it, and is very lofty and grand,--more so, it seems to me, than that of st. peter's. under the portico is an old statue of constantine, representing him as a very stout and sturdy personage. the inside of the church disappointed me, though no doubt i should have been wonderstruck had i seen it a month ago. we went into one of the chapels, which was very rich in colored marbles; and, going down a winding staircase, found ourselves among the tombs and sarcophagi of the corsini family, and in presence of a marble pieta very beautifully sculptured. on the other side of the church we looked into the torlonia chapel, very rich and rather profusely gilded, but, as it seemed to me, not tawdry, though the white newness of the marble is not perfectly agreeable after being accustomed to the milder tint which time bestows on sculpture. the tombs and statues appeared like shapes and images of new-fallen snow. the most interesting thing which we saw in this church (and, admitting its authenticity, there can scarcely be a more interesting one anywhere) was the table at which the last supper was eaten. it is preserved in a corridor, on one side of the tribune or chancel, and is shown by torchlight suspended upon the wall beneath a covering of glass. only the top of the table is shown, presenting a broad, flat surface of wood, evidently very old, and showing traces of dry-rot in one or two places. there are nails in it, and the attendant said that it had formerly been covered with bronze. as well as i can remember, it may be five or six feet square, and i suppose would accommodate twelve persons, though not if they reclined in the roman fashion, nor if they sat as they do in leonardo da vinci's picture. it would be very delightful to believe in this table. there are several other sacred relics preserved in the church; for instance, the staircase of pilate's house up which jesus went, and the porphyry slab on which the soldiers cast lots for his garments. these, however, we did not see. there are very glowing frescos on portions of the walls; but, there being much whitewash instead of incrusted marble, it has not the pleasant aspect which one's eye learns to demand in roman churches. there is a good deal of statuary along the columns of the nave, and in the monuments of the side aisles. in reference to the interior splendor of roman churches, i must say that i think it a pity that painted windows are exclusively a gothic ornament; for the elaborate ornamentation of these interiors puts the ordinary daylight out of countenance, so that a window with only the white sunshine coming through it, or even with a glimpse of the blue italian sky, looks like a portion left unfinished, and therefore a blotch in the rich wall. it is like the one spot in aladdin's palace which he left for the king, his father-in-law, to finish, after his fairy architects had exhausted their magnificence on the rest; and the sun, like the king, fails in the effort. it has what is called a porta santa, which we saw walled up, in front of the church, one side of the main entrance. i know not what gives it its sanctity, but it appears to be opened by the pope on a year of jubilee, once every quarter of a century. after our return . . . . . i took r----- along the pincian hill, and finally, after witnessing what of the carnival could be seen in the piazza del popolo from that safe height, we went down into the corso, and some little distance along it. except for the sunshine, the scene was much the same as i have already described; perhaps fewer confetti and more bouquets. some americans and english are said to have been brought before the police authorities, and fined for throwing lime. it is remarkable that the jollity, such as it is, of the carnival, does not extend an inch beyond the line of the corso; there it flows along in a narrow stream, while in the nearest street we see nothing but the ordinary roman gravity. february th.--yesterday was a bright day, but i did not go out till the afternoon, when i took an hour's walk along the pincian, stopping a good while to look at the old beggar who, for many years past, has occupied one of the platforms of the flight of steps leading from the piazza de' spagna to the triniti de' monti. hillard commemorates him in his book. he is an unlovely object, moving about on his hands and knees, principally by aid of his hands, which are fortified with a sort of wooden shoes; while his poor, wasted lower shanks stick up in the air behind him, loosely vibrating as he progresses. he is gray, old, ragged, a pitiable sight, but seems very active in his own fashion, and bestirs himself on the approach of his visitors with the alacrity of a spider when a fly touches the remote circumference of his web. while i looked down at him he received alms from three persons, one of whom was a young woman of the lower orders; the other two were gentlemen, probably either english or american. i could not quite make out the principle on which he let some people pass without molestation, while he shuffled from one end of the platform to the other to intercept an occasional individual. he is not persistent in his demands, nor, indeed, is this a usual fault among italian beggars. a shake of the head will stop him when wriggling towards you from a distance. i fancy he reaps a pretty fair harvest, and no doubt leads as contented and as interesting a life as most people, sitting there all day on those sunny steps, looking at the world, and making his profit out of it. it must be pretty much such an occupation as fishing, in its effect upon the hopes and apprehensions; and probably he suffers no more from the many refusals he meets with than the angler does, when he sees a fish smell at his bait and swim away. one success pays for a hundred disappointments, and the game is all the better for not being entirely in his own favor. walking onward, i found the pincian thronged with promenaders, as also with carriages, which drove round the verge of the gardens in an unbroken ring. to-day has been very rainy. i went out in the forenoon, and took a sitting for my bust in one of a suite of rooms formerly occupied by canova. it was large, high, and dreary from the want of a carpet, furniture, or anything but clay and plaster. a sculptor's studio has not the picturesque charm of that of a painter, where there is color, warmth, and cheerfulness, and where the artist continually turns towards you the glow of some picture, which is resting against the wall. . . . . i was asked not to look at the bust at the close of the sitting, and, of course, i obeyed; though i have a vague idea of a heavy-browed physiognomy, something like what i have seen in the glass, but looking strangely in that guise of clay. . . . . it is a singular fascination that rome exercises upon artists. there is clay elsewhere, and marble enough, and heads to model, and ideas may be made sensible objects at home as well as here. i think it is the peculiar mode of life that attracts, and its freedom from the inthralments of society, more than the artistic advantages which rome offers; and, no doubt, though the artists care little about one another's works, yet they keep each other warm by the presence of so many of them. the carnival still continues, though i hardly see how it can have withstood such a damper as this rainy day. there were several people-- three, i think--killed in the corso on saturday; some accounts say that they were run over by the horses in the race; others, that they were ridden down by the dragoons in clearing the course. after leaving canova's studio, i stepped into the church of san luigi de' francesi, in the via di ripetta. it was built, i believe, by catherine de' medici, and is under the protection of the french government, and a most shamefully dirty place of worship, the beautiful marble columns looking dingy, for the want of loving and pious care. there are many tombs and monuments of french people, both of the past and present,-- artists, soldiers, priests, and others, who have died in rome. it was so dusky within the church that i could hardly distinguish the pictures in the chapels and over the altar, nor did i know that there were any worth looking for. nevertheless, there were frescos by domenichino, and oil-paintings by guido and others. i found it peculiarly touching to read the records, in latin or french, of persons who had died in this foreign laud, though they were not my own country-people, and though i was even less akin to them than they to italy. still, there was a sort of relationship in the fact that neither they nor i belonged here. february th.--yesterday morning was perfectly sunny, and we went out betimes to see churches; going first to the capuchins', close by the piazza barberini. ["the marble faun" takes up this description of the church and of the dead monk, which we really saw, just as recounted, even to the sudden stream of blood which flowed from the nostrils, as we looked at him.-- ed.] we next went to the trinita de' monti, which stands at the head of the steps, leading, in several flights, from the piazza de' spagna. it is now connected with a convent of french nuns, and when we rang at a side door, one of the sisterhood answered the summons, and admitted us into the church. this, like that of the capuchins', had a vaulted roof over the nave, and no side aisles, but rows of chapels instead. unlike the capuchins', which was filthy, and really disgraceful to behold, this church was most exquisitely neat, as women alone would have thought it worth while to keep it. it is not a very splendid church, not rich in gorgeous marbles, but pleasant to be in, if it were only for the sake of its godly purity. there was only one person in the nave; a young girl, who sat perfectly still, with her face towards the altar, as long as we stayed. between the nave and the rest of the church there is a high iron railing, and on the other side of it were two kneeling figures in black, so motionless that i at first thought them statues; but they proved to be two nuns at their devotions; and others of the sisterhood came by and by and joined them. nuns, at least these nuns, who are french, and probably ladies of refinement, having the education of young girls in charge, are far pleasanter objects to see and think about than monks; the odor of sanctity, in the latter, not being an agreeable fragrance. but these holy sisters, with their black crape and white muslin, looked really pure and unspotted from the world. on the iron railing above mentioned was the representation of a golden heart, pierced with arrows; for these are nuns of the sacred heart. in the various chapels there are several paintings in fresco, some by daniele da volterra; and one of them, the "descent from the cross," has been pronounced the third greatest picture in the world. i never should have had the slightest suspicion that it was a great picture at all, so worn and faded it looks, and so hard, so difficult to be seen, and so undelightful when one does see it. from the trinita we went to the santa maria del popolo, a church built on a spot where nero is said to have been buried, and which was afterwards made horrible by devilish phantoms. it now being past twelve, and all the churches closing from twelve till two, we had not time to pay much attention to the frescos, oil-pictures, and statues, by raphael and other famous men, which are to be seen here. i remember dimly the magnificent chapel of the chigi family, and little else, for we stayed but a short time; and went next to the sculptor's studio, where i had another sitting for my bust. after i had been moulded for about an hour, we turned homeward; but my wife concluded to hire a balcony for this last afternoon and evening of the carnival, and she took possession of it, while i went home to send to her miss s------ and the two elder children. for my part, i took r-----, and walked, by way of the pincian, to the piazza del popolo, and thence along the corso, where, by this time, the warfare of bouquets and confetti raged pretty fiercely. the sky being blue and the sun bright, the scene looked much gayer and brisker than i had before found it; and i can conceive of its being rather agreeable than otherwise, up to the age of twenty. we got several volleys of confetti. r----- received a bouquet and a sugar-plum, and i a resounding hit from something that looked more like a cabbage than a flower. little as i have enjoyed the carnival, i think i could make quite a brilliant sketch of it, without very widely departing from truth. february th.--day before yesterday, pretty early, we went to st. peter's, expecting to see the pope cast ashes on the heads of the cardinals, it being ash-wednesday. on arriving, however, we found no more than the usual number of visitants and devotional people scattered through the broad interior of st. peter's; and thence concluded that the ceremonies were to be performed in the sistine chapel. accordingly, we went out of the cathedral, through the door in the left transept, and passed round the exterior, and through the vast courts of the vatican, seeking for the chapel. we had blundered into the carriage-entrance of the palace; there is an entrance from some point near the front of the church, but this we did not find. the papal guards, in the strangest antique and antic costume that was ever seen,--a party-colored dress, striped with blue, red, and yellow, white and black, with a doublet and ruff, and trunk-breeches, and armed with halberds,--were on duty at the gateways, but suffered us to pass without question. finally, we reached a large court, where some cardinals' red equipages and other carriages were drawn up, but were still at a loss as to the whereabouts of the chapel. at last an attendant kindly showed us the proper door, and led us up flights of stairs, along passages and galleries, and through halls, till at last we came to a spacious and lofty apartment adorned with frescos; this was the sala regia, and the antechamber to the sistine chapel. the attendant, meanwhile, had informed us that my wife could not be admitted to the chapel in her bonnet, and that i myself could not enter at all, for lack of a dress-coat; so my wife took off her bonnet, and, covering her head with her black lace veil, was readily let in, while i remained in the sala regia, with several other gentlemen, who found themselves in the same predicament as i was. there was a wonderful variety of costume to be seen and studied among the persons around me, comprising garbs that have been elsewhere laid aside for at least three centuries,--the broad, plaited, double ruff, and black velvet cloak, doublet, trunk-breeches, and sword of queen elizabeth's time,--the papal guard, in their striped and party-colored dress as before described, looking not a little like harlequins; other soldiers in helmets and jackboots; french officers of various uniform; monks and priests; attendants in old-fashioned and gorgeous livery; gentlemen, some in black dress-coats and pantaloons, others in wide-awake hats and tweed overcoats; and a few ladies in the prescribed costume of black; so that, in any other country, the scene might have been taken for a fancy ball. by and by, the cardinals began to arrive, and added their splendid purple robes and red hats to make the picture still more brilliant. they were old men, one or two very aged and infirm, and generally men of bulk and substance, with heavy faces, fleshy about the chin. their red hats, trimmed with gold-lace, are a beautiful piece of finery, and are identical in shape with the black, loosely cocked beavers worn by the catholic ecclesiastics generally. wolsey's hat, which i saw at the manchester exhibition, might have been made on the same block, but apparently was never cocked, as the fashion now is. the attendants changed the upper portions of their master's attire, and put a little cap of scarlet cloth on each of their heads, after which the cardinals, one by one, or two by two, as they happened to arrive, went into the chapel, with a page behind each holding up his purple train. in the mean while, within the chapel, we heard singing and chanting; and whenever the voluminous curtains that hung before the entrance were slightly drawn apart, we outsiders glanced through, but could see only a mass of people, and beyond them still another chapel, divided from the hither one by a screen. when almost everybody had gone in, there was a stir among the guards and attendants, and a door opened, apparently communicating with the inner apartments of the vatican. through this door came, not the pope, as i had partly expected, but a bulky old lady in black, with a red face, who bowed towards the spectators with an aspect of dignified complaisance as she passed towards the entrance of the chapel. i took off my hat, unlike certain english gentlemen who stood nearer, and found that i had not done amiss, for it was the queen of spain. there was nothing else to be seen; so i went back through the antechambers (which are noble halls, richly frescoed on the walls and ceilings), endeavoring to get out through the same passages that had let me in. i had already tried to descend what i now supposed to be the scala santa, but had been turned back by a sentinel. after wandering to and fro a good while, i at last found myself in a long, long gallery, on each side of which were innumerable inscriptions, in greek and latin, on slabs of marble, built into the walls; and classic altars and tablets were ranged along, from end to end. at the extremity was a closed iron grating, from which i was retreating; but a french gentleman accosted me, with the information that the custode would admit me, if i chose, and would accompany me through the sculpture department of the vatican. i acceded, and thus took my first view of those innumerable art-treasures, passing from one object to another, at an easy pace, pausing hardly a moment anywhere, and dismissing even the apollo, and the laocoon, and the torso of hercules, in the space of half a dozen breaths. i was well enough content to do so, in order to get a general idea of the contents of the galleries, before settling down upon individual objects. most of the world-famous sculptures presented themselves to my eye with a kind of familiarity, through the copies and casts which i had seen; but i found the originals more different than i anticipated. the apollo, for instance, has a face which i have never seen in any cast or copy. i must confess, however, taking such transient glimpses as i did, i was more impressed with the extent of the vatican, and the beautiful order in which it is kept, and its great sunny, open courts, with fountains, grass, and shrubs, and the views of rome and the campagna from its windows,--more impressed with these, and with certain vastly capacious vases, and two seat sarcophagi,--than with the statuary. thus i went round the whole, and was dismissed through the grated barrier into the gallery of inscriptions again; and after a little more wandering, i made my way out of the palace. . . . . yesterday i went out betimes, and strayed through some portion of ancient rome, to the column of trajan, to the forum, thence along the appian way; after which i lost myself among the intricacies of the streets, and finally came out at the bridge of st. angelo. the first observation which a stranger is led to make, in the neighborhood of roman ruins, is that the inhabitants seem to be strangely addicted to the washing of clothes; for all the precincts of trajan's forum, and of the roman forum, and wherever else an iron railing affords opportunity to hang them, were whitened with sheets, and other linen and cotton, drying in the sun. it must be that washerwomen burrow among the old temples. the second observation is not quite so favorable to the cleanly character of the modern romans; indeed, it is so very unfavorable, that i hardly know how to express it. but the fact is, that, through the forum, . . . . and anywhere out of the commonest foot-track and roadway, you must look well to your steps. . . . . if you tread beneath the triumphal arch of titus or constantine, you had better look downward than upward, whatever be the merit of the sculptures aloft. . . . . after a while the visitant finds himself getting accustomed to this horrible state of things; and the associations of moral sublimity and beauty seem to throw a veil over the physical meannesses to which i allude. perhaps there is something in the mind of the people of these countries that enables them quite to dissever small ugliness from great sublimity and beauty. they spit upon the glorious pavement of st. peter's, and wherever else they like; they place paltry-looking wooden confessionals beneath its sublime arches, and ornament them with cheap little colored prints of the crucifixion; they hang tin hearts and other tinsel and trumpery at the gorgeous shrines of the saints, in chapels that are incrusted with gems, or marbles almost as precious; they put pasteboard statues of saints beneath the dome of the pantheon; in short, they let the sublime and the ridiculous come close together, and are not in the least troubled by the proximity. it must be that their sense of the beautiful is stronger than in the anglo-saxon mind, and that it observes only what is fit to gratify it. to-day, which was bright and cool, my wife and i set forth immediately after breakfast, in search of the baths of diocletian, and the church of santa maria degl' angeli. we went too far along the via di porta pia, and after passing by two or three convents, and their high garden walls, and the villa bonaparte on one side, and the villa torlonia on the other, at last issued through the city gate. before us, far away, were the alban hills, the loftiest of which was absolutely silvered with snow and sunshine, and set in the bluest and brightest of skies. we now retraced our steps to the fountain of the termini, where is a ponderous heap of stone, representing moses striking the rock; a colossal figure, not without a certain enormous might and dignity, though rather too evidently looking his awfullest. this statue was the death of its sculptor, whose heart was broken on account of the ridicule it excited. there are many more absurd aquatic devices in rome, however, and few better. we turned into the piazza de' termini, the entrance of which is at this fountain; and after some inquiry of the french soldiers, a numerous detachment of whom appear to be quartered in the vicinity, we found our way to the portal of santa maria degl' angeli. the exterior of this church has no pretensions to beauty or majesty, or, indeed, to architectural merit of any kind, or to any architecture whatever; for it looks like a confused pile of ruined brickwork, with a facade resembling half the inner curve of a large oven. no one would imagine that there was a church under that enormous heap of ancient rubbish. but the door admits you into a circular vestibule, once an apartment of diocletian's baths, but now a portion of the nave of the church, and surrounded with monumental busts; and thence you pass into what was the central hall; now, with little change, except of detail and ornament, transformed into the body of the church. this space is so lofty, broad, and airy, that the soul forthwith swells out and magnifies itself, for the sake of filling it. it was michael angelo who contrived this miracle; and i feel even more grateful to him for rescuing such a noble interior from destruction, than if he had originally built it himself. in the ceiling above, you see the metal fixtures whereon the old romans hung their lamps; and there are eight gigantic pillars of egyptian granite, standing as they stood of yore. there is a grand simplicity about the church, more satisfactory than elaborate ornament; but the present pope has paved and adorned one of the large chapels of the transept in very beautiful style, and the pavement of the central part is likewise laid in rich marbles. in the choir there are several pictures, one of which was veiled, as celebrated pictures frequently are in churches. a person, who seemed to be at his devotions, withdrew the veil for us, and we saw a martyrdom of st. sebastian, by domenichino, originally, i believe, painted in fresco in st. peter's, but since transferred to canvas, and removed hither. its place at st. peter's is supplied by a mosaic copy. i was a good deal impressed by this picture,--the dying saint, amid the sorrow of those who loved him, and the fury of his enemies, looking upward, where a company of angels, and jesus with them, are waiting to welcome him and crown him; and i felt what an influence pictures might have upon the devotional part of our nature. the nailmarks in the hands and feet of jesus, ineffaceable, even after he had passed into bliss and glory, touched my heart with a sense of his love for us. i think this really a great picture. we walked round the church, looking at other paintings and frescos, but saw no others that greatly interested us. in the vestibule there are monuments to carlo maratti and salvator rosa, and there is a statue of st. bruno, by houdon, which is pronounced to be very fine. i thought it good, but scarcely worthy of vast admiration. houdon was the sculptor of the first statue of washington, and of the bust, whence, i suppose, all subsequent statues have been, and will be, mainly modelled. after emerging from the church, i looked back with wonder at the stack of shapeless old brickwork that hid the splendid interior. i must go there again, and breathe freely in that noble space. february th.--this morning, after breakfast, i walked across the city, making a pretty straight course to the pantheon, and thence to the bridge of st. angelo, and to st. peter's. it had been my purpose to go to the fontana paolina; but, finding that the distance was too great, and being weighed down with a roman lassitude, i concluded to go into st. peter's. here i looked at michael angelo's pieta, a representation of the dead christ, in his mother's lap. then i strolled round the great church, and find that it continues to grow upon me both in magnitude and beauty, by comparison with the many interiors of sacred edifices which i have lately seen. at times, a single, casual, momentary glimpse of its magnificence gleams upon my soul, as it were, when i happen to glance at arch opening beyond arch, and i am surprised into admiration. i have experienced that a landscape and the sky unfold the deepest beauty in a similar way; not when they are gazed at of set purpose, but when the spectator looks suddenly through a vista, among a crowd of other thoughts. passing near the confessional for foreigners to-day, i saw a spaniard, who had just come out of the one devoted to his native tongue, taking leave of his confessor, with an affectionate reverence, which--as well as the benign dignity of the good father--it was good to behold. . . . . i returned home early, in order to go with my wife to the barberini palace at two o'clock. we entered through the gateway, through the via delle quattro fontane, passing one or two sentinels; for there is apparently a regiment of dragoons quartered on the ground-floor of the palace; and i stumbled upon a room containing their saddles, the other day, when seeking for mr. story's staircase. the entrance to the picture-gallery is by a door on the right hand, affording us a sight of a beautiful spiral staircase, which goes circling upward from the very basement to the very summit of the palace, with a perfectly easy ascent, yet confining its sweep within a moderate compass. we looked up through the interior of the spiral, as through a tube, from the bottom to the top. the pictures are contained in three contiguous rooms of the lower piano, and are few in number, comprising barely half a dozen which i should care to see again, though doubtless all have value in their way. one that attracted our attention was a picture of "christ disputing with the doctors," by albert duerer, in which was represented the ugliest, most evil-minded, stubborn, pragmatical, and contentious old jew that ever lived under the law of moses; and he and the child jesus were arguing, not only with their tongues, but making hieroglyphics, as it were, by the motion of their hands and fingers. it is a very queer, as well as a very remarkable picture. but we passed hastily by this, and almost all others, being eager to see the two which chiefly make the collection famous,--raphael's fornarina, and guido's portrait of beatrice cenci. these were found in the last of the three rooms, and as regards beatrice cenci, i might as well not try to say anything; for its spell is indefinable, and the painter has wrought it in a way more like magic than anything else. . . . . it is the most profoundly wrought picture in the world; no artist did it, nor could do it, again. guido may have held the brush, but he painted "better than he knew." i wish, however, it were possible for some spectator, of deep sensibility, to see the picture without knowing anything of its subject or history; for, no doubt, we bring all our knowledge of the cenci tragedy to the interpretation of it. close beside beatrice cenci hangs the fornarina. . . . . while we were looking at these works miss m------ unexpectedly joined us, and we went, all three together, to the rospigliosi palace, in the piazza di monte cavallo. a porter, in cocked hat, and with a staff of office, admitted us into a spacious court before the palace, and directed us to a garden on one side, raised as much as twenty feet above the level on which we stood. the gardener opened the gate for us, and we ascended a beautiful stone staircase, with a carved balustrade, bearing many marks of time and weather. reaching the garden-level, we found it laid out in walks, bordered with box and ornamental shrubbery, amid which were lemon-trees, and one large old exotic from some distant clime. in the centre of the garden, surrounded by a stone balustrade, like that of the staircase, was a fish-pond, into which several jets of water were continually spouting; and on pedestals, that made part of the balusters, stood eight marble statues of apollo, cupid, nymphs, and other such sunny and beautiful people of classic mythology. there had been many more of these statues, but the rest had disappeared, and those which remained had suffered grievous damage, here to a nose, there to a hand or foot, and often a fracture of the body, very imperfectly mended. there was a pleasant sunshine in the garden, and a springlike, or rather a genial, autumnal atmosphere, though elsewhere it was a day of poisonous roman chill. at the end of the garden, which was of no great extent, was an edifice, bordering on the piazza, called the casino, which, i presume, means a garden-house. the front is richly ornamented with bas-reliefs, and statues in niches; as if it were a place for pleasure and enjoyment, and therefore ought to be beautiful. as we approached it, the door swung open, and we went into a large room on the ground-floor, and, looking up to the ceiling, beheld guido's aurora. the picture is as fresh and brilliant as if he had painted it with the morning sunshine which it represents. it could not be more lustrous in its lines, if he had given it the last touch an hour ago. three or four artists were copying it at that instant, and positively their colors did not look brighter, though a great deal newer than his. the alacrity and movement, briskness and morning stir and glow, of the picture are wonderful. it seems impossible to catch its glory in a copy. several artists, as i said, were making the attempt, and we saw two other attempted copies leaning against the wall, but it was easy to detect failure in just essential points. my memory, i believe, will be somewhat enlivened by this picture hereafter: not that i remember it very distinctly even now; but bright things leave a sheen and glimmer in the mind, like christian's tremulous glimpse of the celestial city. in two other rooms of the casino we saw pictures by domenichino, rubens, and other famous painters, which i do not mean to speak of, because i cared really little or nothing about them. returning into the garden, the sunny warmth of which was most grateful after the chill air and cold pavement of the casino, we walked round the laguna, examining the statues, and looking down at some little fishes that swarmed at the stone margin of the pool. there were two infants of the rospigliosi family: one, a young child playing with a maid and head-servant; another, the very chubbiest and rosiest boy in the world, sleeping on its nurse's bosom. the nurse was a comely woman enough, dressed in bright colors, which fitly set off the deep lines of her italian face. an old painter very likely would have beautified and refined the pair into a madonna, with the child jesus; for an artist need not go far in italy to find a picture ready composed and tinted, needing little more than to be literally copied. miss m------ had gone away before us; but my wife and i, after leaving the palazzo rospigliosi, and on our way hone, went into the church of st. andrea, which belongs to a convent of jesuits. i have long ago exhausted all my capacity of admiration for splendid interiors of churches, but methinks this little, little temple (it is not more than fifty or sixty feet across) has a more perfect and gem-like beauty than any other. its shape is oval, with an oval dome, and, above that, another little dome, both of which are magnificently frescoed. around the base of the larger dome is wreathed a flight of angels, and the smaller and upper one is encircled by a garland of cherubs,--cherub and angel all of pure white marble. the oval centre of the church is walled round with precious and lustrous marble of a red-veined variety interspersed with columns and pilasters of white; and there are arches opening through this rich wall, forming chapels, which the architect seems to have striven hard to make even more gorgeous than the main body of the church. they contain beautiful pictures, not dark and faded, but glowing, as if just from the painter's hands; and the shrines are adorned with whatever is most rare, and in one of them was the great carbuncle; at any rate, a bright, fiery gem as big as a turkey's egg. the pavement of the church was one star of various-colored marble, and in the centre was a mosaic, covering, i believe, the tomb of the founder. i have not seen, nor expect to see, anything else so entirely and satisfactorily finished as this small oval church; and i only wish i could pack it in a large box, and send it home. i must not forget that, on our way from the barberini palace, we stopped an instant to look at the house, at the corner of the street of the four fountains, where milton was a guest while in rome. he seems quite a man of our own day, seen so nearly at the hither extremity of the vista through which we look back, from the epoch of railways to that of the oldest egyptian obelisk. the house (it was then occupied by the cardinal barberini) looks as if it might have been built within the present century; for mediaeval houses in rome do not assume the aspect of antiquity; perhaps because the italian style of architecture, or something similar, is the one more generally in vogue in most cities. february st.--this morning i took my way through the porta del popolo, intending to spend the forenoon in the campagna; but, getting weary of the straight, uninteresting street that runs out of the gate, i turned aside from it, and soon found myself on the shores of the tiber. it looked, as usual, like a saturated solution of yellow mud, and eddied hastily along between deep banks of clay, and over a clay bed, in which doubtless are hidden many a richer treasure than we now possess. the french once proposed to draw off the river, for the purpose of recovering all the sunken statues and relics; but the romans made strenuous objection, on account of the increased virulence of malaria which would probably result. i saw a man on the immediate shore of the river, fifty feet or so beneath the bank on which i stood, sitting patiently, with an angling rod; and i waited to see what he might catch. two other persons likewise sat down to watch him; but he caught nothing so long as i stayed, and at last seemed to give it up. the banks and vicinity of the river are very bare and uninviting, as i then saw them; no shade, no verdure,--a rough, neglected aspect, and a peculiar shabbiness about the few houses that were visible. farther down the stream the dome of st. peter's showed itself on the other side, seeming to stand on the outskirts of the city. i walked along the banks, with some expectation of finding a ferry, by which i might cross the river; but my course was soon interrupted by the wall, and i turned up a lane that led me straight back again to the porta del popolo. i stopped a moment, however, to see some young men pitching quoits, which they appeared to do with a good deal of skill. i went along the via di ripetta, and through other streets, stepping into two or three churches, one of which was the pantheon. . . . . there are, i think, seven deep, pillared recesses around the circumference of it, each of which becomes a sufficiently capacious chapel; and alternately with these chapels there is a marble structure, like the architecture of a doorway, beneath which is the shrine of a saint; so that the whole circle of the pantheon is filled up with the seven chapels and seven shrines. a number of persons were sitting or kneeling around; others came in while i was there, dipping their fingers in the holy water, and bending the knee, as they passed the shrines and chapels, until they reached the one which, apparently, they had selected as the particular altar for their devotions. everybody seemed so devout, and in a frame of mind so suited to the day and place, that it really made me feel a little awkward not to be able to kneel down along with them. unlike the worshippers in our own churches, each individual here seems to do his own individual acts of devotion, and i cannot but think it better so than to make an effort for united prayer as we do. it is my opinion that a great deal of devout and reverential feeling is kept alive in people's hearts by the catholic mode of worship. soon leaving the pantheon, a few minutes' walk towards the corso brought me to the church of st. ignazio, which belongs to the college of the jesuits. it is spacious and of beautiful architecture, but not strikingly distinguished, in the latter particular, from many others; a wide and lofty nave, supported upon marble columns, between which arches open into the side aisles, and at the junction of the nave and transept a dome, resting on four great arches. the church seemed to be purposely somewhat darkened, so that i could not well see the details of the ornamentation, except the frescos on the ceiling of the nave, which were very brilliant, and done in so effectual a style, that i really could not satisfy myself that some of the figures did not actually protrude from the ceiling,--in short, that they were not colored bas-reliefs, instead of frescos. no words can express the beautiful effect, in an upholstery point of view, of this kind of decoration. here, as at the pantheon, there were many persons sitting silent, kneeling, or passing from shrine to shrine. i reached home at about twelve, and, at one, set out again, with my wife, towards st. peter's, where we meant to stay till after vespers. we walked across the city, and through the piazza de navona, where we stopped to look at one of bernini's absurd fountains, of which the water makes but the smallest part,--a little squirt or two amid a prodigious fuss of gods and monsters. thence we passed by the poor, battered-down torso of pasquin, and came, by devious ways, to the bridge of st. angelo; the streets bearing pretty much their weekday aspect, many of the shops open, the market-stalls doing their usual business, and the people brisk and gay, though not indecorously so. i suppose there was hardly a man or woman who had not heard mass, confessed, and said their prayers; a thing which--the prayers, i mean--it would be absurd to predicate of london, new york, or any protestant city. in however adulterated a guise, the catholics do get a draught of devotion to slake the thirst of their souls, and methinks it must needs do them good, even if not quite so pure as if it came from better cisterns, or from the original fountain-head. arriving at st. peter's shortly after two, we walked round the whole church, looking at all the pictures and most of the monuments, . . . . and paused longest before guido's "archangel michael overcoming lucifer." this is surely one of the most beautiful things in the world, one of the human conceptions that are imbued most deeply with the celestial. . . . . we then sat down in one of the aisles and awaited the beginning of vespers, which we supposed would take place at half past three. four o'clock came, however, and no vespers; and as our dinner-hour is five, . . . . we at last cane away without hearing the vesper hymn. february d.--yesterday, at noon, we set out for the capitol, and after going up the acclivity (not from the forum, but from the opposite direction), stopped to look at the statues of castor and pollux, which, with other sculptures, look down the ascent. castor and his brother seem to me to have heads disproportionately large, and are not so striking, in any respect, as such great images ought to be. but we heartily admired the equestrian statue of marcus aurelius antoninus, . . . . and looked at a fountain, principally composed, i think, of figures representing the nile and the tiber, who loll upon their elbows and preside over the gushing water; and between them, against the facade of the senator's palace, there is a statue of minerva, with a petticoat of red porphyry. having taken note of these objects, we went to the museum, in an edifice on our left, entering the piazza, and here, in the vestibule, we found various old statues and relics. ascending the stairs, we passed through a long gallery, and, turning to our left, examined somewhat more carefully a suite of rooms running parallel with it. the first of these contained busts of the caesars and their kindred, from the epoch of the mightiest julius downward; eighty-three, i believe, in all. i had seen a bust of julius caesar in the british museum, and was surprised at its thin and withered aspect; but this head is of a very ugly old man indeed,--wrinkled, puckered, shrunken, lacking breadth and substance; careworn, grim, as if he had fought hard with life, and had suffered in the conflict; a man of schemes, and of eager effort to bring his schemes to pass. his profile is by no means good, advancing from the top of his forehead to the tip of his nose, and retreating, at about the same angle, from the latter point to the bottom of his chin, which seems to be thrust forcibly down into his meagre neck,--not that he pokes his head forward, however, for it is particularly erect. the head of augustus is very beautiful, and appears to be that of a meditative, philosophic man, saddened with the sense that it is not very much worth while to be at the summit of human greatness after all. it is a sorrowful thing to trace the decay of civilization through this series of busts, and to observe how the artistic skill, so requisite at first, went on declining through the dreary dynasty of the caesars, till at length the master of the world could not get his head carved in better style than the figure-head of a ship. in the next room there were better statues than we had yet seen; but in the last room of the range we found the "dying gladiator," of which i had already caught a glimpse in passing by the open door. it had made all the other treasures of the gallery tedious in my eagerness to come to that. i do not believe that so much pathos is wrought into any other block of stone. like all works of the highest excellence, however, it makes great demands upon the spectator. he must make a generous gift of his sympathies to the sculptor, and help out his skill with all his heart, or else he will see little more than a skilfully wrought surface. it suggests far more than it shows. i looked long at this statue, and little at anything else, though, among other famous works, a statue of antinous was in the same room. i was glad when we left the museum, which, by the by, was piercingly chill, as if the multitude of statues radiated cold out of their marble substance. we might have gone to see the pictures in the palace of the conservatori, and s-----, whose receptivity is unlimited and forever fresh, would willingly have done so; but i objected, and we went towards the forum. i had noticed, two or three times, an inscription over a mean-looking door in this neighborhood, stating that here was the entrance to the prison of the holy apostles peter and paul; and we soon found the spot, not far from the forum, with two wretched frescos of the apostles above the inscription. we knocked at the door without effect; but a lame beggar, who sat at another door of the same house (which looked exceedingly like a liquor-shop), desired us to follow him, and began to ascend to the capitol, by the causeway leading from the forum. a little way upward we met a woman, to whom the beggar delivered us over, and she led us into a church or chapel door, and pointed to a long flight of steps, which descended through twilight into utter darkness. she called to somebody in the lower regions, and then went away, leaving us to get down this mysterious staircase by ourselves. down we went, farther and farther from the daylight, and found ourselves, anon, in a dark chamber or cell, the shape or boundaries of which we could not make out, though it seemed to be of stone, and black and dungeon-like. indistinctly, and from a still farther depth in the earth, we heard voices,--one voice, at least,--apparently not addressing ourselves, but some other persons; and soon, directly beneath our feet, we saw a glimmering of light through a round, iron-grated hole in the bottom of the dungeon. in a few moments the glimmer and the voice came up through this hole, and the light disappeared, and it and the voice came glimmering and babbling up a flight of stone stairs, of which we had not hitherto been aware. it was the custode, with a party of visitors, to whom he had been showing st. peter's dungeon. each visitor was provided with a wax taper, and the custode gave one to each of us, bidding us wait a moment while he conducted the other party to the upper air. during his absence we examined the cell, as well as our dim lights would permit, and soon found an indentation in the wall, with an iron grate put over it for protection, and an inscription above informing us that the apostle peter had here left the imprint of his visage; and, in truth, there is a profile there,--forehead, nose, mouth, and chin,--plainly to be seen, an intaglio in the solid rock. we touched it with the tips of our fingers, as well as saw it with our eyes. the custode soon returned, and led us down the darksome steps, chattering in italian all the time. it is not a very long descent to the lower cell, the roof of which is so low that i believe i could have reached it with my hand. we were now in the deepest and ugliest part of the old mamertine prison, one of the few remains of the kingly period of rome, and which served the romans as a state-prison for hundreds of years before the christian era. a multitude of criminals or innocent persons, no doubt, have languished here in misery, and perished in darkness. here jugurtha starved; here catiline's adherents were strangled; and, methinks, there cannot be in the world another such an evil den, so haunted with black memories and indistinct surmises of guilt and suffering. in old rome, i suppose, the citizens never spoke of this dungeon above their breath. it looks just as bad as it is; round, only seven paces across, yet so obscure that our tapers could not illuminate it from side to side,-- the stones of which it is constructed being as black as midnight. the custode showed us a stone post, at the side of the cell, with the hole in the top of it, into which, he said, st. peter's chain had been fastened; and he uncovered a spring of water, in the middle of the stone floor, which he told us had miraculously gushed up to enable the saint to baptize his jailer. the miracle was perhaps the more easily wrought, inasmuch as jugurtha had found the floor of the dungeon oozy with wet. however, it is best to be as simple and childlike as we can in these matters; and whether st. peter stamped his visage into the stone, and wrought this other miracle or no, and whether or no he ever was in the prison at all, still the belief of a thousand years and more gives a sort of reality and substance to such traditions. the custode dipped an iron ladle into the miraculous water, and we each of us drank a sip; and, what is very remarkable, to me it seemed hard water and almost brackish, while many persons think it the sweetest in rome. i suspect that st. peter still dabbles in this water, and tempers its qualities according to the faith of those who drink it. the staircase descending into the lower dungeon is comparatively modern, there having been no entrance of old, except through the small circular opening in the roof. in the upper cell the custode showed us an ancient flight of stairs, now built into the wall, which used to lead from the capitol. the whole precincts are now consecrated, and i believe the upper portion, perhaps both upper and lower, are a shrine or a chapel. i now left s------ in the forum, and went to call on mr. j. p. k------ at the hotel d'europe. i found him just returned from a drive,--a gentleman of about sixty, or more, with gray hair, a pleasant, intellectual face, and penetrating, but not unkindly eyes. he moved infirmly, being on the recovery from an illness. we went up to his saloon together, and had a talk,--or, rather, he had it nearly all to himself,--and particularly sensible talk, too, and full of the results of learning and experience. in the first place, he settled the whole kansas difficulty; then he made havoc of st. peter, who came very shabbily out of his hands, as regarded his early character in the church, and his claims to the position he now holds in it. mr. k------ also gave a curious illustration, from something that happened to himself, of the little dependence that can be placed on tradition purporting to be ancient, and i capped his story by telling him how the site of my town-pump, so plainly indicated in the sketch itself, has already been mistaken in the city council and in the public prints. february th.--yesterday i crossed the ponte sisto, and took a short ramble on the other side of the river; and it rather surprised me to discover, pretty nearly opposite the capitoline hill, a quay, at which several schooners and barks, of two or three hundred tons' burden, were moored. there was also a steamer, armed with a large gun and two brass swivels on her forecastle, and i know not what artillery besides. probably she may have been a revenue-cutter. returning i crossed the river by way of the island of st. bartholomew over two bridges. the island is densely covered with buildings, and is a separate small fragment of the city. it was a tradition of the ancient romans that it was formed by the aggregation of soil and rubbish brought down by the river, and accumulating round the nucleus of some sunken baskets. on reaching the hither side of the river, i soon struck upon the ruins of the theatre of marcellus, which are very picturesque, and the more so from being closely linked in, indeed, identified with the shops, habitations, and swarming life of modern rome. the most striking portion was a circular edifice, which seemed to have been composed of a row of ionic columns standing upon a lower row of doric, many of the antique pillars being yet perfect; but the intervening arches built up with brickwork, and the whole once magnificent structure now tenanted by poor and squalid people, as thick as mites within the round of an old cheese. from this point i cannot very clearly trace out my course; but i passed, i think, between the circus maximus and the palace of the caesars, and near the baths of caracalla, and went into the cloisters of the church of san gregorio. all along i saw massive ruins, not particularly picturesque or beautiful, but huge, mountainous piles, chiefly of brickwork, somewhat tweed-grown here and there, but oftener bare and dreary. . . . . all the successive ages since rome began to decay have done their best to ruin the very ruins by taking away the marble and the hewn stone for their own structures, and leaving only the inner filling up of brickwork, which the ancient architects never designed to be seen. the consequence of all this is, that, except for the lofty and poetical associations connected with it, and except, too, for the immense difference in magnitude, a roman ruin may be in itself not more picturesque than i have seen an old cellar, with a shattered brick chimney half crumbling down into it, in new england. by this time i knew not whither i was going, and turned aside from a broad, paved road (it was the appian way) into the via latina, which i supposed would lead to one of the city gates. it was a lonely path: on my right hand extensive piles of ruin, in strange shapes or shapelessness, built of the broad and thin old roman bricks, such as may be traced everywhere, when the stucco has fallen away from a modern roman house; for i imagine there has not been a new brick made here for a thousand years. on my left, i think, was a high wall, and before me, grazing in the road . . . . [the buffalo calf of the marble faun.--ed.]. the road went boldly on, with a well-worn track up to the very walls of the city; but there it abruptly terminated at an ancient, closed-up gateway. from a notice posted against a door, which appeared to be the entrance to the ruins on my left, i found that these were the remains of columbaria, where the dead used to be put away in pigeon-holes. reaching the paved road again, i kept on my course, passing the tomb of the scipios, and soon came to the gate of san sebastiano, through which i entered the campagna. indeed, the scene around was so rural, that i had fancied myself already beyond the walls. as the afternoon was getting advanced, i did not proceed any farther towards the blue hills which i saw in the distance, but turned to my left, following a road that runs round the exterior of the city wall. it was very dreary and solitary,-- not a house on the whole track, with the broad and shaggy campagna on one side, and the high, bare wall, looking down over my head, on the other. it is not, any more than the other objects of the scene, a very picturesque wall, but is little more than a brick garden-fence seen through a magnifying-glass, with now and then a tower, however, and frequent buttresses, to keep its height of fifty feet from toppling over. the top was ragged, and fringed with a few weeds; there had been embrasures for guns and eyelet-holes for musketry, but these were plastered up with brick or stone. i passed one or two walled-up gateways (by the by, the parts, latina was the gate through which belisarius first entered rome), and one of these had two high, round towers, and looked more gothic and venerable with antique strength than any other portion of the wall. immediately after this i came to the gate of san giovanni, just within which is the basilica of st. john lateran, and there i was glad to rest myself upon a bench before proceeding homeward. there was a french sentinel at this gateway, as at all the others; for the gauls have always been a pest to rome, and now gall her worse than ever. i observed, too, that an official, in citizen's dress, stood there also, and appeared to exercise a supervision over some carts with country produce, that were entering just then. february th.--we went this forenoon to the palazzo borghese, which is situated on a street that runs at right angles with the corso, and very near the latter. most of the palaces in rome, and the borghese among them, were built somewhere about the sixteenth century; this in , i believe. it is an immense edifice, standing round the four sides of a quadrangle; and though the suite of rooms comprising the picture-gallery forms an almost interminable vista, they occupy only a part of the ground-floor of one side. we enter from the street into a large court, surrounded with a corridor, the arches of which support a second series of arches above. the picture-rooms open from one into another, and have many points of magnificence, being large and lofty, with vaulted ceilings and beautiful frescos, generally of mythological subjects, in the flat central part of the vault. the cornices are gilded; the deep embrasures of the windows are panelled with wood-work; the doorways are of polished and variegated marble, or covered with a composition as hard, and seemingly as durable. the whole has a kind of splendid shabbiness thrown over it, like a slight coating of rust; the furniture, at least the damask chairs, being a good deal worn, though there are marble and mosaic tables, which may serve to adorn another palace when this one crumbles away with age. one beautiful hall, with a ceiling more richly gilded than the rest, is panelled all round with large looking-glasses, on which are painted pictures, both landscapes and human figures, in oils; so that the effect is somewhat as if you saw these objects represented in the mirrors. these glasses must be of old date, perhaps coeval with the first building of the palace; for they are so much dimmed, that one's own figure appears indistinct in them, and more difficult to be traced than the pictures which cover them half over. it was very comfortless,-- indeed, i suppose nobody ever thought of being comfortable there, since the house was built,--but especially uncomfortable on a chill, damp day like this. my fingers were quite numb before i got half-way through the suite of apartments, in spite of a brazier of charcoal which was smouldering into ashes in two or three of the rooms. there was not, so far as i remember, a single fireplace in the suite. a considerable number of visitors--not many, however--were there; and a good many artists; and three or four ladies among them were making copies of the more celebrated pictures, and in all or in most cases missing the especial points that made their celebrity and value. the prince borghese certainly demeans himself like a kind and liberal gentleman, in throwing open this invaluable collection to the public to see, and for artists to carry away with them, and diffuse all over the world, so far as their own power and skill will permit. it is open every day of the week, except saturday and sunday, without any irksome restriction or supervision; and the fee, which custom requires the visitor to pay to the custode, has the good effect of making us feel that we are not intruders, nor received in an exactly eleemosynary way. the thing could not be better managed. the collection is one of the most celebrated in the world, and contains between eight and nine hundred pictures, many of which are esteemed masterpieces. i think i was not in a frame for admiration to-day, nor could achieve that free and generous surrender of myself which i have already said is essential to the proper estimate of anything excellent. besides, how is it possible to give one's soul, or any considerable part of it, to a single picture, seen for the first time, among a thousand others, all of which set forth their own claims in an equally good light? furthermore, there is an external weariness, and sense of a thousand-fold sameness to be overcome, before we can begin to enjoy a gallery of the old italian masters. . . . . i remember but one painter, francia, who seems really to have approached this awful class of subjects (christs and madonnas) in a fitting spirit; his pictures are very singular and awkward, if you look at them with merely an external eye, but they are full of the beauty of holiness, and evidently wrought out as acts of devotion, with the deepest sincerity; and are veritable prayers upon canvas. . . . . i was glad, in the very last of the twelve rooms, to come upon some dutch and flemish pictures, very few, but very welcome; rubens, rembrandt, vandyke, paul potter, teniers, and others,--men of flesh and blood, and warm fists, and human hearts. as compared with them, these mighty italian masters seem men of polished steel; not human, nor addressing themselves so much to human sympathies, as to a formed, intellectual taste. march st.--to-day began very unfavorably; but we ventured out at about eleven o'clock, intending to visit the gallery of the colonna palace. finding it closed, however, on account of the illness of the custode, we determined to go to the picture-gallery of the capitol; and, on our way thither, we stepped into il gesu, the grand and rich church of the jesuits, where we found a priest in white, preaching a sermon, with vast earnestness of action and variety of tones, insomuch that i fancied sometimes that two priests were in the agony of sermonizing at once. he had a pretty large and seemingly attentive audience clustered round him from the entrance of the church, half-way down the nave; while in the chapels of the transepts and in the remoter distances were persons occupied with their own individual devotion. we sat down near the chapel of st. ignazio, which is adorned with a picture over the altar, and with marble sculptures of the trinity aloft, and of angels fluttering at the sides. what i particularly noted (for the angels were not very real personages, being neither earthly nor celestial) was the great ball of lapis lazuli, the biggest in the world, at the feet of the first person in the trinity. the church is a splendid one, lined with a great variety of precious marbles, . . . . but partly, perhaps, owing to the dusky light, as well as to the want of cleanliness, there was a dingy effect upon the whole. we made but a very short stay, our new england breeding causing us to feel shy of moving about the church in sermon time. it rained when we reached the capitol, and, as the museum was not yet open, we went into the palace of the conservators, on the opposite side of the piazza. around the inner court of the ground-floor, partly under two opposite arcades, and partly under the sky, are several statues and other ancient sculptures; among them a statue of julius caesar, said to be the only authentic one, and certainly giving an impression of him more in accordance with his character than the withered old face in the museum; also, a statue of augustus in middle age, still retaining a resemblance to the bust of him in youth; some gigantic heads and hands and feet in marble and bronze; a stone lion and horse, which lay long at the bottom of a river, broken and corroded, and were repaired by michel angelo; and other things which it were wearisome to set down. we inquired of two or three french soldiers the way into the picture-gallery; but it is our experience that french soldiers in rome never know anything of what is around them, not even the name of the palace or public place over which they stand guard; and though invariably civil, you might as well put a question to a statue of an old roman as to one of them. while we stood under the loggia, however, looking at the rain plashing into the court, a soldier of the papal guard kindly directed us up the staircase, and even took pains to go with us to the very entrance of the picture-rooms. thank heaven, there are but two of them, and not many pictures which one cares to look at very long. italian galleries are at a disadvantage as compared with english ones, inasmuch as the pictures are not nearly such splendid articles of upholstery; though, very likely, having undergone less cleaning and varnishing, they may retain more perfectly the finer touches of the masters. nevertheless, i miss the mellow glow, the rich and mild external lustre, and even the brilliant frames of the pictures i have seen in england. you feel that they have had loving care taken of them; even if spoiled, it is because they have been valued so much. but these pictures in italian galleries look rusty and lustreless, as far as the exterior is concerned; and, really, the splendor of the painting, as a production of intellect and feeling, has a good deal of difficulty in shining through such clouds. there is a picture at the capitol, the "rape of europa," by paul veronese, that would glow with wonderful brilliancy if it were set in a magnificent frame, and covered with a sunshine of varnish; and it is a kind of picture that would not be desecrated, as some deeper and holier ones might be, by any splendor of external adornment that could be bestowed on it. it is deplorable and disheartening to see it in faded and shabby plight,--this joyous, exuberant, warm, voluptuous work. there is the head of a cow, thrust into the picture, and staring with wild, ludicrous wonder at the godlike bull, so as to introduce quite a new sentiment. here, and at the borghese palace, there were some pictures by garofalo, an artist of whom i never heard before, but who seemed to have been a man of power. a picture by marie subleyras--a miniature copy from one by her husband, of the woman anointing the feet of christ--is most delicately and beautifully finished, and would be an ornament to a drawing-room; a thing that could not truly be said of one in a hundred of these grim masterpieces. when they were painted life was not what it is now, and the artists had not the same ends in view. . . . . it depresses the spirits to go from picture to picture, leaving a portion of your vital sympathy at every one, so that you come, with a kind of half-torpid desperation, to the end. on our way down the staircase we saw several noteworthy bas-reliefs, and among them a very ancient one of curtius plunging on horseback into the chasm in the forum. it seems to me, however, that old sculpture affects the spirits even more dolefully than old painting; it strikes colder to the heart, and lies heavier upon it, being marble, than if it were merely canvas. my wife went to revisit the museum, which we had already seen, on the other side of the piazza; but, being cold, i left her there, and went out to ramble in the sun; for it was now brightly, though fitfully, shining again. i walked through the forum (where a thorn thrust itself out and tore the sleeve of my talma) and under the arch of titus, towards the coliseum. about a score of french drummers were beating a long, loud roll-call, at the base of the coliseum, and under its arches; and a score of trumpeters responded to these, from the rising ground opposite the arch of constantine; and the echoes of the old roman ruins, especially those of the palace of the caesars, responded to this martial uproar of the barbarians. there seemed to be no cause for it; but the drummers beat, and the trumpeters blew, as long as i was within hearing. i walked along the appian way as far as the baths of caracalla. the palace of the caesars, which i have never yet explored, appears to be crowned by the walls of a convent, built, no doubt, out of some of the fragments that would suffice to build a city; and i think there is another convent among the baths. the catholics have taken a peculiar pleasure in planting themselves in the very citadels of paganism, whether temples or palaces. there has been a good deal of enjoyment in the destruction of old rome. i often think so when i see the elaborate pains that have been taken to smash and demolish some beautiful column, for no purpose whatever, except the mere delight of annihilating a noble piece of work. there is something in the impulse with which one sympathizes; though i am afraid the destroyers were not sufficiently aware of the mischief they did to enjoy it fully. probably, too, the early christians were impelled by religious zeal to destroy the pagan temples, before the happy thought occurred of converting them into churches. march d.--this morning was u----'s birthday, and we celebrated it by taking a barouche, and driving (the whole family) out on the appian way as far as the tomb of cecilia metella. for the first time since we came to rome, the weather was really warm,--a kind of heat producing languor and disinclination to active movement, though still a little breeze which was stirring threw an occasional coolness over us, and made us distrust the almost sultry atmosphere. i cannot think the roman climate healthy in any of its moods that i have experienced. close on the other side of the road are the ruins of a gothic chapel, little more than a few bare walls and painted windows, and some other fragmentary structures which we did not particularly examine. u---- and i clambered through a gap in the wall, extending from the basement of the tomb, and thus, getting into the field beyond, went quite round the mausoleum and the remains of the castle connected with it. the latter, though still high and stalwart, showed few or no architectural features of interest, being built, i think, principally of large bricks, and not to be compared to english ruins as a beautiful or venerable object. a little way beyond cecilia metella's tomb, the road still shows a specimen of the ancient roman pavement, composed of broad, flat flagstones, a good deal cracked and worn, but sound enough, probably, to outlast the little cubes which make the other portions of the road so uncomfortable. we turned back from this point and soon re-entered the gate of st. sebastian, which is flanked by two small towers, and just within which is the old triumphal arch of drusus,--a sturdy construction, much dilapidated as regards its architectural beauty, but rendered far more picturesque than it could have been in its best days by a crown of verdure on its head. probably so much of the dust of the highway has risen in clouds and settled there, that sufficient soil for shrubbery to root itself has thus been collected, by small annual contributions, in the course of two thousand years. a little farther towards the city we turned aside from the appian way, and came to the site of some ancient columbaria, close by what seemed to partake of the character of a villa and a farm-house. a man came out of the house and unlocked a door in a low building, apparently quite modern; but on entering we found ourselves looking into a large, square chamber, sunk entirely beneath the surface of the ground. a very narrow and steep staircase of stone, and evidently ancient, descended into this chamber; and, going down, we found the walls hollowed on all sides into little semicircular niches, of which, i believe, there were nine rows, one above another, and nine niches in each row. thus they looked somewhat like the little entrances to a pigeon-house, and hence the name of columbarium. each semicircular niche was about a foot in its semidiameter. in the centre of this subterranean chamber was a solid square column, or pier, rising to the roof, and containing other niches of the same pattern, besides one that was high and deep, rising to the height of a man from the floor on each of the four sides. in every one of the semicircular niches were two round holes covered with an earthen plate, and in each hole were ashes and little fragments of bones,--the ashes and bones of the dead, whose names were inscribed in roman capitals on marble slabs inlaid into the wall over each individual niche. very likely the great ones in the central pier had contained statues, or busts, or large urns; indeed, i remember that some such things were there, as well as bas-reliefs in the walls; but hardly more than the general aspect of this strange place remains in my mind. it was the columbarium of the connections or dependants of the caesars; and the impression left on me was, that this mode of disposing of the dead was infinitely preferable to any which has been adopted since that day. the handful or two of dry dust and bits of dry bones in each of the small round holes had nothing disgusting in them, and they are no drier now than they were when first deposited there. i would rather have my ashes scattered over the soil to help the growth of the grass and daisies; but still i should not murmur much at having them decently pigeon-holed in a roman tomb. after ascending out of this chamber of the dead, we looked down into another similar one, containing the ashes of pompey's household, which was discovered only a very few years ago. its arrangement was the same as that first described, except that it had no central pier with a passage round it, as the former had. while we were down in the first chamber the proprietor of the spot--a half-gentlemanly and very affable kind of person--came to us, and explained the arrangements of the columbarium, though, indeed, we understood them better by their own aspect than by his explanation. the whole soil around his dwelling is elevated much above the level of the road, and it is probable that, if he chose to excavate, he might bring to light many more sepulchral chambers, and find his profit in them too, by disposing of the urns and busts. what struck me as much as anything was the neatness of these subterranean apartments, which were quite as fit to sleep in as most of those occupied by living romans; and, having undergone no wear and tear, they were in as good condition as on the day they were built. in this columbarium, measuring about twenty feet square, i roughly estimate that there have been deposited together the remains of at least seven or eight hundred persons, reckoning two little heaps of bones and ashes in each pigeon-hole, nine pigeon-holes in each row, and nine rows on each side, besides those on the middle pier. all difficulty in finding space for the dead would be obviated by returning to the ancient fashion of reducing them to ashes,--the only objection, though a very serious one, being the quantity of fuel that it would require. but perhaps future chemists may discover some better means of consuming or dissolving this troublesome mortality of ours. we got into the carriage again, and, driving farther towards the city, came to the tomb of the scipios, of the exterior of which i retain no very definite idea. it was close upon the appian way, however, though separated from it by a high fence, and accessible through a gateway, leading into a court. i think the tomb is wholly subterranean, and that the ground above it is covered with the buildings of a farm-house; but of this i cannot be certain, as we were led immediately into a dark, underground passage, by an elderly peasant, of a cheerful and affable demeanor. as soon as he had brought us into the twilight of the tomb, he lighted a long wax taper for each of us, and led us groping into blacker and blacker darkness. even little r----- followed courageously in the procession, which looked very picturesque as we glanced backward or forward, and beheld a twinkling line of seven lights, glimmering faintly on our faces, and showing nothing beyond. the passages and niches of the tomb seem to have been hewn and hollowed out of the rock, not built by any art of masonry; but the walls were very dark, almost black, and our tapers so dim that i could not gain a sufficient breadth of view to ascertain what kind of place it was. it was very dark, indeed; the mammoth cave of kentucky could not be darker. the rough-hewn roof was within touch, and sometimes we had to stoop to avoid hitting our heads; it was covered with damps, which collected and fell upon us in occasional drops. the passages, besides being narrow, were so irregular and crooked, that, after going a little way, it would have been impossible to return upon our steps without the help of the guide; and we appeared to be taking quite an extensive ramble underground, though in reality i suppose the tomb includes no great space. at several turns of our dismal way, the guide pointed to inscriptions in roman capitals, commemorating various members of the scipio family who were buried here; among them, a son of scipio africanus, who himself had his death and burial in a foreign land. all these inscriptions, however, are copies,--the originals, which were really found here, having been removed to the vatican. whether any bones and ashes have been left, or whether any were found, i do not know. it is not, at all events, a particularly interesting spot, being such shapeless blackness, and a mere dark hole, requiring a stronger illumination than that of our tapers to distinguish it from any other cellar. i did, at one place, see a sort of frieze, rather roughly sculptured; and, as we returned towards the twilight of the entrance-passage, i discerned a large spider, who fled hastily away from our tapers,--the solitary living inhabitant of the tomb of the scipios. one visit that we made, and i think it was before entering the city gates, i forgot to mention. it was to an old edifice, formerly called the temple of bacchus, but now supposed to have been the temple of virtue and honor. the interior consists of a vaulted hall, which was converted from its pagan consecration into a church or chapel, by the early christians; and the ancient marble pillars of the temple may still be seen built in with the brick and stucco of the later occupants. there is an altar, and other tokens of a catholic church, and high towards the ceiling, there are some frescos of saints or angels, very curious specimens of mediaeval, and earlier than mediaeval art. nevertheless, the place impressed me as still rather pagan than christian. what is most remarkable about this spot or this vicinity lies in the fact that the fountain of egeria was formerly supposed to be close at hand; indeed, the custode of the chapel still claims the spot as the identical one consecrated by the legend. there is a dark grove of trees, not far from the door of the temple; but murray, a highly essential nuisance on such excursions as this, throws such overwhelming doubt, or rather incredulity, upon the site, that i seized upon it as a pretext for not going thither. in fact, my small capacity for sight-seeing was already more than satisfied. on account of ------ i am sorry that we did not see the grotto, for her enthusiasm is as fresh as the waters of egeria's well can be, and she has poetical faith enough to light her cheerfully through all these mists of incredulity. our visits to sepulchral places ended with scipio's tomb, whence we returned to our dwelling, and miss m------ came to dine with us. march th.--on saturday last, a very rainy day, we went to the sciarra palace, and took u---- with us. it is on the corso, nearly opposite to the piazza colonna. it has (heaven be praised!) but four rooms of pictures, among which, however, are several very celebrated ones. only a few of these remain in my memory,--raphael's "violin player," which i am willing to accept as a good picture; and leonardo da vinci's "vanity and modesty," which also i can bring up before my mind's eye, and find it very beautiful, although one of the faces has an affected smile, which i have since seen on another picture by the same artist, joanna of aragon. the most striking picture in the collection, i think, is titian's "bella donna,"--the only one of titian's works that i have yet seen which makes an impression on me corresponding with his fame. it is a very splendid and very scornful lady, as beautiful and as scornful as gainsborough's lady lyndoch, though of an entirely different type. there were two madonnas by guido, of which i liked the least celebrated one best; and several pictures by garofalo, who always produces something noteworthy. all the pictures lacked the charm (no doubt i am a barbarian to think it one) of being in brilliant frames, and looked as if it were a long, long while since they were cleaned or varnished. the light was so scanty, too, on that heavily clouded day, and in those gloomy old rooms of the palace, that scarcely anything could be fairly made out. [i cannot refrain from observing here, that mr. hawthorne's inexorable demand for perfection in all things leads him to complain of grimy pictures and tarnished frames and faded frescos, distressing beyond measure to eyes that never failed to see everything before him with the keenest apprehension. the usual careless observation of people both of the good and the imperfect is much more comfortable in this imperfect world. but the insight which mr. hawthorne possessed was only equalled by his outsight, and he suffered in a way not to be readily conceived, from any failure in beauty, physical, moral, or intellectual. it is not, therefore, mere love of upholstery that impels him to ask for perfect settings to priceless gems of art; but a native idiosyncrasy, which always made me feel that "the new jerusalem," "even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal," "where shall in no wise enter anything that defileth, neither what worketh abomination nor maketh a lie," would alone satisfy him, or rather alone not give him actual pain. it may give an idea of this exquisite nicety of feeling to mention, that one day he took in his fingers a half-bloomed rose, without blemish, and, smiling with an infinite joy, remarked, "this is perfect. on earth a flower only can be perfect."--ed.] the palace is about two hundred and fifty years old, and looks as if it had never been a very cheerful place; most shabbily and scantily furnished, moreover, and as chill as any cellar. there is a small balcony, looking down on the corso, which probably has often been filled with a merry little family party, in the carnivals of days long past. it has faded frescos, and tarnished gilding, and green blinds, and a few damask chairs still remain in it. on monday we all went to the sculpture-gallery of the vatican, and saw as much of the sculpture as we could in the three hours during which the public are admissible. there were a few things which i really enjoyed, and a few moments during which i really seemed to see them; but it is in vain to attempt giving the impression produced by masterpieces of art, and most in vain when we see them best. they are a language in themselves, and if they could be expressed as well any way except by themselves, there would have been no need of expressing those particular ideas and sentiments by sculpture. i saw the apollo belvedere as something ethereal and godlike; only for a flitting moment, however, and as if he had alighted from heaven, or shone suddenly out of the sunlight, and then had withdrawn himself again. i felt the laocoon very powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal agony, with a strange calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles the vast rage of the sea, calm on account of its immensity; or the tumult of niagara, which does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps pouring on for ever and ever. i have not had so good a day as this (among works of art) since we came to rome; and i impute it partly to the magnificence of the arrangements of the vatican,--its long vistas and beautiful courts, and the aspect of immortality which marble statues acquire by being kept free from dust. a very hungry boy, seeing in one of the cabinets a vast porphyry vase, forty-four feet in circumference, wished that he had it full of soup. yesterday, we went to the pamfili doria palace, which, i believe, is the most splendid in rome. the entrance is from the corso into a court, surrounded by a colonnade, and having a space of luxuriant verdure and ornamental shrubbery in the centre. the apartments containing pictures and sculptures are fifteen in number, and run quite round the court in the first piano,--all the rooms, halls, and galleries of beautiful proportion, with vaulted roofs, some of which glow with frescos; and all are colder and more comfortless than can possibly be imagined without having been in them. the pictures, most of them, interested me very little. i am of opinion that good pictures are quite as rare as good poets; and i do not see why we should pique ourselves on admiring any but the very best. one in a thousand, perhaps, ought to live in the applause of men, from generation to generation, till its colors fade or blacken out of sight, and its canvas rots away; the rest should be put in garrets, or painted over by newer artists, just as tolerable poets are shelved when their little day is over. nevertheless, there was one long gallery containing many pictures that i should be glad to see again under more favorable circumstances, that is, separately, and where i might contemplate them quite undisturbed, reclining in an easy-chair. at one end of the long vista of this gallery is a bust of the present prince doria, a smooth, sharp-nosed, rather handsome young man, and at the other end his princess, an english lady of the talbot family, apparently a blonde, with a simple and sweet expression. there is a noble and striking portrait of the old venetian admiral, andrea doria, by sebastian del piombo, and some other portraits and busts of the family. in the whole immense range of rooms i saw but a single fireplace, and that so deep in the wall that no amount of blaze would raise the atmosphere of the room ten degrees. if the builder of the palace, or any of his successors, have committed crimes worthy of tophet, it would be a still worse punishment for him to wander perpetually through this suite of rooms on the cold floors of polished brick tiles or marble or mosaic, growing a little chiller and chiller through every moment of eternity,-- or, at least, till the palace crumbles down upon him. neither would it assuage his torment in the least to be compelled to gaze up at the dark old pictures,--the ugly ghosts of what may once have been beautiful. i am not going to try any more to receive pleasure from a faded, tarnished, lustreless picture, especially if it be a landscape. there were two or three landscapes of claude in this palace, which i doubt not would have been exquisite if they had been in the condition of those in the british national gallery; but here they looked most forlorn, and even their sunshine was sunless. the merits of historical painting may be quite independent of the attributes that give pleasure, and a superficial ugliness may even heighten the effect; but not so of landscapes. via porta, palazzo larazani, march th.--to-day we called at mr. thompson's studio, and . . . . he had on the easel a little picture of st. peter released from prison by the angel, which i saw once before. it is very beautiful indeed, and deeply and spiritually conceived, and i wish i could afford to have it finished for myself. i looked again, too, at his georgian slave, and admired it as much as at first view; so very warm and rich it is, so sensuously beautiful, and with an expression of higher life and feeling within. i do not think there is a better painter than mr. thompson living,--among americans at least; not one so earnest, faithful, and religious in his worship of art. i had rather look at his pictures than at any except the very finest of the old masters, and, taking into consideration only the comparative pleasure to be derived, i would not except more than one or two of those. in painting, as in literature, i suspect there is something in the productions of the day that takes the fancy more than the works of any past age,--not greater merit, nor nearly so great, but better suited to this very present time. after leaving him, we went to the piazza de' termini, near the baths of diocletian, and found our way with some difficulty to crawford's studio. it occupies several great rooms, connected with the offices of the villa negroni; and all these rooms were full of plaster casts and a few works in marble,--principally portions of his huge washington monument, which he left unfinished at his death. close by the door at which we entered stood a gigantic figure of mason, in bag-wig, and the coat, waistcoat, breeches, and knee and shoe buckles of the last century, the enlargement of these unheroic matters to far more than heroic size having a very odd effect. there was a figure of jefferson on the same scale; another of patrick henry, besides a horse's head, and other portions of the equestrian group which is to cover the summit of the monument. in one of the rooms was a model of the monument itself, on a scale, i should think, of about an inch to afoot. it did not impress me as having grown out of any great and genuine idea in the artist's mind, but as being merely an ingenious contrivance enough. there were also casts of statues that seemed to be intended for some other monument referring to revolutionary times and personages; and with these were intermixed some ideal statues or groups,--a naked boy playing marbles, very beautiful; a girl with flowers; the cast of his orpheus, of which i long ago saw the marble statue; adam and eve; flora,--all with a good deal of merit, no doubt, but not a single one that justifies crawford's reputation, or that satisfies me of his genius. they are but commonplaces in marble and plaster, such as we should not tolerate on a printed page. he seems to have been a respectable man, highly respectable, but no more, although those who knew him seem to have rated him much higher. it is said that he exclaimed, not very long before his death, that he had fifteen years of good work still in him; and he appears to have considered all his life and labor, heretofore, as only preparatory to the great things that he was to achieve hereafter. i should say, on the contrary, that he was a man who had done his best, and had done it early; for his orpheus is quite as good as anything else we saw in his studio. people were at work chiselling several statues in marble from the plaster models,--a very interesting process, and which i should think a doubtful and hazardous one; but the artists say that there is no risk of mischief, and that the model is sure to be accurately repeated in the marble. these persons, who do what is considered the mechanical part of the business, are often themselves sculptors, and of higher reputation than those who employ them. it is rather sad to think that crawford died before he could see his ideas in the marble, where they gleam with so pure and celestial a light as compared with the plaster. there is almost as much difference as between flesh and spirit. the floor of one of the rooms was burdened with immense packages, containing parts of the washington monument, ready to be forwarded to its destination. when finished, and set up, it will probably make a very splendid appearance, by its height, its mass, its skilful execution; and will produce a moral effect through its images of illustrious men, and the associations that connect it with our revolutionary history; but i do not think it will owe much to artistic force of thought or depth of feeling. it is certainly, in one sense, a very foolish and illogical piece of work,--washington, mounted on an uneasy steed, on a very narrow space, aloft in the air, whence a single step of the horse backward, forward, or on either side, must precipitate him; and several of his contemporaries standing beneath him, not looking up to wonder at his predicament, but each intent on manifesting his own personality to the world around. they have nothing to do with one another, nor with washington, nor with any great purpose which all are to work out together. march th.--on friday evening i dined at mr. t. b. read's, the poet and artist, with a party composed of painters and sculptors,--the only exceptions being the american banker and an american tourist who has given mr. read a commission. next to me at table sat mr. gibson, the english sculptor, who, i suppose, stands foremost in his profession at this day. he must be quite an old man now, for it was whispered about the table that he is known to have been in rome forty-two years ago, and he himself spoke to me of spending thirty-seven years here, before he once returned home. i should hardly take him to be sixty, however, his hair being more dark than gray, his forehead unwrinkled, his features unwithered, his eye undimmed, though his beard is somewhat venerable. . . . . he has a quiet, self-contained aspect, and, being a bachelor, has doubtless spent a calm life among his clay and marble, meddling little with the world, and entangling himself with no cares beyond his studio. he did not talk a great deal; but enough to show that he is still an englishman in many sturdy traits, though his accent has something foreign about it. his conversation was chiefly about india, and other topics of the day, together with a few reminiscences of people in liverpool, where he once resided. there was a kind of simplicity both in his manner and matter, and nothing very remarkable in the latter. . . . . the gist of what he said (upon art) was condemnatory of the pre-raphaelite modern school of painters, of whom he seemed to spare none, and of their works nothing; though he allowed that the old pre-raphaelites had some exquisite merits, which the moderns entirely omit in their imitations. in his own art, he said the aim should be to find out the principles on which the greek sculptors wrought, and to do the work of this day on those principles and in their spirit; a fair doctrine enough, i should think, but which mr. gibson can scarcely be said to practise. . . . . the difference between the pre-raphaelites and himself is deep and genuine, they being literalists and realists, in a certain sense, and he a pagan idealist. methinks they have hold of the best end of the matter. march th.--to-day, it being very bright and mild, we set out, at noon, for an expedition to the temple of vesta, though i did not feel much inclined for walking, having been ill and feverish for two or three days past with a cold, which keeps renewing itself faster than i can get rid of it. we kept along on this side of the corso, and crossed the forum, skirting along the capitoline hill, and thence towards the circus maximus. on our way, looking down a cross street, we saw a heavy arch, and, on examination, made it out to be the arch of janus quadrifrons, standing in the forum boarium. its base is now considerably below the level of the surrounding soil, and there is a church or basilica close by, and some mean edifices looking down upon it. there is something satisfactory in this arch, from the immense solidity of its structure. it gives the idea, in the first place, of a solid mass constructed of huge blocks of marble, which time can never wear away, nor earthquakes shake down; and then this solid mass is penetrated by two arched passages, meeting in the centre. there are empty niches, three in a row, and, i think, two rows on each face; but there seems to have been very little effort to make it a beautiful object. on the top is some brickwork, the remains of a mediaeval fortress built by the frangipanis, looking very frail and temporary being brought thus in contact with the antique strength of the arch. a few yards off, across the street, and close beside the basilica, is what appears to be an ancient portal, with carved bas-reliefs, and an inscription which i could not make out. some romans were lying dormant in the sun, on the steps of the basilica; indeed, now that the sun is getting warmer, they seem to take advantage of every quiet nook to bask in, and perhaps to go to sleep. we had gone but a little way from the arch, and across the circus maximus, when we saw the temple of vesta before us, on the hank of the tiber, which, however, we could not see behind it. it is a most perfectly preserved roman ruin, and very beautiful, though so small that, in a suitable locality, one would take it rather for a garden-house than an ancient temple. a circle of white marble pillars, much time-worn and a little battered, though but one of them broken, surround the solid structure of the temple, leaving a circular walk between it and the pillars, the whole covered by a modern roof which looks like wood, and disgraces and deforms the elegant little building. this roof resembles, as much as anything else, the round wicker cover of a basket, and gives a very squat aspect to the temple. the pillars are of the corinthian order, and when they were new and the marble snow-white and sharply carved and cut, there could not have been a prettier object in all rome; but so small an edifice does not appear well as a ruin. within view of it, and, indeed, a very little way off, is the temple of fortuna virilis, which likewise retains its antique form in better preservation than we generally find a roman ruin, although the ionic pillars are now built up with blocks of stone and patches of brickwork, the whole constituting a church which is fixed against the side of a tall edifice, the nature of which i do not know. i forgot to say that we gained admittance into the temple of vesta, and found the interior a plain cylinder of marble, about ten paces across, and fitted up as a chapel, where the virgin takes the place of vesta. in very close vicinity we came upon the ponto rotto, the old pons emilius which was broken down long ago, and has recently been pieced out by connecting a suspension bridge with the old piers. we crossed by this bridge, paying a toll of a baioccho each, and stopped in the midst of the river to look at the temple of vesta, which shows well, right on the brink of the tiber. we fancied, too, that we could discern, a little farther down the river, the ruined and almost submerged piers of the sublician bridge, which horatius cocles defended. the tiber here whirls rapidly along, and horatius must have had a perilous swim for his life, and the enemy a fair mark at his head with their arrows. i think this is the most picturesque part of the tiber in its passage through rome. after crossing the bridge, we kept along the right bank of the river, through the dirty and hard-hearted streets of trastevere (which have in no respect the advantage over those of hither rome), till we reached st. peter's. we saw a family sitting before their door on the pavement in the narrow and sunny street, engaged in their domestic avocations,--the old woman spinning with a wheel. i suppose the people now begin to live out of doors. we entered beneath the colonnade of st. peter's and immediately became sensible of an evil odor,--the bad odor of our fallen nature, which there is no escaping in any nook of rome. . . . . between the pillars of the colonnade, however, we had the pleasant spectacle of the two fountains, sending up their lily-shaped gush, with rainbows shining in their falling spray. parties of french soldiers, as usual, were undergoing their drill in the piazza. when we entered the church, the long, dusty sunbeams were falling aslantwise through the dome and through the chancel behind it. . . . . march d.--on the st we all went to the coliseum, and enjoyed ourselves there in the bright, warm sun,--so bright and warm that we were glad to get into the shadow of the walls and under the arches, though, after all, there was the freshness of march in the breeze that stirred now and then. j----- and baby found some beautiful flowers growing round about the coliseum; and far up towards the top of the walls we saw tufts of yellow wall-flowers and a great deal of green grass growing along the ridges between the arches. the general aspect of the place, however, is somewhat bare, and does not compare favorably with an english ruin both on account of the lack of ivy and because the material is chiefly brick, the stone and marble having been stolen away by popes and cardinals to build their palaces. while we sat within the circle, many people, of both sexes, passed through, kissing the iron cross which stands in the centre, thereby gaining an indulgence of seven years, i believe. in front of several churches i have seen an inscription in latin, "indulgentia plenaria et perpetua pro cunctis mortuis et vivis"; than which, it seems to me, nothing more could be asked or desired. the terms of this great boon are not mentioned. leaving the coliseum, we went and sat down in the vicinity of the arch of constantine, and j----- and r----- went in quest of lizards. j----- soon caught a large one with two tails; one, a sort of afterthought, or appendix, or corollary to the original tail, and growing out from it instead of from the body of the lizard. these reptiles are very abundant, and j----- has already brought home several, which make their escape and appear occasionally darting to and fro on the carpet. since we have been here, j----- has taken up various pursuits in turn. first he voted himself to gathering snail-shells, of which there are many sorts; afterwards he had a fever for marbles, pieces of which he found on the banks of the tiber, just on the edge of its muddy waters, and in the palace of the caesars, the baths of caracalla, and indeed wherever else his fancy led him; verde antique, rosso antico, porphyry, giallo antico, serpentine, sometimes fragments of bas-reliefs and mouldings, bits of mosaic, still firmly stuck together, on which the foot of a caesar had perhaps once trodden; pieces of roman glass, with the iridescence glowing on them; and all such things, of which the soil of rome is full. it would not be difficult, from the spoil of his boyish rambles, to furnish what would be looked upon as a curious and valuable museum in america. yesterday we went to the sculpture-galleries of the vatican. i think i enjoy these noble galleries and their contents and beautiful arrangement better than anything else in the way of art, and often i seem to have a deep feeling of something wonderful in what i look at. the laocoon on this visit impressed me not less than before; it is such a type of human beings, struggling with an inextricable trouble, and entangled in a complication which they cannot free themselves from by their own efforts, and out of which heaven alone can help them. it was a most powerful mind, and one capable of reducing a complex idea to unity, that imagined this group. i looked at canova's perseus, and thought it exceedingly beautiful, but, found myself less and less contented after a moment or two, though i could not tell why. afterwards, looking at the apollo, the recollection of the perseus disgusted me, and yet really i cannot explain how one is better than the other. i was interested in looking at the busts of the triumvirs, antony, augustus, and lepidus. the first two are men of intellect, evidently, though they do not recommend themselves to one's affections by their physiognomy; but lepidus has the strangest, most commonplace countenance that can be imagined,--small-featured, weak, such a face as you meet anywhere in a man of no mark, but are amazed to find in one of the three foremost men of the world. i suppose that it is these weak and shallow men, when chance raises them above their proper sphere, who commit enormous crimes without any such restraint as stronger men would feel, and without any retribution in the depth of their conscience. these old roman busts, of which there are so many in the vatican, have often a most lifelike aspect, a striking individuality. one recognizes them as faithful portraits, just as certainly as if the living originals were standing beside them. the arrangement of the hair and beard too, in many cases, is just what we see now, the fashions of two thousand years ago having come round again. march th.--on tuesday we went to breakfast at william story's in the palazzo barberini. we had a very pleasant time. he is one of the most agreeable men i know in society. he showed us a note from thackeray, an invitation to dinner, written in hieroglyphics, with great fun and pictorial merit. he spoke of an expansion of the story of blue beard, which he himself had either written or thought of writing, in which the contents of the several chambers which fatima opened, before arriving at the fatal one, were to be described. this idea has haunted my mind ever since, and if it had but been my own i am pretty sure that it would develop itself into something very rich. i mean to press william story to work it out. the chamber of blue beard, too (and this was a part of his suggestion), might be so handled as to become powerfully interesting. were i to take up the story i would create an interest by suggesting a secret in the first chamber, which would develop itself more and more in every successive hall of the great palace, and lead the wife irresistibly to the chamber of horrors. after breakfast, we went to the barberini library, passing through the vast hall, which occupies the central part of the palace. it is the most splendid domestic hall i have seen, eighty feet in length at least, and of proportionate breadth and height; and the vaulted ceiling is entirely covered, to its utmost edge and remotest corners, with a brilliant painting in fresco, looking like a whole heaven of angelic people descending towards the floor. the effect is indescribably gorgeous. on one side stands a baldacchino, or canopy of state, draped with scarlet cloth, and fringed with gold embroidery; the scarlet indicating that the palace is inhabited by a cardinal. green would be appropriate to a prince. in point of fact, the palazzo barberini is inhabited by a cardinal, a prince, and a duke, all belonging to the barberini family, and each having his separate portion of the palace, while their servants have a common territory and meeting-ground in this noble hall. after admiring it for a few minutes, we made our exit by a door on the opposite side, and went up the spiral staircase of marble to the library, where we were received by an ecclesiastic, who belongs to the barberini household, and, i believe, was born in it. he is a gentle, refined, quiet-looking man, as well he may be, having spent all his life among these books, where few people intrude, and few cares can come. he showed us a very old bible in parchment, a specimen of the earliest printing, beautifully ornamented with pictures, and some monkish illuminations of indescribable delicacy and elaboration. no artist could afford to produce such work, if the life that he thus lavished on one sheet of parchment had any value to him, either for what could be done or enjoyed in it. there are about eight thousand volumes in this library, and, judging by their outward aspect, the collection must be curious and valuable; but having another engagement, we could spend only a little time here. we had a hasty glance, however, of some poems of tasso, in his own autograph. we then went to the palazzo galitzin, where dwell the misses weston, with whom we lunched, and where we met a french abbe, an agreeable man, and an antiquarian, under whose auspices two of the ladies and ourselves took carriage for the castle of st. angelo. being admitted within the external gateway, we found ourselves in the court of guard, as i presume it is called, where the french soldiers were playing with very dirty cards, or lounging about, in military idleness. they were well behaved and courteous, and when we had intimated our wish to see the interior of the castle, a soldier soon appeared, with a large unlighted torch in his hand, ready to guide us. there is an outer wall, surrounding the solid structure of hadrian's tomb; to which there is access by one or two drawbridges; the entrance to the tomb, or castle, not being at the base, but near its central height. the ancient entrance, by which hadrian's ashes, and those of other imperial personages, were probably brought into this tomb, has been walled up,--perhaps ever since the last emperor was buried here. we were now in a vaulted passage, both lofty and broad, which circles round the whole interior of the tomb, from the base to the summit. during many hundred years, the passage was filled with earth and rubbish, and forgotten, and it is but partly excavated, even now; although we found it a long, long and gloomy descent by torchlight to the base of the vast mausoleum. the passage was once lined and vaulted with precious marbles (which are now entirely gone), and paved with fine mosaics, portions of which still remain; and our guide lowered his flaming torch to show them to us, here and there, amid the earthy dampness over which we trod. it is strange to think what splendor and costly adornment were here wasted on the dead. after we had descended to the bottom of this passage, and again retraced our steps to the highest part, the guide took a large cannon-ball, and sent it, with his whole force, rolling down the hollow, arched way, rumbling, and reverberating, and bellowing forth long thunderous echoes, and winding up with a loud, distant crash, that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth. we saw the place, near the centre of the mausoleum, and lighted from above, through an immense thickness of stone and brick, where the ashes of the emperor and his fellow-slumberers were found. it is as much as twelve centuries, very likely, since they were scattered to the winds, for the tomb has been nearly or quite that space of time a fortress; the tomb itself is merely the base and foundation of the castle, and, being so massively built, it serves just as well for the purpose as if it were a solid granite rock. the mediaeval fortress, with its antiquity of more than a thousand years, and having dark and deep dungeons of its own, is but a modern excrescence on the top of hadrian's tomb. we now ascended towards the upper region, and were led into the vaults which used to serve as a prison, but which, if i mistake not, are situated above the ancient structure, although they seem as damp and subterranean as if they were fifty feet under the earth. we crept down to them through narrow and ugly passages, which the torchlight would not illuminate, and, stooping under a low, square entrance, we followed the guide into a small, vaulted room,--not a room, but an artificial cavern, remote from light or air, where beatrice cenci was confined before her execution. according to the abbe, she spent a whole year in this dreadful pit, her trial having dragged on through that length of time. how ghostlike she must have looked when she came forth! guido never painted that beautiful picture from her blanched face, as it appeared after this confinement. and how rejoiced she must have been to die at last, having already been in a sepulchre so long! adjacent to beatrice's prison, but not communicating with it, was that of her step-mother; and next to the latter was one that interested me almost as much as beatrice's,--that of benvenuto cellini, who was confined here, i believe, for an assassination. all these prison vaults are more horrible than can be imagined without seeing them; but there are worse places here, for the guide lifted a trap-door in one of the passages, and held his torch down into an inscrutable pit beneath our feet. it was an oubliette, a dungeon where the prisoner might be buried alive, and never come forth again, alive or dead. groping about among these sad precincts, we saw various other things that looked very dismal; but at last emerged into the sunshine, and ascended from one platform and battlement to another, till we found ourselves right at the feet of the archangel michael. he has stood there in bronze for i know not how many hundred years, in the act of sheathing a (now) rusty sword, such being the attitude in which he appeared to one of the popes in a vision, in token that a pestilence which was then desolating rome was to be stayed. there is a fine view from the lofty station over rome and the whole adjacent country, and the abbe pointed out the site of ardea, of corioli, of veii, and other places renowned in story. we were ushered, too, into the french commandant's quarters in the castle. there is a large hall, ornamented with frescos, and accessible from this a drawing-room, comfortably fitted up, and where we saw modern furniture, and a chess-board, and a fire burning clear, and other symptoms that the place had perhaps just been vacated by civilized and kindly people. but in one corner of the ceiling the abbe pointed out a ring, by which, in the times of mediaeval anarchy, when popes, cardinals, and barons were all by the ears together, a cardinal was hanged. it was not an assassination, but a legal punishment, and he was executed in the best apartment of the castle as an act of grace. the fortress is a straight-lined structure on the summit of the immense round tower of hadrian's tomb; and to make out the idea of it we must throw in drawbridges, esplanades, piles of ancient marble balls for cannon; battlements and embrasures, lying high in the breeze and sunshine, and opening views round the whole horizon; accommodation for the soldiers; and many small beds in a large room. how much mistaken was the emperor in his expectation of a stately, solemn repose for his ashes through all the coming centuries, as long as the world should endure! perhaps his ghost glides up and down disconsolate, in that spiral passage which goes from top to bottom of the tomb, while the barbarous gauls plant themselves in his very mausoleum to keep the imperial city in awe. leaving the castle of st. angelo, we drove, still on the same side of the tiber, to the villa pamfili, which lies a short distance beyond the walls. as we passed through one of the gates (i think it was that of san pancrazio) the abbe pointed out the spot where the constable de bourbon was killed while attempting to scale the walls. if we are to believe benvenuto cellini, it was he who shot the constable. the road to the villa is not very interesting, lying (as the roads in the vicinity of rome often do) between very high walls, admitting not a glimpse of the surrounding country; the road itself white and dusty, with no verdant margin of grass or border of shrubbery. at the portal of the villa we found many carriages in waiting, for the prince doria throws open the grounds to all comers, and on a pleasant day like this they are probably sure to be thronged. we left our carriage just within the entrance, and rambled among these beautiful groves, admiring the live-oak trees, and the stone-pines, which latter are truly a majestic tree, with tall columnar stems, supporting a cloud-like density of boughs far aloft, and not a straggling branch between there and the ground. they stand in straight rows, but are now so ancient and venerable as to have lost the formal look of a plantation, and seem like a wood that might have arranged itself almost of its own will. beneath them is a flower-strewn turf, quite free of underbrush. we found open fields and lawns, moreover, all abloom with anemones, white and rose-colored and purple and golden, and far larger than could be found out of italy, except in hot-houses. violets, too, were abundant and exceedingly fragrant. when we consider that all this floral exuberance occurs in the midst of march, there does not appear much ground for complaining of the roman climate; and so long ago as the first week of february i found daisies among the grass, on the sunny side of the basilica of st. john lateran. at this very moment i suppose the country within twenty miles of boston may be two feet deep with snow, and the streams solid with ice. we wandered about the grounds, and found them very beautiful indeed; nature having done much for them by an undulating variety of surface, and art having added a good many charms, which have all the better effect now that decay and neglect have thrown a natural grace over them likewise. there is an artificial ruin, so picturesque that it betrays itself; weather-beaten statues, and pieces of sculpture, scattered here and there; an artificial lake, with upgushing fountains; cascades, and broad-bosomed coves, and long, canal-like reaches, with swans taking their delight upon them. i never saw such a glorious and resplendent lustre of white as shone between the wings of two of these swans. it was really a sight to see, and not to be imagined beforehand. angels, no doubt, have just such lustrous wings as those. english swans partake of the dinginess of the atmosphere, and their plumage has nothing at all to be compared to this; in fact, there is nothing like it in the world, unless it be the illuminated portion of a fleecy, summer cloud. while we were sauntering along beside this piece of water, we were surprised to see u---- on the other side. she had come hither with e---- s------ and her two little brothers, and with our r-----, the whole under the charge of mrs. story's nursery-maids. u---- and e---- crossed, not over, but beneath the water, through a grotto, and exchanged greetings with us. then, as it was getting towards sunset and cool, we took our departure; the abbe, as we left the grounds, taking me aside to give me a glimpse of a columbarium, which descends into the earth to about the depth to which an ordinary house might rise above it. these grounds, it is said, formed the country residence of the emperor galba, and he was buried here after his assassination. it is a sad thought that so much natural beauty and long refinement of picturesque culture is thrown away, the villa being uninhabitable during all the most delightful season of the year on account of malaria. there is truly a curse on rome and all its neighborhood. on our way home we passed by the great paolina fountain, and were assailed by many beggars during the short time we stopped to look at it. it is a very copious fountain, but not so beautiful as the trevi, taking into view merely the water-gush of the latter. march th.--yesterday, between twelve and one, our whole family went to the villa ludovisi, the entrance to which is at the termination of a street which passes out of the piazza barberini, and it is no very great distance from our own street, via porta pinciana. the grounds, though very extensive, are wholly within the walls of the city, which skirt them, and comprise a part of what were formerly the gardens of sallust. the villa is now the property of prince piombini, a ticket from whom procured us admission. a little within the gateway, to the right, is a casino, containing two large rooms filled with sculpture, much of which is very valuable. a colossal head of juno, i believe, is considered the greatest treasure of the collection, but i did not myself feel it to be so, nor indeed did i receive any strong impression of its excellence. i admired nothing so much, i think, as the face of penelope (if it be her face) in the group supposed also to represent electra and orestes. the sitting statue of mars is very fine; so is the arria and paetus; so are many other busts and figures. by and by we left the casino and wandered among the grounds, threading interminable alleys of cypress, through the long vistas of which we could see here and there a statue, an urn, a pillar, a temple, or garden-house, or a bas-relief against the wall. it seems as if there must have been a time, and not so very long ago,--when it was worth while to spend money and thought upon the ornamentation of grounds in the neighborhood of rome. that time is past, however, and the result is very melancholy; for great beauty has been produced, but it can be enjoyed in its perfection only at the peril of one's life. . . . . for my part, and judging from my own experience, i suspect that the roman atmosphere, never wholesome, is always more or less poisonous. we came to another and larger casino remote from the gateway, in which the prince resides during two months of the year. it was now under repair, but we gained admission, as did several other visitors, and saw in the entrance-hall the aurora of guercino, painted in fresco on the ceiling. there is beauty in the design; but the painter certainly was most unhappy in his black shadows, and in the work before us they give the impression of a cloudy and lowering morning which is likely enough to turn to rain by and by. after viewing the fresco we mounted by a spiral staircase to a lofty terrace, and found rome at our feet, and, far off, the sabine and alban mountains, some of them still capped with snow. in another direction there was a vast plain, on the horizon of which, could our eyes have reached to its verge, we might perhaps have seen the mediterranean sea. after enjoying the view and the warm sunshine we descended, and went in quest of the gardens of sallust, but found no satisfactory remains of them. one of the most striking objects in the first casino was a group by bernini,--pluto, an outrageously masculine and strenuous figure, heavily bearded, ravishing away a little, tender proserpine, whom he holds aloft, while his forcible gripe impresses itself into her soft virgin flesh. it is very disagreeable, but it makes one feel that bernini was a man of great ability. there are some works in literature that bear an analogy to his works in sculpture, when great power is lavished a little outside of nature, and therefore proves to be only a fashion,--and not permanently adapted to the tastes of mankind. march th.--yesterday forenoon my wife and i went to st. peter's to see the pope pray at the chapel of the holy sacrament. we found a good many people in the church, but not an inconvenient number; indeed, not so many as to make any remarkable show in the great nave, nor even in front of the chapel. a detachment of the swiss guard, in their strange, picturesque, harlequin-like costume, were on duty before the chapel, in which the wax tapers were all lighted, and a prie-dieu was arranged near the shrine, and covered with scarlet velvet. on each side, along the breadth of the side aisle, were placed seats, covered with rich tapestry or carpeting; and some gentlemen and ladies--english, probably, or american--had comfortably deposited themselves here, but were compelled to move by the guards before the pope's entrance. his holiness should have appeared precisely at twelve, but we waited nearly half an hour beyond that time; and it seemed to me particularly ill-mannered in the pope, who owes the courtesy of being punctual to the people, if not to st. peter. by and by, however, there was a stir; the guard motioned to us to stand away from the benches, against the backs of which we had been leaning; the spectators in the nave looked towards the door, as if they beheld something approaching; and first, there appeared some cardinals, in scarlet skull-caps and purple robes, intermixed with some of the noble guard and other attendants. it was not a very formal and stately procession, but rather straggled onward, with ragged edges, the spectators standing aside to let it pass, and merely bowing, or perhaps slightly bending the knee, as good catholics are accustomed to do when passing before the shrines of saints. then, in the midst of the purple cardinals, all of whom were gray-haired men, appeared a stout old man, with a white skull-cap, a scarlet, gold-embroidered cape falling over his shoulders, and a white silk robe, the train of which was borne up by an attendant. he walked slowly, with a sort of dignified movement, stepping out broadly, and planting his feet (on which were red shoes) flat upon the pavement, as if he were not much accustomed to locomotion, and perhaps had known a twinge of the gout. his face was kindly and venerable, but not particularly impressive. arriving at the scarlet-covered prie-dieu, he kneeled down and took off his white skull-cap; the cardinals also kneeled behind and on either side of him, taking off their scarlet skull-caps; while the noble guard remained standing, six on one side of his holiness and six on the other. the pope bent his head upon the prie-dieu, and seemed to spend three or four minutes in prayer; then rose, and all the purple cardinals, and bishops, and priests, of whatever degree, rose behind and beside him. next, he went to kiss st. peter's toe; at least i believe he kissed it, but i was not near enough to be certain; and lastly, he knelt down, and directed his devotions towards the high altar. this completed the ceremonies, and his holiness left the church by a side door, making a short passage into the vatican. i am very glad i have seen the pope, because now he may be crossed out of the list of sights to be seen. his proximity impressed me kindly and favorably towards him, and i did not see one face among all his cardinals (in whose number, doubtless, is his successor) which i would so soon trust as that of pio nono. this morning i walked as far as the gate of san paolo, and, on approaching it, i saw the gray sharp pyramid of caius cestius pointing upward close to the two dark-brown, battlemented gothic towers of the gateway, each of these very different pieces of architecture looking the more picturesque for the contrast of the other. before approaching the gateway and pyramid, i walked onward, and soon came in sight of monte testaccio, the artificial hill made of potsherds. there is a gate admitting into the grounds around the hill, and a road encircling its base. at a distance, the hill looks greener than any other part of the landscape, and has all the curved outlines of a natural hill, resembling in shape a headless sphinx, or saddleback mountain, as i used to see it from lenox. it is of very considerable height,--two or three hundred feet at least, i should say,--and well entitled, both by its elevation and the space it covers, to be reckoned among the hills of rome. its base is almost entirely surrounded with small structures, which seem to be used as farm-buildings. on the summit is a large iron cross, the church having thought it expedient to redeem these shattered pipkins from the power of paganism, as it has so many other roman ruins. there was a pathway up the hill, but i did not choose to ascend it under the hot sun, so steeply did it clamber up. there appears to be a good depth of soil on most parts of monte testaccio, but on some of the sides you observe precipices, bristling with fragments of red or brown earthenware, or pieces of vases of white unglazed clay; and it is evident that this immense pile is entirely composed of broken crockery, which i should hardly have thought would have aggregated to such a heap had it all been thrown here,--urns, teacups, porcelain, or earthen,--since the beginning of the world. i walked quite round the hill, and saw, at no great distance from it, the enclosure of the protestant burial-ground, which lies so close to the pyramid of caius cestius that the latter may serve as a general monument to the dead. deferring, for the present, a visit to the cemetery, or to the interior of the pyramid, i returned to the gateway of san paolo, and, passing through it, took a view of it from the outside of the city wall. it is itself a portion of the wall, having been built into it by the emperor aurelian, so that about half of it lies within and half without. the brick or red stone material of the wall being so unlike the marble of the pyramid, the latter is as distinct, and seems as insulated, as if it stood alone in the centre of a plain; and really i do not think there is a more striking architectural object in rome. it is in perfect condition, just as little ruined or decayed as on the day when the builder put the last peak on the summit; and it ascends steeply from its base, with a point so sharp that it looks as if it would hardly afford foothold to a bird. the marble was once white, but is now covered with a gray coating like that which has gathered upon the statues of castor and pollux on monte cavallo. not one of the great blocks is displaced, nor seems likely to be through all time to come. they rest one upon another, in straight and even lines, and present a vast smooth triangle, ascending from a base of a hundred feet, and narrowing to an apex at the height of a hundred and twenty-five, the junctures of the marble slabs being so close that, in all these twenty centuries, only a few little tufts of grass, and a trailing plant or two, have succeeded in rooting themselves into the interstices. it is good and satisfactory to see anything which, being built for an enduring monument, has endured so faithfully, and has a prospect of such an interminable futurity before it. once, indeed, it seemed likely to be buried; for three hundred years ago it had become covered to the depth of sixteen feet, but the soil has since been dug away from its base, which is now lower than that of the road which passes through the neighboring gate of san paolo. midway up the pyramid, cut in the marble, is an inscription in large roman letters, still almost as legible as when first wrought. i did not return through the paolo gateway, but kept onward, round the exterior of the wall, till i came to the gate of san sebastiano. it was a hot and not a very interesting walk, with only a high bare wall of brick, broken by frequent square towers, on one side of the road, and a bank and hedge or a garden wall on the other. roman roads are most inhospitable, offering no shade, and no seat, and no pleasant views of rustic domiciles; nothing but the wheel-track of white dust, without a foot path running by its side, and seldom any grassy margin to refresh the wayfarer's feet. april d.--a few days ago we visited the studio of mr. ------, an american, who seems to have a good deal of vogue as a sculptor. we found a figure of pocahontas, which he has repeated several times; another, which he calls "the wept of the wish-ton-wish," a figure of a smiling girl playing with a cat and dog, and a schoolboy mending a pen. these two last were the only ones that gave me any pleasure, or that really had any merit; for his cleverness and ingenuity appear in homely subjects, but are quite lost in attempts at a higher ideality. nevertheless, he has a group of the prodigal son, possessing more merit than i should have expected from mr. ------, the son reclining his head on his father's breast, with an expression of utter weariness, at length finding perfect rest, while the father bends his benign countenance over him, and seems to receive him calmly into himself. this group (the plaster-cast standing beside it) is now taking shape out of an immense block of marble, and will be as indestructible as the laocoon; an idea at once awful and ludicrous, when we consider that it is at best but a respectable production. i have since been told that mr. ------ had stolen, adopted, we will rather say, the attitude and idea of the group from one executed by a student of the french academy, and to be seen there in plaster. (we afterwards saw it in the medici casino.) mr. ------ has now been ten years in italy, and, after all this time, he is still entirely american in everything but the most external surface of his manners; scarcely europeanized, or much modified even in that. he is a native of ------, but had his early breeding in new york, and might, for any polish or refinement that i can discern in him, still be a country shopkeeper in the interior of new york state or new england. how strange! for one expects to find the polish, the close grain and white purity of marble, in the artist who works in that noble material; but, after all, he handles club, and, judging by the specimens i have seen here, is apt to be clay, not of the finest, himself. mr. ------ is sensible, shrewd, keen, clever; an ingenious workman, no doubt; with tact enough, and not destitute of taste; very agreeable and lively in his conversation, talking as fast and as naturally as a brook runs, without the slightest affectation. his naturalness is, in fact, a rather striking characteristic, in view of his lack of culture, while yet his life has been concerned with idealities and a beautiful art. what degree of taste he pretends to, he seems really to possess, nor did i hear a single idea from him that struck me as otherwise than sensible. he called to see us last evening, and talked for about two hours in a very amusing and interesting style, his topics being taken from his own personal experience, and shrewdly treated. he spoke much of greenough, whom he described as an excellent critic of art, but possessed of not the slightest inventive genius. his statue of washington, at the capitol, is taken precisely from the plodian jupiter; his chanting cherubs are copied in marble from two figures in a picture by raphael. he did nothing that was original with himself to-day we took r-----, and went to see miss ------, and as her studio seems to be mixed up with gibson's, we had an opportunity of glancing at some of his beautiful works. we saw a venus and a cupid, both of them tinted; and, side by side with them, other statues identical with these, except that the marble was left in its pure whiteness. we found miss ------ in a little upper room. she has a small, brisk, wide-awake figure, not ungraceful; frank, simple, straightforward, and downright. she had on a robe, i think, but i did not look so low, my attention being chiefly drawn to a sort of man's sack of purple or plum-colored broadcloth, into the side-pockets of which her hands were thrust as she came forward to greet us. she withdrew one hand, however, and presented it cordially to my wife (whom she already knew) and to myself, without waiting for an introduction. she had on a shirt-front, collar, and cravat like a man's, with a brooch of etruscan gold, and on her curly head was a picturesque little cap of black velvet, and her face was as bright and merry, and as small of feature as a child's. it looked in one aspect youthful, and yet there was something worn in it too. there never was anything so jaunty as her movement and action; she was very peculiar, but she seemed to be her actual self, and nothing affected or made up; so that, for my part, i gave her full leave to wear what may suit her best, and to behave as her inner woman prompts. i don't quite see, however, what she is to do when she grows older, for the decorum of age will not be consistent with a costume that looks pretty and excusable enough in a young woman. miss ------ led us into a part of the extensive studio, or collection of studios, where some of her own works were to be seen: beatrice cenci, which did not very greatly impress me; and a monumental design, a female figure,--wholly draped even to the stockings and shoes,--in a quiet sleep. i liked this last. there was also a puck, doubtless full of fun; but i had hardly time to glance at it. miss ------ evidently has good gifts in her profession, and doubtless she derives great advantage from her close association with a consummate artist like gibson; nor yet does his influence seem to interfere with the originality of her own conceptions. in one way, at least, she can hardly fail to profit,--that is, by the opportunity of showing her works to the throngs of people who go to see gibson's own; and these are just such people as an artist would most desire to meet, and might never see in a lifetime, if left to himself. i shook hands with this frank and pleasant little person, and took leave, not without purpose of seeing her again. within a few days, there have been many pilgrims in rome, who come hither to attend the ceremonies of holy week, and to perform their vows, and undergo their penances. i saw two of them near the forum yesterday, with their pilgrim staves, in the fashion of a thousand years ago. . . . . i sat down on a bench near one of the chapels, and a woman immediately came up to me to beg. i at first refused; but she knelt down by my side, and instead of praying to the saint prayed to me; and, being thus treated as a canonized personage, i thought it incumbent on me to be gracious to the extent of half a paul. my wife, some time ago, came in contact with a pickpocket at the entrance of a church; and, failing in his enterprise upon her purse, he passed in, dipped his thieving fingers in the holy water, and paid his devotions at a shrine. missing the purse, he said his prayers, in the hope, perhaps, that the saint would send him better luck another time. april th.--i have made no entries in my journal recently, being exceedingly lazy, partly from indisposition, as well as from an atmosphere that takes the vivacity out of everybody. not much has happened or been effected. last sunday, which was easter sunday, i went with j----- to st. peter's, where we arrived at about nine o'clock, and found a multitude of people already assembled in the church. the interior was arrayed in festal guise, there being a covering of scarlet damask over the pilasters of the nave, from base to capital, giving an effect of splendor, yet with a loss as to the apparent dimensions of the interior. a guard of soldiers occupied the nave, keeping open a wide space for the passage of a procession that was momently expected, and soon arrived. the crowd was too great to allow of my seeing it in detail; but i could perceive that there were priests, cardinals, swiss guards, some of them with corselets on, and by and by the pope himself was borne up the nave, high over the heads of all, sitting under a canopy, crowned with his tiara. he floated slowly along, and was set down in the neighborhood of the high altar; and the procession being broken up, some of its scattered members might be seen here and there, about the church,--officials in antique spanish dresses; swiss guards, in polished steel breastplates; serving-men, in richly embroidered liveries; officers, in scarlet coats and military boots; priests, and divers other shapes of men; for the papal ceremonies seem to forego little or nothing that belongs to times past, while it includes everything appertaining to the present. i ought to have waited to witness the papal benediction from the balcony in front of the church; or, at least, to hear the famous silver trumpets, sounding from the dome; but j----- grew weary (to say the truth, so did i), and we went on a long walk, out of the nearest city gate, and back through the janiculum, and, finally, homeward over the ponto rotto. standing on the bridge, i saw the arch of the cloaca maxima, close by the temple of vesta, with the water rising within two or three feet of its keystone. the same evening we went to monte cavallo, where, from the gateway of the pontifical palace, we saw the illumination of st. peter's. mr. akers, the sculptor, had recommended this position to us, and accompanied us thither, as the best point from which the illumination could be witnessed at a distance, without the incommodity of such a crowd as would be assembled at the pincian. the first illumination, the silver one, as it is called, was very grand and delicate, describing the outline of the great edifice and crowning dome in light; while the day was not yet wholly departed. as ------ finally remarked, it seemed like the glorified spirit of the church, made visible, or, as i will add, it looked as this famous and never-to-be-forgotten structure will look to the imaginations of men, through the waste and gloom of future ages, after it shall have gone quite to decay and ruin: the brilliant, though scarcely distinct gleam of a statelier dome than ever was seen, shining on the background of the night of time. this simile looked prettier in my fancy than i have made it look on paper. after we had enjoyed the silver illumination a good while, and when all the daylight had given place to the constellated night, the distant outline of st. peter's burst forth, in the twinkling of an eye, into a starry blaze, being quite the finest effect that i ever witnessed. i stayed to see it, however, only a few minutes; for i was quite ill and feverish with a cold,--which, indeed, i have seldom been free from, since my first breathing of the genial atmosphere of rome. this pestilence kept me within doors all the next day, and prevented me from seeing the beautiful fireworks that were exhibited in the evening from the platform on the pincian, above the piazza del popolo. on thursday, i paid another visit to the sculpture-gallery of the capitol, where i was particularly struck with a bust of cato the censor, who must have been the most disagreeable, stubborn, ugly-tempered, pig-headed, narrow-minded, strong-willed old roman that ever lived. the collection of busts here and at the vatican are most interesting, many of the individual heads being full of character, and commending themselves by intrinsic evidence as faithful portraits of the originals. these stone people have stood face to face with caesar, and all the other emperors, and with statesmen, soldiers, philosophers, and poets of the antique world, and have been to them like their reflections in a mirror. it is the next thing to seeing the men themselves. we went afterwards into the palace of the conservatori, and saw, among various other interesting things, the bronze wolf suckling romulus and remus, who sit beneath her dugs, with open mouths to receive the milk. on friday, we all went to see the pope's palace on the quirinal. there was a vast hall, and an interminable suite of rooms, cased with marble, floored with marble or mosaics or inlaid wood, adorned with frescos on the vaulted ceilings, and many of them lined with gobelin tapestry; not wofully faded, like almost all that i have hitherto seen, but brilliant as pictures. indeed, some of them so closely resembled paintings, that i could hardly believe they were not so; and the effect was even richer than that of oil-paintings. in every room there was a crucifix; but i did not see a single nook or corner where anybody could have dreamed of being comfortable. nevertheless, as a stately and solemn residence for his holiness, it is quite a satisfactory affair. afterwards, we went into the pontifical gardens, connected with the palace. they are very extensive, and laid out in straight avenues, bordered with walls of box, as impervious as if of stone,--not less than twenty feet high, and pierced with lofty archways, cut in the living wall. some of the avenues were overshadowed with trees, the tops of which bent over and joined one another from either side, so as to resemble a side aisle of a gothic cathedral. marble sculptures, much weather-stained, and generally broken-nosed, stood along these stately walks; there were many fountains gushing up into the sunshine; we likewise found a rich flower-garden, containing rare specimens of exotic flowers, and gigantic cactuses, and also an aviary, with vultures, doves, and singing birds. we did not see half the garden, but, stiff and formal as its general arrangement is, it is a beautiful place,--a delightful, sunny, and serene seclusion. whatever it may be to the pope, two young lovers might find the garden of eden here, and never desire to stray out of its precincts. they might fancy angels standing in the long, glimmering vistas of the avenues. it would suit me well enough to have my daily walk along such straight paths, for i think them favorable to thought, which is apt to be disturbed by variety and unexpectedness. april th.--we all, except r-----, went to-day to the vatican, where we found our way to the stanze of raphael, these being four rooms, or halls, painted with frescos. no doubt they were once very brilliant and beautiful; but they have encountered hard treatment since raphael's time, especially when the soldiers of the constable de bourbon occupied these apartments, and made fires on the mosaic floors. the entire walls and ceilings are covered with pictures; but the handiwork or designs of raphael consist of paintings on the four sides of each room, and include several works of art. the school of athens is perhaps the most celebrated; and the longest side of the largest hall is occupied by a battle-piece, of which the emperor constantine is the hero, and which covers almost space enough for a real battle-field. there was a wonderful light in one of the pictures,--that of st. peter awakened in his prison, by the angel; it really seemed to throw a radiance into the hall below. i shall not pretend, however, to have been sensible of any particular rapture at the sight of these frescos; so faded as they are, so battered by the mischances of years, insomuch that, through all the power and glory of raphael's designs, the spectator cannot but be continually sensible that the groundwork of them is an old plaster wall. they have been scrubbed, i suppose,--brushed, at least,--a thousand times over, till the surface, brilliant or soft, as raphael left it, must have been quite rubbed off, and with it, all the consummate finish, and everything that made them originally delightful. the sterner features remain, the skeleton of thought, but not the beauty that once clothed it. in truth, the frescos, excepting a few figures, never had the real touch of raphael's own hand upon them, having been merely designed by him, and finished by his scholars, or by other artists. the halls themselves are specimens of antique magnificence, paved with elaborate mosaics; and wherever there is any wood-work, it is richly carved with foliage and figures. in their newness, and probably for a hundred years afterwards, there could not have been so brilliant a suite of rooms in the world. connected with them--at any rate, not far distant--is the little chapel of san lorenzo, the very site of which, among the thousands of apartments of the vatican, was long forgotten, and its existence only known by tradition. after it had been walled up, however, beyond the memory of man, there was still a rumor of some beautiful frescos by fra angelico, in an old chapel of pope nicholas v., that had strangely disappeared out of the palace, and, search at length being made, it was discovered, and entered through a window. it is a small, lofty room, quite covered over with frescos of sacred subjects, both on the walls and ceiling, a good deal faded, yet pretty distinctly preserved. it would have been no misfortune to me, if the little old chapel had remained still hidden. we next issued into the loggie, which consist of a long gallery, or arcade or colonnade, the whole extent of which was once beautifully adorned by raphael. these pictures are almost worn away, and so defaced as to be untraceable and unintelligible, along the side wall of the gallery; although traceries of arabesque, and compartments where there seem to have been rich paintings, but now only an indistinguishable waste of dull color, are still to be seen. in the coved ceiling, however, there are still some bright frescos, in better preservation than any others; not particularly beautiful, nevertheless. i remember to have seen (indeed, we ourselves possess them) a series of very spirited and energetic engravings, old and coarse, of these frescos, the subject being the creation, and the early scripture history; and i really think that their translation of the pictures is better than the original. on reference to murray, i find that little more than the designs is attributed to raphael, the execution being by giulio romano and other artists. escaping from these forlorn splendors, we went into the sculpture-gallery, where i was able to enjoy, in some small degree, two or three wonderful works of art; and had a perception that there were a thousand other wonders around me. it is as if the statues kept, for the most part, a veil about them, which they sometimes withdraw, and let their beauty gleam upon my sight; only a glimpse, or two or three glimpses, or a little space of calm enjoyment, and then i see nothing but a discolored marble image again. the minerva medica revealed herself to-day. i wonder whether other people are more fortunate than myself, and can invariably find their way to the inner soul of a work of art. i doubt it; they look at these things for just a minute, and pass on, without any pang of remorse, such as i feel, for quitting them so soon and so willingly. i am partly sensible that some unwritten rules of taste are making their way into my mind; that all this greek beauty has done something towards refining me, though i am still, however, a very sturdy goth. . . . . april th.--yesterday i went with j----- to the forum, and descended into the excavations at the base of the capitol, and on the site of the basilica of julia. the essential elements of old rome are there: columns, single, or in groups of two or three, still erect, but battered and bruised at some forgotten time with infinite pains and labor; fragments of other columns lying prostrate, together with rich capitals and friezes; the bust of a colossal female statue, showing the bosom and upper part of the arms, but headless; a long, winding space of pavement, forming part of the ancient ascent to the capitol, still as firm and solid as ever; the foundation of the capitol itself, wonderfully massive, built of immense square blocks of stone, doubtless three thousand years old, and durable for whatever may be the lifetime of the world; the arch of septimius, severus, with bas-reliefs of eastern wars; the column of phocas, with the rude series of steps ascending on four sides to its pedestal; the floor of beautiful and precious marbles in the basilica of julia, the slabs cracked across,--the greater part of them torn up and removed, the grass and weeds growing up through the chinks of what remain; heaps of bricks, shapeless bits of granite, and other ancient rubbish, among which old men are lazily rummaging for specimens that a stranger may be induced to buy,--this being an employment that suits the indolence of a modern roman. the level of these excavations is about fifteen feet, i should judge, below the present street, which passes through the forum, and only a very small part of this alien surface has been removed, though there can be no doubt that it hides numerous treasures of art and monuments of history. yet these remains do not make that impression of antiquity upon me which gothic ruins do. perhaps it is so because they belong to quite another system of society and epoch of time, and, in view of them, we forget all that has intervened betwixt them and us; being morally unlike and disconnected with them, and not belonging to the same train of thought; so that we look across a gulf to the roman ages, and do not realize how wide the gulf is. yet in that intervening valley lie christianity, the dark ages, the feudal system, chivalry and romance, and a deeper life of the human race than rome brought to the verge of the gulf. to-day we went to the colonna palace, where we saw some fine pictures, but, i think, no masterpieces. they did not depress and dishearten me so much as the pictures in roman palaces usually do; for they were in remarkably good order as regards frames and varnish; indeed, i rather suspect some of them had been injured by the means adopted to preserve their beauty. the palace is now occupied by the french ambassador, who probably looks upon the pictures as articles of furniture and household adornment, and does not choose to have squares of black and forlorn canvas upon his walls. there were a few noble portraits by vandyke; a very striking one by holbein, one or two by titian, also by guercino, and some pictures by rubens, and other forestieri painters, which refreshed my weary eyes. but--what chiefly interested me was the magnificent and stately hall of the palace; fifty-five of my paces in length, besides a large apartment at either end, opening into it through a pillared space, as wide as the gateway of a city. the pillars are of giallo antico, and there are pilasters of the same all the way up and down the walls, forming a perspective of the richest aspect, especially as the broad cornice flames with gilding, and the spaces between the pilasters are emblazoned with heraldic achievements and emblems in gold, and there are venetian looking-glasses, richly decorated over the surface with beautiful pictures of flowers and cupids, through which you catch the gleam of the mirror; and two rows of splendid chandeliers extend from end to end of the hall, which, when lighted up, if ever it be lighted up, now-a-nights, must be the most brilliant interior that ever mortal eye beheld. the ceiling glows with pictures in fresco, representing scenes connected with the history of the colonna family; and the floor is paved with beautiful marbles, polished and arranged in square and circular compartments; and each of the many windows is set in a great architectural frame of precious marble, as large as the portal of a door. the apartment at the farther end of the hall is elevated above it, and is attained by several marble steps, whence it must have been glorious in former days to have looked down upon a gorgeous throng of princes, cardinals, warriors, and ladies, in such rich attire as might be worn when the palace was built. it is singular how much freshness and brightness it still retains; and the only objects to mar the effect were some ancient statues and busts, not very good in themselves, and now made dreary of aspect by their corroded surfaces,--the result of long burial under ground. in the room at the entrance of the hall are two cabinets, each a wonder in its way,--one being adorned with precious stones; the other with ivory carvings of michael angelo's last judgment, and of the frescos of raphael's loggie. the world has ceased to be so magnificent as it once was. men make no such marvels nowadays. the only defect that i remember in this hall was in the marble steps that ascend to the elevated apartment at the end of it; a large piece had been broken out of one of them, leaving a rough irregular gap in the polished marble stair. it is not easy to conceive what violence can have done this, without also doing mischief to all the other splendor around it. april th.--we went this morning to the academy of st. luke (the fine arts academy at rome) in the via bonella, close by the forum. we rang the bell at the house door; and after a few moments it was unlocked or unbolted by some unseen agency from above, no one making his appearance to admit us. we ascended two or three flights of stairs, and entered a hall, where was a young man, the custode, and two or three artists engaged in copying some of the pictures. the collection not being vastly large, and the pictures being in more presentable condition than usual, i enjoyed them more than i generally do; particularly a virgin and child by vandyke, where two angels are singing and playing, one on a lute and the other on a violin, to remind the holy infant of the strains he used to hear in heaven. it is one of the few pictures that there is really any pleasure in looking at. there were several paintings by titian, mostly of a voluptuous character, but not very charming; also two or more by guido, one of which, representing fortune, is celebrated. they did not impress me much, nor do i find myself strongly drawn towards guido, though there is no other painter who seems to achieve things so magically and inscrutably as he sometimes does. perhaps it requires a finer taste than mine to appreciate him; and yet i do appreciate him so far as to see that his michael, for instance, is perfectly beautiful. . . . . in the gallery, there are whole rows of portraits of members of the academy of st. luke, most of whom, judging by their physiognomies, were very commonplace people; a fact which makes itself visible in a portrait, however much the painter may try to flatter his sitter. several of the pictures by titian, paul veronese, and other artists, now exhibited in the gallery, were formerly kept in a secret cabinet in the capitol, being considered of a too voluptuous character for the public eye. i did not think them noticeably indecorous, as compared with a hundred other pictures that are shown and looked at without scruple;--calypso and her nymphs, a knot of nude women by titian, is perhaps as objectionable as any. but even titian's flesh-tints cannot keep, and have not kept their warmth through all these centuries. the illusion and lifelikeness effervesces and exhales out of a picture as it grows old; and we go on talking of a charm that has forever vanished. from st. luke's we went to san pietro in vincoli, occupying a fine position on or near the summit of the esquiline mount. a little abortion of a man (and, by the by, there are more diminutive and ill-shapen men and women in rome than i ever saw elsewhere, a phenomenon to be accounted for, perhaps, by their custom of wrapping the new-born infant in swaddling-clothes), this two-foot abortion hastened before us, as we drew nigh, to summon the sacristan to open the church door. it was a needless service, for which we rewarded him with two baiocchi. san pietro is a simple and noble church, consisting of a nave divided from the side aisles by rows of columns, that once adorned some ancient temple; and its wide, unencumbered interior affords better breathing-space than most churches in rome. the statue of moses occupies a niche in one of the side aisles on the right, not far from the high altar. i found it grand and sublime, with a beard flowing down like a cataract; a truly majestic figure, but not so benign as it were desirable that such strength should be. the horns, about which so much has been said, are not a very prominent feature of the statue, being merely two diminutive tips rising straight up over his forehead, neither adding to the grandeur of the head, nor detracting sensibly from it. the whole force of this statue is not to be felt in one brief visit, but i agree with an english gentleman, who, with a large party, entered the church while we were there, in thinking that moses has "very fine features,"--a compliment for which the colossal hebrew ought to have made the englishman a bow. besides the moses, the church contains some attractions of a pictorial kind, which are reposited in the sacristy, into which we passed through a side door. the most remarkable of these pictures is a face and bust of hope, by guido, with beautiful eyes lifted upwards; it has a grace which artists are continually trying to get into their innumerable copies, but always without success; for, indeed, though nothing is more true than the existence of this charm in the picture, yet if you try to analyze it, or even look too intently at it, it vanishes, till you look again with more trusting simplicity. leaving the church, we wandered to the coliseum, and to the public grounds contiguous to them, where a score and more of french drummers were beating each man his drum, without reference to any rub-a-dub but his own. this seems to be a daily or periodical practice and point of duty with them. after resting ourselves on one of the marble benches, we came slowly home, through the basilica of constantine, and along the shady sides of the streets and piazzas, sometimes, perforce, striking boldly through the white sunshine, which, however, was not so hot as to shrivel us up bodily. it has been a most beautiful and perfect day as regards weather, clear and bright, very warm in the sunshine, yet freshened throughout by a quiet stir in the air. still there is something in this air malevolent, or, at least, not friendly. the romans lie down and fall asleep in it, in any vacant part of the streets, and wherever they can find any spot sufficiently clean, and among the ruins of temples. i would not sleep in the open air for whatever my life may be worth. on our way home, sitting in one of the narrow streets, we saw an old woman spinning with a distaff; a far more ancient implement than the spinning-wheel, which the housewives of other nations have long since laid aside. april th.--yesterday, at noon, the whole family of us set out on a visit to the villa borghese and its grounds, the entrance to which is just outside of the porta del popolo. after getting within the grounds, however, there is a long walk before reaching the casino, and we found the sun rather uncomfortably hot, and the road dusty and white in the sunshine; nevertheless, a footpath ran alongside of it most of the way through the grass and among the young trees. it seems to me that the trees do not put forth their leaves with nearly the same magical rapidity in this southern land at the approach of summer, as they do in more northerly countries. in these latter, having a much shorter time to develop themselves, they feel the necessity of making the most of it. but the grass, in the lawns and enclosures along which we passed, looked already fit to be mowed, and it was interspersed with many flowers. saturday being, i believe, the only day of the week on which visitors are admitted to the casino, there were many parties in carriages, artists on foot, gentlemen on horseback, and miscellaneous people, to whom the door was opened by a custode on ringing a bell. the whole of the basement floor of the casino, comprising a suite of beautiful rooms, is filled with statuary. the entrance hall is a very splendid apartment, brightly frescoed, and paved with ancient mosaics, representing the combats with beasts and gladiators in the coliseum, curious, though very rudely and awkwardly designed, apparently after the arts had begun to decline. many of the specimens of sculpture displayed in these rooms are fine, but none of them, i think, possess the highest merit. an apollo is beautiful; a group of a fighting amazon, and her enemies trampled under her horse's feet, is very impressive; a faun, copied from that of praxiteles, and another, who seems to be dancing, were exceedingly pleasant to look at. i like these strange, sweet, playful, rustic creatures, . . . . linked so prettily, without monstrosity, to the lower tribes. . . . . their character has never, that i know of, been wrought out in literature; and something quite good, funny, and philosophical, as well as poetic, might very likely be educed from them. . . . . the faun is a natural and delightful link betwixt human and brute life, with something of a divine character intermingled. the gallery, as it is called, on the basement floor of the casino, is sixty feet in length, by perhaps a third as much in breadth, and is (after all i have seen at the colonna palace and elsewhere) a more magnificent hall than i imagined to be in existence. it is floored with rich marble in beautifully arranged compartments, and the walls are almost entirely eased with marble of various sorts, the prevailing kind being giallo antico, intermixed with verd antique, and i know not what else; but the splendor of the giallo antico gives the character to the room, and the large and deep niches along the walls appear to be lined with the same material. without coming to italy, one can have no idea of what beauty and magnificence are produced by these fittings up of polished marble. marble to an american means nothing but white limestone. this hall, moreover, is adorned with pillars of oriental alabaster, and wherever is a space vacant of precious and richly colored marble it is frescoed with arabesque ornaments; and over the whole is a coved and vaulted ceiling, glowing with picture. there never can be anything richer than the whole effect. as to the sculpture here it was not very fine, so far as i can remember, consisting chiefly of busts of the emperors in porphyry; but they served a good purpose in the upholstery way. there were also magnificent tables, each composed of one great slab of porphyry; and also vases of nero antico, and other rarest substance. it remains to be mentioned that, on this almost summer day, i was quite chilled in passing through these glorious halls; no fireplace anywhere; no possibility of comfort; and in the hot season, when their coolness might be agreeable, it would be death to inhabit them. ascending a long winding staircase, we arrived at another suite of rooms, containing a good many not very remarkable pictures, and a few more pieces of statuary. among the latter, is canova's statue of pauline, the sister of bonaparte, who is represented with but little drapery, and in the character of venus holding the apple in her hand. it is admirably done, and, i have no doubt, a perfect likeness; very beautiful too; but it is wonderful to see how the artificial elegance of the woman of this world makes itself perceptible in spite of whatever simplicity she could find in almost utter nakedness. the statue does not afford pleasure in the contemplation. in one of these upper rooms are some works of bernini; two of them, aeneas and anchises, and david on the point of slinging a stone at goliath, have great merit, and do not tear and rend themselves quite out of the laws and limits of marble, like his later sculpture. here is also his apollo overtaking daphne, whose feet take root, whose, finger-tips sprout into twigs, and whose tender body roughens round about with bark, as he embraces her. it did not seem very wonderful to me; not so good as hillard's description of it made me expect; and one does not enjoy these freaks in marble. we were glad to emerge from the casino into the warm sunshine; and, for my part, i made the best of my way to a large fountain, surrounded by a circular stone seat of wide sweep, and sat down in a sunny segment of the circle. around grew a solemn company of old trees,--ilexes, i believe,-- with huge, contorted trunks and evergreen branches, . . . . deep groves, sunny openings, the airy gush of fountains, marble statues, dimly visible in recesses of foliage, great urns and vases, terminal figures, temples, --all these works of art looking as if they had stood there long enough to feel at home, and to be on friendly and familiar terms with the grass and trees. it is a most beautiful place, . . . . and the malaria is its true master and inhabitant! april d.--we have been recently to the studio of mr. brown [now dead], the american landscape-painter, and were altogether surprised and delighted with his pictures. he is a plain, homely yankee, quite unpolished by his many years' residence in italy; he talks ungrammatically, and in yankee idioms; walks with a strange, awkward gait and stooping shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque; but wins one's confidence by his very lack of grace. it is not often that we see an artist so entirely free from affectation in his aspect and deportment. his pictures were views of swiss and italian scenery, and were most beautiful and true. one of them, a moonlight picture, was really magical,-- the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw a light even beyond the limits of the picture,--and yet his sunrises and sunsets, and noontides too, were nowise inferior to this, although their excellence required somewhat longer study, to be fully appreciated. i seemed to receive more pleasure front mr. brown's pictures than from any of the landscapes by the old masters; and the fact serves to strengthen me in the belief that the most delicate if not the highest charm of a picture is evanescent, and that we continue to admire pictures prescriptively and by tradition, after the qualities that first won them their fame have vanished. i suppose claude was a greater landscape-painter than brown; but for my own pleasure i would prefer one of the latter artist's pictures,--those of the former being quite changed from what he intended them to be by the effect of time on his pigments. mr. brown showed us some drawings from nature, done with incredible care and minuteness of detail, as studies for his paintings. we complimented him on his patience; but he said, "o, it's not patience,--it's love!" in fact, it was a patient and most successful wooing of a beloved object, which at last rewarded him by yielding itself wholly. we have likewise been to mr. b------'s [now dead] studio, where we saw several pretty statues and busts, and among them an eve, with her wreath of fig-leaves lying across her poor nudity; comely in some points, but with a frightful volume of thighs and calves. i do not altogether see the necessity of ever sculpturing another nakedness. man is no longer a naked animal; his clothes are as natural to him as his skin, and sculptors have no more right to undress him than to flay him. also, we have seen again william story's cleopatra,--a work of genuine thought and energy, representing a terribly dangerous woman; quiet enough for the moment, but very likely to spring upon you like a tigress. it is delightful to escape to his creations from this universal prettiness, which seems to be the highest conception of the crowd of modern sculptors, and which they almost invariably attain. miss bremer called on us the other day. we find her very little changed from what she was when she came to take tea and spend an evening at our little red cottage, among the berkshire hills, and went away so dissatisfied with my conversational performances, and so laudatory of my brow and eyes, while so severely criticising my poor mouth and chin. she is the funniest little old fairy in person whom one can imagine, with a huge nose, to which all the rest of her is but an insufficient appendage; but you feel at once that she is most gentle, kind, womanly, sympathetic, and true. she talks english fluently, in a low quiet voice, but with such an accent that it is impossible to understand her without the closest attention. this was the real cause of the failure of our berkshire interview; for i could not guess, half the time, what she was saying, and, of course, had to take an uncertain aim with my responses. a more intrepid talker than myself would have shouted his ideas across the gulf; but, for me, there must first be a close and unembarrassed contiguity with my companion, or i cannot say one real word. i doubt whether i have ever really talked with half a dozen persons in my life, either men or women. to-day my wife and i have been at the picture and sculpture galleries of the capitol. i rather enjoyed looking at several of the pictures, though at this moment i particularly remember only a very beautiful face of a man, one of two heads on the same canvas by vandyke. yes; i did look with new admiration at paul veronese's "rape of europa." it must have been, in its day, the most brilliant and rejoicing picture, the most voluptuous, the most exuberant, that ever put the sunshine to shame. the bull has all jupiter in him, so tender and gentle, yet so passionate, that you feel it indecorous to look at him; and europa, under her thick rich stuffs and embroideries, is all a woman. what a pity that such a picture should fade, and perplex the beholder with such splendor shining through such forlornness! we afterwards went into the sculpture-gallery, where i looked at the faun of praxiteles, and was sensible of a peculiar charm in it; a sylvan beauty and homeliness, friendly and wild at once. the lengthened, but not preposterous ears, and the little tail, which we infer, have an exquisite effect, and make the spectator smile in his very heart. this race of fauns was the most delightful of all that antiquity imagined. it seems to me that a story, with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, might be contrived on the idea of their species having become intermingled with the human race; a family with the faun blood in them, having prolonged itself from the classic era till our own days. the tail might have disappeared, by dint of constant intermarriages with ordinary mortals; but the pretty hairy ears should occasionally reappear in members of the family; and the moral instincts and intellectual characteristics of the faun might be most picturesquely brought out, without detriment to the human interest of the story. fancy this combination in the person of a young lady! i have spoken of mr. gibson's colored statues. it seems (at least mr. nichols tells me) that he stains them with tobacco juice. . . . . were he to send a cupid to america, he need not trouble himself to stain it beforehand. april th.--night before last, my wife and i took a moonlight ramble through rome, it being a very beautiful night, warm enough for comfort, and with no perceptible dew or dampness. we set out at about nine o'clock, and, our general direction being towards the coliseum, we soon came to the fountain of trevi, full on the front of which the moonlight fell, making bernini's sculptures look stately and beautiful, though the semicircular gush and fall of the cascade, and the many jets of the water, pouring and bubbling into the great marble basin, are of far more account than neptune and his steeds, and the rest of the figures. . . . . we ascended the capitoline hill, and i felt a satisfaction in placing my hand on those immense blocks of stone, the remains of the ancient capitol, which form the foundation of the present edifice, and will make a sure basis for as many edifices as posterity may choose to rear upon it, till the end of the world. it is wonderful, the solidity with which those old romans built; one would suppose they contemplated the whole course of time as the only limit of their individual life. this is not so strange in the days of the republic, when, probably, they believed in the permanence of their institutions; but they still seemed to build for eternity, in the reigns of the emperors, when neither rulers nor people had any faith or moral substance, or laid any earnest grasp on life. reaching the top of the capitoline hill, we ascended the steps of the portal of the palace of the senator, and looked down into the piazza, with the equestrian statue of marcus aurelius in the centre of it. the architecture that surrounds the piazza is very ineffective; and so, in my opinion, are all the other architectural works of michael angelo, including st. peter's itself, of which he has made as little as could possibly be made of such a vast pile of material. he balances everything in such a way that it seems but half of itself. we soon descended into the piazza, and walked round and round the statue of marcus aurelius, contemplating it from every point and admiring it in all. . . . . on these beautiful moonlight nights, rome appears to keep awake and stirring, though in a quiet and decorous way. it is, in fact, the pleasantest time for promenades, and we both felt less wearied than by any promenade in the daytime, of similar extent, since our residence in rome. in future, i mean to walk often after nightfall. yesterday, we set out betimes, and ascended the dome of st. peter's. the best view of the interior of the church, i think, is from the first gallery beneath the dome. the whole inside of the dome is set with mosaic-work, the separate pieces being, so far as i could see, about half an inch square. emerging on the roof, we had a fine view of all the surrounding rome, including the mediterranean sea in the remote distance. above us still rose the whole mountain of the great dome, and it made an impression on me of greater height and size than i had yet been able to receive. the copper ball at the summit looked hardly bigger than a man could lift; and yet, a little while afterwards, u----, j-----, and i stood all together in that ball, which could have contained a dozen more along with us. the esplanade of the roof is, of course, very extensive; and along the front of it are ranged the statues which we see from below, and which, on nearer examination, prove to be roughly hewn giants. there is a small house on the roof, where, probably, the custodes of this part of the edifice reside; and there is a fountain gushing abundantly into a stone trough, that looked like an old sarcophagus. it is strange where the water comes from at such a height. the children tasted it, and pronounced it very warm and disagreeable. after taking in the prospect on all sides we rang a bell, which summoned a man, who directed us towards a door in the side of the dome, where a custode was waiting to admit us. hitherto the ascent had been easy, along a slope without stairs, up which, i believe, people sometimes ride on donkeys. the rest of the way we mounted steep and narrow staircases, winding round within the wall, or between the two walls of the dome, and growing narrower and steeper, till, finally, there is but a perpendicular iron ladder, by means of which to climb into the copper ball. except through small windows and peep-holes, there is no external prospect of a higher point than the roof of the church. just beneath the ball there is a circular room capable of containing a large company, and a door which ought to give access to a gallery on the outside; but the custode informed us that this door is never opened. as i have said, u----, j-----, and i clambered into the copper ball, which we found as hot as an oven; and, after putting our hands on its top, and on the summit of st. peter's, were glad to clamber down again. i have made some mistake, after all, in my narration. there certainly is a circular balcony at the top of the dome, for i remember walking round it, and looking, not only across the country, but downwards along the ribs of the dome; to which are attached the iron contrivances for illuminating it on easter sunday. . . . . before leaving the church we went to look at the mosaic copy of the "transfiguration," because we were going to see the original in the vatican, and wished to compare the two. going round to the entrance of the vatican, we went first to the manufactory of mosaics, to which we had a ticket of admission. we found it a long series of rooms, in which the mosaic artists were at work, chiefly in making some medallions of the heads of saints for the new church of st. paul's. it was rather coarse work, and it seemed to me that the mosaic copy was somewhat stiffer and more wooden than the original, the bits of stone not flowing into color quite so freely as paint from a brush. there was no large picture now in process of being copied; but two or three artists were employed on small and delicate subjects. one had a holy family of raphael in hand; and the sibyls of guercino and domenichino were hanging on the wall, apparently ready to be put into mosaic. wherever great skill and delicacy, on the artists' part were necessary, they seemed quite adequate to the occasion; but, after all, a mosaic of any celebrated picture is but a copy of a copy. the substance employed is a stone-paste, of innumerable different views, and in bits of various sizes, quantities of which were seen in cases along the whole series of rooms. we next ascended an amazing height of staircases, and walked along i know not what extent of passages, . . . . till we reached the picture-gallery of the vatican, into which i had never been before. there are but three rooms, all lined with red velvet, on which hung about fifty pictures, each one of them, no doubt, worthy to be considered a masterpiece. in the first room were three murillos, all so beautiful that i could have spent the day happily in looking at either of them; for, methinks, of all painters he is the tenderest and truest. i could not enjoy these pictures now, however, because in the next room, and visible through the open door, hung the "transfiguration." approaching it, i felt that the picture was worthy of its fame, and was far better than i could at once appreciate; admirably preserved, too, though i fully believe it must have possessed a charm when it left raphael's hand that has now vanished forever. as church furniture and an external adornment, the mosaic copy is preferable to the original, but no copy could ever reproduce all the life and expression which we see here. opposite to it hangs the "communion of st. jerome," the aged, dying saint, half torpid with death already, partaking of the sacrament, and a sunny garland of cherubs in the upper part of the picture, looking down upon him, and quite comforting the spectator with the idea that the old man needs only to be quite dead in order to flit away with them. as for the other pictures i did but glance at, and have forgotten them. the "transfiguration" is finished with great minuteness and detail, the weeds and blades of grass in the foreground being as distinct as if they were growing in a natural soil. a partly decayed stick of wood with the bark is likewise given in close imitation of nature. the reflection of a foot of one of the apostles is seen in a pool of water at the verge of the picture. one or two heads and arms seem almost to project from the canvas. there is great lifelikeness and reality, as well as higher qualities. the face of jesus, being so high aloft and so small in the distance, i could not well see; but i am impressed with the idea that it looks too much like human flesh and blood to be in keeping with the celestial aspect of the figure, or with the probabilities of the scene, when the divinity and immortality of the saviour beamed from within him through the earthly features that ordinarily shaded him. as regards the composition of the picture, i am not convinced of the propriety of its being in two so distinctly separate parts,--the upper portion not thinking of the lower, and the lower portion not being aware of the higher. it symbolizes, however, the spiritual short-sightedness of mankind that, amid the trouble and grief of the lower picture, not a single individual, either of those who seek help or those who would willingly afford it, lifts his eyes to that region, one glimpse of which would set everything right. one or two of the disciples point upward, but without really knowing what abundance of help is to be had there. april th.--to-day we have all been with mr. akers to some studios of painters; first to that of mr. wilde, an artist originally from boston. his pictures are principally of scenes from venice, and are miracles of color, being as bright as if the light were transmitted through rubies and sapphires. and yet, after contemplating them awhile, we became convinced that the painter had not gone in the least beyond nature, but, on the contrary, had fallen short of brilliancies which no palette, or skill, or boldness in using color, could attain. i do not quite know whether it is best to attempt these things. they may be found in nature, no doubt, but always so tempered by what surrounds them, so put out of sight even while they seem full before our eyes, that we question the accuracy of a faithful reproduction of them on canvas. there was a picture of sunset, the whole sky of which would have outshone any gilded frame that could have been put around it. there was a most gorgeous sketch of a handful of weeds and leaves, such as may be seen strewing acres of forest-ground in an american autumn. i doubt whether any other man has ever ventured to paint a picture like either of these two, the italian sunset or the american autumnal foliage. mr. wilde, who is still young, talked with genuine feeling and enthusiasm of his art, and is certainly a man of genius. we next went to the studio of an elderly swiss artist, named mueller, i believe, where we looked at a great many water-color and crayon drawings of scenes in italy, greece, and switzerland. the artist was a quiet, respectable, somewhat heavy-looking old gentleman, from whose aspect one would expect a plodding pertinacity of character rather than quickness of sensibility. he must have united both these qualities, however, to produce such pictures as these, such faithful transcripts of whatever nature has most beautiful to show, and which she shows only to those who love her deeply and patiently. they are wonderful pictures, compressing plains, seas, and mountains, with miles and miles of distance, into the space of a foot or two, without crowding anything or leaving out a feature, and diffusing the free, blue atmosphere throughout. the works of the english watercolor artists which i saw at the manchester exhibition seemed to me nowise equal to these. now, here are three artists, mr. brown, mr. wilde, and mr. mueller, who have smitten me with vast admiration within these few days past, while i am continually turning away disappointed from the landscapes of the most famous among the old masters, unable to find any charm or illusion in them. yet i suppose claude, poussin, and salvator rosa must have won their renown by real achievements. but the glory of a picture fades like that of a flower. contiguous to mr. mueller's studio was that of a young german artist, not long resident in rome, and mr. akers proposed that we should go in there, as a matter of kindness to the young man, who is scarcely known at all, and seldom has a visitor to look at his pictures. his studio comprised his whole establishment; for there was his little bed, with its white drapery, in a corner of the small room, and his dressing-table, with its brushes and combs, while the easel and the few sketches of italian scenes and figures occupied the foreground. i did not like his pictures very well, but would gladly have bought them all if i could have afforded it, the artist looked so cheerful, patient, and quiet, doubtless amidst huge discouragement. he is probably stubborn of purpose, and is the sort of man who will improve with every year of his life. we could not speak his language, and were therefore spared the difficulty of paying him any compliments; but miss shepard said a few kind words to him in german. and seemed quite to win his heart, insomuch that he followed her with bows and smiles a long way down the staircase. it is a terrible business, this looking at pictures, whether good or bad, in the presence of the artists who paint them; it is as great a bore as to hear a poet read his own verses. it takes away all my pleasure in seeing the pictures, and even remakes me question the genuineness of the impressions which i receive from them. after this latter visit mr. akers conducted us to the shop of the jeweller castellani, who is a great reproducer of ornaments in the old roman and etruscan fashion. these antique styles are very fashionable just now, and some of the specimens he showed us were certainly very beautiful, though i doubt whether their quaintness and old-time curiousness, as patterns of gewgaws dug out of immemorial tombs, be not their greatest charm. we saw the toilet-case of an etruscan lady,--that is to say, a modern imitation of it,--with her rings for summer and winter, and for every day of the week, and for thumb and fingers; her ivory comb; her bracelets; and more knick-knacks than i can half remember. splendid things of our own time were likewise shown us; a necklace of diamonds worth eighteen thousand scudi, together with emeralds and opals and great pearls. finally we came away, and my wife and miss shepard were taken up by the misses weston, who drove with them to visit the villa albani. during their drive my wife happened to raise her arm, and miss shepard espied a little greek cross of gold which had attached itself to the lace of her sleeve. . . . . pray heaven the jeweller may not discover his loss before we have time to restore the spoil! he is apparently so free and careless in displaying his precious wares,--putting inestimable genes and brooches great and small into the hands of strangers like ourselves, and leaving scores of them strewn on the top of his counter,--that it would seem easy enough to take a diamond or two; but i suspect there must needs be a sharp eye somewhere. before we left the shop he requested me to honor him with my autograph in a large book that was full of the names of his visitors. this is probably a measure of precaution. april th.--i went yesterday to the sculpture-gallery of the capitol, and looked pretty thoroughly through the busts of the illustrious men, and less particularly at those of the emperors and their relatives. i likewise took particular note of the faun of praxiteles, because the idea keeps recurring to me of writing a little romance about it, and for that reason i shall endeavor to set down a somewhat minutely itemized detail of the statue and its surroundings. . . . . we have had beautiful weather for two or three days, very warm in the sun, yet always freshened by the gentle life of a breeze, and quite cool enough the moment you pass within the limit of the shade. . . . . in the morning there are few people there (on the pincian) except the gardeners, lazily trimming the borders, or filling their watering-pots out of the marble-brimmed basin of the fountain; french soldiers, in their long mixed-blue surtouts, and wide scarlet pantaloons, chatting with here and there a nursery-maid and playing with the child in her care; and perhaps a few smokers, . . . . choosing each a marble seat or wooden bench in sunshine or shade as best suits him. in the afternoon, especially within an hour or two of sunset, the gardens are much more populous, and the seats, except when the sun falls full upon them, are hard to come by. ladies arrive in carriages, splendidly dressed; children are abundant, much impeded in their frolics, and rendered stiff and stately by the finery which they wear; english gentlemen and americans with their wives and families; the flower of the roman population, too, both male and female, mostly dressed with great nicety; but a large intermixture of artists, shabbily picturesque; and other persons, not of the first stamp. a french band, comprising a great many brass instruments, by and by begins to play; and what with music, sunshine, a delightful atmosphere, flowers, grass, well-kept pathways, bordered with box-hedges, pines, cypresses, horse-chestnuts, flowering shrubs, and all manner of cultivated beauty, the scene is a very lively and agreeable one. the fine equipages that drive round and round through the carriage-paths are another noticeable item. the roman aristocracy are magnificent in their aspect, driving abroad with beautiful horses, and footmen in rich liveries, sometimes as many as three behind and one sitting by the coachman. may st.--this morning, i wandered for the thousandth time through some of the narrow intricacies of rome, stepping here and there into a church. i do not know the name of the first one, nor had it anything that in rome could be called remarkable, though, till i came here, i was not aware that any such churches existed,--a marble pavement in variegated compartments, a series of shrines and chapels round the whole floor, each with its own adornment of sculpture and pictures, its own altar with tall wax tapers before it, some of which were burning; a great picture over the high altar, the whole interior of the church ranged round with pillars and pilasters, and lined, every inch of it, with rich yellow marble. finally, a frescoed ceiling over the nave and transepts, and a dome rising high above the central part, and filled with frescos brought to such perspective illusion, that the edges seem to project into the air. two or three persons are kneeling at separate shrines; there are several wooden confessionals placed against the walls, at one of which kneels a lady, confessing to a priest who sits within; the tapers are lighted at the high altar and at one of the shrines; an attendant is scrubbing the marble pavement with a broom and water, a process, i should think, seldom practised in roman churches. by and by the lady finishes her confession, kisses the priest's hand, and sits down in one of the chairs which are placed about the floor, while the priest, in a black robe, with a short, white, loose jacket over his shoulders, disappears by a side door out of the church. i, likewise, finding nothing attractive in the pictures, take my departure. protestantism needs a new apostle to convert it into something positive. . . . . i now found my way to the piazza navona. it is to me the most interesting piazza in rome; a large oblong space, surrounded with tall, shabby houses, among which there are none that seem to be palaces. the sun falls broadly over the area of the piazza, and shows the fountains in it;--one a large basin with great sea-monsters, probably of bernini's inventions, squirting very small streams of water into it; another of the fountains i do not at all remember; but the central one is an immense basin, over which is reared an old egyptian obelisk, elevated on a rock, which is cleft into four arches. monstrous devices in marble, i know not of what purport, are clambering about the cloven rock or burrowing beneath it; one and all of them are superfluous and impertinent, the only essential thing being the abundant supply of water in the fountain. this whole piazza navona is usually the scene of more business than seems to be transacted anywhere else in rome; in some parts of it rusty iron is offered for sale, locks and keys, old tools, and all such rubbish; in other parts vegetables, comprising, at this season, green peas, onions, cauliflowers, radishes, artichokes, and others with which i have never made acquaintance; also, stalls or wheelbarrows containing apples, chestnuts (the meats dried and taken out of the shells), green almonds in their husks, and squash-seeds,--salted and dried in an oven,--apparently a favorite delicacy of the romans. there are also lemons and oranges; stalls of fish, mostly about the size of smelts, taken from the tiber; cigars of various qualities, the best at a baioccho and a half apiece; bread in loaves or in small rings, a great many of which are strung together on a long stick, and thus carried round for sale. women and men sit with these things for sale, or carry them about in trays or on boards on their heads, crying them with shrill and hard voices. there is a shabby crowd and much babble; very little picturesqueness of costume or figure, however, the chief exceptions being, here and there, an old white-bearded beggar. a few of the men have the peasant costume,--a short jacket and breeches of light blue cloth and white stockings,--the ugliest dress i ever saw. the women go bareheaded, and seem fond of scarlet and other bright colors, but are homely and clumsy in form. the piazza is dingy in its general aspect, and very dirty, being strewn with straw, vegetable-tops, and the rubbish of a week's marketing; but there is more life in it than one sees elsewhere in rome. on one side of the piazza is the church of st. agnes, traditionally said to stand on the site of the house where that holy maiden was exposed to infamy by the roman soldiers, and where her modesty and innocence were saved by miracle. i went into the church, and found it very splendid, with rich marble columns, all as brilliant as if just built; a frescoed dome above; beneath, a range of chapels all round the church, ornamented not with pictures but bas-reliefs, the figures of which almost step and struggle out of the marble. they did not seem very admirable as works of art, none of them explaining themselves or attracting me long enough to study out their meaning; but, as part of the architecture of the church, they had a good effect. out of the busy square two or three persons had stepped into this bright and calm seclusion to pray and be devout, for a little while; and, between sunrise and sunset of the bustling market-day, many doubtless snatch a moment to refresh their souls. in the pantheon (to-day) it was pleasant looking up to the circular opening, to see the clouds flitting across it, sometimes covering it quite over, then permitting a glimpse of sky, then showing all the circle of sunny blue. then would come the ragged edge of a cloud, brightened throughout with sunshine, passing and changing quickly,--not that the divine smile was not always the same, but continually variable through the medium of earthly influences. the great slanting beam of sunshine was visible all the way down to the pavement, falling upon motes of dust, or a thin smoke of incense imperceptible in the shadow. insects were playing to and fro in the beam, high up toward the opening. there is a wonderful charm in the naturalness of all this, and one might fancy a swarm of cherubs coming down through the opening and sporting in the broad ray, to gladden the faith of worshippers on the pavement beneath; or angels bearing prayers upward, or bringing down responses to them, visible with dim brightness as they pass through the pathway of heaven's radiance, even the many hues of their wings discernible by a trusting eye; though, as they pass into the shadow, they vanish like the motes. so the sunbeam would represent those rays of divine intelligence which enable us to see wonders and to know that they are natural things. consider the effect of light and shade in a church where the windows are open and darkened with curtains that are occasionally lifted by a breeze, letting in the sunshine, which whitens a carved tombstone on the pavement of the church, disclosing, perhaps, the letters of the name and inscription, a death's-head, a crosier, or other emblem; then the curtain falls and the bright spot vanishes. may th.--this morning my wife and i went to breakfast with mrs. william story at the barberini palace, expecting to meet mrs. jameson, who has been in rome for a month or two. we had a very pleasant breakfast, but mrs. jameson was not present on account of indisposition, and the only other guests were mrs. a------ and mrs. h------, two sensible american ladies. mrs. story, however, received a note from mrs. jameson, asking her to bring us to see her at her lodgings; so in the course of the afternoon she called on us, and took us thither in her carriage. mrs. jameson lives on the first piano of an old palazzo on the via di ripetta, nearly opposite the ferry-way across the tiber, and affording a pleasant view of the yellow river and the green bank and fields on the other side. i had expected to see an elderly lady, but not quite so venerable a one as mrs. jameson proved to be; a rather short, round, and massive personage, of benign and agreeable aspect, with a sort of black skullcap on her head, beneath which appeared her hair, which seemed once to have been fair, and was now almost white. i should take her to be about seventy years old. she began to talk to us with affectionate familiarity, and was particularly kind in her manifestations towards myself, who, on my part, was equally gracious towards her. in truth, i have found great pleasure and profit in her works, and was glad to hear her say that she liked mine. we talked about art, and she showed us a picture leaning up against the wall of the room; a quaint old byzantine painting, with a gilded background, and two stiff figures (our saviour and st. catherine) standing shyly at a sacred distance from one another, and going through the marriage ceremony. there was a great deal of expression in their faces and figures; and the spectator feels, moreover, that the artist must have been a devout man,--an impression which we seldom receive from modern pictures, however awfully holy the subject, or however consecrated the place they hang in. mrs. jameson seems to be familiar with italy, its people and life, as well as with its picture-galleries. she is said to be rather irascible in her temper; but nothing could be sweeter than her voice, her look, and all her manifestations to-day. when we were coming away she clasped my hand in both of hers, and again expressed the pleasure of having seen me, and her gratitude to me for calling on her; nor did i refrain from responding amen to these effusions. . . . . taking leave of mrs. jameson, we drove through the city, and out of the lateran gate; first, however, waiting a long while at monaldini's bookstore in the piazza de' spagna for mr. story, whom we finally took up in the street, after losing nearly an hour. just two miles beyond the gate is a space on the green campagna where, for some time past, excavations have been in progress, which thus far have resulted in the discovery of several tombs, and the old, buried, and almost forgotten church or basilica of san stefano. it is a beautiful spot, that of the excavations, with the alban hills in the distance, and some heavy, sunlighted clouds hanging above, or recumbent at length upon them, and behind the city and its mighty dome. the excavations are an object of great interest both to the romans and to strangers, and there were many carriages and a great many visitors viewing the progress of the works, which are carried forward with greater energy than anything else i have seen attempted at rome. a short time ago the ground in the vicinity was a green surface, level, except here and there a little hillock, or scarcely perceptible swell; the tomb of cecilia metella showing itself a mile or two distant, and other rugged ruins of great tombs rising on the plain. now the whole site of the basilica is uncovered, and they have dug into the depths of several tombs, bringing to light precious marbles, pillars, a statue, and elaborately wrought sarcophagi; and if they were to dig into almost every other inequality that frets the surface of the campagna, i suppose the result might be the same. you cannot dig six feet downward anywhere into the soil, deep enough to hollow out a grave, without finding some precious relic of the past; only they lose somewhat of their value when you think that you can almost spurn them out of the ground with your foot. it is a very wonderful arrangement of providence that these things should have been preserved for a long series of coming generations by that accumulation of dust and soil and grass and trees and houses over them, which will keep them safe, and cause their reappearance above ground to be gradual, so that the rest of the world's lifetime may have for one of its enjoyments the uncovering of old rome. the tombs were accessible by long flights of steps going steeply downward, and they were thronged with so many visitors that we had to wait some little time for our own turn. in the first into which we descended we found two tombs side by side, with only a partition wall between; the outer tomb being, as is supposed, a burial-place constructed by the early christians, while the adjoined and minor one was a work of pagan rome about the second century after christ. the former was much less interesting than the latter. it contained some large sarcophagi, with sculpture upon them of rather heathenish aspect; and in the centre of the front of each sarcophagus was a bust in bas-relief, the features of which had never been wrought, but were left almost blank, with only the faintest indications of a nose, for instance. it is supposed that sarcophagi were kept on hand by the sculptors, and were bought ready made, and that it was customary to work out the portrait of the deceased upon the blank face in the centre; but when there was a necessity for sudden burial, as may have been the case in the present instance, this was dispensed with. the inner tomb was found without any earth in it, just as it had been left when the last old roman was buried there; and it being only a week or two since it was opened, there was very little intervention of persons, though much of time, between the departure of the friends of the dead and our own visit. it is a square room, with a mosaic pavement, and is six or seven paces in length and breadth, and as much in height to the vaulted roof. the roof and upper walls are beautifully ornamented with frescos, which were very bright when first discovered, but have rapidly faded since the admission of the air, though the graceful and joyous designs, flowers and fruits and trees, are still perfectly discernible. the room must have been anything but sad and funereal; on the contrary, as cheerful a saloon, and as brilliant, if lighted up, as one could desire to feast in. it contained several marble sarcophagi, covering indeed almost the whole floor, and each of them as much as three or four feet in length, and two much longer. the longer ones i did not particularly examine, and they seemed comparatively plainer; but the smaller sarcophagi were covered with the most delicately wrought and beautiful bas-reliefs that i ever beheld; a throng of glad and lovely shapes in marble clustering thickly and chasing one another round the sides of these old stone coffins. the work was as perfect as when the sculptor gave it his last touch; and if he had wrought it to be placed in a frequented hall, to be seen and admired by continual crowds as long as the marble should endure, he could not have chiselled with better skill and care, though his work was to be shut up in the depths of a tomb forever. this seems to me the strangest thing in the world, the most alien from modern sympathies. if they had built their tombs above ground, one could understand the arrangement better; but no sooner had they adorned them so richly, and furnished them with such exquisite productions of art, than they annihilated them with darkness. it was an attempt, no doubt, to render the physical aspect of death cheerful, but there was no good sense in it. we went down also into another tomb close by, the walls of which were ornamented with medallions in stucco. these works presented a numerous series of graceful designs, wrought by the hand in the short space of (mr. story said it could not have been more than) five or ten minutes, while the wet plaster remained capable of being moulded; and it was marvellous to think of the fertility of the artist's fancy, and the rapidity and accuracy with which he must have given substantial existence to his ideas. these too--all of them such adornments as would have suited a festal hall--were made to be buried forthwith in eternal darkness. i saw and handled in this tomb a great thigh-bone, and measured it with my own; it was one of many such relics of the guests who were laid to sleep in these rich chambers. the sarcophagi that served them for coffins could not now be put to a more appropriate use than as wine-coolers in a modern dining-room; and it would heighten the enjoyment of a festival to look at them. we would gladly have stayed much longer; but it was drawing towards sunset, and the evening, though bright, was unusually cool, so we drove home; and on the way, mr. story told us of the horrible practices of the modern romans with their dead,--how they place them in the church, where, at midnight, they are stripped of their last rag of funeral attire, put into the rudest wooden coffins, and thrown into a trench,--a half-mile, for instance, of promiscuous corpses. this is the fate of all, except those whose friends choose to pay an exorbitant sum to have them buried under the pavement of a church. the italians have an excessive dread of corpses, and never meddle with those of their nearest and dearest relatives. they have a horror of death, too, especially of sudden death, and most particularly of apoplexy; and no wonder, as it gives no time for the last rites of the church, and so exposes them to a fearful risk of perdition forever. on the whole, the ancient practice was, perhaps, the preferable one; but nature has made it very difficult for us to do anything pleasant and satisfactory with a dead body. god knows best; but i wish he had so ordered it that our mortal bodies, when we have done with them, might vanish out of sight and sense, like bubbles. a person of delicacy hates to think of leaving such a burden as his decaying mortality to the disposal of his friends; but, i say again, how delightful it would be, and how helpful towards our faith in a blessed futurity, if the dying could disappear like vanishing bubbles, leaving, perhaps, a sweet fragrance diffused for a minute or two throughout the death-chamber. this would be the odor of sanctity! and if sometimes the evaporation of a sinful soul should leave an odor not so delightful, a breeze through the open windows would soon waft it quite away. apropos of the various methods of disposing of dead bodies, william story recalled a newspaper paragraph respecting a ring, with a stone of a new species in it, which a widower was observed to wear upon his finger. being questioned as to what the gem was, he answered, "it is my wife." he had procured her body to be chemically resolved into this stone. i think i could make a story on this idea: the ring should be one of the widower's bridal gifts to a second wife; and, of course, it should have wondrous and terrible qualities, symbolizing all that disturbs the quiet of a second marriage,--on the husband's part, remorse for his inconstancy, and the constant comparison between the dead wife of his youth, now idealized, and the grosser reality which he had now adopted into her place; while on the new wife's finger it should give pressures, shooting pangs into her heart, jealousies of the past, and all such miserable emotions. by the by, the tombs which we looked at and entered may have been originally above ground, like that of cecilia metella, and a hundred others along the appian way; though, even in this case, the beautiful chambers must have been shut up in darkness. had there been windows, letting in the light upon the rich frescos and exquisite sculptures, there would have been a satisfaction in thinking of the existence of so much visual beauty, though no eye had the privilege to see it. but darkness, to objects of sight, is annihilation, as long as the darkness lasts. may th.--mrs. jameson called this forenoon to ask us to go and see her this evening; . . . . so that i had to receive her alone, devolving part of the burden on miss shepard and the three children, all of whom i introduced to her notice. finding that i had not been farther beyond the walls of rome than the tomb of cecilia metella, she invited me to take a drive of a few miles with her this afternoon. . . . . the poor lady seems to be very lame; and i am sure i was grateful to her for having taken the trouble to climb up the seventy steps of our staircase, and felt pain at seeing her go down them again. it looks fearfully like the gout, the affection being apparently in one foot. the hands, by the way, are white, and must once have been, perhaps now are, beautiful. she must have been a perfectly pretty woman in her day,--a blue or gray eyed, fair-haired beauty. i think that her hair is not white, but only flaxen in the extreme. at half past four, according to appointment, i arrived at her lodgings, and had not long to wait before her little one-horse carriage drove up to the door, and we set out, rumbling along the via scrofa, and through the densest part of the city, past the theatre of marcellus, and thence along beneath the palatine hill, and by the baths of caracalla, through the gate of san sebastiano. after emerging from the gate, we soon came to the little church of "domine, quo vadis?" standing on the spot where st. peter is said to have seen a vision of our saviour bearing his cross, mrs. jameson proposed to alight; and, going in, we saw a cast from michael angelo's statue of the saviour; and not far from the threshold of the church, yet perhaps in the centre of the edifice, which is extremely small, a circular stone is placed, a little raised above the pavement, and surrounded by a low wooden railing. pointing to this stone, mrs. jameson showed me the prints of two feet side by side, impressed into its surface, as if a person had stopped short while pursuing his way to rome. these, she informed me, were supposed to be the miraculous prints of the saviour's feet; but on looking into murray, i am mortified to find that they are merely facsimiles of the original impressions, which are treasured up among the relics of the neighboring basilica of san sebastiano. the marks of sculpture seemed to me, indeed, very evident in these prints, nor did they indicate such beautiful feet as should have belonged to the hearer of the best of glad tidings. hence we drove on a little way farther, and came to the basilica of san sebastiano, where also we alighted, and, leaning on my arm, mrs. jameson went in. it is a stately and noble interior, with a spacious unencumbered nave, and a flat ceiling frescoed and gilded. in a chapel at the left of the entrance is the tomb of st. sebastian,--a sarcophagus containing his remains, raised on high before the altar, and beneath it a recumbent statue of the saint pierced with gilded arrows. the sculpture is of the school of bernini,--done after the design of bernini himself, mrs. jameson said, and is more agreeable and in better taste than most of his works. we walked round the basilica, glancing at the pictures in the various chapels, none of which seemed to be of remarkable merit, although mrs. jameson pronounced rather a favorable verdict on one of st. francis. she says that she can read a picture like the page of a book; in fact, without perhaps assuming more taste and judgment than really belong to her, it was impossible not to perceive that she gave her companion no credit for knowing one single simplest thing about art. nor, on the whole, do i think she underrated me; the only mystery is, how she came to be so well aware of my ignorance on artistical points. in the basilica the franciscan monks were arranging benches on the floor of the nave, and some peasant children and grown people besides were assembling, probably to undergo an examination in the catechism, and we hastened to depart, lest our presence should interfere with their arrangements. at the door a monk met us, and asked for a contribution in aid of his church, or some other religious purpose. boys, as we drove on, ran stoutly along by the side of the chaise, begging as often as they could find breath, but were constrained finally to give up the pursuit. the great ragged bulks of the tombs along the appian way now hove in sight, one with a farm-house on its summit, and all of them preposterously huge and massive. at a distance, across the green campagna on our left, the claudian aqueduct strode away over miles of space, and doubtless reached even to that circumference of blue hills which stand afar off, girdling rome about. the tomb of cecilia metella came in sight a long while before we reached it, with the warm buff hue of its travertine, and the gray battlemented wall which the caetanis erected on the top of its circular summit six hundred years ago. after passing it, we saw an interminable line of tombs on both sides of the way, each of which might, for aught i know, have been as massive as that of cecilia metella, and some perhaps still more monstrously gigantic, though now dilapidated and much reduced in size. mrs. jameson had an engagement to dinner at half past six, so that we could go but a little farther along this most interesting road, the borders of which are strewn with broken marbles; fragments of capitals, and nameless rubbish that once was beautiful. methinks the appian way should be the only entrance to rome,--through an avenue of tombs. the day had been cloudy, chill, and windy, but was now grown calmer and more genial, and brightened by a very pleasant sunshine, though great dark clouds were still lumbering up the sky. we drove homeward, looking at the distant dome of st. peter's and talking of many things,--painting, sculpture, america, england, spiritualism, and whatever else came up. she is a very sensible old lady, and sees a great deal of truth; a good woman, too, taking elevated views of matters; but i doubt whether she has the highest and finest perceptions in the world. at any rate, she pronounced a good judgment on the american sculptors now in rome, condemning them in the mass as men with no high aims, no worthy conception of the purposes of their art, and desecrating marble by the things they wrought in it. william story, i presume, is not to be included in this censure, as she had spoken highly of his sculpturesque faculty in our previous conversation. on my part, i suggested that the english sculptors were little or nothing better than our own, to which she acceded generally, but said that gibson had produced works equal to the antique,--which i did not dispute, but still questioned whether the world needed gibson, or was any the better for him. we had a great dispute about the propriety of adopting the costume of the day in modern sculpture, and i contended that either the art ought to be given up (which possibly would be the best course), or else should be used for idealizing the man of the day to himself; and that, as nature makes us sensible of the fact when men and women are graceful, beautiful, and noble, through whatever costume they wear, so it ought to be the test of the sculptor's genius that he should do the same. mrs. jameson decidedly objected to buttons, breeches, and all other items of modern costume; and, indeed, they do degrade the marble, and make high sculpture utterly impossible. then let the art perish as one that the world has done with, as it has done with many other beautiful things that belonged to an earlier time. it was long past the hour of mrs. jameson's dinner engagement when we drove up to her door in the via ripetta. i bade her farewell with much good-feeling on my own side, and, i hope, on hers, excusing myself, however, from keeping the previous engagement to spend the evening with her, for, in point of fact, we had mutually had enough of one another for the time being. i am glad to record that she expressed a very favorable opinion of our friend mr. thompson's pictures. may th.--to-day we have been to the villa albani, to which we had a ticket of admission through the agency of mr. cass (the american minister). we set out between ten and eleven o'clock, and walked through the via felice, the piazza barberini, and a long, heavy, dusty range of streets beyond, to the porta salara, whence the road extends, white and sunny, between two high blank walls to the gate of the villa, which is at no great distance. we were admitted by a girl, and went first to the casino, along an aisle of overshadowing trees, the branches of which met above our heads. in the portico of the casino, which extends along its whole front, there are many busts and statues, and, among them, one of julius caesar, representing him at an earlier period of life than others which i have seen. his aspect is not particularly impressive; there is a lack of chin, though not so much as in the older statues and busts. within the edifice there is a large hall, not so brilliant, perhaps, with frescos and gilding as those at the villa borghese, but lined with the most beautiful variety of marbles. but, in fact, each new splendor of this sort outshines the last, and unless we could pass from one to another all in the same suite, we cannot remember them well enough to compare the borghese with the albani, the effect being more on the fancy than on the intellect. i do not recall any of the sculpture, except a colossal bas-relief of antinous, crowned with flowers, and holding flowers in his hand, which was found in the ruins of hadrian's villa. this is said to be the finest relic of antiquity next to the apollo and the laocoon; but i could not feel it to be so, partly, i suppose, because the features of autinous do not seem to me beautiful in themselves; and that heavy, downward look is repeated till i am more weary of it than of anything else in sculpture. we went up stairs and down stairs, and saw a good many beautiful things, but none, perhaps, of the very best and beautifullest; and second-rate statues, with the corroded surface of old marble that has been dozens of centuries under the ground, depress the spirits of the beholder. the bas-relief of antinous has at least the merit of being almost as white and fresh, and quite as smooth, as if it had never been buried and dug up again. the real treasures of this villa, to the number of nearly three hundred, were removed to paris by napoleon, and, except the antinous, not one of them ever came back. there are some pictures in one or two of the rooms, and among them i recollect one by perugino, in which is a st. michael, very devout and very beautiful; indeed, the whole picture (which is in compartments, representing the three principal points of the saviour's history) impresses the beholder as being painted devoutly and earnestly by a religious man. in one of the rooms there is a small bronze apollo, supposed by winckelmann to be an original of praxiteles; but i could not make myself in the least sensible of its merit. the rest of the things in the casino i shall pass over, as also those in the coffee-house,--an edifice which stands a hundred yards or more from the casino, with an ornamental garden, laid out in walks and flower-plats between. the coffee-house has a semicircular sweep of porch with a good many statues and busts beneath it, chiefly of distinguished romans. in this building, as in the casino, there are curious mosaics, large vases of rare marble, and many other things worth long pauses of admiration; but i think that we were all happier when we had done with the works of art, and were at leisure to ramble about the grounds. the villa albani itself is an edifice separate from both the coffee-house and casino, and is not opened to strangers. it rises, palace-like, in the midst of the garden, and, it is to be hoped, has some possibility of comfort amidst its splendors.--comfort, however, would be thrown away upon it; for besides that the site shares the curse that has fallen upon every pleasant place in the vicinity of rome, . . . . it really has no occupant except the servants who take care of it. the count of castelbarco, its present proprietor, resides at milan. the grounds are laid out in the old fashion of straight paths, with borders of box, which form hedges of great height and density, and as even as a brick wall at the top and sides. there are also alleys forming long vistas between the trunks and beneath the boughs of oaks, ilexes, and olives; and there are shrubberies and tangled wildernesses of palm, cactus, rhododendron, and i know not what; and a profusion of roses that bloom and wither with nobody to pluck and few to look at them. they climb about the sculpture of fountains, rear themselves against pillars and porticos, run brimming over the walls, and strew the path with their falling leaves. we stole a few, and feel that we have wronged our consciences in not stealing more. in one part of the grounds we saw a field actually ablaze with scarlet poppies. there are great lagunas; fountains presided over by naiads, who squirt their little jets into basins; sunny lawns; a temple, so artificially ruined that we half believed it a veritable antique; and at its base a reservoir of water, in which stone swans seemed positively to float; groves of cypress; balustrades and broad flights of stone stairs, descending to lower levels of the garden; beauty, peace, sunshine, and antique repose on every side; and far in the distance the blue hills that encircle the campagna of rome. the day was very fine for our purpose; cheerful, but not too bright, and tempered by a breeze that seemed even a little too cool when we sat long in the shade. we enjoyed it till three o'clock. . . . . at the capitol there is a sarcophagus with a most beautiful bas-relief of the discovery of achilles by ulysses, in which there is even an expression of mirth on the faces of many of the spectators. and to-day at the albani a sarcophagus was ornamented with the nuptials of peleus and thetis. death strides behind every man, to be sure, at more or less distance, and, sooner or later, enters upon any event of his life; so that, in this point of view, they might each and all serve for bas-reliefs on a sarcophagus; but the romans seem to have treated death as lightly and playfully as they could, and tried to cover his dart with flowers, because they hated it so much. may th.--my wife and i went yesterday to the sistine chapel, it being my first visit. it is a room of noble proportions, lofty and long, though divided in the midst by a screen or partition of white marble, which rises high enough to break the effect of spacious unity. there are six arched windows on each side of the chapel, throwing down their light from the height of the walls, with as much as twenty feet of space (more i should think) between them and the floor. the entire walls and ceiling of this stately chapel are covered with paintings in fresco, except the space about ten feet in height from the floor, and that portion was intended to be adorned by tapestries from pictures by raphael, but, the design being prevented by his premature death, the projected tapestries have no better substitute than paper-hangings. the roof, which is flat at top, and coved or vaulted at the sides, is painted in compartments by michael angelo, with frescos representing the whole progress of the world and of mankind from its first formation by the almighty . . . . till after the flood. on one of the sides of the chapel are pictures by perugino, and other old masters, of subsequent events in sacred history; and the entire wall behind the altar, a vast expanse from the ceiling to the floor, is taken up with michael angelo's summing up of the world's history and destinies in his "last judgment." there can be no doubt that while these frescos continued in their perfection, there was nothing else to be compared with the magnificent and solemn beauty of this chapel. enough of ruined splendor still remains to convince the spectator of all that has departed; but methinks i have seen hardly anything else so forlorn and depressing as it is now, all dusky and dim, even the very lights having passed into shadows, and the shadows into utter blackness; so that it needs a sunshiny day, under the bright italian heavens, to make the designs perceptible at all. as we sat in the chapel there were clouds flitting across the sky; when the clouds came the pictures vanished; when the sunshine broke forth the figures sadly glimmered into something like visibility,--the almighty moving in chaos,--the noble shape of adam, the beautiful eve; and, beneath where the roof curves, the mighty figures of sibyls and prophets, looking as if they were necessarily so gigantic because the thought within them was so massive. in the "last judgment" the scene of the greater part of the picture lies in the upper sky, the blue of which glows through betwixt the groups of naked figures; and above sits jesus, not looking in the least like the saviour of the world, but, with uplifted arm, denouncing eternal misery on those whom he came to save. i fear i am myself among the wicked, for i found myself inevitably taking their part, and asking for at least a little pity, some few regrets, and not such a stern denunciatory spirit on the part of him who had thought us worth dying for. around him stand grim saints, and, far beneath, people are getting up sleepily out of their graves, not well knowing what is about to happen; many of them, however, finding themselves clutched by demons before they are half awake. it would be a very terrible picture to one who should really see jesus, the saviour, in that inexorable judge; but it seems to me very undesirable that he should ever be represented in that aspect, when it is so essential to our religion to believe him infinitely kinder and better towards us than we deserve. at the last day--i presume, that is, in all future days, when we see ourselves as we are--man's only inexorable judge will be himself, and the punishment of his sins will be the perception of them. in the lower corner of this great picture, at the right hand of the spectator, is a hideous figure of a damned person, girdled about with a serpent, the folds of which are carefully knotted between his thighs, so as, at all events, to give no offence to decency. this figure represents a man who suggested to pope paul iii. that the nudities of the "last judgment" ought to be draped, for which offence michael angelo at once consigned him to hell. it shows what a debtor's prison and dungeon of private torment men would make of hell if they had the control of it. as to the nudities, if they were ever more nude than now, i should suppose, in their fresh brilliancy, they might well have startled a not very squeamish eye. the effect, such as it is, of this picture, is much injured by the high altar and its canopy, which stands close against the wall, and intercepts a considerable portion of the sprawl of nakedness with which michael angelo has filled his sky. however, i am not unwilling to believe, with faith beyond what i can actually see, that the greatest pictorial miracles ever yet achieved have been wrought upon the walls and ceiling of the sistine chapel. in the afternoon i went with mr. thompson to see what bargain could be made with vetturinos for taking myself and family to florence. we talked with three or four, and found them asking prices of various enormity, from a hundred and fifty scudi down to little more than ninety; but mr. thompson says that they always begin in this way, and will probably come down to somewhere about seventy-five. mr. thompson took me into the via portoghese, and showed me an old palace, above which rose--not a very customary feature of the architecture of rome--a tall, battlemented tower. at one angle of the tower we saw a shrine of the virgin, with a lamp, and all the appendages of those numerous shrines which we see at the street-corners, and in hundreds of places about the city. three or four centuries ago, this palace was inhabited by a nobleman who had an only son and a large pet monkey, and one day the monkey caught the infant up and clambered to this lofty turret, and sat there with him in his arms grinning and chattering like the devil himself. the father was in despair, but was afraid to pursue the monkey lest he should fling down the child from the height of the tower and make his escape. at last he vowed that if the boy were safely restored to him he would build a shrine at the summit of the tower, and cause it to be kept as a sacred place forever. by and by the monkey came down and deposited the child on the ground; the father fulfilled his vow, built the shrine, and made it obligatory, on all future possessors of the palace to keep the lamp burning before it. centuries have passed, the property has changed hands; but still there is the shrine on the giddy top of the tower, far aloft over the street, on the very spot where the monkey sat, and there burns the lamp, in memory of the father's vow. this being the tenure by which the estate is held, the extinguishment of that flame might yet turn the present owner out of the palace. may st.--mamma and i went, yesterday forenoon, to the spada palace, which we found among the intricacies of central rome; a dark and massive old edifice, built around a court, the fronts giving on which are adorned with statues in niches, and sculptured ornaments. a woman led us up a staircase, and ushered us into a great gloomy hall, square and lofty, and wearing a very gray and ancient aspect, its walls being painted in chiaroscuro, apparently a great many years ago. the hall was lighted by small windows, high upward from the floors, and admitting only a dusky light. the only furniture or ornament, so far as i recollect, was the colossal statue of pompey, which stands on its pedestal at one side, certainly the sternest and severest of figures, and producing the most awful impression on the spectator. much of the effect, no doubt, is due to the sombre obscurity of the hall, and to the loneliness in which the great naked statue stands. it is entirely nude, except for a cloak that hangs down from the left shoulder; in the left hand, it holds a globe; the right arm is extended. the whole expression is such as the statue might have assumed, if, during the tumult of caesar's murder, it had stretched forth its marble hand, and motioned the conspirators to give over the attack, or to be quiet, now that their victim had fallen at its feet. on the left leg, about midway above the ankle, there is a dull, red stain, said to be caesar's blood; but, of course, it is just such a red stain in the marble as may be seen on the statue of antinous at the capitol. i could not see any resemblance in the face of the statue to that of the bust of pompey, shown as such at the capitol, in which there is not the slightest moral dignity, or sign of intellectual eminence. i am glad to have seen this statue, and glad to remember it in that gray, dim, lofty hall; glad that there were no bright frescos on the walls, and that the ceiling was wrought with massive beams, and the floor paved with ancient brick. from this anteroom we passed through several saloons containing pictures, some of which were by eminent artists; the judith of guido, a copy of which used to weary me to death, year after year, in the boston athenaeum; and many portraits of cardinals in the spada family, and other pictures, by guido. there were some portraits, also of the family, by titian; some good pictures by guercino; and many which i should have been glad to examine more at leisure; but, by and by, the custode made his appearance, and began to close the shutters, under pretence that the sunshine would injure the paintings,--an effect, i presume, not very likely to follow after two or three centuries' exposure to light, air, and whatever else might hurt them. however, the pictures seemed to be in much better condition, and more enjoyable, so far as they had merit, than those in most roman picture-galleries; although the spada palace itself has a decayed and impoverished aspect, as if the family had dwindled from its former state and grandeur, and now, perhaps, smuggled itself into some out-of-the-way corner of the old edifice. if such be the case, there is something touching in their still keeping possession of pompey's statue, which makes their house famous, and the sale of which might give them the means of building it up anew; for surely it is worth the whole sculpture-gallery of the vatican. in the afternoon mr. thompson and i went, for the third or fourth time, to negotiate with vetturinos. . . . . so far as i know them they are a very tricky set of people, bent on getting as much as they can, by hook or by crook, out of the unfortunate individual who falls into their hands. they begin, as i have said, by asking about twice as much as they ought to receive; and anything between this exorbitant amount and the just price is what they thank heaven for, as so much clear gain. nevertheless, i am not quite sure that the italians are worse than other people even in this matter. in other countries it is the custom of persons in trade to take as much as they can get from the public, fleecing one man to exactly the same extent as another; here they take what they can obtain from the individual customer. in fact, roman tradesmen do not pretend to deny that they ask and receive different prices from different people, taxing them according to their supposed means of payment; the article supplied being the same in one case as in another. a shopkeeper looked into his books to see if we were of the class who paid two pauls, or only a paul and a half for candles; a charcoal-dealer said that seventy baiocchi was a very reasonable sum for us to pay for charcoal, and that some persons paid eighty; and mr. thompson, recognizing the rule, told the old vetturino that "a hundred and fifty scudi was a very proper charge for carrying a prince to florence, but not for carrying me, who was merely a very good artist." the result is well enough; the rich man lives expensively, and pays a larger share of the profits which people of a different system of trade-morality would take equally from the poor man. the effect on the conscience of the vetturino, however, and of tradesmen of all kinds, cannot be good; their only intent being, not to do justice between man and man, but to go as deep as they can into all pockets, and to the very bottom of some. we had nearly concluded a bargain, a day or two ago, with a vetturino to take or send us to florence, via perugia, in eight days, for a hundred scudi; but he now drew back, under pretence of having misunderstood the terms, though, in reality, no doubt, he was in hopes of getting a better bargain from somebody else. we made an agreement with another man, whom mr. thompson knows and highly recommends, and immediately made it sure and legally binding by exchanging a formal written contract, in which everything is set down, even to milk, butter, bread, eggs, and coffee, which we are to have for breakfast; the vetturino being to pay every expense for himself, his horses, and his passengers, and include it within ninety-five scudi, and five crowns in addition for buon-mano. . . . . . may d.--yesterday, while we were at dinner, mr. ------ called. i never saw him but once before, and that was at the door of our little red cottage in lenox; he sitting in a wagon with one or two of the sedgewicks, merely exchanging a greeting with me from under the brim of his straw hat, and driving on. he presented himself now with a long white beard, such as a palmer might have worn as the growth of his long pilgrimages, a brow almost entirely bald, and what hair he has quite hoary; a forehead impending, yet not massive; dark, bushy eyebrows and keen eyes, without much softness in them; a dark and sallow complexion; a slender figure, bent a little with age; but at once alert and infirm. it surprised me to see him so venerable; for, as poets are apollo's kinsmen, we are inclined to attribute to them his enviable quality of never growing old. there was a weary look in his face, as if he were tired of seeing things and doing things, though with certainly enough still to see and do, if need were. my family gathered about him, and he conversed with great readiness and simplicity about his travels, and whatever other subject came up; telling us that he had been abroad five times, and was now getting a little home-sick, and had no more eagerness for sights, though his "gals" (as he called his daughter and another young lady) dragged him out to see the wonders of rome again. his manners and whole aspect are very particularly plain, though not affectedly so; but it seems as if in the decline of life, and the security of his position, he had put off whatever artificial polish he may have heretofore had, and resumed the simpler habits and deportment of his early new england breeding. not but what you discover, nevertheless, that he is a man of refinement, who has seen the world, and is well aware of his own place in it. he spoke with great pleasure of his recent visit to spain. i introduced the subject of kansas, and methought his face forthwith assumed something of the bitter keenness of the editor of a political newspaper, while speaking of the triumph of the administration over the free-soil opposition. i inquired whether he had seen s------, and he gave a very sad account of him as he appeared at their last meeting, which was in paris. s------, he thought, had suffered terribly, and would never again be the man he was; he was getting fat; he talked continually of himself, and of trifles concerning himself, and seemed to have no interest for other matters; and mr. ------ feared that the shock upon his nerves had extended to his intellect, and was irremediable. he said that s------ ought to retire from public life, but had no friend true enough to tell him so. this is about as sad as anything can be. i hate to have s------ undergo the fate of a martyr, because he was not naturally of the stuff that martyrs are made of, and it is altogether by mistake that he has thrust himself into the position of one. he was merely, though with excellent abilities, one of the best of fellows, and ought to have lived and died in good fellowship with all the world. s------ was not in the least degree excited about this or any other subject. he uttered neither passion nor poetry, but excellent good sense, and accurate information on whatever subject transpired; a very pleasant man to associate with, but rather cold, i should imagine, if one should seek to touch his heart with one's own. he shook hands kindly all round, but not with any warmth of gripe; although the ease of his deportment had put us all on sociable terms with him. at seven o'clock we went by invitation to take tea with miss bremer. after much search, and lumbering painfully up two or three staircases in vain, and at last going about in a strange circuity, we found her in a small chamber of a large old building, situated a little way from the brow of the tarpeian rock. it was the tiniest and humblest domicile that i have seen in rome, just large enough to hold her narrow bed, her tea-table, and a table covered with books,--photographs of roman ruins, and some pages written by herself. i wonder whether she be poor. probably so; for she told us that her expense of living here is only five pauls a day. she welcomed us, however, with the greatest cordiality and lady-like simplicity, making no allusion to the humbleness of her environment (and making us also lose sight of it, by the absence of all apology) any more than if she were receiving us in a palace. there is not a better bred woman; and yet one does not think whether she has any breeding or no. her little bit of a round table was already spread for us with her blue earthenware teacups; and after she had got through an interview with the swedish minister, and dismissed him with a hearty pressure of his hand between both her own, she gave us our tea, and some bread, and a mouthful of cake. meanwhile, as the day declined, there had been the most beautiful view over the campagna, out of one of her windows; and, from the other, looking towards st. peter's, the broad gleam of a mildly glorious sunset; not so pompous and magnificent as many that i have seen in america, but softer and sweeter in all its changes. as its lovely hues died slowly away, the half-moon shone out brighter and brighter; for there was not a cloud in the sky, and it seemed like the moonlight of my younger days. in the garden, beneath her window, verging upon the tarpeian rock, there was shrubbery and one large tree, softening the brow of the famous precipice, adown which the old romans used to fling their traitors, or sometimes, indeed, their patriots. miss bremer talked plentifully in her strange manner,--good english enough for a foreigner, but so oddly intonated and accented, that it is impossible to be sure of more than one word in ten. being so little comprehensible, it is very singular how she contrives to make her auditors so perfectly certain, as they are, that she is talking the best sense, and in the kindliest spirit. there is no better heart than hers, and not many sounder heads; and a little touch of sentiment comes delightfully in, mixed up with a quick and delicate humor and the most perfect simplicity. there is also a very pleasant atmosphere of maidenhood about her; we are sensible of a freshness and odor of the morning still in this little withered rose,--its recompense for never having been gathered and worn, but only diffusing fragrance on its stem. i forget mainly what we talked about,--a good deal about art, of course, although that is a subject of which miss bremer evidently knows nothing. once we spoke of fleas,--insects that, in rome, come home to everybody's business and bosom, and are so common and inevitable, that no delicacy is felt about alluding to the sufferings they inflict. poor little miss bremer was tormented with one while turning out our tea. . . . . she talked, among other things, of the winters in sweden, and said that she liked them, long and severe as they are; and this made me feel ashamed of dreading the winters of new england, as i did before coming from home, and do now still more, after five or six mild english decembers. by and by, two young ladies came in,--miss bremen's neighbors, it seemed,--fresh from a long walk on the campagna, fresh and weary at the same time. one apparently was german, and the other french, and they brought her an offering of flowers, and chattered to her with affectionate vivacity; and, as we were about taking leave, miss bremer asked them to accompany her and us on a visit to the edge of the tarpeian rock. before we left the room, she took a bunch of roses that were in a vase, and gave them to miss shepard, who told her that she should make her six sisters happy by giving one to each. then we went down the intricate stairs, and, emerging into the garden, walked round the brow of the hill, which plunges headlong with exceeding abruptness; but, so far as i could see in the moonlight, is no longer quite a precipice. then we re-entered the house, and went up stairs and down again, through intricate passages, till we got into the street, which was still peopled with the ragamuffins who infest and burrow in that part of rome. we returned through an archway, and descended the broad flight of steps into the piazza of the capitol; and from the extremity of it, just at the head of the long graded way, where castor and pollux and the old milestones stand, we turned to the left, and followed a somewhat winding path, till we came into the court of a palace. this court is bordered by a parapet, leaning over which we saw the sheer precipice of the tarpeian rock, about the height of a four-story house. . . . . on the edge of this, before we left the court, miss bremer bade us farewell, kissing my wife most affectionately on each cheek, . . . . and then turning towards myself, . . . . she pressed my hand, and we parted, probably never to meet again. god bless her good heart! . . . . she is a most amiable little woman, worthy to be the maiden aunt of the whole human race. i suspect, by the by, that she does not like me half so well as i do her; it is my impression that she thinks me unamiable, or that there is something or other not quite right about me. i am sorry if it be so, because such a good, kindly, clear-sighted, and delicate person is very apt to have reason at the bottom of her harsh thoughts, when, in rare cases, she allows them to harbor with her. to-day, and for some days past, we have been in quest of lodgings for next winter; a weary search, up interminable staircases, which seduce us upward to no successful result. it is very disheartening not to be able to place the slightest reliance on the integrity of the people we are to deal with; not to believe in any connection between their words and their purposes; to know that they are certainly telling you falsehoods, while you are not in a position to catch hold of the lie, and hold it up in their faces. this afternoon we called on mr. and mrs. ------ at the hotel de l'europe, but found only the former at home. we had a pleasant visit, but i made no observations of his character save such as i have already sufficiently recorded; and when we had been with him a little while, mrs. chapman, the artist's wife, mr. terry, and my friend, mr. thompson, came in. ------ received them all with the same good degree of cordiality that he did ourselves, not cold, not very warm, not annoyed, not ecstatically delighted; a man, i should suppose, not likely to have ardent individual preferences, though perhaps capable of stern individual dislikes. but i take him, at all events, to be a very upright man, and pursuing a narrow track of integrity; he is a man whom i would never forgive (as i would a thousand other men) for the slightest moral delinquency. i would not be bound to say, however, that he has not the little sin of a fretful and peevish habit; and yet perhaps i am a sinner myself for thinking so. may d.--this morning i breakfasted at william story's, and met there mr. bryant, mr. t------ (an english gentleman), mr. and mrs. apthorp, miss hosmer, and one or two other ladies. bryant was very quiet, and made no conversation audible to the general table. mr. t------ talked of english politics and public men; the "times" and other newspapers, english clubs and social habits generally; topics in which i could well enough bear my part of the discussion. after breakfast, and aside from the ladies, he mentioned an illustration of lord ellenborough's lack of administrative ability,--a proposal seriously made by his lordship in reference to the refractory sepoys. . . . . we had a very pleasant breakfast, and certainly a breakfast is much preferable to a dinner, not merely in the enjoyment, while it is passing, but afterwards. i made a good suggestion to miss hosmer for the design of a fountain,--a lady bursting into tears, water gushing from a thousand pores, in literal translation of the phrase; and to call the statue "niobe, all tears." i doubt whether she adopts the idea; but bernini would have been delighted with it. i should think the gush of water might be so arranged as to form a beautiful drapery about the figure, swaying and fluttering with every breath of wind, and rearranging itself in the calm; in which case, the lady might be said to have "a habit of weeping." . . . . apart, with william story, he and i talked of the unluckiness of friday, etc. i like him particularly well. . . . . we have been plagued to-day with our preparations for leaving rome to-morrow, and especially with verifying the inventory of furniture, before giving up the house to our landlord. he and his daughter have been examining every separate article, down even to the kitchen skewers, i believe, and charging us to the amount of several scudi for cracks and breakages, which very probably existed when we came into possession. it is very uncomfortable to have dealings with such a mean people (though our landlord is german),--mean in their business transactions; mean even in their beggary; for the beggars seldom ask for more than a mezzo baioccho, though they sometimes grumble when you suit your gratuity exactly to their petition. it is pleasant to record that the italians have great faith in the honor of the english and americans, and never hesitate to trust entire strangers, to any reasonable extent, on the strength of their being of the honest anglo-saxon race. this evening, u---- and i took a farewell walk in the pincian gardens to see the sunset; and found them crowded with people, promenading and listening to the music of the french baud. it was the feast of whitsunday, which probably brought a greater throng than usual abroad. when the sun went down, we descended into the piazza del popolo, and thence into the via ripetta, and emerged through a gate to the shore of the tiber, along which there is a pleasant walk beneath a grove of trees. we traversed it once and back again, looking at the rapid river, which still kept its mud-puddly aspect even in the clear twilight, and beneath the brightening moon. the great bell of st. peter's tolled with a deep boom, a grand and solemn sound; the moon gleamed through the branches of the trees above us; and u---- spoke with somewhat alarming fervor of her love for rome, and regret at leaving it. we shall have done the child no good office in bringing her here, if the rest of her life is to be a dream of this "city of the soul," and an unsatisfied yearning to come back to it. on the other hand, nothing elevating and refining can be really injurious, and so i hope she will always be the better for rome, even if her life should be spent where there are no pictures, no statues, nothing but the dryness and meagreness of a new england village. journey to florence. civita castellana, may th.--we left rome this morning, after troubles of various kinds, and a dispute in the first place with lalla, our female servant, and her mother. . . . . mother and daughter exploded into a livid rage, and cursed us plentifully,--wishing that we might never come to our journey's end, and that we might all break our necks or die of apoplexy,--the most awful curse that an italian knows how to invoke upon his enemies, because it precludes the possibility of extreme unction. however, as we are heretics, and certain of damnation therefore, anyhow, it does not much matter to us; and also the anathemas may have been blown back upon those who invoked them, like the curses that were flung out from the balcony of st peter's during holy week and wafted by heaven's breezes right into the faces of some priests who stood near the pope. next we had a disagreement, with two men who brought down our luggage, and put it on the vettura; . . . . and, lastly, we were infested with beggars, who hung round the carriages with doleful petitions, till we began to move away; but the previous warfare had put me into too stern a mood for almsgiving, so that they also were doubtless inclined to curse more than to bless, and i am persuaded that we drove off under a perfect shower of anathemas. we passed through the porta del popolo at about eight o'clock; and after a moment's delay, while the passport was examined, began our journey along the flaminian way, between two such high and inhospitable walls of brick or stone as seem to shut in all the avenues to rome. we had not gone far before we heard military music in advance of us, and saw the road blocked up with people, and then the glitter of muskets, and soon appeared the drummers, fifers, and trumpeters, and then the first battalion of a french regiment, marching into the city, with two mounted officers at their head; then appeared a second and then a third battalion, the whole seeming to make almost an army, though the number on their caps showed them all to belong to one regiment,--the st; then came a battery of artillery, then a detachment of horse,--these last, by the crossed keys on their helmets, being apparently papal troops. all were young, fresh, good-looking men, in excellent trim as to uniform and equipments, and marched rather as if they were setting out on a campaign than returning from it; the fact being, i believe, that they have been encamped or in barracks within a few miles of the city. nevertheless, it reminded me of the military processions of various kinds which so often, two thousand years ago and more, entered rome over the flaminian way, and over all the roads that led to the famous city,--triumphs oftenest, but sometimes the downcast train of a defeated army, like those who retreated before hannibal. on the whole, i was not sorry to see the gauls still pouring into rome; but yet i begin to find that i have a strange affection for it, and so did we all,--the rest of the family in a greater degree than myself even. it is very singular, the sad embrace with which rome takes possession of the soul. though we intend to return in a few months, and for a longer residence than this has been, yet we felt the city pulling at our heartstrings far more than london did, where we shall probably never spend much time again. it may be because the intellect finds a home there more than in any other spot in the world, and wins the heart to stay with it, in spite of a good many things strewn all about to disgust us. the road in the earlier part of the way was not particularly picturesque,--the country undulated, but scarcely rose into hills, and was destitute of trees; there were a few shapeless ruins, too indistinct for us to make out whether they were roman or mediaeval. nothing struck one so much, in the forenoon, as the spectacle of a peasant-woman riding on horseback as if she were a man. the houses were few, and those of a dreary aspect, built of gray stone, and looking bare and desolate, with not the slightest promise of comfort within doors. we passed two or three locandas or inns, and finally came to the village (if village it were, for i remember no houses except our osteria) of castel nuovo di porta, where we were to take a dejeuner a la fourchette, which was put upon the table between twelve and one. on this journey, according to the custom of travellers in italy, we pay the vetturino a certain sum, and live at his expense; and this meal was the first specimen of his catering on our behalf. it consisted of a beefsteak, rather dry and hard, but not unpalatable, and a large omelette; and for beverage, two quart bottles of red wine, which, being tasted, had an agreeable acid flavor. . . . . the locanda was built of stone, and had what looked like an old roman altar in the basement-hall, and a shrine, with a lamp before it, on the staircase; and the large public saloon in which we ate had a brick floor, a ceiling with cross-beams, meagrely painted in fresco, and a scanty supply of chairs and settees. after lunch, we wandered out into a valley or ravine near the house, where we gathered some flowers, and j----- found a nest with the young birds in it, which, however, he put back into the bush whence he took it. our afternoon drive was more picturesque and noteworthy. soracte rose before us, bulging up quite abruptly out of the plain, and keeping itself entirely distinct from a whole horizon of hills. byron well compares it to a wave just on the bend, and about to break over towards the spectator. as we approached it nearer and nearer, it looked like the barrenest great rock that ever protruded out of the substance of the earth, with scarcely a strip or a spot of verdure upon its steep and gray declivities. the road kept trending towards the mountain, following the line of the old flaminian way, which we could see, at frequent intervals, close beside the modern track. it is paved with large flag-stones, laid so accurately together, that it is still, in some places, as smooth and even as the floor of a church; and everywhere the tufts of grass find it difficult to root themselves into the interstices. its course is straighter than that of the road of to-day, which often turns aside to avoid obstacles which the ancient one surmounted. much of it, probably, is covered with the soil and overgrowth deposited in later years; and, now and then, we could see its flag-stones partly protruding from the bank through which our road has been cut, and thus showing that the thickness of this massive pavement was more than a foot of solid stone. we lost it over and over again; but still it reappeared, now on one side of us, now on the other; perhaps from beneath the roots of old trees, or the pasture-land of a thousand years old, and leading on towards the base of soracte. i forget where we finally lost it. passing through a town called rignano, we found it dressed out in festivity, with festoons of foliage along both sides of the street, which ran beneath a triumphal arch, bearing an inscription in honor of a ducal personage of the massimi family. i know no occasion for the feast, except that it is whitsuntide. the town was thronged with peasants, in their best attire, and we met others on their way thither, particularly women and girls, with heads bare in the sunshine; but there was no tiptoe jollity, nor, indeed, any more show of festivity than i have seen in my own country at a cattle-show or muster. really, i think, not half so much. the road still grew more and more picturesque, and now lay along ridges, at the bases of which were deep ravines and hollow valleys. woods were not wanting; wilder forests than i have seen since leaving america, of oak-trees chiefly; and, among the green foliage, grew golden tufts of broom, making a gay and lovely combination of hues. i must not forget to mention the poppies, which burned like live coals along the wayside, and lit up the landscape, even a single one of them, with wonderful effect. at other points, we saw olive-trees, hiding their eccentricity of boughs under thick masses of foliage of a livid tint, which is caused, i believe, by their turning their reverse sides to the light and to the spectator. vines were abundant, but were of little account in the scene. by and by we came in sight, of the high, flat table-land, on which stands civita castellana, and beheld, straight downward, between us and the town, a deep level valley with a river winding through it; it was the valley of the treja. a precipice, hundreds of feet in height, falls perpendicularly upon the valley, from the site of civita castellana; there is an equally abrupt one, probably, on the side from which we saw it; and a modern road, skilfully constructed, goes winding down to the stream, crosses it by a narrow stone bridge, and winds upward into the town. after passing over the bridge, i alighted, with j----- and r-----, . . . . and made the ascent on foot, along walls of natural rock, in which old etruscan tombs were hollowed out. there are likewise antique remains of masonry, whether roman or of what earlier period, i cannot tell. at the summit of the acclivity, which brought us close to the town, our vetturino took us into the carriage again and quickly brought us to what appears to be really a good hotel, where all of us are accommodated with sleeping-chambers in a range, beneath an arcade, entirely secluded from the rest of the population of the hotel. after a splendid dinner (that is, splendid, considering that it was ordered by our hospitable vetturino), u----, miss shepard, j-----, and i walked out of the little town, in the opposite direction from our entrance, and crossed a bridge at the height of the table-land, instead of at its base. on either side, we had a view down into a profound gulf, with sides of precipitous rock, and heaps of foliage in its lap, through which ran the snowy track of a stream; here snowy, there dark; here hidden among the foliage, there quite revealed in the broad depths of the gulf. this was wonderfully fine. walking on a little farther, soracte came fully into view, starting with bold abruptness out of the middle of the country; and before we got back, the bright italian moon was throwing a shower of silver over the scene, and making it so beautiful that it seemed miserable not to know how to put it into words; a foolish thought, however, for such scenes are an expression in themselves, and need not be translated into any feebler language. on our walk we met parties of laborers, both men and women, returning from the fields, with rakes and wooden forks over their shoulders, singing in chorus. it is very customary for women to be laboring in the fields. to terni.--borghetto. may th.--we were aroused at four o'clock this morning; had some eggs and coffee, and were ready to start between five and six; being thus matutinary, in order to get to terni in time to see the falls. the road was very striking and picturesque; but i remember nothing particularly, till we came to borghetto, which stands on a bluff, with a broad valley sweeping round it, through the midst of which flows the tiber. there is an old castle on a projecting point; and we saw other battlemented fortresses, of mediaeval date, along our way, forming more beautiful ruins than any of the roman remains to which we have become accustomed. this is partly, i suppose, owing to the fact that they have been neglected, and allowed to mantle their decay with ivy, instead of being cleaned, propped up, and restored. the antiquarian is apt to spoil the objects that interest him. sometimes we passed through wildernesses of various trees, each contributing a different hue of verdure to the scene; the vine, also, marrying itself to the fig-tree, so that a man might sit in the shadow of both at once, and temper the luscious sweetness of the one fruit with the fresh flavor of the other. the wayside incidents were such as meeting a man and woman borne along as prisoners, handcuffed and in a cart; two men reclining across one another, asleep, and lazily lifting their heads to gaze at us as we passed by; a woman spinning with a distaff as she walked along the road. an old tomb or tower stood in a lonely field, and several caves were hollowed in the rocks, which might have been either sepulchres or habitations. soracte kept us company, sometimes a little on one side, sometimes behind, looming up again and again, when we thought that we had done with it, and so becoming rather tedious at last, like a person who presents himself for another and another leave-taking after the one which ought to have been final. honeysuckles sweetened the hedges along the road. after leaving borghetto, we crossed the broad valley of the tiber, and skirted along one of the ridges that border it, looking back upon the road that we had passed, lying white behind us. we saw a field covered with buttercups, or some other yellow flower, and poppies burned along the roadside, as they did yesterday, and there were flowers of a delicious blue, as if the blue italian sky had been broken into little bits, and scattered down upon the green earth. otricoli by and by appeared, situated on a bold promontory above the valley, a village of a few gray houses and huts, with one edifice gaudily painted in white and pink. it looked more important at a distance than we found it on our nearer approach. as the road kept ascending, and as the hills grew to be mountains, we had taken two additional horses, making six in all, with a man and boy running beside them, to keep them in motion. the boy had two club feet, so inconveniently disposed that it seemed almost inevitable for him to stumble over them at every step; besides which, he seemed to tread upon his ankles, and moved with a disjointed gait, as if each of his legs and thighs had been twisted round together with his feet. nevertheless, he had a bright, cheerful, intelligent face, and was exceedingly active, keeping up with the horses at their trot, and inciting them to better speed when they lagged. i conceived a great respect for this poor boy, who had what most italian peasants would consider an enviable birthright in those two club feet, as giving him a sufficient excuse to live on charity, but yet took no advantage of them; on the contrary, putting his poor misshapen hoofs to such good use as might have shamed many a better provided biped. when he quitted us, he asked no alms of the travellers, but merely applied to gaetano for some slight recompense for his well-performed service. this behavior contrasted most favorably with that of some other boys and girls, who ran begging beside the carriage door, keeping up a low, miserable murmur, like that of a kennel-stream, for a long, long way. beggars, indeed, started up at every point, when we stopped for a moment, and whenever a hill imposed a slower pace upon us; each village had its deformity or its infirmity, offering his wretched petition at the step of the carriage; and even a venerable, white-haired patriarch, the grandfather of all the beggars, seemed to grow up by the roadside, but was left behind from inability to join in the race with his light-footed juniors. no shame is attached to begging in italy. in fact, i rather imagine it to be held an honorable profession, inheriting some of the odor of sanctity that used to be attached to a mendicant and idle life in the days of early christianity, when every saint lived upon providence, and deemed it meritorious to do nothing for his support. murray's guide-book is exceedingly vague and unsatisfactory along this route; and whenever we asked gaetano the name of a village or a castle, he gave some one which we had never heard before, and could find nothing of in the book. we made out the river nar, however, or what i supposed to be such, though he called it nera. it flows through a most stupendous mountain-gorge; winding its narrow passage between high hills, the broad sides of which descend steeply upon it, covered with trees and shrubbery, that mantle a host of rocky roughnesses, and make all look smooth. here and there a precipice juts sternly forth. we saw an old castle on a hillside, frowning down into the gorge; and farther on, the gray tower of narni stands upon a height, imminent over the depths below, and with its battlemented castle above now converted into a prison, and therefore kept in excellent repair. a long winding street passes through narni, broadening at one point into a market-place, where an old cathedral showed its venerable front, and the great dial of its clock, the figures on which were numbered in two semicircles of twelve points each; one, i suppose, for noon, and the other for midnight. the town has, so far as its principal street is concerned, a city-like aspect, with large, fair edifices, and shops as good as most of those at rome, the smartness of which contrasts strikingly with the rude and lonely scenery of mountain and stream, through which we had come to reach it. we drove through narni without stopping, and came out from it on the other side, where a broad, level valley opened before us, most unlike the wild, precipitous gorge which had brought us to the town. the road went winding down into the peaceful vale, through the midst of which flowed the same stream that cuts its way between the impending hills, as already described. we passed a monk and a soldier,--the two curses of italy, each in his way,-- walking sociably side by side; and from narni to terni i remember nothing that need be recorded. terni, like so many other towns in the neighborhood, stands in a high and commanding position, chosen doubtless for its facilities of defence, in days long before the mediaeval warfares of italy made such sites desirable. i suppose that, like narni and otricoli, it was a city of the umbrians. we reached it between eleven and twelve o'clock, intending to employ the afternoon on a visit to the famous falls of terni; but, after lowering all day, it has begun to rain, and we shall probably have to give them up. half past eight o'clock.--it has rained in torrents during the afternoon, and we have not seen the cascade of terni; considerably to my regret, for i think i felt the more interest in seeing it, on account of its being artificial. methinks nothing was more characteristic of the energy and determination of the old romans, than thus to take a river, which they wished to be rid of, and fling it over a giddy precipice, breaking it into ten million pieces by the fall. . . . . we are in the hotel delle tre colonne, and find it reasonably good, though not, so far as we are concerned, justifying the rapturous commendations of previous tourists, who probably travelled at their own charges. however, there is nothing really to be complained of, either in our accommodations or table, and the only wonder is how gaetano contrives to get any profit out of our contract, since the hotel bills would alone cost us more than we pay him for the journey and all. it is worth while to record as history of vetturino commissary customs, that for breakfast this morning we had coffee, eggs, and bread and butter; for lunch an omelette, some stewed veal, and a dessert of figs and grapes, besides two decanters of a light-colored acid wine, tasting very like indifferent cider; for dinner, an excellent vermicelli soup, two young fowls, fricasseed, and a hind quarter of roast lamb, with fritters, oranges, and figs, and two more decanters of the wine aforesaid. this hotel is an edifice with a gloomy front upon a narrow street, and enterable through an arch, which admits you into an enclosed court; around the court, on each story, run the galleries, with which the parlors and sleeping-apartments communicate. the whole house is dingy, probably old, and seems not very clean; but yet bears traces of former magnificence; for instance, in our bedroom, the door of which is ornamented with gilding, and the cornices with frescos, some of which appear to represent the cascade of terni, the roof is crossed with carved beams, and is painted in the interstices; the floor has a carpet, but rough tiles underneath it, which show themselves at the margin. the windows admit the wind; the door shuts so loosely as to leave great cracks; and, during the rain to-day, there was a heavy shower through our ceiling, which made a flood upon the carpet. we see no chambermaids; nothing of the comfort and neatness of an english hotel, nor of the smart splendors of an american one; but still this dilapidated palace affords us a better shelter than i expected to find in the decayed country towns of italy. in the album of the hotel i find the names of more english travellers than of any other nation except the americans, who, i think, even exceed the former; and, the route being the favorite one for tourists between rome and florence, whatever merit the inns have is probably owing to the demands of the anglo-saxons. i doubt not, if we chose to pay for it, this hotel would supply us with any luxury we might ask for; and perhaps even a gorgeous saloon and state bedchamber. after dinner, j----- and i walked out in the dusk to see what we could of terni. we found it compact and gloomy (but the latter characteristic might well enough be attributed to the dismal sky), with narrow streets, paved from wall to wall of the houses, like those of all the towns in italy; the blocks of paving-stone larger than the little square torments of rome. the houses are covered with dingy stucco, and mostly low, compared with those of rome, and inhospitable as regards their dismal aspects and uninviting doorways. the streets are intricate, as well as narrow; insomuch that we quickly lost our way, and could not find it again, though the town is of so small dimensions, that we passed through it in two directions, in the course of our brief wanderings. there are no lamp-posts in terni; and as it was growing dark, and beginning to rain again, we at last inquired of a person in the principal piazza, and found our hotel, as i expected, within two minutes' walk of where we stood. foligno. may th.--at six o'clock this morning, we packed ourselves into our vettura, my wife and i occupying the coupe, and drove out of the city gate of terni. there are some old towers near it, ruins of i know not what, and care as little, in the plethora of antiquities and other interesting objects. through the arched gateway, as we approached, we had a view of one of the great hills that surround the town, looking partly bright in the early sunshine, and partly catching the shadows of the clouds that floated about the sky. our way was now through the vale of terni, as i believe it is called, where we saw somewhat of the fertility of italy: vines trained on poles, or twining round mulberry and other trees, ranged regularly like orchards; groves of olives and fields of grain. there are interminable shrines in all sorts of situations; some under arched niches, or little penthouses, with a brick-tiled roof, just large enough to cover them; or perhaps in some bit of old roman masonry, on the wall of a wayside inn, or in a shallow cavity of the natural rock, or high upward in the deep cuts of the road; everywhere, in short, so that nobody need be at a loss when he feels the religious sentiment stir within him. our way soon began to wind among the hills, which rose steep and lofty from the scanty, level space that lay between; they continually thrust themselves across the passage, and appeared as if determined to shut us completely in. a great hill would put its foot right before us; but, at the last moment, would grudgingly withdraw it, and allow us just room enough to creep by. adown their sides we discerned the dry beds of mountain torrents, which had lived too fierce a life to let it be a long one. on here and there a hillside or promontory we saw a ruined castle or a convent, looking from its commanding height upon the road, which very likely some robber-knight had formerly infested with his banditti, retreating with his booty to the security of such strongholds. we came, once in a while, to wretched villages, where there was no token of prosperity or comfort; but perhaps there may have been more than we could appreciate, for the italians do not seem to have any of that sort of pride which we find in new england villages, where every man, according to his taste and means, endeavors to make his homestead an ornament to the place. we miss nothing in italy more than the neat doorsteps and pleasant porches and thresholds and delightful lawns or grass-plots, which hospitably invite the imagination into a sweet domestic interior. everything, however sunny and luxuriant may be the scene around, is especially dreary and disheartening in the immediate vicinity of an italian home. at strettura (which, as the name indicates, is a very narrow part of the valley) we added two oxen to our horses, and began to ascend the monte somma, which, according to murray, is nearly four thousand feet high where we crossed it. when we came to the steepest part of the ascent, gaetano, who exercises a pretty decided control over his passengers, allowed us to walk; and we all, with one exception, alighted, and began to climb the mountain on foot. i walked on briskly, and soon left the rest of the party behind, reaching the top of the pass in such a short time that i could not believe it, and kept onward, expecting still another height to climb. but the road began to descend, winding among the depths of the hills as heretofore; now beside the dry, gravelly bed of a departed stream, now crossing it by a bridge, and perhaps passing through some other gorge, that yet gave no decided promise of an outlet into the world beyond. a glimpse might occasionally be caught, through a gap between the hill-tops, of a company of distant mountain-peaks, pyramidal, as these hills are apt to be, and resembling the camp of an army of giants. the landscape was not altogether savage; sometimes a hillside was covered with a rich field of grain, or an orchard of olive-trees, looking not unlike puffs of smoke, from the peculiar line of their foliage; but oftener there was a vast mantle of trees and shrubbery from top to bottom, the golden tufts of the broom shining out amid the verdure, and gladdening the whole. nothing was dismal except the houses; those were always so, whether the compact, gray lines of village hovels, with a narrow street between, or the lonely farm-house, standing far apart from the road, built of stone, with window-gaps high in the wall, empty of glass; or the half-castle, half-dwelling, of which i saw a specimen or two, with what looked like a defensive rampart, drawn around its court. i saw no look of comfort anywhere; and continually, in this wild and solitary region, i met beggars, just as if i were still in the streets of rome. boys and girls kept beside me, till they delivered me into the hands of others like themselves; hoary grandsires and grandmothers caught a glimpse of my approach, and tottered as fast as they could to intercept me; women came out of the cottages, with rotten cherries on a plate, entreating me to buy them for a mezzo baioccho; a man, at work on the road, left his toil to beg, and was grateful for the value of a cent; in short, i was never safe from importunity, as long as there was a house or a human being in sight. we arrived at spoleto before noon, and while our dejeuner was being prepared, looked down from the window of the inn into the narrow street beneath, which, from the throng of people in it, i judged to be the principal one: priests, papal soldiers, women with no bonnets on their heads; peasants in breeches and mushroom hats; maids and matrons, drawing water at a fountain; idlers, smoking on a bench under the window; a talk, a bustle, but no genuine activity. after lunch we walked out to see the lions of spoleto, and found our way up a steep and narrow street that led us to the city gate, at which, it is traditionally said, hannibal sought to force an entrance, after the battle of thrasymene, and was repulsed. the gateway has a double arch, on the inner one of which is a tablet, recording the above tradition as an unquestioned historical fact. from the gateway we went in search of the duomo, or cathedral, and were kindly directed thither by an officer, who was descending into the town from the citadel, which is an old castle, now converted into a prison. the cathedral seemed small, and did not much interest us, either by the gothic front or its modernized interior. we saw nothing else in spoleto, but went back to the inn and resumed our journey, emerging from the city into the classic valley of the clitumnus, which we did not view under the best of auspices, because it was overcast, and the wind as chill as if it had the cast in it. the valley, though fertile, and smilingly picturesque, perhaps, is not such as i should wish to celebrate, either in prose or poetry. it is of such breadth and extent, that its frame of mountains and ridgy hills hardly serve to shut it in sufficiently, and the spectator thinks of a boundless plain, rather than of a secluded vale. after passing le vene, we came to the little temple which byron describes, and which has been supposed to be the one immortalized by pliny. it is very small, and stands on a declivity that falls immediately from the road, right upon which rises the pediment of the temple, while the columns of the other front find sufficient height to develop themselves in the lower ground. a little farther down than the base of the edifice we saw the clitumnus, so recently from its source in the marble rock, that it was still as pure as a child's heart, and as transparent as truth itself. it looked airier than nothing, because it had not substance enough to brighten, and it was clearer than the atmosphere. i remember nothing else of the valley of clitumnus, except that the beggars in this region of proverbial fertility are wellnigh profane in the urgency of their petitions; they absolutely fall down on their knees as you approach, in the same attitude as if they were praying to their maker, and beseech you for alms with a fervency which i am afraid they seldom use before an altar or shrine. being denied, they ran hastily beside the carriage, but got nothing, and finally gave over. i am so very tired and sleepy that i mean to mention nothing else to-night, except the city of trevi, which, on the approach from spoleto, seems completely to cover a high, peaked hill, from its pyramidal tip to its base. it was the strangest situation in which to build a town, where, i should suppose, no horse can climb, and whence no inhabitant would think of descending into the world, after the approach of age should begin to stiffen his joints. on looking back on this most picturesque of towns (which the road, of course, did not enter, as evidently no road could), i saw that the highest part of the hill was quite covered with a crown of edifices, terminating in a church-tower; while a part of the northern side was apparently too steep for building; and a cataract of houses flowed down the western and southern slopes. there seemed to be palaces, churches, everything that a city should have; but my eyes are heavy, and i can write no more about them, only that i suppose the summit of the hill was artificially tenured, so as to prevent its crumbling down, and enable it to support the platform of edifices which crowns it. may th.--we reached foligno in good season yesterday afternoon. our inn seemed ancient; and, under the same roof, on one side of the entrance, was the stable, and on the other the coach-house. the house is built round a narrow court, with a well of water at bottom, and an opening in the roof at top, whence the staircases are lighted that wind round the sides of the court, up to the highest story. our dining-room and bedrooms were in the latter region, and were all paved with brick, and without carpets; and the characteristic of the whole was all exceeding plainness and antique clumsiness of fitting up. we found ourselves sufficiently comfortable, however; and, as has been the case throughout our journey, had a very fair and well-cooked dinner. it shows, as perhaps i have already remarked, that it is still possible to live well in italy, at no great expense, and that the high prices charged to the forestieri at rome and elsewhere are artificial, and ought to be abated. . . . . the day had darkened since morning, and was now ominous of rain; but as soon as we were established, we sallied out to see whatever was worth looking at. a beggar-boy, with one leg, followed us, without asking for anything, apparently only for the pleasure of our company, though he kept at too great a distance for conversation, and indeed did not attempt to speak. we went first to the cathedral, which has a gothic front, and a modernized interior, stuccoed and whitewashed, looking as neat as a new england meeting-house, and very mean, after our familiarity with the gorgeous churches in other cities. there were some pictures in the chapels, but, i believe, all modern, and i do not remember a single one of them. next we went, without any guide, to a church attached to a convent of dominican monks, with a gothic exterior, and two hideous pictures of death,--the skeleton leaning on his scythe, one on each side of the door. this church, likewise, was whitewashed, but we understood that it had been originally frescoed all over, and by famous hands; but these pictures, having become much injured, they were all obliterated, as we saw,--all, that is to say, except a few specimens of the best preserved, which were spared to show the world what the whole had been. i thanked my stars that the obliteration of the rest had taken place before our visit; for if anything is dreary and calculated to make the beholder utterly miserable, it is a faded fresco, with spots of the white plaster dotted over it. our one-legged boy had followed us into the church and stood near the door till he saw us ready to come out, when he hurried on before us, and waited a little way off to see whither we should go. we still went on at random, taking the first turn that offered itself, and soon came to another old church,--that of st. mary within the walls,--into which we entered, and found it whitewashed, like the other two. this was especially fortunate, for the doorkeeper informed us that, two years ago, the whole church (except, i suppose, the roof, which is of timber) had been covered with frescos by pinturicchio, all of which had been ruthlessly obliterated, except a very few fragments. these he proceeded to show us; poor, dim ghosts of what may once have been beautiful,--now so far gone towards nothingness that i was hardly sure whether i saw a glimmering of the design or not. by the by, it was not pinturicchio, as i have written above, but giotto, assisted, i believe, by cimabue, who painted these frescos. our one-legged attendant had followed us also into this church, and again hastened out of it before us; and still we heard the dot of his crutch upon the pavement, as we passed from street to street. by and by a sickly looking man met us, and begged for "qualche cosa"; but the boy shouted to him, "niente!" whether intimating that we would give him nothing, or that he himself had a prior claim to all our charity, i cannot tell. however, the beggar-man turned round, and likewise followed our devious course. once or twice we missed him; but it was only because he could not walk so fast as we; for he appeared again as we emerged from the door of another church. our one-legged friend we never missed for a moment; he kept pretty near us,--near enough to be amused by our indecision whither to go; and he seemed much delighted when it began to rain, and he saw us at a loss how to find our way back to the hotel. nevertheless, he did not offer to guide us; but stumped on behind with a faster or slower dot of his crutch, according to our pace. i began to think that he must have been engaged as a spy upon our movements by the police who had taken away my passport at the city gate. in this way he attended us to the door of the hotel, where the beggar had already arrived. the latter again put in his doleful petition; the one-legged boy said not a word, nor seemed to expect anything, and both had to go away without so much as a mezzo baioccho out of our pockets. the multitude of beggars in italy makes the heart as obdurate as a paving-stone. we left foligno this morning, and, all ready for us at the door of the hotel, as we got into the carriage, were our friends, the beggar-man and the one-legged boy; the latter holding out his ragged hat, and smiling with as confident an air as if he had done us some very particular service, and were certain of being paid for it, as from contract. it was so very funny, so impudent, so utterly absurd, that i could not help giving him a trifle; but the man got nothing,--a fact that gives me a twinge or two, for he looked sickly and miserable. but where everybody begs, everybody, as a general rule, must be denied; and, besides, they act their misery so well that you are never sure of the genuine article. perugia. may th.--as i said last night, we left foligno betimes in the morning, which was bleak, chill, and very threatening, there being very little blue sky anywhere, and the clouds lying heavily on some of the mountain-ridges. the wind blew sharply right in u----'s face and mine, as we occupied the coupe, so that there must have been a great deal of the north in it. we drove through a wide plain--the umbrian valley, i suppose--and soon passed the old town of spello, just touching its skirts, and wondering how people, who had this rich and convenient plain from which to choose a site, could think of covering a huge island of rock with their dwellings,--for spello tumbled its crooked and narrow streets down a steep descent, and cannot well have a yard of even space within its walls. it is said to contain some rare treasures of ancient pictorial art. i do not remember much that we saw on our route. the plains and the lower hillsides seemed fruitful of everything that belongs to italy, especially the olive and the vine. as usual, there were a great many shrines, and frequently a cross by the wayside. hitherto it had been merely a plain wooden cross; but now almost every cross was hung with various instruments, represented in wood, apparently symbols of the crucifixion of our saviour,--the spear, the sponge, the crown of thorns, the hammer, a pair of pincers, and always st. peter's cock, made a prominent figure, generally perched on the summit of the cross. from our first start this morning we had seen mists in various quarters, betokening that there was rain in those spots, and now it began to spatter in our own faces, although within the wide extent of our prospect we could see the sunshine falling on portions of the valley. a rainbow, too, shone out, and remained so long visible that it appeared to have made a permanent stain in the sky. by and by we reached assisi, which is magnificently situated for pictorial purposes, with a gray castle above it, and a gray wall around it, itself on a mountain, and looking over the great plain which we had been traversing, and through which lay our onward way. we drove through the piazza grande to an ancient house a little beyond, where a hospitable old lady receives travellers for a consideration, without exactly keeping an inn. in the piazza we saw the beautiful front of a temple of minerva, consisting of several marble pillars, fluted, and with rich capitals supporting a pediment. it was as fine as anything i had seen at rome, and is now, of course, converted into a catholic church. i ought to have said that, instead of driving straight to the old lady's, we alighted at the door of a church near the city gate, and went in to inspect some melancholy frescos, and thence clambered up a narrow street to the cathedral, which has a gothic front, old enough, but not very impressive. i really remember not a single object that we saw within, but am pretty certain that the interior had been stuccoed and whitewashed. the ecclesiastics of old time did an excellent thing in covering the interiors of their churches with brilliant frescos, thus filling the holy places with saints and angels, and almost with the presence of the divinity. the modern ecclesiastics do the next best thing in obliterating the wretched remnants of what has had its day and done its office. these frescos might be looked upon as the symbol of the living spirit that made catholicism a true religion, and glorified it as long as it did live; now the glory and beauty have departed from one and the other. my wife, u----, and miss shepard now set out with a cicerone to visit the great franciscan convent, in the church of which are preserved some miraculous specimens, in fresco and in oils, of early italian art; but as i had no mind to suffer any further in this way, i stayed behind with j----- and r-----, who we're equally weary of these things. after they were gone we took a ramble through the city, but were almost swept away by the violence of the wind, which struggled with me for my hat, and whirled r----- before it like a feather. the people in the public square seemed much diverted at our predicament, being, i suppose, accustomed to these rude blasts in their mountain-home. however, the wind blew in momentary gusts, and then became more placable till another fit of fury came, and passed as suddenly as before. we walked out of the same gate through which we had entered,--an ancient gate, but recently stuccoed and whitewashed, in wretched contrast to the gray, venerable wall through which it affords ingress,--and i stood gazing at the magnificent prospect of the wide valley beneath. it was so vast that there appeared to be all varieties of weather in it at the same instant; fields of sunshine, tracts of storm,--here the coming tempest, there the departing one. it was a picture of the world on a vast canvas, for there was rural life and city life within the great expanse, and the whole set in a frame of mountains,--the nearest bold and dust-net, with the rocky ledges showing through their sides, the distant ones blue and dim,--so far stretched this broad valley. when i had looked long enough,--no, not long enough, for it would take a great while to read that page,--we returned within the gate, and we clambered up, past the cathedral and into the narrow streets above it. the aspect of everything was immeasurably old; a thousand years would be but a middle age for one of those houses, built so massively with huge stones and solid arches, that i do not see how they are ever to tumble down, or to be less fit for human habitation than they are now. the streets crept between them, and beneath arched passages, and up and down steps of stone or ancient brick, for it would be altogether impossible for a carriage to ascend above the grand piazza, though possibly a donkey or a chairman's mule might find foothold. the city seems like a stony growth out of the hillside, or a fossilized city,--so old and singular it is, without enough life and juiciness in it to be susceptible of decay. an earthquake is the only chance of its ever being ruined, beyond its present ruin. nothing is more strange than to think that this now dead city--dead, as regards the purposes for which men live nowadays--was, centuries ago, the seat and birthplace almost of art, the only art in which the beautiful part of the human mind then developed itself. how came that flower to grow among these wild mountains? i do not conceive, however, that the people of assisi were ever much more enlightened or cultivated on the side of art than they are at present. the ecclesiastics were then the only patrons; and the flower grew here because there was a great ecclesiastical garden in which it was sheltered and fostered. but it is very curious to think of assisi, a school of art within, and mountain and wilderness without. my wife and the rest of the party returned from the convent before noon, delighted with what they had seen, as i was delighted not to have seen it. we ate our dejeuner, and resumed our journey, passing beneath the great convent, after emerging from the gate opposite to that of our entrance. the edifice made a very good spectacle, being of great extent, and standing on a double row of high and narrow arches, on which it is built up from the declivity of the hill. we soon reached the church of st. mary of the angels, which is a modern structure, and very spacious, built in place of one destroyed by an earthquake. it is a fine church, opening out a magnificent space in its nave and aisles; and beneath the great dome stands the small old chapel, with its rude stone walls, in which st. francis founded his order. this chapel and the dome appear to have been the only portions of the ancient church that were not destroyed by the earthquake. the dwelling of st. francis is said to be also preserved within the church; but we did not see it, unless it were a little dark closet into which we squeezed to see some frescos by la spagna. it had an old wooden door, of which u---- picked off a little bit of a chip, to serve as a relic. there is a fresco in the church, on the pediment of the chapel, by overbeck, representing the assumption of the virgin. it did not strike me as wonderfully fine. the other pictures, of which there were many, were modern, and of no great merit. we pursued our way, and came, by and by, to the foot of the high hill on which stands perugia, and which is so long and steep that gaetano took a yoke of oxen to aid his horses in the ascent. we all, except my wife, walked a part of the way up, and i myself, with j----- for my companion, kept on even to the city gate,--a distance, i should think, of two or three miles, at least. the lower part of the road was on the edge of the hill, with a narrow valley on our left; and as the sun had now broken out, its verdure and fertility, its foliage and cultivation, shone forth in miraculous beauty, as green as england, as bright as only italy. perugia appeared above us, crowning a mighty hill, the most picturesque of cities; and the higher we ascended, the more the view opened before us, as we looked back on the course that we had traversed, and saw the wide valley, sweeping down and spreading out, bounded afar by mountains, and sleeping in sun and shadow. no language nor any art of the pencil can give an idea of the scene. when god expressed himself in the landscape to mankind, he did not intend that it should be translated into any tongue save his own immediate one. j----- meanwhile, whose heart is now wholly in snail-shells, was rummaging for them among the stones and hedges by the roadside; yet, doubtless, enjoyed the prospect more than he knew. the coach lagged far behind us, and when it came up, we entered the gate, where a soldier appeared, and demanded my passport. we drove to the grand hotel de france, which is near the gate, and two fine little boys ran beside the carriage, well dressed and well looking enough to have been a gentleman's sons, but claiming gaetano for their father. he is an inhabitant of perugia, and has therefore reached his own home, though we are still little more than midway to our journey's end. our hotel proves, thus far, to be the best that we have yet met with. we are only in the outskirts of perugia; the bulk of the city, where the most interesting churches and the public edifices are situated, being far above us on the hill. my wife, u----, miss shepard, and r----- streamed forth immediately, and saw a church; but j-----, who hates them, and i remained behind; and, for my part, i added several pages to this volume of scribble. this morning was as bright as morning could be, even in italy, and in this transparent mountain atmosphere. we at first declined the services of a cicerone, and went out in the hopes of finding our way to whatever we wished to see, by our own instincts. this proved to be a mistaken hope, however; and we wandered about the upper city, much persecuted by a shabby old man who wished to guide us; so, at last, miss shepard went back in quest of the cicerone at the hotel, and, meanwhile, we climbed to the summit of the hill of perugia, and, leaning over a wall, looked forth upon a most magnificent view of mountain and valley, terminating in some peaks, lofty and dim, which surely must be the apennines. there again a young man accosted us, offering to guide us to the cambio or exchange; and as this was one of the places which we especially wished to see, we accepted his services. by the by, i ought to have mentioned that we had already entered a church (san luigi, i believe), the interior of which we found very impressive, dim with the light of stained and painted windows, insomuch that it at first seemed almost dark, and we could only see the bright twinkling of the tapers at the shrines; but, after a few minutes, we discerned the tall octagonal pillars of the nave, marble, and supporting a beautiful roof of crossed arches. the church was neither gothic nor classic, but a mixture of both, and most likely barbarous; yet it had a grand effect in its tinted twilight, and convinced me more than ever how desirable it is that religious edifices should have painted windows. the door of the cambio proved to be one that we had passed several times, while seeking for it, and was very near the church just mentioned, which fronts on one side of the same piazza. we were received by an old gentleman, who appeared to be a public officer, and found ourselves in a small room, wainscoted with beautifully carved oak, roofed with a coved ceiling, painted with symbols of the planets, and arabesqued in rich designs by raphael, and lined with splendid frescos of subjects, scriptural and historical, by perugino. when the room was in its first glory, i can conceive that the world had not elsewhere to show, within so small a space, such magnificence and beauty as were then displayed here. even now, i enjoyed (to the best of my belief, for we can never feel sure that we are not bamboozling ourselves in such matters) some real pleasure in what i saw; and especially seemed to feel, after all these ages, the old painter's devout sentiment still breathing forth from the religious pictures, the work of a hand that had so long been dust. when we had looked long at these, the old gentleman led us into a chapel, of the same size as the former room, and built in the same fashion, wainscoted likewise with old oak. the walls were also frescoed, entirely frescoed, and retained more of their original brightness than those we had already seen, although the pictures were the production of a somewhat inferior hand, a pupil of perugino. they seemed to be very striking, however, not the less so, that one of them provoked an unseasonable smile. it was the decapitation of john the baptist; and this holy personage was represented as still on his knees, with his hands clasped in prayer, although the executioner was already depositing the head in a charger, and the blood was spouting from the headless trunk, directly, as it were, into the face of the spectator. while we were in the outer room, the cicerone who first offered his services at the hotel had come in; so we paid our chance guide, and expected him to take his leave. it is characteristic of this idle country, however, that if you once speak to a person, or connect yourself with him by the slightest possible tie, you will hardly get rid of him by anything short of main force. he still lingered in the room, and was still there when i came away; for, having had as many pictures as i could digest, i left my wife and u---- with the cicerone, and set out on a ramble with j-----. we plunged from the upper city down through some of the strangest passages that ever were called streets; some of them, indeed, being arched all over, and, going down into the unknown darkness, looked like caverns; and we followed one of them doubtfully, till it opened out upon the light. the houses on each side were divided only by a pace or two, and communicated with one another, here and there, by arched passages. they looked very ancient, and may have been inhabited by etruscan princes, judging from the massiveness of some of the foundation stones. the present inhabitants, nevertheless, are by no means princely,--shabby men, and the careworn wives and mothers of the people,--one of whom was guiding a child in leading-strings through these antique alleys, where hundreds of generations have trod before those little feet. finally we came out through a gateway, the same gateway at which we entered last night. i ought to have mentioned, in the narrative of yesterday, that we crossed the tiber shortly before reaching perugia, already a broad and rapid stream, and already distinguished by the same turbid and mud-puddly quality of water that we see in it at rome. i think it will never be so disagreeable to me hereafter, now that i find this turbidness to be its native color, and not (like that of the thames) accruing from city sewers or any impurities of the lowlands. as i now remember, the small chapel of santa maria degl' angeli seems to have been originally the house of st. francis. may th.--this morning we visited the church of the dominicans, where we saw some quaint pictures by fra angelico, with a good deal of religious sincerity in them; also a picture of st. columba by perugino, which unquestionably is very good. to confess the truth, i took more interest in a fair gothic monument, in white marble, of pope benedict xii., representing him reclining under a canopy, while two angels draw aside the curtain, the canopy being supported by twisted columns, richly ornamented. i like this overflow and gratuity of device with which gothic sculpture works out its designs, after seeing so much of the simplicity of classic art in marble. we then tried to find the church of san pietro in martire, but without success, although every person of whom we inquired immediately attached himself or herself to us, and could hardly be got rid of by any efforts on our part. nobody seemed to know the church we wished for, but all directed us to another church of san pietro, which contains nothing of interest; whereas the right church is supposed to contain a celebrated picture by perugino. finally, we ascended the hill and the city proper of perugia (for our hotel is in one of the suburbs), and j----- and i set out on a ramble about the city. it was market-day, and the principal piazza, with the neighboring streets, was crowded with people. . . . . the best part of perugia, that in which the grand piazzas and the principal public edifices stand, seems to be a nearly level plateau on the summit of the hill; but it is of no very great extent, and the streets rapidly run downward on either side. j----- and i followed one of these descending streets, and were led a long way by it, till we at last emerged from one of the gates of the city, and had another view of the mountains and valleys, the fertile and sunny wilderness in which this ancient civilization stands. on the right of the gate there was a rude country-path, partly overgrown with grass, bordered by a hedge on one side, and on the other by the gray city wall, at the base of which the track kept onward. we followed it, hoping that it would lead us to some other gate by which we might re-enter the city; but it soon grew so indistinct and broken, that it was evidently on the point of melting into somebody's olive-orchard or wheat-fields or vineyards, all of which lay on the other side of the hedge; and a kindly old woman of whom i inquired told me (if i rightly understood her italian) that i should find no further passage in that direction. so we turned back, much broiled in the hot sun, and only now and then relieved by the shadow of an angle or a tower. a lame beggar-man sat by the gate, and as we passed him j----- gave him two baiocchi (which he himself had begged of me to buy an orange with), and was loaded with the pauper's prayers and benedictions as we entered the city. a great many blessings can be bought for very little money anywhere in italy; and whether they avail anything or no, it is pleasant to see that the beggars have gratitude enough to bestow them in such abundance. of all beggars i think a little fellow, who rode beside our carriage on a stick, his bare feet scampering merrily, while he managed his steed with one hand, and held out the other for charity, howling piteously the while, amused me most. passignano. may th.--we left perugia at about three o'clock to-day, and went down a pretty steep descent; but i have no particular recollection of the road till it again began to descend, before reaching the village of magione. we all, except my wife, walked up the long hill, while the vettura was dragged after us with the aid of a yoke of oxen. arriving first at the village, i leaned over the wall to admire the beautiful paese ("le bel piano," as a peasant called it, who made acquaintance with me) that lay at the foot of the hill, so level, so bounded within moderate limits by a frame of hills and ridges, that it looked like a green lake. in fact, i think it was once a real lake, which made its escape from its bed, as i have known some lakes to have done in america. passing through and beyond the village, i saw, on a height above the road, a half-ruinous tower, with great cracks running down its walls, half-way from top to bottom. some little children had mounted the hill with us, begging all the way; they were recruited with additional members in the village; and here, beneath the ruinous tower, a madman, as it seemed, assaulted us, and ran almost under the carriage-wheels, in his earnestness to get a baioccho. ridding ourselves of these annoyances, we drove on, and, between five and six o'clock, came in sight of the lake of thrasymene, obtaining our first view of it, i think, in its longest extent. there were high hills, and one mountain with its head in the clouds, visible on the farther shore, and on the horizon beyond it; but the nearer banks were long ridges, and hills of only moderate height. the declining sun threw a broad sheen of brightness over the surface of the lake, so that we could not well see it for excess of light; but had a vision of headlands and islands floating about in a flood of gold, and blue, airy heights bounding it afar. when we first drew near the lake, there was but a narrow tract, covered with vines and olives, between it and the hill that rose on the other side. as we advanced, the tract grew wider, and was very fertile, as was the hillside, with wheat-fields, and vines, and olives, especially the latter, which, symbol of peace as it is, seemed to find something congenial to it in the soil stained long ago with blood. farther onward, the space between the lake and hill grew still narrower, the road skirting along almost close to the water-side; and when we reached the town of passignano there was but room enough for its dirty and ugly street to stretch along the shore. i have seldom beheld a lovelier scene than that of the lake and the landscape around it; never an uglier one than that of this idle and decaying village, where we were immediately surrounded by beggars of all ages, and by men vociferously proposing to row us out upon the lake. we declined their offers of a boat, for the evening was very fresh and cool, insomuch that i should have liked an outside garment,--a temperature that i had not anticipated, so near the beginning of june, in sunny italy. instead of a row, we took a walk through the village, hoping to come upon the shore of the lake, in some secluded spot; but an incredible number of beggar-children, both boys and girls, but more of the latter, rushed out of every door, and went along with us, all howling their miserable petitions at the same moment. the village street is long, and our escort waxed more numerous at every step, till miss shepard actually counted forty of these little reprobates, and more were doubtless added afterwards. at first, no doubt, they begged in earnest hope of getting some baiocchi; but, by and by, perceiving that we had determined not to give them anything, they made a joke of the matter, and began to laugh and to babble, and turn heels over head, still keeping about us, like a swarm of flies, and now and then begging again with all their might. there were as few pretty faces as i ever saw among the same number of children; and they were as ragged and dirty little imps as any in the world, and, moreover, tainted the air with a very disagreeable odor from their rags and dirt; rugged and healthy enough, nevertheless, and sufficiently intelligent; certainly bold and persevering too; so that it is hard to say what they needed to fit them for success in life. yet they begin as beggars, and no doubt will end so, as all their parents and grandparents do; for in our walk through the village, every old woman and many younger ones held out their hands for alms, as if they had all been famished. yet these people kept their houses over their heads; had firesides in winter, i suppose, and food out of their little gardens every day; pigs to kill, chickens, olives, wine, and a great many things to make life comfortable. the children, desperately as they begged, looked in good bodily ease, and happy enough; but, certainly, there was a look of earnest misery in the faces of some of the old women, either genuine or exceedingly well acted. i could not bear the persecution, and went into our hotel, determining not to venture out again till our departure; at least not in the daylight. my wife and the rest of the family, however, continued their walk, and at length were relieved from their little pests by three policemen (the very images of those in rome, in their blue, long-skirted coats, cocked chapeaux-bras, white shoulder-belts, and swords), who boxed their ears, and dispersed them. meanwhile, they had quite driven away all sentimental effusion (of which i felt more, really, than i expected) about the lake of thrasymene. the inn of passignano promised little from its outward appearance; a tall, dark old house, with a stone staircase leading us up from one sombre story to another, into a brick-paved dining-room, with our sleeping-chambers on each side. there was a fireplace of tremendous depth and height, fit to receive big forest-logs, and with a queer, double pair of ancient andirons, capable of sustaining them; and in a handful of ashes lay a small stick of olive-wood,--a specimen, i suppose, of the sort of fuel which had made the chimney black, in the course of a good many years. there must have been much shivering and misery of cold around this fireplace. however, we needed no fire now, and there was promise of good cheer in the spectacle of a man cleaning some lake-fish for our dinner, while the poor things flounced and wriggled under the knife. the dinner made its appearance, after a long while, and was most plentiful, . . . . so that, having measured our appetite in anticipation of a paucity of food, we had to make more room for such overflowing abundance. when dinner was over, it was already dusk, and before retiring i opened the window, and looked out on lake thrasymene, the margin of which lies just on the other side of the narrow village street. the moon was a day or two past the full, just a little clipped on the edge, but gave light enough to show the lake and its nearer shores almost as distinctly as by day; and there being a ripple on the surface of the water, it made a sheen of silver over a wide space. arezzo. may th.--we started at six o'clock, and left the one ugly street of passignano, before many of the beggars were awake. immediately in the vicinity of the village there is very little space between the lake in front and the ridge of hills in the rear; but the plain widened as we drove onward, so that the lake was scarcely to be seen, or often quite hidden among the intervening trees, although we could still discern the summits of the mountains that rise far beyond its shores. the country was fertile, presenting, on each side of the road, vines trained on fig-trees; wheat-fields and olives, in greater abundance than any other product. on our right, with a considerable width of plain between, was the bending ridge of hills that shut in the roman army, by its close approach to the lake at passignano. in perhaps half all hour's drive, we reached the little bridge that throws its arch over the sanguinetto, and alighted there. the stream has but about a yard's width of water; and its whole course, between the hills and the lake, might well have been reddened and swollen with the blood of the multitude of slain romans. its name put me in mind of the bloody brook at deerfield, where a company of massachusetts men were massacred by the indians. the sanguinetto flows over a bed of pebbles; and j----- crept under the bridge, and got one of them for a memorial, while u----, miss shepard, and r----- plucked some olive twigs and oak leaves, and made them into wreaths together,--symbols of victory and peace. the tower, which is traditionally named after hannibal, is seen on a height that makes part of the line of enclosing hills. it is a large, old castle, apparently of the middle ages, with a square front, and a battlemented sweep of wall. the town of torres (its name, i think), where hannibal's main army is supposed to have lain while the romans came through the pass, was in full view; and i could understand the plan of the battle better than any system of military operations which i have hitherto tried to fathom. both last night and to-day, i found myself stirred more sensibly than i expected by the influences of this scene. the old battle-field is still fertile in thoughts and emotions, though it is so many ages since the blood spilt there has ceased to make the grass and flowers grow more luxuriantly. i doubt whether i should feel so much on the field of saratoga or monmouth; but these old classic battle-fields belong to the whole world, and each man feels as if his own forefathers fought them. mine, by the by, if they fought them at all, must have been on the side of hannibal; for, certainly, i sympathized with him, and exulted in the defeat of the romans on their own soil. they excite much the same emotion of general hostility that the english do. byron has written some very fine stanzas on the battle-field,--not so good as others that he has written on classical scenes and subjects, yet wonderfully impressing his own perception of the subject on the reader. whenever he has to deal with a statue, a ruin, a battle-field, he pounces upon the topic like a vulture, and tears out its heart in a twinkling, so that there is nothing more to be said. if i mistake not, our passport was examined by the papal officers at the last custom-house in the pontifical territory, before we traversed the path through which the roman army marched to its destruction. lake thrasymene, of which we took our last view, is not deep set among the hills, but is bordered by long ridges, with loftier mountains receding into the distance. it is not to be compared to windermere or loch lomond for beauty, nor with lake champlain and many a smaller lake in my own country, none of which, i hope, will ever become so historically interesting as this famous spot. a few miles onward our passport was countersigned at the tuscan custom-house, and our luggage permitted to pass without examination on payment of a fee of nine or ten pauls, besides two pauls to the porters. there appears to be no concealment on the part of the officials in thus waiving the exercise of their duty, and i rather imagine that the thing is recognized and permitted by their superiors. at all events, it is very convenient for the traveller. we saw cortona, sitting, like so many other cities in this region, on its hill, and arrived about noon at arezzo, which also stretches up a high hillside, and is surrounded, as they all are, by its walls or the remains of one, with a fortified gate across every entrance. i remember one little village, somewhere in the neighborhood of the clitumnus, which we entered by one gateway, and, in the course of two minutes at the utmost, left by the opposite one, so diminutive was this walled town. everything hereabouts bears traces of times when war was the prevalent condition, and peace only a rare gleam of sunshine. at arezzo we have put up at the hotel royal, which has the appearance of a grand old house, and proves to be a tolerable inn enough. after lunch, we wandered forth to see the town, which did not greatly interest me after perugia, being much more modern and less picturesque in its aspect. we went to the cathedral,--a gothic edifice, but not of striking exterior. as the doors were closed, and not to be opened till three o'clock, we seated ourselves under the trees, on a high, grassy space surrounded and intersected with gravel-walks,--a public promenade, in short, near the cathedral; and after resting ourselves here we went in search of petrarch's house, which murray mentions as being in this neighborhood. we inquired of several people, who knew nothing about the matter; one woman misdirected us, out of mere fun, i believe, for she afterwards met us and asked how we had succeeded. but finally, through ------'s enterprise and perseverance, we found the spot, not a stone's-throw from where we had been sitting. petrarch's house stands below the promenade which i have just mentioned, and within hearing of the reverberations between the strokes of the cathedral bell. it is two stories high, covered with a light-colored stucco, and has not the slightest appearance of antiquity, no more than many a modern and modest dwelling-house in an american city. its only remarkable feature is a pointed arch of stone, let into the plastered wall, and forming a framework for the doorway. i set my foot on the doorsteps, ascended them, and miss shepard and j----- gathered some weeds or blades of grass that grew in the chinks between the steps. there is a long inscription on a slab of marble set in the front of the house, as is the fashion in arezzo when a house has been the birthplace or residence of a distinguished man. right opposite petrarch's birth-house--and it must have been the well whence the water was drawn that first bathed him--is a well which boccaccio has introduced into one of his stories. it is surrounded with a stone curb, octagonal in shape, and evidently as ancient as boccaccio's time. it has a wooden cover, through which is a square opening, and looking down i saw my own face in the water far beneath. there is no familiar object connected with daily life so interesting as a well; and this well or old arezzo, whence petrarch had drunk, around which he had played in his boyhood, and which boccaccio has made famous, really interested me more than the cathedral. it lies right under the pavement of the street, under the sunshine, without any shade of trees about it, or any grass, except a little that grows in the crevices of its stones; but the shape of its stone-work would make it a pretty object in an engraving. as i lingered round it i thought of my own town-pump in old salem, and wondered whether my townspeople would ever point it out to strangers, and whether the stranger would gaze at it with any degree of such interest as i felt in boccaccio's well. o, certainly not; but yet i made that humble town-pump the most celebrated structure in the good town. a thousand and a thousand people had pumped there, merely to water oxen or fill their teakettles; but when once i grasped the handle, a rill gushed forth that meandered as far as england, as far as india, besides tasting pleasantly in every town and village of our own country. i like to think of this, so long after i did it, and so far from home, and am not without hopes of some kindly local remembrance on this score. petrarch's house is not a separate and insulated building, but stands in contiguity and connection with other houses on each side; and all, when i saw them, as well as the whole street, extending down the slope of the hill, had the bright and sunny aspect of a modern town. as the cathedral was not yet open, and as j----- and i had not so much patience as my wife, we left her and miss shepard, and set out to return to the hotel. we lost our way, however, and finally had to return to the cathedral, to take a fresh start; and as the door was now open we went in. we found the cathedral very stately with its great arches, and darkly magnificent with the dim rich light coming through its painted windows, some of which are reckoned the most beautiful that the whole world has to show. the hues are far more brilliant than those of any painted glass i saw in england, and a great wheel window looks like a constellation of many-colored gems. the old english glass gets so smoky and dull with dust, that its pristine beauty cannot any longer be even imagined; nor did i imagine it till i saw these italian windows. we saw nothing of my wife and miss shepard; but found afterwards that they had been much annoyed by the attentions of a priest who wished to show them the cathedral, till they finally told him that they had no money with them, when he left them without another word. the attendants in churches seem to be quite as venal as most other italians, and, for the sake of their little profit, they do not hesitate to interfere with the great purposes for which their churches were built and decorated; hanging curtains, for instance, before all the celebrated pictures, or hiding them away in the sacristy, so that they cannot be seen without a fee. returning to the hotel, we looked out of the window, and, in the street beneath, there was a very busy scene, it being sunday, and the whole population, apparently, being astir, promenading up and down the smooth flag-stones, which made the breadth of the street one sidewalk, or at their windows, or sitting before their doors. the vivacity of the population in these parts is very striking, after the gravity and lassitude of rome; and the air was made cheerful with the talk and laughter of hundreds of voices. i think the women are prettier than the roman maids and matrons, who, as i think i have said before, have chosen to be very uncomely since the rape of their ancestresses, by way of wreaking a terrible spite and revenge. i have nothing more to say of arezzo, except that, finding the ordinary wine very bad, as black as ink, and tasting as if it had tar and vinegar in it, we called for a bottle of monte pulciano, and were exceedingly gladdened and mollified thereby. incisa. we left arezzo early on monday morning, the sun throwing the long shadows of the trees across the road, which at first, after we had descended the hill, lay over a plain. as the morning advanced, or as we advanced, the country grew more hilly. we saw many bits of rustic life,--such as old women tending pigs or sheep by the roadside, and spinning with a distaff; women sewing under trees, or at their own doors; children leading goats, tied by the horns, while they browse; sturdy, sunburnt creatures, in petticoats, but otherwise manlike, at work side by side with male laborers in the fields. the broad-brimmed, high-crowned hat of tuscan straw is the customary female head-dress, and is as unbecoming as can possibly be imagined, and of little use, one would suppose, as a shelter from the sun, the brim continually blowing upward from the face. some of the elder women wore black felt hats, likewise broad-brimmed; and the men wore felt hats also, shaped a good deal like a mushroom, with hardly any brim at all. the scenes in the villages through which we passed were very lively and characteristic, all the population seeming to be out of doors: some at the butcher's shop, others at the well; a tailor sewing in the open air, with a young priest sitting sociably beside him; children at play; women mending clothes, embroidering, spinning with the distaff at their own doorsteps; many idlers, letting the pleasant morning pass in the sweet-do-nothing; all assembling in the street, as in the common room of one large household, and thus brought close together, and made familiar with one another, as they can never be in a different system of society. as usual along the road we passed multitudes of shrines, where the virgin was painted in fresco, or sometimes represented in bas-reliefs, within niches, or under more spacious arches. it would be a good idea to place a comfortable and shady seat beneath all these wayside shrines, where the wayfarer might rest himself, and thank the virgin for her hospitality; nor can i believe that it would offend her, any more than other incense, if he were to regale himself, even in such consecrated spots, with the fragrance of a pipe or cigar. in the wire-work screen, before many of the shrines, hung offerings of roses and other flowers, some wilted and withered, some fresh with that morning's dew, some that never bloomed and never faded,--being artificial. i wonder that they do not plant rose-trees and all kinds of fragrant and flowering shrubs under the shrines, and twine and wreathe them all around, so that the virgin may dwell within a bower of perpetual freshness; at least put flower-pots, with living plants, into the niche. there are many things in the customs of these people that might be made very beautiful, if the sense of beauty were as much alive now as it must have been when these customs were first imagined and adopted. i must not forget, among these little descriptive items, the spectacle of women and girls bearing huge bundles of twigs and shrubs, or grass, with scarlet poppies and blue flowers intermixed; the bundles sometimes so huge as almost to hide the woman's figure from head to heel, so that she looked like a locomotive mass of verdure and flowers; sometimes reaching only half-way down her back, so as to show the crooked knife slung behind, with which she had been reaping this strange harvest-sheaf. a pre-raphaelite painter--the one, for instance, who painted the heap of autumnal leaves, which we saw at the manchester exhibition--would find an admirable subject in one of these girls, stepping with a free, erect, and graceful carriage, her burden on her head; and the miscellaneous herbage and flowers would give him all the scope he could desire for minute and various delineation of nature. the country houses which we passed had sometimes open galleries or arcades on the second story and above, where the inhabitants might perform their domestic labor in the shade and in the air. the houses were often ancient, and most picturesquely time-stained, the plaster dropping in spots from the old brickwork; others were tinted of pleasant and cheerful lines; some were frescoed with designs in arabesques, or with imaginary windows; some had escutcheons of arms painted on the front. wherever there was a pigeon-house, a flight of doves were represented as flying into the holes, doubtless for the invitation and encouragement of the real birds. once or twice i saw a bush stuck up before the door of what seemed to be a wine-shop. if so, it is the ancient custom, so long disused in england, and alluded to in the proverb, "good wine needs no bush." several times we saw grass spread to dry on the road, covering half the track, and concluded it to have been cut by the roadside for the winter forage of his ass by some poor peasant, or peasant's wife, who had no grass land, except the margin of the public way. a beautiful feature of the scene to-day, as the preceding day, were the vines growing on fig-trees (?) [this interrogation-mark must mean that mr. hawthorne was not sure they were fig-trees.--ed.], and often wreathed in rich festoons from one tree to another, by and by to be hung with clusters of purple grapes. i suspect the vine is a pleasanter object of sight under this mode of culture than it can be in countries where it produces a more precious wine, and therefore is trained more artificially. nothing can be more picturesque than the spectacle of an old grapevine, with almost a trunk of its own, clinging round its tree, imprisoning within its strong embrace the friend that supported its tender infancy, converting the tree wholly to its own selfish ends, as seemingly flexible natures are apt to do, stretching out its innumerable arms on every bough, and allowing hardly a leaf to sprout except its own. i must not yet quit this hasty sketch, without throwing in, both in the early morning, and later in the forenoon, the mist that dreamed among the hills, and which, now that i have called it mist, i feel almost more inclined to call light, being so quietly cheerful with the sunshine through it. put in, now and then, a castle on a hilltop; a rough ravine, a smiling valley; a mountain stream, with a far wider bed than it at present needs, and a stone bridge across it, with ancient and massive arches;--and i shall say no more, except that all these particulars, and many better ones which escape me, made up a very pleasant whole. at about noon we drove into the village of incisa, and alighted at the albergo where we were to lunch. it was a gloomy old house, as much like my idea of an etruscan tomb as anything else that i can compare it to. we passed into a wide and lofty entrance-hall, paved with stone, and vaulted with a roof of intersecting arches, supported by heavy columns of stuccoed-brick, the whole as sombre and dingy as can well be. this entrance-hall is not merely the passageway into the inn, but is likewise the carriage-house, into which our vettura is wheeled; and it has, on one side, the stable, odorous with the litter of horses and cattle, and on the other the kitchen, and a common sitting-room. a narrow stone staircase leads from it to the dining-room, and chambers above, which are paved with brick, and adorned with rude frescos instead of paper-hangings. we look out of the windows, and step into a little iron-railed balcony, before the principal window, and observe the scene in the village street. the street is narrow, and nothing can exceed the tall, grim ugliness of the village houses, many of them four stories high, contiguous all along, and paved quite across; so that nature is as completely shut out from the precincts of this little town as from the heart of the widest city. the walls of the houses are plastered, gray, dilapidated; the windows small, some of them drearily closed with wooden shutters, others flung wide open, and with women's heads protruding, others merely frescoed, for a show of light and air. it would be a hideous street to look at in a rainy day, or when no human life pervaded it. now it has vivacity enough to keep it cheerful. people lounge round the door of the albergo, and watch the horses as they drink from a stone trough, which is built against the wall of the house, and filled with the unseen gush of a spring. at first there is a shade entirely across the street, and all the within-doors of the village empties itself there, and keeps up a babblement that seems quite disproportioned even to the multitude of tongues that make it. so many words are not spoken in a new england village in a whole year as here in this single day. people talk about nothing as if they were terribly in earnest, and laugh at nothing as if it were all excellent joke. as the hot noon sunshine encroaches on our side of the street, it grows a little more quiet. the loungers now confine themselves to the shady margin (growing narrower and narrower) of the other side, where, directly opposite the albergo, there are two cafes and a wine-shop, "vendita di pane, vino, ed altri generi," all in a row with benches before them. the benchers joke with the women passing by, and are joked with back again. the sun still eats away the shadow inch by inch, beating down with such intensity that finally everybody disappears except a few passers-by. doubtless the village snatches this half-hour for its siesta. there is a song, however, inside one of the cafes, with a burden in which several voices join. a girl goes through the street, sheltered under her great bundle of freshly cut grass. by and by the song ceases, and two young peasants come out of the cafe, a little affected by liquor, in their shirt-sleeves and bare feet, with their trousers tucked up. they resume their song in the street, and dance along, one's arm around his fellow's neck, his own waist grasped by the other's arm. they whirl one another quite round about, and come down upon their feet. meeting a village maid coming quietly along, they dance up and intercept her for a moment, but give way to her sobriety of aspect. they pass on, and the shadow soon begins to spread from one side of the street, which presently fills again, and becomes once more, for its size, the noisiest place i ever knew. we had quite a tolerable dinner at this ugly inn, where many preceding travellers had written their condemnatory judgments, as well as a few their favorable ones, in pencil on the walls of the dining-room. to florence. at setting off [from incisa], we were surrounded by beggars as usual, the most interesting of whom were a little blind boy and his mother, who had besieged us with gentle pertinacity during our whole stay there. there was likewise a man with a maimed hand, and other hurts or deformities; also, an old woman who, i suspect, only pretended to be blind, keeping her eyes tightly squeezed together, but directing her hand very accurately where the copper shower was expected to fall. besides these, there were a good many sturdy little rascals, vociferating in proportion as they needed nothing. it was touching, however, to see several persons--themselves beggars for aught i know--assisting to hold up the little blind boy's tremulous hand, so that he, at all events, might not lack the pittance which we had to give. our dole was but a poor one, after all, consisting of what roman coppers we had brought into tuscany with us; and as we drove off, some of the boys ran shouting and whining after us in the hot sunshine, nor stopped till we reached the summit of the hill, which rises immediately from the village street. we heard gaetano once say a good thing to a swarm of beggar-children, who were infesting us, "are your fathers all dead?"--a proverbial expression, i suppose. the pertinacity of beggars does not, i think, excite the indignation of an italian, as it is apt to do that of englishmen or americans. the italians probably sympathize more, though they give less. gaetano is very gentle in his modes of repelling them, and, indeed, never interferes at all, as long as there is a prospect of their getting anything. immediately after leaving incisa, we saw the arno, already a considerable river, rushing between deep banks, with the greenish line of a duck-pond diffused through its water. nevertheless, though the first impression was not altogether agreeable, we soon became reconciled to this line, and ceased to think it an indication of impurity; for, in spite of it, the river is still to a certain degree transparent, and is, at any rate, a mountain stream, and comes uncontaminated from its source. the pure, transparent brown of the new england rivers is the most beautiful color; but i am content that it should be peculiar to them. our afternoon's drive was through scenery less striking than some which we had traversed, but still picturesque and beautiful. we saw deep valleys and ravines, with streams at the bottom; long, wooded hillsides, rising far and high, and dotted with white dwellings, well towards the summits. by and by, we had a distant glimpse of florence, showing its great dome and some of its towers out of a sidelong valley, as if we were between two great waves of the tumultuous sea of hills; while, far beyond, rose in the distance the blue peaks of three or four of the apennines, just on the remote horizon. there being a haziness in the atmosphere, however, florence was little more distinct to us than the celestial city was to christian and hopeful, when they spied at it from the delectable mountains. keeping steadfastly onward, we ascended a winding road, and passed a grand villa, standing very high, and surrounded with extensive grounds. it must be the residence of some great noble; and it has an avenue of poplars or aspens, very light and gay, and fit for the passage of the bridal procession, when the proprietor or his heir brings home his bride; while, in another direction from the same front of the palace, stretches an avenue or grove of cypresses, very long, and exceedingly black and dismal, like a train of gigantic mourners. i have seen few things more striking, in the way of trees, than this grove of cypresses. from this point we descended, and drove along an ugly, dusty avenue, with a high brick wall on one side or both, till we reached the gate of florence, into which we were admitted with as little trouble as custom-house officers, soldiers, and policemen can possibly give. they did not examine our luggage, and even declined a fee, as we had already paid one at the frontier custom-house. thank heaven, and the grand duke! as we hoped that the casa del bello had been taken for us, we drove thither in the first place, but found that the bargain had not been concluded. as the house and studio of mr. powers were just on the opposite side of the street, i went to it, but found him too much engrossed to see me at the moment; so i returned to the vettura, and we told gaetano to carry us to a hotel. he established us at the albergo della fontana, a good and comfortable house. . . . . mr. powers called in the evening,--a plain personage, characterized by strong simplicity and warm kindliness, with an impending brow, and large eyes, which kindle as he speaks. he is gray, and slightly bald, but does not seem elderly, nor past his prime. i accept him at once as an honest and trustworthy man, and shall not vary from this judgment. through his good offices, the next day, we engaged the casa del bello, at a rent of fifty dollars a month, and i shall take another opportunity (my fingers and head being tired now) to write about the house, and mr. powers, and what appertains to him, and about the beautiful city of florence. at present, i shall only say further, that this journey from rome has been one of the brightest and most uncareful interludes of my life; we have all enjoyed it exceedingly, and i am happy that our children have it to look back upon. june th.--at our visit to powers's studio on tuesday, we saw a marble copy of the fisher-boy holding a shell to his ear, and the bust of proserpine, and two or three other ideal busts; various casts of most of the ideal statues and portrait busts which he has executed. he talks very freely about his works, and is no exception to the rule that an artist is not apt to speak in a very laudatory style of a brother artist. he showed us a bust of mr. sparks by persico,--a lifeless and thoughtless thing enough, to be sure,--and compared it with a very good one of the same gentleman by himself; but his chiefest scorn was bestowed on a wretched and ridiculous image of mr. king, of alabama, by clark mills, of which he said he had been employed to make several copies for southern gentlemen. the consciousness of power is plainly to be seen, and the assertion of it by no means withheld, in his simple and natural character; nor does it give me an idea of vanity on his part to see and hear it. he appears to consider himself neglected by his country,--by the government of it, at least,--and talks with indignation of the byways and political intrigue which, he thinks, win the rewards that ought to be bestowed exclusively on merit. an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars was made, some years ago, for a work of sculpture by him, to be placed in the capitol; but the intermediate measures necessary to render it effective have been delayed; while the above-mentioned clark mills-- certainly the greatest bungler that ever botched a block of marble--has received an order for an equestrian statue of washington. not that mr. powers is made bitter or sour by these wrongs, as he considers them; he talks of them with the frankness of his disposition when the topic comes in his way, and is pleasant, kindly, and sunny when he has done with it. his long absence from our country has made him think worse of us than we deserve; and it is an effect of what i myself am sensible, in my shorter exile: the most piercing shriek, the wildest yell, and all the ugly sounds of popular turmoil, inseparable from the life of a republic, being a million times more audible than the peaceful hum of prosperity and content which is going on all the while. he talks of going home, but says that he has been talking of it every year since he first came to italy; and between his pleasant life of congenial labor, and his idea of moral deterioration in america, i think it doubtful whether he ever crosses the sea again. like most exiles of twenty years, he has lost his native country without finding another; but then it is as well to recognize the truth,--that an individual country is by no means essential to one's comfort. powers took us into the farthest room, i believe, of his very extensive studio, and showed us a statue of washington that has much dignity and stateliness. he expressed, however, great contempt for the coat and breeches, and masonic emblems, in which he had been required to drape the figure. what would he do with washington, the most decorous and respectable personage that ever went ceremoniously through the realities of life? did anybody ever see washington nude? it is inconceivable. he had no nakedness, but i imagine he was born with his clothes on, and his hair powdered, and made a stately bow on his first appearance in the world. his costume, at all events, was a part of his character, and must be dealt with by whatever sculptor undertakes to represent him. i wonder that so very sensible a man as powers should not see the necessity of accepting drapery, and the very drapery of the day, if he will keep his art alive. it is his business to idealize the tailor's actual work. but he seems to be especially fond of nudity, none of his ideal statues, so far as i know them, having so much as a rag of clothes. his statue of california, lately finished, and as naked as venus, seemed to me a very good work; not an actual woman, capable of exciting passion, but evidently a little out of the category of human nature. in one hand she holds a divining-rod. "she says to the emigrants," observed powers, "'here is the gold, if you choose to take it.'" but in her face, and in her eyes, very finely expressed, there is a look of latent mischief, rather grave than playful, yet somewhat impish or sprite-like; and, in the other hand, behind her back, she holds a bunch of thorns. powers calls her eyes indian. the statue is true to the present fact and history of california, and includes the age-long truth as respects the "auri sacra fames." . . . . when we had looked sufficiently at the sculpture, powers proposed that we should now go across the street and see the casa del bello. we did so in a body, powers in his dressing-gown and slippers, and his wife and daughters without assuming any street costume. the casa del bello is a palace of three pianos, the topmost of which is occupied by the countess of st. george, an english lady, and two lower pianos are to be let, and we looked at both. the upper one would have suited me well enough; but the lower has a terrace, with a rustic summer-house over it, and is connected with a garden, where there are arbors and a willow-tree, and a little wilderness of shrubbery and roses, with a fountain in the midst. it has likewise an immense suite of rooms, round the four sides of a small court, spacious, lofty, with frescoed ceilings and rich hangings, and abundantly furnished with arm-chairs, sofas, marble tables, and great looking-glasses. not that these last are a great temptation, but in our wandering life i wished to be perfectly comfortable myself, and to make my family so, for just this summer, and so i have taken the lower piano, the price being only fifty dollars per month (entirely furnished, even to silver and linen). certainly this is something like the paradise of cheapness we were told of, and which we vainly sought in rome. . . . . to me has been assigned the pleasantest room for my study; and when i like i can overflow into the summer-house or an arbor, and sit there dreaming of a story. the weather is delightful, too warm to walk, but perfectly fit to do nothing in, in the coolness of these great rooms. every day i shall write a little, perhaps,--and probably take a brief nap somewhere between breakfast and tea,--but go to see pictures and statues occasionally, and so assuage and mollify myself a little after that uncongenial life of the consulate, and before going back to my own hard and dusty new england. after concluding the arrangement for the casa del bello, we stood talking a little while with powers and his wife and daughter before the door of the house, for they seem so far to have adopted the habits of the florentines as to feel themselves at home on the shady side of the street. the out-of-door life and free communication with the pavement, habitual apparently among the middle classes, reminds me of the plays of moliere and other old dramatists, in which the street or the square becomes a sort of common parlor, where most of the talk and scenic business of the people is carried on. june th.--for two or three mornings after breakfast i have rambled a little about the city till the shade grew narrow beneath the walls of the houses, and the heat made it uncomfortable to be in motion. to-day i went over the ponte carraja, and thence into and through the heart of the city, looking into several churches, in all of which i found people taking advantage of the cool breadth of these sacred interiors to refresh themselves and say their prayers. florence at first struck me as having the aspect of a very new city in comparison with rome; but, on closer acquaintance, i find that many of the buildings are antique and massive, though still the clear atmosphere, the bright sunshine, the light, cheerful hues of the stucco, and--as much as anything else, perhaps--the vivacious character of the human life in the streets, take away the sense of its being an ancient city. the streets are delightful to walk in after so many penitential pilgrimages as i have made over those little square, uneven blocks of the roman pavement, which wear out the boots and torment the soul. i absolutely walk on the smooth flags of florence for the mere pleasure of walking, and live in its atmosphere for the mere pleasure of living; and, warm as the weather is getting to be, i never feel that inclination to sink down in a heap and never stir again, which was my dull torment and misery as long as i stayed in rome. i hardly think there can be a place in the world where life is more delicious for its own simple sake than here. i went to-day into the baptistery, which stands near the duomo, and, like that, is covered externally with slabs of black and white marble, now grown brown and yellow with age. the edifice is octagonal, and on entering, one immediately thinks of the pantheon,--the whole space within being free from side to side, with a dome above; but it differs from the severe simplicity of the former edifice, being elaborately ornamented with marble and frescos, and lacking that great eye in the roof that looks so nobly and reverently heavenward from the pantheon. i did little more than pass through the baptistery, glancing at the famous bronze doors, some perfect and admirable casts of which i had already seen at the crystal palace. the entrance of the duomo being just across the piazza, i went in there after leaving the baptistery, and was struck anew--for this is the third or fourth visit--with the dim grandeur of the interior, lighted as it is almost exclusively by painted windows, which seem to me worth all the variegated marbles and rich cabinet-work of st. peter's. the florentine cathedral has a spacious and lofty nave, and side aisles divided from it by pillars; but there are no chapels along the aisles, so that there is far more breadth and freedom of interior, in proportion to the actual space, than is usual in churches. it is woful to think how the vast capaciousness within st. peter's is thrown away, and made to seem smaller than it is by every possible device, as if on purpose. the pillars and walls of this duomo are of a uniform brownish, neutral tint; the pavement, a mosaic work of marble; the ceiling of the dome itself is covered with frescos, which, being very imperfectly lighted, it is impossible to trace out. indeed, it is but a twilight region that is enclosed within the firmament of this great dome, which is actually larger than that of st. peter's, though not lifted so high from the pavement. but looking at the painted windows, i little cared what dimness there might be elsewhere; for certainly the art of man has never contrived any other beauty and glory at all to be compared to this. the dome sits, as it were, upon three smaller domes,--smaller, but still great,--beneath which are three vast niches, forming the transepts of the cathedral and the tribune behind the high altar. all round these hollow, dome-covered arches or niches are high and narrow windows crowded with saints, angels, and all manner of blessed shapes, that turn the common daylight into a miracle of richness and splendor as it passes through their heavenly substance. and just beneath the swell of the great central dome is a wreath of circular windows quite round it, as brilliant as the tall and narrow ones below. it is a pity anybody should die without seeing an antique painted window, with the bright italian sunshine glowing through it. this is "the dim, religious light" that milton speaks of; but i doubt whether he saw these windows when he was in italy, or any but those faded or dusty and dingy ones of the english cathedrals, else he would have illuminated that word "dim" with some epithet that should not chase away the dimness, yet should make it shine like a million of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topazes,--bright in themselves, but dim with tenderness and reverence because god himself was shining through them. i hate what i have said. all the time that i was in the cathedral the space around the high altar, which stands exactly under the dome, was occupied by priests or acolytes in white garments, chanting a religious service. after coming out, i took a view of the edifice from a corner of the street nearest to the dome, where it and the smaller domes can be seen at once. it is greatly more satisfactory than st. peter's in any view i ever had of it,--striking in its outline, with a mystery, yet not a bewilderment, in its masses and curves and angles, and wrought out with a richness of detail that gives the eyes new arches, new galleries, new niches, new pinnacles, new beauties, great and small, to play with when wearied with the vast whole. the hue, black and white marbles, like the baptistery, turned also yellow and brown, is greatly preferable to the buff travertine of st. peter's. from the duomo it is but a moderate street's length to the piazza del gran duca, the principal square of florence. it is a very interesting place, and has on one side the old governmental palace,--the palazzo vecchio,--where many scenes of historic interest have been enacted; for example, conspirators have been hanged from its windows, or precipitated from them upon the pavement of the square below. it is a pity that we cannot take as much interest in the history of these italian republics as in that of england, for the former is much the more picturesque and fuller of curious incident. the sobriety of the anglo-saxon race--in connection, too, with their moral sense--keeps them from doing a great many things that would enliven the page of history; and their events seem to come in great masses, shoved along by the agency of many persons, rather than to result from individual will and character. a hundred plots for a tragedy might be found in florentine history for one in english. at one corner of the palazzo vecchio is a bronze equestrian statue of cosmo de' medici, the first grand duke, very stately and majestic; there are other marble statues--one of david, by michael angelo--at each side of the palace door; and entering the court i found a rich antique arcade within, surrounded by marble pillars, most elaborately carved, supporting arches that were covered with faded frescos. i went no farther, but stepped across a little space of the square to the loggia di lanzi, which is broad and noble, of three vast arches, at the end of which, i take it, is a part of the palazzo uffizi fronting on the piazza. i should call it a portico if it stood before the palace door; but it seems to have been constructed merely for itself, and as a shelter for the people from sun and rain, and to contain some fine specimens of sculpture, as well antique as of more modern times. benvenuto cellini's perseus stands here; but it did not strike me so much as the cast of it in the crystal palace. a good many people were under these great arches; some of whom were reclining, half or quite asleep, on the marble seats that are built against the back of the loggia. a group was reading an edict of the grand duke, which appeared to have been just posted on a board, at the farther end of it; and i was surprised at the interest which they ventured to manifest, and the freedom with which they seemed to discuss it. a soldier was on guard, and doubtless there were spies enough to carry every word that was said to the ear of absolute authority. glancing myself at the edict, however, i found it referred only to the furtherance of a project, got up among the citizens themselves, for bringing water into the city; and on such topics, i suppose there is freedom of discussion. june th.--saturday evening we walked with u---- and j----- into the city, and looked at the exterior of the duomo with new admiration. since my former view of it, i have noticed--which, strangely enough, did not strike me before--that the facade is but a great, bare, ugly space, roughly plastered over, with the brickwork peeping through it in spots, and a faint, almost invisible fresco of colors upon it. this front was once nearly finished with an incrustation of black and white marble, like the rest of the edifice; but one of the city magistrates, benedetto uguccione, demolished it, three hundred years ago, with the idea of building it again in better style. he failed to do so, and, ever since, the magnificence of the great church has been marred by this unsightly roughness of what should have been its richest part; nor is there, i suppose, any hope that it will ever be finished now. the campanile, or bell-tower, stands within a few paces of the cathedral, but entirely disconnected from it, rising to a height of nearly three hundred feet, a square tower of light marbles, now discolored by time. it is impossible to give an idea of the richness of effect produced by its elaborate finish; the whole surface of the four sides, from top to bottom, being decorated with all manner of statuesque and architectural sculpture. it is like a toy of ivory, which some ingenious and pious monk might have spent his lifetime in adorning with scriptural designs and figures of saints; and when it was finished, seeing it so beautiful, he prayed that it might be miraculously magnified from the size of one foot to that of three hundred. this idea somewhat satisfies me, as conveying an impression how gigantesque the campanile is in its mass and height, and how minute and varied in its detail. surely these mediaeval works have an advantage over the classic. they combine the telescope and the microscope. the city was all alive in the summer evening, and the streets humming with voices. before the doors of the cafes were tables, at which people were taking refreshment, and it went to my heart to see a bottle of english ale, some of which was poured foaming into a glass; at least, it had exactly the amber hue and the foam of english bitter ale; but perhaps it may have been merely a florentine imitation. as we returned home over the arno, crossing the ponte di santa trinita, we were struck by the beautiful scene of the broad, calm river, with the palaces along its shores repeated in it, on either side, and the neighboring bridges, too, just as perfect in the tide beneath as in the air above,--a city of dream and shadow so close to the actual one. god has a meaning, no doubt, in putting this spiritual symbol continually beside us. along the river, on both sides, as far as we could see, there was a row of brilliant lamps, which, in the far distance, looked like a cornice of golden light; and this also shone as brightly in the river's depths. the lilies of the evening, in the quarter where the sun had gone down, were very soft and beautiful, though not so gorgeous as thousands that i have seen in america. but i believe i must fairly confess that the italian sky, in the daytime, is bluer and brighter than our own, and that the atmosphere has a quality of showing objects to better advantage. it is more than mere daylight; the magic of moonlight is somehow mixed up with it, although it is so transparent a medium of light. last evening, mr. powers called to see us, and sat down to talk in a friendly and familiar way. i do not know a man of more facile intercourse, nor with whom one so easily gets rid of ceremony. his conversation, too, is interesting. he talked, to begin with, about italian food, as poultry, mutton, beef, and their lack of savoriness as compared with our own; and mentioned an exquisite dish of vegetables which they prepare from squash or pumpkin blossoms; likewise another dish, which it will be well for us to remember when we get back to the wayside, where we are overrun with acacias. it consists of the acacia-blossoms in a certain stage of their development fried in olive-oil. i shall get the receipt from mrs. powers, and mean to deserve well of my country by first trying it, and then making it known; only i doubt whether american lard, or even butter, will produce the dish quite so delicately as fresh florence oil. meanwhile, i like powers all the better, because he does not put his life wholly into marble. we had much talk, nevertheless, on matters of sculpture, for he drank a cup of tea with us, and stayed a good while. he passed a condemnatory sentence on classic busts in general, saying that they were conventional, and not to be depended upon as trite representations of the persons. he particularly excepted none but the bust of caracalla; and, indeed, everybody that has seen this bust must feel the justice of the exception, and so be the more inclined to accept his opinion about the rest. there are not more than half a dozen--that of cato the censor among the others--in regard to which i should like to ask his judgment individually. he seems to think the faculty of making a bust an extremely rare one. canova put his own likeness into all the busts he made. greenough could not make a good one; nor crawford, nor gibson. mr. harte, he observed,--an american sculptor, now a resident in florence,--is the best man of the day for making busts. of course, it is to be presumed that he excepts himself; but i would not do powers the great injustice to imply that there is the slightest professional jealousy in his estimate of what others have done, or are now doing, in his own art. if he saw a better man than himself, he would recognize him at once, and tell the world of him; but he knows well enough that, in this line, there is no better, and probably none so good. it would not accord with the simplicity of his character to blink a fact that stands so broadly before him. we asked him what he thought, of mr. gibson's practice of coloring his statues, and he quietly and slyly said that he himself had made wax figures in his earlier days, but had left off making them now. in short, he objected to the practice wholly, and said that a letter of his on the subject had been published in the london "athenaeum," and had given great offence to some of mr. gibson's friends. it appeared to me, however, that his arguments did not apply quite fairly to the case, for he seems to think gibson aims at producing an illusion of life in the statue, whereas i think his object is merely to give warmth and softness to the snowy marble, and so bring it a little nearer to our hearts and sympathies. even so far, nevertheless, i doubt whether the practice is defensible, and i was glad to see that powers scorned, at all events, the argument drawn from the use of color by the antique sculptors, on which gibson relies so much. it might almost be implied, from the contemptuous way in which powers spoke of color, that he considers it an impertinence on the face of visible nature, and would rather the world had been made without it; for he said that everything in intellect or feeling can be expressed as perfectly, or more so, by the sculptor in colorless marble, as by the painter with all the resources of his palette. i asked him whether he could model the face of beatrice cenci from guido's picture so as to retain the subtle expression, and he said he could, for that the expression depended entirely on the drawing, "the picture being a badly colored thing." i inquired whether he could model a blush, and he said "yes"; and that he had once proposed to an artist to express a blush in marble, if he would express it in picture. on consideration, i believe one to be as impossible as the other; the life and reality of the blush being in its tremulousness, coming and going. it is lost in a settled red just as much as in a settled paleness, and neither the sculptor nor painter can do more than represent the circumstances of attitude and expression that accompany the blush. there was a great deal of truth in what powers said about this matter of color, and in one of our interminable new england winters it ought to comfort us to think how little necessity there is for any hue but that of the snow. mr. powers, nevertheless, had brought us a bunch of beautiful roses, and seemed as capable of appreciating their delicate blush as we were. the best thing he said against the use of color in marble was to the effect that the whiteness removed the object represented into a sort of spiritual region, and so gave chaste permission to those nudities which would otherwise suggest immodesty. i have myself felt the truth of this in a certain sense of shame as i looked at gibson's tinted venus. he took his leave at about eight o'clock, being to make a call on the bryants, who are at the hotel de new york, and also on mrs. browning, at casa guidi. end of vol. i. passages from the french and italian note-books of nathaniel hawthorne vol. ii. passages from hawthorne's note-books in france and italy. florence (continued). june th.--i went this morning to the uffizi gallery. the entrance is from the great court of the palace, which communicates with lung' arno at one end, and with the grand ducal piazza at the other. the gallery is in the upper story of the palace, and in the vestibule are some busts of the princes and cardinals of the medici family,--none of them beautiful, one or two so ugly as to be ludicrous, especially one who is all but buried in his own wig. i at first travelled slowly through the whole extent of this long, long gallery, which occupies the entire length of the palace on both sides of the court, and is full of sculpture and pictures. the latter, being opposite to the light, are not seen to the best advantage; but it is the most perfect collection, in a chronological series, that i have seen, comprehending specimens of all the masters since painting began to be an art. here are giotto, and cimabue, and botticelli, and fra angelico, and filippo lippi, and a hundred others, who have haunted me in churches and galleries ever since i have been in italy, and who ought to interest me a great deal more than they do. occasionally to-day i was sensible of a certain degree of emotion in looking at an old picture; as, for example, by a large, dark, ugly picture of christ hearing the cross and sinking beneath it, when, somehow or other, a sense of his agony, and the fearful wrong that mankind did (and does) its redeemer, and the scorn of his enemies, and the sorrow of those who loved him, came knocking at any heart and got entrance there. once more i deem it a pity that protestantism should have entirely laid aside this mode of appealing to the religious sentiment. i chiefly paid attention to the sculpture, and was interested in a long series of busts of the emperors and the members of their families, and some of the great men of rome. there is a bust of pompey the great, bearing not the slightest resemblance to that vulgar and unintellectual one in the gallery of the capitol, altogether a different cast of countenance. i could not judge whether it resembled the face of the statue, having seen the latter so imperfectly in the duskiness of the hall of the spada palace. these, i presume, are the busts which mr. powers condemns, from internal evidence, as unreliable and conventional. he may be right,--and is far more likely, of course, to be right than i am,--yet there certainly seems to be character in these marble faces, and they differ as much among themselves as the same number of living faces might. the bust of caracalla, however, which powers excepted from his censure, certainly does give stronger assurance of its being an individual and faithful portrait than any other in the series. all the busts of caracalla--of which i have seen many--give the same evidence of their truth; and i should like to know what it was in this abominable emperor that made him insist upon having his actual likeness perpetuated, with all the ugliness of its animal and moral character. i rather respect him for it, and still more the sculptor, whose hand, methinks, must have trembled as he wrought the bust. generally these wicked old fellows, and their wicked wives and daughters, are not so hideous as we might expect. messalina, for instance, has small and pretty features, though with rather a sensual development of the lower part of the face. the busts, it seemed to me, are usually superior as works of art to those in the capitol, and either better preserved or more thoroughly restored. the bust of nero might almost be called handsome here, though bearing his likeness unmistakably. i wish some competent person would undertake to analyze and develop his character, and how and by what necessity--with all his elegant tastes, his love of the beautiful, his artist nature--he grew to be such a monster. nero has never yet had justice done him, nor have any of the wicked emperors; not that i suppose them to have been any less monstrous than history represents them; but there must surely have been something in their position and circumstances to render the terrible moral disease which seized upon them so generally almost inevitable. a wise and profound man, tender and reverent of the human soul, and capable of appreciating it in its height and depth, has a great field here for the exercise of his powers. it has struck me, in reading the history of the italian republics, that many of the tyrants, who sprung up after the destruction of their liberties, resembled the worst of the roman emperors. the subject of nero and his brethren has often perplexed me with vain desires to come at the truth. there were many beautiful specimens of antique, ideal sculpture all along the gallery,--apollos, bacchuses, venuses, mercurys, fauns,--with the general character of all of which i was familiar enough to recognize them at a glance. the mystery and wonder of the gallery, however, the venus de' medici, i could nowhere see, and indeed was almost afraid to see it; for i somewhat apprehended the extinction of another of those lights that shine along a man's pathway, and go out in a snuff the instant he comes within eyeshot of the fulfilment of his hopes. my european experience has extinguished many such. i was pretty well contented, therefore, not to find the famous statue in the whole of my long journey from end to end of the gallery, which terminates on the opposite side of the court from that where it commences. the ceiling, by the by, through the entire length, is covered with frescos, and the floor paved with a composition of stone smooth and polished like marble. the final piece of sculpture, at the end of the gallery, is a copy of the laocoon, considered very fine. i know not why, but it did not impress me with the sense of mighty and terrible repose--a repose growing out of the infinitude of trouble-- that i had felt in the original. parallel with the gallery, on both sides of the palace-court, there runs a series of rooms devoted chiefly to pictures, although statues and bas-reliefs are likewise contained in some of them. i remember an unfinished bas-relief by michael angelo of a holy family, which i touched with my finger, because it seemed as if he might have been at work upon it only an hour ago. the pictures i did little more than glance at, till i had almost completed again the circuit of the gallery, through this series of parallel rooms, and then i came upon a collection of french and dutch and flemish masters, all of which interested me more than the italian generally. there was a beautiful picture by claude, almost as good as those in the british national gallery, and very like in subject; the sun near the horizon, of course, and throwing its line of light over the ripple of water, with ships at the strand, and one or two palaces of stately architecture on the shore. landscapes by rembrandt; fat graces and other plump nudities by rubens; brass pans and earthen pots and herrings by terriers and other dutchmen; none by gerard douw, i think, but several by mieris; all of which were like bread and beef and ale, after having been fed too long on made dishes. this is really a wonderful collection of pictures; and from first, to last--from giotto to the men of yesterday--they are in admirable condition, and may be appreciated for all the merit that they ever possessed. i could not quite believe that i was not to find the venus de' medici; and still, as i passed from one room to another, my breath rose and fell a little, with the half-hope, half-fear, that she might stand before me. really, i did not know that i cared so much about venus, or any possible woman of marble. at last, when i had come from among the dutchmen, i believe, and was looking at some works of italian artists, chiefly florentines, i caught a glimpse of her through the door of the next room. it is the best room of the series, octagonal in shape, and hung with red damask, and the light comes down from a row of windows, passing quite round, beneath an octagonal dome. the venus stands somewhat aside from the centre of the room, and is surrounded by an iron railing, a pace or two from her pedestal in front, and less behind. i think she might safely be left to the reverence her womanhood would win, without any other protection. she is very beautiful, very satisfactory; and has a fresh and new charm about her unreached by any cast or copy. the line of the marble is just so much mellowed by time, as to do for her all that gibson tries, or ought to try to do for his statues by color, softening her, warming her almost imperceptibly, making her an inmate of the heart, as well as a spiritual existence. i felt a kind of tenderness for her; an affection, not as if she were one woman, but all womanhood in one. her modest attitude, which, before i saw her i had not liked, deeming that it might be an artificial shame, is partly what unmakes her as the heathen goddess, and softens her into woman. there is a slight degree of alarm, too, in her face; not that she really thinks anybody is looking at her, yet the idea has flitted through her mind, and startled her a little. her face is so beautiful and intellectual, that it is not dazzled out of sight by her form. methinks this was a triumph for the sculptor to achieve. i may as well stop here. it is of no use to throw heaps of words upon her; for they all fall away, and leave her standing in chaste and naked grace, as untouched as when i began. she has suffered terribly by the mishaps of her long existence in the marble. each of her legs has been broken into two or three fragments, her arms have been severed, her body has been broken quite across at the waist, her head has been snapped off at the neck. furthermore, there have been grievous wounds and losses of substance in various tender parts of her person. but on account of the skill with which the statue has been restored, and also because the idea is perfect and indestructible, all these injuries do not in the least impair the effect, even when you see where the dissevered fragments have been reunited. she is just as whole as when she left the hands of the sculptor. i am glad to have seen this venus, and to have found her so tender and so chaste. on the wall of the room, and to be taken in at the same glance, is a painted venus by titian, reclining on a couch, naked and lustful. the room of the venus seems to be the treasure-place of the whole uffizi palace, containing more pictures by famous masters than are to be found in all the rest of the gallery. there were several by raphael, and the room was crowded with the easels of artists. i did not look half enough at anything, but merely took a preliminary taste, as a prophecy of enjoyment to come. as we were at dinner to-day, at half past three, there was a ring at the door, and a minute after our servant brought a card. it was mr. robert browning's, and on it was written in pencil an invitation for us to go to see them this evening. he had left the card and gone away; but very soon the bell rang again, and he had come back, having forgotten to give his address. this time he came in; and he shook hands with all of us, children and grown people, and was very vivacious and agreeable. he looked younger and even handsomer than when i saw him in london, two years ago, and his gray hairs seemed fewer than those that had then strayed into his youthful head. he talked a wonderful quantity in a little time, and told us--among other things that we should never have dreamed of--that italian people will not cheat you, if you construe them generously, and put them upon their honor. mr. browning was very kind and warm in his expressions of pleasure at seeing us; and, on our part, we were all very glad to meet him. he must be an exceedingly likable man. . . . . they are to leave florence very soon, and are going to normandy, i think he said, for the rest of the summer. the venus de' medici has a dimple in her chin. june th.--we went last evening, at eight o'clock, to see the brownings; and, after some search and inquiry, we found the casa guidi, which is a palace in a street not very far from our own. it being dusk, i could not see the exterior, which, if i remember, browning has celebrated in song; at all events, mrs. browning has called one of her poems "casa guidi windows." the street is a narrow one; but on entering the palace, we found a spacious staircase and ample accommodations of vestibule and hall, the latter opening on a balcony, where we could hear the chanting of priests in a church close by. browning told us that this was the first church where an oratorio had ever been performed. he came into the anteroom to greet us, as did his little boy, robert, whom they call pennini for fondness. the latter cognomen is a diminutive of apennino, which was bestowed upon him at his first advent into the world because he was so very small, there being a statue in florence of colossal size called apennino. i never saw such a boy as this before; so slender, fragile, and spirit-like,--not as if he were actually in ill health, but as if he had little or nothing to do with human flesh and blood. his face is very pretty and most intelligent, and exceedingly like his mother's. he is nine years old, and seems at once less childlike and less manly than would befit that age. i should not quite like to be the father of such a boy, and should fear to stake so much interest and affection on him as he cannot fail to inspire. i wonder what is to become of him,--whether he will ever grow to be a man,--whether it is desirable that he should. his parents ought to turn their whole attention to making him robust and earthly, and to giving him a thicker scabbard to sheathe his spirit in. he was born in florence, and prides himself on being a florentine, and is indeed as un-english a production as if he were native of another planet. mrs. browning met us at the door of the drawing-room, and greeted us most kindly,--a pale, small person, scarcely embodied at all; at any rate, only substantial enough to put forth her slender fingers to be grasped, and to speak with a shrill, yet sweet, tenuity of voice. really, i do not see how mr. browning can suppose that he has an earthly wife any more than an earthly child; both are of the elfin race, and will flit away from him some day when he least thinks of it. she is a good and kind fairy, however, and sweetly disposed towards the human race, although only remotely akin to it. it is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her cheek, how bright and dark her eyes. there is not such another figure in the world; and her black ringlets cluster down into her neck, and make her face look the whiter by their sable profusion. i could not form any judgment about her age; it may range anywhere within the limits of human life or elfin life. when i met her in london at lord houghton's breakfast-table, she did not impress me so singularly; for the morning light is more prosaic than the dim illumination of their great tapestried drawing-room; and besides, sitting next to her, she did not have occasion to raise her voice in speaking, and i was not sensible what a slender voice she has. it is marvellous to me how so extraordinary, so acute, so sensitive a creature can impress us, as she does, with the certainty of her benevolence. it seems to me there were a million chances to one that she would have been a miracle of acidity and bitterness. we were not the only guests. mr. and mrs. e------, americans, recently from the east, and on intimate terms with the brownings, arrived after us; also miss f. h------, an english literary lady, whom i have met several times in liverpool; and lastly came the white head and palmer-like beard of mr. ------ with his daughter. mr. browning was very efficient in keeping up conversation with everybody, and seemed to be in all parts of the room and in every group at the same moment; a most vivid and quick-thoughted person, logical and common-sensible, as, i presume, poets generally are in their daily talk. mr. ------, as usual, was homely and plain of manner, with an old-fashioned dignity, nevertheless, and a remarkable deference and gentleness of tone in addressing mrs. browning. i doubt, however, whether he has any high appreciation either of her poetry or her husband's, and it is my impression that they care as little about his. we had some tea and some strawberries, and passed a pleasant evening. there was no very noteworthy conversation; the most interesting topic being that disagreeable and now wearisome one of spiritual communications, as regards which mrs. browning is a believer, and her husband an infidel. mr. ------ appeared not to have made up his mind on the matter, but told a story of a successful communication between cooper the novelist and his sister, who had been dead fifty years. browning and his wife had both been present at a spiritual session held by mr. hume, and had seen and felt the unearthly hands, one of which had placed a laurel wreath on mrs. browning's head. browning, however, avowed his belief that these hands were affixed to the feet of mr. hume, who lay extended in his chair, with his legs stretched far under the table. the marvellousness of the fact, as i have read of it, and heard it from other eye-witnesses, melted strangely away in his hearty gripe, and at the sharp touch of his logic; while his wife, ever and anon, put in a little gentle word of expostulation. i am rather surprised that browning's conversation should be so clear, and so much to the purpose at the moment, since his poetry can seldom proceed far without running into the high grass of latent meanings and obscure allusions. mrs. browning's health does not permit late hours, so we began to take heave at about ten o'clock. i heard her ask mr. ------ if he did not mean to revisit europe, and heard him answer, not uncheerfully, taking hold of his white hair, "it is getting rather too late in the evening now." if any old age can be cheerful, i should think his might be; so good a man, so cool, so calm, so bright, too, we may say. his life has been like the days that end in pleasant sunsets. he has a great loss, however, or what ought to be a great loss,--soon to be encountered in the death of his wife, who, i think, can hardly live to reach america. he is not eminently an affectionate man. i take him to be one who cannot get closely home to his sorrow, nor feel it so sensibly as he gladly would; and, in consequence of that deficiency, the world lacks substance to him. it is partly the result, perhaps, of his not having sufficiently cultivated his emotional nature. his poetry shows it, and his personal intercourse, though kindly, does not stir one's blood in the least. little pennini, during the evening, sometimes helped the guests to cake and strawberries; joined in the conversation, when he had anything to say, or sat down upon a couch to enjoy his own meditations. he has long curling hair, and has not yet emerged from his frock and short hose. it is funny to think of putting him into trousers. his likeness to his mother is strange to behold. june th.--my wife and i went to the pitti palace to-day; and first entered a court where, yesterday, she had seen a carpet of flowers, arranged for some great ceremony. it must have been a most beautiful sight, the pavement of the court being entirely covered by them, in a regular pattern of brilliant lines, so as really to be a living mosaic. this morning, however, the court had nothing but its usual stones, and the show of yesterday seemed so much the more inestimable as having been so evanescent. around the walls of the court there were still some pieces of splendid tapestry which had made part of yesterday's magnificence. we went up the staircase, of regally broad and easy ascent, and made application to be admitted to see the grand-ducal apartments. an attendant accordingly took the keys, and ushered us first into a great hall with a vaulted ceiling, and then through a series of noble rooms, with rich frescos above and mosaic floors, hung with damask, adorned with gilded chandeliers, and glowing, in short, with more gorgeousness than i could have imagined beforehand, or can now remember. in many of the rooms were those superb antique cabinets which i admire more than any other furniture ever invented; only these were of unexampled art and glory, inlaid with precious stones, and with beautiful florentine mosaics, both of flowers and landscapes,--each cabinet worth a lifetime's toil to make it, and the cost a whole palace to pay for it. many of the rooms were covered with arras, of landscapes, hunting-scenes, mythological subjects, or historical scenes, equal to pictures in truth of representation, and possessing an indescribable richness that makes them preferable as a mere adornment of princely halls and chambers. some of the rooms, as i have said, were laid in mosaic of stone and marble, otherwise in lovely patterns of various woods; others were covered with carpets, delightful to tread upon, and glowing like the living floor of flowers which my wife saw yesterday. there were tables, too, of florentine mosaic, the mere materials of which--lapis lazuli, malachite, pearl, and a hundred other precious things--were worth a fortune, and made a thousand times more valuable by the artistic skill of the manufacturer. i toss together brilliant words by the handful, and make a rude sort of patchwork, but can record no adequate idea of what i saw in this suite of rooms; and the taste, the subdued splendor, so that it did not shine too high, but was all tempered into an effect at once grand and soft,--this was quite as remarkable as the gorgeous material. i have seen a very dazzling effect produced in the principal cabin of an american clipper-ship quite opposed to this in taste. after making the circuit of the grand-ducal apartments, we went into a door in the left wing of the palace, and ascended a narrow flight of stairs,--several tortuous flights indeed,--to the picture-gallery. it fills a great many stately halls, which themselves are well worth a visit for the architecture and frescos; only these matters become commonplace after travelling through a mile or two of them. the collection of pictures--as well for their number as for the celebrity and excellence of many of them--is the most interesting that i have seen, and i do not yet feel in a condition, nor perhaps ever shall, to speak of a single one. it gladdened my very heart to find that they were not darkened out of sight, nor apparently at all injured by time, but were well kept and varnished, brilliantly framed, and, no doubt, restored by skilful touches if any of them needed it. the artists and amateurs may say what they like; for my part, i know no drearier feeling than that inspired by a ruined picture,--ruined, that is, by time, damp, or rough treatment,--and i would a thousand times rather an artist should do his best towards reviving it, than have it left in such a condition. i do not believe, however, that these pictures have been sacrilegiously interfered with; at all events, i saw in the masterpieces no touch but what seemed worthy of the master-hand. the most beautiful picture in the world, i am convinced, is raphael's "madonna della seggiola." i was familiar with it in a hundred engravings and copies, and therefore it shone upon one as with a familiar beauty, though infinitely more divine than i had ever seen it before. an artist was copying it, and producing certainly something very like a fac-simile, yet leaving out, as a matter of course, that mysterious something that renders the picture a miracle. it is my present opinion that the pictorial art is capable of something more like magic, more wonderful and inscrutable in its methods, than poetry or any other mode of developing the beautiful. but how does this accord with what i have been saying only a minute ago? how then can the decayed picture of a great master ever be restored by the touches of an inferior hand? doubtless it never can be restored; but let some devoted worshipper do his utmost, and the whole inherent spirit of the divine picture may pervade his restorations likewise. i saw the "three fates" of michael angelo, which were also being copied, as were many other of the best pictures. miss fanny howorth, whom i met in the gallery, told me that to copy the "madonna della seggiola," application must be made five years beforehand, so many are the artists who aspire to copy it. michael angelo's fates are three very grim and pitiless old women, who respectively spin, hold, and cut the thread of human destiny, all in a mood of sombre gloom, but with no more sympathy than if they had nothing to do with us. i remember seeing an etching of this when i was a child, and being struck, even then, with the terrible, stern, passionless severity, neither loving us nor hating us, that characterizes these ugly old women. if they were angry, or had the least spite against human kind, it would render them the more tolerable. they are a great work, containing and representing the very idea that makes a belief in fate such a cold torture to the human soul. god give me the sure belief in his providence! in a year's time, with the advantage of access to this magnificent gallery, i think i might come to have some little knowledge of pictures. at present i still know nothing; but am glad to find myself capable, at least, of loving one picture better than another. i cannot always "keep the heights i gain," however, and after admiring and being moved by a picture one day, it is within my experience to look at it the next as little moved as if it were a tavern-sign. it is pretty much the same with statuary; the same, too, with those pictured windows of the duomo, which i described so rapturously a few days ago. i looked at them again the next morning, and thought they would have been hardly worthy of my eulogium, even had all the separate windows of the cathedral combined their narrow lights into one grand, resplendent, many-colored arch at the eastern end. it is a pity they are so narrow. england has many a great chancel-window that, though dimmer in its hues, dusty, and perhaps made up of heterogeneous fragments, eclipses these by its spacious breadth. from the gallery, i went into the boboli gardens, which are contiguous to the palace; but found them too sunny for enjoyment. they seem to consist partly of a wilderness; but the portion into which i strayed was laid out with straight walks, lined with high box-hedges, along which there was only a narrow margin of shade. i saw an amphitheatre, with a wide sweep of marble seat around it, enclosing a grassy space, where, doubtless, the medici may have witnessed splendid spectacles. june th.--i paid another visit to the uffizi gallery this morning, and found that the venus is one of the things the charm of which does not diminish on better acquaintance. the world has not grown weary of her in all these ages; and mortal man may look on her with new delight from infancy to old age, and keep the memory of her, i should imagine, as one of the treasures of spiritual existence hereafter. surely, it makes me more ready to believe in the high destinies of the human race, to think that this beautiful form is but nature's plan for all womankind, and that the nearer the actual woman approaches it, the more natural she is. i do not, and cannot think of her as a senseless image, but as a being that lives to gladden the world, incapable of decay and death; as young and fair to-day as she was three thousand years ago, and still to be young and fair as long as a beautiful thought shall require physical embodiment. i wonder how any sculptor has had the impertinence to aim at any other presentation of female beauty. i mean no disrespect to gibson or powers, or a hundred other men who people the world with nudities, all of which are abortions as compared with her; but i think the world would be all the richer if their venuses, their greek slaves, their eves, were burnt into quicklime, leaving us only this statue as our image of the beautiful. i observed to-day that the eyes of the statue are slightly hollowed out, in a peculiar way, so as to give them a look of depth and intelligence. she is a miracle. the sculptor must have wrought religiously, and have felt that something far beyond his own skill was working through his hands. i mean to leave off speaking of the venus hereafter, in utter despair of saying what i wish; especially as the contemplation of the statue will refine and elevate my taste, and make it continually more difficult to express my sense of its excellence, as the perception of it grows upon one. if at any time i become less sensible of it, it will be my deterioration, not any defect in the statue. i looked at many of the pictures, and found myself in a favorable mood for enjoying them. it seems to me that a work of art is entitled to credit for all that it makes us feel in our best moments; and we must judge of its merits by the impression it then makes, and not by the coldness and insensibility of our less genial moods. after leaving the uffizi palace, . . . . i went into the museum of natural history, near the pitti palace. it is a very good collection of almost everything that nature has made,--or exquisite copies of what she has made,--stones, shells, vegetables, insects, fishes, animals, man; the greatest wonders of the museum being some models in wax of all parts of the human frame. it is good to have the wholeness and summed-up beauty of woman in the memory, when looking at the details of her system as here displayed; for these last, to the natural eye, are by no means beautiful. but they are what belong only to our mortality. the beauty that makes them invisible is our immortal type, which we shall take away with us. under glass cases, there were some singular and horribly truthful representations, in small wax figures, of a time of pestilence; the hasty burial, or tossing into one common sepulchre, of discolored corpses,--a very ugly piece of work, indeed. i think murray says that these things were made for the grand duke cosmo; and if so, they do him no credit, indicating something dark and morbid in his character. june th.--we called at the powers's yesterday morning to leave r----- there for an hour or two to play with the children; and it being not yet quite time for the pitti palace, we stopped into the studio. soon mr. powers made his appearance, in his dressing-gown and slippers and sculptor's cap, smoking a cigar. . . . . he was very cordial and pleasant, as i have always found him, and began immediately to be communicative about his own works, or any other subject that came up. there were two casts of the venus de' medici in the rooms, which he said were valuable in a commercial point of view, being genuine casts from the mould taken from the statue. he then gave us a quite unexpected but most interesting lecture on the venus, demonstrating it, as he proceeded, by reference to the points which he criticised. the figure, he seemed to allow, was admirable, though i think he hardly classes it so high as his own greek slave or eva; but the face, he began with saying, was that of an idiot. then, leaning on the pedestal of the cast, he continued, "it is rather a bold thing to say, isn't it, that the sculptor of the venus de' medici did not know what he was about?" truly, it appeared to me so; but powers went on remorselessly, and showed, in the first place, that the eye was not like any eye that nature ever made; and, indeed, being examined closely, and abstracted from the rest of the face, it has a very queer look,--less like a human eye than a half-worn buttonhole! then he attacked the ear, which, he affirmed and demonstrated, was placed a good deal too low on the head, thereby giving an artificial and monstrous height to the portion of the head above it. the forehead met with no better treatment in his hands, and as to the mouth, it was altogether wrong, as well in its general make as in such niceties as the junction of the skin of the lips to the common skin around them. in a word, the poor face was battered all to pieces and utterly demolished; nor was it possible to doubt or question that it fell by its own demerits. all that could be urged in its defence--and even that i did not urge--being that this very face had affected me, only the day before, with a sense of higher beauty and intelligence than i had ever then received from sculpture, and that its expression seemed to accord with that of the whole figure, as if it were the sweetest note of the same music. there must be something in this; the sculptor disregarded technicalities, and the imitation of actual nature, the better to produce the effect which he really does produce, in somewhat the same way as a painter works his magical illusions by touches that have no relation to the truth if looked at from the wrong point of view. but powers considers it certain that the antique sculptor had bestowed all his care on the study of the human figure, and really did not know how to make a face. i myself used to think that the face was a much less important thing with the greeks, among whom the entire beauty of the form was familiarly seen, than with ourselves, who allow no other nudity. after annihilating the poor visage, powers showed us his two busts of proserpine and psyche, and continued his lecture by showing the truth to nature with which these are modelled. i freely acknowledge the fact; there is no sort of comparison to be made between the beauty, intelligence, feeling, and accuracy of representation in these two faces and in that of the venus de' medici. a light--the light of a soul proper to each individual character--seems to shine from the interior of the marble, and beam forth from the features, chiefly from the eyes. still insisting upon the eye, and hitting the poor venus another and another and still another blow on that unhappy feature, mr. powers turned up and turned inward and turned outward his own titanic orb,--the biggest, by far, that ever i saw in mortal head,--and made us see and confess that there was nothing right in the venus and everything right in psyche and proserpine. to say the truth, their marble eyes have life, and, placing yourself in the proper position towards them, you can meet their glances, and feel them mingle with your own. powers is a great man, and also a tender and delicate one, massive and rude of surface as he looks; and it is rather absurd to feel how he impressed his auditor, for the time being, with his own evident idea that nobody else is worthy to touch marble. mr. b------ told me that powers has had many difficulties on professional grounds, as i understood him, and with his brother artists. no wonder! he has said enough in my hearing to put him at swords' points with sculptors of every epoch and every degree between the two inclusive extremes of phidias and clark mills. he has a bust of the reigning grand duchess of tuscany, who sat to him for it. the bust is that of a noble-looking lady; and powers remarked that royal personages have a certain look that distinguishes them from other people, and is seen in individuals of no lower rank. they all have it; the queen of england and prince albert have it; and so likewise has every other royalty, although the possession of this kingly look implies nothing whatever as respects kingly and commanding qualities. he said that none of our public men, whatever authority they may have held, or for whatever length of time, possess this look, but he added afterwards that washington had it. commanders of armies sometimes have it, but not in the degree that royal personages do. it is, as well as i could make out powers's idea, a certain coldness of demeanor, and especially of eye, that surrounds them with an atmosphere through which the electricity of human brotherhood cannot pass. from their youth upward they are taught to feel themselves apart from the rest of mankind, and this manner becomes a second nature to them in consequence, and as a safeguard to their conventional dignity. they put themselves under glass, as it were (the illustration is my own), so that, though you see them, and see them looking no more noble and dignified than other mortals, nor so much so as many, still they keep themselves within a sort of sanctity, and repel you by an invisible barrier. even if they invite you with a show of warmth and hospitality, you cannot get through. i, too, recognize this look in the portraits of washington; in him, a mild, benevolent coldness and apartness, but indicating that formality which seems to have been deeper in him than in any other mortal, and which built up an actual fortification between himself and human sympathy. i wish, for once, washington could come out of his envelopment and show us what his real dimensions were. among other models of statues heretofore made, powers showed us one of melancholy, or rather of contemplation, from milton's "penseroso"; a female figure with uplifted face and rapt look, "communing with the skies." it is very fine, and goes deeply into milton's thought; but, as far as the outward form and action are concerned, i remember seeing a rude engraving in my childhood that probably suggested the idea. it was prefixed to a cheap american edition of milton's poems, and was probably as familiar to powers as to myself. it is very remarkable how difficult it seems to be to strike out a new attitude in sculpture; a new group, or a new single figure. one piece of sculpture powers exhibited, however, which was very exquisite, and such as i never saw before. opening a desk, he took out something carefully enclosed between two layers of cotton-wool, on removing which there appeared a little baby's hand most delicately represented in the whitest marble; all the dimples where the knuckles were to be, all the creases in the plump flesh, every infantine wrinkle of the soft skin being lovingly recorded. "the critics condemn minute representation," said powers; "but you may look at this through a microscope and see if it injures the general effect." nature herself never made a prettier or truer little hand. it was the hand of his daughter,--"luly's hand," powers called it,--the same that gave my own such a frank and friendly grasp when i first met "luly." the sculptor made it only for himself and his wife, but so many people, he said, had insisted on having a copy, that there are now forty scattered about the world. at sixty years, luly ought to have her hand sculptured again, and give it to her grandchildren with the baby's hand of five months old. the baby-hand that had done nothing, and felt only its mother's kiss; the old lady's hand that had exchanged the love-pressure, worn the marriage-ring, closed dead eyes,--done a lifetime's work, in short. the sentiment is rather obvious, but true nevertheless. before we went away, powers took us into a room apart--apparently the secretest room he had--and showed us some tools and machinery, all of his own contrivance and invention. "you see i am a bit of a yankee," he observed. this machinery is chiefly to facilitate the process of modelling his works, for--except in portrait-busts--he makes no clay model as other sculptors do, but models directly in the plaster; so that instead of being crumbled, like clay, the original model remains a permanent possession. he has also invented a certain open file, which is of great use in finishing the surface of the marble; and likewise a machine for making these files and for punching holes through iron, and he demonstrated its efficiency by punching a hole through an iron bar, with a force equivalent to ten thousand pounds, by the mere application of a part of his own weight. these inventions, he says, are his amusement, and the bent of his nature towards sculpture must indeed have been strong, to counteract, in an american, such a capacity for the contrivance of steam-engines. . . . . i had no idea of filling so many pages of this journal with the sayings and characteristics of mr. powers, but the man and his talk are fresh, original, and full of bone and muscle, and i enjoy him much. we now proceeded to the pitti palace, and spent several hours pleasantly in its saloons of pictures. i never enjoyed pictures anywhere else as i do in florence. there is an admirable judith in this gallery by allori; a face of great beauty and depth, and her hand clutches the head of holofernes by the hair in a way that startles the spectator. there are two peasant madonnas by murillo; simple women, yet with a thoughtful sense of some high mystery connected with the baby in their arms. raphael grows upon me; several other famous painters--guido, for instance--are fading out of my mind. salvator rosa has two really wonderful landscapes, looking from the shore seaward; and rubens too, likewise on a large scale, of mountain and plain. it is very idle and foolish to talk of pictures; yet, after poring over them and into them, it seems a pity to let all the thought excited by them pass into nothingness. the copyists of pictures are very numerous, both in the pitti and uffizi galleries; and, unlike sculptors, they appear to be on the best of terms with one another, chatting sociably, exchanging friendly criticism, and giving their opinions as to the best mode of attaining the desired effects. perhaps, as mere copyists, they escape the jealousy that might spring up between rival painters attempting to develop original ideas. miss howorth says that the business of copying pictures, especially those of raphael, is a regular profession, and she thinks it exceedingly obstructive to the progress or existence of a modern school of painting, there being a regular demand and sure sale for all copies of the old masters, at prices proportioned to their merit; whereas the effort to be original insures nothing, except long neglect, at the beginning of a career, and probably ultimate failure, and the necessity of becoming a copyist at last. some artists employ themselves from youth to age in nothing else but the copying of one single and selfsame picture by raphael, and grow at last to be perfectly mechanical, making, i suppose, the same identical stroke of the brush in fifty successive pictures. the weather is very hot now,--hotter in the sunshine, i think, than a midsummer day usually is in america, but with rather a greater possibility of being comfortable in the shade. the nights, too, are warm, and the bats fly forth at dusk, and the fireflies quite light up the green depths of our little garden. the atmosphere, or something else, causes a sort of alacrity in my mind and an affluence of ideas, such as they are; but it does not thereby make me the happier. i feel an impulse to be at work, but am kept idle by the sense of being unsettled with removals to be gone through, over and over again, before i can shut myself into a quiet room of my own, and turn the key. i need monotony too, an eventless exterior life, before i can live in the world within. june th.--yesterday we went to the uffizi gallery, and, of course, i took the opportunity to look again at the venus de' medici after powers's attack upon her face. some of the defects he attributed to her i could not see in the statue; for instance, the ear appeared to be in accordance with his own rule, the lowest part of it being about in a straight line with the upper lip. the eyes must be given up, as not, when closely viewed, having the shape, the curve outwards, the formation of the lids, that eyes ought to have; but still, at a proper distance, they seemed to have intelligence in them beneath the shadow cast by the brow. i cannot help thinking that the sculptor intentionally made every feature what it is, and calculated them all with a view to the desired effect. whatever rules may be transgressed, it is a noble and beautiful face,--more so, perhaps, than if all rules had been obeyed. i wish powers would do his best to fit the venus's figure (which he does not deny to be admirable) with a face which he would deem equally admirable and in accordance with the sentiment of the form. we looked pretty thoroughly through the gallery, and i saw many pictures that impressed me; but among such a multitude, with only one poor mind to take note of them, the stamp of each new impression helps to obliterate a former one. i am sensible, however, that a process is going on, and has been ever since i came to italy, that puts me in a state to see pictures with less toil, and more pleasure, and makes me more fastidious, yet more sensible of beauty where i saw none before. it is the sign, i presume, of a taste still very defective, that i take singular pleasure in the elaborate imitations of van mieris, gerard douw, and other old dutch wizards, who painted such brass pots that you can see your face in them, and such earthen pots that they will surely hold water; and who spent weeks and months in turning a foot or two of canvas into a perfect microscopic illusion of some homely scene. for my part, i wish raphael had painted the "transfiguration" in this style, at the same time preserving his breadth and grandeur of design; nor do i believe that there is any real impediment to the combination of the two styles, except that no possible space of human life could suffice to cover a quarter part of the canvas of the "transfiguration" with such touches as gerard douw's. but one feels the vast scope of this wonderful art, when we think of two excellences so far apart as that of this last painter and raphael. i pause a good while, too, before the dutch paintings of fruit and flowers, where tulips and roses acquire an immortal bloom, and grapes have kept the freshest juice in them for two or three hundred years. often, in these pictures, there is a bird's-nest, every straw perfectly represented, and the stray feather, or the down that the mother-bird plucked from her bosom, with the three or four small speckled eggs, that seem as if they might be yet warm. these pretty miracles have their use in assuring us that painters really can do something that takes hold of us in our most matter-of-fact moods; whereas, the merits of the grander style of art may be beyond our ordinary appreciation, and leave us in doubt whether we have not befooled ourselves with a false admiration. until we learn to appreciate the cherubs and angels that raphael scatters through the blessed air, in a picture of the "nativity," it is not amiss to look at, a dutch fly settling on a peach, or a bumblebee burying himself in a flower. it is another token of imperfect taste, no doubt, that queer pictures and absurd pictures remain in my memory, when better ones pass away by the score. there is a picture of venus, combing her son cupid's head with a small-tooth comb, and looking with maternal care among his curls; this i shall not forget. likewise, a picture of a broad, rubicund judith by bardone,--a widow of fifty, of an easy, lymphatic, cheerful temperament, who has just killed holofernes, and is as self-complacent as if she had been carving a goose. what could possibly have stirred up this pudding of a woman (unless it were a pudding-stick) to do such a deed! i looked with much pleasure at an ugly, old, fat, jolly bacchus, astride on a barrel, by rubens; the most natural and lifelike representation of a tipsy rotundity of flesh that it is possible to imagine. and sometimes, amid these sensual images, i caught the divine pensiveness of a madonna's face, by raphael, or the glory and majesty of the babe jesus in her arm, with his father shining through him. this is a sort of revelation, whenever it comes. this morning, immediately after breakfast, i walked into the city, meaning to make myself better acquainted with its appearance, and to go into its various churches; but it soon grew so hot, that i turned homeward again. the interior of the duomo was deliciously cool, to be sure,--cool and dim, after the white-hot sunshine; but an old woman began to persecute me, so that i came away. a male beggar drove me out of another church; and i took refuge in the street, where the beggar and i would have been two cinders together, if we had stood long enough on the sunny sidewalk. after my five summers' experience of england, i may have forgotten what hot weather is; but it does appear to me that an american summer is not so fervent as this. besides the direct rays, the white pavement throws a furnace-heat up into one's face; the shady margin of the street is barely tolerable; but it is like going through the ordeal of fire to cross the broad bright glare of an open piazza. the narrow streets prove themselves a blessing at this season, except when the sun looks directly into them; the broad eaves of the houses, too, make a selvage of shade, almost always. i do not know what becomes of the street-merchants at the noontide of these hot days. they form a numerous class in florence, displaying their wares--linen or cotton cloth, threads, combs, and all manner of haberdashery--on movable counters that are borne about on wheels. in the shady morning, you see a whole side of a street in a piazza occupied by them, all offering their merchandise at full cry. they dodge as they can from shade to shade; but at last the sunshine floods the whole space, and they seem to have melted away, leaving not a rag of themselves or what they dealt in. cherries are very abundant now, and have been so ever since we came here, in the markets and all about the streets. they are of various kinds, some exceedingly large, insomuch that it is almost necessary to disregard the old proverb about making two bites of a cherry. fresh figs are already spoken of, though i have seen none; but i saw some peaches this morning, looking as if they might be ripe. june th.--mr. and mrs. powers called to see us last evening. mr. powers, as usual, was full of talk, and gave utterance to a good many instructive and entertaining ideas. as one instance of the little influence the religion of the italians has upon their morals, he told a story of one of his servants, who desired leave to set up a small shrine of the virgin in their room--a cheap print, or bas-relief, or image, such as are sold everywhere at the shops --and to burn a lamp before it; she engaging, of course, to supply the oil at her own expense. by and by, her oil-flask appeared to possess a miraculous property of replenishing itself, and mr. powers took measures to ascertain where the oil came from. it turned out that the servant had all the time been stealing the oil from them, and keeping up her daily sacrifice and worship to the virgin by this constant theft. his talk soon turned upon sculpture, and he spoke once more of the difficulty imposed upon an artist by the necessity of clothing portrait statues in the modern costume. i find that he does not approve either of nudity or of the roman toga for a modern statue; neither does he think it right to shirk the difficulty--as chantrey did in the case of washington --by enveloping him in a cloak; but acknowledges the propriety of taking the actual costume of the age and doing his best with it. he himself did so with his own washington, and also with a statue that he made of daniel webster. i suggested that though this costume might not appear ridiculous to us now, yet, two or three centuries hence, it would create, to the people of that day, an impossibility of seeing the real man through the absurdity of his envelopment, after it shall have entirely grown out of fashion and remembrance; and webster would seem as absurd to them then as he would to us now in the masquerade of some bygone day. it might be well, therefore, to adopt some conventional costume, never actual, but always graceful and noble. besides, webster, for example, had other costumes than that which he wore in public, and perhaps it was in those that he lived his most real life; his dressing-gown, his drapery of the night, the dress that he wore on his fishing-excursions; in these other costumes he spent three fourths of his time, and most probably was thus arrayed when he conceived the great thoughts that afterwards, in some formal and outside mood, he gave forth to the public. i scarcely think i was right, but am not sure of the contrary. at any rate, i know that i should have felt much more sure that i knew the real webster, if i had seen him in any of the above-mentioned dresses, than either in his swallow-tailed coat or frock. talking of a taste for painting and sculpture, powers observed that it was something very different and quite apart from the moral sense, and that it was often, perhaps generally, possessed by unprincipled men of ability and cultivation. i have had this perception myself. a genuine love of painting and sculpture, and perhaps of music, seems often to have distinguished men capable of every social crime, and to have formed a fine and hard enamel over their characters. perhaps it is because such tastes are artificial, the product of cultivation, and, when highly developed, imply a great remove from natural simplicity. this morning i went with u---- to the uffizi gallery, and again looked with more or less attention at almost every picture and statue. i saw a little picture of the golden age, by zucchero, in which the charms of youths and virgins are depicted with a freedom that this iron age can hardly bear to look at. the cabinet of gems happened to be open for the admission of a privileged party, and we likewise went in and saw a brilliant collection of goldsmiths' work, among which, no doubt, were specimens from such hands as benvenuto cellini. little busts with diamond eyes; boxes of gems; cups carved out of precious material; crystal vases, beautifully chased and engraved, and sparkling with jewels; great pearls, in the midst of rubies; opals, rich with all manner of lovely lights. i remember benvenuto cellini, in his memoirs, speaks of manufacturing such playthings as these. i observed another characteristic of the summer streets of florence to-day; tables, movable to and fro, on wheels, and set out with cool iced drinks and cordials. june th.--my wife and i went, this morning, to the academy of fine arts, and, on our way thither, went into the duomo, where we found a deliciously cool twilight, through which shone the mild gleam of the painted windows. i cannot but think it a pity that st. peter's is not lighted by such windows as these, although i by no means saw the glory in them now that i have spoken of in a record of my former visit. we found out the monument of giotto, a tablet, and portrait in bas-relief, on the wall, near the entrance of the cathedral, on the right hand; also a representation, in fresco, of a knight on horseback, the memorial of one john rawkwood, close by the door, to the left. the priests were chanting a service of some kind or other in the choir, terribly inharmonious, and out of tune. . . . . on reaching the academy, the soldier or policeman at the entrance directed us into the large hall, the walls of which were covered on both sides with pictures, arranged as nearly as possible in a progressive series, with reference to the date of the painters; so that here the origin and procession of the art may be traced through the course of, at least, two hundred years. giotto, cimabue, and others of unfamiliar names to me, are among the earliest; and, except as curiosities, i should never desire to look once at them, nor think of looking twice. they seem to have been executed with great care and conscientiousness, and the heads are often wrought out with minuteness and fidelity, and have so much expression that they tell their own story clearly enough; but it seems not to have been the painter's aim to effect a lifelike illusion, the background and accessories being conventional. the trees are no more like real trees than the feather of a pen, and there is no perspective, the figure of the picture being shadowed forth on a surface of burnished gold. the effect, when these pictures, some of them very large, were new and freshly gilded, must have been exceedingly brilliant, and much resembling, on an immensely larger scale, the rich illuminations in an old monkish missal. in fact, we have not now, in pictorial ornament, anything at all comparable to what their splendor must have been. i was most struck with a picture, by fabriana gentile, of the adoration of the magi, where the faces and figures have a great deal of life and action, and even grace, and where the jewelled crowns, the rich embroidered robes, and cloth of gold, and all the magnificence of the three kings, are represented with the vividness of the real thing: a gold sword-hilt, for instance, or a pair of gold spurs, being actually embossed on the picture. the effect is very powerful, and though produced in what modern painters would pronounce an unjustifiable way, there is yet pictorial art enough to reconcile it to the spectator's mind. certainly, the people of the middle ages knew better than ourselves what is magnificence, and how to produce it; and what a glorious work must that have been, both in its mere sheen of burnished gold, and in its illuminating art, which shines thus through the gloom of perhaps four centuries. fra angelico is a man much admired by those who have a taste for pre-raphaelite painters; and, though i take little or no pleasure in his works, i can see that there is great delicacy of execution in his heads, and that generally he produces such a christ, and such a virgin, and such saints, as he could not have foreseen, except in a pure and holy imagination, nor have wrought out without saying a prayer between every two touches of his brush. i might come to like him, in time, if i thought it worth while; but it is enough to have an outside perception of his kind and degree of merit, and so to let him pass into the garret of oblivion, where many things as good, or better, are piled away, that our own age may not stumble over them. perugino is the first painter whose works seem really worth preserving for the genuine merit that is in them, apart from any quaintness and curiosity of an ancient and new-born art. probably his religion was more genuine than raphael's, and therefore the virgin often revealed herself to him in a loftier and sweeter face of divine womanhood than all the genius of raphael could produce. there is a crucifixion by him in this gallery, which made me partly feel as if i were a far-off spectator,--no, i did not mean a crucifixion, but a picture of christ dead, lying, with a calm, sweet face, on his mother's knees ["a pieta"]. the most inadequate and utterly absurd picture here, or in any other gallery, is a head of the eternal father, by carlo dolce; it looks like a feeble saint, on the eve of martyrdom, and very doubtful how he shall be able to bear it; very finely and prettily painted, nevertheless. after getting through the principal gallery we went into a smaller room, in which are contained a great many small specimens of the old tuscan artists, among whom fra angelico makes the principal figure. these pictures are all on wood, and seem to have been taken from the shrines and altars of ancient churches; they are predellas and triptychs, or pictures on three folding tablets, shaped quaintly, in gothic peaks or arches, and still gleaming with backgrounds of antique gold. the wood is much worm-eaten, and the colors have often faded or changed from what the old artists meant then to be; a bright angel darkening into what looks quite as much like the devil. in one of fra angelico's pictures,--a representation of the last judgment,--he has tried his saintly hand at making devils indeed, and showing them busily at work, tormenting the poor, damned souls in fifty ghastly ways. above sits jesus, with the throng of blessed saints around him, and a flow of tender and powerful love in his own face, that ought to suffice to redeem all the damned, and convert the very fiends, and quench the fires of hell. at any rate, fra angelico had a higher conception of his saviour than michael angelo. june th.--this forenoon we have been to the church of st. lorenzo, which stands on the site of an ancient basilica, and was itself built more than four centuries ago. the facade is still an ugly height of rough brickwork, as is the case with the duomo, and, i think, some other churches in florence; the design of giving them an elaborate and beautiful finish having been delayed from cycle to cycle, till at length the day for spending mines of wealth on churches is gone by. the interior had a nave with a flat roof, divided from the side aisles by corinthian pillars, and, at the farther end, a raised space around the high altar. the pavement is a mosaic of squares of black and white marble, the squares meeting one another cornerwise; the pillars, pilasters, and other architectural material is dark brown or grayish stone; and the general effect is very sombre, especially as the church is somewhat dimly lighted, and as the shrines along the aisles, and the statues, and the monuments of whatever kind, look dingy with time and neglect. the nave is thickly set with wooden seats, brown and worn. what pictures there are, in the shrines and chapels, are dark and faded. on the whole, the edifice has a shabby aspect. on each side of the high altar, elevated on four pillars of beautiful marble, is what looks like a great sarcophagus of bronze. they are, in fact, pulpits, and are ornamented with mediaeval bas-reliefs, representing scenes in the life of our saviour. murray says that the resting-place of the first cosmo de' medici, the old banker, who so managed his wealth as to get the posthumous title of "father of his country," and to make his posterity its reigning princes,--is in front of the high altar, marked by red and green porphyry and marble, inlaid into the pavement. we looked, but could not see it there. there were worshippers at some of the shrines, and persons sitting here and there along the nave, and in the aisles, rapt in devotional thought, doubtless, and sheltering themselves here from the white sunshine of the piazzas. in the vicinity of the choir and the high altar, workmen were busy repairing the church, or perhaps only making arrangements for celebrating the great festival of st. john. on the left hand of the choir is what is called the old sacristy, with the peculiarities or notabilities of which i am not acquainted. on the right hand is the new sacristy, otherwise called the capella dei depositi, or chapel of the buried, built by michael angelo, to contain two monuments of the medici family. the interior is of somewhat severe and classic architecture, the walls and pilasters being of dark stone, and surmounted by a dome, beneath which is a row of windows, quite round the building, throwing their light down far beneath, upon niches of white marble. these niches are ranged entirely around the chapel, and might have sufficed to contain more than all the medici monuments that the world would ever care to have. only two of these niches are filled, however. in one of them sits giuliano de' medici, sculptured by michael angelo,--a figure of dignity, which would perhaps be very striking in any other presence than that of the statue which occupies the corresponding niche. at the feet of giuliano recline two allegorical statues, day and night, whose meaning there i do not know, and perhaps michael angelo knew as little. as the great sculptor's statues are apt to do, they fling their limbs abroad with adventurous freedom. below the corresponding niche, on the opposite side of the chapel, recline two similar statues, representing morning and evening, sufficiently like day and night to be their brother and sister; all, in truth, having sprung from the same father. . . . . but the statue that sits above these two latter allegories, morning and evening, is like no other that ever came from a sculptor's hand. it is the one work worthy of michael angelo's reputation, and grand enough to vindicate for him all the genius that the world gave him credit for. and yet it seems a simple thing enough to think of or to execute; merely a sitting figure, the face partly overshadowed by a helmet, one hand supporting the chin, the other resting on the thigh. but after looking at it a little while the spectator ceases to think of it as a marble statue; it comes to life, and you see that the princely figure is brooding over some great design, which, when he has arranged in his own mind, the world will be fain to execute for him. no such grandeur and majesty has elsewhere been put into human shape. it is all a miracle; the deep repose, and the deep life within it. it is as much a miracle to have achieved this as to make a statue that would rise up and walk. the face, when one gazes earnestly into it, beneath the shadow of its helmet, is seen to be calmly sombre; a mood which, i think, is generally that of the rulers of mankind, except in moments of vivid action. this statue is one of the things which i look at with highest enjoyment, but also with grief and impatience, because i feel that i do not come at all which it involves, and that by and by i must go away and leave it forever. how wonderful! to take a block of marble, and convert it wholly into thought, and to do it through all the obstructions and impediments of drapery; for there is nothing nude in this statue but the face and hands. the vest is the costume of michael angelo's century. this is what i always thought a sculptor of true genius should be able to do,--to show the man of whatever epoch, nobly and heroically, through the costume which he might actually have worn. the statue sits within a square niche of white marble, and completely fills it. it seems to me a pity that it should be thus confined. at the crystal palace, if i remember, the effect is improved by a free surrounding space. its naturalness is as if it came out of the marble of its own accord, with all its grandeur hanging heavily about it, and sat down there beneath its weight. i cannot describe it. it is like trying to stop the ghost of hamlet's father, by crossing spears before it. communicating with the sacristy is the medicean chapel, which was built more than two centuries ago, for the reception of the holy sepulchre; arrangements having been made about that time to steal this most sacred relic from the turks. the design failing, the chapel was converted by cosmo ii. into a place of sepulture for the princes of his family. it is a very grand and solemn edifice, octagonal in shape, with a lofty dome, within which is a series of brilliant frescos, painted not more than thirty years ago. these pictures are the only portion of the adornment of the chapel which interferes with the sombre beauty of the general effect; for though the walls are incrusted, from pavement to dome, with marbles of inestimable cost, and it is a florentine mosaic on a grander scale than was ever executed elsewhere, the result is not gaudy, as in many of the roman chapels, but a dark and melancholy richness. the architecture strikes me as extremely fine; each alternate side of the octagon being an arch, rising as high as the cornice of the lofty dome, and forming the frame of a vast niche. all the dead princes, no doubt, according to the general design, were to have been honored with statues within this stately mausoleum; but only two--those of ferdinand i. and cosmo ii.--seem to have been placed here. they were a bad breed, and few of them deserved any better monument than a dunghill; and yet they have this grand chapel for the family at large, and yonder grand statue for one of its most worthless members. i am glad of it; and as for the statue, michael angelo wrought it through the efficacy of a kingly idea, which had no reference to the individual whose name it bears. in the piazza adjoining the church is a statue of the first cosmo, the old banker, in roman costume, seated, and looking like a man fit to hold authority. no, i mistake; the statue is of john de' medici, the father of cosmo, and himself no banker, but a soldier. june st.--yesterday, after dinner, we went, with the two eldest children, to the boboli gardens. . . . . we entered by a gate, nearer to our house than that by the pitti palace, and found ourselves almost immediately among embowered walks of box and shrubbery, and little wildernesses of trees, with here and there a seat under an arbor, and a marble statue, gray with ancient weather-stains. the site of the garden is a very uneven surface, and the paths go upward and downward, and ascend, at their ultimate point, to a base of what appears to be a fortress, commanding the city. a good many of the florentines were rambling about the gardens, like ourselves: little parties of school-boys; fathers and mothers, with their youthful progeny; young men in couples, looking closely into every female face; lovers, with a maid or two attendant on the young lady. all appeared to enjoy themselves, especially the children, dancing on the esplanades, or rolling down the slopes of the hills; and the loving pairs, whom it was rather embarrassing to come upon unexpectedly, sitting together on the stone seat of an arbor, with clasped hands, a passionate solemnity in the young man's face, and a downcast pleasure in the lady's. policemen, in cocked hats and epaulets, cross-belts, and swords, were scattered about the grounds, but interfered with nobody, though they seemed to keep an eye on all. a sentinel stood in the hot sunshine, looking down over the garden from the ramparts of the fortress. for my part, in this foreign country, i have no objection to policemen or any other minister of authority; though i remember, in america, i had an innate antipathy to constables, and always sided with the mob against law. this was very wrong and foolish, considering that i was one of the sovereigns; but a sovereign, or any number of sovereigns, or the twenty-millionth part of a sovereign, does not love to find himself, as an american must, included within the delegated authority of his own servants. there is a sheet of water somewhere in the boboli gardens, inhabited by swans; but this we did not see. we found a smaller pond, however, set in marble, and surrounded by a parapet, and alive with a multitude of fish. there were minnows by the thousand, and a good many gold-fish; and j-----, who had brought some bread to feed the swans, threw in handfuls of crumbs for the benefit of these finny people. they seemed to be accustomed to such courtesies on the part of visitors; and immediately the surface of the water was blackened, at the spot where each crumb fell, with shoals of minnows, thrusting one another even above the surface in their eagerness to snatch it. within the depths of the pond, the yellowish-green water--its hue being precisely that of the arno-- would be reddened duskily with the larger bulk of two or three gold-fishes, who finally poked their great snouts up among the minnows, but generally missed the crumb. beneath the circular margin of the pond, there are little arches, into the shelter of which the fish retire, when the noonday sun burns straight down into their dark waters. we went on through the garden-paths, shadowed quite across by the high walls of box, and reached an esplanade, whence we had a good view of florence, with the bare brown ridges on the northern side of the arno, and glimpses of the river itself, flowing like a street, between two rows of palaces. a great way off, too, we saw some of the cloud-like peaks of the apennines, and, above them, the clouds into which the sun was descending, looking quite as substantial as the distant mountains. the city did not present a particularly splendid aspect, though its great duomo was seen in the middle distance, sitting in its circle of little domes, with the tall campanile close by, and within one or two hundred yards of it, the high, cumbrous bulk of the palazzo vecchio, with its lofty, machicolated, and battlemented tower, very picturesque, yet looking exceedingly like a martin-box, on a pole. there were other domes and towers and spires, and here and there the distinct shape of an edifice; but the general picture was of a contiguity of red earthen roofs, filling a not very broad or extensive valley, among dry and ridgy hills, with a river-gleam lightening up the landscape a little. u---- took out her pencil and tablets, and began to sketch the tower of the palazzo vecchio; in doing which, she immediately became an object of curiosity to some little boys and larger people, who failed not, under such pretences as taking a grasshopper off her dress, or no pretence at all, to come and look over her shoulder. there is a kind of familiarity among these florentines, which is not meant to be discourteous, and ought to be taken in good part. we continued to ramble through the gardens, in quest of a good spot from which to see the sunset, and at length found a stone bench, on the slope of a hill, whence the entire cloud and sun scenery was fully presented to us. at the foot of the hill were statues, and among them a pegasus, with wings outspread; and, a little beyond, the garden-front of the pitti palace, which looks a little less like a state-prison here, than as it fronts the street. girls and children, and young men and old, were taking their pleasure in our neighborhood; and, just before us, a lady stood talking with her maid. by and by, we discovered her to be miss howorth. there was a misty light, streaming down on the hither side of the ridge of hills, that was rather peculiar; but the most remarkable thing was the shape into which the clouds gathered themselves, after the disappearance of the sun. it was like a tree, with a broad and heavy mass of foliage, spreading high upward on the sky, and a dark and well-defined trunk, which rooted itself on the verge of the horizon. this morning we went to the pitti palace. the air was very sultry, and the pavements, already heated with the sun, made the space between the buildings seem like a close room. the earth, i think, is too much stoned out of the streets of an italian city,--paved, like those of florence, quite across, with broad flagstones, to the line where the stones of the houses on each side are piled up. thunder rumbled over our heads, however, and the clouds were so dark that we scarcely hoped to reach the palace without feeling the first drops of the shower. the air still darkened and darkened, so that by the time we arrived at the suite of picture-rooms the pictures seemed all to be changed to rembrandts; the shadows as black as midnight, with only some highly illuminated portions gleaming out. the obscurity of the atmosphere made us sensible how splendid is the adornment of these saloons. for the gilded cornices shone out, as did the gilding of the arches and wreathed circles that divide the ceiling into compartments, within which the frescos are painted, and whence the figures looked dimly down, like gods out of a mysterious sky. the white marble sculptures also gleamed from their height, where winged cupids or cherubs gambolled aloft in bas-reliefs; or allegoric shapes reclined along the cornices, hardly noticed, when the daylight comes brightly into the window. on the walls, all the rich picture-frames glimmered in gold, as did the framework of the chairs, and the heavy gilded pedestals of the marble, alabaster, and mosaic tables. these are very magnificent saloons; and since i have begun to speak of their splendor, i may as well add that the doors are framed in polished, richly veined marble, and the walls hung with scarlet damask. it was useless to try to see the pictures. all the artists engaged in copying laid aside their brushes; and we looked out into the square before the palace, where a mighty wind sprang up, and quickly raised a prodigious cloud of dust. it hid the opposite side of the street, and was carried, in a great dusky whirl, higher than the roofs of the houses, higher than the top of the pitti palace itself. the thunder muttered and grumbled, the lightning now and then flashed, and a few rain-drops pattered against the windows; but, for a long time, the shower held off. at last it came down in a stream, and lightened the air to such a degree that we could see some of the pictures, especially those of rubens, and the illuminated parts of salvator rosa's, and, best of all, titian's "magdalen," the one with golden hair clustering round her naked body. the golden hair, indeed, seemed to throw out a glory of its own. this magdalen is very coarse and sensual, with only an impudent assumption of penitence and religious sentiment, scarcely so deep as the eyelids; but it is a splendid picture, nevertheless, with those naked, lifelike arms, and the hands that press the rich locks about her, and so carefully permit those voluptuous breasts to be seen. she a penitent! she would shake off all pretence to it as easily as she would shake aside that clustering hair. . . . . titian must have been a very good-for-nothing old man. i looked again at michael angelo's fates to-day; but cannot satisfactorily make out what he meant by them. one of them--she who holds the distaff--has her mouth open, as if uttering a cry, and might be fancied to look somewhat irate. the second, who holds the thread, has a pensive air, but is still, i think, pitiless at heart. the third sister looks closely and coldly into the eyes of the second, meanwhile cutting the thread with a pair of shears. michael angelo, if i may presume to say so, wished to vary the expression of these three sisters, and give each a different one, but did not see precisely how, inasmuch as all the fatal three are united, heart and soul, in one purpose. it is a very impressive group. but, as regards the interpretation of this, or of any other profound picture, there are likely to be as many interpretations as there are spectators. it is very curious to read criticisms upon pictures, and upon the same face in a picture, and by men of taste and feeling, and to find what different conclusions they arrive at. each man interprets the hieroglyphic in his own way; and the painter, perhaps, had a meaning which none of them have reached; or possibly he put forth a riddle, without himself knowing the solution. there is such a necessity, at all events, of helping the painter out with the spectator's own resources of feeling and imagination, that you can never be sure how much of the picture you have yourself made. there is no doubt that the public is, to a certain extent, right and sure of its ground, when it declares, through a series of ages, that a certain picture is a great work. it is so; a great symbol, proceeding out of a great mind; but if it means one thing, it seems to mean a thousand, and, often, opposite things. june th.--i have had a heavy cold and fever almost throughout the past week, and have thereby lost the great florentine festivity, the feast of st. john, which took place on thursday last, with the fireworks and illuminations the evening before, and the races and court ceremonies on the day itself. however, unless it were more characteristic and peculiar than the carnival, i have not missed anything very valuable. mr. powers called to see me one evening, and poured out, as usual, a stream of talk, both racy and oracular in its character. speaking of human eyes, he observed that they did not depend for their expression upon color, nor upon any light of the soul beaming through them, nor any glow of the eyeball, nor upon anything but the form and action of the surrounding muscles. he illustrates it by saying, that if the eye of a wolf, or of whatever fiercest animal, could be placed in another setting, it would be found capable of the utmost gentleness of expression. "you yourself," said he, "have a very bright and sharp look sometimes; but it is not in the eye itself." his own eyes, as i could have sworn, were glowing all the time he spoke; and, remembering how many times i have seemed to see eyes glow, and blaze, and flash, and sparkle, and melt, and soften; and how all poetry is illuminated with the light of ladies' eyes; and how many people have been smitten by the lightning of an eye, whether in love or anger, it was difficult to allow that all this subtlest and keenest fire is illusive, not even phosphorescent, and that any other jelly in the same socket would serve as well as the brightest eye. nevertheless, he must be right; of course he must, and i am rather ashamed ever to have thought otherwise. where should the light come from? has a man a flame inside of his head? does his spirit manifest itself in the semblance of flame? the moment we think of it, the absurdity becomes evident. i am not quite sure, however, that the outer surface of the eye may not reflect more light in some states of feeling than in others; the state of the health, certainly, has an influence of this kind. i asked powers what he thought of michael angelo's statue of lorenzo de' medici. he allowed that its effect was very grand and mysterious; but added that it owed this to a trick,--the effect being produced by the arrangement of the hood, as he called it, or helmet, which throws the upper part of the face into shadow. the niche in which it sits has, i suppose, its part to perform in throwing a still deeper shadow. it is very possible that michael angelo may have calculated upon this effect of sombre shadow, and legitimately, i think; but it really is not worthy of mr. powers to say that the whole effect of this mighty statue depends, not on the positive efforts of michael angelo's chisel, but on the absence of light in a space of a few inches. he wrought the whole statue in harmony with that small part of it which he leaves to the spectator's imagination, and if he had erred at any point, the miracle would have been a failure; so that, working in marble, he has positively reached a degree of excellence above the capability of marble, sculpturing his highest touches upon air and duskiness. mr. powers gave some amusing anecdotes of his early life, when he was a clerk in a store in cincinnati. there was a museum opposite, the proprietor of which had a peculiar physiognomy that struck powers, insomuch that he felt impelled to make continual caricatures of it. he used to draw them upon the door of the museum, and became so familiar with the face, that he could draw them in the dark; so that, every morning, here was this absurd profile of himself, greeting the museum-man when he came to open his establishment. often, too, it would reappear within an hour after it was rubbed out. the man was infinitely annoyed, and made all possible efforts to discover the unknown artist, but in vain; and finally concluded, i suppose, that the likeness broke out upon the door of its own accord, like the nettle-rash. some years afterwards, the proprietor of the museum engaged powers himself as an assistant; and one day powers asked him if he remembered this mysterious profile. "yes," said he, "did you know who drew them?" powers took a piece of chalk, and touched off the very profile again, before the man's eyes. "ah," said he, "if i had known it at the time, i would have broken every bone in your body!" before he began to work in marble, powers had greater practice and success in making wax figures, and he produced a work of this kind called "the infernal regions," which he seemed to imply had been very famous. he said he once wrought a face in wax which was life itself, having made the eyes on purpose for it, and put in every hair in the eyebrows individually, and finished the whole with similar minuteness; so that, within the distance of a foot or two, it was impossible to tell that the face did not live. i have hardly ever before felt an impulse to write down a man's conversation as i do that of mr. powers. the chief reason is, probably, that it is so possible to do it, his ideas being square, solid, and tangible, and therefore readily grasped and retained. he is a very instructive man, and sweeps one's empty and dead notions out of the way with exceeding vigor; but when you have his ultimate thought and perception, you feel inclined to think and see a little further for yourself. he sees too clearly what is within his range to be aware of any region of mystery beyond. probably, however, this latter remark does him injustice. i like the man, and am always glad to encounter the mill-stream of his talk. . . . . yesterday he met me in the street (dressed in his linen blouse and slippers, with a little bit of a sculptor's cap on the side of his head), and gave utterance to a theory of colds, and a dissertation on the bad effects of draughts, whether of cold air or hot, and the dangers of transfusing blood from the veins of one living subject to those of another. on the last topic, he remarked that, if a single particle of air found its way into the veins, along with the transfused blood, it caused convulsions and inevitable death; otherwise the process might be of excellent effect. last evening, we went to pass the evening with miss blagden, who inhabits a villa at bellosguardo, about a mile outside of the walls. the situation is very lofty, and there are good views from every window of the house, and an especially fine one of florence and the hills beyond, from the balcony of the drawing-room. by and by came mr. browning, mr. trollope, mr. boott and his young daughter, and two or three other gentlemen. . . . . browning was very genial and full of life, as usual, but his conversation has the effervescent aroma which you cannot catch, even if you get the very words that seem to be imbued with it. he spoke most rapturously of a portrait of mrs. browning, which an italian artist is painting for the wife of an american gentleman, as a present from her husband. the success was already perfect, although there had been only two sittings as yet, and both on the same day; and in this relation, mr. browning remarked that p------, the american artist, had had no less than seventy-three sittings of him for a portrait. in the result, every hair and speck of him was represented; yet, as i inferred from what he did not say, this accumulation of minute truths did not, after all, amount to the true whole. i do not remember much else that browning said, except a playful abuse of a little king charles spaniel, named frolic, miss blagden's lap-dog, whose venerable age (he is eleven years old) ought to have pleaded in his behalf. browning's nonsense is of very genuine and excellent quality, the true babble and effervescence of a bright and powerful mind; and he lets it play among his friends with the faith and simplicity of a child. he must be an amiable man. i should like him much, and should make him like me, if opportunities were favorable. i conversed principally with mr. trollope, the son, i believe, of the mrs. trollope to whom america owes more for her shrewd criticisms than we are ever likely to repay. mr. trollope is a very sensible and cultivated man, and, i suspect, an author: at least, there is a literary man of repute of this name, though i have never read his works. he has resided in italy eighteen years. it seems a pity to do this. it needs the native air to give life a reality; a truth which i do not fail to take home regretfully to myself, though without feeling much inclination to go back to the realities of my own. we had a pleasant cup of tea, and took a moonlight view of florence from the balcony. . . . . june th.--yesterday afternoon, j----- and i went to a horse-race, which took place in the corso and contiguous line of streets, in further celebration of the feast of st. john. a crowd of people was already collected, all along the line of the proposed race, as early as six o'clock; and there were a great many carriages driving amid the throng, open barouches mostly, in which the beauty and gentility of florence were freely displayed. it was a repetition of the scene in the corso at rome, at carnival time, without the masks, the fun, and the confetti. the grand duke and duchess and the court likewise made their appearance in as many as seven or eight coaches-and-six, each with a coachman, three footmen, and a postilion in the royal livery, and attended by a troop of horsemen in scarlet coats and cocked hats. i did not particularly notice the grand duke himself; but, in the carriage behind him, there sat only a lady, who favored the people along the street with a constant succession of bows, repeated at such short intervals, and so quickly, as to be little more than nods; therefore not particularly graceful or majestic. having the good fortune, to be favored with one of these nods, i lifted my hat in response, and may therefore claim a bowing acquaintance with the grand duchess. she is a bourbon of the naples family, and was a pale, handsome woman, of princely aspect enough. the crowd evinced no enthusiasm, nor the slightest feeling of any kind, in acknowledgment of the presence of their rulers; and, indeed, i think i never saw a crowd so well behaved; that is, with so few salient points, so little ebullition, so absolutely tame, as the florentine one. after all, and much contrary to my expectations, an american crowd has incomparably more life than any other; and, meeting on any casual occasion, it will talk, laugh, roar, and be diversified with a thousand characteristic incidents and gleams and shadows, that you see nothing of here. the people seems to have no part even in its own gatherings. it comes together merely as a mass of spectators, and must not so much as amuse itself by any activity of mind. the race, which was the attraction that drew us all together, turned out a very pitiful affair. when we had waited till nearly dusk, the street being thronged quite across, insomuch that it seemed impossible that it should be cleared as a race-course, there came suddenly from every throat a quick, sharp exclamation, combining into a general shout. immediately the crowd pressed back on each side of the street; a moment afterwards, there was a rapid pattering of hoofs over the earth with which the pavement was strewn, and i saw the head and back of a horse rushing past. a few seconds more, and another horse followed; and at another little interval, a third. this was all that we had waited for; all that i saw, or anybody else, except those who stood on the utmost verge of the course, at the risk of being trampled down and killed. two men were killed in this way on thursday, and certainly human life was never spent for a poorer object. the spectators at the windows, to be sure, having the horses in sight for a longer time, might get a little more enjoyment out of the affair. by the by, the most picturesque aspect of the scene was the life given to it by the many faces, some of them fair ones, that looked out from window and balcony, all along the curving line of lofty palaces and edifices, between which the race-course lay; and from nearly every window, and over every balcony, was flung a silken texture, or cloth of brilliant line, or piece of tapestry or carpet, or whatever adornment of the kind could be had, so as to dress up the street in gala attire. but, the feast of st. john, like the carnival, is but a meagre semblance of festivity, kept alive factitiously, and dying a lingering death of centuries. it takes the exuberant mind and heart of a people to keep its holidays alive. i do not know whether there be any populace in florence, but i saw none that i recognized as such, on this occasion. all the people were respectably dressed and perfectly well behaved; and soldiers and priests were scattered abundantly among the throng. on my way home, i saw the teatro goldoni, which is in our own street, lighted up for a representation this sunday evening. it shocked my new england prejudices a little. thus forenoon, my wife and i went to the church of santa croce, the great monumental deposit of florentine worthies. the piazza before it is a wide, gravelled square, where the liberty of florence, if it really ever had any genuine liberty, came into existence some hundreds of years ago, by the people's taking its own rights into its hands, and putting its own immediate will in execution. the piazza has not much appearance of antiquity, except that the facade of one of the houses is quite covered with ancient frescos, a good deal faded and obliterated, yet with traces enough of old glory to show that the colors must have been well laid on. the front of the church, the foundation of which was laid six centuries ago, is still waiting for its casing of marbles, and i suppose will wait forever, though a carpenter's staging is now erected before it, as if with the purpose of doing something. the interior is spacious, the length of the church being between four and five hundred feet. there is a nave, roofed with wooden cross-beams, lighted by a clere-story and supported on each side by seven great pointed arches, which rest upon octagonal pillars. the octagon seems to be a favorite shape in florence. these pillars were clad in yellow and scarlet damask, in honor of the feast of st. john. the aisles, on each side of the nave, are lighted with high and somewhat narrow windows of painted glass, the effect of which, however, is much diminished by the flood of common daylight that comes in through the windows of the clere-story. it is like admitting too much of the light of reason and worldly intelligence into the mind, instead of illuminating it wholly through a religious medium. the many-hued saints and angels lose their mysterious effulgence, when we get white light enough, and find we see all the better without their help. the main pavement of the church is brickwork; but it is inlaid with many sepulchral slabs of marble, on some of which knightly or priestly figures are sculptured in bas-relief. in both of the side aisles there are saintly shrines, alternating with mural monuments, some of which record names as illustrious as any in the world. as you enter, the first monument, on your right is that of michael angelo, occupying the ancient burial-site of his family. the general design is a heavy sarcophagus of colored marble, with the figures of sculpture, painting, and architecture as mourners, and michael angelo's bust above, the whole assuming a pyramidal form. you pass a shrine, within its framework of marble pillars and a pediment, and come next to dante's monument, a modern work, with likewise its sarcophagus, and some huge, cold images weeping and sprawling over it, and an unimpressive statue of dante sitting above. another shrine intervenes, and next you see the tomb of alfieri, erected to his memory by the countess of albany, who pays, out of a woman's love, the honor which his country owed him. her own monument is in one of the chapels of the transept. passing the next shrine you see the tomb of macchiavelli, which, i think, was constructed not many years after his death. the rest of the monuments, on this side of the church, commemorate people of less than world-wide fame; and though the opposite side has likewise a monument alternating with each shrine, i remember only the names of raphael morghen and of galileo. the tomb of the latter is over against that of michael angelo, being the first large tomb on the left-hand wall as you enter the church. it has the usual heavy sarcophagus, surmounted by a bust of galileo, in the habit of his time, and is, of course, duly provided with mourners in the shape of science or astronomy, or some such cold-hearted people. i wish every sculptor might be at once imprisoned for life who shall hereafter chisel an allegoric figure; and as for those who have sculptured them heretofore, let them be kept in purgatory till the marble shall have crumbled away. it is especially absurd to assign to this frozen sisterhood of the allegoric family the office of weeping for the dead, inasmuch as they have incomparably less feeling than a lump of ice, which might contrive to shed a tear if the sun shone on it. but they seem to let themselves out, like the hired mourners of an english funeral, for the very reason that, having no interest in the dead person, nor any affections or emotions whatever, it costs them no wear and tear of heart. all round both transepts of the church there is a series of chapels, into most of which we went, and generally found an inscrutably dark picture over the altar, and often a marble bust or two, or perhaps a mediaeval statue of a saint or a modern monumental bas-relief in marble, as white as new-fallen snow. a chapel of the bonapartes is here, containing memorials of two female members of the family. in several chapels, moreover, there were some of those distressing frescos, by giotto, cimabue, or their compeers, which, whenever i see them,--poor, faded relics, looking as if the devil had been rubbing and scrubbing them for centuries, in spite against the saints,--my heart sinks and my stomach sickens. there is no other despondency like this; it is a new shade of human misery, akin to the physical disease that comes from dryrot in a wall. these frescos are to a church what dreary, old remembrances are to a mind; the drearier because they were once bright: hope fading into disappointment, joy into grief, and festal splendor passing into funereal duskiness, and saddening you all the more by the grim identity that you find to exist between gay things and sorrowful ones. only wait long enough, and they turn out to be the very same. all the time we were in the church some great religious ceremony had been going forward; the organ playing and the white-robed priests bowing, gesticulating, and making latin prayers at the high altar, where at least a hundred wax tapers were burning in constellations. everybody knelt, except ourselves, yet seemed not to be troubled by the echoes of our passing footsteps, nor to require that we should pray along with them. they consider us already lost irrevocably, no doubt, and therefore right enough in taking no heed of their devotions; not but what we took so much heed, however, as to give the smallest possible disturbance. by and by we sat down in the nave of the church till the ceremony should be concluded; and then my wife left me to go in quest of yet another chapel, where either cimabue or giotto, or both, have left some of their now ghastly decorations. while she was gone i threw my eyes about the church, and came to the conclusion that, in spite of its antiquity, its size, its architecture, its painted windows, its tombs of great men, and all the reverence and interest that broods over them, it is not an impressive edifice. any little norman church in england would impress me as much, and more. there is something, i do not know what, but it is in the region of the heart, rather than in the intellect, that italian architecture, of whatever age or style, never seems to reach. leaving the santa croce, we went next in quest of the riccardi palace. on our way, in the rear of the grand ducal piazza, we passed by the bargello, formerly the palace of the podesta of florence, and now converted into a prison. it is an immense square edifice of dark stone, with a tall, lank tower rising high above it at one corner. two stone lions, symbols of the city, lash their tails and glare at the passers-by; and all over the front of the building windows are scattered irregularly, and grated with rusty iron bars; also there are many square holes, which probably admit a little light and a breath or two of air into prisoners' cells. it is a very ugly edifice, but looks antique, and as if a vast deal of history might have been transacted within it, or have beaten, like fierce blasts, against its dark, massive walls, since the thirteenth century. when i first saw the city it struck me that there were few marks of antiquity in florence; but i am now inclined to think otherwise, although the bright italian atmosphere, and the general squareness and monotony of the italian architecture, have their effect in apparently modernizing everything. but everywhere we see the ponderous tuscan basements that never can decay, and which will look, five hundred years hence, as they look now; and one often passes beneath an abbreviated remnant of what was once a lofty tower, perhaps three hundred feet high, such as used to be numerous in florence when each noble of the city had his own warfare to wage; and there are patches of sculpture that look old on houses, the modern stucco of which causes them to look almost new. here and there an unmistakable antiquity stands in its own impressive shadow; the church of or san michele, for instance, once a market, but which grew to be a church by some inherent fitness and inevitable consecration. it has not the least the aspect of a church, being high and square, like a mediaeval palace; but deep and high niches are let into its walls, within which stand great statues of saints, masterpieces of donatello, and other sculptors of that age, before sculpture began to be congealed by the influence of greek art. the riccardi palace is at the corner of the via larga. it was built by the first cosmo de' medici, the old banker, more than four centuries ago, and was long the home of the ignoble race of princes which he left behind him. it looks fit to be still the home of a princely race, being nowise dilapidated nor decayed externally, nor likely to be so, its high tuscan basement being as solid as a ledge of rock, and its upper portion not much less so, though smoothed into another order of stately architecture. entering its court from the via larga, we found ourselves beneath a pillared arcade, passing round the court like a cloister; and on the walls of the palace, under this succession of arches, were statues, bas-reliefs, and sarcophagi, in which, first, dead pagans had slept, and then dead christians, before the sculptured coffins were brought hither to adorn the palace of the medici. in the most prominent place was a latin inscription of great length and breadth, chiefly in praise of old cosino and his deeds and wisdom. this mansion gives the visitor a stately notion of the life of a commercial man in the days when merchants were princes; not that it seems to be so wonderfully extensive, nor so very grand, for i suppose there are a dozen roman palaces that excel it in both these particulars. still, we cannot but be conscious that it must have been, in some sense, a great man who thought of founding a homestead like this, and was capable of filling it with his personality, as the hand fills a glove. it has been found spacious enough, since cosmo's time, for an emperor and a pope and a king, all of whom have been guests in this house. after being the family mansion of the medici for nearly two centuries, it was sold to the riccardis, but was subsequently bought of then by the government, and it is now occupied by public offices and societies. after sufficiently examining the court and its antiquities, we ascended a noble staircase that passes, by broad flights and square turns, to the region above the basement. here the palace is cut up and portioned off into little rooms and passages, and everywhere there were desks, inkstands, and men, with pens in their fingers or behind their ears. we were shown into a little antique chapel, quite covered with frescos in the giotto style, but painted by a certain gozzoli. they were in pretty good preservation, and, in fact, i am wrong in comparing them to giotto's works, inasmuch as there must have been nearly two hundred years between the two artists. the chapel was furnished with curiously carved old chairs, and looked surprisingly venerable within its little precinct. we were next guided into the grand gallery, a hall of respectable size, with a frescoed ceiling, on which is represented the blue sky, and various members of the medici family ascending through it by the help of angelic personages, who seem only to have waited for their society to be perfectly happy. at least, this was the meaning, so far as i could make it out. along one side of the gallery were oil-pictures on looking-glasses, rather good than otherwise; but rome, with her palaces and villas, takes the splendor out of all this sort of thing elsewhere. on our way home, and on our own side of the ponte vecchio, we passed the palazzo guicciardini, the ancient residence of the historian of italy, who was a politic statesman of his day, and probably as cruel and unprincipled as any of those whose deeds he has recorded. opposite, across the narrow way, stands the house of macchiavelli, who was his friend, and, i should judge, an honester man than he. the house is distinguished by a marble tablet, let into the wall, commemorative of macchiavelli, but has nothing antique or picturesque about it, being in a continuous line with other smooth-faced and stuccoed edifices. june th.--yesterday, at three o'clock p. m., i went to see the final horse-race of the feast of st. john, or rather to see the concourse of people and grandees whom it brought together. i took my stand in the vicinity of the spot whence the grand duke and his courtiers view the race, and from this point the scene was rather better worth looking at than from the street-corners whence i saw it before. the vista of the street, stretching far adown between two rows of lofty edifices, was really gay and gorgeous with the silks, damasks, and tapestries of all bright hues, that flaunted from windows and balconies, whence ladies looked forth and looked down, themselves making the liveliest part of the show. the whole capacity of the street swarmed with moving heads, leaving scarce room enough for the carriages, which, as on sunday, passed up and down, until the signal for the race was given. equipages, too, were constantly arriving at the door of the building which communicates with the open loggia, where the grand ducal party sit to see and to be seen. two sentinels were standing at the door, and presented arms as each courtier or ambassador, or whatever dignity it might be, alighted. most of them had on gold-embroidered court-dresses; some of them had military uniforms, and medals in abundance at the breast; and ladies also came, looking like heaps of lace and gauze in the carriages, but lightly shaking themselves into shape as they went up the steps. by and by a trumpet sounded, a drum beat, and again appeared a succession of half a dozen royal equipages, each with its six horses, its postilion, coachman, and three footmen, grand with cocked hats and embroidery; and the gray-headed, bowing grand duke and his nodding grand duchess as before. the noble guard ranged themselves on horseback opposite the loggia; but there was no irksome and impertinent show of ceremony and restraint upon the people. the play-guard of volunteer soldiers, who escort the president of the united states in his northern progresses, keep back their fellow-citizens much more sternly and immitigably than the florentine guard kept back the populace from its despotic sovereign. this morning j----- and i have been to the uffizi gallery. it was his first visit there, and he passed a sweeping condemnation upon everything he saw, except a fly, a snail-shell, a caterpillar, a lemon, a piece of bread, and a wineglass, in some of the dutch pictures. the venus de' medici met with no sort of favor. his feeling of utter distaste reacted upon me, and i was sensible of the same weary lack of appreciation that used to chill me through, in my earlier visits to picture-galleries; the same doubt, moreover, whether we do not bamboozle ourselves in the greater part of the admiration which we learn to bestow. i looked with some pleasure at one of correggio's madonnas in the tribune,--no divine and deep-thoughted mother of the saviour, but a young woman playing with her first child, as gay and thoughtless as itself. i looked at michael angelo's madonna, in which william ware saw such prophetic depth of feeling; but i suspect it was one of the many instances in which the spectator sees more than the painter ever dreamed of. straying through the city, after leaving the gallery, we went into the church of or san michele, and saw in its architecture the traces of its transformation from a market into a church. in its pristine state it consisted of a double row of three great open arches, with the wind blowing through them, and the sunshine falling aslantwise into them, while the bustle of the market, the sale of fish, flesh, or fruit went on within, or brimmed over into the streets that enclosed them on every side. but, four or five hundred years ago, the broad arches were built up with stone-work; windows were pierced through and filled with painted glass; a high altar, in a rich style of pointed gothic, was raised; shrines and confessionals were set up; and here it is, a solemn and antique church, where a man may buy his salvation instead of his dinner. at any rate, the catholic priests will insure it to him, and take the price. the sculpture within the beautifully decorated niches, on the outside of the church, is very curious and interesting. the statues of those old saints seem to have that charm of earnestness which so attracts the admirers of the pre-raphaelite painters. it appears that a picture of the virgin used to hang against one of the pillars of the market-place while it was still a market, and in the year several miracles were wrought by it, insomuch that a chapel was consecrated for it. so many worshippers came to the shrine that the business of the market was impeded, and ultimately the virgin and st. michael won the whole space for themselves. the upper part of the edifice was at that time a granary, and is still used for other than religious purposes. this church was one spot to which the inhabitants betook themselves much for refuge and divine assistance during the great plague described by boccaccio. july d.--we set out yesterday morning to visit the palazzo buonarotti, michael angelo's ancestral home. . . . . it is in the via ghibellina, an ordinary-looking, three-story house, with broad-brimmed eaves, a stuccoed front, and two or three windows painted in fresco, besides the real ones. adown the street, there is a glimpse of the hills outside of florence. the sun shining heavily directly upon the front, we rang the door-bell, and then drew back into the shadow that fell from the opposite side of the street. after we had waited some time a man looked out from an upper window, and a woman from a lower one, and informed us that we could not be admitted now, nor for two or three months to come, the house being under repairs. it is a pity, for i wished to see michael angelo's sword and walking-stick and old slippers, and whatever other of his closest personalities are to be shown. . . . . we passed into the piazza of the grand duke, and looked into the court of the palazzo vecchio, with its beautifully embossed pillars; and, seeing just beyond the court a staircase of broad and easy steps, we ascended it at a venture. upward and upward we went, flight after flight of stairs, and through passages, till at last we found an official who ushered us into a large saloon. it was the hall of audience. its heavily embossed ceiling, rich with tarnished gold, was a feature of antique magnificence, and the only one that it retained, the floor being paved with tiles and the furniture scanty or none. there were, however, three cabinets standing against the walls, two of which contained very curious and exquisite carvings and cuttings in ivory; some of them in the chinese style of hollow, concentric balls; others, really beautiful works of art: little crucifixes, statues, saintly and knightly, and cups enriched with delicate bas-reliefs. the custode pointed to a small figure of st. sebastian, and also to a vase around which the reliefs seemed to assume life. both these specimens, he said, were by benvenuto cellini, and there were many others that might well have been wrought by his famous hand. the third cabinet contained a great number and variety of crucifixes, chalices, and whatever other vessels are needed in altar service, exquisitely carved out of amber. they belong to the chapel of the palace, and into this holy closet we were now conducted. it is large enough to accommodate comfortably perhaps thirty worshippers, and is quite covered with frescos by ghirlandaio in good preservation, and with remnants enough of gilding and bright color to show how splendid the chapel must have been when the medicean grand dukes used to pray here. the altar is still ready for service, and i am not sure that some of the wax tapers were not burning; but lorenzo the magnificent was nowhere to be seen. the custode now led us back through the hall of audience into a smaller room, hung with pictures chiefly of the medici and their connections, among whom was one carolina, an intelligent and pretty child, and bianca capella. there was nothing else to show us, except a very noble and most spacious saloon, lighted by two large windows at each end, coming down level with the floor, and by a row of windows on one side just beneath the cornice. a gilded framework divides the ceiling into squares, circles, and octagons, the compartments of which are filled with pictures in oil; and the walls are covered with immense frescos, representing various battles and triumphs of the florentines. statues by michael angelo, john of bologna, and bandinello, as well historic as ideal, stand round the hall, and it is really a fit theatre for the historic scenes of a country to be acted in. it was built, moreover, with the idea of its being the council-hall of a free people; but our own little faneuil, which was meant, in all simplicity, to be merely a spot where the townspeople should meet to choose their selectmen, has served the world better in that respect. i wish i had more room to speak of this vast, dusky, historic hall. [this volume of journal closes here.] july th .--yesterday forenoon we went to see the church of santa maria novella. we found the piazza, on one side of which the church stands, encumbered with the amphitheatrical ranges of wooden seats that had been erected to accommodate the spectators of the chariot-races, at the recent feast of st. john. the front of the church is composed of black and white marble, which, in the course of the five centuries that it has been built, has turned brown and yellow. on the right hand, as you approach, is a long colonnade of arches, extending on a line with the facade, and having a tomb beneath every arch. this colonnade forms one of the enclosing walls of a cloister. we found none of the front entrances open, but on our left, in a wall at right angles with the church, there was an open gateway, approaching which, we saw, within the four-sided colonnade, an enclosed green space of a cloister. this is what is called the chiostro verde, so named from the prevailing color of the frescos with which the walls beneath the arches are adorned. this cloister is the reality of what i used to imagine when i saw the half-ruinous colonnades connected with english cathedrals, or endeavored to trace out the lines along the broken wall of some old abbey. not that this extant cloister, still perfect and in daily use for its original purposes, is nearly so beautiful as the crumbling ruin which has ceased to be trodden by monkish feet for more than three centuries. the cloister of santa maria has not the seclusion that is desirable, being open, by its gateway, to the public square; and several of the neighbors, women as well as men, were loitering within its precincts. the convent, however, has another and larger cloister, which i suppose is kept free from interlopers. the chiostro verde is a walk round the four sides of a square, beneath an arched and groined roof. one side of the walk looks upon an enclosed green space with a fountain or a tomb (i forget which) in the centre; the other side is ornamented all along with a succession of ancient frescos, representing subjects of scripture history. in the days when the designs were more distinct than now, it must have been a very effective way for a monk to read bible history, to see its personages and events thus passing visibly beside him in his morning and evening walks. beneath the frescos on one side of the cloistered walk, and along the low stone parapet that separates it from the grass-plat on the other, are inscriptions to the memory of the dead who are buried underneath the pavement. the most of these were modern, and recorded the names of persons of no particular note. other monumental slabs were inlaid with the pavement itself. two or three dominican monks, belonging to the convent, passed in and out, while we were there, in their white habits. after going round three sides, we came to the fourth, formed by the wall of the church, and heard the voice of a priest behind a curtain that fell down before a door. lifting it aside, we went in, and found ourselves in the ancient chapter-house, a large interior formed by two great pointed arches crossing one another in a groined roof. the broad spaces of the walls were entirely covered with frescos that are rich even now, and must have glowed with an inexpressible splendor, when fresh from the artists' hands, five hundred years ago. there is a long period, during which frescos illuminate a church or a hall in a way that no other adornment can; when this epoch of brightness is past, they become the dreariest ghosts of perished magnificence. . . . . this chapter-house is the only part of the church that is now used for the purposes of public worship. there are several confessionals, and two chapels or shrines, each with its lighted tapers. a priest performed mass while we were there, and several persons, as usual, stepped in to do a little devotion, either praying on their own account, or uniting with the ceremony that was going forward. one man was followed by two little dogs, and in the midst of his prayers, as one of the dogs was inclined to stray about the church, he kept snapping his fingers to call him back. the cool, dusky refreshment of these holy places, affording such a refuge from the hot noon of the streets and piazzas, probably suggests devotional ideas to the people, and it may be, when they are praying, they feel a breath of paradise fanning them. if we could only see any good effects in their daily life, we might deem it an excellent thing to be able to find incense and a prayer always ascending, to which every individual may join his own. i really wonder that the catholics are not better men and women. when we had looked at the old frescos, . . . . we emerged into the cloister again, and thence ventured into a passage which would have led us to the chiostro grande, where strangers, and especially ladies, have no right to go. it was a secluded corridor, very neatly kept, bordered with sepulchral monuments, and at the end appeared a vista of cypress-trees, which indeed were but an illusory perspective, being painted in fresco. while we loitered along the sacristan appeared and offered to show us the church, and led us into the transept on the right of the high altar, and ushered us into the sacristy, where we found two artists copying some of fra angelico's pictures. these were painted on the three wooden leaves of a triptych, and, as usual, were glorified with a great deal of gilding, so that they seemed to float in the brightness of a heavenly element. solomon speaks of "apples of gold in pictures of silver." the pictures of fra angelico, and other artists of that age, are really pictures of gold; and it is wonderful to see how rich the effect, and how much delicate beauty is attained (by fra angelico at least) along with it. his miniature-heads appear to me much more successful than his larger ones. in a monkish point of view, however, the chief value of the triptych of which i am speaking does not lie in the pictures, for they merely serve as the framework of some relics, which are set all round the edges of the three leaves. they consist of little bits and fragments of bones, and of packages carefully tied up in silk, the contents of which are signified in gothic letters appended to each parcel. the sacred vessels of the church are likewise kept in the sacristy. . . . . re-entering the transept, our guide showed us the chapel of the strozzi family, which is accessible by a flight of steps from the floor of the church. the walls of this chapel are covered with frescos by orcagna, representing around the altar the last judgment, and on one of the walls heaven and the assembly of the blessed, and on the other, of course, hell. i cannot speak as to the truth of the representation; but, at all events, it was purgatory to look at it. . . . . we next passed into the choir, which occupies the extreme end of the church behind the great square mass of the high altar, and is surrounded with a double row of ancient oaken seats of venerable shape and carving. the choir is illuminated by a threefold gothic window, full of richly painted glass, worth all the frescos that ever stained a wall or ceiling; but these walls, nevertheless, are adorned with frescos by ghirlandaio, and it is easy to see must once have made a magnificent appearance. i really was sensible of a sad and ghostly beauty in many of the figures; but all the bloom, the magic of the painter's touch, his topmost art, have long ago been rubbed off, the white plaster showing through the colors in spots, and even in large spaces. any other sort of ruin acquires a beauty proper to its decay, and often superior to that of its pristine state; but the ruin of a picture, especially of a fresco, is wholly unredeemed; and, moreover, it dies so slowly that many generations are likely to be saddened by it. we next saw the famous picture of the virgin by cimabue, which was deemed a miracle in its day, . . . . and still brightens the sombre walls with the lustre of its gold ground. as to its artistic merits, it seems to me that the babe jesus has a certain air of state and dignity; but i could see no charm whatever in the broad-faced virgin, and it would relieve my mind and rejoice my spirit if the picture were borne out of the church in another triumphal procession (like the one which brought it there), and reverently burnt. this should be the final honor paid to all human works that have served a good office in their day, for when their day is over, if still galvanized into false life, they do harm instead of good. . . . . the interior of santa maria novella is spacious and in the gothic style, though differing from english churches of that order of architecture. it is not now kept open to the public, nor were any of the shrines and chapels, nor even the high altar itself, adorned and lighted for worship. the pictures that decorated the shrines along the side aisles have been removed, leaving bare, blank spaces of brickwork, very dreary and desolate to behold. this is almost worse than a black oil-painting or a faded fresco. the church was much injured by the french, and afterwards by the austrians, both powers having quartered their troops within the holy precincts. its old walls, however, are yet stalwart enough to outlast another set of frescos, and to see the beginning and the end of a new school of painting as long-lived as cimabue's. i should be sorry to have the church go to decay, because it was here that boccaccio's dames and cavaliers encountered one another, and formed their plan of retreating into the country during the plague. . . . . at the door we bought a string of beads, with a small crucifix appended, in memory of the place. the beads seem to be of a grayish, pear-shaped seed, and the seller assured us that they were the tears of st. job. they were cheap, probably because job shed so many tears in his lifetime. it being still early in the day, we went to the uffizi gallery, and after loitering a good while among the pictures, were so fortunate as to find the room of the bronzes open. the first object that attracted us was john of bologna's mercury, poising himself on tiptoe, and looking not merely buoyant enough to float, but as if he possessed more than the eagle's power of lofty flight. it seems a wonder that he did not absolutely fling himself into the air when the artist gave him the last touch. no bolder work was ever achieved; nothing so full of life has been done since. i was much interested, too, in the original little wax model, two feet high, of benvenuto cellini's perseus. the wax seems to be laid over a wooden framework, and is but roughly finished off. . . . . in an adjoining room are innumerable specimens of roman and etruscan bronzes, great and small. a bronze chimera did not strike me as very ingeniously conceived, the goat's head being merely an adjunct, growing out of the back of the monster, without possessing any original and substantive share in its nature. the snake's head is at the end of the tail. the object most really interesting was a roman eagle, the standard of the twenty-fourth legion, about the size of a blackbird. july th.--on the th we went to the church of the annunziata, which stands in the piazza of the same name. on the corner of the via dei servi is the palace which i suppose to be the one that browning makes the scene of his poem, "the statue and the bust," and the statue of duke ferdinand sits stately on horseback, with his face turned towards the window, where the lady ought to appear. neither she nor the bust, however, was visible, at least not to my eyes. the church occupies one side of the piazza, and in front of it, as likewise on the two adjoining sides of the square, there are pillared arcades, constructed by brunelleschi or his scholars. after passing through these arches, and still before entering the church itself, you come to an ancient cloister, which is now quite enclosed in glass as a means of preserving some frescos of andrea del sarto and others, which are considered valuable. passing the threshold of the church, we were quite dazzled by the splendor that shone upon us from the ceiling of the nave, the great parallelograms of which, viewed from one end, look as if richly embossed all over with gold. the whole interior, indeed, has an effect of brightness and magnificence, the walls being covered mostly with light-colored marble, into which are inlaid compartments of rarer and richer marbles. the pillars and pilasters, too, are of variegated marbles, with corinthian capitals, that shine just as brightly as if they were of solid gold, so faithfully have they been gilded and burnished. the pavement is formed of squares of black and white marble. there are no side aisles, but ranges of chapels, with communication from one to another, stand round the whole extent of the nave and choir; all of marble, all decorated with pictures, statues, busts, and mural monuments; all worth, separately, a day's inspection. the high altar is of great beauty and richness, . . . . and also the tomb of john of bologna in a chapel at the remotest extremity of the church. in this chapel there are some bas-reliefs by him, and also a large crucifix, with a marble christ upon it. i think there has been no better sculptor since the days of phidias. . . . . the church was founded by seven gentlemen of florence, who formed themselves into a religious order called "servants of mary." many miraculous cures were wrought here; and the church, in consequence, was so thickly hung with votive offerings of legs, arms, and other things in wax, that they used to tumble upon people's heads, so that finally they were all cleared out as rubbish. the church is still, i should imagine, looked upon as a place of peculiar sanctity; for while we were there it had an unusual number of kneeling worshippers, and persons were passing from shrine to shrine all round the nave and choir, praying awhile at each, and thus performing a pilgrimage at little cost of time and labor. one old gentleman, i observed, carried a cushion or pad, just big enough for one knee, on which he carefully adjusted his genuflexions before each altar. an old woman in the choir prayed alternately to us and to the saints, with most success, i hope, in her petitions to the latter, though certainly her prayers to ourselves seemed the more fervent of the two. when we had gone entirely round the church, we came at last to the chapel of the annunziata, which stands on the floor of the nave, on the left hand as we enter. it is a very beautiful piece of architecture,--a sort of canopy of marble, supported upon pillars; and its magnificence within, in marble and silver, and all manner of holy decoration, is quite indescribable. it was built four hundred years ago, by pietro de' medici, and has probably been growing richer ever since. the altar is entirely of silver, richly embossed. as many people were kneeling on the steps before it as could find room, and most of them, when they finished their prayers, ascended the steps, kissed over and over again the margin of the silver altar, laid their foreheads upon it, and then deposited an offering in a box placed upon the altar's top. from the dulness of the chink in the only case when i heard it, i judged it to be a small copper coin. in the inner part of this chapel is preserved a miraculous picture of the "santissima annunziata," painted by angels, and held in such holy repute that forty thousand dollars have lately been expended in providing a new crown for the sacred personage represented. the picture is now veiled behind a curtain; and as it is a fresco, and is not considered to do much credit to the angelic artists, i was well contented not to see it. we found a side door of the church admitting us into the great cloister, which has a walk of intersecting arches round its four sides, paved with flat tombstones, and broad enough for six people to walk abreast. on the walls, in the semicircles of each successive arch, are frescos representing incidents in the lives of the seven founders of the church, and all the lower part of the wall is incrusted with marble inscriptions to the memory of the dead, and mostly of persons who have died not very long ago. the space enclosed by the cloistered walk, usually made cheerful by green grass, has a pavement of tombstones laid in regular ranges. in the centre is a stone octagonal structure, which at first i supposed to be the tomb of some deceased mediaeval personage; but, on approaching, i found it a well, with its bucket hanging within the curb, and looking as if it were in constant use. the surface of the water lay deep beneath the deepest dust of the dead people, and thence threw up its picture of the sky; but i think it would not be a moderate thirst that would induce me to drink of that well. on leaving the church we bought a little gilt crucifix. . . . . on sunday evening i paid a short visit to mr. powers, and, as usual, was entertained and instructed with his conversation. it did not, indeed, turn upon artistical subjects; but the artistic is only one side of his character, and, i think, not the principal side. he might have achieved valuable success as an engineer and mechanician. he gave a dissertation on flying-machines, evidently from his own experience, and came to the conclusion that it is impossible to fly by means of steam or any other motive-power now known to man. no force hitherto attained would suffice to lift the engine which generated it. he appeared to anticipate that flying will be a future mode of locomotion, but not till the moral condition of mankind is so improved as to obviate the bad uses to which the power might be applied. another topic discussed was a cure for complaints of the chest by the inhalation of nitric acid; and he produced his own apparatus for that purpose, being merely a tube inserted into a bottle containing a small quantity of the acid, just enough to produce the gas for inhalation. he told me, too, a remedy for burns accidentally discovered by himself; viz., to wear wash-leather, or something equivalent, over the burn, and keep it constantly wet. it prevents all pain, and cures by the exclusion of the air. he evidently has a great tendency to empirical remedies, and would have made a natural doctor of mighty potency, possessing the shrewd sense, inventive faculty, and self-reliance that such persons require. it is very singular that there should be an ideal vein in a man of this character. this morning he called to see me, with intelligence of the failure of the new attempt to lay the electric cable between england and america; and here, too, it appears the misfortune might have been avoided if a plan of his own for laying the cable had been adopted. he explained his process, and made it seem as practicable as to put up a bell-wire. i do not remember how or why (but appositely) he repeated some verses, from a pretty little ballad about fairies, that had struck his fancy, and he wound up his talk with some acute observations on the characters of general jackson and other public men. he told an anecdote, illustrating the old general's small acquaintance with astronomical science, and his force of will in compelling a whole dinner-party of better instructed people than himself to succumb to him in an argument about eclipses and the planetary system generally. powers witnessed the scene himself. he thinks that general jackson was a man of the keenest and surest intuitions, in respect to men and measures, but with no power of reasoning out his own conclusions, or of imparting them intellectually to other persons. men who have known jackson intimately, and in great affairs, would not agree as to this intellectual and argumentative deficiency, though they would fully allow the intuitive faculty. i have heard general pierce tell a striking instance of jackson's power of presenting his own view of a subject with irresistible force to the mind of the auditor. president buchanan has likewise expressed to me as high admiration of jackson as i ever heard one man award to another. surely he was a great man, and his native strength, as well of intellect as character, compelled every man to be his tool that came within his reach; and the more cunning the individual might be, it served only to make him the sharper tool. speaking of jackson, and remembering raphael's picture of pope julius ii., the best portrait in the whole world, and excellent in all its repetitions, i wish it had been possible for raphael to paint general jackson! referring again to general jackson's intuitions, and to powers's idea that he was unable to render a reason to himself or others for what he chose to do, i should have thought that this very probably might have been the case, were there not such strong evidence to the contrary. the highest, or perhaps any high administrative ability is intuitive, and precedes argument, and rises above it. it is a revelation of the very thing to be done, and its propriety and necessity are felt so strongly that very likely it cannot be talked about; if the doer can likewise talk, it is an additional and gratuitous faculty, as little to be expected as that a poet should be able to write an explanatory criticism on his own poem. the english overlook this in their scheme of government, which requires that the members of the national executive should be orators, and the readiest and most fluent orators that can be found. the very fact (on which they are selected) that they are men of words makes it improbable that they are likewise men of deeds. and it is only tradition and old custom, founded on an obsolete state of things, that assigns any value to parliamentary oratory. the world has done with it, except as an intellectual pastime. the speeches have no effect till they are converted into newspaper paragraphs; and they had better be composed as such, in the first place, and oratory reserved for churches, courts of law, and public dinner-tables. july th.--my wife and i went yesterday forenoon to see the church of san marco, with which is connected a convent of dominicans. . . . . the interior is not less than three or four hundred years old, and is in the classic style, with a flat ceiling, gilded, and a lofty arch, supported by pillars, between the nave and choir. there are no side aisles, but ranges of shrines on both sides of the nave, each beneath its own pair of pillars and pediments. the pavement is of brick, with here and there a marble tombstone inlaid. it is not a magnificent church; but looks dingy with time and apparent neglect, though rendered sufficiently interesting by statues of mediaeval date by john of bologna and other old sculptors, and by monumental busts and bas-reliefs: also, there is a wooden crucifix by giotto, with ancient gilding on it; and a painting of christ, which was considered a wonderful work in its day. each shrine, or most of them, at any rate, had its dark old picture, and there is a very old and hideous mosaic of the virgin and two saints, which i looked at very slightly, with the purpose of immediately forgetting it. savonarola, the reforming monk, was a brother of this convent, and was torn from its shelter, to be subsequently hanged and burnt in the grand ducal piazza. a large chapel in the left transept is of the salviati family, dedicated to st. anthony, and decorated with several statues of saints, and with some old frescos. when we had more than sufficiently examined these, the custode proposed to show us some frescos of fra angelico, and conducted us into a large cloister, under the arches of which, and beneath a covering of glass, he pointed to a picture of st. dominic kneeling at the cross. there are two or three others by the angelic friar in different parts of the cloister, and a regular series, filling up all the arches, by various artists. its four-sided, cloistered walk surrounds a square, open to the sky as usual, and paved with gray stones that have no inscriptions, but probably are laid over graves. its walls, however, are incrusted, and the walk itself is paved with monumental inscriptions on marble, none of which, so far as i observed, were of ancient date. either the fashion of thus commemorating the dead is not ancient in florence, or the old tombstones have been removed to make room for new ones. i do not know where the monks themselves have their burial-place; perhaps in an inner cloister, which we did not see. all the inscriptions here, i believe, were in memory of persons not connected with the convent. a door in the wall of the cloister admitted us into the chapter-house, its interior moderately spacious, with a roof formed by intersecting arches. three sides of the walls were covered with blessed whitewash; but on the fourth side, opposite to the entrance, was a great fresco of the crucifixion, by fra angelico, surrounded with a border or pictured framework, in which are represented the heads of saints, prophets, and sibyls, as large as life. the cross of the saviour and those of the thieves were painted against a dark red sky; the figures upon them were lean and attenuated, evidently the vague conceptions of a man who had never seen a naked figure. beneath, was a multitude of people, most of whom were saints who had lived and been martyred long after the crucifixion; and some of these had wounds from which gilded rays shone forth, as if the inner glory and blessedness of the holy men blazed through them. it is a very ugly picture, and its ugliness is not that of strength and vigor, but of weakness and incompetency. fra angelico should have confined himself to miniature heads, in which his delicacy of touch and minute labor often produce an excellent effect. the custode informed us that there were more frescos of this pious artist in the interior of the convent, into which i might be allowed admittance, but not my wife. i declined seeing them, and heartily thanked heaven for my escape. returning through the church, we stopped to look at a shrine on the right of the entrance, where several wax candles were lighted, and the steps of which were crowded with worshippers. it was evidently a spot of special sanctity, and, approaching the steps, we saw, behind a gilded framework of stars and protected by glass, a wooden image of the saviour, naked, covered with spots of blood, crowned with thorns, and expressing all the human wretchedness that the carver's skill could represent. the whole shrine, within the glass, was hung with offerings, as well of silver and gold as of tinsel and trumpery, and the body of christ glistened with gold chains and ornaments, and with watches of silver and gold, some of which appeared to be of very old manufacture, and others might be new. amid all this glitter the face of pain and grief looked forth, not a whit comforted. while we stood there, a woman, who had been praying, arose from her knees and laid an offering of a single flower upon the shrine. the corresponding arch, on the opposite side of the entrance, contained a wax-work within a large glass case, representing the nativity. i do not remember how the blessed infant looked, but the virgin was gorgeously dressed in silks, satins, and gauzes, with spangles and ornaments of all kinds, and, i believe, brooches of real diamonds on her bosom. her attire, judging from its freshness and newness of glitter, might have been put on that very morning. july th.--we went for the second time, this morning, to the academy of fine arts, and i looked pretty thoroughly at the pre-raphaelite pictures, few of which are really worth looking at nowadays. cimabue and giotto might certainly be dismissed, henceforth and forever, without any detriment to the cause of good art. there is what seems to me a better picture than either of these has produced, by bonamico buffalmacco, an artist of about their date or not long after. the first real picture in the series is the "adoration of the magi," by gentile da fabriano, a really splendid work in all senses, with noble and beautiful figures in it, and a crowd of personages, managed with great skill. three pictures by perugino are the only other ones i cared to look at. in one of these, the face of the virgin who holds the dead christ on her knees has a deeper expression of woe than can ever have been painted since. after perugino the pictures cease to be interesting; the art came forward with rapid strides, but the painters and their productions do not take nearly so much hold of the spectator as before. they all paint better than giotto and cimabue,--in some respects better than perugino; but they paint in vain, probably because they were not nearly so much in earnest, and meant far less, though possessing the dexterity to express far more. andrea del sarto appears to have been a good painter, yet i always turn away readily from his pictures. i looked again, and for a good while, at carlo dolce's portrait of the eternal father, for it is a miracle and masterpiece of absurdity, and almost equally a miracle of pictorial art. it is the all-powerless, a fair-haired, soft, consumptive deity, with a mouth that has fallen open through very weakness. he holds one hand on his stomach, as if the wickedness and wretchedness of mankind made him qualmish; and he is looking down out of heaven with an expression of pitiable appeal, or as if seeking somewhere for assistance in his heavy task of ruling the universe. you might fancy such a being falling on his knees before a strong-willed man, and beseeching him to take the reins of omnipotence out of his hands. no wonder that wrong gets the better of right, and that good and ill are confounded, if the supreme head were as here depicted; for i never saw, and nobody else ever saw, so perfect a representation of a person burdened with a task infinitely above his strength. if carlo dolce had been wicked enough to know what he was doing, the picture would have been most blasphemous,--a satire, in the very person of the almighty, against all incompetent rulers, and against the rickety machine and crazy action of the universe. heaven forgive me for such thoughts as this picture has suggested! it must be added that the great original defect in the character as here represented is an easy good-nature. i wonder what michael angelo would have said to this painting. in the large, enclosed court connected with the academy there are a number of statues, bas-reliefs, and casts, and what was especially interesting, the vague and rude commencement of a statue of st. matthew by michael angelo. the conceptions of this great sculptor were so godlike that he seems to have been discontented at not likewise possessing the godlike attribute of creating and embodying them with an instantaneous thought, and therefore we often find sculptures from his hand left at the critical point of their struggle to get out of the marble. the statue of st. matthew looks like the antediluvian fossil of a human being of an epoch when humanity was mightier and more majestic than now, long ago imprisoned in stone, and half uncovered again. july th.--we went yesterday forenoon to see the bargello. i do not know anything more picturesque in florence than the great interior court of this ancient palace of the podesta, with the lofty height of the edifice looking down into the enclosed space, dark and stern, and the armorial bearings of a long succession of magistrates carved in stone upon the walls, a garland, as it were, of these gothic devices extending quite round the court. the best feature of the whole is the broad stone staircase, with its heavy balustrade, ascending externally from the court to the iron-grated door in the second story. we passed the sentinels under the lofty archway that communicates with the street, and went up the stairs without being questioned or impeded. at the iron-grated door, however, we were met by two officials in uniform, who courteously informed us that there was nothing to be exhibited in the bargello except an old chapel containing some frescos by giotto, and that these could only be seen by making a previous appointment with the custode, he not being constantly on hand. i was not sorry to escape the frescos, though one of them is a portrait of dante. we next went to the church of the badia, which is built in the form of a greek cross, with a flat roof embossed and once splendid with now tarnished gold. the pavement is of brick, and the walls of dark stone, similar to that of the interior of the cathedral (pietra serena), and there being, according to florentine custom, but little light, the effect was sombre, though the cool gloomy dusk was refreshing after the hot turmoil and dazzle of the adjacent street. here we found three or four gothic tombs, with figures of the deceased persons stretched in marble slumber upon them. there were likewise a picture or two, which it was impossible to see; indeed, i have hardly ever met with a picture in a church that was not utterly wasted and thrown away in the deep shadows of the chapel it was meant to adorn. if there is the remotest chance of its being seen, the sacristan hangs a curtain before it for the sake of his fee for withdrawing it. in the chapel of the bianco family we saw (if it could be called seeing) what is considered the finest oil-painting of fra filippo lippi. it was evidently hung with reference to a lofty window on the other side of the church, whence sufficient light might fall upon it to show a picture so vividly painted as this is, and as most of fra filippo lippi's are. the window was curtained, however, and the chapel so dusky that i could make out nothing. several persons came in to say their prayers during the little time that we remained in the church, and as we came out we passed a good woman who sat knitting in the coolness of the vestibule, which was lined with mural tombstones. probably she spends the day thus, keeping up the little industry of her fingers, slipping into the church to pray whenever a devotional impulse swells into her heart, and asking an alms as often as she sees a person of charitable aspect. from the church we went to the uffizi gallery, and reinspected the greater part of it pretty faithfully. we had the good fortune, too, again to get admittance into the cabinet of bronzes, where we admired anew the wonderful airiness of john of bologna's mercury, which, as i now observed, rests on nothing substantial, but on the breath of a zephyr beneath him. we also saw a bronze bust of one of the medici by benvenuto cellini, and a thousand other things the curiosity of which is overlaid by their multitude. the roman eagle, which i have recorded to be about the size of a blackbird, i now saw to be as large as a pigeon. on our way towards the door of the gallery, at our departure, we saw the cabinet of gems open, and again feasted our eyes with its concentrated brilliancies and magnificences. among them were two crystal cups, with engraved devices, and covers of enamelled gold, wrought by benvenuto cellini, and wonderfully beautiful. but it is idle to mention one or two things, when all are so beautiful and curious; idle, too, because language is not burnished gold, with here and there a brighter word flashing like a diamond; and therefore no amount of talk will give the slightest idea of one of these elaborate handiworks. july th.--i seldom go out nowadays, having already seen florence tolerably well, and the streets being very hot, and myself having been engaged in sketching out a romance [the marble faun.--ed.], which whether it will ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided. at any rate, it leaves me little heart for journalizing and describing new things; and six months of uninterrupted monotony would be more valuable to me just now, than the most brilliant succession of novelties. yesterday i spent a good deal of time in watching the setting out of a wedding party from our door; the bride being the daughter of an english lady, the countess of ------. after all, there was nothing very characteristic. the bridegroom is a young man of english birth, son of the countess of st. g------, who inhabits the third piano of this casa del bello. the very curious part of the spectacle was the swarm of beggars who haunted the street all day; the most wretched mob conceivable, chiefly women, with a few blind people, and some old men and boys. among these the bridal party distributed their beneficence in the shape of some handfuls of copper, with here and there a half-paul intermixed; whereupon the whole wretched mob flung themselves in a heap upon the pavement, struggling, lighting, tumbling one over another, and then looking up to the windows with petitionary gestures for more and more, and still for more. doubtless, they had need enough, for they looked thin, sickly, ill-fed, and the women ugly to the last degree. the wedding party had a breakfast above stairs, which lasted till four o'clock, and then the bridegroom took his bride in a barouche and pair, which was already crammed with his own luggage and hers. . . . . he was a well-looking young man enough, in a uniform of french gray with silver epaulets; more agreeable in aspect than his bride, who, i think, will have the upper hand in their domestic life. i observed that, on getting into the barouche, he sat down on her dress, as he could not well help doing, and received a slight reprimand in consequence. after their departure, the wedding guests took their leave; the most noteworthy person being the pope's nuncio (the young man being son of the pope's chamberlain, and one of the grand duke's noble guard), an ecclesiastical personage in purple stockings, attended by two priests, all of whom got into a coach, the driver and footmen of which wore gold-laced cocked hats and other splendors. to-day i paid a short visit to the gallery of the pitti palace. i looked long at a madonna of raphael's, the one which is usually kept in the grand duke's private apartments, only brought into the public gallery for the purpose of being copied. it is the holiest of all raphael's madonnas, with a great reserve in the expression, a sense of being apart, and yet with the utmost tenderness and sweetness; although she drops her eyelids before her like a veil, as it were, and has a primness of eternal virginity about the mouth. it is one of raphael's earlier works, when he mixed more religious sentiment with his paint than afterwards. perugino's pictures give the impression of greater sincerity and earnestness than raphael's, though the genius of raphael often gave him miraculous vision. july th.--last evening we went to the powers's, and sat with them on the terrace, at the top of the house, till nearly ten o'clock. it was a delightful, calm, summer evening, and we were elevated far above all the adjacent roofs, and had a prospect of the greater part of florence and its towers, and the surrounding hills, while directly beneath us rose the trees of a garden, and they hardly sent their summits higher than we sat. at a little distance, with only a house or two between, was a theatre in full action, the teatro goldoni, which is an open amphitheatre, in the ancient fashion, without any roof. we could see the upper part of the proscenium, and, had we been a little nearer, might have seen the whole performance, as did several boys who crept along the tops of the surrounding houses. as it was, we heard the music and the applause, and now and then an actor's stentorian tones, when we chose to listen. mrs. p------ and my wife, u---- and master bob, sat in a group together, and chatted in one corner of our aerial drawing-room, while mr. powers and myself leaned against the parapet, and talked of innumerable things. when the clocks struck the hour, or the bells rang from the steeples, as they are continually doing, i spoke of the sweetness of the florence bells, the tones of some of them being as if the bell were full of liquid melody, and shed it through the air on being upturned. i had supposed, in my lack of musical ear, that the bells of the campanile were the sweetest; but mr. powers says that there is a defect in their tone, and that the bell of the palazzo vecchio is the most melodious he ever heard. then he spoke of his having been a manufacturer of organs, or, at least, of reeds for organs, at one period of his life. i wonder what he has not been! he told me of an invention of his in the musical line, a jewsharp with two tongues; and by and by he produced it for my inspection. it was carefully kept in a little wooden case, and was very neatly and elaborately constructed, with screws to tighten it, and a silver centre-piece between the two tongues. evidently a great deal of thought had been bestowed on this little harp; but mr. powers told me that it was an utter failure, because the tongues were apt to interfere and jar with one another, although the strain of music was very sweet and melodious-- as he proved, by playing on it a little--when everything went right. it was a youthful production, and he said that its failure had been a great disappointment to him at the time; whereupon i congratulated him that his failures had been in small matters, and his successes in great ones. we talked, furthermore, about instinct and reason, and whether the brute creation have souls, and, if they have none, how justice is to be done them for their sufferings here; and mr. powers came finally to the conclusion that brutes suffer only in appearance, and that god enjoys for them all that they seem to enjoy, and that man is the only intelligent and sentient being. we reasoned high about other states of being; and i suggested the possibility that there might be beings inhabiting this earth, contemporaneously with us, and close beside us, but of whose existence and whereabout we could have no perception, nor they of ours, because we are endowed with different sets of senses; for certainly it was in god's power to create beings who should communicate with nature by innumerable other senses than those few which we possess. mr. powers gave hospitable reception to this idea, and said that it had occurred to himself; and he has evidently thought much and earnestly about such matters; but is apt to let his idea crystallize into a theory, before he can have sufficient data for it. he is a swedenborgian in faith. the moon had risen behind the trees, while we were talking, and powers intimated his idea that beings analogous to men--men in everything except the modifications necessary to adapt them to their physical circumstances--inhabited the planets, and peopled them with beautiful shapes. each planet, however, must have its own standard of the beautiful, i suppose; and probably his sculptor's eye would not see much to admire in the proportions of an inhabitant of saturn. the atmosphere of florence, at least when we ascend a little way into it, suggests planetary speculations. galileo found it so, and mr. powers and i pervaded the whole universe; but finally crept down his garret-stairs, and parted, with a friendly pressure of the hand. villa montanto. monte beni. august d.--we had grown weary of the heat of florence within the walls, . . . . there being little opportunity for air and exercise except within the precincts of our little garden, which, also, we feared might breed malaria, or something akin to it. we have therefore taken this suburban villa for the two next months, and, yesterday morning, we all came out hither. j----- had preceded us with b. p------. the villa is on a hill called bellosguardo, about a mile beyond the porta romana. less than half an hour's walk brought us, who were on foot, to the iron gate of our villa, which we found shut and locked. we shouted to be let in, and while waiting for somebody to appear, there was a good opportunity to contemplate the external aspect of the villa. after we had waited a few minutes, j----- came racing down to the gate, laughing heartily, and said that bob and he had been in the house, but had come out, shutting the door behind them; and as the door closed with a springlock, they could not get in again. now as the key of the outer gate as well as that of the house itself was in the pocket of j-----'s coat, left inside, we were shut out of our own castle, and compelled to carry on a siege against it, without much likelihood of taking it, although the garrison was willing to surrender. but b. p------ called in the assistance of the contadini who cultivate the ground, and live in the farm-house close by; and one of them got into a window by means of a ladder, so that the keys were got, the gates opened, and we finally admitted. before examining any other part of the house, we climbed to the top of the tower, which, indeed, is not very high, in proportion to its massive square. very probably, its original height was abbreviated, in compliance with the law that lowered so many of the fortified towers of noblemen within the walls of florence. . . . . the stairs were not of stone, built in with the original mass of the tower, as in english castles, but of now decayed wood, which shook beneath us, and grew more and more crazy as we ascended. it will not be many years before the height of the tower becomes unattainable. . . . . near at hand, in the vicinity of the city, we saw the convent of monte olivetto, and other structures that looked like convents, being built round an enclosed square; also numerous white villas, many of which had towers, like that we were standing upon, square and massive, some of them battlemented on the summit, and others apparently modernized for domestic purposes. among them u---- pointed out galileo's tower, whither she made an excursion the other day. it looked lower than our own, but seemed to stand on a higher elevation. we also saw the duke's villa, the poggio, with a long avenue of cypresses leading from it, as if a funeral were going forth. and having wasted thus much of description on the landscape, i will finish with saying that it lacked only water to be a very fine one. it is strange what a difference the gleam of water makes, and how a scene awakens and comes to life wherever it is visible. the landscape, moreover, gives the beholder (at least, this beholder) a sense of oppressive sunshine and scanty shade, and does not incite a longing to wander through it on foot, as a really delightful landscape should. the vine, too, being cultivated in so trim a manner, does not suggest that idea of luxuriant fertility, which is the poetical notion of a vineyard. the olive-orchards have a pale and unlovely hue. an english view would have been incomparably richer in its never-fading green; and in my own country, the wooded hills would have been more delightful than these peaks and ridges of dreary and barren sunshine; and there would have been the bright eyes of half a dozen little lakes, looking heavenward, within an extent like that of the val d' arno. by and by mamma's carriage came along the dusty road, and passed through the iron gateway, which we had left open for her reception. we shouted down to her and r-----, and they waved their handkerchiefs upward to us; and, on my way down, i met r----- and the servant coming up through the ghostly rooms. the rest of the day we spent mostly in exploring the premises. the house itself is of almost bewildering extent, insomuch that we might each of us have a suite of rooms individually. i have established myself on the ground-floor, where i have a dressing-room, a large vaulted saloon, hung with yellow damask, and a square writing-study, the walls and ceilings of the two latter apartments being ornamented with angels and cherubs aloft in fresco, and with temples, statues, vases, broken columns, peacocks, parrots, vines, and sunflowers below. i know not how many more saloons, anterooms, and sleeping-chambers there are on this same basement story, besides an equal number over them, and a great subterranean establishment. i saw some immense jars there, which i suppose were intended to hold oil; and iron kettles, for what purpose i cannot tell. there is also a chapel in the house, but it is locked up, and we cannot yet with certainty find the door of it, nor even, in this great wilderness of a house, decide absolutely what space the holy precincts occupy. adjoining u----'s chamber, which is in the tower, there is a little oratory, hung round with sacred prints of very ancient date, and with crucifixes, holy-water vases, and other consecrated things; and here, within a glass case, there is the representation of an undraped little boy in wax, very prettily modelled, and holding up a heart that looks like a bit of red sealing-wax. if i had found him anywhere else i should have taken him for cupid; but, being in an oratory, i presume him to have some religious signification. in the servants' room a crucifix hung on one side of the bed, and a little vase for holy water, now overgrown with a cobweb, on the other; and, no doubt, all the other sleeping-apartments would have been equally well provided, only that their occupants were to be heretics. the lower floor of the house is tolerably furnished, and looks cheerful with its frescos, although the bare pavements in every room give an impression of discomfort. but carpets are universally taken up in italy during summer-time. it must have been an immense family that could have ever filled such a house with life. we go on voyages of discovery, and when in quest of any particular point, are likely enough to fetch up at some other. this morning i had difficulty in finding my way again to the top of the tower. one of the most peculiar rooms is constructed close to the tower, under the roof of the main building, but with no external walls on two sides! it is thus left open to the air, i presume for the sake of coolness. a parapet runs round the exposed sides for the sake of security. some of the palaces in florence have such open loggias in their upper stories, and i saw others on our journey hither, after arriving in tuscany. the grounds immediately around the house are laid out in gravel-walks, and ornamented with shrubbery, and with what ought to be a grassy lawn; but the italian sun is quite as little favorable to beauty of that kind as our own. i have enjoyed the luxury, however, almost for the first time since i left my hill-top at the wayside, of flinging myself at full length on the ground without any fear of catching cold. moist england would punish a man soundly for taking such liberties with her greensward. a podere, or cultivated tract, comprising several acres, belongs to the villa, and seems to be fertile, like all the surrounding country. the possessions of different proprietors are not separated by fences, but only marked out by ditches; and it seems possible to walk miles and miles, along the intersecting paths, without obstruction. the rural laborers, so far as i have observed, go about in their shirt-sleeves, and look very much like tanned and sunburnt yankees. last night it was really a work of time and toil to go about making our defensive preparations for the night; first closing the iron gate, then the ponderous and complicated fastenings of the house door, then the separate barricadoes of each iron-barred window on the lower floor, with a somewhat slighter arrangement above. there are bolts and shutters, however, for every window in the house, and i suppose it would not be amiss to put them all in use. our garrison is so small that we must depend more upon the strength of our fortifications than upon our own active efforts in case of an attack. in england, in an insulated country house, we should need all these bolts and bars, and italy is not thought to be the safer country of the two. it deserves to be recorded that the count montanto, a nobleman, and seemingly a man of property, should deem it worth while to let his country seat, and reside during the hot months in his palace in the city, for the consideration of a comparatively small sum a month. he seems to contemplate returning hither for the autumn and winter, when the situation must be very windy and bleak, and the cold death-like in these great halls; and then, it is to be supposed, he will let his palace in town. the count, through the agency of his son, bargained very stiffly for, and finally obtained, three dollars in addition to the sum which we at first offered him. this indicates that even a little money is still a matter of great moment in italy. signor del bello, who, i believe, is also a nobleman, haggled with us about some cracked crockery at our late residence, and finally demanded and received fifty cents in compensation. but this poor gentleman has been a spendthrift, and now acts as the agent of another. august d.--yesterday afternoon william story called on me, he being on a day or two's excursion from siena, where he is spending the summer with his family. he was very entertaining and conversative, as usual, and said, in reply to my question whether he were not anxious to return to cleopatra, that he had already sketched out another subject for sculpture, which would employ him during next winter. he told me, what i was glad to hear, that his sketches of italian life, intended for the "atlantic monthly," and supposed to be lost, have been recovered. speaking of the superstitiousness of the italians, he said that they universally believe in the influence of the evil eye. the evil influence is supposed not to be dependent on the will of the possessor of the evil eye; on the contrary, the persons to whom he wishes well are the very ones to suffer by it. it is oftener found in monks than in any other class of people; and on meeting a monk, and encountering his eye, an italian usually makes a defensive sign by putting both hands behind him, with the forefingers and little fingers extended, although it is a controverted point whether it be not more efficacious to extend the hand with its outspread fingers towards the suspected person. it is considered an evil omen to meet a monk on first going out for the day. the evil eye may be classified with the phenomena of mesmerism. the italians, especially the neapolitans, very generally wear amulets. pio nono, perhaps as being the chief of all monks and other religious people, is supposed to have an evil eye of tenfold malignancy; and its effect has been seen in the ruin of all schemes for the public good so soon as they are favored by him. when the pillar in the piazza de' spagna, commemorative of his dogma of the immaculate conception, was to be erected, the people of rome refused to be present, or to have anything to do with it, unless the pope promised to abstain from interference. his holiness did promise, but so far broke his word as to be present one day while it was being erected, and on that day a man was killed. a little while ago there was a lord clifford, an english catholic nobleman, residing in italy, and, happening to come to rome, he sent his compliments to pio nono, and requested the favor of an interview. the pope, as it happened, was indisposed, or for some reason could not see his lordship, but very kindly sent him his blessing. those who knew of it shook their heads, and intimated that it would go ill with his lordship now that he had been blessed by pio nono, and the very next day poor lord clifford was dead! his holiness had better construe the scriptural injunction literally, and take to blessing his enemies. i walked into town with j------ this morning, and, meeting a monk in the via furnace, i thought it no more than reasonable, as the good father fixed his eyes on me, to provide against the worst by putting both hands behind me, with the forefingers and little fingers stuck out. in speaking of the little oratory connected with u----'s chamber, i forgot to mention the most remarkable object in it. it is a skull, the size of life (or death). . . . . this part of the house must be very old, probably coeval with the tower. the ceiling of u----'s apartment is vaulted with intersecting arches; and adjoining it is a very large saloon, likewise with a vaulted and groined ceiling, and having a cushioned divan running all round the walls. the windows of these rooms look out on the val d' arno. the apartment above this saloon is of the same size, and hung with engraved portraits, printed on large sheets by the score and hundred together, and enclosed in wooden frames. they comprise the whole series of roman emperors, the succession of popes, the kings of europe, the doges of venice, and the sultans of turkey. the engravings bear different dates between and thirty years later, and were executed at rome. august th.--we ascended our tower yesterday afternoon to see the sunset. in my first sketch of the val d' arno i said that the arno seemed to hold its course near the bases of the hills. i now observe that the line of trees which marks its current divides the valley into two pretty equal parts, and the river runs nearly east and west. . . . . at last, when it was growing dark, we went down, groping our way over the shaky staircases, and peeping into each dark chamber as we passed. i gratified j----- exceedingly by hitting my nose against the wall. reaching the bottom, i went into the great saloon, and stood at a window watching the lights twinkle forth, near and far, in the valley, and listening to the convent bells that sounded from monte olivetto, and more remotely still. the stars came out, and the constellation of the dipper hung exactly over the val d' arno, pointing to the north star above the hills on my right. august th.--we drove into town yesterday afternoon, with miss blagden, to call on mr. kirkup, an old englishman who has resided a great many years in florence. he is noted as an antiquarian, and has the reputation of being a necromancer, not undeservedly, as he is deeply interested in spirit-rappings, and holds converse, through a medium, with dead poets and emperors. he lives in an old house, formerly a residence of the knights templars, hanging over the arno, just as you come upon the ponte vecchio; and, going up a dark staircase and knocking at a door on one side of the landing-place, we were received by mr. kirkup. he had had notice of our visit, and was prepared for it, being dressed in a blue frock-coat of rather an old fashion, with a velvet collar, and in a thin waistcoat and pantaloons fresh from the drawer; looking very sprucely, in short, and unlike his customary guise, for miss blagden hinted to us that the poor gentleman is generally so untidy that it is not quite pleasant to take him by the hand. he is rather low of stature, with a pale, shrivelled face, and hair and beard perfectly white, and the hair of a particularly soft and silken texture. he has a high, thin nose, of the english aristocratic type; his eyes have a queer, rather wild look, and the eyebrows are arched above them, so that he seems all the time to be seeing something that strikes him with surprise. i judged him to be a little crack-brained, chiefly on the strength of this expression. his whole make is delicate, his hands white and small, and his appearance and manners those of a gentleman, with rather more embroidery of courtesy than belongs to an englishman. he appeared to be very nervous, tremulous, indeed, to his fingers' ends, without being in any degree disturbed or embarrassed by our presence. finally, he is very deaf; an infirmity that quite took away my pleasure in the interview, because it is impossible to say anything worth while when one is compelled to raise one's voice above its ordinary level. he ushered us through two or three large rooms, dark, dusty, hung with antique-looking pictures, and lined with bookcases containing, i doubt not, a very curious library. indeed, he directed my attention to one case, and said that he had collected those works, in former days, merely for the sake of laughing at them. they were books of magic and occult sciences. what he seemed really to value, however, were some manuscript copies of dante, of which he showed us two: one, a folio on parchment, beautifully written in german text, the letters as clear and accurately cut as printed type; the other a small volume, fit, as mr. kirkup said, to be carried in a capacious mediaeval sleeve. this also was on vellum, and as elegantly executed as the larger one; but the larger had beautiful illuminations, the vermilion and gold of which looked as brilliant now as they did five centuries ago. both of these books were written early in the fourteenth century. mr. kirkup has also a plaster cast of dante's face, which he believes to be the original one taken from his face after death; and he has likewise his own accurate tracing from giotto's fresco of dante in the chapel of the bargello. this fresco was discovered through mr. kirkup's means, and the tracing is particularly valuable, because the original has been almost destroyed by rough usage in drawing out a nail that had been driven into the eye. it represents the profile of a youthful but melancholy face, and has the general outline of dante's features in other portraits. dante has held frequent communications with mr. kirkup through a medium, the poet being described by the medium as wearing the same dress seen in the youthful portrait, but as hearing more resemblance to the cast taken from his dead face than to the picture from his youthful one. there was a very good picture of savonarola in one of the rooms, and many other portraits, paintings, and drawings, some of them ancient, and others the work of mr. kirkup himself. he has the torn fragment of an exquisite drawing of a nude figure by rubens, and a portfolio of other curious drawings. and besides books and works of art, he has no end of antique knick-knackeries, none of which we had any time to look at; among others some instruments with which nuns used to torture themselves in their convents by way of penance. but the greatest curiosity of all, and no antiquity, was a pale, large-eyed little girl, about four years old, who followed the conjurer's footsteps wherever he went. she was the brightest and merriest little thing in the world, and frisked through those shadowy old chambers, among the dead people's trumpery, as gayly as a butterfly flits among flowers and sunshine. the child's mother was a beautiful girl named regina, whose portrait mr. kirkup showed us on the wall. i never saw a more beautiful and striking face claiming to be a real one. she was a florentine, of low birth, and she lived with the old necromancer as his spiritual medium. he showed us a journal, kept during her lifetime, and read from it his notes of an interview with the czar alexander, when that potentate communicated to mr. kirkup that he had been poisoned. the necromancer set a great value upon regina, . . . . and when she died he received her poor baby into his heart, and now considers it absolutely his own. at any rate, it is a happy belief for him, since he has nothing else in the world to love, and loves the child entirely, and enjoys all the bliss of fatherhood, though he must have lived as much as seventy years before he began to taste it. the child inherits her mother's gift of communication with the spiritual world, so that the conjurer can still talk with regina through the baby which she left, and not only with her, but with dante, and any other great spirit that may choose to visit him. it is a very strange story, and this child might be put at once into a romance, with all her history and environment; the ancient knight templar palace, with the arno flowing under the iron-barred windows, and the ponte vecchio, covered with its jewellers' shops, close at hand; the dark, lofty chambers with faded frescos on the ceilings, black pictures hanging on the walls, old books on the shelves, and hundreds of musty antiquities, emitting an odor of past centuries; the shrivelled, white-bearded old man, thinking all the time of ghosts, and looking into the child's eyes to seek them; and the child herself, springing so freshly out of the soil, so pretty, so intelligent, so playful, with never a playmate save the conjurer and a kitten. it is a persian kitten, and lay asleep in a window; but when i touched it, it started up at once in as gamesome a mood as the child herself. the child looks pale, and no wonder, seldom or never stirring out of that old palace, or away from the river atmosphere. miss blagden advised mr. kirkup to go with her to the seaside or into the country, and he did not deny that it might do her good, but seemed to be hampered by an old man's sluggishness and dislike of change. i think he will not live a great while, for he seems very frail. when he dies the little girl will inherit what property he may leave. a lady, catharine fleeting, an englishwoman, and a friend of mr. kirkup, has engaged to take her in charge. she followed us merrily to the door, and so did the persian kitten, and mr. kirkup shook hands with us, over and over again, with vivacious courtesy, his manner having been characterized by a great deal of briskness throughout the interview. he expressed himself delighted to have met one (whose books he had read), and said that the day would be a memorable one to him,--which i did not in the least believe. mr. kirkup is an intimate friend of trelawny, author of "adventures of a younger son," and, long ago, the latter promised him that, if he ever came into possession of the family estate, he would divide it with him. trelawny did really succeed to the estate, and lost no time in forwarding to his friend the legal documents, entitling him to half of the property. but mr. kirkup declined the gift, as he himself was not destitute, and trelawny had a brother. there were two pictures of trelawny in the saloons, one a slight sketch on the wall, the other a half-length portrait in a turkish dress; both handsome, but indicating no very amiable character. it is not easy to forgive trelawny for uncovering dead byron's limbs, and telling that terrible story about them,--equally disgraceful to himself, be it truth or a lie. it seems that regina had a lover, and a sister who was very disreputable it rather adds than otherwise to the romance of the affair,--the idea that this pretty little elf has no right whatever to the asylum which she has found. her name is imogen. the small manuscript copy of dante which he showed me was written by a florentine gentleman of the fourteenth century, one of whose ancestors the poet had met and talked with in paradise. august th.--here is a good italian incident, which i find in valery. andrea del castagno was a painter in florence in the fifteenth century; and he had a friend, likewise a painter, domenico of venice. the latter had the secret of painting in oils, and yielded to castagno's entreaties to impart it to him. desirous of being the sole possessor of this great secret, castagno waited only the night to assassinate domenico, who so little suspected his treachery, that he besought those who found him bleeding and dying to take him to his friend castagno, that he might die in his arms. the murderer lived to be seventy-four years old, and his crime was never suspected till he himself revealed it on his death-bed. domenico did actually die in castagno's arms. the death scene would have been a good one for the latter to paint in oils. september st.--few things journalizable have happened during the last month, because florence and the neighborhood have lost their novelty; and furthermore, i usually spend the whole day at home, having been engaged in planning and sketching out a romance. i have now done with this for the present, and mean to employ the rest of the time we stay here chiefly in revisiting the galleries, and seeing what remains to be seen in florence. last saturday, august th, we went to take tea at miss blagden's, who has a weekly reception on that evening. we found mr. powers there, and by and by mr. boott and mr. trollope came in. miss ------ has lately been exercising her faculties as a spiritual writing-medium; and, the conversation turning on that subject, mr. powers related some things that he had witnessed through the agency of mr. home, who had held a session or two at his house. he described the apparition of two mysterious hands from beneath a table round which the party were seated. these hands purported to belong to the aunt of the countess cotterel, who was present, and were a pair of thin, delicate, aged, lady-like hands and arms, appearing at the edge of the table, and terminating at the elbow in a sort of white mist. one of the hands took up a fan and began to use it. the countess then said, "fan yourself as you used to do, dear aunt"; and forthwith the hands waved the fan back and forth in a peculiar manner, which the countess recognized as the manner of her dead aunt. the spirit was then requested to fan each member of the party; and accordingly, each separate individual round the table was fanned in turn, and felt the breeze sensibly upon his face. finally, the hands sank beneath the table, i believe mr. powers said; but i am not quite sure that they did not melt into the air. during this apparition, mr. home sat at the table, but not in such a position or within such distance that he could have put out or managed the spectral hands; and of this mr. powers satisfied himself by taking precisely the same position after the party had retired. mr. powers did not feel the hands at this time, but he afterwards felt the touch of infant hands, which were at the time invisible. he told of many of the wonders, which seem to have as much right to be set down as facts as anything else that depends on human testimony. for example, mr. k------, one of the party, gave a sudden start and exclamation. he had felt on his knee a certain token, which could have been given him only by a friend, long ago in his grave. mr. powers inquired what was the last thing that had been given as a present to a deceased child; and suddenly both he and his wife felt a prick as of some sharp instrument, on their knees. the present had been a penknife. i have forgotten other incidents quite as striking as these; but, with the exception of the spirit-hands, they seemed to be akin to those that have been produced by mesmerism, returning the inquirer's thoughts and veiled recollections to himself, as answers to his queries. the hands are certainly an inexplicable phenomenon. of course, they are not portions of a dead body, nor any other kind of substance; they are impressions on the two senses, sight and touch, but how produced i cannot tell. even admitting their appearance,--and certainly i do admit it as freely and fully as if i had seen them myself,--there is no need of supposing them to come from the world of departed spirits. powers seems to put entire faith in the verity of spiritual communications, while acknowledging the difficulty of identifying spirits as being what they pretend to be. he is a swedenborgian, and so far prepared to put faith in many of these phenomena. as for home, powers gives a decided opinion that he is a knave, but thinks him so organized, nevertheless, as to be a particularly good medium for spiritual communications. spirits, i suppose, like earthly people, are obliged to use such instruments as will answer their purposes; but rather than receive a message from a dead friend through the organism of a rogue or charlatan, methinks i would choose to wait till we meet. but what most astonishes me is the indifference with which i listen to these marvels. they throw old ghost stories quite into the shade; they bring the whole world of spirits down amongst us, visibly and audibly; they are absolutely proved to be sober facts by evidence that would satisfy us of any other alleged realities; and yet i cannot force my mind to interest myself in them. they are facts to my understanding, which, it might have been anticipated, would have been the last to acknowledge them; but they seem not to be facts to my intuitions and deeper perceptions. my inner soul does not in the least admit them; there is a mistake somewhere. so idle and empty do i feel these stories to be, that i hesitated long whether or no to give up a few pages of this not very important journal to the record of them. we have had written communications through miss ------ with several spirits; my wife's father, mother, two brothers, and a sister, who died long ago, in infancy; a certain mary hall, who announces herself as the guardian spirit of miss ------; and, queerest of all, a mary runnel, who seems to be a wandering spirit, having relations with nobody, but thrusts her finger into everybody's affairs. my wife's mother is the principal communicant; she expresses strong affection, and rejoices at the opportunity of conversing with her daughter. she often says very pretty things; for instance, in a dissertation upon heavenly music; but there is a lack of substance in her talk, a want of gripe, a delusive show, a sentimental surface, with no bottom beneath it. the same sort of thing has struck me in all the poetry and prose that i have read from spiritual sources. i should judge that these effusions emanated from earthly minds, but had undergone some process that had deprived them of solidity and warmth. in the communications between my wife and her mother, i cannot help thinking that (miss ------ being unconsciously in a mesmeric state) all the responses are conveyed to her fingers from my wife's mind. . . . . we have tried the spirits by various test questions, on every one of which they have failed egregiously. here, however, the aforesaid mary runnel comes into play. the other spirits have told us that the veracity of this spirit is not to be depended upon; and so, whenever it is possible, poor mary runnel is thrust forward to bear the odium of every mistake or falsehood. they have avowed themselves responsible for all statements signed by themselves, and have thereby brought themselves into more than one inextricable dilemma; but it is very funny, where a response or a matter of fact has not been thus certified, how invariably mary runnel is made to assume the discredit of it, on its turning out to be false. it is the most ingenious arrangement that could possibly have been contrived; and somehow or other, the pranks of this lying spirit give a reality to the conversations which the more respectable ghosts quite fail in imparting. the whole matter seems to me a sort of dreaming awake. it resembles a dream, in that the whole material is, from the first, in the dreamer's mind, though concealed at various depths below the surface; the dead appear alive, as they always do in dreams; unexpected combinations occur, as continually in dreams; the mind speaks through the various persons of the drama, and sometimes astonishes itself with its own wit, wisdom, and eloquence, as often in dreams; but, in both cases, the intellectual manifestations are really of a very flimsy texture. mary runnel is the only personage who does not come evidently from dream-land; and she, i think, represents that lurking scepticism, that sense of unreality, of which we are often conscious, amid the most vivid phantasmagoria of a dream. i should be glad to believe in the genuineness of these spirits, if i could; but the above is the conclusion to which my soberest thoughts tend. there remains, of course, a great deal for which i cannot account, and i cannot sufficiently wonder at the pigheadedness both of metaphysicians and physiologists, in not accepting the phenomena, so far as to make them the subject of investigation. in writing the communications, miss ------ holds the pencil rather loosely between her fingers; it moves rapidly, and with equal facility whether she fixes her eyes on the paper or not. the handwriting has far more freedom than her own. at the conclusion of a sentence, the pencil lays itself down. she sometimes has a perception of each word before it is written; at other times, she is quite unconscious what is to come next. her integrity is absolutely indubitable, and she herself totally disbelieves in the spiritual authenticity of what is communicated through her medium. september d.--we walked into florence yesterday, betimes after breakfast, it being comfortably cool, and a gray, english sky; though, indeed, the clouds had a tendency to mass themselves more than they do on an overcast english day. we found it warmer in florence, but, not inconveniently so, even in the sunniest streets and squares. we went to the uffizi gallery, the whole of which with its contents is now familiar to us, except the room containing drawings; and our to-day's visit was especially to them. the door giving admittance to them is the very last in the gallery; and the rooms, three in number, are, i should judge, over the loggia de' lanzi, looking on the grand ducal piazza. the drawings hang on the walls, framed and glazed; and number, perhaps, from one to two hundred in each room; but this is only a small portion of the collection, which amounts, it is said, to twenty thousand, and is reposited in portfolios. the sketches on the walls are changed, from time to time, so as to exhibit all the most interesting ones in turn. their whole charm is artistic, imaginative, and intellectual, and in no degree of the upholstery kind; their outward presentment being, in general, a design hastily shadowed out, by means of colored crayons, on tinted paper, or perhaps scratched rudely in pen and ink; or drawn in pencil or charcoal, and half rubbed out; very rough things, indeed, in many instances, and the more interesting on that account, because it seems as if the artist had bestirred himself to catch the first glimpse of an image that did but reveal itself and vanish. the sheets, or sometimes scraps of paper, on which they are drawn, are discolored with age, creased, soiled; but yet you are magnetized by the hand of raphael, michael angelo, leonardo, or whoever may have jotted down those rough-looking master-touches. they certainly possess a charm that is lost in the finished picture; and i was more sensible of forecasting thought, skill, and prophetic design, in these sketches than in the most consummate works that have been elaborated from them. there is something more divine in these; for i suppose the first idea of a picture is real inspiration, and all the subsequent elaboration of the master serves but to cover up the celestial germ with something that belongs to himself. at any rate, the first sketch is the more suggestive, and sets the spectator's imagination at work; whereas the picture, if a good one, leaves him nothing to do; if bad, it confuses, stupefies, disenchants, and disheartens him. first thoughts have an aroma and fragrance in them, that they do not lose in three hundred years; for so old, and a good deal more, are some of these sketches. none interested me more than some drawings, on separate pieces of paper, by perugino, for his picture of the mother and friends of jesus round his dead body, now at the pitti palace. the attendant figures are distinctly made out, as if the virgin, and john, and mary magdalen had each favored the painter with a sitting; but the body of jesus lies in the midst, dimly hinted with a few pencil-marks. there were several designs by michael angelo, none of which made much impression on me; the most striking was a very ugly demon, afterwards painted in the sistine chapel. raphael shows several sketches of madonnas,--one of which has flowered into the grand duke's especial madonna at the pitti palace, but with a different face. his sketches were mostly very rough in execution; but there were two or three designs for frescos, i think, in the vatican, very carefully executed; perhaps because these works were mainly to be done by other hands than his own. it seems to one that the pre-raphaelite artists made more careful drawings than the later ones; and it rather surprised me to see how much science they possessed. we looked at few other things in the gallery; and, indeed, it was not one of the days when works of art find me impressible. we stopped a little while in the tribune, but the venus de' medici seemed to me to-day little more than any other piece of yellowish white marble. how strange that a goddess should stand before us absolutely unrecognized, even when we know by previous revelations that she is nothing short of divine! it is also strange that, unless when one feels the ideal charm of a statue, it becomes one of the most tedious and irksome things in the world. either it must be a celestial thing or an old lump of stone, dusty and time-soiled, and tiring out your patience with eternally looking just the same. once in a while you penetrate through the crust of the old sameness, and see the statue forever new and immortally young. leaving the gallery we walked towards the duomo, and on our way stopped to look at the beautiful gothic niches hollowed into the exterior walls of the church of san michele. they are now in the process of being cleaned, and each niche is elaborately inlaid with precious marbles, and some of them magnificently gilded; and they are all surmounted with marble canopies as light and graceful as frost-work. within stand statues, st. george, and many other saints, by donatello and others, and all taking a hold upon one's sympathies, even if they be not beautiful. classic statues escape you with their slippery beauty, as if they were made of ice. rough and ugly things can be clutched. this is nonsense, and yet it means something. . . . . the streets were thronged and vociferative with more life and outcry than usual. it must have been market-day in florence, for the commerce of the streets was in great vigor, narrow tables being set out in them, and in the squares, burdened with all kinds of small merchandise, such as cheap jewelry, glistening as brightly as what we had just seen in the gem-room of the uffizi; crockery ware; toys, books, italian and french; silks; slippers; old iron; all advertised by the dealers with terribly loud and high voices, that reverberated harshly from side to side of the narrow streets. italian street-cries go through the head; not that they are so very sharp, but exceedingly hard, like a blunt iron bar. we stood at the base of the campanile, and looked at the bas-reliefs which wreathe it round; and, above them, a row of statues; and from bottom to top a marvellous minuteness of inlaid marbles, filling up the vast and beautiful design of this heaven-aspiring tower. looking upward to its lofty summit,--where angels might alight, lapsing downward from heaven, and gaze curiously at the bustle of men below,--i could not but feel that there is a moral charm in this faithful minuteness of gothic architecture, filling up its outline with a million of beauties that perhaps may never be studied out by a single spectator. it is the very process of nature, and no doubt produces an effect that we know not of. classic architecture is nothing but an outline, and affords no little points, no interstices where human feelings may cling and overgrow it like ivy. the charm, as i said, seems to be moral rather than intellectual; for in the gem-room of the uffizi you may see fifty designs, elaborated on a small scale, that have just as much merit as the design of the campanile. if it were only five inches long, it might be a case for some article of toilet; being two hundred feet high, its prettiness develops into grandeur as well as beauty, and it becomes really one of the wonders of the world. the design of the pantheon, on the contrary, would retain its sublimity on whatever scale it might be represented. returning homewards, we crossed the ponte vecchio, and went to the museum of natural history, where we gained admittance into the rooms dedicated to galileo. they consist of a vestibule, a saloon, and a semicircular tribune, covered with a frescoed dome, beneath which stands a colossal statue of galileo, long-bearded, and clad in a student's gown, or some voluminous garb of that kind. around the tribune, beside and behind the statue, are six niches,--in one of which is preserved a forefinger of galileo, fixed on a little gilt pedestal, and pointing upward, under a glass cover. it is very much shrivelled and mummy-like, of the color of parchment, and is little more than a finger-bone, with the dry skin or flesh flaking away from it; on the whole, not a very delightful relic; but galileo used to point heavenward with this finger, and i hope has gone whither he pointed. another niche contains two telescopes, wherewith he made some of his discoveries; they are perhaps a yard long, and of very small calibre. other astronomical instruments are displayed in the glass cases that line the rooms; but i did not understand their use any better than the monks, who wished to burn galileo for his heterodoxy about the planetary system. . . . . after dinner i climbed the tower. . . . . florence lay in the sunshine, level, compact, and small of compass. above the tiled roofs rose the tower of the palazzo vecchio, the loftiest and the most picturesque, though built, i suppose, with no idea of making it so. but it attains, in a singular degree, the end of causing the imagination to fly upward and alight on its airy battlements. near it i beheld the square mass of or san michele, and farther to the left the bulky duomo and the campanile close beside it, like a slender bride or daughter; the dome of san lorenzo too. the arno is nowhere visible. beyond, and on all sides of the city, the hills pile themselves lazily upward in ridges, here and there developing into a peak; towards their bases white villas were strewn numerously, but the upper region was lonely and bare. as we passed under the arch of the porta romana this morning, on our way into the city, we saw a queer object. it was what we at first took for a living man, in a garb of light reddish or yellowish red color, of antique or priestly fashion, and with a cowl falling behind. his face was of the same hue, and seemed to have been powdered, as the faces of maskers sometimes are. he sat in a cart, which he seemed to be driving into the deity with a load of earthen jars and pipkins, the color of which was precisely like his own. on closer inspection, this priestly figure proved to be likewise an image of earthenware, but his lifelikeness had a very strange and rather ghastly effect. adam, perhaps, was made of just such red earth, and had the complexion of this figure. september th.--i walked into town yesterday morning, by way of the porta san frediano. the gate of a city might be a good locality for a chapter in a novel, or for a little sketch by itself, whether by painter or writer. the great arch of the gateway, piercing through the depth and height of the massive masonry beneath the battlemented summit; the shadow brooding below, in the immense thickness of the wall and beyond it, the vista of the street, sunny and swarming with life; outside of the gate, a throng of carts, laden with fruits, vegetables, small flat barrels of wine, waiting to be examined by the custom-house officers; carriages too, and foot-passengers entering, and others swarming outward. under the shadowy arch are the offices of the police and customs, and probably the guard-room of the soldiers, all hollowed out in the mass of the gateway. civil officers loll on chairs in the shade, perhaps with an awning over their heads. where the sun falls aslantwise under the arch a sentinel, with musket and bayonet, paces to and fro in the entrance, and other soldiers lounge close by. the life of the city seems to be compressed and made more intense by this barrier; and on passing within it you do not breathe quite so freely, yet are sensible of an enjoyment in the close elbowing throng, the clamor of high voices from side to side of the street, and the million of petty sights, actions, traffics, and personalities, all so squeezed together as to become a great whole. the street by which i entered led me to the carraja bridge; crossing which, i kept straight onward till i came to the church of santa maria novella. doubtless, it looks just the same as when boccaccio's party stood in a cluster on its broad steps arranging their excursion to the villa. thence i went to the church of st. lorenzo, which i entered by the side door, and found the organ sounding and a religious ceremony going forward. it is a church of sombre aspect, with its gray walls and pillars, but was decked out for some festivity with hangings of scarlet damask and gold. i sat awhile to rest myself, and then pursued my way to the duomo. i entered, and looked at sir john hawkwood's painted effigy, and at several busts and statues, and at the windows of the chapel surrounding the dome, through which the sunshine glowed, white in the outer air, but a hundred-hued splendor within. i tried to bring up the scene of lorenzo de' medici's attempted assassination, but with no great success; and after listening a little while to the chanting of the priests and acolytes, i went to the bank. it is in a palace of which raphael was the architect, in the piazza gran duca. i next went, as a matter of course, to the uffizi gallery, and, in the first place, to the tribune, where the venus de' medici deigned to reveal herself rather more satisfactorily than at my last visit. . . . . i looked into all the rooms, bronzes, drawings, and gem-room; a volume might easily be written upon either subject. the contents of the gem-room especially require to be looked at separately in order to convince one's self of their minute magnificences; for, among so many, the eye slips from one to another with only a vague outward sense that here are whole shelves full of little miracles, both of nature's material and man's workmanship. greater [larger] things can be reasonably well appreciated with a less scrupulous though broader attention; but in order to estimate the brilliancy of the diamond eyes of a little agate bust, for instance, you have to screw your mind down to them and nothing else. you must sharpen your faculties of observation to a point, and touch the object exactly on the right spot, or you do not appreciate it at all. it is a troublesome process when there are a thousand such objects to be seen. i stood at an open window in the transverse corridor, and looked down upon the arno, and across at the range of edifices that impend over it on the opposite side. the river, i should judge, may be a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards wide in its course between the ponte alle grazie and the ponte vecchio; that is, the width between strand and strand is at least so much. the river, however, leaves a broad margin of mud and gravel on its right bank, on which water-weeds grow pretty abundantly, and creep even into the stream. on my first arrival in florence i thought the goose-pond green of the water rather agreeable than otherwise; but its hue is now that of unadulterated mud, as yellow as the tiber itself, yet not impressing me as being enriched with city sewerage like that other famous river. from the ponte alle grazie downward, half-way towards the ponte vecchio, there is an island of gravel, and the channel on each side is so shallow as to allow the passage of men and horses wading not overleg. i have seen fishermen wading the main channel from side to side, their feet sinking into the dark mud, and thus discoloring the yellow water with a black track visible, step by step, through its shallowness. but still the arno is a mountain stream, and liable to be tetchy and turbulent like all its kindred, and no doubt it often finds its borders of hewn stone not too far apart for its convenience. along the right shore, beneath the uffizi and the adjacent buildings, there is a broad paved way, with a parapet; on the opposite shore the edifices are built directly upon the river's edge, and impend over the water, supported upon arches and machicolations, as i think that peculiar arrangement of buttressing arcades is called. the houses are picturesquely various in height, from two or three stories to seven; picturesque in hue likewise,--pea-green, yellow, white, and of aged discoloration,--but all with green blinds; picturesque also in the courts and galleries that look upon the river, and in the wide arches that open beneath, intended perhaps to afford a haven for the household boat. nets were suspended before one or two of the houses, as if the inhabitants were in the habit of fishing out of window. as a general effect, the houses, though often palatial in size and height, have a shabby, neglected aspect, and are jumbled too closely together. behind their range the city swells upward in a hillside, which rises to a great height above, forming, i believe, a part of the boboli gardens. i returned homewards over the ponte vecchio, which is a continuous street of ancient houses, except over the central arch, so that a stranger might easily cross the river without knowing it. in these small, old houses there is a community of goldsmiths, who set out their glass cases, and hang their windows with rings, bracelets, necklaces, strings of pearl, ornaments of malachite and coral, and especially with florentine mosaics; watches, too, and snuff-boxes of old fashion or new; offerings for shrines also, such as silver hearts pierced with swords; an infinity of pretty things, the manufacture of which is continually going on in the little back-room of each little shop. this gewgaw business has been established on the ponte vecchio for centuries, although, long since, it was an art of far higher pretensions than now. benvenuto cellini had his workshop here, probably in one of these selfsame little nooks. it would have been a ticklish affair to be benvenuto's fellow-workman within such narrow limits. going out of the porta romana, i walked for some distance along the city wall, and then, turning to the left, toiled up the hill of bellosguardo, through narrow zigzag lanes between high walls of stone or plastered brick, where the sun had the fairest chance to frizzle me. there were scattered villas and houses, here and there concentrating into a little bit of a street, paved with flag-stones from side to side, as in the city, and shadowed quite across its narrowness by the height of the houses. mostly, however, the way was inhospitably sunny, and shut out by the high wall from every glimpse of a view, except in one spot, where florence spread itself before my eyes, with every tower, dome, and spire which it contains. a little way farther on my own gray tower rose before me, the most welcome object that i had seen in the course of the day. september th.--i went into town again yesterday, by way of the porta san frediano, and observed that this gate (like the other gates of florence, as far as i have observed) is a tall, square structure of stone or brick, or both, rising high above the adjacent wall, and having a range of open loggie in the upper story. the arch externally is about half the height of the structure. inside, towards the town, it rises nearly to the roof. on each side of the arch there is much room for offices, apartments, storehouses, or whatever else. on the outside of the gate, along the base, are those iron rings and sockets for torches, which are said to be the distinguishing symbol of illustrious houses. as contrasted with the vista of the narrow, swarming street through the arch from without, the view from the inside might be presented with a glimpse of the free blue sky. i strolled a little about florence, and went into two or three churches; into that of the annunziata for one. i have already described this church, with its general magnificence, and it was more magnificent than ever to-day, being hung with scarlet silk and gold-embroidery. a great many people were at their devotions, thronging principally around the virgin's shrine. i was struck now with the many bas-reliefs and busts in the costume of their respective ages, and seemingly with great accuracy of portraiture, in the passage leading from the front of the church into the cloisters. the marble was not at all abashed nor degraded by being made to assume the guise of the mediaeval furred robe, or the close-fitting tunic with elaborate ruff, or the breastplate and gorget, or the flowing wig, or whatever the actual costume might be; and one is sensible of a rectitude and reality in the affair, and respects the dead people for not putting themselves into an eternal masquerade. the dress of the present day will look equally respectable in one or two hundred years. the fair is still going on, and one of its principal centres is before this church, in the piazza of the annunziata. cloth is the chief commodity offered for sale, and none of the finest; coarse, unbleached linen and cotton prints for country-people's wear, together with yarn, stockings, and here and there an assortment of bright-colored ribbons. playthings, of a very rude fashion, were also displayed; likewise books in italian and french; and a great deal of iron-work. both here and in rome they have this odd custom of offering rusty iron implements for sale, spread out on the pavements. there was a good deal of tinware, too, glittering in the sunshine, especially around the pedestal of the bronze statue of duke ferdinand, who curbs his horse and looks down upon the bustling piazza in a very stately way. . . . . the people attending the fair had mostly a rustic appearance; sunburnt faces, thin frames; no beauty, no bloom, no joyousness of young or old; an anxious aspect, as if life were no easy or holiday matter with them; but i should take them to be of a kindly nature, and reasonably honest. except the broad-brimmed tuscan hats of the women, there was no peculiarity of costume. at a careless glance i could very well have mistaken most of the men for yankees; as for the women, there is very little resemblance between them and ours,--the old being absolutely hideous, and the young ones very seldom pretty. it was a very dull crowd. they do not generate any warmth among themselves by contiguity; they have no pervading sentiment, such as is continually breaking out in rough merriment from an american crowd; they have nothing to do with one another; they are not a crowd, considered as one mass, but a collection of individuals. a despotic government has perhaps destroyed their principle of cohesion, and crumbled them to atoms. italian crowds are noted for their civility; possibly they deserve credit for native courtesy and gentleness; possibly, on the other hand, the crowd has not spirit and self-consciousness enough to be rampant. i wonder whether they will ever hold another parliament in the piazza of santa croce! i paid a visit to the gallery of the pitti palace. there is too large an intermixture of andrea del sarto's pictures in this gallery; everywhere you see them, cold, proper, and uncriticisable, looking so much like first-rate excellence, that you inevitably quarrel with your own taste for not admiring them. . . . . it was one of the days when my mind misgives me whether the pictorial art be not a humbug, and when the minute accuracy of a fly in a dutch picture of fruit and flowers seems to me something more reliable than the master-touches of raphael. the gallery was considerably thronged, and many of the visitors appeared to be from the country, and of a class intermediate between gentility and labor. is there such a rural class in italy? i saw a respectable-looking man feeling awkward and uncomfortable in a new and glossy pair of pantaloons not yet bent and creased to his natural movement. nothing pleased me better to-day than some amber cups, in one of the cabinets of curiosities. they are richly wrought, and the material is as if the artist had compressed a great deal of sunshine together, and when sufficiently solidified had moulded these cups out of it and let them harden. this simile was suggested by ------. leaving the palace, i entered the boboli gardens, and wandered up and down a good deal of its uneven surface, through broad, well-kept edges of box, sprouting loftily, trimmed smoothly, and strewn between with cleanly gravel; skirting along plantations of aged trees, throwing a deep shadow within their precincts; passing many statues, not of the finest art, yet approaching so near it, as to serve just as good a purpose for garden ornament; coming now and then to the borders of a fishpool, or a pond, where stately swans circumnavigated an island of flowers;--all very fine and very wearisome. i have never enjoyed this garden; perhaps because it suggests dress-coats, and such elegant formalities. september th.--we have heard a good deal of spirit matters of late, especially of wonderful incidents that attended mr. home's visit to florence, two or three years ago. mrs. powers told a very marvellous thing; how that when mr. home was holding a seance in her house, and several persons present, a great scratching was heard in a neighboring closet. she addressed the spirit, and requested it not to disturb the company then, as they were busy with other affairs, promising to converse with it on a future occasion. on a subsequent night, accordingly, the scratching was renewed, with the utmost violence; and in reply to mrs. powers's questions, the spirit assured her that it was not one, but legion, being the ghosts of twenty-seven monks, who were miserable and without hope! the house now occupied by powers was formerly a convent, and i suppose these were the spirits of all the wicked monks that had ever inhabited it; at least, i hope that there were not such a number of damnable sinners extant at any one time. these ghostly fathers must have been very improper persons in their lifetime, judging by the indecorousness of their behavior even after death, and in such dreadful circumstances; for they pulled mrs. powers's skirts so hard as to break the gathers. . . . . it was not ascertained that they desired to have anything done for their eternal welfare, or that their situation was capable of amendment anyhow; but, being exhorted to refrain from further disturbance, they took their departure, after making the sign of the cross on the breast of each person present. this was very singular in such reprobates, who, by their own confession, had forfeited all claim to be benefited by that holy symbol: it curiously suggests that the forms of religion may still be kept up in purgatory and hell itself. the sign was made in a way that conveyed the sense of something devilish and spiteful; the perpendicular line of the cross being drawn gently enough, but the transverse one sharply and violently, so as to leave a painful impression. perhaps the monks meant this to express their contempt and hatred for heretics; and how queer, that this antipathy should survive their own damnation! but i cannot help hoping that the case of these poor devils may not be so desperate as they think. they cannot be wholly lost, because their desire for communication with mortals shows that they need sympathy, therefore are not altogether hardened, therefore, with loving treatment, may be restored. a great many other wonders took place within the knowledge and experience of mrs. p------. she saw, not one pair of hands only, but many. the head of one of her dead children, a little boy, was laid in her lap, not in ghastly fashion, as a head out of the coffin and the grave, but just as the living child might have laid it on his mother's knees. it was invisible, by the by, and she recognized it by the features and the character of the hair, through the sense of touch. little hands grasped hers. in short, these soberly attested incredibilities are so numerous that i forget nine tenths of them, and judge the others too cheap to be written down. christ spoke the truth surely, in saying that men would not believe, "though one rose from the dead." in my own case, the fact makes absolutely no impression. i regret such confirmation of truth as this. within a mile of our villa stands the villa columbaria, a large house, built round a square court. like mr. powers's residence, it was formerly a convent. it is inhabited by major gregorie, an old soldier of waterloo and various other fights, and his family consists of mrs. ------, the widow of one of the major's friends, and her two daughters. we have become acquainted with the family, and mrs. ------, the married daughter, has lent us a written statement of her experiences with a ghost, who has haunted the villa columbaria for many years back. he had made mrs. ------ aware of his presence in her room by a sensation of extreme cold, as if a wintry breeze were blowing over her; also by a rustling of the bed-curtains; and, at such times, she had a certain consciousness, as she says, that she was not alone. through mr. home's agency, the ghost was enabled to explain himself, and declared that he was a monk, named giannane, who died a very long time ago in mrs. ------'s present bedchamber. he was a murderer, and had been in a restless and miserable state ever since his death, wandering up and down the house, but especially haunting his own death-chamber and a staircase that communicated with the chapel of the villa. all the interviews with this lost spirit were attended with a sensation of severe cold, which was felt by every one present. he made his communications by means of table-rapping, and by the movements of chairs and other articles, which often assumed an angry character. the poor old fellow does not seem to have known exactly what he wanted with mrs. ------, but promised to refrain from disturbing her any more, on condition that she would pray that he might find some repose. he had previously declined having any masses said for his soul. rest, rest, rest, appears to be the continual craving of unhappy spirits; they do not venture to ask for positive bliss: perhaps, in their utter weariness, would rather forego the trouble of active enjoyment, but pray only for rest. the cold atmosphere around this monk suggests new ideas as to the climate of hades. if all the afore-mentioned twenty-seven monks had a similar one, the combined temperature must have been that of a polar winter. mrs. ------ saw, at one time, the fingers of her monk, long, yellow, and skinny; these fingers grasped the hands of individuals of the party, with a cold, clammy, and horrible touch. after the departure of this ghost other seances were held in her bedchamber, at which good and holy spirits manifested themselves, and behaved in a very comfortable and encouraging way. it was their benevolent purpose, apparently, to purify her apartments from all traces of the evil spirit, and to reconcile her to what had been so long the haunt of this miserable monk, by filling it with happy and sacred associations, in which, as mrs. ------ intimates, they entirely succeeded. these stories remind me of an incident that took place at the old manse, in the first summer of our marriage. . . . . september th.--we walked yesterday to florence, and visited the church of st. lorenzo, where we saw, for the second time, the famous medici statues of michael angelo. i found myself not in a very appreciative state, and, being a stone myself, the statue of lorenzo was at first little more to me than another stone; but it was beginning to assume life, and would have impressed me as it did before if i had gazed long enough. there was a better light upon the face, under the helmet, than at my former visit, although still the features were enough overshadowed to produce that mystery on which, according to mr. powers, the effect of the statue depends. i observe that the costume of the figure, instead of being mediaeval, as i believe i have stated, is roman; but, be it what it may, the grand and simple character of the figure imbues the robes with its individual propriety. i still think it the greatest miracle ever wrought in marble. we crossed the church and entered a cloister on the opposite side, in quest of the laurentian library. ascending a staircase we found an old man blowing the bellows of the organ, which was in full blast in the church; nevertheless he found time to direct us to the library door. we entered a lofty vestibule, of ancient aspect and stately architecture, and thence were admitted into the library itself; a long and wide gallery or hall, lighted by a row of windows on which were painted the arms of the medici. the ceiling was inlaid with dark wood, in an elaborate pattern, which was exactly repeated in terra-cotta on the pavement beneath our feet. long desks, much like the old-fashioned ones in schools, were ranged on each side of the mid aisle, in a series from end to end, with seats for the convenience of students; and on these desks were rare manuscripts, carefully preserved under glass; and books, fastened to the desks by iron chains, as the custom of studious antiquity used to be. along the centre of the hall, between the two ranges of desks, were tables and chairs, at which two or three scholarly persons were seated, diligently consulting volumes in manuscript or old type. it was a very quiet place, imbued with a cloistered sanctity, and remote from all street-cries and rumble of the city,--odorous of old literature,--a spot where the commonest ideas ought not to be expressed in less than latin. the librarian--or custode he ought rather to be termed, for he was a man not above the fee of a paul--now presented himself, and showed us some of the literary curiosities; a vellum manuscript of the bible, with a splendid illumination by ghirlandaio, covering two folio pages, and just as brilliant in its color as if finished yesterday. other illuminated manuscripts--or at least separate pages of them, for the volumes were kept under glass, and not to be turned over--were shown us, very magnificent, but not to be compared with this of ghirlandaio. looking at such treasures i could almost say that we have left behind us more splendor than we have kept alive to our own age. we publish beautiful editions of books, to be sure, and thousands of people enjoy them; but in ancient times the expense that we spread thinly over a thousand volumes was all compressed into one, and it became a great jewel of a book, a heavy folio, worth its weight in gold. then, what a spiritual charm it gives to a book to feel that every letter has been individually wrought, and the pictures glow for that individual page alone! certainly the ancient reader had a luxury which the modern one lacks. i was surprised, moreover, to see the clearness and accuracy of the chirography. print does not surpass it in these respects. the custode showed us an ancient manuscript of the decameron; likewise, a volume containing the portraits of petrarch and of laura, each covering the whole of a vellum page, and very finely done. they are authentic portraits, no doubt, and laura is depicted as a fair-haired beauty, with a very satisfactory amount of loveliness. we saw some choice old editions of books in a small separate room; but as these were all ranged in shut bookcases, and as each volume, moreover, was in a separate cover or modern binding, this exhibition did us very little good. by the by, there is a conceit struggling blindly in my mind about petrarch and laura, suggested by those two lifelike portraits, which have been sleeping cheek to cheek through all these centuries. but i cannot lay hold of it. september st.--yesterday morning the val d' arno was entirely filled with a thick fog, which extended even up to our windows, and concealed objects within a very short distance. it began to dissipate itself betimes, however, and was the forerunner of an unusually bright and warm day. we set out after breakfast and walked into town, where we looked at mosaic brooches. these are very pretty little bits of manufacture; but there seems to have been no infusion of fresh fancy into the work, and the specimens present little variety. it is the characteristic commodity of the place; the central mart and manufacturing locality being on the ponte vecchio, from end to end of which they are displayed in cases; but there are other mosaic shops scattered about the town. the principal devices are roses,--pink, yellow, or white,--jasmines, lilies of the valley, forget-me-nots, orange blossoms, and others, single or in sprigs, or twined into wreaths; parrots, too, and other birds of gay plumage,-- often exquisitely done, and sometimes with precious materials, such as lapis lazuli, malachite, and still rarer gems. bracelets, with several different, yet relative designs, are often very beautiful. we find, at different shops, a great inequality of prices for mosaics that seemed to be of much the same quality. we went to the uffizi gallery, and found it much thronged with the middle and lower classes of italians; and the english, too, seemed more numerous than i have lately seen them. perhaps the tourists have just arrived here, starting at the close of the london season. we were amused with a pair of englishmen who went through the gallery; one of them criticising the pictures and statues audibly, for the benefit of his companion. the critic i should take to be a country squire, and wholly untravelled; a tall, well-built, rather rough, but gentlemanly man enough; his friend, a small personage, exquisitely neat in dress, and of artificial deportment, every attitude and gesture appearing to have been practised before a glass. being but a small pattern of a man, physically and intellectually, he had thought it worth while to finish himself off with the elaborateness of a florentine mosaic; and the result was something like a dancing-master, though without the exuberant embroidery of such persons. indeed, he was a very quiet little man, and, though so thoroughly made up, there was something particularly green, fresh, and simple in him. both these englishmen were elderly, and the smaller one had perfectly white hair, glossy and silken. it did not make him in the least venerable, however, but took his own character of neatness and prettiness. he carried his well-brushed and glossy hat in his hand in such a way as not to ruffle its surface; and i wish i could put into one word or one sentence the pettiness, the minikinfinical effect of this little man; his self-consciousness so lifelong, that, in some sort, he forgot himself even in the midst of it; his propriety, his cleanliness and unruffledness; his prettiness and nicety of manifestation, like a bird hopping daintily about. his companion, as i said, was of a completely different type; a tall, gray-haired man, with the rough english face, a little tinted with port wine; careless, natural manner, betokening a man of position in his own neighborhood; a loud voice, not vulgar, nor outraging the rules of society, but betraying a character incapable of much refinement. he talked continually in his progress through the gallery, and audibly enough for us to catch almost everything he said, at many yards' distance. his remarks and criticisms, addressed to his small friend, were so entertaining, that we strolled behind him for the sake of being benefited by them; and i think he soon became aware of this, and addressed himself to us as well as to his more immediate friend. nobody but an englishman, it seems to me, has just this kind of vanity,--a feeling mixed up with scorn and good-nature; self-complacency on his own merits, and as an englishman; pride at being in foreign parts; contempt for everybody around him; a rough kindliness towards people in general. i liked the man, and should be glad to know him better. as for his criticism, i am sorry to remember only one. it was upon the picture of the nativity, by correggio, in the tribune, where the mother is kneeling before the child, and adoring it in an awful rapture, because she sees the eternal god in its baby face and figure. the englishman was highly delighted with this picture, and began to gesticulate, as if dandling a baby, and to make a chirruping sound. it was to him merely a representation of a mother fondling her infant. he then said, "if i could have my choice of the pictures and statues in the tribune, i would take this picture, and that one yonder" (it was a good enough enthronement of the virgin by andrea del sarto) "and the dancing faun, and let the rest go." a delightful man; i love that wholesome coarseness of mind and heart, which no education nor opportunity can polish out of the genuine englishman; a coarseness without vulgarity. when a yankee is coarse, he is pretty sure to be vulgar too. the two critics seemed to be considering whether it were practicable to go from the uffizi to the pitti gallery; but "it confuses one," remarked the little man, "to see more than one gallery in a day." (i should think so,--the pitti palace tumbling into his small receptacle on the top of the uffizi.) "it does so," responded the big man, with heavy emphasis. september d.--the vintage has been going on in our podere for about a week, and i saw a part of the process of making wine, under one of our back windows. it was on a very small scale, the grapes being thrown into a barrel, and crushed with a sort of pestle; and as each estate seems to make its own wine, there are probably no very extensive and elaborate appliances in general use for the manufacture. the cider-making of new england is far more picturesque; the great heap of golden or rosy apples under the trees, and the cider-mill worked by a circumgyratory horse, and all agush with sweet juice. indeed, nothing connected with the grape-culture and the vintage here has been picturesque, except the large inverted pyramids in which the clusters hang; those great bunches, white or purple, really satisfy my idea both as to aspect and taste. we can buy a large basketful for less than a paul; and they are the only things that one can never devour too much of--and there is no enough short of a little too much without subsequent repentance. it is a shame to turn such delicious juice into such sour wine as they make in tuscany. i tasted a sip or two of a flask which the contadini sent us for trial,-- the rich result of the process i had witnessed in the barrel. it took me altogether by surprise; for i remembered the nectareousness of the new cider which i used to sip through a straw in my boyhood, and i never doubted that this would be as dulcet, but finer and more ethereal; as much more delectable, in short, as these grapes are better than puckery cider apples. positively, i never tasted anything so detestable, such a sour and bitter juice, still lukewarm with fermentation; it was a wail of woe, squeezed out of the wine-press of tribulation, and the more a man drinks of such, the sorrier he will be. besides grapes, we have had figs, and i have now learned to be very fond of them. when they first began to appear, two months ago, they had scarcely any sweetness, and tasted very like a decaying squash: this was an early variety, with purple skins. there are many kinds of figs, the best being green-skinned, growing yellower as they ripen; and the riper they are, the more the sweetness within them intensifies, till they resemble dried figs in everything, except that they retain the fresh fruit-flavor; rich, luscious, yet not palling. we have had pears, too, some of them very tolerable; and peaches, which look magnificently, as regards size and downy blush, but, have seldom much more taste than a cucumber. a succession of fruits has followed us, ever since our arrival in florence:--first, and for a long time, abundance of cherries; then apricots, which lasted many weeks, till we were weary of them; then plums, pears, and finally figs, peaches, and grapes. except the figs and grapes, a new england summer and autumn would give us better fruit than any we have found in italy. italy beats us i think in mosquitoes; they are horribly pungent little satanic particles. they possess strange intelligence, and exquisite acuteness of sight and smell,--prodigious audacity and courage to match it, insomuch that they venture on the most hazardous attacks, and get safe off. one of them flew into my mouth, the other night, and sting me far down in my throat; but luckily i coughed him up in halves. they are bigger than american mosquitoes; and if you crush them, after one of their feasts, it makes a terrific bloodspot. it is a sort of suicide--at least, a shedding of one's own blood--to kill them; but it gratifies the old adam to do it. it shocks me to feel how revengeful i am; but it is impossible not to impute a certain malice and intellectual venom to these diabolical insects. i wonder whether our health, at this season of the year, requires that we should be kept in a state of irritation, and so the mosquitoes are nature's prophetic remedy for some disease; or whether we are made for the mosquitoes, not they for us. it is possible, just possible, that the infinitesimal doses of poison which they infuse into us are a homoeopathic safeguard against pestilence; but medicine never was administered in a more disagreeable way. the moist atmosphere about the arno, i suppose, produces these insects, and fills the broad, ten-mile valley with them; and as we are just on the brim of the basin, they overflow into our windows. september th.--u---- and i walked to town yesterday morning, and went to the uffizi gallery. it is not a pleasant thought that we are so soon to give up this gallery, with little prospect (none, or hardly any, on my part) of ever seeing it again. it interests me and all of us far more than the gallery of the pitti palace, wherefore i know not, for the latter is the richer of the two in admirable pictures. perhaps it is the picturesque variety of the uffizi--the combination of painting, sculpture, gems, and bronzes--that makes the charm. the tribune, too, is the richest room in all the world; a heart that draws all hearts to it. the dutch pictures, moreover, give a homely, human interest to the uffizi; and i really think that the frequency of andrea del santo's productions at the pitti palace--looking so very like masterpieces, yet lacking the soul of art and nature--have much to do with the weariness that comes from better acquaintance with the latter gallery. the splendor of the gilded and frescoed saloons is perhaps another bore; but, after all, my memory will often tread there as long as i live. what shall we do in america? speaking of dutch pictures, i was much struck yesterday, as frequently before, with a small picture by teniers the elder. it seems to be a pawnbroker in the midst of his pledges; old earthen jugs, flasks, a brass kettle, old books, and a huge pile of worn-out and broken rubbish, which he is examining. these things are represented with vast fidelity, yet with bold and free touches, unlike the minute, microscopic work of other dutch masters; and a wonderful picturesqueness is wrought out of these humble materials, and even the figure and head of the pawnbroker have a strange grandeur. we spent no very long time at the uffizi, and afterwards crossed the ponte alle grazie, and went to the convent of san miniato, which stands on a hill outside of the porta san gallo. a paved pathway, along which stand crosses marking stations at which pilgrims are to kneel and pray, goes steeply to the hill-top, where, in the first place, is a smaller church and convent than those of san miniato. the latter are seen at a short distance to the right, the convent being a large, square battlemented mass, adjoining which is the church, showing a front of aged white marble, streaked with black, and having an old stone tower behind. i have seen no other convent or monastery that so well corresponds with my idea of what such structures were. the sacred precincts are enclosed by a high wall, gray, ancient, and luxuriously ivy-grown, and lofty and strong enough for the rampart of a fortress. we went through the gateway and entered the church, which we found in much disarray, and masons at work upon the pavement. the tribune is elevated considerably above the nave, and accessible by marble staircases; there are great arches and a chapel, with curious monuments in the gothic style, and ancient carvings and mosaic works, and, in short, a dim, dusty, and venerable interior, well worth studying in detail. . . . . the view of florence from the church door is very fine, and seems to include every tower, dome, or whatever object emerges out of the general mass. september th.--i went to the pitti palace yesterday, and to the uffizi to-day, paying them probably my last visit, yet cherishing an unreasonable doubt whether i may not see them again. at all events, i have seen them enough for the present, even what is best of them; and, at the same time, with a sad reluctance to bid them farewell forever, i experience an utter weariness of raphael's old canvas, and of the time-yellowed marble of the venus de' medici. when the material embodiment presents itself outermost, and we perceive them only by the grosser sense, missing their ethereal spirit, there is nothing so heavily burdensome as masterpieces of painting and sculpture. i threw my farewell glance at the venus de' medici to-day with strange insensibility. the nights are wonderfully beautiful now. when the moon was at the full, a few nights ago, its light was an absolute glory, such as i seem only to have dreamed of heretofore, and that only in my younger days. at its rising i have fancied that the orb of the moon has a kind of purple brightness, and that this tinge is communicated to its radiance until it has climbed high aloft and sheds a flood of white over hill and valley. now that the moon is on the wane, there is a gentler lustre, but still bright; and it makes the val d' arno with its surrounding hills, and its soft mist in the distance, as beautiful a scene as exists anywhere out of heaven. and the morning is quite as beautiful in its own way. this mist, of which i have so often spoken, sets it beyond the limits of actual sense and makes it ideal; it is as if you were dreaming about the valley,--as if the valley itself were dreaming, and met you half-way in your own dream. if the mist were to be withdrawn, i believe the whole beauty of the valley would go with it. until pretty late in the morning, we have the comet streaming through the sky, and dragging its interminable tail among the stars. it keeps brightening from night to night, and i should think must blaze fiercely enough to cast a shadow by and by. i know not whether it be in the vicinity of galileo's tower, and in the influence of his spirit, but i have hardly ever watched the stars with such interest as now. september th.--last evening i met mr. powers at miss blagden's, and he talked about his treatment, by our government in reference, to an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars made by congress for a statue by him. its payment and the purchase of the statue were left at the option of the president, and he conceived himself wronged because the affair was never concluded. . . . . as for the president, he knows nothing of art, and probably acted in the matter by the advice of the director of public works. no doubt a sculptor gets commissions as everybody gets public employment and emolument of whatever kind from our government, not by merit or fitness, but by political influence skilfully applied. as powers himself observed, the ruins of our capitol are not likely to afford sculptures equal to those which lord elgin took from the parthenon, if this be the system under which they are produced. . . . . i wish our great republic had the spirit to do as much, according to its vast means, as florence did for sculpture and architecture when it was a republic; but we have the meanest government and the shabbiest, and--if truly represented by it--we are the meanest and shabbiest people known in history. and yet the less we attempt to do for art the better, if our future attempts are to have no better result than such brazen troopers as the equestrian statue of general jackson, or even such naked respectabilities as greenough's washington. there is something false and affected in our highest taste for art; and i suppose, furthermore, we are the only people who seek to decorate their public institutions, not by the highest taste among them, but by the average at best. there was also at miss blagden's, among other company, mr. ------, an artist in florence, and a sensible man. i talked with him about home, the medium, whom he had many opportunities of observing when the latter was in these parts. mr. ------ says that home is unquestionably a knave, but that he himself is as much perplexed at his own preternatural performances as any other person; he is startled and affrighted at the phenomena which he produces. nevertheless, when his spiritual powers fall short, he does his best to eke them out with imposture. this moral infirmity is a part of his nature, and i suggested that perhaps if he were of a firmer and healthier moral make, if his character were sufficiently sound and dense to be capable of steadfast principle, he would not have possessed the impressibility that fits him for the so-called spiritual influences. mr. ------ says that louis napoleon is literally one of the most skilful jugglers in the world, and that probably the interest he has taken in mr. home was caused partly by a wish to acquire his art. this morning mr. powers invited me to go with him to the grand duke's new foundry, to see the bronze statue of webster which has just been cast from his model. it is the second cast of the statue, the first having been shipped some months ago on board of a vessel which was lost; and, as powers observed, the statue now lies at the bottom of the atlantic ocean somewhere in the vicinity of the telegraphic cable. we were received with much courtesy and emphasis by the director of the foundry, and conducted into a large room walled with bare, new brick, where the statue was standing in front of the extinct furnace: a majestic webster indeed, eight feet high, and looking even more colossal than that. the likeness seemed to me perfect, and, like a sensible man, powers' has dressed him in his natural costume, such as i have seen webster have on while making a speech in the open air at a mass meeting in concord,--dress-coat buttoned pretty closely across the breast, pantaloons and boots,--everything finished even to a seam and a stitch. not an inch of the statue but is webster; even his coat-tails are imbued with the man, and this true artist has succeeded in showing him through the broadcloth as nature showed him. he has felt that a man's actual clothes are as much a part of him as his flesh, and i respect him for disdaining to shirk the difficulty by throwing the meanness of a cloak over it, and for recognizing the folly of masquerading our yankee statesman in a roman toga, and the indecorousness of presenting him as a brassy nudity. it would have been quite as unjustifiable to strip him to his skeleton as to his flesh. webster is represented as holding in his right hand the written roll of the constitution, with which he points to a bundle of fasces, which he keeps from falling by the grasp of his left, thus symbolizing him as the preserver of the union. there is an expression of quiet, solid, massive strength in the whole figure; a deep, pervading energy, in which any exaggeration of gesture would lessen and lower the effect. he looks really like a pillar of the state. the face is very grand, very webster stern and awful, because he is in the act of meeting a great crisis, and yet with the warmth of a great heart glowing through it. happy is webster to have been so truly and adequately sculptured; happy the sculptor in such a subject, which no idealization of a demigod could have supplied him with. perhaps the statue at the bottom of the sea will be cast up in some future age, when the present race of man is forgotten, and if so, that far posterity will look up to us as a grander race than we find ourselves to be. neither was webster altogether the man he looked. his physique helped him out, even when he fell somewhat short of its promise; and if his eyes had not been in such deep caverns their fire would not have looked so bright. powers made me observe how the surface of the statue was wrought to a sort of roughness instead of being smoothed, as is the practice of other artists. he said that this had cost him great pains, and certainly it has an excellent effect. the statue is to go to boston, and i hope will be placed in the open air, for it is too mighty to be kept under any roof that now exists in america. . . . . after seeing this, the director showed us some very curious and exquisite specimens of castings, such as baskets of flowers, in which the most delicate and fragile blossoms, the curl of a petal, the finest veins in a leaf, the lightest flower-spray that ever quivered in a breeze, were perfectly preserved; and the basket contained an abundant heap of such sprays. there were likewise a pair of hands, taken actually from life, clasped together as they were, and they looked like parts of a man who had been changed suddenly from flesh to brass. they were worn and rough and unhandsome hands, and so very real, with all their veins and the pores of the skin, that it was shocking to look at them. a bronze leaf, cast also from the life, was as curious and more beautiful. taking leave of powers, i went hither and thither about florence, seeing for the last time things that i have seen many times before: the market, for instance, blocking up a line of narrow streets with fruit-stalls, and obstreperous dealers crying their peaches, their green lemons, their figs, their delicious grapes, their mushrooms, their pomegranates, their radishes, their lettuces. they use one vegetable here which i have not known so used elsewhere; that is, very young pumpkins or squashes, of the size of apples, and to be cooked by boiling. they are not to my taste, but the people here like unripe things,--unripe fruit, unripe chickens, unripe lamb. this market is the noisiest and swarmiest centre of noisy and swarming florence, and i always like to pass through it on that account. i went also to santa croce, and it seemed to me to present a longer vista and broader space than almost any other church, perhaps because the pillars between the nave and aisles are not so massive as to obstruct the view. i looked into the duomo, too, and was pretty well content to leave it. then i came homeward, and lost my way, and wandered far off through the white sunshine, and the scanty shade of the vineyard walls, and the olive-trees that here and there branched over them. at last i saw our own gray battlements at a distance, on one side, quite out of the direction in which i was travelling, so was compelled to the grievous mortification of retracing a great many of my weary footsteps. it was a very hot day. this evening i have been on the towertop star-gazing, and looking at the comet, which waves along the sky like an immense feather of flame. over florence there was an illuminated atmosphere, caused by the lights of the city gleaming upward into the mists which sleep and dream above that portion of the valley, as well as the rest of it. i saw dimly, or fancied i saw, the hill of fiesole on the other side of florence, and remembered how ghostly lights were seen passing thence to the duomo on the night when lorenzo the magnificent died. from time to time the sweet bells of florence rang out, and i was loath to come down into the lower world, knowing that i shall never again look heavenward from an old tower-top in such a soft calm evening as this. yet i am not loath to go away; impatient rather; for, taking no root, i soon weary of any soil in which i may be temporarily deposited. the same impatience i sometimes feel or conceive of as regards this earthly life. . . . . i forgot to mention that powers showed me, in his studio, the model of the statue of america, which he wished the government to buy. it has great merit, and embodies the ideal of youth, freedom, progress, and whatever we consider as distinctive of our country's character and destiny. it is a female figure, vigorous, beautiful, planting its foot lightly on a broken chain, and pointing upward. the face has a high look of intelligence and lofty feeling; the form, nude to the middle, has all the charms of womanhood, and is thus warmed and redeemed out of the cold allegoric sisterhood who have generally no merit in chastity, being really without sex. i somewhat question whether it is quite the thing, however, to make a genuine woman out of an allegory we ask, who is to wed this lovely virgin? and we are not satisfied to banish her into the realm of chilly thought. but i liked the statue, and all the better for what i criticise, and was sorry to see the huge package in which the finished marble lies bundled up, ready to be sent to our country,--which does not call for it. mr. powers and his two daughters called to take leave of us, and at parting i expressed a hope of seeing him in america. he said that it would make him very unhappy to believe that he should never return thither; but it seems to me that he has no such definite purpose of return as would be certain to bring itself to pass. it makes a very unsatisfactory life, thus to spend the greater part of it in exile. in such a case we are always deferring the reality of life till a future moment, and, by and by, we have deferred it till there are no future moments; or, if we do go back, we find that life has shifted whatever of reality it had to the country where we deemed ourselves only living temporarily; and so between two stools we come to the ground, and make ourselves a part of one or the other country only by laying our bones in its soil. it is particularly a pity in powers's case, because he is so very american in character, and the only convenience for him of his italian residence is, that here he can supply himself with marble, and with workmen to chisel it according to his designs. siena. october d.--yesterday morning, at six o'clock, we left our ancient tower, and threw a parting glance--and a rather sad one--over the misty val d' arno. this summer will look like a happy one in our children's retrospect, and also, no doubt, in the years that remain to ourselves; and, in truth, i have found it a peaceful and not uncheerful one. it was not a pleasant morning, and monte morello, looking down on florence, had on its cap, betokening foul weather, according to the proverb. crossing the suspension-bridge, we reached the leopoldo railway without entering the city. by some mistake,--or perhaps because nobody ever travels by first-class carriages in tuscany,--we found we had received second-class tickets, and were put into a long, crowded carriage, full of priests, military men, commercial travellers, and other respectable people, facing one another lengthwise along the carriage, and many of them smoking cigars. they were all perfectly civil, and i think i must own that the manners of this second-class would compare favorably with those of an american first-class one. at empoli, about an hour after we started, we had to change carriages, the main train proceeding to leghorn. . . . . my observations along the road were very scanty: a hilly country, with several old towns seated on the most elevated hill-tops, as is common throughout tuscany, or sometimes a fortress with a town on the plain at its base; or, once or twice, the towers and battlements of a mediaeval castle, commanding the pass below it. near florence the country was fertile in the vine and olive, and looked as unpicturesque as that sort of fertility usually makes it; not but what i have come to think better of the tint of the olive-leaf than when i first saw it. in the latter part of our journey i remember a wild stream, of a greenish hue, but transparent, rushing along over a rough bed, and before reaching siena we rumbled into a long tunnel, and emerged from it near the city. . . . . we drove up hill and down (for the surface of siena seems to be nothing but an irregularity) through narrow old streets, and were set down at the aquila nera, a grim-looking albergo near the centre of the town. mrs. s------ had already taken rooms for us there, and to these we were now ushered up the highway of a dingy stone staircase, and into a small, brick-paved parlor. the house seemed endlessly old, and all the glimpses that we caught of siena out of window seemed more ancient still. almost within arm's reach, across a narrow street, a tall palace of gray, time-worn stone clambered skyward, with arched windows, and square windows, and large windows and small, scattered up and down its side. it is the palazzo tolomei, and looks immensely venerable. from the windows of our bedrooms we looked into a broader street, though still not very wide, and into a small piazza, the most conspicuous object in which was a column, hearing on its top a bronze wolf suckling romulus and remus. this symbol is repeated in other parts of the city, and scours to indicate that the sienese people pride themselves in a roman origin. in another direction, over the tops of the houses, we saw a very high tower, with battlements projecting around its summit, so that it was a fortress in the air; and this i have since found to be the palazzo publico. it was pleasant, looking downward into the little old piazza and narrow streets, to see the swarm of life on the pavement, the life of to-day just as new as if it had never been lived before; the citizens, the priests, the soldiers, the mules and asses with their panniers, the diligence lumbering along, with a postilion in a faded crimson coat bobbing up and down on the off-horse. such a bustling scene, vociferous, too, with various street-cries, is wonderfully set off by the gray antiquity of the town, and makes the town look older than if it were a solitude. soon mr. and mrs. story came, and accompanied us to look for lodgings. they also drove us about the city in their carriage, and showed us the outside of the palazzo publico, and of the cathedral and other remarkable edifices. the aspect of siena is far more picturesque than that of any other town in italy, so far as i know italian towns; and yet, now that i have written it, i remember perugia, and feel that the observation is a mistake. but at any rate siena is remarkably picturesque, standing on such a site, on the verge and within the crater of an extinct volcano, and therefore being as uneven as the sea in a tempest; the streets so narrow, ascending between tall, ancient palaces, while the side streets rush headlong down, only to be threaded by sure-footed mules, such as climb alpine heights; old stone balconies on the palace fronts; old arched doorways, and windows set in frames of gothic architecture; arcades, resembling canopies of stone, with quaintly sculptured statues in the richly wrought gothic niches of each pillar;--everything massive and lofty, yet minutely interesting when you look at it stone by stone. the florentines, and the romans too, have obliterated, as far as they could, all the interest of their mediaeval structures by covering them with stucco, so that they have quite lost their character, and affect the spectator with no reverential idea of age. here the city is all overwritten with black-letter, and the glad italian sun makes the effect so much the stronger. we took a lodging, and afterwards j----- and i rambled about, and went into the cathedral for a moment, and strayed also into the piazza del campo, the great public square of siena. i am not in the mood for further description of public places now, so shall say a word or two about the old palace in which we have established ourselves. we have the second piano, and dwell amid faded grandeur, having for our saloon what seems to have been a ball-room. it is ornamented with a great fresco in the centre of the vaulted ceiling, and others covering the sides of the apartment, and surrounded with arabesque frameworks, where cupids gambol and chase one another. the subjects of the frescos i cannot make out, not that they are faded like giotto's, for they are as fresh as roses, and are done in an exceedingly workmanlike style; but they are allegories of fame and plenty and other matters, such as i could never understand. our whole accommodation is in similar style,--spacious, magnificent, and mouldy. in the evening miss s------ and i drove to the railway, and on the arrival of the train from florence we watched with much eagerness the unlading of the luggage-van. at last the whole of our ten trunks and tin bandbox were produced, and finally my leather bag, in which was my journal and a manuscript book containing my sketch of a romance. it gladdened my very heart to see it, and i shall think the better of tuscan promptitude and accuracy for so quickly bringing it back to me. (it was left behind, under one of the rail-carriage seats.) we find all the public officials, whether of railway, police, or custom-house, extremely courteous and pleasant to encounter; they seem willing to take trouble and reluctant to give it, and it is really a gratification to find that such civil people will sometimes oblige you by taking a paul or two aside. october d.--i took several strolls about the city yesterday, and find it scarcely extensive enough to get lost in; and if we go far from the centre we soon come to silent streets, with only here and there an individual; and the inhabitants stare from their doors and windows at the stranger, and turn round to look at him after he has passed. the interest of the old town would soon be exhausted for the traveller, but i can conceive that a thoughtful and shy man might settle down here with the view of making the place a home, and spend many years in a sombre kind of happiness. i should prefer it to florence as a residence, but it would be terrible without an independent life in one's own mind. u---- and i walked out in the afternoon, and went into the piazza del campo, the principal place of the city, and a very noble and peculiar one. it is much in the form of an amphitheatre, and the surface of the ground seems to be slightly scooped out, so that it resembles the shallow basin of a shell. it is thus a much better site for an assemblage of the populace than if it were a perfect level. a semicircle or truncated ellipse of stately and ancient edifices surround the piazza, with arches opening beneath them, through which streets converge hitherward. one side of the piazza is a straight line, and is occupied by the palazzo publico, which is a most noble and impressive gothic structure. it has not the mass of the palazzo vecchio at florence, but is more striking. it has a long battlemented front, the central part of which rises eminent above the rest, in a great square bulk, which is likewise crowned with battlements. this is much more picturesque than the one great block of stone into which the palazzo vecchio is consolidated. at one extremity of this long front of the palazzo publico rises a tower, shooting up its shaft high, high into the air, and bulging out there into a battlemented fortress, within which the tower, slenderer than before, climbs to a still higher region. i do not know whether the summit of the tower is higher or so high as that of the palazzo vecchio; but the length of the shaft, free of the edifice, is much greater, and so produces the more elevating effect. the whole front of the palazzo publico is exceedingly venerable, with arched windows, gothic carvings, and all the old-time ornaments that betoken it to have stood a great while, and the gray strength that will hold it up at least as much longer. at one end of the facade, beneath the shadow of the tower, is a grand and beautiful porch, supported on square pillars, within each of which is a niche containing a statue of mediaeval sculpture. the great piazza del campo is the market-place of siena. in the morning it was thronged with booths and stalls, especially of fruit and vegetable dealers; but as in florence, they melted away in the sunshine, gradually withdrawing themselves into the shadow thrown from the palazzo publico. on the side opposite the palace is an antique fountain of marble, ornamented with two statues and a series of bas-reliefs; and it was so much admired in its day that its sculptor received the name "del fonte." i am loath to leave the piazza and palace without finding some word or two to suggest their antique majesty, in the sunshine and the shadow; and how fit it seemed, notwithstanding their venerableness, that there should be a busy crowd filling up the great, hollow amphitheatre, and crying their fruit and little merchandises, so that all the curved line of stately old edifices helped to reverberate the noise. the life of to-day, within the shell of a time past, is wonderfully fascinating. another point to which a stranger's footsteps are drawn by a kind of magnetism, so that he will be apt to find himself there as often as he strolls out of his hotel, is the cathedral. it stands in the highest part of the city, and almost every street runs into some other street which meanders hitherward. on our way thither, u---- and i came to a beautiful front of black and white marble, in somewhat the same style as the cathedral; in fact, it was the baptistery, and should have made a part of it, according to the original design, which contemplated a structure of vastly greater extent than this actual one. we entered the baptistery, and found the interior small, but very rich in its clustered columns and intersecting arches, and its frescos, pictures, statues, and ornaments. moreover, a father and mother had brought their baby to be baptized, and the poor little thing, in its gay swaddling-clothes, looked just like what i have seen in old pictures, and a good deal like an indian pappoose. it gave one little slender squeak when the priest put the water on its forehead, and then was quiet again. we now went round to the facade of the cathedral. . . . . it is of black and white marble, with, i believe, an intermixture of red and other colors; but time has toned them down, so that white, black, and red do not contrast so strongly with one another as they may have done five hundred years ago. the architecture is generally of the pointed gothic style, but there are likewise carved arches over the doors and windows, and a variety which does not produce the effect of confusion,--a magnificent eccentricity, an exuberant imagination flowering out in stone. on high, in the great peak of the front, and throwing its colored radiance into the nave within, there is a round window of immense circumference, the painted figures in which we can see dimly from the outside. but what i wish to express, and never can, is the multitudinous richness of the ornamentation of the front: the arches within arches, sculptured inch by inch, of the deep doorways; the statues of saints, some making a hermitage of a niche, others standing forth; the scores of busts, that look like faces of ancient people gazing down out of the cathedral; the projecting shapes of stone lions,--the thousand forms of gothic fancy, which seemed to soften the marble and express whatever it liked, and allow it to harden again to last forever. but my description seems like knocking off the noses of some of the busts, the fingers and toes of the statues, the projecting points of the architecture, jumbling them all up together, and flinging them down upon the page. this gives no idea of the truth, nor, least of all, can it shadow forth that solemn whole, mightily combined out of all these minute particulars, and sanctifying the entire space of ground over which this cathedral-front flings its shadow, or on which it reflects the sun. a majesty and a minuteness, neither interfering with the other, each assisting the other; this is what i love in gothic architecture. we went in and walked about; but i mean to go again before sketching the interior in my poor water-colors. october th.--on looking again at the palazzo publico, i see that the pillared portal which i have spoken of does not cover an entrance to the palace, but is a chapel, with an altar, and frescos above it. bouquets of fresh flowers are on the altar, and a lamp burns, in all the daylight, before the crucifix. the chapel is quite unenclosed, except by an openwork balustrade of marble, on which the carving looks very ancient. nothing could be more convenient for the devotions of the crowd in the piazza, and no doubt the daily prayers offered at the shrine might be numbered by the thousand,--brief, but i hope earnest,--like those glimpses i used to catch at the blue sky, revealing so much in an instant, while i was toiling at brook farm. another picturesque thing about the palazzo publico is a great stone balcony quaintly wrought, about midway in the front and high aloft, with two arched windows opening into it. after another glimpse at the cathedral, too, i realize how utterly i have failed in conveying the idea of its elaborate ornament, its twisted and clustered pillars, and numberless devices of sculpture; nor did i mention the venerable statues that stand all round the summit of the edifice, relieved against the sky,--the highest of all being one of the saviour, on the topmost peak of the front; nor the tall tower that ascends from one side of the building, and is built of layers of black and white marble piled one upon another in regular succession; nor the dome that swells upward close beside this tower. had the cathedral been constructed on the plan and dimensions at first contemplated, it would have been incomparably majestic; the finished portion, grand as it is, being only what was intended for a transept. one of the walls of what was to have been the nave is still standing, and looks like a ruin, though, i believe, it has been turned to account as the wall of a palace, the space of the never-completed nave being now a court or street. the whole family of us were kindly taken out yesterday, to dine and spend the day at the villa belvedere with our friends mr. and mrs. story. the vicinity of siena is much more agreeable than that of florence, being cooler, breezier, with more foliage and shrubbery both near at hand and in the distance; and the prospect, mr. story told us, embraces a diameter of about a hundred miles between hills north and south. the villa belvedere was built and owned by an englishman now deceased, who has left it to his butler, and its lawns and shrubbery have something english in their character, and there was almost a dampness in the grass, which really pleased me in this parched italy. within the house the walls are hung with fine old-fashioned engravings from the pictures of gainsborough, west, and other english painters. the englishman, though he had chosen to live and die in italy, had evidently brought his native tastes and peculiarities along with him. mr. story thinks of buying this villa: i do not know but i might be tempted to buy it myself if siena were a practicable residence for the entire year; but the winter here, with the bleak mountain-winds of a hundred miles round about blustering against it, must be terribly disagreeable. we spent a very pleasant day, turning over books or talking on the lawn, whence we could behold scenes picturesque afar, and rich vineyard glimpses near at hand. mr. story is the most variously accomplished and brilliant person, the fullest of social life and fire, whom i ever met; and without seeming to make an effort, he kept us amused and entertained the whole day long; not wearisomely entertained neither, as we should have been if he had not let his fountain play naturally. still, though he bubbled and brimmed over with fun, he left the impression on me that . . . . there is a pain and care, bred, it may be, out of the very richness of his gifts and abundance of his outward prosperity. rich, in the prime of life, . . . . and children budding and blossoming around him as fairly as his heart could wish, with sparkling talents,--so many, that if he choose to neglect or fling away one, or two, or three, he would still have enough left to shine with,--who should be happy if not he? . . . . towards sunset we all walked out into the podere, pausing a little while to look down into a well that stands on the verge of the lawn. within the spacious circle of its stone curb was an abundant growth of maidenhair, forming a perfect wreath of thickly clustering leaves quite round, and trailing its tendrils downward to the water which gleamed beneath. it was a very pretty sight. mr. story bent over the well and uttered deep, musical tones, which were reverberated from the hollow depths with wonderful effect, as if a spirit dwelt within there, and (unlike the spirits that speak through mediums) sent him back responses even profounder and more melodious than the tones that awakened them. such a responsive well as this might have been taken for an oracle in old days. we went along paths that led from one vineyard to another, and which might have led us for miles across the country. the grapes had been partly gathered, but still there were many purple or white clusters hanging heavily on the vines. we passed cottage doors, and saw groups of contadini and contadine in their festal attire, and they saluted us graciously; but it was observable that one of the men generally lingered on our track to see that no grapes were stolen, for there were a good many young people and children in our train, not only our own, but some from a neighboring villa. these italian peasants are a kindly race, but, i doubt, not very hospitable of grape or fig. there was a beautiful sunset, and by the time we reached the house again the comet was already visible amid the unextinguished glow of daylight. a mr. and mrs. b------, scotch people from the next villa, had come to see the storys, and we sat till tea-time reading, talking, william story drawing caricatures for his children's amusement and ours, and all of us sometimes getting up to look at the comet, which blazed brighter and brighter till it went down into the mists of the horizon. among the caricatures was one of a presidential candidate, evidently a man of very malleable principles, and likely to succeed. late in the evening (too late for little rosebud) we drove homeward. the streets of old siena looked very grim at night, and it seemed like gazing into caverns to glimpse down some of the side streets as we passed, with a light burning dimly at the end of them. it was after ten when we reached home, and climbed up our gloomy staircase, lighted by the glimmer of some wax moccoli which i had in my pocket. october th.--i have been two or three times into the cathedral; . . . . the whole interior is of marble, in alternate lines of black and white, each layer being about eight inches in width and extending horizontally. it looks very curiously, and might remind the spectator of a stuff with horizontal stripes. nevertheless, the effect is exceedingly rich, these alternate lines stretching away along the walls and round the clustered pillars, seen aloft, and through the arches; everywhere, this inlay of black and white. every sort of ornament that could be thought of seems to have been crammed into the cathedral in one place or another: gilding, frescos, pictures; a roof of blue, spangled with golden stars; a magnificent wheel-window of old painted glass over the entrance, and another at the opposite end of the cathedral; statues, some of marble, others of gilded bronze; pulpits of carved marble; a gilded organ; a cornice of marble busts of the popes, extending round the entire church; a pavement, covered all over with a strange kind of mosaic work in various marbles, wrought into marble pictures of sacred subjects; immense clustered pillars supporting the round arches that divide the nave from the side aisles; a clere-story of windows within pointed arches;--it seemed as if the spectator were reading an antique volume written in black-letter of a small character, but conveying a high and solemn meaning. i can find no way of expressing its effect on me, so quaint and venerable as i feel this cathedral to be in its immensity of striped waistcoat, now dingy with five centuries of wear. i ought not to say anything that might detract from the grandeur and sanctity of the blessed edifice, for these attributes are really uninjured by any of the gothic oddities which i have hinted at. we went this morning to the institute of the fine arts, which is interesting as containing a series of the works of the sienese painters from a date earlier than that of cimabue. there is a dispute, i believe, between florence and siena as to which city may claim the credit of having originated the modern art of painting. the florentines put forward cimabue as the first artist, but as the sienese produce a picture, by guido da siena, dated before the birth of cimabue, the victory is decidedly with them. as to pictorial merit, to my taste there is none in either of these old painters, nor in any of their successors for a long time afterwards. at the institute there are several rooms hung with early productions of the sienese school, painted before the invention of oil-colors, on wood shaped into gothic altar-pieces. the backgrounds still retain a bedimmed splendor of gilding. there is a plentiful use of red, and i can conceive that the pictures must have shed an illumination through the churches where they were displayed. there is often, too, a minute care bestowed on the faces in the pictures, and sometimes a very strong expression, stronger than modern artists get, and it is very strange how they attained this merit while they were so inconceivably rude in other respects. it is remarkable that all the early faces of the madonna are especially stupid, and all of the same type, a sort of face such as one might carve on a pumpkin, representing a heavy, sulky, phlegmatic woman, with a long and low arch of the nose. this same dull face continues to be assigned to the madonna, even when the countenances of the surrounding saints and angels are characterized with power and beauty, so that i think there must have been some portrait of this sacred personage reckoned authentic, which the early painters followed and religiously repeated. at last we came to a picture by sodoma, the most illustrious representative of the sienese school. it was a fresco; christ bound to the pillar, after having been scourged. i do believe that painting has never done anything better, so far as expression is concerned, than this figure. in all these generations since it was painted it must have softened thousands of hearts, drawn down rivers of tears, been more effectual than a million of sermons. really, it is a thing to stand and weep at. no other painter has done anything that can deserve to be compared to this. there are some other pictures by sodoma, among them a judith, very noble and admirable, and full of a profound sorrow for the deed which she has felt it her mission to do. aquila nera, october th.--our lodgings in siena had been taken only for five days, as they were already engaged after that period; so yesterday we returned to our old quarters at the black eagle. in the forenoon j----- and i went out of one of the gates (the road from it leads to florence) and had a pleasant country walk. our way wound downward, round the hill on which siena stands, and gave us views of the duomo and its campanile, seemingly pretty near, after we had walked long enough to be quite remote from them. sitting awhile on the parapet of a bridge, i saw a laborer chopping the branches off a poplar-tree which he had felled; and, when it was trimmed, he took up the large trunk on one of his shoulders and carried it off, seemingly with ease. he did not look like a particularly robust man; but i have never seen such an herculean feat attempted by an englishman or american. it has frequently struck me that the italians are able to put forth a great deal of strength in such insulated efforts as this; but i have been told that they are less capable of continued endurance and hardship than our own race. i do not know why it should be so, except that i presume their food is less strong than ours. there was no other remarkable incident in our walk, which lay chiefly through gorges of the hills, winding beneath high cliffs of the brown siena earth, with many pretty scenes of rural landscape; vineyards everywhere, and olive-trees; a mill on its little stream, over which there was an old stone bridge, with a graceful arch; farm-houses; a villa or two; subterranean passages, passing from the roadside through the high banks into the vineyards. at last we turned aside into a road which led us pretty directly to another gate of the city, and climbed steeply upward among tanneries, where the young men went about with their well-shaped legs bare, their trousers being tucked up till they were strictly breeches and nothing else. the campanile stood high above us; and by and by, and very soon, indeed, the steep ascent of the street brought us into the neighborhood of the piazza del campo, and of our own hotel. . . . . from about twelve o'clock till one, i sat at my chamber window watching the specimens of human life as displayed in the piazza tolomei. [here follow several pages of moving objects.] . . . . of course, a multitude of other people passed by, but the curiousness of the catalogue is the prevalence of the martial and religious elements. the general costume of the inhabitants is frocks or sacks, loosely made, and rather shabby; often, shirt-sleeves; or the coat hung over one shoulder. they wear felt hats and straw. people of respectability seem to prefer cylinder hats, either black or drab, and broadcloth frock-coats in the french fashion; but, like the rest, they look a little shabby. almost all the women wear shawls. ladies in swelling petticoats, and with fans, some of which are highly gilded, appear. the people generally are not tall, but have a sufficient breadth of shoulder; in complexion, similar to americans; bearded, universally. the vehicle used for driving is a little gig without a top; but these are seldom seen, and still less frequently a cab or other carriages. the gait of the people has not the energy of business or decided purpose. everybody appears to lounge, and to have time for a moment's chat, and a disposition to rest, reason or none. after dinner i walked out of another gate of the city, and wandered among some pleasant country lanes, bordered with hedges, and wearing an english aspect; at least, i could fancy so. the vicinity of siena is delightful to walk about in; there being a verdant outlook, a wide prospect of purple mountains, though no such level valley as the val d' arno; and the city stands so high that its towers and domes are seen more picturesquely from many points than those of florence can be. neither is the pedestrian so cruelly shut into narrow lanes, between high stone-walls, over which he cannot get a glimpse of landscape. as i walked by the hedges yesterday i could have fancied that the olive-trunks were those of apple-trees, and that i was in one or other of the two lands that i love better than italy. but the great white villas and the farm-houses were unlike anything i have seen elsewhere, or that i should wish to see again, though proper enough to italy. october th.--thursday forenoon, th, we went to see the palazzo publico. there are some fine old halls and chapels, adorned with ancient frescos and pictures, of which i remember a picture of the virgin by sodoma, very beautiful, and other fine pictures by the same master. the architecture of these old rooms is grand, the roofs being supported by ponderous arches, which are covered with frescos, still magnificent, though faded, darkened, and defaced. we likewise saw an antique casket of wood, enriched with gilding, which had once contained an arm of john the baptist,--so the custode told us. one of the halls was hung with the portraits of eight popes and nearly forty cardinals, who were natives of siena. i have done hardly any other sight-seeing except a daily visit to the cathedral, which i admire and love the more the oftener i go thither. its striped peculiarity ceases entirely to interfere with the grandeur and venerable beauty of its impression; and i am never weary of gazing through the vista of its arches, and noting continually something that i had not seen before in its exuberant adornment. the pavement alone is inexhaustible, being covered all over with figures of life-size or larger, which look like immense engravings of gothic or scriptural scenes. there is absalom hanging by his hair, and joab slaying him with a spear. there is samson belaboring the philistines with the jawbone of an ass. there are armed knights in the tumult of battle, all wrought with wonderful expression. the figures are in white marble, inlaid with darker stone, and the shading is effected by means of engraved lines in the marble, filled in with black. it would be possible, perhaps, to print impressions from some of these vast plates, for the process of cutting the lines was an exact anticipation of the modern art of engraving. however, the same thing was done--and i suppose at about the same period--on monumental brasses, and i have seen impressions or rubbings from those for sale in the old english churches. yesterday morning, in the cathedral, i watched a woman at confession, being curious to see how long it would take her to tell her sins, the growth of a week perhaps. i know not how long she had been confessing when i first observed her, but nearly an hour passed before the priest came suddenly from the confessional, looking weary and moist with perspiration, and took his way out of the cathedral. the woman was left on her knees. this morning i watched another woman, and she too was very long about it, and i could see the face of the priest behind the curtain of the confessional, scarcely inclining his ear to the perforated tin through which the penitent communicated her outpourings. it must be very tedious to listen, day after day, to the minute and commonplace iniquities of the multitude of penitents, and it cannot be often that these are redeemed by the treasure-trove of a great sin. when her confession was over the woman came and sat down on the same bench with me, where her broad-brimmed straw hat was lying. she seemed to be a country woman, with a simple, matronly face, which was solemnized and softened with the comfort that she had obtained by disburdening herself of the soil of worldly frailties and receiving absolution. an old woman, who haunts the cathedral, whispered to her, and she went and knelt down where a procession of priests were to pass, and then the old lady begged a cruzia of me, and got a half-paul. it almost invariably happens, in church or cathedral, that beggars address their prayers to the heretic visitor, and probably with more unction than to the virgin or saints. however, i have nothing to say against the sincerity of this people's devotion. they give all the proof of it that a mere spectator can estimate. last evening we all went out to see the comet, which then reached its climax of lustre. it was like a lofty plume of fire, and grew very brilliant as the night darkened. october th.--this morning, too, we went to the cathedral, and sat long listening to the music of the organ and voices, and witnessing rites and ceremonies which are far older than even the ancient edifice where they were exhibited. a good many people were present, sitting, kneeling, or walking about,--a freedom that contrasts very agreeably with the grim formalities of english churches and our own meeting-houses. many persons were in their best attire; but others came in, with unabashed simplicity, in their old garments of labor, sunburnt women from their toil among the vines and olives. one old peasant i noticed with his withered shanks in breeches and blue yarn stockings. the people of whatever class are wonderfully tolerant of heretics, never manifesting any displeasure or annoyance, though they must see that we are drawn thither by curiosity alone, and merely pry while they pray. i heartily wish the priests were better men, and that human nature, divinely influenced, could be depended upon for a constant supply and succession of good and pure ministers, their religion has so many admirable points. and then it is a sad pity that this noble and beautiful cathedral should be a mere fossil shell, out of which the life has died long ago. but for many a year yet to come the tapers will burn before the high altar, the host will be elevated, the incense diffuse its fragrance, the confessionals be open to receive the penitents. i saw a father entering with two little bits of boys, just big enough to toddle along, holding his hand on either side. the father dipped his fingers into the marble font of holy water,--which, on its pedestals, was two or three times as high as those small christians, --and wetted a hand of each, and taught them how to cross themselves. when they come to be men it will be impossible to convince those children that there is no efficacy in holy water, without plucking up all religious faith and sentiment by the roots. generally, i suspect, when people throw off the faith they were born in, the best soil of their hearts is apt to cling to its roots. raised several feet above the pavement, against every clustered pillar along the nave of the cathedral, is placed a statue of gothic sculpture. in various places are sitting statues of popes of sienese nativity, all of whom, i believe, have a hand raised in the act of blessing. shrines and chapels, set in grand, heavy frames of pillared architecture, stand all along the aisles and transepts, and these seem in many instances to have been built and enriched by noble families, whose arms are sculptured on the pedestals of the pillars, sometimes with a cardinal's hat above to denote the rank of one of its members. how much pride, love, and reverence in the lapse of ages must have clung to the sharp points of all this sculpture and architecture! the cathedral is a religion in itself, --something worth dying for to those who have an hereditary interest in it. in the pavement, yesterday, i noticed the gravestone of a person who fell six centuries ago in the battle of monte aperto, and was buried here by public decree as a meed of valor. this afternoon i took a walk out of one of the city gates, and found the country about siena as beautiful in this direction as in all others. i came to a little stream flowing over into a pebbly bed, and collecting itself into pools, with a scanty rivulet between. its glen was deep, and was crossed by a bridge of several lofty and narrow arches like those of a roman aqueduct. it is a modern structure, however. farther on, as i wound round along the base of a hill which fell down upon the road by precipitous cliffs of brown earth, i saw a gray, ruined wall on the summit, surrounded with cypress-trees. this tree is very frequent about siena, and the scenery is made soft and beautiful by a variety of other trees and shrubbery, without which these hills and gorges would have scarcely a charm. the road was thronged with country people, mostly women and children, who had been spending the feast-day in siena; and parties of boys were chasing one another through the fields, pretty much as boys do in new england of a sunday, but the sienese lads had not the sense of sabbath-breaking like our boys. sunday with these people is like any other feast-day, and consecrated cheerful enjoyment. so much religious observance, as regards outward forms, is diffused through the whole week that they have no need to intensify the sabbath except by making it gladden the other days. returning through the same gate by which i had come out, i ascended into the city by a long and steep street, which was paved with bricks set edgewise. this pavement is common in many of the streets, which, being too steep for horses and carriages, are meant only to sustain the lighter tread of mules and asses. the more level streets are paved with broad, smooth flag-stones, like those of florence,--a fashion which i heartily regret to change for the little penitential blocks of rome. the walls of siena in their present state, and so far as i have seen them, are chiefly brick; but there are intermingled fragments of ancient stone-work, and i wonder why the latter does not prevail more largely. the romans, however,--and siena had roman characteristics,--always liked to build of brick, a taste that has made their ruins (now that the marble slabs are torn off) much less grand than they ought to have been. i am grateful to the old sienese for having used stone so largely in their domestic architecture, and thereby rendered their city so grimly picturesque, with its black palaces frowning upon one another from arched windows, across narrow streets, to the height of six stories, like opposite ranks of tall men looking sternly into one another's eyes. october th.--again i went to the cathedral this morning, and spent an hour listening to the music and looking through the orderly intricacies of the arches, where many vistas open away among the columns of the choir. there are five clustered columns on each side of the nave; then under the dome there are two more arches, not in a straight line, but forming the segment of a circle; and beyond the circle of the dome there are four more arches, extending to the extremity of the chancel. i should have said, instead of "clustered columns" as above, that there are five arches along the nave supported by columns. this cathedral has certainly bewitched me, to write about it so much, effecting nothing with my pains. i should judge the width of each arch to be about twenty feet, and the thickness of each clustered pillar is eight; or ten more, and the length of the entire building may be between two and three hundred feet; not very large, certainly, but it makes an impression of grandeur independent of size. . . . . i never shall succeed even in reminding myself of the venerable magnificence of this minster, with its arches, its columns, its cornice of popes' heads, its great wheel windows, its manifold ornament, all combining in one vast effect, though many men have labored individually, and through a long course of time, to produce this multifarious handiwork and headwork. i now took a walk out of the city. a road turned immediately to the left as i emerged from the city, and soon proved to be a rustic lane leading past several villas and farm-houses. it was a very pleasant walk, with vineyards and olive-orchards on each side, and now and then glimpses of the towers and sombre heaped-up palaces of siena, and now a rural seclusion again; for the hills rise and the valleys fall like the swell and subsidence of the sea after a gale, so that siena may be quite hidden within a quarter of a mile of its wall, or may be visible, i doubt not, twenty miles away. it is a fine old town, with every promise of health and vigor in its atmosphere, and really, if i could take root anywhere, i know not but it could as well be here as in another place. it would only be a kind of despair, however, that would ever make me dream of finding a home in italy; a sense that i had lost my country through absence or incongruity, and that earth is not an abiding-place. i wonder that we americans love our country at all, it having no limits and no oneness; and when you try to make it a matter of the heart, everything falls away except one's native state; neither can you seize hold of that unless you tear it out of the union, bleeding and quivering. yet unquestionably, we do stand by our national flag as stoutly as any people in the world, and i myself have felt the heart throb at sight of it as sensibly as other men. i think the singularity of our form of government contributes to give us a kind of patriotism, by separating us from other nations more entirely. if other nations had similar institutions,--if england, especially, were a democracy,--we should as readily make ourselves at home in another country as now in a new state. october th.--and again we went to the cathedral this forenoon, and the whole family, except myself, sketched portions of it. even rosebud stood gravely sketching some of the inlaid figures of the pavement. as for me, i can but try to preserve some memorial of this beautiful edifice in ill-fitting words that never hit the mark. this morning visit was not my final one, for i went again after dinner and walked quite round the whole interior. i think i have not yet mentioned the rich carvings of the old oaken seats round the choir, and the curious mosaic of lighter and darker woods, by which figures and landscapes are skilfully represented on the backs of some of the stalls. the process seems to be the same as the inlaying and engraving of the pavement, the material in one case being marble, in the other wood. the only other thing that i particularly noticed was, that in the fonts of holy water at the front entrance, marble fish are sculptured in the depths of the basin, and eels and shellfish crawling round the brim. have i spoken of the sumptuous carving of the capitals of the columns? at any rate i have left a thousand beauties without a word. here i drop the subject. as i took my parting glance the cathedral had a gleam of golden sunshine in its far depths, and it seemed to widen and deepen itself, as if to convince me of my error in saying, yesterday, that it is not very large. i wonder how i could say it. after taking leave of the cathedral, i found my way out of another of the city gates, and soon turned aside into a green lane. . . . . soon the lane passed through a hamlet consisting of a few farm-houses, the shabbiest and dreariest that can be conceived, ancient, and ugly, and dilapidated, with iron-grated windows below, and heavy wooden shutters on the windows above,--high, ruinous walls shutting in the courts, and ponderous gates, one of which was off its hinges. the farm-yards were perfect pictures of disarray and slovenly administration of home affairs. only one of these houses had a door opening on the road, and that was the meanest in the hamlet. a flight of narrow stone stairs ascended from the threshold to the second story. all these houses were specimens of a rude antiquity, built of brick and stone, with the marks of arched doors and windows where a subsequent generation had shut up the lights, or the accesses which the original builders had opened. humble as these dwellings are,--though large and high compared with rural residences in other countries,--they may very probably date back to the times when siena was a warlike republic, and when every house in its neighborhood had need to be a fortress. i suppose, however, prowling banditti were the only enemies against whom a defence would be attempted. what lives must now be lived there,--in beastly ignorance, mental sluggishness, hard toil for little profit, filth, and a horrible discomfort of fleas; for if the palaces of italy are overrun with these pests, what must the country hovels be! . . . . we are now all ready for a start to-morrow. radicofani. october th.--we arranged to begin our journey at six. . . . . it was a chill, lowering morning, and the rain blew a little in our faces before we had gone far, but did not continue long. the country soon lost the pleasant aspect which it wears immediately about siena, and grew very barren and dreary. then it changed again for the better, the road leading us through a fertility of vines and olives, after which the dreary and barren hills came back again, and formed our prospect throughout most of the day. we stopped for our dejeuner a la fourchette at a little old town called san quirico, which we entered through a ruined gateway, the town being entirely surrounded by its ancient wall. this wall is far more picturesque than that of siena, being lofty and built of stone, with a machicolation of arches running quite round its top, like a cornice. it has little more than a single street, perhaps a quarter of a mile long, narrow, paved with flag-stones in the florentine fashion, and lined with two rows of tall, rusty stone houses, without a gap between them from end to end. the cafes were numerous in relation to the size of the town, and there were two taverns,--our own, the eagle, being doubtless the best, and having three arched entrances in its front. of these, the middle one led to the guests' apartments, the one on the right to the barn, and that on the left to the stable, so that, as is usual in italian inns, the whole establishment was under one roof. we were shown into a brick-paved room on the first floor, adorned with a funny fresco of aurora on the ceiling, and with some colored prints, both religious and profane. . . . . as we drove into the town we noticed a gothic church with two doors of peculiar architecture, and while our dejeuner was being prepared we went to see it. the interior had little that was remarkable, for it had been repaired early in the last century, and spoilt of course; but an old triptych is still hanging in a chapel beside the high altar. it is painted on wood, and dates back beyond the invention of oil-painting, and represents the virgin and some saints and angels. neither is the exterior of the church particularly interesting, with the exception of the carving and ornaments of two of the doors. both of them have round arches, deep and curiously wrought, and the pillars of one of the two are formed of a peculiar knot or twine in stone-work, such as i cannot well describe, but it is both ingenious and simple. these pillars rest on two nondescript animals, which look as much like walruses as anything else. the pillars of the other door consist of two figures supporting the capitals, and themselves standing on two handsomely carved lions. the work is curious, and evidently very ancient, and the material a red freestone. after lunch, j----- and i took a walk out of the gate of the town opposite to that of our entrance. there were no soldiers on guard, as at city gates of more importance; nor do i think that there is really any gate to shut, but the massive stone gateway still stands entire over the empty arch. looking back after we had passed through, i observed that the lofty upper story is converted into a dove-cot, and that pumpkins were put to ripen in some open chambers at one side. we passed near the base of a tall, square tower, which is said to be of roman origin. the little town is in the midst of a barren region, but its immediate neighborhood is fertile, and an olive-orchard, venerable of aspect, lay on the other side of the pleasant lane with its english hedges, and olive-trees grew likewise along the base of the city wall. the arched machicolations, which i have before mentioned, were here and there interrupted by a house which was built upon the old wall or incorporated into it; and from the windows of one of then i saw ears of indian corn hung out to ripen in the sun, and somebody was winnowing grain at a little door that opened through the wall. it was very pleasant to see the ancient warlike rampart thus overcome with rustic peace. the ruined gateway is partly overgrown with ivy. returning to our inn, along the street, we saw ------ sketching one of the doors of the gothic church, in the midst of a crowd of the good people of san quirico, who made no scruple to look over her shoulder, pressing so closely as hardly to allow her elbow-room. i must own that i was too cowardly to come forward and take my share of this public notice, so i turned away to the inn and there awaited her coming. indeed, she has seldom attempted to sketch without finding herself the nucleus of a throng. viterbo. the black eagle, october th.--perhaps i had something more to say of san quirico, but i shall merely add that there is a stately old palace of the piccolomini close to the church above described. it is built in the style of the roman palaces, and looked almost large enough to be one of them. nevertheless, the basement story, or part of it, seems to be used as a barn and stable, for i saw a yoke of oxen in the entrance. i cannot but mention a most wretched team of vettura-horses which stopped at the door of our albergo: poor, lean, downcast creatures, with deep furrows between their ribs; nothing but skin and bone, in short, and not even so much skin as they should have had, for it was partially worn off from their backs. the harness was fastened with ropes, the traces and reins were ropes; the carriage was old and shabby, and out of this miserable equipage there alighted an ancient gentleman and lady, whom our waiter affirmed to be the prefect of florence and his wife. we left san quirico at two o'clock, and followed an ascending road till we got into the region above the clouds; the landscape was very wide, but very dreary and barren, and grew more and more so till we began to climb the mountain of radicofani, the peak of which had been blackening itself on the horizon almost the whole day. when we had come into a pretty high region we were assailed by a real mountain tempest of wind, rain, and hail, which pelted down upon us in good earnest, and cooled the air a little below comfort. as we toiled up the mountain its upper region presented a very striking aspect, looking as if a precipice had been smoothed and squared for the purpose of rendering the old castle on its summit more inaccessible than it was by nature. this is the castle of the robber-knight, ghino di tacco, whom boccaccio introduces into the decameron. a freebooter of those days must have set a higher value on such a rock as this than if it had been one mass of diamond, for no art of mediaeval warfare could endanger him in such a fortress. drawing yet nearer, we found the hillside immediately above us strewn with thousands upon thousands of great fragments of stone. it looked as if some great ruin had taken place there, only it was too vast a ruin to have been the dismemberment and dissolution of anything made by man. we could now see the castle on the height pretty distinctly. it seemed to impend over the precipice; and close to the base of the latter we saw the street of a town on as strange and inconvenient a foundation as ever one was built upon. i suppose the inhabitants of the village were dependants of the old knight of the castle; his brotherhood of robbers, as they married and had families, settled there under the shelter of the eagle's nest. but the singularity is, how a community of people have contrived to live and perpetuate themselves so far out of the reach of the world's help, and seemingly with no means of assisting in the world's labor. i cannot imagine how they employ themselves except in begging, and even that branch of industry appears to be left to the old women and the children. no house was ever built in this immediate neighborhood for any such natural purpose as induces people to build them on other sites. even our hotel, at which we now arrived, could not be said to be a natural growth of the soil; it had originally been a whim of one of the grand dukes of tuscany,--a hunting-palace,--intended for habitation only during a few weeks of the year. of all dreary hotels i ever alighted at, methinks this is the most so; but on first arriving i merely followed the waiter to look at our rooms, across stone-paved basement-halls dismal as etruscan tombs; up dim staircases, and along shivering corridors, all of stone, stone, stone, nothing but cold stone. after glancing at these pleasant accommodations, my wife and i, with j-----, set out to ascend the hill and visit the town of radicofani. it is not more than a quarter of a mile above our hotel, and is accessible by a good piece of road, though very steep. as we approached the town, we were assailed by some little beggars; but this is the case all through italy, in city or solitude, and i think the mendicants of radicofani are fewer than its proportion. we had not got far towards the village, when, looking back over the scene of many miles that lay stretched beneath us, we saw a heavy shower apparently travelling straight towards us over hill and dale. it seemed inevitable that it should soon be upon us, so i persuaded my wife to return to the hotel; but j----- and i kept onward, being determined to see radicofani with or without a drenching. we soon entered the street; the blackest, ugliest, rudest old street, i do believe, that ever human life incrusted itself with. the first portion of it is the overbrimming of the town in generations subsequent to that in which it was surrounded by a wall; but after going a little way we came to a high, square tower planted right across the way, with an arched gateway in its basement story, so that it looked like a great short-legged giant striding over the street of radicofani. within the gateway is the proper and original town, though indeed the portion outside of the gate is as densely populated, as ugly, and as ancient, as that within. the street was very narrow, and paved with flag-stones not quite so smooth as those of florence; the houses are tall enough to be stately, if they were not so inconceivably dingy and shabby; but, with their half-dozen stories, they make only the impression of hovel piled upon hovel,--squalor immortalized in undecaying stone. it was now getting far into the twilight, and i could not distinguish the particularities of the little town, except that there were shops, a cafe or two, and as many churches, all dusky with age, crowded closely together, inconvenient stifled too in spite of the breadth and freedom of the mountain atmosphere outside the scanty precincts of the street. it was a death-in-life little place, a fossilized place, and yet the street was thronged, and had all the bustle of a city; even more noise than a city's street, because everybody in radicofani knows everybody, and probably gossips with everybody, being everybody's blood relation, as they cannot fail to have become after they and their forefathers have been shut up together within the narrow walls for many hundred years. they looked round briskly at j----- and me, but were courteous, as italians always are, and made way for us to pass through the throng, as we kept on still ascending the steep street. it took us but a few minutes to reach the still steeper and winding pathway which climbs towards the old castle. after ascending above the village, the path, though still paved, becomes very rough, as if the hoofs of ghino di tacco's robber cavalry had displaced the stones and they had never been readjusted. on every side, too, except where the path just finds space enough, there is an enormous rubbish of huge stones, which seems to have fallen from the precipice above, or else to have rained down out of the sky. we kept on, and by and by reached what seemed to have been a lower outwork of the castle on the top; there was the massive old arch of a gateway, and a great deal of ruin of man's work, beside the large stones that here, as elsewhere, were scattered so abundantly. within the wall and gateway just mentioned, however, there was a kind of farm-house, adapted, i suppose, out of the old ruin, and i noticed some ears of indian corn hanging out of a window. there were also a few stacks of hay, but no signs of human or animal life; and it is utterly inexplicable to me, where these products of the soil could have come from, for certainly they never grew amid that barrenness. we had not yet reached ghino's castle, and, being now beneath it, we had to bend our heads far backward to see it rising up against the clear sky while we were now in twilight. the path upward looked terribly steep and rough, and if we had climbed it we should probably have broken our necks in descending again into the lower obscurity. we therefore stopped here, much against j-----'s will, and went back as we came, still wondering at the strange situation of radicofani; for its aspect is as if it had stepped off the top of the cliff and lodged at its base, though still in danger of sliding farther down the hillside. emerging from the compact, grimy life of its street, we saw that the shower had swept by, or probably had expended itself in a region beneath us, for we were above the scope of many of the showery clouds that haunt a hill-country. there was a very bright star visible, i remember, and we saw the new moon, now a third towards the full, for the first time this evening. the air was cold and bracing. but i am excessively sleepy, so will not describe our great dreary hotel, where a blast howled in an interminable corridor all night. it did not seem to have anything to do with the wind out of doors, but to be a blast that had been casually shut in when the doors were closed behind the last grand duke who came hither and departed, and ever since it has been kept prisoner, and makes a melancholy wail along the corridor. the dreamy stupidity of this conceit proves how sleepy i am. sette vene. october th.--we left radicofani long before sunrise, and i saw that ceremony take place from the coupe of the vettura for the first time in a long while. a sunset is the better sight of the two. i have always suspected it, and have been strengthened in the idea whenever i have had an opportunity of comparison. our departure from radicofani was most dreary, except that we were very glad to get away; but, the cold discomfort of dressing in a chill bedroom by candlelight, and our uncertain wandering through the immense hotel with a dim taper in search of the breakfast-room, and our poor breakfast of eggs, italian bread, and coffee,--all these things made me wish that people were created with roots like trees, so they could not befool themselves with wandering about. however, we had not long been on our way before the morning air blew away all our troubles, and we rumbled cheerfully onward, ready to encounter even the papal custom-house officers at ponte centino. our road thither was a pretty steep descent. i remember the barren landscape of hills, with here and there a lonely farm-house, which there seemed to be no occasion for, where nothing grew. at ponte centino my passport was examined, and i was invited into an office where sat the papal custom-house officer, a thin, subtle-looking, keen-eyed, sallow personage, of aspect very suitable to be the agent of a government of priests. i communicated to him my wish to pass the custom-house without giving the officers the trouble of examining my luggage. he inquired whether i had any dutiable articles, and wrote for my signature a declaration in the negative; and then he lifted a sand-box, beneath which was a little heap of silver coins. on this delicate hint i asked what was the usual fee, and was told that fifteen pauls was the proper sum. i presume it was entirely an illegal charge, and that he had no right to pass any luggage without examination; but the thing is winked at by the authorities, and no money is better spent for the traveller's convenience than these fifteen pauls. there was a papal military officer in the room, and he, i believe, cheated me in the change of a napoleon, as his share of the spoil. at the door a soldier met me with my passport, and looked as if he expected a fee for handing it to me; but in this he was disappointed. after i had resumed my seat in the coupe, the porter of the custom-house--a poor, sickly-looking creature, half dead with the malaria of the place--appeared, and demanded a fee for doing nothing to my luggage. he got three pauls, and looked but half contented. this whole set of men seem to be as corrupt as official people can possibly be; and yet i hardly know whether to stigmatize them as corrupt, because it is not their individual delinquency, but the operation of a regular system. their superiors know what men they are, and calculate upon their getting a living by just these means. and, indeed, the custom-house and passport regulations, as they exist in italy, would be intolerable if there were not this facility of evading them at little cost. such laws are good for nothing but to be broken. we now began to ascend again, and the country grew fertile and picturesque. we passed many mules and donkeys, laden with a sort of deep firkin on each side of the saddle, and these were heaped up with grapes, both purple and white. we bought some, and got what we should have thought an abundance at small price, only we used to get twice as many at montanto for the same money. however, a roman paul bought us three or four pounds even here. we still ascended, and came soon to the gateway of the town of acquapendente, which stands on a height that seems to descend by natural terraces to the valley below. . . . . french soldiers, in their bluish-gray coats and scarlet trousers, were on duty at the gate, and one of them took my passport and the vetturino's, and we then drove into the town to wait till they should be vised. we saw but one street, narrow, with tall, rusty, aged houses, built of stone, evil smelling; in short, a kind of place that would be intolerably dismal in cloudy england, and cannot be called cheerful even under the sun of italy. . . . . priests passed, and burly friars, one of whom was carrying a wine-barrel on his head. little carts, laden with firkins of grapes, and donkeys with the same genial burden, brushed passed our vettura, finding scarce room enough in the narrow street. all the idlers of acquapendente--and they were many--assembled to gaze at us, but not discourteously. indeed, i never saw an idle curiosity exercised in such a pleasant way as by the country-people of italy. it almost deserves to be called a kindly interest and sympathy, instead of a hard and cold curiosity, like that of our own people, and it is displayed with such simplicity that it is evident no offence is intended. by and by the vetturino brought his passport and my own, with the official vise, and we kept on our way, still ascending, passing through vineyards and olives, and meeting grape-laden donkeys, till we came to the town of san lorenzo nuovo, a place built by pius vi. as the refuge for the people of a lower town which had been made uninhabitable by malaria. the new town, which i suppose is hundreds of years old, with all its novelty shows strikingly the difference between places that grow up and shape out their streets of their own accord, as it were, and one that is built on a settled plan of malice aforethought. this little rural village has gates of classic architecture, a spacious piazza, and a great breadth of straight and rectangular streets, with houses of uniform style, airy and wholesome looking to a degree seldom seen on the continent. nevertheless, i must say that the town looked hatefully dull and ridiculously prim, and, of the two, i had rather spend my life in radicofani. we drove through it, from gate to gate, without stopping, and soon came to the brow of a hill, whence we beheld, right beneath us, the beautiful lake of bolsena; not exactly at our feet, however, for a portion of level ground lay between, haunted by the pestilence which has depopulated all these shores, and made the lake and its neighborhood a solitude. it looked very beautiful, nevertheless, with a sheen of a silver mid a gray like that of steel as the wind blew and the sun shone over it; and, judging by my own feelings, i should really have thought that the breeze from its surface was bracing and healthy. descending the hill, we passed the ruins of the old town of san lorenzo, of which the prim village on the hill-top may be considered the daughter. there is certainly no resemblance between parent and child, the former being situated on a sort of precipitous bluff, where there could have been no room for piazzas and spacious streets, nor accessibility except by mules, donkeys, goats, and people of alpine habits. there was an ivy-covered tower on the top of the bluff, and some arched cavern mouths that looked as if they opened into the great darkness. these were the entrances to etruscan tombs, for the town on top had been originally etruscan, and the inhabitants had buried themselves in the heart of the precipitous bluffs after spending their lives on its summit. reaching the plain, we drove several miles along the shore of the lake, and found the soil fertile and generally well cultivated, especially with the vine, though there were tracks apparently too marshy to be put to any agricultural purpose. we met now and then a flock of sheep, watched by sallow-looking and spiritless men and boys, who, we took it for granted, would soon perish of malaria, though, i presume, they never spend their nights in the immediate vicinity of the lake. i should like to inquire whether animals suffer from the bad qualities of the air. the lake is not nearly so beautiful on a nearer view as it is from the hill above, there being no rocky margin, nor bright, sandy beach, but everywhere this interval of level ground, and often swampy marsh, betwixt the water and the hill. at a considerable distance from the shore we saw two islands, one of which is memorable as having been the scene of an empress's murder, but i cannot stop to fill my journal with historical reminiscences. we kept onward to the town of bolsena, which stands nearly a mile from the lake, and on a site higher than the level margin, yet not so much so, i should apprehend, as to free it from danger of malaria. we stopped at an albergo outside of the wall of the town, and before dinner had time to see a good deal of the neighborhood. the first aspect of the town was very striking, with a vista into its street through the open gateway, and high above it an old, gray, square-built castle, with three towers visible at the angles, one of them battlemented, one taller than the rest, and one partially ruined. outside of the town-gate there were some fragments of etruscan ruin, capitals of pillars and altars with inscriptions; these we glanced at, and then made our entrance through the gate. there it was again,--the same narrow, dirty, time-darkened street of piled-up houses which we have so often seen; the same swarm of ill-to-do people, grape-laden donkeys, little stands or shops of roasted chestnuts, peaches, tomatoes, white and purple figs; the same evidence of a fertile land, and grimy poverty in the midst of abundance which nature tries to heap into their hands. it seems strange that they can never grasp it. we had gone but a little way along this street, when we saw a narrow lane that turned aside from it and went steeply upward. its name was on the corner,--the via di castello,--and as the castle promised to be more interesting than anything else, we immediately began to ascend. the street--a strange name for such an avenue--clambered upward in the oddest fashion, passing under arches, scrambling up steps, so that it was more like a long irregular pair of stairs than anything that christians call a street; and so large a part of it was under arches that we scarcely seemed to be out of doors. at last u----, who was in advance, emerged into the upper air, and cried out that we had ascended to an upper town, and a larger one than that beneath. it really seemed like coming up out of the earth into the midst of the town, when we found ourselves so unexpectedly in upper bolsena. we were in a little nook, surrounded by old edifices, and called the piazza del orologio, on account of a clock that was apparent somewhere. the castle was close by, and from its platform there was a splendid view of the lake and all the near hill-country. the castle itself is still in good condition, and apparently as strong as ever it was as respects the exterior walls; but within there seemed to be neither floor nor chamber, nothing but the empty shell of the dateless old fortress. the stones at the base and lower part of the building were so massive that i should think the etrurians must have laid them; and then perhaps the romans built a little higher, and the mediaeval people raised the battlements and towers. but we did not look long at the castle, our attention being drawn to the singular aspect of the town itself, which--to speak first of its most prominent characteristic--is the very filthiest place, i do believe, that was ever inhabited by man. defilement was everywhere; in the piazza, in nooks and corners, strewing the miserable lanes from side to side, the refuse of every day, and of accumulated ages. i wonder whether the ancient romans were as dirty a people as we everywhere find those who have succeeded them; for there seems to have been something in the places that have been inhabited by romans, or made famous in their history, and in the monuments of every kind that they have raised, that puts people in mind of their very earthliness, and incites them to defile therewith whatever temple, column, ruined palace, or triumphal arch may fall in their way. i think it must be an hereditary trait, probably weakened and robbed of a little of its horror by the influence of milder ages; and i am much afraid that caesar trod narrower and fouler ways in his path to power than those of modern rome, or even of this disgusting town of bolsena. i cannot imagine anything worse than these, however. rotten vegetables thrown everywhere about, musty straw, standing puddles, running rivulets of dissolved nastiness,--these matters were a relief amid viler objects. the town was full of great black hogs wallowing before every door, and they grunted at us with a kind of courtesy and affability as if the town were theirs, and it was their part to be hospitable to strangers. many donkeys likewise accosted us with braying; children, growing more uncleanly every day they lived, pestered us with begging; men stared askance at us as they lounged in corners, and women endangered us with slops which they were flinging from doorways into the street. no decent words can describe, no admissible image can give an idea of this noisome place. and yet, i remember, the donkeys came up the height loaded with fruit, and with little flat-sided barrels of wine; the people had a good atmosphere--except as they polluted it themselves--on their high site, and there seemed to be no reason why they should not live a beautiful and jolly life. i did not mean to write such an ugly description as the above, but it is well, once for all, to have attempted conveying an idea of what disgusts the traveller, more or less, in all these italian towns. setting aside this grand characteristic, the upper town of bolsena is a most curious and interesting place. it was originally an etruscan city, the ancient volsinii, and when taken and destroyed by the romans was said to contain two thousand statues. afterwards the romans built a town upon the site, including, i suppose, the space occupied by the lower city, which looks as if it had brimmed over like radicofani, and fallen from the precipitous height occupied by the upper. the latter is a strange confusion of black and ugly houses, piled massively out of the ruins of former ages, built rudely and without plan, as a pauper would build his hovel, and yet with here and there an arched gateway, a cornice, a pillar, that might have adorned a palace. . . . . the streets are the narrowest i have seen anywhere,--of no more width, indeed, than may suffice for the passage of a donkey with his panniers. they wind in and out in strange confusion, and hardly look like streets at all, but, nevertheless, have names printed on the corners, just as if they were stately avenues. after looking about us awhile and drawing half-breaths so as to take in the less quantity of gaseous pollution, we went back to the castle, and descended by a path winding downward from it into the plain outside of the town-gate. it was now dinner-time, . . . . and we had, in the first place, some fish from the pestiferous lake; not, i am sorry to say, the famous stewed eels which, dante says, killed pope martin, but some trout. . . . . by the by, the meal was not dinner, but our midday colazione. after despatching it, we again wandered forth and strolled round the outside of the lower town, which, with the upper one, made as picturesque a combination as could be desired. the old wall that surrounds the lower town has been appropriated, long since, as the back wall of a range of houses; windows have been pierced through it; upper chambers and loggie have been built upon it; so that it looks something like a long row of rural dwellings with one continuous front or back, constructed in a strange style of massive strength, contrasting with the vines that here and there are trained over it, and with the wreaths of yellow corn that hang from the windows. but portions of the old battlements are interspersed with the line of homely chambers and tiled house-tops. within the wall the town is very compact, and above its roofs rises a rock, the sheer, precipitous bluff on which stands the upper town, whose foundations impend over the highest roof in the lower. at one end is the old castle, with its towers rising above the square battlemented mass of the main fortress; and if we had not seen the dirt and squalor that dwells within this venerable outside, we should have carried away a picture of gray, grim dignity, presented by a long past age to the present one, to put its mean ways and modes to shame. ------ sat diligently sketching, and children came about her, exceedingly unfragrant, but very courteous and gentle, looking over her shoulders, and expressing delight as they saw each familiar edifice take its place in the sketch. they are a lovable people, these italians, as i find from almost all with whom we come in contact; they have great and little faults, and no great virtues that i know of; but still are sweet, amiable, pleasant to encounter, save when they beg, or when you have to bargain with them. we left bolsena and drove to viterbo, passing the gate of the picturesque town of montefiascone, over the wall of which i saw spires and towers, and the dome of a cathedral. i was sorry not to taste, in its own town, the celebrated est, which was the death-draught of the jolly prelate. at viterbo, however, i called for some wine of montefiascone, and had a little straw-covered flask, which the waiter assured us was the genuine est-wine. it was of golden color, and very delicate, somewhat resembling still champagne, but finer, and requiring a calmer pause to appreciate its subtle delight. its good qualities, however, are so evanescent, that the finer flavor became almost imperceptible before we finished the flask. viterbo is a large, disagreeable town, built at the foot of a mountain, the peak of which is seen through the vista of some of the narrow streets. there are more fountains in viterbo than i have seen in any other city of its size, and many of them of very good design. around most of them there were wine-hogsheads, waiting their turn to be cleansed and rinsed, before receiving the wine of the present vintage. passing a doorway, j----- saw some men treading out the grapes in a great vat with their naked feet. among the beggars here, the loudest and most vociferous was a crippled postilion, wearing his uniform jacket, green, faced with red; and he seemed to consider himself entitled still to get his living from travellers, as having been disabled in the way of his profession. i recognized his claim, and was rewarded with a courteous and grateful bow at our departure. . . . . to beggars--after my much experience both in england and italy--i give very little, though i am not certain that it would not often be real beneficence in the latter country. there being little or no provision for poverty and age, the poor must often suffer. nothing can be more earnest than their entreaties for aid; nothing seemingly more genuine than their gratitude when they receive it. they return you the value of their alms in prayers, and say, "god will accompany you." many of them have a professional whine, and a certain doleful twist of the neck and turn of the head, which hardens my heart against them at once. a painter might find numerous models among them, if canvas had not already been more than sufficiently covered with their style of the picturesque. there is a certain brick-dust colored cloak worn in viterbo, not exclusively by beggars, which, when ragged enough, is exceedingly artistic. rome. piazza poli, october th.--we left viterbo on the th, and proceeded, through monterosi, to sette verse. there was nothing interesting at sette verse, except an old roman bridge, of a single arch, which had kept its sweep, composed of one row of stones, unbroken for two or more thousand years, and looked just as strong as ever, though gray with age, and fringed with plants that found it hard to fix themselves in its close crevices. the next day we drove along the cassian way towards rome. it was a most delightful morning, a genial atmosphere; the more so, i suppose, because this was the campagna, the region of pestilence and death. i had a quiet, gentle, comfortable pleasure, as if, after many wanderings, i was drawing near rome, for, now that i have known it once, rome certainly does draw into itself my heart, as i think even london, or even little concord itself, or old sleepy salem, never did and never will. besides, we are to stay here six months, and we had now a house all prepared to receive us; so that this present approach, in the noontide of a genial day, was most unlike our first one, when we crept towards rome through the wintry midnight, benumbed with cold, ill, weary, and not knowing whither to betake ourselves. ah! that was a dismal tine! one thing, however, that disturbed even my present equanimity a little was the necessity of meeting the custom-house at the porta del popolo; but my past experience warranted me in believing that even these ogres might be mollified by the magic touch of a scudo; and so it proved. we should have escaped any examination at all, the officer whispered me, if his superior had not happened to be present; but, as the case stood, they took down only one trunk from the top of the vettura, just lifted the lid, closed it again, and gave us permission to proceed. so we came to piazza poli, and found ourselves at once at home, in such a comfortable, cosey little house, as i did not think existed in rome. i ought to say a word about our vetturino, constantino bacci, an excellent and most favorable specimen of his class; for his magnificent conduct, his liberality, and all the good qualities that ought to be imperial, s----- called him the emperor. he took us to good hotels, and feasted us with the best; he was kind to us all, and especially to little rosebud, who used to run by his side, with her small white hand in his great brown one; he was cheerful in his deportment, and expressed his good spirits by the smack of his whip, which is the barometer of a vetturino's inward weather; he drove admirably, and would rumble up to the door of an albergo, and stop to a hair's-breadth just where it was most convenient for us to alight; he would hire postilions and horses, where other vetturini would take nothing better than sluggish oxen, to help us up the hilly roads, so that sometimes we had a team of seven; he did all that we could possibly require of him, and was content and more, with a buon mono of five scudi, in addition to the stipulated price. finally, i think the tears had risen almost to his eyelids when we parted with him. our friends, the thompsons, through whose kindness we procured this house, called to see us soon after our arrival. in the afternoon, i walked with rosebud to the medici gardens, and on our way thither, we espied our former servant, lalla, who flung so many and such bitter curses after us, on our departure from rome, sitting at her father's fruit-stall. thank god, they have not taken effect. after going to the medici, we went to the pincian gardens, and looked over into the borghese grounds, which, methought, were more beautiful than ever. the same was true of the sky, and of every object beneath it; and as we came homeward along the corso, i wondered at the stateliness and palatial magnificence of that noble street. once, i remember, i thought it narrow, and far unworthy of its fame. in the way of costume, the men in goat-skin breeches, whom we met on the campagna, were very striking, and looked like satyrs. october st.--. . . . i have been twice to st. peter's, and was impressed more than at any former visit by a sense of breadth and loftiness, and, as it were, a visionary splendor and magnificence. i also went to the museum of the capitol; and the statues seemed to me more beautiful than formerly, and i was not sensible of the cold despondency with which i have so often viewed them. yesterday we went to the corsini palace, which we had not visited before. it stands in the trastevere, in the longara, and is a stately palace, with a grand staircase, leading to the first floor, where is situated the range of picture-rooms. there were a good many fine pictures, but none of them have made a memorable impression on my mind, except a portrait by vandyke, of a man in point-lace, very grand and very real. the room in which this picture hung had many other portraits by holbein, titian, rembrandt, rubens, and other famous painters, and was wonderfully rich in this department. in another, there was a portrait of pope julius ii., by raphael, somewhat differing from those at the pitti and the uffizi galleries in florence, and those i have seen in england and paris; thinner, paler, perhaps older, more severely intellectual, but at least, as high a work of art as those. the palace has some handsome old furniture, and gilded chairs, covered with leather cases, possibly relics of queen christina's time, who died here. i know not but the most curious object was a curule chair of marble, sculptured all out of one piece, and adorned with bas-reliefs. it is supposed to be etruscan. it has a circular back, sweeping round, so as to afford sufficient rests for the elbows; and, sitting down in it, i discovered that modern ingenuity has not made much real improvement on this chair of three or four thousand years ago. but some chairs are easier for the moment, yet soon betray you, and grow the more irksome. we strolled along longara, and found the piazza of st. peter's full of french soldiers at their drill. . . . . we went quite round the interior of the church, and perceiving the pavement loose and broken near the altar where guido's archangel is placed, we picked up some bits of rosso antico and gray marble, to be set in brooches, as relics. we have the snuggest little set of apartments in rome, seven rooms, including an antechamber; and though the stairs are exceedingly narrow, there is really a carpet on them,--a civilized comfort, of which the proudest palaces in the eternal city cannot boast. the stairs are very steep, however, and i should not wonder if some of us broke our noses down them. narrowness of space within doors strikes us all rather ludicrously, yet not unpleasantly, after being accustomed to the wastes and deserts of the montanto villa. it is well thus to be put in training for the over-snugness of our cottage in concord. our windows here look out on a small and rather quiet piazza, with an immense palace on the left hand, and a smaller yet statelier one on the right, and just round the corner of the street, leading out of our piazza, is the fountain of trevi, of which i can hear the plash in the evening, when other sounds are hushed. looking over what i have said of sodoma's "christ bound," at sierra, i see that i have omitted to notice what seems to me one of its most striking characteristics,--its loneliness. you feel as if the saviour were deserted, both in heaven and earth; the despair is in him which made him say, "my god, why hast thou forsaken me?" even in this extremity, however, he is still divine, and sodoma almost seems to have reconciled the impossibilities of combining an omnipresent divinity with a suffering and outraged humanity. but this is one of the cases in which the spectator's imagination completes what the artist merely hints at. mr. ------, the sculptor, called to see us, the other evening, and quite paid powers off for all his trenchant criticisms on his brother artists. he will not allow powers to be an artist at all, or to know anything of the laws of art, although acknowledging him to be a great bust-maker, and to have put together the greek slave and the fisher-boy very ingeniously. the latter, however (he says), is copied from the apollino in the tribune of the uzi; and the former is made up of beauties that had no reference to one another; and he affirms that powers is ready to sell, and has actually sold, the greek slave, limb by limb, dismembering it by reversing the process of putting it together,--a head to one purchaser, an arm or a foot to another, a hand to a third. powers knows nothing scientifically of the human frame, and only succeeds in representing it as a natural bone-doctor succeeds in setting a dislocated limb by a happy accident or special providence. (the illustration was my own, and adopted by mr. ------.) yet mr. ------ seems to acknowledge that he did succeed. i repeat these things only as another instance how invariably every sculptor uses his chisel and mallet to smash and deface the marble-work of every other. i never heard powers speak of mr. ------, but can partly imagine what he would have said. mr. ------ spoke of powers's disappointment about the twenty-five-thousand-dollar appropriation from congress, and said that he was altogether to blame, inasmuch as he attempted to sell to the nation for that sum a statue which, to mr. ------'s certain knowledge, he had already offered to private persons for a fifth part of it. i have not implicit faith in mr. ------'s veracity, and doubt not powers acted fairly in his own eyes. october d.--i am afraid i have caught one of the colds which the roman air continually affected me with last winter; at any rate, a sirocco has taken the life out of me, and i have no spirit to do anything. this morning i took a walk, however, out of the porta maggiore, and looked at the tomb of the baker eurysaces, just outside of the gate,--a very singular ruin covered with symbols of the man's trade in stone-work, and with bas-reliefs along the cornice, representing people at work, making bread. an inscription states that the ashes of his wife are likewise reposited there, in a bread-basket. the mausoleum is perhaps twenty feet long, in its largest extent, and of equal height; and if good bakers were as scarce in ancient rome as in the modern city, i do not wonder that they were thought worthy of stately monuments. none of the modern ones deserve any better tomb than a pile of their own sour loaves. i walked onward a good distance beyond the gate alongside of the arches of the claudian aqueduct, which, in this portion of it, seems to have had little repair, and to have needed little, since it was built. it looks like a long procession, striding across the campagna towards the city, and entering the gate, over one of its arches, within the gate, i saw two or three slender jets of water spurting from the crevices; this aqueduct being still in use to bring the acqua felice into rome. returning within the walls, i walked along their inner base, to the church of st. john lateran, into which i went, and sat down to rest myself, being languid and weary, and hot with the sun, though afraid to trust the coolness of the shade. i hate the roman atmosphere; indeed, all my pleasure in getting back--all my home-feeling--has already evaporated, and what now impresses me, as before, is the languor of rome,--its weary pavements, its little life, pressed down by a weight of death. quitting st. john lateran, i went astray, as i do nine times out of ten in these roman intricacies, and at last, seeing the coliseum in the vista of a street, i betook myself thither to get a fresh start. its round of stones looked vast and dreary, but not particularly impressive. the interior was quite deserted; except that a roman, of respectable appearance, was making a pilgrimage at the altars, kneeling and saying a prayer at each one. outside of the coliseum, a neat-looking little boy came and begged of me; and i gave him a baiocco, rather because he seemed to need it so little than for any other reason. i observed that he immediately afterwards went and spoke to a well-dressed man, and supposed that the child was likewise begging of him. i watched the little boy, however, and saw that, in two or three other instances, after begging of other individuals, he still returned to this well-dressed man; the fact being, no doubt, that the latter was fishing for baiocci through the medium of his child,--throwing the poor little fellow out as a bait, while he himself retained his independent respectability. he had probably come out for a whole day's sport; for, by and by, he went between the arches of the coliseum, followed by the child, and taking with him what looked like a bottle of wine, wrapped in a handkerchief. november d.--the weather lately would have suited one's ideal of an english november, except that there have been no fogs; but of ugly, hopeless clouds, chill, shivering winds, drizzle, and now and then pouring rain, much more than enough. an english coal-fire, if we could see its honest face within doors, would compensate for all the unamiableness of the outside atmosphere; but we might ask for the sunshine of the new jerusalem, with as much hope of getting it. it is extremely spirit-crushing, this remorseless gray, with its icy heart; and the more to depress the whole family, u---- has taken what seems to be the roman fever, by sitting down in the palace of the caesars, while mrs. s----- sketched the ruins. . . . . [during four months of the illness of his daughter, mr. hawthorne wrote no word of journal.--ed.] february th, .--for many days past, there have been tokens of the coming carnival in the corso and the adjacent streets; for example, in the shops, by the display of masks of wire, pasteboard, silk, or cloth, some of beautiful features, others hideous, fantastic, currish, asinine, huge-nosed, or otherwise monstrous; some intended to cover the whole face, others concealing only the upper part, also white dominos, or robes bedizened with gold-lace and theatric splendors, displayed at the windows of mercers or flaunting before the doors. yesterday, u---- and i came along the corso, between one and two o'clock, after a walk, and found all these symptoms of impending merriment multiplied and intensified; . . . . rows of chairs, set out along the sidewalks, elevated a foot or two by means of planks; great baskets, full of confetti, for sale in the nooks and recesses of the streets; bouquets of all qualities and prices. the corso was becoming pretty well thronged with people; but, until two o'clock, nobody dared to fling as much as a rosebud or a handful of sugar-plums. there was a sort of holiday expression, however, on almost everybody's face, such as i have not hitherto seen in rome, or in any part of italy; a smile gleaming out, an aurora of mirth, which probably will not be very exuberant in its noontide. the day was so sunny and bright that it made this opening scene far more cheerful than any day of the last year's carnival. as we threaded our way through the corso, u---- kept wishing she could plunge into the fun and uproar as j----- would, and for my own part, though i pretended to take no interest in the matter, i could have bandied confetti and nosegays as readily and as riotously as any urchin there. but my black hat and grave talma would have been too good a mark for the combatants, . . . . so we went home before a shot was fired. . . . . march th.--i, as well as the rest of the family, have followed up the carnival pretty faithfully, and enjoyed it as well, or rather better than could have been expected; principally in the street, as a more looker-on,--which does not let one into the mystery of the fun,--and twice from a balcony, where i threw confetti, and partly understood why the young people like it so much. certainly, there cannot well be a more picturesque spectacle in human life, than that stately, palatial avenue of the corso, the more picturesque because so narrow, all hung with carpets and gobelin tapestry, and the whole palace-heights alive with faces; and all the capacity of the street thronged with the most fantastic figures that either the fancies of folks alive at this day are able to contrive, or that live traditionally from year to year. . . . . the prince of wales has fought manfully through the carnival with confetti and bouquets, and u---- received several bouquets from him, on saturday, as her carriage moved along. march th.--i went with u---- to mr. motley's balcony, in the corso, and saw the carnival from it yesterday afternoon; but the spectacle is strangely like a dream, in respect to the difficulty of retaining it in the mind and solidifying it into a description. i enjoyed it a good deal, and assisted in so far as to pelt all the people in cylinder hats with handfuls of confetti. the scene opens with a long array of cavalry, who ride through the corso, preceded by a large band, playing loudly on their brazen instruments. . . . . there were some splendid dresses, particularly contadina costumes of scarlet and gold, which seem to be actually the festal attire of that class of people, and must needs be so expensive that one must serve for a lifetime, if indeed it be not an inheritance. . . . . march th.--i was, yesterday, an hour or so among the people on the sidewalks of the corso, just on the edges of the fun. they appeared to be in a decorous, good-natured mood, neither entering into the merriment, nor harshly repelling; and when groups of maskers overflowed among them, they received their jokes in good part. many women of the lower class were in the crowd of bystanders; generally broad and sturdy figures, clad evidently in their best attire, and wearing a good many ornaments; such as gold or coral beads and necklaces, combs of silver or gold, heavy ear-rings, curiously wrought brooches, perhaps cameos or mosaics, though i think they prefer purely metallic work to these. one ornament very common among them is a large bodkin, which they stick through their hair. it is usually of silver, but sometimes it looks like steel, and is made in the shape of a sword,--a long spanish thrusting sword, for example. dr. franco told us a story of a woman of trastevere, who was addressed rudely at the carnival by a gentleman; she warned him to desist, but as he still persisted, she drew the bodkin from her hair, and stabbed him to the heart. by and by i went to mr. motley's balcony, and looked down on the closing scenes of the carnival. methought the merry-makers labored harder to be mirthful, and yet were somewhat tired of their eight play-days; and their dresses looked a little shabby, rumpled, and draggled; but the lack of sunshine--which we have had on all the preceding days--may have produced this effect. the wheels of some of the carriages were wreathed round and spoked with green foliage, making a very pretty and fanciful appearance, as did likewise the harnesses of the horses, which were trimmed with roses. the pervading noise and uproar of human voices is one of the most effective points of the matter; but the scene is quite indescribable, and its effect not to be conceived without both witnessing and taking part in it. if you merely look at it, it depresses you; if you take even the slightest share in it, you become aware that it has a fascination, and you no longer wonder that the young people, at least, take such delight in plunging into this mad river of fun that goes roaring between the narrow limits of the corso. as twilight came on, the moccoli commenced, and as it grew darker the whole street twinkled with lights, which would have been innumerable if every torch-bearer had not been surrounded by a host of enemies, who tried to extinguish his poor little twinkle. it was a pity to lose so much splendor as there might have been; but yet there was a kind of symbolism in the thought that every one of those thousands of twinkling lights was in charge of somebody, who was striving with all his might to keep it alive. not merely the street-way, but all the balconies and hundreds of windows were lit up with these little torches; so that it seemed as if the stars had crumbled into glittering fragments, and rained down upon the corso, some of them lodging upon the palace-fronts, some falling on the ground. besides this, there were gas-lights burning with a white flame; but this illumination was not half so interesting as that of the torches, which indicated human struggle. all this time there were myriad voices shouting, "senza moccolo!" and mingling into one long roar. we, in our balcony, carried on a civil war against one another's torches, as is the custom of human beings, within even the narrowest precincts; but after a while we grew tired, and so did the crowd, apparently; for the lights vanished, one after another, till the gas-lights--which at first were an unimportant part of the illumination--shone quietly out, overpowering the scattered twinkles of the moccoli. they were what the fixed stars are to the transitory splendors of human life. mr. motley tells me, that it was formerly the custom to have a mock funeral of harlequin, who was supposed to die at the close of the carnival, during which he had reigned supreme, and all the people, or as many as chose, bore torches at his burial. but this being considered an indecorous mockery of popish funereal customs, the present frolic of the moccoli was instituted,--in some sort, growing out of it. all last night, or as much of it as i was awake, there was a noise of song and of late revellers in the streets; but to-day we have waked up in the sad and sober season of lent. it is worthy of remark, that all the jollity of the carnival is a genuine ebullition of spirit, without the aid of wine or strong drink. march th.--yesterday we went to the catacomb of st. calixtus, the entrance to which is alongside of the appian way, within sight of the tomb of cecilia metella. we descended not a very great way under ground, by a broad flight of stone steps, and, lighting some wax tapers, with which we had provided ourselves, we followed the guide through a great many intricate passages, which mostly were just wide enough for me to touch the wall on each side, while keeping my elbows close to my body; and as to height, they were from seven to ten feet, and sometimes a good deal higher it was rather picturesque, when we saw the long line of our tapers, for another large party had joined us, twinkling along the dark passage, and it was interesting to think of the former inhabitants of these caverns. . . . . in one or two places there was the round mark in the stone or plaster, where a bottle had been deposited. this was said to have been the token of a martyr's burial-place, and to have contained his blood. after leaving the catacomb, we drove onward to cecilia metella's tomb, which we entered and inspected. within the immensely massive circular substance of the tomb was a round, vacant space, and this interior vacancy was open at the top, and had nothing but some fallen stones and a heap of earth at the bottom. on our way home we entered the church of "domine, quo vadis," and looked at the old fragment of the appian way, where our saviour met st. peter, and left the impression of his feet in one of the roman paving-stones. the stone has been removed, and there is now only a fac-simile engraved in a block of marble, occupying the place where jesus stood. it is a great pity they had not left the original stone; for then all its brother-stones in the pavement would have seemed to confirm the truth of the legend. while we were at dinner, a gentleman called and was shown into the parlor. we supposed it to be mr. may; but soon his voice grew familiar, and my wife was sure it was general pierce, so i left the table, and found it to be really he. i was rejoiced to see him, though a little saddened to see the marks of care and coming age, in many a whitening hair, and many a furrow, and, still more, in something that seemed to have passed away out of him, without leaving any trace. his voice, sometimes, sounded strange and old, though generally it was what it used to be. he was evidently glad to see me, glad to see my wife, glad to see the children, though there was something melancholy in his tone, when he remarked what a stout boy j----- had grown. poor fellow! he has neither son nor daughter to keep his heart warm. this morning i have been with him to st. peter's, and elsewhere about the city, and find him less changed than he seemed to be last night; not at all changed in heart and affections. we talked freely about all matters that came up; among the rest, about the project--recognizable by many tokens--for bringing him again forward as a candidate for the presidency next year. he appears to be firmly resolved not again to present himself to the country, and is content to let his one administration stand, and to be judged by the public and posterity on the merits of that. no doubt he is perfectly sincere; no doubt, too, he would again be a candidate, if a pretty unanimous voice of the party should demand it. i retain all my faith in his administrative faculty, and should be glad, for his sake, to have it fully rccognized; but the probabilities, as far as i can see, do not indicate for him another presidential term. march th.--this morning i went with my wife and miss hoar to miss hosmer's studio, to see her statue of zenobia. we found her in her premises, springing about with a bird-like action. she has a lofty room, with a skylight window; it was pretty well warmed with a stove, and there was a small orange-tree in a pot, with the oranges growing on it, and two or three flower-shrubs in bloom. she herself looked prettily, with her jaunty little velvet cap on the side of her head, whence came clustering out, her short brown curls; her face full of pleasant life and quick expression; and though somewhat worn with thought and struggle, handsome and spirited. she told us that "her wig was growing as gray as a rat." there were but very few things in the room; two or three plaster busts, a headless cast of a plaster statue, and a cast of the minerva medica, which perhaps she had been studying as a help towards the design of her zenobia; for, at any rate, i seemed to discern a resemblance or analogy between the two. zenobia stood in the centre of the room, as yet unfinished in the clay, but a very noble and remarkable statue indeed, full of dignity and beauty. it is wonderful that so brisk a woman could have achieved a work so quietly impressive; and there is something in zenobia's air that conveys the idea of music, uproar, and a great throng all about her; whilst she walks in the midst of it, self-sustained, and kept in a sort of sanctity by her native pride. the idea of motion is attained with great success; you not only perceive that she is walking, but know at just what tranquil pace she steps, amid the music of the triumph. the drapery is very fine and full; she is decked with ornaments; but the chains of her captivity hang from wrist to wrist; and her deportment--indicating a soul so much above her misfortune, yet not insensible to the weight of it--makes these chains a richer decoration than all her other jewels. i know not whether there be some magic in the present imperfect finish of the statue, or in the material of clay, as being a better medium of expression than even marble; but certainly i have seldom been more impressed by a piece of modern sculpture. miss hosmer showed us photographs of her puck--which i have seen in the marble--and likewise of the will-o'-the-wisp, both very pretty and fanciful. it indicates much variety of power, that zenobia should be the sister of these, which would seem the more natural offspring of her quick and vivid character. but zenobia is a high, heroic ode. . . . . on my way up the via babuino, i met general pierce. we have taken two or three walks together, and stray among the roman ruins, and old scenes of history, talking of matters in which he is personally concerned, yet which are as historic as anything around us. he is singularly little changed; the more i see him, the more i get him back, just such as he was in our youth. this morning, his face, air, and smile were so wonderfully like himself of old, that at least thirty years are annihilated. zenobia's manacles serve as bracelets; a very ingenious and suggestive idea. march th.--i went to the sculpture-gallery of the capitol yesterday, and saw, among other things, the venus in her secret cabinet. this was my second view of her: the first time, i greatly admired her; now, she made no very favorable impression. there are twenty venuses whom i like as well, or better. on the whole, she is a heavy, clumsy, unintellectual, and commonplace figure; at all events, not in good looks to-day. marble beauties seem to suffer the same occasional eclipses as those of flesh and blood. we looked at the faun, the dying gladiator, and other famous sculptures; but nothing had a glory round it, perhaps because the sirocco was blowing. these halls of the capitol have always had a dreary and depressing effect upon me, very different from those of the vatican. i know not why, except that the rooms of the capitol have a dingy, shabby, and neglected look, and that the statues are dusty, and all the arrangements less magnificent than at the vatican. the corroded and discolored surfaces of the statues take away from the impression of immortal youth, and turn apollo [the lycian apollo] himself into an old stone; unless at rare intervals, when he appears transfigured by a light gleaming from within. march d.--i am wearing away listlessly these last precious days of my abode in rome. u----'s illness is disheartening, and by confining ------, it takes away the energy and enterprise that were the spring of all our movements. i am weary of rome, without having seen and known it as i ought, and i shall be glad to get away from it, though no doubt there will be many yearnings to return hereafter, and many regrets that i did not make better use of the opportunities within my grasp. still, i have been in rome long enough to be imbued with its atmosphere, and this is the essential condition of knowing a place; for such knowledge does not consist in having seen every particular object it contains. in the state of mind in which i now stand towards rome, there is very little advantage to be gained by staying here longer. and yet i had a pleasant stroll enough yesterday afternoon, all by myself, from the corso down past the church of st. andrea della valle,-- the site where caesar was murdered,--and thence to the farnese palace, the noble court of which i entered; thence to the piazza cenci, where i looked at one or two ugly old palaces, and fixed on one of them as the residence of beatrice's father; then past the temple of vesta, and skirting along the tiler, and beneath the aventine, till i somewhat unexpectedly came in sight of the gray pyramid of caius cestius. i went out of the city gate, and leaned on the parapet that encloses the pyramid, advancing its high, unbroken slope and peak, where the great blocks of marble still fit almost as closely to one another as when they were first laid; though, indeed, there are crevices just large enough for plants to root themselves, and flaunt and trail over the face of this great tomb; only a little verdure, however, over a vast space of marble, still white in spots, but pervadingly turned gray by two thousand years' action of the atmosphere. thence i came home by the caelian, and sat down on an ancient flight of steps under one of the arches of the coliseum, into which the sunshine fell sidelong. it was a delightful afternoon, not precisely like any weather that i have known elsewhere; certainly never in america, where it is always too cold or too hot. it, resembles summer more than anything which we new-englanders recognize in our idea of spring, but there was an indescribable something, sweet, fresh, gentle, that does not belong to summer, and that thrilled and tickled my heart with a feeling partly sensuous, partly spiritual. i go to the bank and read galignani and the american newspapers; thence i stroll to the pincian or to the medici gardens; i see a good deal of general pierce, and we talk over his presidential life, which, i now really think, he has no latent desire nor purpose to renew. yet he seems to have enjoyed it while it lasted, and certainly he was in his element as an administrative man; not far-seeing, not possessed of vast stores of political wisdom in advance of his occasions, but endowed with a miraculous intuition of what ought to be done just at the time for action. his judgment of things about him is wonderful, and his cabinet recognized it as such; for though they were men of great ability, he was evidently the master-mind among them. none of them were particularly his personal friends when he selected them; they all loved him when they parted; and he showed me a letter, signed by all, in which they expressed their feelings of respect and attachment at the close of his administration. there was a noble frankness on his part, that kept the atmosphere always clear among them, and in reference to this characteristic governor marcy told him that the years during which he had been connected with his cabinet had been the happiest of his life. speaking of caleb cushing, he told me that the unreliability, the fickleness, which is usually attributed to him, is an actual characteristic, but that it is intellectual, not moral. he has such comprehensiveness, such mental variety and activity, that, if left to himself, he cannot keep fast hold of one view of things, and so cannot, without external help, be a consistent man. he needs the influence of a more single and stable judgment to keep him from divergency, and, on this condition, he is a most inestimable coadjutor. as regards learning and ability, he has no superior. pierce spoke the other day of the idea among some of his friends that his life had been planned, from a very early period, with a view to the station which he ultimately reached. he smiled at the notion, said that it was inconsistent with his natural character, and that it implied foresight and dexterity beyond what any mortal is endowed with. i think so too; but nevertheless, i was long and long ago aware that he cherished a very high ambition, and that, though he might not anticipate the highest things, he cared very little about inferior objects. then as to plans, i do not think that he had any definite ones; but there was in him a subtle faculty, a real instinct, that taught him what was good for him,--that is to say, promotive of his political success,--and made him inevitably do it. he had a magic touch, that arranged matters with a delicate potency, which he himself hardly recognized; and he wrought through other minds so that neither he nor they always knew when and how far they were under his influence. before his nomination for the presidency i had a sense that it was coming, and it never seemed to me an accident. he is a most singular character; so frank, so true, so immediate, so subtle, so simple, so complicated. i passed by the tower in the via portoghese to-day, and observed that the nearest shop appears to be for the sale of cotton or linen cloth. . . . . the upper window of the tower was half open; of course, like all or almost all other roman windows, it is divided vertically, and each half swings back on hinges. . . . . last week a fritter-establishment was opened in our piazza. it was a wooden booth erected in the open square, and covered with canvas painted red, which looked as if it had withstood much rain and sunshine. in front were three great boughs of laurel, not so much for shade, i think, as ornament. there were two men, and their apparatus for business was a sort of stove, or charcoal furnace, and a frying-pan to place over it; they had an armful or two of dry sticks, some flour, and i suppose oil, and this seemed to be all. it was friday, and lent besides, and possibly there was some other peculiar propriety in the consumption of fritters just then. at all events, their fire burned merrily from morning till night, and pretty late into the evening, and they had a fine run of custom; the commodity being simply dough, cut into squares or rhomboids, and thrown into the boiling oil, which quickly turned them to a light brown color. i sent j----- to buy some, and, tasting one, it resembled an unspeakably bad doughnut, without any sweetening. in fact, it was sour, for the romans like their bread, and all their preparations of flour, in a state of acetous fermentation, which serves them instead of salt or other condiment. this fritter-shop had grown up in a night, like aladdin's palace, and vanished as suddenly; for after standing through friday, saturday, and sunday, it was gone on monday morning, and a charcoal-strewn place on the pavement where the furnace had been was the only memorial of it. it was curious to observe how immediately it became a lounging-place for idle people, who stood and talked all day with the fritter-friers, just as they might at any old shop in the basement, of a palace, or between the half-buried pillars of the temple of minerva, which had been familiar to them and their remote grandfathers. april th.--yesterday afternoon i drove with mr. and mrs. story and mr. wilde to see a statue of venus, which has just been discovered, outside of the porta portese, on the other side of the tiber. a little distance beyond the gate we came to the entrance of a vineyard, with a wheel-track through the midst of it; and, following this, we soon came to a hillside, in which an excavation had been made with the purpose of building a grotto for keeping and storing wine. they had dug down into what seemed to be an ancient bathroom, or some structure of that kind, the excavation being square and cellar-like, and built round with old subterranean walls of brick and stone. within this hollow space the statue had been found, and it was now standing against one of the walls, covered with a coarse cloth, or a canvas bag. this being removed, there appeared a headless marble figure, earth-stained, of course, and with a slightly corroded surface, but wonderfully delicate and beautiful, the shape, size, and attitude, apparently, of the venus de' medici, but, as we all thought, more beautiful than that. it is supposed to be the original, from which the venus de' medici was copied. both arms were broken off, but the greater part of both, and nearly the whole of one hand, had been found, and these being adjusted to the figure, they took the well-known position before the bosom and the middle, as if the fragmentary woman retained her instinct of modesty to the last. there were the marks on the bosom and thigh where the fingers had touched; whereas in the venus de' medici, if i remember rightly, the fingers are sculptured quite free of the person. the man who showed the statue now lifted from a corner a round block of marble, which had been lying there among other fragments, and this he placed upon the shattered neck of the venus; and behold, it was her head and face, perfect, all but the nose! even in spite of this mutilation, it seemed immediately to light up and vivify the entire figure; and, whatever i may heretofore have written about the countenance of the venus de' medici, i here record my belief that that head has been wrongfully foisted upon the statue; at all events, it is unspeakably inferior to this newly discovered one. this face has a breadth and front which are strangely deficient in the other. the eyes are well opened, most unlike the buttonhole lids of the venus de' medici; the whole head is so much larger as to entirely obviate the criticism that has always been made on the diminutive head of the de' medici statue. if it had but a nose! they ought to sift every handful of earth that has been thrown out of the excavation, for the nose and the missing hand and fingers must needs be there; and, if they were found, the effect would be like the reappearance of a divinity upon earth. mutilated as we saw her, it was strangely interesting to be present at the moment, as it were, when she had just risen from her long burial, and was shedding the unquenchable lustre around her which no eye had seen for twenty or more centuries. the earth still clung about her; her beautiful lips were full of it, till mr. story took a thin chip of wood and cleared it away from between them. the proprietor of the vineyard stood by; a man with the most purple face and hugest and reddest nose that i ever beheld in my life. it must have taken innumerable hogsheads of his thin vintage to empurple his face in this manner. he chuckled much over the statue, and, i suppose, counts upon making his fortune by it. he is now awaiting a bid from the papal government, which, i believe, has the right of pre-emption whenever any relics of ancient art are discovered. if the statue could but be smuggled out of italy, it might command almost any price. there is not, i think, any name of a sculptor on the pedestal, as on that of the venus de' medici. a dolphin is sculptured on the pillar against which she leans. the statue is of greek marble. it was first found about eight days ago, but has been offered for inspection only a day or two, and already the visitors come in throngs, and the beggars gather about the entrance of the vineyard. a wine shop, too, seems to have been opened on the premises for the accommodation of this great concourse, and we saw a row of german artists sitting at a long table in the open air, each with a glass of thin wine and something to eat before him; for the germans refresh nature ten times to other persons once. how the whole world might be peopled with antique beauty if the romans would only dig! april th.--general pierce leaves rome this morning for venice, by way of ancona, and taking the steamer thence to trieste. i had hoped to make the journey along with him; but u----'s terrible illness has made it necessary for us to continue here another mouth, and we are thankful that this seems now to be the extent of our misfortune. never having had any trouble before that pierced into my very vitals, i did not know what comfort there might be in the manly sympathy of a friend; but pierce has undergone so great a sorrow of his own, and has so large and kindly a heart, and is so tender and so strong, that he really did the good, and i shall always love him the better for the recollection of his ministrations in these dark days. thank god, the thing we dreaded did not come to pass. pierce is wonderfully little changed. indeed, now that he has won and enjoyed--if there were any enjoyment in it--the highest success that public life could give him, he seems more like what he was in his early youth than at any subsequent period. he is evidently happier than i have ever known him since our college days; satisfied with what he has been, and with the position in the country that remains to him, after filling such an office. amid all his former successes,--early as they came, and great as they were,--i always perceived that something gnawed within him, and kept him forever restless and miserable. nothing he won was worth the winning, except as a step gained toward the summit. i cannot tell how early he began to look towards the presidency; but i believe he would have died an unhappy man without it. and yet what infinite chances there seemed to be against his attaining it! when i look at it in one way, it strikes me as absolutely miraculous; in another, it came like an event that i had all along expected. it was due to his wonderful tact, which is of so subtle a character that he himself is but partially sensible of it. i have found in him, here in rome, the whole of my early friend, and even better than i used to know him; a heart as true and affectionate, a mind much widened and deepened by his experience of life. we hold just the same relation to each other as of yore, and we have passed all the turning-off places, and may hope to go on together still the same dear friends as long as we live. i do not love him one whit the less for having been president, nor for having done me the greatest good in his power; a fact that speaks eloquently in his favor, and perhaps says a little for myself. if he had been merely a benefactor, perhaps i might not have borne it so well; but each did his best for the other as friend for friend. may th.--yesterday afternoon we went to the barberini picture-gallery to take a farewell look at the beatrice cenci, which i have twice visited before since our return from florence. i attempted a description of it at my first visit, more than a year ago, but the picture is quite indescribable and unaccountable in its effect, for if you attempt to analyze it you can never succeed in getting at the secret of its fascination. its peculiar expression eludes a straightforward glance, and can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye falls upon it casually, as it were, and without thinking to discover anything, as if the picture had a life and consciousness of its own, and were resolved not to betray its secret of grief or guilt, though it wears the full expression of it when it imagines itself unseen. i think no other such magical effect can ever have been wrought by pencil. i looked close into its eyes, with a determination to see all that there was in them, and could see nothing that might not have been in any young girl's eyes; and yet, a moment afterwards, there was the expression--seen aside, and vanishing in a moment--of a being unhumanized by some terrible fate, and gazing at me out of a remote and inaccessible region, where she was frightened to be alone, but where no sympathy could reach her. the mouth is beyond measure touching; the lips apart, looking as innocent as a baby's after it has been crying. the picture never can be copied. guido himself could not have done it over again. the copyists get all sorts of expression, gay, as well as grievous; some copies have a coquettish air, a half-backward glance, thrown alluring at the spectator, but nobody ever did catch, or ever will, the vanishing charm of that sorrow. i hated to leave the picture, and yet was glad when i had taken my last glimpse, because it so perplexed and troubled me not to be able to get hold of its secret. thence we went to the church of the capuchins, and saw guido's archangel. i have been several times to this church, but never saw the picture before, though i am familiar with the mosaic copy at st. peter's, and had supposed the latter to be an equivalent representation of the original. it is nearly or quite so as respects the general effect; but there is a beauty in the archangel's face that immeasurably surpasses the copy,--the expression of heavenly severity, and a degree of pain, trouble, or disgust, at being brought in contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it. there is something finical in the copy, which i do not find in the original. the sandalled feet are here those of an angel; in the mosaic they are those of a celestial coxcomb, treading daintily, as if he were afraid they would be soiled by the touch of lucifer. after looking at the archangel we went down under the church, guided by a fleshy monk, and saw the famous cemetery, where the dead monks of many centuries back have been laid to sleep in sacred earth from jerusalem. . . . . france. hotel des colonies, marseilles, may th, saturday.--wednesday was the day fixed for our departure from rome, and after breakfast i walked to the pincian, and saw the garden and the city, and the borghese grounds, and st. peter's in an earlier sunlight than ever before. methought they never looked so beautiful, nor the sky so bright and blue. i saw soracte on the horizon, and i looked at everything as if for the last time; nor do i wish ever to see any of these objects again, though no place ever took so strong a hold of my being as rome, nor ever seemed so close to me and so strangely familiar. i seem to know it better than my birthplace, and to have known it longer; and though i have been very miserable there, and languid with the effects of the atmosphere, and disgusted with a thousand things in its daily life, still i cannot say i hate it, perhaps might fairly own a love for it. but life being too short for such questionable and troublesome enjoyments, i desire never to set eyes on it again. . . . . . . . . we traversed again that same weary and dreary tract of country which we passed over in a winter afternoon and night on our first arrival in rome. it is as desolate a country as can well be imagined, but about midway of our journey we came to the sea-shore, and kept very near it during the rest of the way. the sight and fragrance of it were exceedingly refreshing after so long an interval, and u---- revived visibly as we rushed along, while j----- chuckled and contorted himself with ineffable delight. we reached civita vecchia in three or four hours, and were there subjected to various troubles. . . . . all the while miss s------ and i were bothering about the passport, the rest of the family sat in the sun on the quay, with all kinds of bustle and confusion around them; a very trying experience to u---- after the long seclusion and quiet of her sick-chamber. but she did not seem to suffer from it, and we finally reached the steamer in good condition and spirits. . . . . i slept wretchedly in my short and narrow berth, more especially as there was an old gentleman who snored as if he were sounding a charge; it was terribly hot too, and i rose before four o'clock, and was on deck amply in time to watch the distant approach of sunrise. we arrived at leghorn pretty early, and might have gone ashore and spent the day. indeed, we had been recommended by dr. franco, and had fully purposed to spend a week or ten days there, in expectation of benefit to u----'s health from the sea air and sea bathing, because he thought her still too feeble to make the whole voyage to marseilles at a stretch. but she showed herself so strong that we thought she would get as much good from our three days' voyage as from the days by the sea-shore. moreover, . . . . we all of us still felt the languor of the roman atmosphere, and dreaded the hubbub and crazy confusion of landing at an italian port. . . . . so we lay in the harbor all day without stirring from the steamer. . . . . it would have been pleasant, however, to have gone to pisa, fifteen miles off, and seen the leaning tower; but, for my part, i have arrived at that point where it is somewhat pleasanter to sit quietly in any spot whatever than to see whatever grandest or most beautiful thing. at least this was my mood in the harbor of leghorn. from the deck of the steamer there were many things visible that might have been interesting to describe: the boats of peculiar rig, and covered with awning; the crowded shipping; the disembarkation of horses from the french cavalry, which were lowered from steamers into gondolas or lighters, and hung motionless, like the sign of the golden fleece, during the transit, only kicking a little when their feet happened to graze the vessel's side. one horse plunged overboard, and narrowly escaped drowning. there was likewise a disembarkation of french soldiers in a train of boats, which rowed shoreward with sound of trumpet. the french are concentrating a considerable number of troops at this point. our steamer was detained by order of the french government to take on board despatches; so that, instead of sailing at dusk, as is customary, we lay in the harbor till seven of the next morning. a number of young sardinian officers, in green uniform, came on board, and a pale and picturesque-looking italian, and other worthies of less note,--english, american, and of all races,--among them a turk with a little boy in christian dress; also a greek gentleman with his young bride. at the appointed time we weighed anchor for genoa, and had a beautiful day on the mediterranean, and for the first time in my life i saw the real dark blue of the sea. i do not remember noticing it on my outward voyage to italy. it is the most beautiful hue that can be imagined, like a liquid sky; and it retains its lustrous blue directly under the side of the ship, where the water of the mid-atlantic looks greenish. . . . . we reached genoa at seven in the afternoon. . . . . genoa looks most picturesquely from the sea, at the foot of a sheltering semicircle of lofty hills; and as we lay in the harbor we saw, among other interesting objects, the great doria palace, with its gardens, and the cathedral, and a heap and sweep of stately edifices, with the mountains looking down upon he city, and crowned with fortresses. the variety of hue in the houses, white, green, pink, and orange, was very remarkable. it would have been well to go ashore here for an hour or two and see the streets, --having already seen the palaces, churches, and public buildings at our former visit,--and buy a few specimens of genoa goldsmiths' work; but i preferred the steamer's deck, so the evening passed pleasantly away; the two lighthouses at the entrance of the port kindled up their fires, and at nine o'clock the evening gun thundered from the fortress, and was reverberated from the heights. we sailed away at eleven, and i was roused from my first sleep by the snortings and hissings of the vessel as she got under way. at genoa we took on board some more passengers, an english nobleman with his lady being of the number. these were lord and lady j------, and before the end of our voyage his lordship talked to me of a translation of tasso in which he is engaged, and a stanza or two of which he repeated to me. i really liked the lines, and liked too the simplicity and frankness with which he spoke of it to me a stranger, and the way be seemed to separate his egotism from the idea which he evidently had that he is going to make an excellent translation. i sincerely hope it may be so. he began it without any idea of publishing it, or of ever bringing it to a conclusion, but merely as a solace and occupation while in great trouble during an illness of his wife, but he has gradually come to find it the most absorbing occupation he ever undertook; and as mr. gladstone and other high authorities give him warm encouragement, he now means to translate the entire poem, and to publish it with beautiful illustrations, and two years hence the world may expect to see it. i do not quite perceive how such a man as this--a man of frank, warm, simple, kindly nature, but surely not of a poetical temperament, or very refined, or highly cultivated--should make a good version of tasso's poems; but perhaps the dead poet's soul may take possession of this healthy organization, and wholly turn him to its own purposes. the latter part of our voyage to-day lay close along the coast of france, which was hilly and picturesque, and as we approached marseilles was very bold and striking. we steered among rocky islands, rising abruptly out of the sea, mere naked crags, without a trace of verdure upon them, and with the surf breaking at their feet. they were unusual specimens of what hills would look like without the soil, that is to them what flesh is to a skeleton. their shapes were often wonderfully fine, and the great headlands thrust themselves out, and took such lines of light and shade that it seemed like sailing through a picture. in the course of the afternoon a squall came up and blackened the sky all over in a twinkling; our vessel pitched and tossed, and a brig a little way from us had her sails blown about in wild fashion. the blue of the sea turned as black as night, and soon the rain began to spatter down upon us, and continued to sprinkle and drizzle a considerable time after the wind had subsided. it was quite calm and pleasant when we entered the harbor of marseilles, which lies at the foot of very fair hills, and is set among great cliffs of stone. i did not attend much to this, however, being in dread of the difficulty of landing and passing through the custom-house with our twelve or fourteen trunks and numberless carpet-bags. the trouble vanished into thin air, nevertheless, as we approached it, for not a single trunk or bag was opened, and, moreover, our luggage and ourselves were not only landed, but the greater part of it conveyed to the railway without any expense. long live louis napoleon, say i. we established ourselves at the hotel des colonies, and then mss s------, j-----, and i drove hither and thither about marseilles, making arrangements for our journey to avignon, where we mean to go to-day. we might have avoided a good deal of this annoyance; but travellers, like other people, are continually getting their experience just a little too late. it was after nine before we got back to the hotel and took our tea in peace. avignon. hotel de l'europe, june st.--i remember nothing very special to record about marseilles; though it was really like passing from death into life, to find ourselves in busy, cheerful, effervescing france, after living so long between asleep and awake in sluggish italy. marseilles is a very interesting and entertaining town, with its bold surrounding heights, its wide streets,--so they seemed to us after the roman alleys,--its squares, shady with trees, its diversified population of sailors, citizens, orientals, and what not; but i have no spirit for description any longer; being tired of seeing things, and still more of telling myself about them. only a young traveller can have patience to write his travels. the newest things, nowadays, have a familiarity to my eyes; whereas in their lost sense of novelty lies the charm and power of description. on monday ( th may), though it began with heavy rain, we set early about our preparations for departure, . . . . and, at about three, we left the hotel des colonies. it is a very comfortable hotel, though expensive. the restaurant connected with it occupies the enclosed court-yard and the arcades around it; and it was a good amusement to look down from the surrounding gallery, communicating with our apartments, and see the fashion and manner of french eating, all the time going forward. in sunny weather a great awning is spread over the whole court, across from the upper stories of the house. there is a grass-plat in the middle, and a very spacious and airy dining-saloon is thus formed. our railroad carriage was comfortable, and we found in it, besides two other frenchwomen, two nuns. they were very devout, and sedulously read their little books of devotion, repeated prayers under their breath, kissed the crucifixes which hung at their girdles, and told a string of beads, which they passed from one to the other. so much were they occupied with these duties, that they scarcely looked at the scenery along the road, though, probably, it is very rare for them to see anything outside of their convent walls. they never failed to mutter a prayer and kiss the crucifix whenever we plunged into a tunnel. if they glanced at their fellow-passengers, it was shyly and askance, with their lips in motion all the time, like children afraid to let their eyes wander from their lesson-book. one of them, however, took occasion to pull down r-----'s dress, which, in her frisky movements about the carriage, had got out of place, too high for the nun's sense of decorum. neither of them was at all pretty, nor was the black stuff dress and white muslin cap in the least becoming, neither were their features of an intelligent or high-bred stamp. their manners, however, or such little glimpses as i could get of them, were unexceptionable; and when i drew a curtain to protect one of them from the sun, she made me a very courteous gesture of thanks. we had some very good views both of sea and hills; and a part of our way lay along the banks of the rhone. . . . . by the by, at the station at marseilles i bought the two volumes of the "livre des merveilles," by a certain author of my acquaintance, translated into french, and printed and illustrated in very pretty style. miss s------ also bought them, and, in answer to her inquiry for other works by the same author, the bookseller observed that "she did not think monsieur nathaniel had published anything else." the christian name deems to be the most important one in france, and still more especially in italy. we arrived at avignon, hotel de l'europe, in the dusk of the evening. . . . . the lassitude of rome still clings to us, and i, at least, feel no spring of life or activity, whether at morn or eve. in the morning we found ourselves very pleasantly situated as regards lodgings. the gallery of our suite of rooms looks down as usual into an enclosed court, three sides of which are formed by the stone house and its two wings, and the third by a high wall, with a gateway of iron between two lofty stone pillars, which, for their capitals, have great stone vases, with grass growing in them, and hanging over the brim. there is a large plane-tree in one corner of the court, and creeping plants clamber up trellises; and there are pots of flowers and bird-cages, all of which give a very fresh and cheerful aspect to the enclosure. the court is paved with small round stones; the omnibus belonging to the hotel, and all the carriages of guests drive into it; and the wide arch of the stable-door opens under the central part of the house. nevertheless, the scene is not in all respects that of a stable-yard; for gentlemen and ladies come from the salle a manger and other rooms, and stand talking in the court, or occupy chairs and seats there; children play about; the hostess or her daughter often appears and talks with her guests or servants; dogs lounge, and, in short, the court might well enough be taken for the one scene of a classic play. the hotel seems to be of the first class, though such would not be indicated, either in england or america, by thus mixing up the stable with the lodgings. i have taken two or three rambles about the town, and have climbed a high rock which dominates over it, and gives a most extensive view from the broad table-land of its summit. the old church of avignon --as old as the times of its popes, and older--stands close beside this mighty and massive crag. we went into it, and found it a dark old place, with broad, interior arches, and a singularly shaped dome; a venerable gothic and grecian porch, with ancient frescos in its arched spaces; some dusky pictures within; an ancient chair of stone, formerly occupied by the popes, and much else that would have been exceedingly interesting before i went to rome. but rome takes the charm out of an inferior antiquity, as well as the life out of human beings. this forenoon j----- and i have crossed the rhone by a bridge, just the other side of one of the city gates, which is near our hotel. we walked along the riverside, and saw the ruins of an ancient bridge, which ends abruptly in the midst of the stream; two or three arches still making tremendous strides across, while the others have long ago been crumbled away by the rush of the rapid river. the bridge was originally founded by st. benezet, who received a divine order to undertake the work, while yet a shepherd-boy, with only three sous in his pocket; and he proved the authenticity of the mission by taking an immense stone on his shoulder, and laying it for the foundation. there is still an ancient chapel midway on the bridge, and i believe st. benezet lies buried there, in the midst of his dilapidated work. the bridge now used is considerably lower down the stream. it is a wooden suspension-bridge, broader than the ancient one, and doubtless more than supplies its place; else, unquestionably, st. benezet would think it necessary to repair his own. the view from the inner side of this ruined structure, grass-grown and weedy, and leading to such a precipitous plunge into the swift river, is very picturesque, in connection with the gray town and above it, the great, massive bulk of the cliff, the towers of the church, and of a vast old edifice, shapeless, ugly, and venerable, which the popes built and occupied as their palace, many centuries ago. . . . . after dinner we all set out on a walk, in the course of which we called at a bookseller's shop to show u---- an enormous cat, which i had already seen. it is of the angora breed, of a mottled yellow color, and is really a wonder; as big and broad as a tolerably sized dog, very soft and silken, and apparently of the gentlest disposition. i never imagined the like, nor felt anything so deeply soft as this great beast. its master seems very fond and proud of it; and, great favorite as the cat is, she does not take airs upon herself, but is gently shy and timid in her demonstrations. we ascended the great rocher above the palace of the popes, and on our way looked into the old church, which was so dim in the decline of day that we could not see within the dusky arches, through which the chapels communicated with the nave. thence we pursued our way up the farther ascent, and, standing on the edge of the precipice,--protected by a parapet of stone, and in other places by an iron railing,--we could look down upon the road that winds its dusky track far below, and at the river rhone, which eddies close beside it. this is indeed a massive and lofty cliff, and it tumbles down so precipitously that i could readily have flung myself from the bank, and alighted on my head in the middle of the river. the rhone passes so near its base that i threw stones a good way into its current. we talked with a man of avignon, who leaned over the parapet near by, and he was very kind in explaining the points of view, and told us that the river, which winds and doubles upon itself so as to look like at least two rivers, is really the rhone alone. the durance joins with it within a few miles below avignon, but is here invisible. hotel de l'europe, june d.--this morning we went again to the duomo of the popes; and this time we allowed the custode, or sacristan, to show us the curiosities of it. he led us into a chapel apart, and showed us the old gothic tomb of pope john xxii., where the recumbent statue of the pope lies beneath one of those beautiful and venerable canopies of stone which look at once so light and so solemn. i know not how many hundred years old it is, but everything of gothic origin has a faculty of conveying the idea of age; whereas classic forms seem to have nothing to do with time, and so lose the kind of impressiveness that arises from suggestions of decay and the past. in the sacristy the guide opened a cupboard that contained the jewels and sacred treasures of the church, and showed a most exquisite figure of christ in ivory, represented as on a cross of ebony; and it was executed with wonderful truth and force of expression, and with great beauty likewise. i do not see what a full-length marble statue could have had that was lacking in this little ivory figure of hardly more than a foot high. it is about two centuries old, by an unknown artist. there is another famous ivory statuette in avignon which seems to be more celebrated than this, but can hardly be superior. i shall gladly look at it if it comes in my way. next to this, the prettiest thing the man showed us was a circle of emeralds, in one of the holy implements; and then he exhibited a little bit or a pope's skull; also a great old crozier, that looked as if made chiefly of silver, and partly gilt; but i saw where the plating of silver was worn away, and betrayed the copper of its actual substance. there were two or three pictures in the sacristy, by ancient and modern french artists, very unlike the productions of the italian masters, but not without a beauty of their own. leaving the sacristy, we returned into the church, where u---- and j----- began to draw the pope's old stone chair. there is a beast, or perhaps more than one, grotesquely sculptured upon it; the seat is high and square, the back low and pointed, and it offers no enticing promise to a weary man. the interior of the church is massively picturesque, with its vaulted roof, and a stone gallery, heavily ornamented, running along each side of the nave. each arch of the nave gives admittance to a chapel, in all of which there are pictures, and sculptures in most of them. one of these chapels is of the time of charlemagne, and has a vaulted roof of admirable architecture, covered with frescos of modern date and little merit. in an adjacent chapel is the stone monument of pope benedict, whose statue reposes on it, like many which i have seen in the cathedral of york and other old english churches. in another part we saw a monument, consisting of a plain slab supported on pillars; it is said to be of a roman or very early christian epoch. in another chapel was a figure of christ in wax, i believe, and clothed in real drapery; a very ugly object. also, a figure reposing under a slab, which strikes the spectator with the idea that it is really a dead person enveloped in a shroud. there are windows of painted glass in some of the chapels; and the gloom of the dimly lighted interior, especially beneath the broad, low arches, is very impressive. while we were there some women assembled at one of the altars, and went through their acts of devotion without the help of a priest; one and another of them alternately repeating prayers, to which the rest responded. the murmur of their voices took a musical tone, which was reverberated by the vaulted arches. u---- and i now came out; and, under the porch, we found an old woman selling rosaries, little religious books, and other holy things. we bought two little medals of the immaculate virgin, one purporting to be of silver, the other of gold; but as both together cost only two or three sous, the genuineness of the material may well be doubted. we sat down on the steps, of a crucifix which is placed in front of the church, and the children began to draw the porch, of which i hardly know whether to call the architecture classic or gothic (as i said before); at all events it has a venerable aspect, and there are frescos within its arches by simone memmi. . . . . the popes' palace is contiguous to the church, and just below it, on the hillside. it is now occupied as barracks by some regiments of soldiers, a number of whom were lounging before the entrance; but we passed the sentinel without being challenged, and addressed ourselves to the concierge, who readily assented to our request to be shown through the edifice. a french gentleman and lady, likewise, came with similar purpose, and went the rounds along with us. the palace is such a confused heap and conglomeration of buildings, that it is impossible to get within any sort of a regular description. it is a huge, shapeless mass of architecture; and if it ever had any pretence to a plan, it has lost it in the modern alterations. for instance, an immense and lofty chapel, or rather church, has had two floors, one above the other, laid at different stages of its height; and the upper one of these floors, which extends just where the arches of the vaulted root begin to spring from the pillars, is ranged round with the beds of one of the regiments of soldiers. they are small iron bedsteads, each with its narrow mattress, and covered with a dark blanket. on some of them lay or lounged a soldier; other soldiers were cleaning their accoutrements; elsewhere we saw parties of them playing cards. so it was wherever we went among those large, dingy, gloomy halls and chambers, which, no doubt, were once stately and sumptuous, with pictures, with tapestry, and all sorts of adornment that the middle ages knew how to use. the windows threw a sombre light through embrasures at least two feet thick. there were staircases of magnificent breadth. we were shown into two small chapels, in different parts of the building, both containing the remains of old frescos wofully defaced. in one of them was a light, spiral staircase of iron, built in the centre of the room as a means of contemplating the frescos, which were said to be the work of our old friend giotto. . . . . finally, we climbed a long, long, narrow stair, built in the thickness of the wall, and thus gained access to the top of one of the towers, whence we saw the noblest landscapes, mountains, plains, and the rhone, broad and bright, winding hither and thither, as if it had lost its way. beneath our feet was the gray, ugly old palace, and its many courts, just as void of system and as inconceivable as when we were burrowing through its bewildering passages. no end of historical romances might be made out of this castle of the popes; and there ought to be a ghost in every room, and droves of them in some of the rooms; for there have been murders here in the gross and in detail, as well hundreds of years ago, as no longer back than the french revolution, when there was a great massacre in one of the courts. traces of this bloody business were visible in actual stains on the wall only a few years ago. returning to the room of the concierge, who, being a little stiff with age, had sent an attendant round with us, instead of accompanying us in person, he showed us a picture of rienzi, the last of the roman tribunes, who was once a prisoner here. on a table, beneath the picture, stood a little vase of earthenware containing some silver coin. we took it as a hint, in the customary style of french elegance, that a fee should be deposited here, instead of being put into the hand of the concierge; so the french gentleman deposited half a franc, and i, in my magnificence, twice as much. hotel de l'europe, june th.--we are still here. . . . . i have been daily to the rocher des dons, and have grown familiar with the old church on its declivity. i think i might become attached to it by seeing it often. a sombre old interior, with its heavy arches, and its roof vaulted like the top of a trunk; its stone gallery, with ponderous adornments, running round three sides. i observe that it is a daily custom of the old women to say their prayers in concert, sometimes making a pilgrimage, as it were, from chapel to chapel. the voice of one of them is heard running through the series of petitions, and at intervals the voices of the others join and swell into a chorus, so that it is like a river connecting a series of lakes; or, not to use so gigantic a simile, the one voice is like a thread, on which the beads of a rosary are strung. one day two priests came and sat down beside these prayerful women, and joined in their petitions. i am inclined to hope that there is something genuine in the devotion of these old women. the view from the top of the rocker des dons (a contraction of dominis) grows upon me, and is truly magnificent; a vast mountain-girdled plain, illuminated by the far windings and reaches of the rhone. the river is here almost as turbid as the tiber itself; but, i remember, in the upper part of its course the waters are beautifully transparent. a powerful rush is indicated by the swirls and eddies of its broad surface. yesterday was a race day at avignon, and apparently almost the whole population and a great many strangers streamed out of the city gate nearest our hotel, on their way to the race-course. there were many noticeable figures that might come well into a french picture or description; but only one remains in my memory,--a young man with a wooden leg, setting off for the course--a walk of several miles, i believe--with prodigious courage and alacrity, flourishing his wooden leg with an air and grace that seemed to render it positively flexible. the crowd returned towards sunset, and almost all night long, the streets and the whole air of the old town were full of song and merriment. there was a ball in a temporary structure, covered with an awning, in the place d'horloge, and a showman has erected his tent and spread forth his great painted canvases, announcing an anaconda and a sea-tiger to be seen. j----- paid four sous for admittance, and found that the sea-tiger was nothing but a large seal, and the anaconda altogether a myth. i have rambled a good deal about the town. its streets are crooked and perplexing, and paved with round pebbles for the most part, which afford more uncomfortable pedestrianism than the pavement of rome itself. it is an ancient-looking place, with some large old mansions, but few that are individually impressive; though here and there one sees an antique entrance, a corner tower, or other bit of antiquity, that throws a venerable effect over the gray commonplace of past centuries. the town is not overclean, and often there is a kennel of unhappy odor. there appear to have been many more churches and devotional establishments under the ancient dominion of the popes than have been kept intact in subsequent ages; the tower and facade of a church, for instance, form the front of a carpenter's shop, or some such plebeian place. the church where laura lay has quite disappeared, and her tomb along with it. the town reminds me of chester, though it does not in the least resemble it, and is not nearly so picturesque. like chester, it is entirely surrounded by a wall; and that of avignon--though it has no delightful promenade on its top, as the wall of chester has--is the more perfectly preserved in its mediaeval form, and the more picturesque of the two. j----- and i have once or twice walked nearly round it, commencing from the gate of ouelle, which is very near our hotel. from this point it stretches for a considerable distance along by the river, and here there is a broad promenade, with trees, and blocks of stone for seats; on one side "the arrowy rhone," generally carrying a cooling breeze along with it; on the other, the gray wall, with its battlements and machicolations, impending over what was once the moat, but which is now full of careless and untrained shrubbery. at intervals there are round towers swelling out from the wall, and rising a little above it. after about half a mile along the river-side the wall turns at nearly right angles, and still there is a wide road, a shaded walk, a boulevard; and at short distances are cafes, with their little round tables before the door, or small shady nooks of shrubbery. so numerous are these retreats and pleasaunces that i do not see how the little old town can support them all, especially as there are a great many cafes within the walls. i do not remember seeing any soldiers on guard at the numerous city gates, but there is an office in the side of each gate for levying the octroi, and old women are sometimes on guard there. this morning, after breakfast, j----- and i crossed the suspension-bridge close by the gate nearest our hotel, and walked to the ancient town of villeneuve, on the other side of the rhone. the first bridge leads to an island, from the farther side of which another very long one, with a timber foundation, accomplishes the passage of the other branch of the rhone. there was a good breeze on the river, but after crossing it we found the rest of the walk excessively hot. this town of villeneuve is of very ancient origin, and owes its existence, it is said, to the famous holiness of a female saint, which gathered round her abode and burial-place a great many habitations of people who reverenced her. she was the daughter of the king of saragossa, and i presume she chose this site because it was so rocky and desolate. afterwards it had a long mediaeval history; and in the time of the avignon popes, the cardinals, regretful of their abandoned roman villas, built pleasure-houses here, so that the town was called villa nueva. after they had done their best, it must have seemed to these poor cardinals but a rude and sad exchange for the borghese, the albani, the pamfili doria, and those other perfectest results of man's luxurious art. and probably the tradition of the roman villas had really been kept alive, and extant examples of them all the way downward from the times of the empire. but this villeneuve is the stoniest, roughest town that can be imagined. there are a few large old houses, to be sure, but built on a line with shabby village dwellings and barns, and so presenting little but samples of magnificent shabbiness. perhaps i might have found traces of old splendor if i had sought for them; but, not having the history of the place in my mind, i passed through its scrambling streets without imagining that princes of the church had once made their abode here. the inhabitants now are peasants, or chiefly such; though, for aught i know, some of the french noblesse may burrow in these palaces that look so like hovels. a large church, with a massive tower, stands near the centre of the town; and, of course, i did not fail to enter its arched door,--a pointed arch, with many frames and mouldings, one within another. an old woman was at her devotions, and several others came in and knelt during my stay there. it was quite an interesting interior; a long nave, with six pointed arches on each side, beneath which were as many chapels. the walls were rich with pictures, not only in the chapels, but up and down the nave, above the arches. there were gilded virgins, too, and much other quaint device that produced an effect that i rather liked than otherwise. at the end of the church, farthest from the high altar, there were four columns of exceedingly rich marble, and a good deal more of such precious material was wrought into the chapels and altars. there was an old stone seat, also, of some former pope or prelate. the church was dim enough to cause the lamps in the shrines to become points of vivid light, and, looking from end to end, it was a long, venerable, tarnished, old world vista, not at all tampered with by modern taste. we now went on our way through the village, and, emerging from a gate, went clambering towards the castle of st. andre, which stands, perhaps, a quarter of a mile beyond it. this castle was built by philip le bel, as a restraint to the people of avignon in extending their power on this side of the rhone. we happened not to take the most direct way, and so approached the castle on the farther side and were obliged to go nearly round the hill on which it stands, before striking into the path which leads to its gate. it crowns a very bold and difficult hill, directly above the rhone, opposite to avignon,--which is so far off that objects are not minutely distinguishable,--and looking down upon the long, straggling town of villeneuve. it must have been a place of mighty strength, in its day. its ramparts seem still almost entire, as looked upon from without, and when, at length, we climbed the rough, rocky pathway to the entrance, we found the two vast round towers, with their battlemented summits and arched gateway between them, just as perfect as they could have been five hundred or more years ago. some external defences are now, however, in a state of ruin; and there are only the remains of a tower, that once arose between the two round towers, and was apparently much more elevated than they. a little in front of the gate was a monumental cross of stone; and in the arch, between the two round towers, were two little boys at play; and an old woman soon showed herself, but took no notice of us. casting our eyes within the gateway, we saw what looked a rough village street, betwixt old houses built ponderously of stone, but having far more the aspect of huts than of castle-hails. they were evidently the dwellings of peasantry, and people engaged in rustic labor; and no doubt they have burrowed into the primitive structures of the castle, and, as they found convenient, have taken their crumbling materials to build barns and farm-houses. there was space and accommodation for a very considerable population; but the men were probably at work in the fields, and the only persons visible were the children aforesaid, and one or two old women bearing bundles of twigs on their backs. they showed no curiosity respecting us, and though the wide space included within the castle-rampart seemed almost full of habitations ruinous or otherwise, i never found such a solitude in any ruin before. it contrasts very favorably in this particular with english castles, where, though you do not find rustic villages within the warlike enclosure, there is always a padlocked gate, always a guide, and generally half a dozen idle tourists. but here was only antiquity, with merely the natural growth of fungous human life upon it. we went to the end of the castle court and sat down, for lack of other shade, among some inhospitable nettles that grew close to the wall. close by us was a great gap in the ramparts,--it may have been a breach which was once stormed through; and it now afforded us an airy and sunny glimpse of distant hills. . . . . j----- sketched part of the broken wall, which, by the by, did not seem to me nearly so thick as the walls of english castles. then we returned through the gate, and i stopped, rather impatiently, under the hot sun, while j----- drew the outline of the two round towers. this done, we resumed our way homeward, after drinking from a very deep well close by the square tower of philip le bel. thence we went melting through the sunshine, which beat upward as pitilessly from the white road as it blazed downwards from the sky. . . . . geneva. hotel d'angleterre, june th.--we left avignon on tuesday, th, and took the rail to valence, where we arrived between four and five, and put up at the hotel de la poste, an ancient house, with dirty floors and dirt generally, but otherwise comfortable enough. . . . . valence is a stately old town, full of tall houses and irregular streets. we found a cathedral there, not very large, but with a high and venerable interior, a nave supported by tall pillars, from the height of which spring arches. this loftiness is characteristic of french churches, as distinguished from those of italy. . . . . we likewise saw, close by the cathedral, a large monument with four arched entrances meeting beneath a vaulted roof; but, on inquiry of an old priest and other persons, we could get no account of it, except that it was a tomb, and of unknown antiquity. the architecture seemed classic, and yet it had some gothic peculiarities, and it was a reverend and beautiful object. had i written up my journal while the town was fresh in my remembrance, i might have found much to describe; but a succession of other objects have obliterated most of the impressions i have received here. our railway ride to valence was intolerably hot. i have felt nothing like it since leaving america, and that is so long ago that the terrible discomfort was just as good as new. . . . . we left valence at four, and came that afternoon to lyons, still along the rhone. either the waters of this river assume a transparency in winter which they lose in summer, or i was mistaken in thinking them transparent on our former journey. they are now turbid; but the hue does not suggest the idea of a running mud-puddle, as the water of the tiber does. no streams, however, are so beautiful in the quality of their waters as the clear, brown rivers of new england. the scenery along this part of the rhone, as we have found all the way from marseilles, is very fine and impressive; old villages, rocky cliffs, castellated steeps, quaint chateaux, and a thousand other interesting objects. we arrived at lyons at five o'clock, and went to the hotel de l'univers, to which we had been recommended by our good hostess at avignon. the day had become showery, but j----- and i strolled about a little before nightfall, and saw the general characteristics of the place. lyons is a city of very stately aspect, hardly inferior to paris; for it has regular streets of lofty houses, and immense squares planted with trees, and adorned with statues and fountains. new edifices of great splendor are in process of erection; and on the opposite side of the rhone, where the site rises steep and high, there are structures of older date, that have an exceedingly picturesque effect, looking down upon the narrow town. the next morning i went out with j----- in quest of my bankers, and of the american consul; and as i had forgotten the directions of the waiter of the hotel, i of course went astray, and saw a good deal more of lyons than i intended. in my wanderings i crossed the rhone, and found myself in a portion of the city evidently much older than that with which i had previously made acquaintance; narrow, crooked, irregular, and rudely paved streets, full of dingy business and bustle,--the city, in short, as it existed a century ago, and how much earlier i know not. above rises that lofty elevation of ground which i before noticed; and the glimpses of its stately old buildings through the openings of the street were very picturesque. unless it be edinburgh, i have not seen any other city that has such striking features. altogether unawares, immediately after crossing the bridge, we came upon the cathedral; and the grand, time-blackened gothic front, with its deeply arched entrances, seemed to me as good as anything i ever saw,--unexpectedly more impressive than all the ruins of rome. i could but merely glance at its interior; so that its noble height and venerable space, filled with the dim, consecrated light of pictured windows, recur to me as a vision. and it did me good to enjoy the awfulness and sanctity of gothic architecture again, after so long shivering in classic porticos. . . . . we now recrossed the river. . . . . the frank methods and arrangements in matters of business seem to be excellent, so far as effecting the proposed object is concerned; but there is such an inexorable succession of steel-wrought forms, that life is not long enough for so much accuracy. the stranger, too, goes blindfold through all these processes, not knowing what is to turn up next, till, when quite in despair, he suddenly finds his business mysteriously accomplished. . . . . we left lyons at four o'clock, taking the railway for geneva. the scenery was very striking throughout the journey; but i allowed the hills, deep valleys, high impending cliffs, and whatever else i saw along the road, to pass from me without an ink-blot. we reached geneva at nearly ten o'clock. . . . . it is situated partly on low, flat ground, bordering the lake, and behind this level space it rises by steep, painfully paved streets, some of which can hardly be accessible by wheeled carriages. the prosperity of the town is indicated by a good many new and splendid edifices, for commercial and other purposes, in the vicinity of the lake; but intermixed with these there are many quaint buildings of a stern gray color, and in a style of architecture that i prefer a thousand times to the monotony of italian streets. immensely high, red roofs, with windows in them, produce an effect that delights me. they are as ugly, perhaps, as can well be conceived, but very striking and individual. at each corner of these ancient houses frequently is a tower, the roof of which rises in a square pyramidal form, or, if the tower be round, in a round pyramidal form. arched passages, gloomy and grimy, pass from one street to another. the lower town creeps with busy life, and swarms like an ant-hill; but if you climb the half-precipitous streets, you find yourself among ancient and stately mansions, high roofed, with a strange aspect of grandeur about them, looking as if they might still be tenanted by such old magnates as dwelt in them centuries ago. there is also a cathedral, the older portion exceedingly fine; but it has been adorned at some modern epoch with a grecian portico,--good in itself, but absurdly out of keeping with the edifice which it prefaces. this being a protestant country, the doors were all shut,--an inhospitality that made me half a catholic. it is funny enough that a stranger generally profits by all that is worst for the inhabitants of the country where he himself is merely a visitor. despotism makes things all the pleasanter for the stranger. catholicism lends itself admirably to his purposes. there are public gardens (one, at least) in geneva. . . . . nothing struck me so much, i think, as the color of the rhone, as it flows under the bridges in the lower town. it is absolutely miraculous, and, beautiful as it is, suggests the idea that the tubs of a thousand dyers have emptied their liquid indigo into the stream. when once you have conquered and thrust out this idea, it is an inexpressible delight to look down into this intense, brightly transparent blue, that hurries beneath you with the speed of a race-horse. the shops of geneva are very tempting to a traveller, being full of such little knick-knacks as he would be glad to carry away in memory of the place: wonderful carvings in wood and ivory, done with exquisite taste and skill; jewelry that seems very cheap, but is doubtless dear enough, if you estimate it by the solid gold that goes into its manufacture; watches, above all things else, for a third or a quarter of the price that one pays in england, looking just as well, too, and probably performing the whole of a watch's duty as uncriticisably. the swiss people are frugal and inexpensive in their own habits, i believe, plain and simple, and careless of ornament; but they seem to reckon on other people's spending a great deal of money for gewgaws. we bought some of their wooden trumpery, and likewise a watch for u----. . . . . next to watches, jewelry, and wood-carving, i should say that cigars were one of the principal articles of commerce in geneva. cigar-shops present themselves at every step or two, and at a reasonable rate, there being no duties, i believe, on imported goods. there was no examination of our trunks on arrival, nor any questions asked on that score. villeneuve. hotel de byron, june th.--yesterday afternoon we left geneva by a steamer, starting from the quay at only a short distance from our hotel. the forenoon had been showery; but the suit now came out very pleasantly, although there were still clouds and mist enough to give infinite variety to the mountain scenery. at the commencement of our voyage the scenery of the lake was not incomparably superior to that of other lakes on which i have sailed, as lake windermere, for instance, or loch lomond, or our own lake champlain. it certainly grew more grand and beautiful, however, till at length i felt that i had never seen anything worthy to be put beside it. the southern shore has the grandest scenery; the great hills on that side appearing close to the water's edge, and after descending, with headlong slope, directly from their rocky and snow-streaked summits down into the blue water. our course lay nearer to the northern shore, and all our stopping-places were on that side. the first was coppet, where madame de stael or her father, or both, were either born or resided or died, i know not which, and care very little. it is a picturesque village, with an old church, and old, high-roofed, red-tiled houses, the whole looking as if nothing in it had been changed for many, many years. all these villages, at several of which we stopped momentarily, look delightfully unmodified by recent fashions. there is the church, with its tower crowned by a pyramidal roof, like an extinguisher; then the chateau of the former lord, half castle and half dwelling-house, with a round tower at each corner, pyramid topped; then, perhaps, the ancient town-house or hotel de ville, in an open paved square; and perhaps the largest mansion in the whole village will have been turned into a modern inn, but retaining all its venerable characteristics of high, steep sloping roof, and antiquated windows. scatter a delightful shade of trees among the houses, throw in a time-worn monument of one kind or another, swell out the delicious blue of the lake in front, and the delicious green of the sunny hillside sloping up and around this closely congregated neighborhood of old, comfortable houses, and i do not know what more i can add to this sketch. often there was an insulated house or cottage, embowered in shade, and each seeming like the one only spot in the wide world where two people that had good consciences and loved each other could spend a happy life. half-ruined towers, old historic castles, these, too, we saw. and all the while, on the other side of the lake, were the high hills, sometimes dim, sometimes black, sometimes green, with gray precipices of stone, and often snow-patches, right above the warm sunny lake whereon we were sailing. we passed lausanne, which stands upward, on the slope of the hill, the tower of its cathedral forming a conspicuous object. we mean to visit this to-morrow; so i may pretermit further mention of it here. we passed vevay and clarens, which, methought, was particularly picturesque; for now the hills had approached close to the water on the northern side also, and steep heights rose directly above the little gray church and village; and especially i remember a rocky cliff which ascends into a rounded pyramid, insulated from all other peaks and ridges. but if i could perform the absolute impossibility of getting one single outline of the scene into words, there would be all the color wanting, the light, the haze, which spiritualizes it, and moreover makes a thousand and a thousand scenes out of that single one. clarens, however, has still another interest for me; for i found myself more affected by it, as the scene of the love of st. preux and julie, than i have often been by scenes of poetry and romance. i read rousseau's romance with great sympathy, when i was hardly more than a boy; ten years ago, or thereabouts, i tried to read it again without success; but i think, from my feeling of yesterday, that it still retains its hold upon my imagination. farther onward, we saw a white, ancient-looking group of towers, beneath a mountain, which was so high, and rushed so precipitately down upon this pile of building as quite to dwarf it; besides which, its dingy whiteness had not a very picturesque effect. nevertheless, this was the castle of chillon. it appears to sit right upon the water, and does not rise very loftily above it. i was disappointed in its aspect, having imagined this famous castle as situated upon a rock, a hundred, or, for aught i know, a thousand feet above the surface of the lake; but it is quite as impressive a fact--supposing it to be true--that the water is eight hundred feet deep at its base. by this time, the mountains had taken the beautiful lake into their deepest heart; they girdled it quite round with their grandeur and beauty, and, being able to do no more for it, they here withheld it from extending any farther; and here our voyage came to an end. i have never beheld any scene so exquisite; nor do i ask of heaven to show me any lovelier or nobler one, but only to give me such depth and breadth of sympathy with nature, that i may worthily enjoy this. it is beauty more than enough for poor, perishable mortals. if this be earth, what must heaven be! it was nearly eight o'clock when we arrived; and then we had a walk of at least a mile to the hotel byron. . . . . i forgot to mention that in the latter part of our voyage there was a shower in some part of the sky, and though none of it fell upon us, we had the benefit of those gentle tears in a rainbow, which arched itself across the lake from mountain to mountain, so that our track lay directly under this triumphal arch. we took it as a good omen, nor were we discouraged, though, after the rainbow had vanished, a few sprinkles of the shower came down. we found the hotel byron very grand indeed, and a good one too. there was a beautiful moonlight on the lake and hills, but we contented ourselves with looking out of our lofty window, whence, likewise, we had a sidelong glance at the white battlements of chillon, not more than a mile off, on the water's edge. the castle is wofully in need of a pedestal. if its site were elevated to a height equal to its own, it would make a far better appearance. as it now is, it looks, to speak profanely of what poetry has consecrated, when seen from the water, or along the shore of the lake, very like an old whitewashed factory or mill. this morning i walked to the castle of chillon with j-----, who sketches everything he sees, from a wildflower or a carved chair to a castle or a range of mountains. the morning had sunshine thinly scattered through it; but, nevertheless, there was a continual sprinkle, sometimes scarcely perceptible, and then again amounting to a decided drizzle. the road, which is built along on a little elevation above the lake shore, led us past the castle of chillon; and we took a side-path, which passes still nearer the castle gate. the castle stands on an isthmus of gravel, permanently connecting it with the mainland. a wooden bridge, covered with a roof, passes from the shore to the arched entrance; and beneath this shelter, which has wooden walls as well as roof and floor, we saw a soldier or gendarme who seemed to act as warder. as it sprinkled rather more freely than at first, i thought of appealing to his hospitality for shelter from the rain, but concluded to pass on. the castle makes a far better appearance on a nearer view, and from the land, than when seen at a distance, and from the water. it is built of stone, and seems to have been anciently covered with plaster, which imparts the whiteness to which byron does much more than justice, when he speaks of "chillon's snow-white battlements." there is a lofty external wall, with a cluster of round towers about it, each crowned with its pyramidal roof of tiles, and from the central portion of the castle rises a square tower, also crowned with its own pyramid to a considerably greater height than the circumjacent ones. the whole are in a close cluster, and make a fine picture of ancient strength when seen at a proper proximity; for i do not think that distance adds anything to the effect. there are hardly any windows, or few, and very small ones, except the loopholes for arrows and for the garrison of the castle to peep from on the sides towards the water; indeed, there are larger windows at least in the upper apartments; but in that direction, no doubt, the castle was considered impregnable. trees here and there on the land side grow up against the castle wall, on one part of which, moreover, there was a green curtain of ivy spreading from base to battlement. the walls retain their machicolations, and i should judge that nothing had been [altered], nor any more work been done upon the old fortress than to keep it in singularly good repair. it was formerly a castle of the duke of savoy, and since his sway over the country ceased (three hundred years at least), it has been in the hands of the swiss government, who still keep some arms and ammunition there. we passed on, and found the view of it better, as we thought, from a farther point along the road. the raindrops began to spatter down faster, and we took shelter under an impending precipice, where the ledge of rock had been blasted and hewn away to form the road. our refuge was not a very convenient and comfortable one, so we took advantage of the partial cessation of the shower to turn homeward, but had not gone far when we met mamma and all her train. as we were close by the castle entrance, we thought it advisable to seek admission, though rather doubtful whether the swiss gendarme might not deem it a sin to let us into the castle on sunday. but he very readily admitted us under his covered drawbridge, and called an old man from within the fortress to show us whatever was to be seen. this latter personage was a staid, rather grim, and calvinistic-looking old worthy; but he received us without scruple, and forthwith proceeded to usher us into a range of most dismal dungeons, extending along the basement of the castle, on a level with the surface of the lake. first, if i remember aright, we came to what he said had been a chapel, and which, at all events, looked like an aisle of one, or rather such a crypt as i have seen beneath a cathedral, being a succession of massive pillars supporting groined arches,--a very admirable piece of gloomy gothic architecture. next, we came to a very dark compartment of the same dungeon range, where he pointed to a sort of bed, or what might serve for a bed, hewn in the solid rock, and this, our guide said, had been the last sleeping-place of condemned prisoners on the night before their execution. the next compartment was still duskier and dismaller than the last, and he bade us cast our eyes up into the obscurity and see a beam, where the condemned ones used to be hanged. i looked and looked, and closed my eyes so as to see the clearer in this horrible duskiness on opening them again. finally, i thought i discerned the accursed beam, and the rest of the party were certain that they saw it. next beyond this, i think, was a stone staircase, steep, rudely cut, and narrow, down which the condemned were brought to death; and beyond this, still on the same basement range of the castle, a low and narrow [corridor] through which we passed and saw a row of seven massive pillars, supporting two parallel series of groined arches, like those in the chapel which we first entered. this was bonnivard's prison, and the scene of byron's poem. the arches are dimly lighted by narrow loopholes, pierced through the immensely thick wall, but at such a height above the floor that we could catch no glimpse of land or water, or scarcely of the sky. the prisoner of chillon could not possibly have seen the island to which byron alludes, and which is a little way from the shore, exactly opposite the town of villeneuve. there was light enough in this long, gray, vaulted room, to show us that all the pillars were inscribed with the names of visitors, among which i saw no interesting one, except that of byron himself, which is cut, in letters an inch long or more, into one of the pillars next to that to which bonnivard was chained. the letters are deep enough to remain in the pillar as long as the castle stands. byron seems to have had a fancy for recording his name in this and similar ways; as witness the record which i saw on a tree of newstead abbey. in bonnivard's pillar there still remains an iron ring, at the height of perhaps three feet from the ground. his chain was fastened to this ring, and his only freedom was to walk round this pillar, about which he is said to have worn a path in the stone pavement of the dungeon; but as the floor is now covered with earth or gravel, i could not satisfy myself whether this be true. certainly six years, with nothing else to do in them save to walk round the pillar, might well suffice to wear away the rock, even with naked feet. this column, and all the columns, were cut and hewn in a good style of architecture, and the dungeon arches are not without a certain gloomy beauty. on bonnivard's pillar, as well as on all the rest, were many names inscribed; but i thought better of byron's delicacy and sensitiveness for not cutting his name into that very pillar. perhaps, knowing nothing of bonnivard's story, he did not know to which column he was chained. emerging from the dungeon-vaults, our guide led us through other parts of the castle, showing us the duke of savoy's kitchen, with a fireplace at least twelve feet long; also the judgment-hall, or some such place, hung round with the coats of arms of some officers or other, and having at one end a wooden post, reaching from floor to ceiling, and having upon it the marks of fire. by means of this post, contumacious prisoners were put to a dreadful torture, being drawn up by cords and pulleys, while their limbs were scorched by a fire underneath. we also saw a chapel or two, one of which is still in good and sanctified condition, and was to be used this very day, our guide told us, for religious purposes. we saw, moreover, the duke's private chamber, with a part of the bedstead on which he used to sleep, and be haunted with horrible dreams, no doubt, and the ghosts of wretches whom he had tortured and hanged; likewise the bedchamber of his duchess, that had in its window two stone seats, where, directly over the head of bonnivard, the ducal pair might look out on the beautiful scene of lake and mountains, and feel the warmth of the blessed sun. under this window, the guide said, the water of the lake is eight hundred feet in depth; an immense profundity, indeed, for an inland lake, but it is not very difficult to believe that the mountain at the foot of which chillon stands may descend so far beneath the water. in other parts of the lake and not distant, more than nine hundred feet have been sounded. i looked out of the duchess's window, and could certainly see no appearance of a bottom in the light blue water. the last thing that the guide showed us was a trapdoor, or opening, beneath a crazy old floor. looking down into this aperture we saw three stone steps, which we should have taken to be the beginning of a flight of stairs that descended into a dungeon, or series of dungeons, such as we had already seen. but inspecting them more closely, we saw that the third step terminated the flight, and beyond was a dark vacancy. three steps a person would grope down, planting his uncertain foot on a dimly seen stone; the fourth step would be in the empty air. the guide told us that it used to be the practice to bring prisoners hither, under pretence of committing them to a dungeon, and make them go down the three steps and that fourth fatal one, and they would never more be heard of; but at the bottom of the pit there would be a dead body, and in due time a mouldy skeleton, which would rattle beneath the body of the next prisoner that fell. i do not believe that it was anything more than a secret dungeon for state prisoners whom it was out of the question either to set at liberty or bring to public trial. the depth of the pit was about forty-five feet. gazing intently down, i saw a faint gleam of light at the bottom, apparently coming from some other aperture than the trap-door over which we were bending, so that it must have been contemplated to supply it with light and air in such degree as to support human life. u---- declared she saw a skeleton at the bottom; miss s------ thought she saw a hand, but i saw only the dim gleam of light. there are two or three courts in the castle, but of no great size. we were now led across one of them, and dismissed out of the arched entrance by which we had come in. we found the gendarme still keeping watch on his roofed drawbridge, and as there was the same gentle shower that had been effusing itself all the morning, we availed ourselves of the shelter, more especially as there were some curiosities to examine. these consisted chiefly of wood-carvings,--such as little figures in the national costume, boxes with wreaths of foliage upon them, paper knives, the chamois goat, admirably well represented. we at first hesitated to make any advances towards trade with the gendarme because it was sunday, and we fancied there might be a calvinistic scruple on his part about turning a penny on the sabbath; but from the little i know of the swiss character, i suppose they would be as ready as any other men to sell, not only such matters, but even their own souls, or any smaller--or shall we say greater--thing on sunday or at any other time. so we began to ask the prices of the articles, and met with no difficulty in purchasing a salad spoon and fork, with pretty bas-reliefs carved on the handles, and a napkin-ring. for rosebud's and our amusement, the gendarme now set a musical-box a-going; and as it played a pasteboard figure of a dentist began to pull the tooth of a pasteboard patient, lifting the wretched simulacrum entirely from the ground, and keeping him in this horrible torture for half an hour. meanwhile, mamma, miss shepard, u----, and j----- sat down all in a row on a bench and sketched the mountains; and as the shower did not cease, though the sun most of the time shone brightly, they were kept actual prisoners of chillon much longer than we wished to stay. we took advantage of the first cessation,--though still the drops came dimpling into the water that rippled against the pebbles beneath the bridge,--of the first partial cessation of the shower, to escape, and returned towards the hotel, with this kindliest of summer rains falling upon us most of the way in the afternoon the rain entirely ceased, and the weather grew delightfully radiant, and warmer than could well be borne in the sunshine. u---- and i walked to the village of villeneuve, --a mile from the hotel,--and found a very commonplace little old town of one or two streets, standing on a level, and as uninteresting as if there were not a hill within a hundred miles. it is strange what prosaic lines men thrust in amid the poetry of nature. . . . . hotel de l'angleterre, geneva, june th.--yesterday morning was very fine, and we had a pretty early breakfast at hotel byron, preparatory to leaving it. this hotel is on a magnificent scale of height and breadth, its staircases and corridors being the most spacious i have seen; but there is a kind of meagreness in the life there, and a certain lack of heartiness, that prevented us from feeling at home. we were glad to get away, and took the steamer on our return voyage, in excellent spirits. apparently it had been a cold night in the upper regions, for a great deal more snow was visible on some of the mountains than we had before observed; especially a mountain called "diableries" presented a silver summit, and broad sheets and fields of snow. nothing ever can have been more beautiful than those groups of mighty hills as we saw them then, with the gray rocks, the green slopes, the white snow-patches and crests, all to be seen at one glance, and the mists and fleecy clouds tumbling, rolling, hovering about their summits, filling their lofty valleys, and coming down far towards the lower world, making the skyey aspects so intimate with the earthly ones, that we hardly knew whether we were sojourning in the material or spiritual world. it was like sailing through the sky, moreover, to be borne along on such water as that of lake leman,--the bluest, brightest, and profoundest element, the most radiant eye that the dull earth ever opened to see heaven withal. i am writing nonsense, but it is because no sense within my mind will answer the purpose. some of these mountains, that looked at no such mighty distance, were at least forty or fifty miles off, and appeared as if they were near neighbors and friends of other mountains, from which they were really still farther removed. the relations into which distant points are brought, in a view of mountain scenery, symbolize the truth which we can never judge within our partial scope of vision, of the relations which we bear to our fellow-creatures and human circumstances. these mighty mountains think that they have nothing to do with one another, each seems itself its own centre, and existing for itself alone; and yet to an eye that can take them all in, they are evidently portions of one grand and beautiful idea, which could not be consummated without the lowest and the loftiest of them. i do not express this satisfactorily, but have a genuine meaning in it nevertheless. we passed again by chillon, and gazed at it as long as it was distinctly visible, though the water view does no justice to its real picturesqueness, there being no towers nor projections on the side towards the lake, nothing but a wall of dingy white, with an indentation that looks something like a gateway. about an hour and a half brought us to ouchy, the point where passengers land to take the omnibus to lausanne. the ascent from ouchy to lausanne is a mile and a half, which it took the omnibus nearly half an hour to accomplish. we left our shawls and carpet-bags in the salle a manger of the hotel faucon, and set forth to find the cathedral, the pinnacled tower of which is visible for a long distance up and down the lake. prominent as it is, however, it is by no means very easy to find it while rambling through the intricate streets and declivities of the town itself, for lausanne is the town, i should fancy, in all the world the most difficult to go directly from one point to another. it is built on the declivity of a hill, adown which run several valleys or ravines, and over these the contiguity of houses extends, so that the communication is kept up by means of steep streets and sometimes long weary stairs, which must be surmounted and descended again in accomplishing a very moderate distance. in some inscrutable way we at last arrived at the cathedral, which stands on a higher site than any other in lausanne. it has a very venerable exterior, with all the gothic grandeur which arched mullioned windows, deep portals, buttresses, towers, and pinnacles, gray with a thousand years, can give to architecture. after waiting awhile we obtained entrance by means of an old woman, who acted the part of sacristan, and was then showing the church to some other visitors. the interior disappointed us; not but what it was very beautiful, but i think the excellent repair that it was in, and the puritanic neatness with which it is kept, does much towards effacing the majesty and mystery that belong to an old church. every inch of every wall and column, and all the mouldings and tracery, and every scrap of grotesque carving, had been washed with a drab mixture. there were likewise seats all up and down the nave, made of pine wood, and looking very new and neat, just such seats as i shall see in a hundred meeting-houses (if ever i go into so many) in america. whatever might be the reason, the stately nave, with its high-groined roof, the clustered columns and lofty pillars, the intersecting arches of the side-aisles, the choir, the armorial and knightly tombs that surround what was once the high altar, all produced far less effect than i could have thought beforehand. as it happened, we had more ample time and freedom to inspect this cathedral than any other that we have visited, for the old woman consented to go away and leave us there, locking the door behind her. the others, except rosebud, sat down to sketch such portions as struck their fancy; and for myself, i looked at the monuments, of which some, being those of old knights, ladies, bishops, and a king, were curious from their antiquity; and others are interesting as bearing memorials of english people, who have died at lausanne in comparatively recent years. then i went up into the pulpit, and tried, without success, to get into the stone gallery that runs all round the nave; and i explored my way into various side apartments of the cathedral, which i found fitted up with seats for sabbath schools, perhaps, or possibly for meetings of elders of the church. i opened the great bible of the church, and found it to be a french version, printed at lille some fifty years ago. there was also a liturgy, adapted, probably, to the lutheran form of worship. in one of the side apartments i found a strong box, heavily clamped with iron, and having a contrivance, like the hopper of a mill, by which money could be turned into the top, while a double lock prevented its being abstracted again. this was to receive the avails of contributions made in the church; and there were likewise boxes, stuck on the ends of long poles, wherewith the deacons could go round among the worshippers, conveniently extending the begging-box to the remotest curmudgeon among them all. from the arrangement of the seats in the nave, and the labels pasted or painted on them, i judged that the women sat on one side and the men on the other, and the seats for various orders of magistrates, and for ecclesiastical and collegiate people, were likewise marked out. i soon grew weary of these investigations, and so did rosebud and j-----, who essayed to amuse themselves with running races together over the horizontal tombstones in the pavement of the choir, treading remorselessly over the noseless effigies of old dignitaries, who never expected to be so irreverently treated. i put a stop to their sport, and banished them to different parts of the cathedral; and by and by, the old woman appeared again, and released us from durance. . . . . while waiting for our dejeuner, we saw the people dining at the regular table d'hote of the hotel, and the idea was strongly borne in upon me, that the professional mystery of a male waiter is a very unmanly one. it is so absurd to see the solemn attentiveness with which they stand behind the chairs, the earnestness of their watch for any crisis that may demand their interposition, the gravity of their manner in performing some little office that the guest might better do for himself, their decorous and soft steps; in short, as i sat and gazed at them, they seemed to me not real men, but creatures with a clerical aspect, engendered out of a very artificial state of society. when they are waiting on myself, they do not appear so absurd; it is necessary to stand apart in order to see them properly. we left lausanne--which was to us a tedious and weary place--before four o'clock. i should have liked well enough to see the house of gibbon, and the garden in which he walked, after finishing "the decline and fall"; but it could not be done without some trouble and inquiry, and as the house did not come to see me, i determined not to go and see the house. there was, indeed, a mansion of somewhat antique respectability, near our hotel, having a garden and a shaded terrace behind it, which would have answered accurately enough to the idea of gibbon's residence. perhaps it was so; far more probably not. our former voyages had been taken in the hirondelle; we now, after broiling for some time in the sunshine by the lakeside, got on board of the aigle, no. . there were a good many passengers, the larger proportion of whom seemed to be english and american, and among the latter a large party of talkative ladies, old and young. the voyage was pleasant while we were protected from the sun by the awning overhead, but became scarcely agreeable when the sun had descended so low as to shine in our faces or on our backs. we looked earnestly for mont blanc, which ought to have been visible during a large part of our course; but the clouds gathered themselves hopelessly over the portion of the sky where the great mountain lifted his white peak; and we did not see it, and probably never shall. as to the meaner mountains, there were enough of them, and beautiful enough; but we were a little weary, and feverish with the heat. . . . . i think i had a head-ache, though it is so unusual a complaint with me, that i hardly know it when it comes. we were none of us sorry, therefore, when the eagle brought us to the quay of geneva, only a short distance from our hotel. . . . . to-day i wrote to mr. wilding, requesting him to secure passages for us from liverpool on the th of next month, or st of august. it makes my heart thrill, half pleasantly, half otherwise; so much nearer does this step seem to bring that home whence i have now been absent six years, and which, when i see it again, may turn out to be not my home any longer. i likewise wrote to bennoch, though i know not his present address; but i should deeply grieve to leave england without seeing him. he and henry bright are the only two men in england to whom i shall be much grieved to bid farewell; but to the island itself i cannot bear to say that word as a finality. i shall dreamily hope to come back again at some indefinite time; rather foolishly perhaps, for it will tend to take the substance out of my life in my own land. but this, i suspect, is apt to be the penalty of those who stay abroad and stay too long. havre. hotel wheeler, june d.--we arrived at this hotel last evening from paris, and find ourselves on the borders of the petit quay notre dame, with steamers and boats right under our windows, and all sorts of dock-business going on briskly. there are barrels, bales, and crates of goods; there are old iron cannon for posts; in short, all that belongs to the wapping of a great seaport. . . . . the american partialities of the guests [of this hotel] are consulted by the decorations of the parlor, in which hang two lithographs and colored views of new york, from brooklyn and from weehawken. the fashion of the house is a sort of nondescript mixture of frank, english, and american, and is not disagreeable to us after our weary experience of continental life. the abundance of the food is very acceptable in comparison with the meagreness of french and italian meals; and last evening we supped nobly on cold roast beef and ham, set generously before us, in the mass, instead of being doled out in slices few and thin. the waiter has a kindly sort of manner, and resembles the steward of a vessel rather than a landsman; and, in short, everything here has undergone a change, which might admit of very effective description. i may now as well give up all attempts at journalizing. so i shall say nothing of our journey across france from geneva. . . . . to-night, we shall take our departure in a steamer for southampton, whence we shall go to london; thence, in a week or two, to liverpool; thence to boston and concord, there to enjoy--if enjoyment it prove--a little rest and a sense that we are at home. [more than four months were now taken up in writing "the marble faun," in great part at the seaside town of redcar, yorkshire, mr. hawthorne having concluded to remain another year in england, chiefly to accomplish that romance. in redcar, where he remained till september or october, he wrote no journal, but only the book. he then went to leamington, where he finished "the marble faun" in march, and there is a little journalizing soon after leaving redcar.--ed.] england. leamington, november th, .--j---- and i walked to lillington the other day. its little church was undergoing renovation when we were here two years ago, and now seems to be quite renewed, with the exception of its square, gray, battlemented tower, which has still the aspect of unadulterated antiquity. on saturday j----- and i walked to warwick by the old road, passing over the bridge of the avon, within view of the castle. it is as fine a piece of english scenery as exists anywhere,-- the quiet little river, shadowed with drooping trees, and, in its vista, the gray towers and long line of windows of the lordly castle, with a picturesquely varied outline; ancient strength, a little softened by decay. . . . . the town of warwick, i think, has been considerably modernized since i first saw it. the whole of the central portion of the principal street now looks modern, with its stuccoed or brick fronts of houses, and, in many cases, handsome shop windows. leicester hospital and its adjoining chapel still look venerably antique; and so does a gateway that half bestrides the street. beyond these two points on either side it has a much older aspect. the modern signs heighten the antique impression. february th, .--mr. and mrs. bennoch are staying for a little while at mr. b------'s at coventry, and mr. b------ called upon us the other day, with mr. bennoch, and invited us to go and see the lions of coventry; so yesterday u---- and i went. it was not my first visit, therefore i have little or nothing to record, unless it were to describe a ribbon-factory into which mr. b------ took us. but i have no comprehension of machinery, and have only a confused recollection of an edifice of four or five stories, on each floor of which were rows of huge machines, all busy with their iron hands and joints in turning out delicate ribbons. it was very curious and unintelligible to me to observe how they caused different colored patterns to appear, and even flowers to blossom, on the plain surface of a ribbon. some of the designs were pretty, and i was told that one manufacturer pays pounds annually to french artists (or artisans, for i do not know whether they have a connection with higher art) merely for new patterns of ribbons. the english find it impossible to supply themselves with tasteful productions of this sort merely from the resources of english fancy. if an englishman possessed the artistic faculty to the degree requisite to produce such things, he would doubtless think himself a great artist, and scorn to devote himself to these humble purposes. every frenchman is probably more of an artist than one englishman in a thousand. we ascended to the very roof of the factory, and gazed thence over smoky coventry, which is now a town of very considerable size, and rapidly on the increase. the three famous spires rise out of the midst, that of st. michael being the tallest and very beautiful. had the day been clear, we should have had a wide view on all sides; for warwickshire is well laid out for distant prospects, if you can only gain a little elevation from which to see them. descending from the roof, we next went to see trinity church, which has just come through an entire process of renovation, whereby much of its pristine beauty has doubtless been restored; but its venerable awfulness is greatly impaired. we went into three churches, and found that they had all been subjected to the same process. it would be nonsense to regret it, because the very existence of these old edifices is involved in their being renewed; but it certainly does deprive them of a great part of their charm, and puts one in mind of wigs, padding, and all such devices for giving decrepitude the aspect of youth. in the pavement of the nave and aisles there are worn tombstones, with defaced inscriptions, and discolored marbles affixed against the wall; monuments, too, where a mediaeval man and wife sleep side by side on a marble slab; and other tombs so old that the inscriptions are quite gone. over an arch, in one of the churches, there was a fresco, so old, dark, faded, and blackened, that i found it impossible to make out a single figure or the slightest hint of the design. on the whole, after seeing the churches of italy, i was not greatly impressed with these attempts to renew the ancient beauty of old english minsters; it would be better to preserve as sedulously as possible their aspect of decay, in which consists the principal charm. . . . . on our way to mr. b------'s house, we looked into the quadrangle of a charity-school and old men's hospital, and afterwards stepped into a large roman catholic church, erected within these few years past, and closely imitating the mediaeval architecture and arrangements. it is strange what a plaything, a trifle, an unserious affair, this imitative spirit makes of a huge, ponderous edifice, which if it had really been built five hundred years ago would have been worthy of all respect. i think the time must soon come when this sort of thing will be held in utmost scorn, until the lapse of time shall give it a claim to respect. but, methinks, we had better strike out any kind of architecture, so it be our own, however wretched, than thus tread back upon the past. mr. b------ now conducted us to his residence, which stands a little beyond the outskirts of the city, on the declivity of a hill, and in so windy a spot that, as he assured me, the very plants are blown out of the ground. he pointed to two maimed trees whose tops were blown off by a gale two or three years since; but the foliage still covers their shortened summits in summer, so that he does not think it desirable to cut them down. in america, a man of mr. b------'s property would take upon himself the state and dignity of a millionaire. it is a blessed thing in england, that money gives a man no pretensions to rank, and does not bring the responsibilities of a great position. we found three or four gentlemen to meet us at dinner,--a mr. d------ and a mr. b------, an author, having written a book called "the philosophy of necessity," and is acquainted with emerson, who spent two or three days at his house when last in england. he was very kindly appreciative of my own productions, as was also his wife, next to whom i sat at dinner. she talked to me about the author of "adam bede," whom she has known intimately all her life. . . . . miss evans (who wrote "adam bede") was the daughter of a steward, and gained her exact knowledge of english rural life by the connection with which this origin brought her with the farmers. she was entirely self-educated, and has made herself an admirable scholar in classical as well as in modern languages. those who knew her had always recognized her wonderful endowments, and only watched to see in what way they would develop themselves. she is a person of the simplest manners and character, amiable and unpretending, and mrs. b------ spoke of her with great affection and respect. . . . . mr. b------, our host, is an extremely sensible man; and it is remarkable how many sensible men there are in england,--men who have read and thought, and can develop very good ideas, not exactly original, yet so much the product of their own minds that they can fairly call them their own. february th.--. . . . this present month has been somewhat less dismal than the preceding ones; there have been some sunny and breezy days when there was life in the air, affording something like enjoyment in a walk, especially when the ground was frozen. it is agreeable to see the fields still green through a partial covering of snow; the trunks and branches of the leafless trees, moreover, have a verdant aspect, very unlike that of american trees in winter, for they are covered with a delicate green moss, which is not so observable in summer. often, too, there is a twine of green ivy up and down the trunk. the other day, as j----- and i were walking to whitnash, an elm was felled right across our path, and i was much struck by this verdant coating of moss over all its surface,--the moss plants too minute to be seen individually, but making the whole tree green. it has a pleasant effect here, where it is the natural aspect of trees in general; but in america a mossy tree-trunk is not a pleasant object, because it is associated with damp, low, unwholesome situations. the lack of foliage gives many new peeps and vistas, hereabouts, which i never saw in summer. march th.--j----- and i walked to warwick yesterday forenoon, and went into st. mary's church, to see the beauchamp chapel. . . . . on one side of it were some worn steps ascending to a confessional, where the priest used to sit, while the penitent, in the body of the church, poured his sins through a perforated auricle into this unseen receptacle. the sexton showed us, too, a very old chest which had been found in the burial vault, with some ancient armor stored away in it. three or four helmets of rusty iron, one of them barred, the last with visors, and all intolerably weighty, were ranged in a row. what heads those must have been that could bear such massiveness! on one of the helmets was a wooden crest--some bird or other--that of itself weighed several pounds. . . . . april d.--we have been here several weeks. . . . . had i seen bath earlier in my english life, i might have written many pages about it, for it is really a picturesque and interesting city. it is completely sheltered in the lap of hills, the sides of the valley rising steep and high from the level spot on which it stands, and through which runs the muddy little stream of the avon. the older part of the town is on the level, and the more modern growth--the growth of more than a hundred years--climbs higher and higher up the hillside, till the upper streets are very airy and lofty. the houses are built almost entirely of bath stone, which in time loses its original buff color, and is darkened by age and coal-smoke into a dusky gray; but still the city looks clean and pure as compared with most other english towns. in its architecture, it has somewhat of a parisian aspect, the houses having roofs rising steep from their high fronts, which are often adorned with pillars, pilasters, and other good devices, so that you see it to be a town built with some general idea of beauty, and not for business. there are circuses, crescents, terraces, parades, and all such fine names as we have become familiar with at leamington, and other watering-places. the declivity of most of the streets keeps them remarkably clean, and they are paved in a very comfortable way, with large blocks of stone, so that the middle of the street is generally practicable to walk upon, although the sidewalks leave no temptation so to do, being of generous width. in many alleys, and round about the abbey and other edifices, the pavement is of square flags, like those of florence, and as smooth as a palace floor. on the whole, i suppose there is no place in england where a retired man, with a moderate income, could live so tolerably as at bath; it being almost a city in size and social advantages; quite so, indeed, if eighty thousand people make a city,--and yet having no annoyance of business nor spirit of worldly struggle. all modes of enjoyment that english people like may be had here; and even the climate is said to be milder than elsewhere in england. how this may be, i know not; but we have rain or passing showers almost every day since we arrived, and i suspect the surrounding hills are just about of that inconvenient height, that keeps catching clouds, and compelling them to squeeze out their moisture upon the included valley. the air, however, certainly is preferable to that of leamington. . . . . there are no antiquities except the abbey, which has not the interest of many other english churches and cathedrals. in the midst of the old part of the town stands the house which was formerly beau nash's residence, but which is now part of the establishment of an ale-merchant. the edifice is a tall, but rather mean-looking, stone building, with the entrance from a little side court, which is so cumbered with empty beer-barrels as hardly to afford a passage. the doorway has some architectural pretensions, being pillared and with some sculptured devices--whether lions or winged heraldic monstrosities i forget--on the pediment. within, there is a small entry, not large enough to be termed a hall, and a staircase, with carved balustrade, ascending by angular turns and square landing-places. for a long course of years, ending a little more than a century ago, princes, nobles, and all the great and beautiful people of old times, used to go up that staircase, to pay their respects to the king of bath. on the side of the house there is a marble slab inserted, recording that here he resided, and that here he died in , between eighty and ninety years of age. my first acquaintance with him was in smollett's "roderick random," and i have met him in a hundred other novels. his marble statue is in a niche at one end of the great pump-room, in wig, square-skirted coat, flapped waistcoat, and all the queer costume of the period, still looking ghost-like upon the scene where he used to be an autocrat. marble is not a good material for beau nash, however; or, if so, it requires color to set him off adequately. . . . . it is usual in bath to see the old sign of the checker-board on the doorposts of taverns. it was originally a token that the game might be played there, and is now merely a tavern-sign. london. hertford street, mayfair, may th, .--i came hither from bath on the th, and am staying with my friends, mr. and mrs. motley. i would gladly journalize some of my proceedings, and describe things and people; but i find the same coldness and stiffness in my pen as always since our return to england. i dined with the motleys at lord dufferin's, on monday evening, and there met, among a few other notable people, the honorable mrs. norton, a dark, comely woman, who doubtless was once most charming, and still has charms, at above fifty years of age. in fact, i should not have taken her to be greatly above thirty, though she seems to use no art to make herself look younger, and talks about her time of life, without any squeamishness. her voice is very agreeable, having a sort of muffled quality, which is excellent in woman. she is of a very cheerful temperament, and so has borne a great many troubles without being destroyed by them. but i can get no color into my sketch, so shall leave it here. london, may th. [from a letter.]--affairs succeed each other so fast, that i have really forgotten what i did yesterday. i remember seeing my dear friend, henry bright, and listening to him, as we strolled in the park, and along the strand. to-day i met at breakfast mr. field talfourd, who promises to send you the photograph of his portrait of mr. browning. he was very agreeable, and seemed delighted to see me again. at lunch, we had lord dufferin, the honorable mrs. norton, and mr. sterling (author of the "cloister life of charles v."), with whom we are to dine on sunday. you would be stricken dumb, to see how quietly i accept a whole string of invitations, and what is more, perform my engagements without a murmur. a german artist has come to me with a letter of introduction, and a request that i will sit to him for a portrait in bas-relief. to this, likewise, i have assented! subject to the condition that i shall have my leisure. the stir of this london life, somehow or other, has done me a wonderful deal of good, and i feel better than for months past. this is strange, for if i had my choice, i should leave undone almost all the things i do. i have had time to see bennoch only once. [this closes the european journal. after mr. hawthorne's return to america, he published "our old home," and began a new romance, of which two chapters appeared in the atlantic monthly. but the breaking out of the war stopped all imaginative work with him, and all journalizing, until , when he went to maine for a little excursion, and began another journal, from which i take one paragraph, giving a slight note of his state of mind at an interesting period of his country's history. --ed.] west gouldsborough, august th, .--it is a week ago, saturday, since j----- and i reached this place, . . . . mr. barney s. hill's. at hallowell, and subsequently all along the route, the country was astir with volunteers, and the war is all that seems to be alive, and even that doubtfully so. nevertheless, the country certainly shows a good spirit, the towns offering everywhere most liberal bounties, and every able-bodied man feels an immense pull and pressure upon him to go to the war. i doubt whether any people was ever actuated by a more genuine and disinterested public spirit; though, of course, it is not unalloyed with baser motives and tendencies. we met a train of cars with a regiment or two just starting for the south, and apparently in high spirits. everywhere some insignia of soldiership were to be seen,-- bright buttons, a red stripe down the trousers, a military cap, and sometimes a round-shouldered bumpkin in the entire uniform. they require a great deal to give them the aspect of soldiers; indeed, it seems as if they needed to have a good deal taken away and added, like the rough clay of a sculptor as it grows to be a model. the whole talk of the bar-rooms and every other place of intercourse was about enlisting and the war, this being the very crisis of trial, when the voluntary system is drawing to an end, and the draft almost immediately to commence. end of vol. ii. the snow-image and other twice-told tales a bell's biography by nathaniel hawthorne hearken to our neighbor with the iron tongue. while i sit musing over my sheet of foolscap, he emphatically tells the hour, in tones loud enough for all the town to hear, though doubtless intended only as a gentle hint to myself, that i may begin his biography before the evening shall be further wasted. unquestionably, a personage in such an elevated position, and making so great a noise in the world, has a fair claim to the services of a biographer. he is the representative and most illustrious member of that innumerable class, whose characteristic feature is the tongue, and whose sole business, to clamor for the public good. if any of his noisy brethren, in our tongue-governed democracy, be envious of the superiority which i have assigned him, they have my free consent to hang themselves as high as he. and, for his history, let not the reader apprehend an empty repetition of ding-dong-bell. he has been the passive hero of wonderful vicissitudes, with which i have chanced to become acquainted, possibly from his own mouth; while the careless multitude supposed him to be talking merely of the time of day, or calling them to dinner or to church, or bidding drowsy people go bedward, or the dead to their graves. many a revolution has it been his fate to go through, and invariably with a prodigious uproar. and whether or no he have told me his reminiscences, this at least is true, that the more i study his deep-toned language, the more sense, and sentiment, and soul, do i discover in it. this bell--for we may as well drop our quaint personification--is of antique french manufacture, and the symbol of the cross betokens that it was meant to be suspended in the belfry of a romish place of worship. the old people hereabout have a tradition, that a considerable part of the metal was supplied by a brass cannon, captured in one of the victories of louis the fourteenth over the spaniards, and that a bourbon princess threw her golden crucifix into the molten mass. it is said, likewise, that a bishop baptized and blessed the bell, and prayed that a heavenly influence might mingle with its tones. when all due ceremonies had been performed, the grand monarque bestowed the gift--than which none could resound his beneficence more loudly--on the jesuits, who were then converting the american indians to the spiritual dominion of the pope. so the bell,--our self-same bell, whose familiar voice we may hear at all hours, in the streets,--this very bell sent forth its first-born accents from the tower of a log-built chapel, westward of lake champlain, and near the mighty stream of the st. lawrence. it was called our lady's chapel of the forest. the peal went forth as if to redeem and consecrate the heathen wilderness. the wolf growled at the sound, as he prowled stealthily through the underbrush; the grim bear turned his back, and stalked sullenly away; the startled doe leaped up, and led her fawn into a deeper solitude. the red men wondered what awful voice was speaking amid the wind that roared through the tree-tops; and, following reverentially its summons, the dark-robed fathers blessed them, as they drew near the cross-crowned chapel. in a little time, there was a crucifix on every dusky bosom. the indians knelt beneath the lowly roof, worshipping in the same forms that were observed under the vast dome of st. peter's, when the pope performed high mass in the presence of kneeling princes. all the religious festivals, that awoke the chiming bells of lofty cathedrals, called forth a peal from our lady's chapel of the forest. loudly rang the bell of the wilderness while the streets of paris echoed with rejoicings for the birthday of the bourbon, or whenever france had triumphed on some european battle-field. and the solemn woods were saddened with a melancholy knell, as often as the thick-strewn leaves were swept away from the virgin soil, for the burial of an indian chief. meantime, the bells of a hostile people and a hostile faith were ringing on sabbaths and lecture-days, at boston and other puritan towns. their echoes died away hundreds of miles southeastward of our lady's chapel. but scouts had threaded the pathless desert that lay between, and, from behind the huge tree-trunks, perceived the indians assembling at the summons of the bell. some bore flaxen-haired scalps at their girdles, as if to lay those bloody trophies on our lady's altar. it was reported, and believed, all through new england, that the pope of rome, and the king of france, had established this little chapel in the forest, for the purpose of stirring up the red men to a crusade against the english settlers. the latter took energetic measures to secure their religion and their lives. on the eve of an especial fast of the romish church, while the bell tolled dismally, and the priests were chanting a doleful stave, a band of new england rangers rushed from the surrounding woods. fierce shouts, and the report of musketry, pealed suddenly within the chapel. the ministering priests threw themselves before the altar, and were slain even on its steps. if, as antique traditions tell us, no grass will grow where the blood of martyrs has been shed, there should be a barren spot, to this very day, on the site of that desecrated altar. while the blood was still plashing from step to step, the leader of the rangers seized a torch, and applied it to the drapery of the shrine. the flame and smoke arose, as from a burnt-sacrifice, at once illuminating and obscuring the whole interior of the chapel,--now hiding the dead priests in a sable shroud, now revealing them and their slayers in one terrific glare. some already wished that the altar-smoke could cover the deed from the sight of heaven. but one of the rangers--a man of sanctified aspect, though his hands were bloody--approached the captain. "sir," said he, "our village meeting-house lacks a bell, and hitherto we have been fain to summon the good people to worship by beat of drum. give me, i pray you, the bell of this popish chapel, for the sake of the godly mr. rogers, who doubtless hath remembered us in the prayers of the congregation, ever since we began our march. who can tell what share of this night's good success we owe to that holy man's wrestling with the lord?" "nay, then," answered the captain, "if good mr. rogers hath holpen our enterprise, it is right that he should share the spoil. take the bell and welcome, deacon lawson, if you will be at the trouble of carrying it home. hitherto it hath spoken nothing but papistry, and that too in the french or indian gibberish; but i warrant me, if mr. rogers consecrate it anew, it will talk like a good english and protestant bell." so deacon lawson and half a score of his townsmen took down the bell, suspended it on a pole, and bore it away on their sturdy shoulders, meaning to carry it to the shore of lake champlain, and thence homeward by water. far through the woods gleamed the flames of our lady's chapel, flinging fantastic shadows from the clustered foliage, and glancing on brooks that had never caught the sunlight. as the rangers traversed the midnight forest, staggering under their heavy burden, the tongue of the bell gave many a tremendous stroke,--clang, clang, clang!--a most doleful sound, as if it were tolling for the slaughter of the priests and the ruin of the chapel. little dreamed deacon lawson and his townsmen that it was their own funeral knell. a war-party of indians had heard the report, of musketry, and seen the blaze of the chapel, and now were on the track of the rangers, summoned to vengeance by the bell's dismal murmurs. in the midst of a deep swamp, they made a sudden onset on the retreating foe. good deacon lawson battled stoutly, but had his skull cloven by a tomahawk, and sank into the depths of the morass, with the ponderous bell above him. and, for many a year thereafter, our hero's voice was heard no more on earth, neither at the hour of worship, nor at festivals nor funerals. and is he still buried in that unknown grave? scarcely so, dear reader. hark! how plainly we hear him at this moment, the spokesman of time, proclaiming that it is nine o'clock at night! we may therefore safely conclude that some happy chance has restored him to upper air. but there lay the bell, for many silent years; and the wonder is, that he did not lie silent there a century, or perhaps a dozen centuries, till the world should have forgotten not only his voice, but the voices of the whole brotherhood of bells. how would the first accent of his iron tongue have startled his resurrectionists! but he was not fated to be a subject of discussion among the antiquaries of far posterity. near the close of the old french war, a party of new england axe-men, who preceded the march of colonel bradstreet toward lake ontario, were building a bridge of logs through a swamp. plunging down a stake, one of these pioneers felt it graze against some hard, smooth substance. he called his comrades, and, by their united efforts, the top of the bell was raised to the surface, a rope made fast to it, and thence passed over the horizontal limb of a tree. heave ho! up they hoisted their prize, dripping with moisture, and festooned with verdant water-moss. as the base of the bell emerged from the swamp, the pioneers perceived that a skeleton was clinging with its bony fingers to the clapper, but immediately relaxing its nerveless grasp, sank back into the stagnant water. the bell then gave forth a sullen clang. no wonder that he was in haste to speak, after holding his tongue for such a length of time! the pioneers shoved the bell to and fro, thus ringing a loud and heavy peal, which echoed widely through the forest, and reached the ears of colonel bradstreet, and his three thousand men. the soldiers paused on their march; a feeling of religion, mingled with borne-tenderness, overpowered their rude hearts; each seemed to hear the clangor of the old church-bell, which had been familiar to hint from infancy, and had tolled at the funerals of all his forefathers. by what magic had that holy sound strayed over the wide-murmuring ocean, and become audible amid the clash of arms, the loud crashing of the artillery over the rough wilderness-path, and the melancholy roar of the wind among the boughs? the new-englanders hid their prize in a shadowy nook, betwixt a large gray stone and the earthy roots of an overthrown tree; and when the campaign was ended, they conveyed our friend to boston, and put him up at auction on the sidewalk of king street. he was suspended, for the nonce, by a block and tackle, and being swung backward and forward, gave such loud and clear testimony to his own merits, that the auctioneer had no need to say a word. the highest bidder was a rich old representative from our town, who piously bestowed the bell on the meeting-house where he had been a worshipper for half a century. the good man had his reward. by a strange coincidence, the very first duty of the sexton, after the bell had been hoisted into the belfry, was to toll the funeral knell of the donor. soon, however, those doleful echoes were drowned by a triumphant peal for the surrender of quebec. ever since that period, our hero has occupied the same elevated station, and has put in his word on all matters of public importance, civil, military, or religious. on the day when independence was first proclaimed in the street beneath, he uttered a peal which many deemed ominous and fearful, rather than triumphant. but he has told the same story these sixty years, and none mistake his meaning now. when washington, in the fulness of his glory, rode through our flower-strewn streets, this was the tongue that bade the father of his country welcome! again the same voice was heard, when la fayette came to gather in his half-century's harvest of gratitude. meantime, vast changes have been going on below. his voice, which once floated over a little provincial seaport, is now reverberated between brick edifices, and strikes the ear amid the buzz and tumult of a city. on the sabbaths of olden time, the summons of the bell was obeyed by a picturesque and varied throng; stately gentlemen in purple velvet coats, embroidered waistcoats, white wigs, and gold-laced hats, stepping with grave courtesy beside ladies in flowered satin gowns, and hoop-petticoats of majestic circumference; while behind followed a liveried slave or bondsman, bearing the psalm-book, and a stove for his mistress's feet. the commonalty, clad in homely garb, gave precedence to their betters at the door of the meetinghouse, as if admitting that there were distinctions between them, even in the sight of god. yet, as their coffins were borne one after another through the street, the bell has tolled a requiem for all alike. what mattered it, whether or no there were a silver scutcheon on the coffin-lid? "open thy bosom, mother earth!" thus spake the bell. "another of thy children is coming to his long rest. take him to thy bosom, and let him slumber in peace." thus spake the bell, and mother earth received her child. with the self-same tones will the present generation be ushered to the embraces of their mother; and mother earth will still receive her children. is not thy tongue a-weary, mournful talker of two centuries? o funeral bell! wilt thou never be shattered with thine own melancholy strokes? yea, and a trumpet-call shall arouse the sleepers, whom thy heavy clang could awake no more! again--again thy voice, reminding me that i am wasting the "midnight oil." in my lonely fantasy, i can scarce believe that other mortals have caught the sound, or that it vibrates elsewhere than in my secret soul. but to many hast thou spoken. anxious men have heard thee on their sleepless pillows, and bethought themselves anew of to-morrow's care. in a brief interval of wakefulness, the sons of toil have heard thee, and say, "is so much of our quiet slumber spent?--is the morning so near at hand?" crime has heard thee, and mutters, "now is the very hour!" despair answers thee, "thus much of this weary life is gone!" the young mother, on her bed of pain and ecstasy, has counted thy echoing strokes, and dates from them her first-born's share of life and immortality. the bridegroom and the bride have listened, and feel that their night of rapture flits like a dream away. thine accents have fallen faintly on the ear of the dying man, and warned him that, ere thou speakest again, his spirit shall have passed whither no voice of time can ever reach. alas for the departing traveller, if thy voice--the voice of fleeting time--have taught him no lessons for eternity! twice told tales a rill from the town pump by nathaniel hawthorne (scene.--the corner of two principal streets.--[essex and washington streets, salem.]--the town pump talking through its nose.) noon, by the north clock! noon, by the east! high noon, too, by these hot sunbeams, which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke, in the trough under my nose. truly, we public characters have a tough time of it! and, among all the town officers, chosen at march meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed, in perpetuity, upon the town pump? the title of "town treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. the overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since i provide bountifully for the pauper, without, expense to him that pays taxes. i am at the head of the fire department; and one of the physicians to the board of health. as a keeper of the peace, all water drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. i perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices, when they are posted on my front. to speak within bounds, i am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which i stand to my post. summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for, all day long, i am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms, to rich and poor alike; and at night, i hold a lantern over my head, both to show where i am, and keep people out of the gutters. at this sultry noontide, i am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. like a dram-seller on the mall, at muster-day, i cry aloud to all and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice. here it is, gentlemen! here is the good liquor! walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up! here is the superior stuff! here is the unadulterated ale of father adam,--better than cognac, hollands, jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price; here it is, by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay! walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves! it were a pity, if all this outcry should draw no customers. here they come. a hot day, gentlemen! quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat. you, my friend, will need another cupful, to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. i see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day; and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burned to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. drink, and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of mine. welcome, most rubicund sir! you and i have been great strangers, hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. mercy on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam, in the miniature tophet, which you mistake for a stomach. fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. good by; and, whenever you are thirsty, remember that i keep a constant supply, at the old stand. who next? o, my little friend, you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other school-boy troubles, in a draught from the town pump. take it, pure as the current of your young life. take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! there, my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving-stones, that i suspect he is afraid of breaking them. what! he limps by, without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine-cellars. well, well, sir,--no harm done, i hope! go draw the cork, tip the decanter; but, when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. if gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the town pump. this thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. see how lightly he capers away again! jowler, did your worship ever have the gout? are you all satisfied? then wipe your mouths, my good friends; and, while my spout has a moment's leisure, i will delight the town with a few historical reminiscences. in far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leaf-strewn earth, in the very spot where you now behold me, on the sunny pavement. the water was as bright and clear, and deemed as precious, as liquid diamonds. the indian sagamores drank of it, from time immemorial, till the fatal deluge of the fire-water burst upon the red men, and swept their whole race away from the cold fountains. endicott, and his followers, came next, and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. the richest goblet, then, was of birch-bark. governor winthrop, after a journey afoot from boston, drank here, out of the hollow of his hand. the elder higginson here wet his palm, and laid it on the brow of the first town-born child. for many years it was the watering-place, and, as it were, the wash-bowl of the vicinity,--whither all decent folks resorted, to purify their visages, and gaze at them afterwards--at least, the pretty maidens did--in the mirror which it made. on sabbath days, whenever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here, and placed it on the communion-table of the humble meeting-house, which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. thus, one generation after another was consecrated to heaven by its waters, and cast their waxing and waning shadows into its glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth, as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. finally, the fountain vanished also. cellars were dug on all sides, and cartloads of gravel flung upon its source, whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle, at the corner of two streets. in the hot months, when its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now their grave. but, in the course of time, a town pump was sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place,--and then another, and still another,--till here stand i, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet. drink, and be refreshed! the water is as pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red sagamore, beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls, but from the brick buildings. and be it the moral of my story, that, as this wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water, too little valued since your father's days, be recognized by all. your pardon, good people! i must interrupt my stream of eloquence, and spout forth a stream of water, to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from topsfield, or somewhere along that way. no part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. look! how rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time to breathe it in, with sighs of calm enjoyment. now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking-vessel. an ox is your true toper. but i perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient for the remainder of my discourse. impute it, i beseech you, to no defect of modesty, if i insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious merits. it is altogether for your good. the better you think of me, the better men and women will you find yourselves. i shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing-days; though, on that account alone, i might call myself the household god of a hundred families. far be it from me also to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present, without my pains to keep you clean. nor will i remind you how often when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have tied to the town pump, and found me always at my post, firm amid the confusion, and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma, as the physician, whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous lore, which has found men sick or left them so, since the days of hippocrates. let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence on mankind. no; these are trifles, compared with the merits which wise men concede to me,--if not in my single self, yet as the representative of a class--of being the grand reformer of the age. from my spout, and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of the vast portion of its crime and anguish, which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still. in this mighty enterprise, the cow shall be my great confederate. milk and water! the town pump and the cow! such is the glorious copartnership, that shall tear down the distilleries and brewhouses, uproot the vineyards, shatter the cider-presses, ruin the tea and coffee trade, and finally monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. blessed consummation! then poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched, where her squalid form may shelter itself. then disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw its own heart, and die. then sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her strength. until now, the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in the human blood, transmitted from sire to son, and rekindled in every generation, by fresh draughts of liquid flame. when that inward fire shall be extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but grow cool, and war--the drunkenness of nations--perhaps will cease. at least, there will be no war of households. the husband and wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy,--a calm bliss of temperate affections,--shall pass hand in hand through life, and lie down, not reluctantly, at its protracted close. to them, the past will be no turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments as follow the delirium of the drunkard. their dead faces shall express what their spirits were, and are to be, by a lingering smile of memory and hope. ahem! dry work, this speechifying; especially to an unpractised orator. i never conceived, till now, what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake. hereafter, they shall have the business to themselves. do, some kind christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle. thank you, sir! my dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated by my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor-casks into one great pile, and make a bonfire, in honor of the town pump. and, when i shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, take my place upon this spot. such monuments should be erected everywhere, and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. now listen; for something very important is to come next. there are two or three honest friends of mine--and true friends, i know, they are--who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose or even a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which i guard. i pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance, and take up the honorable cause of the town pump in the style of a toper, fighting for his brandy-bottle? or, can the excellent qualities of cold water be not otherwise exemplified, than by plunging slapdash into hot water, and wofully scalding yourselves and other people? trust me, they may. in the moral warfare, which you are to wage,--and, indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives,--you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbulence and manifold disquietudes of the world around me, to reach that deep, calm well of purity, which may be called my soul. and whenever i pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever, or cleanse its stains. one o'clock! nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, i may as well hold my peace. here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. may she draw a husband, while drawing her water, as rachel did of old. hold out your vessel, my dear! there it is, full to the brim; so now run hone, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher, as you go; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink--"success to the town pump!" twice told tales fancy's show-box a morality by nathaniel hawthorne what is guilt? a stain upon the soul. and it is a point of vast interest, whether the soul may contract such stains, in all their depth and flagrancy, from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon, but which, physically, have never had existence. must the fleshly hand and visible frame of man set its seal to the evil designs of the soul, in order to give them their entire validity against the sinner? or, while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly tribunal, will guilty thoughts,--of which guilty deeds are no more than shadows,--will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence, in the supreme court of eternity? in the solitude of a midnight chamber, or in a desert, afar from men, or in a church, while the body is kneeling, the soul may pollute itself even with those crimes, which we are accustomed to deem altogether carnal. if this be true, it is a fearful truth. let us illustrate the subject by an imaginary example. a venerable gentleman, one mr. smith, who had long been regarded as a pattern of moral excellence, was warming his aged blood with a glass or two of generous wine. his children being gone forth about their worldly business, and his grandchildren at school, he sat alone, in a deep, luxurious arm-chair, with his feet beneath a richly carved mahogany table. some old people have a dread of solitude, and when better company may not be had, rejoice even to hear the quiet breathing of a babe, asleep upon the carpet. but mr. smith, whose silver hair was the bright symbol of a life unstained, except by such spots as are inseparable from human nature, he had no need of a babe to protect him by its purity, nor of a grown person to stand between him and his own soul. nevertheless, either manhood must converse with age, or womanhood must soothe him with gentle cares, or infancy must sport around his chair, or his thoughts will stray into the misty region of the past, and the old man be chill and sad. wine will not always cheer him. such might have been the case with mr. smith, when, through the brilliant medium of his glass of old madeira, he beheld three figures entering the room. these were fancy, who had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman, with a box of pictures on her back; and memory, in the likeness of a clerk, with a pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her buttonhole, and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person shrouded in a dusky mantle, which concealed both face and form. but mr. smith had a shrewd idea that it was conscience. how kind of fancy, memory, and conscience to visit the old gentleman, just as he was beginning to imagine that the wine had neither so bright a sparkle nor so excellent a flavor as when himself and the liquor were less aged! through the dim length of the apartment, where crimson curtains muffled the glare of sunshine, and created a rich obscurity, the three guests drew near the silver-haired old mail. memory, with a finger between the leaves of her huge volume, placed herself at his right hand. conscience, with her face still hidden in the dusky mantle, took her station on the left, so as to be next his heart; while fancy set down her picture-box upon the table, with the magnifying-glass convenient to his eye. we can sketch merely the outlines of two or three out of the many pictures which, at the pulling of a string, successively peopled the box with the semblances of living scenes. one was a moonlight picture; in the background, a lowly dwelling; and in front, partly shadowed by a tree, yet besprinkled with flakes of radiance, two youthful figures, male and female. the young man stood with folded arms, a haughty smile upon his lip, and a gleam of triumph in his eye, as he glanced downward at the kneeling girl. she was almost prostrate at his feet, evidently sinking under a weight of shame and anguish, which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped hands in supplication. her eyes she could not lift. but neither her agony, nor the lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of the form which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young man. he was the personification of triumphant scorn. now, strange to say, as old mr. smith peeped through the magnifying-glass, which made the objects start out from the canvas with magical deception, he began to recognize the farm-house, the tree, and both the figures of the picture. the young man, in times long past, had often met his gaze within the looking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first love,--his cottage love,--his martha burroughs! mr. smith was scandalized. "o, vile and slanderous picture!" he exclaims. "when have i triumphed over ruined innocence? was not martha wedded, in her teens, to david tomkius, who won her girlish love, and long enjoyed her affection as a wife? and ever since his death, she has lived a reputable widow!" meantime, memory was turning over the leaves of her volume, rustling them to and fro with uncertain fingers, until, among the earlier pages, she found one which had reference to this picture. she reads it, close to the old gentleman's ear; it is a record merely of sinful thought, which never was embodied in an act; but, while memory is reading, conscience unveils her face, and strikes a dagger to the heart of mr. smith. though not a death-blow, the torture was extreme. the exhibition proceeded. one after another, fancy displayed her pictures, all of which appeared to have been painted by some malicious artist, on purpose to vex mr. smith. not a shadow of proof could have been adduced, in any earthly court, that he was guilty of the slightest of those sins which were thus made to stare him in the face. in one scene, there was a table set out, with several bottles, and glasses half filled with wine, which threw back the dull ray of an expiring lamp. there had been mirth and revelry, until the hand of the clock stood just at midnight, when murder stepped between the boon companions. a young man had fallen on the floor, and lay stone dead, with a ghastly wound crushed into his temple, while over him, with a delirium of mingled rage and horror in his countenance, stood the youthful likeness of mr. smith. the murdered youth wore the features of edward spencer! "what does this rascal of a painter mean?" cries mr. smith, provoked beyond all patience. "edward spencer was my earliest and dearest friend, true to me as i to him, through more than half a century. neither i, nor any other, ever murdered him. was he not alive within five years, and did he not, in token of our long friendship, bequeath me his gold-headed cane and a mourning ring?" again had memory been turning over her volume, and fixed at length upon so confused a page, that she surely must have scribbled it when she was tipsy. the purport was, however, that, while mr. smith and edward spencer were heating their young blood with wine, a quarrel had flashed up between them, and mr. smith, in deadly wrath, had flung a bottle at spencer's head. true, it missed its aim, and merely smashed a looking-glass; and the next morning, when the incident was imperfectly remembered, they had shaken hands with a hearty laugh. yet, again, while memory was reading, conscience unveiled her face, struck a dagger to the heart of mr. smith, and quelled his remonstrance with her iron frown. the pain was quite excruciating. some of the pictures had been painted with so doubtful a touch, and in colors so faint and pale, that the subjects could barely be conjectured. a dull, semitransparent mist had been thrown over the surface of the canvas, into which the figures seemed to vanish, while the eye sought most earnestly to fix them. but, in every scene, however dubiously portrayed, mr. smith was invariably haunted by his own lineaments, at various ages, as in a dusty mirror. after poring several minutes over one of these blurred and almost indistinguishable pictures, he began to see that the painter had intended to represent him, now in the decline of life, as stripping the clothes from the backs of three half-starved children. "really, this puzzles me!" quoth mr. smith, with the irony of conscious rectitude. "asking pardon of the painter, i pronounce him a fool, as well as a scandalous knave. a man of my standing in the world, to be robbing little children of their clothes! ridiculous!" but while he spoke, memory had searched her fatal volume, and found a page, which, with her sad, calm voice, she poured into his ear. it was not altogether inapplicable to the misty scene. it told how mr. smith had been grievously tempted, by many devilish sophistries, on the ground of a legal quibble, to commence a lawsuit against three orphan children, joint heirs to a considerable estate. fortunately, before he was quite decided, his claims had turned out nearly as devoid of law as justice. as memory ceased to read, conscience again thrust aside her mantle, and would have struck her victim with the envenomed dagger, only that he struggled, and clasped his hands before his heart. even then, however, he sustained an ugly gash. why should we follow fancy through the whole series of those awful pictures? painted by an artist of wondrous power, and terrible acquaintance with the secret soul, they embodied the ghosts of all the never perpetrated sins that had glided through the lifetime of mr. smith. and could such beings of cloudy fantasy, so near akin to nothingness, give valid evidence against him, at the day of judgment? be that the case or not, there is reason to believe that one truly penitential tear would have washed away each hateful picture, and left the canvas white as snow. but mr. smith, at a prick of conscience too keen to be endured, bellowed aloud, with impatient agony, and suddenly discovered that his three guests were gone. there he sat alone, a silver-haired and highly venerated old man, in the rich gloom of the crimson-curtained room, with no box of pictures on the table, but only a decanter of most excellent madeira. yet his heart still seemed to fester with the venom of the dagger. nevertheless, the unfortunate old gentleman might have argued the matter with conscience, and alleged many reasons wherefore she should not smite him so pitilessly. were we to take up his cause, it should be somewhat in the following fashion: a scheme of guilt, till it be put in execution, greatly resembles a train of incidents in a projected tale. the latter, in order to produce a sense of reality in the reader's mind, must be conceived with such proportionate strength by the author as to seem, in the glow of fancy, more like truth, past, present, or to come, than purely fiction. the prospective sinner, on the other hand, weaves his plot of crime, but seldom or never feels a perfect certainty that it will be executed. there is a dreaminess diffused about his thoughts; in a dream, as it were, he strikes the death-blow into his victim's heart, and starts to find an indelible blood-stain on his hand. thus a novel-writer, or a dramatist, in creating a villain of romance, and fitting him with evil deeds, and the villain of actual life, in projecting crimes that will be perpetrated, may almost meet each other, half-way between reality and fancy. it is not until the crime is accomplished, that guilt clinches its gripe upon the guilty heart, and claims it for its own. then, and not before, sin is actually felt and acknowledged, and, if unaccompanied by repentance, grows a thousand-fold more virulent by its self-consciousness. be it considered, also, that men often overestimate their capacity for evil. at a distance, while its attendant circumstances do not press upon their notice, and its results are dimly seen, they can bear to contemplate it. they may take the steps which lead to crime, impelled by the same sort of mental action as in working out a mathematical problem, yet be powerless with compunction, at the final moment. they knew not what deed it was that they deemed themselves resolved to do. in truth, there is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution. let us hope, therefore, that all the dreadful consequences of sin will not be incurred, unless the act have set its seal upon the thought. yet, with the slight fancy-work which we have framed, some sad and awful truths are interwoven. man must not disclaim his brotherhood, even with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity. he must feel, that, when he shall knock at the gate of heaven, no semblance of an unspotted life can entitle him to entrance there. penitence must kneel, and mercy come from the footstool of the throne, or that golden gate will never open! the doliver romance and other pieces tales and sketches by nathaniel hawthorne a book of autographs we have before us a volume of autograph letters, chiefly of soldiers and statesmen of the revolution, and addressed to a good and brave man, general palmer, who himself drew his sword in the cause. they are profitable reading in a quiet afternoon, and in a mood withdrawn from too intimate relation with the present time; so that we can glide backward some three quarters of a century, and surround ourselves with the ominous sublimity of circumstances that then frowned upon the writers. to give them their full effect, we should imagine that these letters have this moment been brought to town by the splashed and way-worn postrider, or perhaps by an orderly dragoon, who has ridden in a perilous hurry to deliver his despatches. they are magic scrolls, if read in the right spirit. the roll of the drum and the fanfare of the trumpet is latent in some of them; and in others, an echo of the oratory that resounded in the old halls of the continental congress, at philadelphia; or the words may come to us as with the living utterance of one of those illustrious men, speaking face to face, in friendly communion. strange, that the mere identity of paper and ink should be so powerful. the same thoughts might look cold and ineffectual, in a printed book. human nature craves a certain materialism and clings pertinaciously to what is tangible, as if that were of more importance than the spirit accidentally involved in it. and, in truth, the original manuscript has always something which print itself must inevitably lose. an erasure, even a blot, a casual irregularity of hand, and all such little imperfections of mechanical execution, bring us close to the writer, and perhaps convey some of those subtle intimations for which language has no shape. there are several letters from john adams, written in a small, hasty, ungraceful hand, but earnest, and with no unnecessary flourish. the earliest is dated at philadelphia, september , , about twenty days after the first opening of the continental congress. we look at this old yellow document, scribbled on half a sheet of foolscap, and ask of it many questions for which words have no response. we would fain know what were their mutual impressions, when all those venerable faces, that have since been traced on steel, or chiselled out, of marble, and thus made familiar to posterity, first met one another's gaze! did one spirit harmonize them, in spite of the dissimilitude of manners between the north and the south, which were now for the first time brought into political relations? could the virginian descendant of the cavaliers, and the new-englander with his hereditary puritanism,--the aristocratic southern planter, and the self-made man from massachusetts or connecticut,--at once feel that they were countrymen and brothers? what did john adams think of jefferson?--and samuel adams of patrick henry? did not north and south combine in their deference for the sage franklin, so long the defender of the colonies in england, and whose scientific renown was already world-wide? and was there yet any whispered prophecy, any vague conjecture, circulating among the delegates, as to the destiny which might be in reserve for one stately man, who sat, for the most part, silent among them?--what station he was to assume in the world's history?--and how many statues would repeat his form and countenance, and successively crumble beneath his immortality? the letter before us does not answer these inquiries. its main feature is the strong expression of the uncertainty and awe that pervaded even the firm hearts of the old congress, while anticipating the struggle which was to ensue. "the commencement of hostilities," it says, "is exceedingly dreaded here. it is thought that an attack upon the troops, even should it prove successful, would certainly involve the whole continent in a war. it is generally thought that the ministry would rejoice at a rupture in boston, because it would furnish an excuse to the people at home" [this was the last time, we suspect, that john adams spoke of england thus affectionately], "and unite them in an opinion of the necessity of pushing hostilities against us." his next letter bears on the superscription, "favored by general washington." the date is june , , three days after the battle of bunker hill, the news of which could not yet have arrived at philadelphia. but the war, so much dreaded, had begun, on the quiet banks of concord river; an army of twenty thousand men was beleaguering boston; and here was washington journeying northward to take the command. it seems to place us in a nearer relation with the hero, to find him performing the little courtesy of leaving a letter between friend and friend, and to hold in our hands the very document intrusted to such a messenger. john adams says simply, "we send you generals washington and lee for your comfort"; but adds nothing in regard to the character of the commander-in-chief. this letter displays much of the writer's ardent temperament; if he had been anywhere but in the hall of congress, it would have been in the intrenchment before boston. "i hope," he writes, "a good account will be given of gage, haldiman, burgoyne, clinton, and howe, before winter. such a wretch as howe, with a statue in honor of his family in westminster abbey, erected by the massachusetts, to come over with the design to cut the throats of the massachusetts people, is too much. i most sincerely, coolly, and devoutly wish that a lucky ball or bayonet may make a signal example of him, in warning to all such unprincipled, unsentimental miscreants for the future!" he goes on in a strain that smacks somewhat of aristocratic feeling: "our camp will be an illustrious school of military virtue, and will be resorted to and frequented, as such, by gentlemen in great numbers from the other colonies." the term "gentleman" has seldom been used in this sense subsequently to the revolution. another letter introduces us to two of these gentlemen, messrs. acquilla hall and josias carvill, volunteers, who are recommended as "of the first families in maryland, and possessing independent fortunes." after the british had been driven out of boston, adams cries out, "fortify, fortify; and never let them get in again!" it is agreeable enough to perceive the filial affection with which john adams, and the other delegates from the north, regard new england, and especially the good old capital of the puritans. their love of country was hardly yet so diluted as to extend over the whole thirteen colonies, which were rather looked upon as allies than as composing one nation. in truth, the patriotism of a citizen of the united states is a sentiment by itself of a peculiar nature, and requiring a lifetime, or at least the custom of many years, to naturalize it among the other possessions of the heart. the collection is enriched by a letter dated "cambridge, august , " from washington himself. he wrote it in that house,--now so venerable with his memory,--in that very room, where his bust now stands upon a poet's table; from this sheet of paper passed the hand that held the leading-staff! nothing can be more perfectly in keeping with all other manifestations of washington than the whole visible aspect and embodiment of this letter. the manuscript is as clear as daylight; the punctuation exact, to a comma. there is a calm accuracy throughout, which seems the production of a species of intelligence that cannot err, and which, if we may so speak, would affect us with a more human warmth, if we could conceive it capable of some slight human error. the chirography is characterized by a plain and easy grace, which, in the signature, is somewhat elaborated, and becomes a type of the personal manner of a gentleman of the old school, but without detriment to the truth and clearness that distinguish the rest of the manuscript. the lines are as straight and equidistant as if ruled; and from beginning to end, there is no physical symptom--as how should there be?--of a varying mood, of jets of emotion, or any of those fluctuating feelings that pass from the hearts into the fingers of common men. the paper itself (like most of those revolutionary letters, which are written on fabrics fit to endure the burden of ponderous and earnest thought) is stout, and of excellent quality, and bears the water-mark of britannia, surmounted by the crown. the subject of the letter is a statement of reasons for not taking possession of point alderton; a position commanding the entrance of boston harbor. after explaining the difficulties of the case, arising from his want of men and munitions for the adequate defence of the lines which he already occupies, washington proceeds: "to you, sir, who are a well-wisher to the cause, and can reason upon the effects of such conduct, i may open myself with freedom, because no improper disclosures will be made of our situation. but i cannot expose my weakness to the enemy (though i believe they are pretty well informed of everything that passes), by telling this and that man, who are daily pointing out this, and that, and t' other place, of all the motives that govern my actions; notwithstanding i know what will be the consequence of not doing it,--namely, that i shall be accused of inattention to the public service, and perhaps of want of spirit to prosecute it. but this shall have no effect upon my conduct. i will steadily (as far as my judgment will assist me) pursue such measures as i think conducive to the interest of the cause, and rest satisfied under any obloquy that shall be thrown, conscious of having discharged my duty to the best of my abilities." the above passage, like every other passage that could be quoted from his pen, is characteristic of washington, and entirely in keeping with the calm elevation of his soul. yet how imperfect a glimpse do we obtain of him, through the medium of this, or any of his letters! we imagine him writing calmly, with a hand that never falters; his majestic face neither darkens nor gleams with any momentary ebullition of feeling, or irregularity of thought; and thus flows forth an expression precisely to the extent of his purpose, no more, no less. thus much we may conceive. but still we have not grasped the man; we have caught no glimpse of his interior; we have not detected his personality. it is the same with all the recorded traits of his daily life. the collection of them, by different observers, seems sufficiently abundant, and strictly harmonizes with itself, yet never brings us into intimate relationship with the hero, nor makes us feel the warmth and the human throb of his heart. what can be the reason? is it, that his great nature was adapted to stand in relation to his country, as man stands towards man, but could not individualize itself in brotherhood to an individual? there are two from franklin, the earliest dated, "london, august , ," and addressed to "mrs. franklin, at philadelphia." he was then in england, as agent for the colonies in their resistance to the oppressive policy of mr. grenville's administration. the letter, however, makes no reference to political or other business. it contains only ten or twelve lines, beginning, "my dear child," and conveying an impression of long and venerable matrimony which has lost all its romance, but retained a familiar and quiet tenderness. he speaks of making a little excursion into the country for his health; mentions a larger letter, despatched by another vessel; alludes with homely affability to "mrs. stevenson," "sally," and "our dear polly"; desires to be remembered to "all inquiring friends"; and signs himself, "your ever loving husband." in this conjugal epistle, brief and unimportant as it is, there are the elements that summon up the past, and enable us to create anew the man, his connections and circumstances. we can see the sage in his london lodgings,--with his wig cast aside, and replaced by a velvet cap,--penning this very letter; and then can step across the atlantic, and behold its reception by the elderly, but still comely madam franklin, who breaks the seal and begins to read, first remembering to put on her spectacles. the seal, by the way, is a pompous one of armorial bearings, rather symbolical of the dignity of the colonial agent, and postmaster general of america, than of the humble origin of the newburyport printer. the writing is in the free, quick style of a man with great practice of the pen, and is particularly agreeable to the reader. another letter from the same famous hand is addressed to general palmer, and dated, "passy, october , ." by an indorsement on the outside it appears to have been transmitted to the united states through the medium of lafayette. franklin was now the ambassador of his country at the court of versailles, enjoying an immense celebrity, caressed by the french ladies, and idolized alike by the fashionable and the learned, who saw something sublime and philosophic even in his blue yarn stockings. still, as before, he writes with the homeliness and simplicity that cause a human face to look forth from the old, yellow sheet of paper, and in words that make our ears re-echo, as with the sound of his long-extinct utterance. yet this brief epistle, like the former, has so little of tangible matter that we are ashamed to copy it. next, we come to the fragment of a letter by samuel adams; an autograph more utterly devoid of ornament or flourish than any other in the collection. it would not have been characteristic, had his pen traced so much as a hair-line in tribute to grace, beauty, or the elaborateness of manner; for this earnest-hearted man had been produced out of the past elements of his native land, a real puritan, with the religion of his forefathers, and likewise with their principles of government, taking the aspect of revolutionary politics. at heart, samuel adams was never so much a citizen of the united states, as he was a new-englander, and a son of the old bay province. the following passage has much of the man in it: "i heartily congratulate you," he writes from philadelphia, after the british have left boston, "upon the sudden and important change in our affairs, in the removal of the barbarians from the capital. we owe our grateful acknowledgments to him who is, as he is frequently styled in sacred writ, 'the lord of hosts.' we have not yet been informed with certainty what course the enemy have steered. i hope we shall be on our guard against future attempts. will not care be taken to fortify the harbor, and thereby prevent the entrance of ships-of-war hereafter?" from hancock, we have only the envelope of a document "on public service," directed to "the hon. the assembly, or council of safety of new hampshire," and with the autograph affixed, that, stands out so prominently in the declaration of independence. as seen in the engraving of that instrument, the signature looks precisely what we should expect and desire in the handwriting of a princely merchant, whose penmanship had been practised in the ledger which he is represented as holding, in copley's brilliant picture, but to whom his native ability, and the circumstances and customs of his country, had given a place among its rulers. but, on the coarse and dingy paper before us, the effect is very much inferior; the direction, all except the signature, is a scrawl, large and heavy, but not forcible; and even the name itself, while almost identical in its strokes with that of the declaration, has a strangely different and more vulgar aspect. perhaps it is all right, and typical of the truth. if we may trust tradition, and unpublished letters, and a few witnesses in print, there was quite as much difference between the actual man, and his historical aspect, as between the manuscript signature and the engraved one. one of his associates, both in political life and permanent renown, is said to have characterized him as a "man without a head or heart." we, of an after generation, should hardly be entitled, on whatever evidence, to assume such ungracious liberty with a name that has occupied a lofty position until it, has grown almost sacred, and which is associated with memories more sacred than itself, and has thus become a valuable reality to our countrymen, by the aged reverence that clusters round about it. nevertheless, it may be no impiety to regard hancock not precisely as a real personage, but as a majestic figure, useful and necessary in its way, but producing its effect far more by an ornamental outside than by any intrinsic force or virtue. the page of all history would be half unpeopled if all such characters were banished from it. from general warren we have a letter dated january , , only a few months before he attested the sincerity of his patriotism, in his own blood, on bunker hill. his handwriting has many ungraceful flourishes. all the small d's spout upward in parabolic curves, and descend at a considerable distance. his pen seems to have had nothing but hair-lines in it; and the whole letter, though perfectly legible, has a look of thin and unpleasant irregularity. the subject is a plan for securing to the colonial party the services of colonel gridley the engineer, by an appeal to his private interests. though writing to general palmer, an intimate friend, warren signs himself, most ceremoniously, "your obedient servant." indeed, these stately formulas in winding up a letter were scarcely laid aside, whatever might be the familiarity of intercourse: husband and wife were occasionally, on paper at least, the "obedient servants" of one another; and not improbably, among well-bred people, there was a corresponding ceremonial of bows and courtesies, even in the deepest interior of domestic life. with all the reality that filled men's hearts, and which has stamped its impress on so many of these letters, it was a far more formal age than the present. it may be remarked, that warren was almost the only man eminently distinguished in the intellectual phase of the revolution, previous to the breaking out of the war, who actually uplifted his arm to do battle. the legislative patriots were a distinct class from the patriots of the camp, and never laid aside the gown for the sword. it was very different in the great civil war of england, where the leading minds of the age, when argument had done its office, or left it undone, put on their steel breastplates and appeared as leaders in the field. educated young men, members of the old colonial families,--gentlemen, as john adams terms them,--seem not to have sought employment in the revolutionary army, in such numbers as night have been expected. respectable as the officers generally were, and great as were the abilities sometimes elicited, the intellect and cultivation of the country was inadequately represented in them, as a body. turning another page, we find the frank of a letter from henry laurens, president of congress,--him whose destiny it was, like so many noblemen of old, to pass beneath the traitor's gate of the tower of london,--him whose chivalrous son sacrificed as brilliant a future as any young american could have looked forward to, in an obscure skirmish. likewise, we have the address of a letter to messrs. leroy and bayard, in the handwriting of jefferson; too slender a material to serve as a talisman for summoning up the writer; a most unsatisfactory fragment, affecting us like a glimpse of the retreating form of the sage of monticello, turning the distant corner of a street. there is a scrap from robert morris, the financier; a letter or two from judge jay; and one from general lincoln, written, apparently, on the gallop, but without any of those characteristic sparks that sometimes fly out in a hurry, when all the leisure in the world would fail to elicit them. lincoln was the type of a new england soldier; a man of fair abilities, not especially of a warlike cast, without much chivalry, but faithful and bold, and carrying a kind of decency and restraint into the wild and ruthless business of arms. from good old baron steuben, we find, not a manuscript essay on the method of arranging a battle, but a commercial draft, in a small, neat hand, as plain as print, elegant without flourish, except a very complicated one on the signature. on the whole, the specimen is sufficiently characteristic, as well of the baron's soldier-like and german simplicity, as of the polish of the great frederick's aide-de-camp, a man of courts and of the world. how singular and picturesque an effect is produced, in the array of our revolutionary army, by the intermingling of these titled personages from the continent of europe, with feudal associations clinging about them,--steuben, de kalb, pulaski, lafayette!--the german veteran, who had written from one famous battle-field to another for thirty years; and the young french noble, who had come hither, though yet unconscious of his high office, to light the torch that should set fire to the antiquated trumpery of his native institutions. among these autographs, there is one from lafayette, written long after our revolution, but while that of his own country was in full progress. the note is merely as follows: "enclosed you will find, my dear sir, two tickets for the sittings of this day. one part of the debate will be on the honors of the pantheon, agreeably to what has been decreed by the constitutional assembly." it is a pleasant and comfortable thought, that we have no such classic folly as is here indicated, to lay to the charge of our revolutionary fathers. both in their acts, and in the drapery of those acts, they were true to their several and simple selves, and thus left nothing behind them for a fastidious taste to sneer at. but it must be considered that our revolution did not, like that of france, go so deep as to disturb the common-sense of the country. general schuyler writes a letter, under date of february , , relating not to military affairs, from which the prejudices of his countrymen had almost disconnected him, but to the salt springs of onondaga. the expression is peculiarly direct, and the hand that of a man of business, free and flowing. the uncertainty, the vague, hearsay evidence respecting these springs, then gushing into dim daylight beneath the shadow of a remote wilderness, is such as might now be quoted in reference to the quality of the water that supplies the fountains of the nile. the following sentence shows us an indian woman and her son, practising their simple process in the manufacture of salt, at a fire of wind-strewn boughs, the flame of which gleams duskily through the arches of the forest: "from a variety of information, i find the smallest quantity made by a squaw, with the assistance of one boy, with a kettle of about ten gallons' capacity, is half a bushel per day; the greatest with the same kettle, about two bushels." it is particularly interesting to find out anything as to the embryo, yet stationary arts of life among the red people, their manufactures, their agriculture, their domestic labors. it is partly the lack of this knowledge--the possession of which would establish a ground of sympathy on the part of civilized men--that makes the indian race so shadow-like and unreal to our conception. we could not select a greater contrast to the upright and unselfish patriot whom we have just spoken of, than the traitor arnold, from whom there is a brief note, dated, "crown point, january , ," addressed to an officer under his command. the three lines of which it consists can prove bad spelling, erroneous grammar, and misplaced and superfluous punctuation; but, with all this complication of iniquity, the ruffian general contrives to express his meaning as briefly and clearly as if the rules of correct composition had been ever so scrupulously observed. this autograph, impressed with the foulest name in our history, has somewhat of the interest that would attach to a document on which a fiend-devoted wretch had signed away his salvation. but there was not substance enough in the man--a mere cross between the bull-dog and the fox--to justify much feeling of any sort about him personally. the interest, such as it is, attaches but little to the man, and far more to the circumstances amid which he acted, rendering the villainy almost sublime, which, exercised in petty affairs, would only have been vulgar. we turn another leaf, and find a memorial of hamilton. it is but a letter of introduction, addressed to governor jay in favor of mr. davies, of kentucky; but it gives an impression of high breeding and courtesy, as little to be mistaken as if we could see the writer's manner and hear his cultivated accents, while personally making one gentleman known to another. there is likewise a rare vigor of expression and pregnancy of meaning, such as only a man of habitual energy of thought could have conveyed into so commonplace a thing as an introductory letter. this autograph is a graceful one, with an easy and picturesque flourish beneath the signature, symbolical of a courteous bow at the conclusion of the social ceremony so admirably performed. hamilton might well be the leader and idol of the federalists; for he was pre-eminent in all the high qualities that characterized the great men of that party, and which should make even a democrat feel proud that his country had produced such a noble old band of aristocrats; and he shared all the distrust of the people, which so inevitably and so righteously brought about their ruin. with his autograph we associate that of another federalist, his friend in life; a man far narrower than hamilton, but endowed with a native vigor, that caused many partisans to grapple to him for support; upright, sternly inflexible, and of a simplicity of manner that might have befitted the sturdiest republican among us. in our boyhood we used to see a thin, severe figure of an ancient mail, timeworn, but apparently indestructible, moving with a step of vigorous decay along the street, and knew him as "old tim pickering." side by side, too, with the autograph of hamilton, we would place one from the hand that shed his blood. it is a few lines of aaron burr, written in ; when all his ambitious schemes, whatever they once were, had been so long shattered that even the fragments had crumbled away, leaving him to exert his withered energies on petty law cases, to one of which the present note refers. the hand is a little tremulous with age, yet small and fastidiously elegant, as became a man who was in the habit of writing billet-doux on scented note-paper, as well as documents of war and state. this is to us a deeply interesting autograph. remembering what has been said of the power of burr's personal influence, his art to tempt men, his might to subdue them, and the fascination that enabled him, though cold at heart, to win the love of woman, we gaze at this production of his pen as into his own inscrutable eyes, seeking for the mystery of his nature. how singular that a character imperfect, ruined, blasted, as this man's was, excites a stronger interest than if it had reached the highest earthly perfection of which its original elements would admit! it is by the diabolical part of burr's character that he produces his effect on the imagination. had he been a better man, we doubt, after all, whether the present age would not already have suffered him to wax dusty, and fade out of sight, among the mere respectable mediocrities of his own epoch. but, certainly, he was a strange, wild offshoot to have sprung from the united stock of those two singular christians, president burr of princeton college, and jonathan edwards! omitting many, we have come almost to the end of these memorials of historical men. we observe one other autograph of a distinguished soldier of the revolution, henry knox, but written in , when he was secretary of war. in its physical aspect, it is well worthy to be a soldier's letter. the hand is large, round, and legible at a glance; the lines far apart, and accurately equidistant; and the whole affair looks not unlike a company of regular troops in marching order. the signature has a point-like firmness and simplicity. it is a curious observation, sustained by these autographs, though we know not how generally correct, that southern gentlemen are more addicted to a flourish of the pen beneath their names, than those of the north. and now we come to the men of a later generation, whose active life reaches almost within the verge of present affairs; people of dignity, no doubt, but whose characters have not acquired, either from time or circumstances, the interest that can make their autographs valuable to any but the collector. those whom we have hitherto noticed were the men of an heroic age. they are departed, and now so utterly departed, as not even to touch upon the passing generation through the medium of persons still in life, who can claim to have known them familiarly. their letters, therefore, come to us like material things out of the hands of mighty shadows, long historical, and traditionary, and fit companions for the sages and warriors of a thousand years ago. in spite of the proverb, it is not in a single day, or in a very few years, that a man can be reckoned "as dead as julius caesar." we feel little interest in scraps from the pens of old gentlemen, ambassadors, governors, senators, heads of departments, even presidents though they were, who lived lives of praiseworthy respectability, and whose powdered heads and black knee-breeches have but just vanished out of the drawing-room. still less do we value the blotted paper of those whose reputations are dusty, not with oblivious time, but with present political turmoil and newspaper vogue. really great men, however, seem, as to their effect on the imagination, to take their place amongst past worthies, even while walking in the very sunshine that illuminates the autumnal day in which we write. we look, not without curiosity, at the small, neat hand of henry clay, who, as he remarks with his habitual deference to the wishes of the fair, responds to a young lady's request for his seal; and we dwell longer over the torn-off conclusion of a note from mr. calhoun, whose words are strangely dashed off without letters, and whose name, were it less illustrious, would be unrecognizable in his own autograph. but of all hands that can still grasp a pen, we know not the one, belonging to a soldier or a statesman, which could interest us more than the hand that wrote the following: "sir, your note of the th inst. is received. i hasten to answer that there was no man 'in the station of colonel, by the name of j. t. smith,' under my command, at the battle of new orleans; and am, respectfully, "yours, andrew jackson. "oct. th, ." the old general, we suspect, has been insnared by a pardonable little stratagem on the part of the autograph collector. the battle of new orleans would hardly have been won, without better aid than this problematical colonel j. t. smith. intermixed with and appended to these historical autographs, there are a few literary ones. timothy dwight--the "old timotheus" who sang the conquest of cancan, instead of choosing a more popular subject, in the british conquest of canada--is of eldest date. colonel trumbull, whose hand, at various epochs of his life, was familiar with sword, pen, and pencil, contributes two letters, which lack the picturesqueness of execution that should distinguish the chirography of an artist. the value of trumbull's pictures is of the same nature with that of daguerreotypes, depending not upon the ideal but the actual. the beautiful signature of washington irving appears as the indorsement of a draft, dated in , when, if we may take this document as evidence, his individuality seems to have been merged into the firm of "p. e. irving & co." never was anything less mercantile than this autograph, though as legible as the writing of a bank-clerk. without apparently aiming at artistic beauty, it has all the sketch book in it. we find the signature and seal of pierpont, the latter stamped with the poet's almost living countenance. what a pleasant device for a seal is one's own face, which he may thus multiply at pleasure, and send letters to his friends,--the head without, and the heart within! there are a few lines in the school-girl hand of margaret davidson, at nine years old; and a scrap of a letter from washington allston, a gentle and delicate autograph, in which we catch a glimpse of thanks to his correspondent for the loan of a volume of poetry. nothing remains, save a letter from noah webster, whose early toils were manifested in a spelling-book, and those of his later age in a ponderous dictionary. under date of february , , he writes in a sturdy, awkward hand, very fit for a lexicographer, an epistle of old man's reminiscences, from which we extract the following anecdote of washington, presenting the patriot in a festive light:-- "when i was travelling to the south, in the year , i called on general washington at mount vernon. at dinner, the last course of dishes was a species of pancakes, which were handed round to each guest, accompanied with a bowl of sugar and another of molasses for seasoning them, that each guest might suit himself. when the dish came to me, i pushed by me the bowl of molasses, observing to the gentlemen present, that i had enough of that in my own country. the general burst out with a loud laugh, a thing very unusual with him. 'ah,' said he, 'there is nothing in that story about your eating molasses in new england.' there was a gentleman from maryland at the table; and the general immediately told a story, stating that, during the revolution, a hogshead of molasses was stove in, in west chester, by the oversetting of a wagon; and a body of maryland troops being near, the soldiers ran hastily, and saved all they could by filling their hats or caps with molasses." there are said to be temperaments endowed with sympathies so exquisite, that, by merely handling an autograph, they can detect the writer's character with unerring accuracy, and read his inmost heart as easily as a less-gifted eye would peruse the written page. our faith in this power, be it a spiritual one, or only a refinement of the physical nature, is not unlimited, in spite of evidence. god has imparted to the human soul a marvellous strength in guarding its secrets, and he keeps at least the deepest and most inward record for his own perusal. but if there be such sympathies as we have alluded to, in how many instances would history be put to the blush by a volume of autograph letters, like this which we now close! fanshawe by nathaniel hawthorne [illustration] introductory note. fanshawe. in , three years after graduating from bowdoin college, hawthorne published his first romance, "fanshawe." it was issued at boston by marsh & capen, but made little or no impression on the public. the motto on the title-page of the original was from southey: "wilt thou go on with me?" afterwards, when he had struck into the vein of fiction that came to be known as distinctively his own, he attempted to suppress this youthful work, and was so successful that he obtained and destroyed all but a few of the copies then extant. some twelve years after his death it was resolved, in view of the interest manifested in tracing the growth of his genius from the beginning of his activity as an author, to revive this youthful romance; and the reissue of "fanshawe" was then made. little biographical interest attaches to it, beyond the fact that mr. longfellow found in the descriptions and general atmosphere of the book a decided suggestion of the situation of bowdoin college, at brunswick, maine, and the life there at the time when he and hawthorne were both undergraduates of that institution. professor packard, of bowdoin college, who was then in charge of the study of english literature, and has survived both of his illustrious pupils, recalls hawthorne's exceptional excellence in the composition of english, even at that date ( - ); and it is not impossible that hawthorne intended, through the character of fanshawe, to present some faint projection of what he then thought might be his own obscure history. even while he was in college, however, and meditating perhaps the slender elements of this first romance, his fellow-student horatio bridge, whose "journal of an african cruiser" he afterwards edited, recognized in him the possibilities of a writer of fiction--a fact to which hawthorne alludes in the dedicatory preface to "the snow-image." g. p. l. fanshawe * * * * * chapter i. "our court shall be a little academe."--shakespeare. in an ancient though not very populous settlement, in a retired corner of one of the new england states, arise the walls of a seminary of learning, which, for the convenience of a name, shall be entitled "harley college." this institution, though the number of its years is inconsiderable compared with the hoar antiquity of its european sisters, is not without some claims to reverence on the score of age; for an almost countless multitude of rivals, by many of which its reputation has been eclipsed, have sprung up since its foundation. at no time, indeed, during an existence of nearly a century, has it acquired a very extensive fame; and circumstances, which need not be particularized, have, of late years, involved it in a deeper obscurity. there are now few candidates for the degrees that the college is authorized to bestow. on two of its annual "commencement days," there has been a total deficiency of baccalaureates; and the lawyers and divines, on whom doctorates in their respective professions are gratuitously inflicted, are not accustomed to consider the distinction as an honor. yet the sons of this seminary have always maintained their full share of reputation, in whatever paths of life they trod. few of them, perhaps, have been deep and finished scholars; but the college has supplied--what the emergencies of the country demanded--a set of men more useful in its present state, and whose deficiency in theoretical knowledge has not been found to imply a want of practical ability. the local situation of the college, so far secluded from the sight and sound of the busy world, is peculiarly favorable to the moral, if not to the literary, habits of its students; and this advantage probably caused the founders to overlook the inconveniences that were inseparably connected with it. the humble edifices rear themselves almost at the farthest extremity of a narrow vale, which, winding through a long extent of hill-country, is wellnigh as inaccessible, except at one point, as the happy valley of abyssinia. a stream, that farther on becomes a considerable river, takes its rise at, a short distance above the college, and affords, along its wood-fringed banks, many shady retreats, where even study is pleasant, and idleness delicious. the neighborhood of the institution is not quite a solitude, though the few habitations scarcely constitute a village. these consist principally of farm-houses, of rather an ancient date (for the settlement is much older than the college), and of a little inn, which even in that secluded spot does not fail of a moderate support. other dwellings are scattered up and down the valley; but the difficulties of the soil will long avert the evils of a too dense population. the character of the inhabitants does not seem--as there was, perhaps, room to anticipate--to be in any degree influenced by the atmosphere of harley college. they are a set of rough and hardy yeomen, much inferior, as respects refinement, to the corresponding classes in most other parts of our country. this is the more remarkable, as there is scarcely a family in the vicinity that has not provided, for at least one of its sons, the advantages of a "liberal education." having thus described the present state of harley college, we must proceed to speak of it as it existed about eighty years since, when its foundation was recent, and its prospects flattering. at the head of the institution, at this period, was a learned and orthodox divine, whose fame was in all the churches. he was the author of several works which evinced much erudition and depth of research; and the public, perhaps, thought the more highly of his abilities from a singularity in the purposes to which he applied them, that added much to the curiosity of his labors, though little to their usefulness. but, however fanciful might be his private pursuits, dr. melmoth, it was universally allowed, was diligent and successful in the arts of instruction. the young men of his charge prospered beneath his eye, and regarded him with an affection that was strengthened by the little foibles which occasionally excited their ridicule. the president was assisted in the discharge of his duties by two inferior officers, chosen from the alumni of the college, who, while they imparted to others the knowledge they had already imbibed, pursued the study of divinity under the direction of their principal. under such auspices the institution grew and flourished. having at that time but two rivals in the country (neither of them within a considerable distance), it became the general resort of the youth of the province in which it was situated. for several years in succession, its students amounted to nearly fifty,--a number which, relatively to the circumstances of the country, was very considerable. from the exterior of the collegians, an accurate observer might pretty safely judge how long they had been inmates of those classic walls. the brown cheeks and the rustic dress of some would inform him that they had but recently left the plough to labor in a not less toilsome field; the grave look, and the intermingling of garments of a more classic cut, would distinguish those who had begun to acquire the polish of their new residence; and the air of superiority, the paler cheek, the less robust form, the spectacles of green, and the dress, in general of threadbare black, would designate the highest class, who were understood to have acquired nearly all the science their alma mater could bestow, and to be on the point of assuming their stations in the world. there were, it is true, exceptions to this general description. a few young men had found their way hither from the distant seaports; and these were the models of fashion to their rustic companions, over whom they asserted a superiority in exterior accomplishments, which the fresh though unpolished intellect of the sons of the forest denied them in their literary competitions. a third class, differing widely from both the former, consisted of a few young descendants of the aborigines, to whom an impracticable philanthropy was endeavoring to impart the benefits of civilization. if this institution did not offer all the advantages of elder and prouder seminaries, its deficiencies were compensated to its students by the inculcation of regular habits, and of a deep and awful sense of religion, which seldom deserted them in their course through life. the mild and gentle rule of dr. melmoth, like that of a father over his children, was more destructive to vice than a sterner sway; and though youth is never without its follies, they have seldom been more harmless than they were here. the students, indeed, ignorant of their own bliss, sometimes wished to hasten the time of their entrance on the business of life; but they found, in after-years, that many of their happiest remembrances, many of the scenes which they would with least reluctance live over again, referred to the seat of their early studies. the exceptions to this remark were chiefly those whose vices had drawn down, even from that paternal government, a weighty retribution. dr. melmoth, at the time when he is to be introduced to the reader, had borne the matrimonial yoke (and in his case it was no light burden) nearly twenty years. the blessing of children, however, had been denied him,--a circumstance which he was accustomed to consider as one of the sorest trials that checkered his pathway; for he was a man of a kind and affectionate heart, that was continually seeking objects to rest itself upon. he was inclined to believe, also, that a common offspring would have exerted a meliorating influence on the temper of mrs. melmoth, the character of whose domestic government often compelled him to call to mind such portions of the wisdom of antiquity as relate to the proper endurance of the shrewishness of woman. but domestic comforts, as well as comforts of every other kind, have their drawbacks; and, so long as the balance is on the side of happiness, a wise man will not murmur. such was the opinion of dr. melmoth; and with a little aid from philosophy, and more from religion, he journeyed on contentedly through life. when the storm was loud by the parlor hearth, he had always a sure and quiet retreat in his study; and there, in his deep though not always useful labors, he soon forgot whatever of disagreeable nature pertained to his situation. this small and dark apartment was the only portion of the house to which, since one firmly repelled invasion, mrs. melmoth's omnipotence did not extend. here (to reverse the words of queen elizabeth) there was "but one master and no mistress"; and that man has little right to complain who possesses so much as one corner in the world where he may be happy or miserable, as best suits him. in his study, then, the doctor was accustomed to spend most of the hours that were unoccupied by the duties of his station. the flight of time was here as swift as the wind, and noiseless as the snow-flake; and it was a sure proof of real happiness that night often came upon the student before he knew it was midday. dr. melmoth was wearing towards age (having lived nearly sixty years), when he was called upon to assume a character to which he had as yet been a stranger. he had possessed in his youth a very dear friend, with whom his education had associated him, and who in his early manhood had been his chief intimate. circumstances, however, had separated them for nearly thirty years, half of which had been spent by his friend, who was engaged in mercantile pursuits, in a foreign country. the doctor had, nevertheless, retained a warm interest in the welfare of his old associate, though the different nature of their thoughts and occupations had prevented them from corresponding. after a silence of so long continuance, therefore, he was surprised by the receipt of a letter from his friend, containing a request of a most unexpected nature. mr. langton had married rather late in life; and his wedded bliss had been but of short continuance. certain misfortunes in trade, when he was a benedict of three years' standing, had deprived him of a large portion of his property, and compelled him, in order to save the remainder, to leave his own country for what he hoped would be but a brief residence in another. but, though he was successful in the immediate objects of his voyage, circumstances occurred to lengthen his stay far beyond the period which he had assigned to it. it was difficult so to arrange his extensive concerns that they could be safely trusted to the management of others; and, when this was effected, there was another not less powerful obstacle to his return. his affairs, under his own inspection, were so prosperous, and his gains so considerable, that, in the words of the old ballad, "he set his heart to gather gold"; and to this absorbing passion he sacrificed his domestic happiness. the death of his wife, about four years after his departure, undoubtedly contributed to give him a sort of dread of returning, which it required a strong effort to overcome. the welfare of his only child he knew would be little affected by this event; for she was under the protection of his sister, of whose tenderness he was well assured. but, after a few more years, this sister, also, was taken away by death; and then the father felt that duty imperatively called upon him to return. he realized, on a sudden, how much of life he had thrown away in the acquisition of what is only valuable as it contributes to the happiness of life, and how short a tune was left him for life's true enjoyments. still, however, his mercantile habits were too deeply seated to allow him to hazard his present prosperity by any hasty measures; nor was mr. langton, though capable of strong affections, naturally liable to manifest them violently. it was probable, therefore, that many months might yet elapse before he would again tread the shores of his native country. but the distant relative, in whose family, since the death of her aunt, ellen langton had remained, had been long at variance with her father, and had unwillingly assumed the office of her protector. mr. langton's request, therefore, to dr. melmoth, was, that his ancient friend (one of the few friends that time had left him) would be as a father to his daughter till he could himself relieve him of the charge. the doctor, after perusing the epistle of his friend, lost no time in laying it before mrs. melmoth, though this was, in truth, one of the very few occasions on which he had determined that his will should be absolute law. the lady was quick to perceive the firmness of his purpose, and would not (even had she been particularly averse to the proposed measure) hazard her usual authority by a fruitless opposition. but, by long disuse, she had lost the power of consenting graciously to any wish of her husband's. "i see your heart is set upon this matter," she observed; "and, in truth, i fear we cannot decently refuse mr. langton's request. i see little good of such a friend, doctor, who never lets one know he is alive till he has a favor to ask." "nay; but i have received much good at his hand," replied dr. melmoth; "and, if he asked more of me, it should be done with a willing heart. i remember in my youth, when my worldly goods were few and ill managed (i was a bachelor, then, dearest sarah, with none to look after my household), how many times i have been beholden to him. and see--in his letter he speaks of presents, of the produce of the country, which he has sent both to you and me." "if the girl were country-bred," continued the lady, "we might give her house-room, and no harm done. nay, she might even be a help to me; for esther, our maid-servant, leaves us at the mouth's end. but i warrant she knows as little of household matters as you do yourself, doctor." "my friend's sister was well grounded in the _re familiari_" answered her husband; "and doubtless she hath imparted somewhat of her skill to this damsel. besides, the child is of tender years, and will profit much by your instruction and mine." "the child is eighteen years of age, doctor," observed mrs. melmoth, "and she has cause to be thankful that she will have better instruction than yours." this was a proposition that dr. melmoth did not choose to dispute; though he perhaps thought that his long and successful experience in the education of the other sex might make him an able coadjutor to his wife in the care of ellen langton. he determined to journey in person to the seaport where his young charge resided, leaving the concerns of harley college to the direction of the two tutors. mrs. melmoth, who, indeed, anticipated with pleasure the arrival of a new subject to her authority, threw no difficulties in the way of his intention. to do her justice, her preparations for his journey, and the minute instructions with which she favored him, were such as only a woman's true affection could have suggested. the traveller met with no incidents important to this tale; and, after an absence of about a fortnight, he and ellen alighted from their steeds (for on horseback had the journey been performed) in safety at his own door. if pen could give an adequate idea of ellen langton's loveliness, it would achieve what pencil (the pencils, at least, of the colonial artists who attempted it) never could; for, though the dark eyes might be painted, the pure and pleasant thoughts that peeped through them could only be seen and felt. but descriptions of beauty are never satisfactory. it must, therefore, be left to the imagination of the reader to conceive of something not more than mortal, nor, indeed, quite the perfection of mortality, but charming men the more, because they felt, that, lovely as she was, she was of like nature to themselves. from the time that ellen entered dr. melmoth's habitation, the sunny days seemed brighter and the cloudy ones less gloomy, than he had ever before known them. he naturally delighted in children; and ellen, though her years approached to womanhood, had yet much of the gayety and simple happiness, because the innocence, of a child. she consequently became the very blessing of his life,--the rich recreation that he promised himself for hours of literary toil. on one occasion, indeed, he even made her his companion in the sacred retreat of his study, with the purpose of entering upon a course of instruction in the learned languages. this measure, however, he found inexpedient to repeat; for ellen, having discovered an old romance among his heavy folios, contrived, by the charm of her sweet voice, to engage his attention therein till all more important concerns were forgotten. with mrs. melmoth, ellen was not, of course, so great a favorite as with her husband; for women cannot so readily as men, bestow upon the offspring of others those affections that nature intended for their own; and the doctor's extraordinary partiality was anything rather than a pledge of his wife's. but ellen differed so far from the idea she had previously formed of her, as a daughter of one of the principal merchants, who were then, as now, like nobles in the land, that the stock of dislike which mrs. melmoth had provided was found to be totally inapplicable. the young stranger strove so hard, too (and undoubtedly it was a pleasant labor), to win her love, that she was successful to a degree of which the lady herself was not, perhaps, aware. it was soon seen that her education had not been neglected in those points which mrs. melmoth deemed most important. the nicer departments of cookery, after sufficient proof of her skill, were committed to her care; and the doctor's table was now covered with delicacies, simple indeed, but as tempting on account of their intrinsic excellence as of the small white hands that made them. by such arts as these,--which in her were no arts, but the dictates of an affectionate disposition,--by making herself useful where it was possible, and agreeable on all occasions, ellen gained the love of everyone within the sphere of her influence. but the maiden's conquests were not confined to the members of dr. melmoth's family. she had numerous admirers among those whose situation compelled them to stand afar off, and gaze upon her loveliness, as if she were a star, whose brightness they saw, but whose warmth they could not feel. these were the young men of harley college, whose chief opportunities of beholding ellen were upon the sabbaths, when she worshipped with them in the little chapel, which served the purposes of a church to all the families of the vicinity. there was, about this period (and the fact was undoubtedly attributable to ellen's influence,) a general and very evident decline in the scholarship of the college, especially in regard to the severer studies. the intellectual powers of the young men seemed to be directed chiefly to the construction of latin and greek verse, many copies of which, with a characteristic and classic gallantry, were strewn in the path where ellen langton was accustomed to walk. they, however, produced no perceptible effect; nor were the aspirations of another ambitious youth, who celebrated her perfections in hebrew, attended with their merited success. but there was one young man, to whom circumstances, independent of his personal advantages, afforded a superior opportunity of gaining ellen's favor. he was nearly related to dr. melmoth, on which account he received his education at harley college, rather than at one of the english universities, to the expenses of which his fortune would have been adequate. this connection entitled him to a frequent and familiar access to the domestic hearth of the dignitary,--an advantage of which, since ellen langton became a member of the family, he very constantly availed himself. edward walcott was certainly much superior, in most of the particulars of which a lady takes cognizance, to those of his fellow-students who had come under ellen's notice. he was tall; and the natural grace of his manners had been improved (an advantage which few of his associates could boast) by early intercourse with polished society. his features, also, were handsome, and promised to be manly and dignified when they should cease to be youthful. his character as a scholar was more than respectable, though many youthful follies, sometimes, perhaps, approaching near to vices, were laid to his charge. but his occasional derelictions from discipline were not such as to create any very serious apprehensions respecting his future welfare; nor were they greater than, perhaps, might be expected from a young man who possessed a considerable command of money, and who was, besides, the fine gentleman of the little community of which he was a member,--a character which generally leads its possessor into follies that he would otherwise have avoided. with this youth ellen langton became familiar, and even intimate; for he was her only companion, of an age suited to her own, and the difference of sex did not occur to her as an objection. he was her constant companion on all necessary and allowable occasions, and drew upon himself, in consequence, the envy of the college. chapter ii. "why, all delights are vain, but that most vain, which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain: as painfully to pore upon a book to seek the light of truth, while truth, the while, doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look." shakespeare. on one of the afternoons which afforded to the students a relaxation from their usual labors, ellen was attended by her cavalier in a little excursion over the rough bridle-roads that led from her new residence. she was an experienced equestrian,--a necessary accomplishment at that period, when vehicles of every kind were rare. it was now the latter end of spring; but the season had hitherto been backward, with only a few warm and pleasant days. the present afternoon, however, was a delicious mingling of spring and summer, forming in their union an atmosphere so mild and pure, that to breathe was almost a positive happiness. there was a little alternation of cloud across the brow of heaven, but only so much as to render the sunshine more delightful. the path of the young travellers lay sometimes among tall and thick standing trees, and sometimes over naked and desolate hills, whence man had taken the natural vegetation, and then left the soil to its barrenness. indeed, there is little inducement to a cultivator to labor among the huge stones which there peep forth from the earth, seeming to form a continued ledge for several miles. a singular contrast to this unfavored tract of country is seen in the narrow but luxuriant, though sometimes swampy, strip of interval, on both sides of the stream, that, as has been noticed, flows down the valley. the light and buoyant spirits of edward walcott and ellen rose higher as they rode on; and their way was enlivened, wherever its roughness did not forbid, by their conversation and pleasant laughter. but at length ellen drew her bridle, as they emerged from a thick portion of the forest, just at the foot of a steep hill. "we must have ridden far," she observed,--"farther than i thought. it will be near sunset before we can reach home." "there are still several hours of daylight," replied edward walcott; "and we will not turn back without ascending this hill. the prospect from the summit is beautiful, and will be particularly so now, in this rich sunlight. come, ellen,--one light touch of the whip,--your pony is as fresh as when we started." on reaching the summit of the hill, and looking back in the direction in which they had come, they could see the little stream, peeping forth many times to the daylight, and then shrinking back into the shade. farther on, it became broad and deep, though rendered incapable of navigation, in this part of its course, by the occasional interruption of rapids. "there are hidden wonders of rock and precipice and cave, in that dark forest," said edward, pointing to the space between them and the river. "if it were earlier in the day, i should love to lead you there. shall we try the adventure now, ellen?" "oh no!" she replied. "let us delay no longer. i fear i must even now abide a rebuke from mrs. melmoth, which i have surely deserved. but who is this, who rides on so slowly before us?" she pointed to a horseman, whom they had not before observed. he was descending the hill; but, as his steed seemed to have chosen his own pace, he made a very inconsiderable progress. "oh, do you not know him? but it is scarcely possible you should," exclaimed her companion. "we must do him the good office, ellen, of stopping his progress, or he will find himself at the village, a dozen miles farther on, before he resumes his consciousness." "has he then lost his senses?" inquired miss langton. "not so, ellen,--if much learning has not made him mad," replied edward walcott. "he is a deep scholar and a noble fellow; but i fear we shall follow him to his grave erelong. dr. melmoth has sent him to ride in pursuit of his health. he will never overtake it, however, at this pace." as he spoke, they had approached close to the subject of their conversation; and ellen had a moment's space for observation before he started from the abstraction in which he was plunged. the result of her scrutiny was favorable, yet very painful. the stranger could scarcely have attained his twentieth year, and was possessed of a face and form such as nature bestows on none but her favorites. there was a nobleness on his high forehead, which time would have deepened into majesty; and all his features were formed with a strength and boldness, of which the paleness, produced by study and confinement, could not deprive them. the expression of his countenance was not a melancholy one: on the contrary, it was proud and high, perhaps triumphant, like one who was a ruler in a world of his own, and independent of the beings that surrounded him. but a blight, of which his thin pale cheek, and the brightness of his eye, were alike proofs, seemed to have come over him ere his maturity. the scholar's attention was now aroused by the hoof-tramps at his side; and, starting, he fixed his eyes on ellen, whose young and lovely countenance was full of the interest he had excited. a deep blush immediately suffused his cheek, proving how well the glow of health would have become it. there was nothing awkward, however, in his manner; and, soon recovering his self-possession, he bowed to her, and would have rode on. "your ride is unusually long to-day, fanshawe," observed edward walcott. "when may we look for your return?" the young man again blushed, but answered, with a smile that had a beautiful effect upon his countenance, "i was not, at the moment, aware in which direction my horse's head was turned. i have to thank you for arresting me in a journey which was likely to prove much longer than i intended." the party had now turned their horses, and were about to resume their ride in a homeward direction; but edward perceived that fanshawe, having lost the excitement of intense thought, now looked weary and dispirited. "here is a cottage close at hand," he observed. "we have ridden far, and stand in need of refreshment. ellen, shall we alight?" she saw the benevolent motive of his proposal, and did not hesitate to comply with it. but, as they paused at the cottage door, she could not but observe that its exterior promised few of the comforts which they required. time and neglect seemed to have conspired for its ruin; and, but for a thin curl of smoke from its clay chimney, they could not have believed it to be inhabited. a considerable tract of land in the vicinity of the cottage had evidently been, at some former period, under cultivation, but was now overrun by bushes and dwarf pines, among which many huge gray rocks, ineradicable by human art, endeavored to conceal themselves. about half an acre of ground was occupied by the young blades of indian-corn, at which a half-starved cow gazed wistfully over the mouldering log-fence. these were the only agricultural tokens. edward walcott, nevertheless, drew the latch of the cottage door, after knocking loudly but in vain. the apartment which was thus opened to their view was quite as wretched as its exterior had given them reason to anticipate. poverty was there, with all its necessary and unnecessary concomitants. the intruders would have retired had not the hope of affording relief detained them. the occupants of the small and squalid apartment were two women, both of them elderly, and, from the resemblance of their features, appearing to be sisters. the expression of their countenances, however, was very different. one, evidently the younger, was seated on the farther side of the large hearth, opposite to the door at which the party stood. she had the sallow look of long and wasting illness; and there was an unsteadiness of expression about her eyes, that immediately struck the observer. yet her face was mild and gentle, therein contrasting widely with that of her companion. the other woman was bending over a small fire of decayed branches, the flame of which was very disproportionate to the smoke, scarcely producing heat sufficient for the preparation of a scanty portion of food. her profile only was visible to the strangers, though, from a slight motion of her eye, they perceived that she was aware of their presence. her features were pinched and spare, and wore a look of sullen discontent, for which the evident wretchedness of her situation afforded a sufficient reason. this female, notwithstanding her years, and the habitual fretfulness (that is more wearing than time), was apparently healthy and robust, with a dry, leathery complexion. a short space elapsed before she thought proper to turn her face towards her visitors; and she then regarded them with a lowering eye, without speaking, or rising from her chair. "we entered," edward walcott began to say, "in the hope"--but he paused, on perceiving that the sick woman had risen from her seat, and with slow and tottering footsteps was drawing near to him. she took his hand in both her own; and, though he shuddered at the touch of age and disease, he did not attempt to withdraw it. she then perused all his features, with an expression, at first of eager and hopeful anxiety, which faded by degrees into disappointment. then, turning from him, she gazed into fanshawe's countenance with the like eagerness, but with the same result. lastly, tottering back to her chair, she hid her face and wept bitterly. the strangers, though they knew not the cause of her grief, were deeply affected; and ellen approached the mourner with words of comfort, which, more from their tone than their meaning, produced a transient effect. "do you bring news of him?" she inquired, raising her head. "will he return to me? shall i see him before i die?" ellen knew not what to answer; and, ere she could attempt it, the other female prevented her. "sister butler is wandering in her mind," she said, "and speaks of one she will never behold again. the sight of strangers disturbs her, and you see we have nothing here to offer you." the manner of the woman was ungracious; but her words were true. they saw that their presence could do nothing towards the alleviation of the misery they witnessed; and they felt that mere curiosity would not authorize a longer intrusion. so soon, therefore, as they had relieved, according to their power, the poverty that seemed to be the least evil of this cottage, they emerged into the open air. the breath of heaven felt sweet to them, and removed a part of the weight from their young hearts, which were saddened by the sight of so much wretchedness. perceiving a pure and bright little fountain at a short distance from the cottage, they approached it, and, using the bark of a birch-tree as a cup, partook of its cool waters. they then pursued their homeward ride with such diligence, that, just as the sun was setting, they came in sight of the humble wooden edifice which was dignified with the name of harley college. a golden ray rested upon the spire of the little chapel, the bell of which sent its tinkling murmur down the valley to summon the wanderers to evening prayers. fanshawe returned to his chamber that night, and lighted his lamp as he had been wont to do. the books were around him which had hitherto been to him like those fabled volumes of magic, from which the reader could not turn away his eye till death were the consequence of his studies. but there were unaccustomed thoughts in his bosom now; and to these, leaning his head on one of the unopened volumes, he resigned himself. he called up in review the years, that, even at his early age, he had spent in solitary study, in conversation with the dead, while he had scorned to mingle with the living world, or to be actuated by any of its motives. he asked himself to what purpose was all this destructive labor, and where was the happiness of superior knowledge. he had climbed but a few steps of a ladder that reached to infinity: he had thrown away his life in discovering, that, after a thousand such lives, he should still know comparatively nothing. he even looked forward with dread--though once the thought had been dear to him--to the eternity of improvement that lay before him. it seemed now a weary way, without a resting-place and without a termination; and at that moment he would have preferred the dreamless sleep of the brutes that perish to man's proudest attribute,--of immortality. fanshawe had hitherto deemed himself unconnected with the world, unconcerned in its feelings, and uninfluenced by it in any of his pursuits. in this respect he probably deceived himself. if his inmost heart could have been laid open, there would have been discovered that dream of undying fame, which, dream as it is, is more powerful than a thousand realities. but, at any rate, he had seemed, to others and to himself, a solitary being, upon whom the hopes and fears of ordinary men were ineffectual. but now he felt the first thrilling of one of the many ties, that, so long as we breathe the common air, (and who shall say how much longer?) unite us to our kind. the sound of a soft, sweet voice, the glance of a gentle eye, had wrought a change upon him; and in his ardent mind a few hours had done the work of many. almost in spite of himself, the new sensation was inexpressibly delightful. the recollection of his ruined health, of his habits (so much at variance with those of the world),--all the difficulties that reason suggested, were inadequate to check the exulting tide of hope and joy. chapter iii. "and let the aspiring youth beware of love,-- of the smooth glance beware; for 'tis too late when on his heart the torrent softness pours; then wisdom prostrate lies, and fading fame dissolves in air away." thomson. a few months passed over the heads of ellen langton and her admirers, unproductive of events, that, separately, were of sufficient importance to be related. the summer was now drawing to a close; and dr. melmoth had received information that his friend's arrangements were nearly completed, and that by the next home-bound ship he hoped to return to his native country. the arrival of that ship was daily expected. during the time that had elapsed since his first meeting with ellen, there had been a change, yet not a very remarkable one, in fanshawe's habits. he was still the same solitary being, so far as regarded his own sex; and he still confined himself as sedulously to his chamber, except for one hour--the sunset hour--of every day. at that period, unless prevented by the inclemency of the weather, he was accustomed to tread a path that wound along the banks of the stream. he had discovered that this was the most frequent scene of ellen's walks; and this it was that drew him thither. their intercourse was at first extremely slight,--a bow on the one side, a smile on the other, and a passing word from both; and then the student hurried back to his solitude. but, in course of time, opportunities occurred for more extended conversation; so that, at the period with which this chapter is concerned, fanshawe was, almost as constantly as edward walcott himself, the companion of ellen's walks. his passion had strengthened more than proportionably to the time that had elapsed since it was conceived; but the first glow and excitement which attended it had now vanished. he had reasoned calmly with himself, and rendered evident to his own mind the almost utter hopelessness of success. he had also made his resolution strong, that he would not even endeavor to win ellen's love, the result of which, for a thousand reasons, could not be happiness. firm in this determination, and confident of his power to adhere to it; feeling, also, that time and absence could not cure his own passion, and having no desire for such a cure,--he saw no reason for breaking off the intercourse that was established between ellen and himself. it was remarkable, that, notwithstanding the desperate nature of his love, that, or something connected with it, seemed to have a beneficial effect upon his health. there was now a slight tinge of color in his cheek, and a less consuming brightness in his eye. could it be that hope, unknown to himself, was yet alive in his breast; that a sense of the possibility of earthly happiness was redeeming him from the grave? had the character of ellen langton's mind been different, there might, perhaps, have been danger to her from an intercourse of this nature with such a being as fanshawe; for he was distinguished by many of those asperities around which a woman's affection will often cling. but she was formed to walk in the calm and quiet paths of life, and to pluck the flowers of happiness from the wayside where they grow. singularity of character, therefore, was not calculated to win her love. she undoubtedly felt an interest in the solitary student, and perceiving, with no great exercise of vanity, that her society drew him from the destructive intensity of his studies, she perhaps felt it a duty to exert her influence. but it did not occur to her that her influence had been sufficiently strong to change the whole current of his thoughts and feelings. ellen and her two lovers (for both, though perhaps not equally, deserved that epithet) had met, as usual, at the close of a sweet summer day, and were standing by the side of the stream, just where it swept into a deep pool. the current, undermining the bank, had formed a recess, which, according to edward walcott, afforded at that moment a hiding-place to a trout of noble size. "now would i give the world," he exclaimed with great interest, "for a hook and line, a fish-spear, or any piscatorial instrument of death! look, ellen, you can see the waving of his tail from beneath the bank!" "if you had the means of taking him, i should save him from your cruelty, thus," said ellen, dropping a pebble into the water, just over the fish. "there! he has darted down the stream. how many pleasant caves and recesses there must be under these banks, where he may be happy! may there not be happiness in the life of a fish?" she added, turning with a smile to fanshawe. "there may," he replied, "so long as he lives quietly in the caves and recesses of which you speak, yes, there may be happiness, though such as few would envy; but, then, the hook and line"-- "which, there is reason to apprehend, will shortly destroy the happiness of our friend the trout," interrupted edward, pointing down the stream. "there is an angler on his way toward us, who will intercept him." "he seems to care little for the sport, to judge by the pace at which he walks," said ellen. "but he sees, now, that we are observing him, and is willing to prove that he knows something of the art," replied edward walcott. "i should think him well acquainted with the stream; for, hastily as he walks, he has tried every pool and ripple where a fish usually hides. but that point will be decided when he reaches yonder old bare oak-tree." "and how is the old tree to decide the question?" inquired fanshawe. "it is a species of evidence of which i have never before heard." "the stream has worn a hollow under its roots," answered edward,--"a most delicate retreat for a trout. now, a stranger would not discover the spot; or, if he did, the probable result of a cast would be the loss of hook and line,--an accident that has occurred to me more than once. if, therefore, this angler takes a fish from thence, it follows that he knows the stream." they observed the fisher, accordingly, as he kept his way up the bank. he did not pause when he reached the old leafless oak, that formed with its roots an obstruction very common in american streams; but, throwing his line with involuntary skill as he passed, he not only escaped the various entanglements, but drew forth a fine large fish. "there, ellen, he has captivated your _protégé_, the trout, or, at least, one very like him in size," observed edward. "it is singular," he added, gazing earnestly at the man. "why is it singular?" inquired ellen langton. "this person, perhaps, resides in the neighborhood, and may have fished often in the stream." "do but look at him, ellen, and judge whether his life can have been spent in this lonely valley," he replied. "the glow of many a hotter sun than ours has darkened his brow; and his step and air have something foreign in them, like what we see in sailors who have lived more in other countries than in their own. is it not so, ellen? for your education in a seaport must have given you skill in these matters. but come, let us approach nearer." they walked towards the angler, accordingly, who still remained under the oak, apparently engaged in arranging his fishing-tackle. as the party drew nigh, he raised his head, and threw one quick, scrutinizing glance towards them, disclosing, on his part, a set of bold and rather coarse features, weather-beaten, but indicating the age of the owner to be not above thirty. in person he surpassed the middle size, was well set, and evidently strong and active. "do you meet with much success, sir?" inquired edward walcott, when within a convenient distance for conversation. "i have taken but one fish," replied the angler, in an accent which his hearers could scarcely determine to be foreign, or the contrary. "i am a stranger to the stream, and have doubtless passed over many a likely place for sport." "you have an angler's eye, sir," rejoined edward. "i observed that you made your casts as if you had often trod these banks, and i could scarcely have guided you better myself." "yes, i have learned the art, and i love to practise it," replied the man. "but will not the young lady try her skill?" he continued, casting a bold eye on ellen. "the fish will love to be drawn out by such white hands as those." ellen shrank back, though almost imperceptibly, from the free bearing of the man. it seemed meant for courtesy; but its effect was excessively disagreeable. edward walcott, who perceived and coincided in ellen's feelings, replied to the stranger's proposal. "the young lady will not put the gallantry of the fish to the proof, sir," he said, "and she will therefore have no occasion for your own." "i shall take leave to hear my answer from the young lady's own mouth," answered the stranger, haughtily. "if you will step this way, miss langton" (here he interrupted himself),--"if you will cast the line by yonder sunken log, i think you will meet with success." thus saying, the angler offered his rod and line to ellen. she at first drew back, then hesitated, but finally held out her hand to receive them. in thus complying with the stranger's request, she was actuated by a desire to keep the peace, which, as her notice of edward walcott's crimsoned cheek and flashing eye assured her, was considerably endangered. the angler led the way to the spot which he had pointed out, which, though not at such a distance from ellen's companions but that words in a common tone could be distinguished, was out of the range of a lowered voice. edward walcott and the student remained by the oak: the former biting his lip with vexation; the latter, whose abstraction always vanished where ellen was concerned, regarding her and the stranger with fixed and silent attention. the young men could at first hear the words that the angler addressed to ellen. they related to the mode of managing the rod; and she made one or two casts under his direction. at length, however, as if to offer his assistance, the man advanced close to her side, and seemed to speak, but in so low a tone, that the sense of what he uttered was lost before it reached the oak. but its effect upon ellen was immediate and very obvious. her eyes flashed; and an indignant blush rose high on her cheek, giving to her beauty a haughty brightness, of which the gentleness of her disposition in general deprived it. the next moment, however, she seemed to recollect herself, and, restoring the angling-rod to its owner, she turned away calmly, and approached her companions. "the evening breeze grows chill; and mine is a dress for a summer day," she observed. "let us walk homeward." "miss langton, is it the evening breeze alone that sends you homeward?" inquired edward. at this moment the angler, who had resumed, and seemed to be intent upon his occupation, drew a fish from the pool, which he had pointed out to ellen. "i told the young lady," he exclaimed, "that, if she would listen to me a moment longer, she would be repaid for her trouble; and here is the proof of my words." "come, let us hasten towards home," cried ellen, eagerly; and she took edward walcott's arm, with a freedom that, at another time, would have enchanted him. he at first seemed inclined to resist her wishes, but complied, after exchanging, unperceived by ellen, a glance with the stranger, the meaning of which the latter appeared perfectly to understand. fanshawe also attended her. their walk towards dr. melmoth's dwelling was almost a silent one; and the few words that passed between them did not relate to the adventure which occupied the thoughts of each. on arriving at the house, ellen's attendants took leave of her, and retired. edward walcott, eluding fanshawe's observation with little difficulty, hastened back to the old oak-tree. from the intelligence with which the stranger had received his meaning glance, the young man had supposed that he would here await his return. but the banks of the stream, upward and downward, so far as his eye could reach, were solitary. he could see only his own image in the water, where it swept into a silent depth; and could hear only its ripple, where stones and sunken trees impeded its course. the object of his search might, indeed, have found concealment among the tufts of alders, or in the forest that was near at hand; but thither it was in vain to pursue him. the angler had apparently set little store by the fruits of his assumed occupation; for the last fish that he had taken lay, yet alive, on the bank, gasping for the element to which edward was sufficiently compassionate to restore him. after watching him as he glided down the stream, making feeble efforts to resist its current, the youth turned away, and sauntered slowly towards the college. ellen langton, on her return from her walk, found dr. melmoth's little parlor unoccupied; that gentleman being deeply engaged in his study, and his lady busied in her domestic affairs. the evening, notwithstanding ellen's remark concerning the chillness of the breeze, was almost sultry; and the windows of the apartment were thrown open. at one of these, which looked into the garden, she seated herself, listening, almost unconsciously, to the monotonous music of a thousand insects, varied occasionally by the voice of a whippoorwill, who, as the day departed, was just commencing his song. a dusky tint, as yet almost imperceptible, was beginning to settle on the surrounding objects, except where they were opposed to the purple and golden clouds, which the vanished sun had made the brief inheritors of a portion of his brightness. in these gorgeous vapors, ellen's fancy, in the interval of other thoughts, pictured a fairy-land, and longed for wings to visit it. but as the clouds lost their brilliancy, and assumed first a dull purple, and then a sullen gray tint, ellen's thoughts recurred to the adventure of the angler, which her imagination was inclined to invest with an undue singularity. it was, however, sufficiently unaccountable that an entire stranger should venture to demand of her a private audience; and she assigned, in turn, a thousand motives for such a request, none of which were in any degree satisfactory. her most prevailing thought, though she could not justify it to her reason, inclined her to believe that the angler was a messenger from her father. but wherefore he should deem it necessary to communicate any intelligence that he might possess only by means of a private interview, and without the knowledge of her friends, was a mystery she could not solve. in this view of the matter, however, she half regretted that her instinctive delicacy had impelled her so suddenly to break off their conference, admitting, in the secrecy of her own mind, that, if an opportunity were again to occur, it might not again be shunned. as if that unuttered thought had power to conjure up its object, she now became aware of a form standing in the garden, at a short distance from the window where she sat. the dusk had deepened, during ellen's abstraction, to such a degree, that the man's features were not perfectly distinguishable; but the maiden was not long in doubt of his identity, for he approached, and spoke in the same low tone in which he had addressed her when they stood by the stream. "do you still refuse my request, when its object is but your own good, and that of one who should be most dear to you?" he asked. ellen's first impulse had been to cry out for assistance; her second was to fly: but, rejecting both these measures, she determined to remain, endeavoring to persuade herself that she was safe. the quivering of her voice, however, when she attempted to reply, betrayed her apprehensions. "i cannot listen to such a request from a stranger," she said. "if you bring news from--from my father, why is it not told to dr. melmoth?" "because what i have to say is for your ear alone," was the reply; "and if you would avoid misfortune now, and sorrow hereafter, you will not refuse to hear me." "and does it concern my father?" asked ellen, eagerly. "it does--most deeply," answered the stranger. she meditated a moment, and then replied, "i will not refuse, i will hear--but speak quickly." "we are in danger of interruption in this place, and that would be fatal to my errand," said the stranger. "i will await you in the garden." with these words, and giving her no opportunity for reply, he drew back; and his form faded from her eyes. this precipitate retreat from argument was the most probable method that he could have adopted of gaining his end. he had awakened the strongest interest in ellen's mind; and he calculated justly in supposing that she would consent to an interview upon his own terms. dr. melmoth had followed his own fancies in the mode of laying out his garden; and, in consequence, the plan that had undoubtedly existed in his mind was utterly incomprehensible to every one but himself. it was an intermixture of kitchen and flower garden, a labyrinth of winding paths, bordered by hedges, and impeded by shrubbery. many of the original trees of the forest were still flourishing among the exotics which the doctor had transplanted thither. it was not without a sensation of fear, stronger than she had ever before experienced, that ellen langton found herself in this artificial wilderness, and in the presence of the mysterious stranger. the dusky light deepened the lines of his dark, strong features; and ellen fancied that his countenance wore a wilder and a fiercer look than when she had met him by the stream. he perceived her agitation, and addressed her in the softest tones of which his voice was capable. "compose yourself," he said; "you have nothing to fear from me. but we are in open view from the house, where we now stand; and discovery would not be without danger to both of us." "no eye can see us here," said ellen, trembling at the truth of her own observation, when they stood beneath a gnarled, low-branched pine, which dr. melmoth's ideas of beauty had caused him to retain in his garden. "speak quickly; for i dare follow you no farther." the spot was indeed sufficiently solitary; and the stranger delayed no longer to explain his errand. "your father," he began,--"do you not love him? would you do aught for his welfare?" "everything that a father could ask i would do," exclaimed ellen, eagerly. "where is my father? and when shall i meet him?" "it must depend upon yourself, whether you shall meet him in a few days or never." "never!" repeated ellen. "is he ill? is he in danger?" "he is in danger," replied the man, "but not from illness. your father is a ruined man. of all his friends, but one remains to him. that friend has travelled far to prove if his daughter has a daughter's affection." "and what is to be the proof?" asked ellen, with more calmness than the stranger had anticipated; for she possessed a large fund of plain sense, which revolted against the mystery of these proceedings. such a course, too, seemed discordant with her father's character, whose strong mind and almost cold heart were little likely to demand, or even to pardon, the romance of affection. "this letter will explain," was the reply to ellen's question. "you will see that it is in your father's hand; and that may gain your confidence, though i am doubted." she received the letter; and many of her suspicions of the stranger's truth were vanquished by the apparent openness of his manner. he was preparing to speak further, but paused, for a footstep was now heard, approaching from the lower part of the garden. from their situation,--at some distance from the path, and in the shade of the tree,--they had a fair chance of eluding discovery from any unsuspecting passenger; and, when ellen saw that the intruder was fanshawe, she hoped that his usual abstraction would assist their concealment. but, as the student advanced along the path, his air was not that of one whose deep inward thoughts withdrew his attention from all outward objects. he rather resembled the hunter, on the watch for his game; and, while he was yet at a distance from ellen, a wandering gust of wind waved her white garment, and betrayed her. "it is as i feared," said fanshawe to himself. he then drew nigh, and addressed ellen with a calm authority that became him well, notwithstanding that his years scarcely exceeded her own. "miss langton," he inquired, "what do you here at such an hour, and with such a companion?" ellen was sufficiently displeased at what she deemed the unauthorized intrusion of fanshawe in her affairs; but his imposing manner and her own confusion prevented her from replying. "permit me to lead you to the house," he continued, in the words of a request, but in the tone of a command. "the dew hangs dank and heavy on these branches; and a longer stay would be more dangerous than you are aware." ellen would fain have resisted; but though the tears hung as heavy on her eyelashes, between shame and anger, as the dew upon the leaves, she felt compelled to accept the arm that he offered her. but the stranger, who, since fanshawe's approach, had remained a little apart, now advanced. "you speak as one in authority, young man," he said. "have you the means of compelling obedience? does your power extend to men? or do you rule only over simple girls? miss langton is under my protection, and, till you can bend me to your will, she shall remain so." fanshawe turned calmly, and fixed his eyes on the stranger. "retire, sir," was all he said. ellen almost shuddered, as if there were a mysterious and unearthly power in fanshawe's voice; for she saw that the stranger endeavored in vain, borne down by the influence of a superior mind, to maintain the boldness of look and bearing that seemed natural to him. he at first made a step forward, then muttered a few half-audible words; but, quailing at length beneath the young man's bright and steady eye, he turned and slowly withdrew. fanshawe remained silent a moment after his opponent had departed, and, when he next spoke, it was in a tone of depression. ellen observed, also, that his countenance had lost its look of pride and authority; and he seemed faint and exhausted. the occasion that called forth his energies had passed; and they had left him. "forgive me, miss langton," he said almost humbly, "if my eagerness to serve you has led me too far. there is evil in this stranger, more than your pure mind can conceive. i know not what has been his errand; but let me entreat you to put confidence in those to whose care your father has intrusted you. or if i--or--or edward walcott--but i have no right to advise you; and your own calm thoughts will guide you best." he said no more; and, as ellen did not reply, they reached the house, and parted in silence. chapter iv. "the seeds by nature planted take a deep root in the soil, and though for a time the trenchant share and tearing harrow may sweep all appearance of them from the surface, yet with the first warm rains of spring they'll shoot, and with their rankness smother the good grain. heaven grant, it mayn't be so with him." riches. the scene of this tale must now be changed to the little inn, which at that period, as at the present, was situated in the vicinity of harley college. the site of the modern establishment is the same with that of the ancient; but everything of the latter that had been built by hands has gone to decay and been removed, and only the earth beneath and around it remains the same. the modern building, a house of two stories, after a lapse of twenty years, is yet unfinished. on this account, it has retained the appellation of the "new inn," though, like many who have frequented it, it has grown old ere its maturity. its dingy whiteness, and its apparent superfluity of windows (many of them being closed with rough boards), give it somewhat of a dreary look, especially in a wet day. the ancient inn was a house, of which the eaves approached within about seven feet of the ground; while the roof, sloping gradually upward, formed an angle at several times that height. it was a comfortable and pleasant abode to the weary traveller, both in summer and winter; for the frost never ventured within the sphere of its huge hearths; and it was protected from the heat of the sultry season by three large elms that swept the roof with their long branches, and seemed to create a breeze where there was not one. the device upon the sign, suspended from one of these trees, was a hand holding a long-necked bottle, and was much more appropriate than the present unmeaning representation of a black eagle. but it is necessary to speak rather more at length of the landlord than of the house over which he presided. hugh crombie was one for whom most of the wise men, who considered the course of his early years, had predicted the gallows as an end before he should arrive at middle age. that these prophets of ill had been deceived was evident from the fact that the doomed man had now passed the fortieth year, and was in more prosperous circumstances than most of those who had wagged their tongues against him. yet the failure of their forebodings was more remarkable than their fulfilment would have been. he had been distinguished, almost from his earliest infancy, by those precocious accomplishments, which, because they consist in an imitation of the vices and follies of maturity, render a boy the favorite plaything of men. he seemed to have received from nature the convivial talents, which, whether natural or acquired, are a most dangerous possession; and, before his twelfth year, he was the welcome associate of all the idle and dissipated of his neighborhood, and especially of those who haunted the tavern of which he had now become the landlord. under this course of education, hugh crombie grew to youth and manhood; and the lovers of good words could only say in his favor, that he was a greater enemy to himself than to any one else, and that, if he should reform, few would have a better chance of prosperity than he. the former clause of this modicum of praise (if praise it may be termed) was indisputable; but it may be doubted, whether, under any circumstances where his success depended on his own exertions, hugh would have made his way well through the world. he was one of those unfortunate persons, who, instead of being perfect in any single art or occupation, are superficial in many, and who are supposed to possess a larger share of talent than other men, because it consists of numerous scraps, instead of a single mass. he was partially acquainted with most of the manual arts that gave bread to others; but not one of them, nor all of them, would give bread to him. by some fatality, the only two of his multifarious accomplishments in which his excellence was generally conceded were both calculated to keep him poor rather than to make him rich. he was a musician and a poet. there are yet remaining in that portion of the country many ballads and songs,--set to their own peculiar tunes,--the authorship of which is attributed to him. in general, his productions were upon subjects of local and temporary interest, and would consequently require a bulk of explanatory notes to render them interesting or intelligible to the world at large. a considerable proportion of the remainder are anacreontics; though, in their construction, hugh crombie imitated neither the teian nor any other bard. these latter have generally a coarseness and sensuality intolerable to minds even of no very fastidious delicacy. but there are two or three simple little songs, into which a feeling and a natural pathos have found their way, that still retain their influence over the heart. these, after two or three centuries, may perhaps be precious to the collectors of our early poetry. at any rate, hugh crombie's effusions, tavern-haunter and vagrant though he was, have gained a continuance of fame (confined, indeed, to a narrow section of the country), which many who called themselves poets then, and would have scorned such a brother, have failed to equal. during the long winter evenings, when the farmers were idle round their hearths, hugh was a courted guest; for none could while away the hours more skilfully than he. the winter, therefore, was his season of prosperity; in which respect he differed from the butterflies and useless insects, to which he otherwise bore a resemblance. during the cold months, a very desirable alteration for the better appeared in his outward man. his cheeks were plump and sanguine; his eyes bright and cheerful; and the tip of his nose glowed with a bardolphian fire,--a flame, indeed, which hugh was so far a vestal as to supply with its necessary fuel at all seasons of the year. but, as the spring advanced, he assumed a lean and sallow look, wilting and fading in the sunshine that brought life and joy to every animal and vegetable except himself. his winter patrons eyed him with an austere regard; and some even practised upon him the modern and fashionable courtesy of the "cut direct." yet, after all, there was good, or something that nature intended to be so, in the poor outcast,--some lovely flowers, the sweeter even for the weeds that choked them. an instance of this was his affection for an aged father, whose whole support was the broken reed,--his son. notwithstanding his own necessities, hugh contrived to provide food and raiment for the old man: how, it would be difficult to say, and perhaps as well not to inquire. he also exhibited traits of sensitiveness to neglect and insult, and of gratitude for favors; both of which feelings a course of life like his is usually quick to eradicate. at length the restraint--for such his father had ever been--upon hugh crombie's conduct was removed by death; and then the wise men and the old began to shake their heads; and they who took pleasure in the follies, vices, and misfortunes of their fellow-creatures, looked for a speedy gratification. they were disappointed, however; for hugh had apparently determined, that, whatever might be his catastrophe, he would meet it among strangers, rather than at home. shortly after his father's death, he disappeared altogether from the vicinity; and his name became, in the course of years, an unusual sound, where once the lack of other topics of interest had given it a considerable degree of notoriety. sometimes, however, when the winter blast was loud round the lonely farm-house, its inmates remembered him who had so often chased away the gloom of such an hour, and, though with little expectation of its fulfilment, expressed a wish to behold him again. yet that wish, formed, perhaps, because it appeared so desperate, was finally destined to be gratified. one summer evening, about two years previous to the period of this tale, a man of sober and staid deportment, mounted upon a white horse, arrived at the hand and bottle, to which some civil or military meeting had chanced, that day, to draw most of the inhabitants of the vicinity. the stranger was well though plainly dressed, and anywhere but in a retired country town would have attracted no particular attention; but here, where a traveller was not of every-day occurrence, he was soon surrounded by a little crowd, who, when his eye was averted, seized the opportunity diligently to peruse his person. he was rather a thickset man, but with no superfluous flesh; his hair was of iron-gray; he had a few wrinkles; his face was so deeply sunburnt, that, excepting a half-smothered glow on the tip of his nose, a dusky yellow was the only apparent hue. as the people gazed, it was observed that the elderly men, and the men of substance, gat themselves silently to their steeds, and hied homeward with an unusual degree of haste; till at length the inn was deserted, except by a few wretched objects to whom it was a constant resort. these, instead of retreating, drew closer to the traveller, peeping anxiously into his face, and asking, ever and anon, a question, in order to discover the tone of his voice. at length, with one consent, and as if the recognition had at once burst upon them, they hailed their old boon-companion, hugh crombie, and, leading him into the inn, did him the honor to partake of a cup of welcome at his expense. but, though hugh readily acknowledged the not very reputable acquaintances who alone acknowledged him, they speedily discovered that he was an altered man. he partook with great moderation of the liquor for which he was to pay; he declined all their flattering entreaties for one of his old songs; and finally, being urged to engage in a game at all-fours, he calmly observed, almost in the words of an old clergyman on a like occasion, that his principles forbade a profane appeal to the decision by lot. on the next sabbath hugh crombie made his appearance at public worship in the chapel of harley college; and here his outward demeanor was unexceptionably serious and devout,--a praise which, on that particular occasion, could be bestowed on few besides. from these favorable symptoms, the old established prejudices against him began to waver; and as he seemed not to need, and to have no intention to ask, the assistance of any one, he was soon generally acknowledged by the rich as well as by the poor. his account of his past life, and of his intentions for the future, was brief, but not unsatisfactory. he said that, since his departure, he had been a seafaring man, and that, having acquired sufficient property to render him easy in the decline of his days, he had returned to live and die in the town of his nativity. there was one person, and the one whom hugh was most interested to please, who seemed perfectly satisfied of the verity of his reformation. this was the landlady of the inn, whom, at his departure, he had left a gay, and, even at thirty-five, a rather pretty wife, and whom, on his return, he found a widow of fifty, fat, yellow, wrinkled, and a zealous member of the church. she, like others, had, at first, cast a cold eye on the wanderer; but it shortly became evident to close observers, that a change was at work in the pious matron's sentiments respecting her old acquaintance. she was now careful to give him his morning dram from her own peculiar bottle, to fill his pipe from her private box of virginia, and to mix for him the sleeping-cup in which her late husband had delighted. of all these courtesies hugh crombie did partake with a wise and cautious moderation, that, while it proved them to be welcome, expressed his fear of trespassing on her kindness. for the sake of brevity, it shall suffice to say, that, about six weeks after hugh's return, a writing appeared on one of the elm-trees in front of the tavern (where, as the place of greatest resort, such notices were usually displayed) setting forth that marriage was intended between hugh crombie and the widow sarah hutchins. and the ceremony, which made hugh a landholder, a householder, and a substantial man, in due time took place. as a landlord, his general conduct was very praiseworthy. he was moderate in his charges, and attentive to his guests; he allowed no gross and evident disorders in his house, and practised none himself; he was kind and charitable to such as needed food and lodging, and had not wherewithal to pay,--for with these his experience had doubtless given him a fellow-feeling. he was also sufficiently attentive to his wife; though it must be acknowledged that the religious zeal which had had a considerable influence in gaining her affections grew, by no moderate degrees, less fervent. it was whispered, too, that the new landlord could, when time, place, and company were to his mind, upraise a song as merrily, and drink a glass as jollily, as in the days of yore. these were the weightiest charges that could now be brought against him; and wise men thought, that, whatever might have been the evil of his past life, he had returned with a desire (which years of vice, if they do not sometimes produce, do not always destroy) of being honest, if opportunity should offer; and hugh had certainly a fair one. on the afternoon previous to the events related in the last chapter, the personage whose introduction to the reader has occupied so large a space was seated under one of the elms in front of his dwelling. the bench which now sustained him, and on which were carved the names of many former occupants, was hugh crombie's favorite lounging-place, unless when his attentions were required by his guests. no demand had that day been made upon the hospitality of the hand and bottle; and the landlord was just then murmuring at the unfrequency of employment. the slenderness of his profits, indeed, were no part of his concern; for the widow hutchins's chief income was drawn from her farm, nor was hugh ever miserly inclined. but his education and habits had made him delight in the atmosphere of the inn, and in the society of those who frequented it; and of this species of enjoyment his present situation certainly did not afford an overplus. yet had hugh crombie an enviable appearance of indolence and ease, as he sat under the old tree, polluting the sweet air with his pipe, and taking occasional draughts from a brown jug that stood near at hand. the basis of the potation contained in this vessel was harsh old cider, from the widow's own orchard; but its coldness and acidity were rendered innocuous by a due proportion of yet older brandy. the result of this mixture was extremely felicitous, pleasant to the taste, and producing a tingling sensation on the coats of the stomach, uncommonly delectable to so old a toper as hugh. the landlord cast his eye, ever and anon, along the road that led down the valley in the direction of the village: and at last, when the sun was wearing west-ward, he discovered the approach of a horseman. he immediately replenished his pipe, took a long draught from the brown jug, summoned the ragged youth who officiated in most of the subordinate departments of the inn, and who was now to act as hostler, and then prepared himself for confabulation with his guest. "he comes from the sea-coast," said hugh to himself, as the traveller emerged into open view on the level road. "he is two days in advance of the post, with its news of a fortnight old. pray heaven he prove communicative!" then, as the stranger drew nigher, "one would judge that his dark face had seen as hot a sun as mine. he has felt the burning breeze of the indies, east and west, i warrant him. ah, i see we shall send away the evening merrily! not a penny shall come out of his purse,--that is, if his tongue runs glibly. just the man i was praying for--now may the devil take me if he is!" interrupted hugh, in accents of alarm, and starting from his seat. he composed his countenance, however, with the power that long habit and necessity had given him over his emotions, and again settled himself quietly on the bench. the traveller, coming on at a moderate pace, alighted, and gave his horse to the ragged hostler. he then advanced towards the door near which hugh was seated, whose agitation was manifested by no perceptible sign, except by the shorter and more frequent puffs with which he plied his pipe. their eyes did not meet till just as the stranger was about to enter, when he started apparently with a surprise and alarm similar to those of hugh crombie. he recovered himself, however, sufficiently to return the nod of recognition with which he was favored, and immediately entered the house, the landlord following. "this way, if you please, sir," said hugh. "you will find this apartment cool and retired." he ushered his guest into a small room the windows of which were darkened by the creeping plants that clustered round them. entering, and closing the door, the two gazed at each other a little space without speaking. the traveller first broke silence. "then this is your living self, hugh crombie?" he said. the landlord extended his hand as a practical reply to the question. the stranger took it, though with no especial appearance of cordiality. "ay, this seems to be flesh and blood," he said, in the tone of one who would willingly have found it otherwise. "and how happens this, friend hugh? i little thought to meet you again in this life. when i last heard from you, your prayers were said, and you were bound for a better world." "there would have been small danger of your meeting me there," observed the landlord, dryly. "it is an unquestionable truth, hugh," replied the traveller. "for which reason i regret that your voyage was delayed." "nay, that is a hard word to bestow on your old comrade," said hugh crombie. "the world is wide enough for both of us; and why should you wish me out of it?" "wide as it is," rejoined the stranger, "we have stumbled against each other,--to the pleasure of neither of us, if i may judge from your countenance. methinks i am not a welcome guest at hugh crombie's inn." "your welcome must depend on the cause of your coming, and the length of your stay," replied the landlord. "and what if i come to settle down among these quiet hills where i was born?" inquired the other. "what if i, too, am weary of the life we have led,--or afraid, perhaps, that it will come to too speedy an end? shall i have your good word, hugh, to set me up in an honest way of life? or will you make me a partner in your trade, since you know my qualifications? a pretty pair of publicans should we be; and the quart pot would have little rest between us." "it may be as well to replenish it now," observed hugh, stepping to the door of the room, and giving orders accordingly. "a meeting between old friends should never be dry. but for the partnership, it is a matter in which you must excuse me. heaven knows i find it hard enough to be honest, with no tempter but the devil and my own thoughts; and, if i have you also to contend with, there is little hope of me." "nay, that is true. your good resolutions were always like cobwebs, and your evil habits like five-inch cables," replied the traveller. "i am to understand, then, that you refuse my offer?" "not only that; but, if you have chosen this valley as your place of rest, dame crombie and i must look through the world for another. but hush! here comes the wine." the hostler, in the performance of another part of his duty, now appeared, bearing a measure of the liquor that hugh had ordered. the wine of that period, owing to the comparative lowness of the duties, was of more moderate price than in the mother-country, and of purer and better quality than at the present day. "the stuff is well chosen, hugh," observed the guest, after a draught large enough to authorize an opinion. "you have most of the requisites for your present station; and i should be sorry to draw you from it. i trust there will be no need." "yet you have a purpose in your journey hither," observed his comrade. "yes; and you would fain be informed of it," replied the traveller. he arose, and walked once or twice across the room; then, seeming to have taken his resolution, he paused, and fixed his eye steadfastly on hugh crombie. "i could wish, my old acquaintance," he said, "that your lot had been cast anywhere rather than here. yet, if you choose it, you may do me a good office, and one that shall meet with a good reward. can i trust you?" "my secrecy, you can," answered the host, "but nothing further. i know the nature of your plans, and whither they would lead me, too well to engage in them. to say the truth, since it concerns not me, i have little desire to hear your secret." "and i as little to tell it, i do assure you," rejoined the guest. "i have always loved to manage my affairs myself, and to keep them to myself. it is a good rule; but it must sometimes be broken. and now, hugh, how is it that you have become possessed of this comfortable dwelling and of these pleasant fields?" "by my marriage with the widow sarah hutchins," replied hugh crombie, staring at a question which seemed to have little reference to the present topic of conversation. "it is a most excellent method of becoming a man of substance," continued the traveller; "attended with little trouble, and honest withal." "why, as to the trouble," said the landlord, "it follows such a bargain, instead of going before it. and for honesty,--i do not recollect that i have gained a penny more honestly these twenty years." "i can swear to that," observed his comrade. "well, mine host, i entirely approve of your doings, and, moreover, have resolved to prosper after the same fashion myself." "if that be the commodity you seek," replied hugh crombie, "you will find none here to your mind. we have widows in plenty, it is true; but most of them have children, and few have houses and lands. but now to be serious,--and there has been something serious in your eye all this while,--what is your purpose in coming hither? you are not safe here. your name has had a wider spread than mine, and, if discovered, it will go hard with you." "but who would know me now?" asked the guest. "few, few indeed!" replied the landlord, gazing at the dark features of his companion, where hardship, peril, and dissipation had each left their traces. "no, you are not like the slender boy of fifteen, who stood on the hill by moonlight to take a last look at his father's cottage. there were tears in your eyes then; and, as often as i remember them, i repent that i did not turn you back, instead of leading you on." "tears, were there? well, there have been few enough since," said his comrade, pressing his eyelids firmly together, as if even then tempted to give way to the weakness that he scorned. "and, for turning me back, hugh, it was beyond your power. i had taken my resolution, and you did but show me the way to execute it." "you have not inquired after those you left behind," observed hugh crombie. "no--no; nor will i have aught of them," exclaimed the traveller, starting from his seat, and pacing rapidly across the room. "my father, i know, is dead, and i have forgiven him. my mother--what could i hear of her but misery? i will hear nothing." "you must have passed the cottage as you rode hitherward," said hugh. "how could you forbear to enter?" "i did not see it," he replied. "i closed my eyes, and turned away my head." "oh, if i had had a mother, a loving mother! if there had been one being in the world that loved me, or cared for me, i should not have become an utter castaway," exclaimed hugh crombie. the landlord's pathos, like all pathos that flows from the winecup, was sufficiently ridiculous; and his companion, who had already overcome his own brief feelings of sorrow and remorse, now laughed aloud. "come, come, mine host of the hand and bottle," he cried in his usual hard, sarcastic tone; "be a man as much as in you lies. you had always a foolish trick of repentance; but, as i remember, it was commonly of a morning, before you had swallowed your first dram. and now, hugh, fill the quart pot again, and we will to business." when the landlord had complied with the wishes of his guest, the latter resumed in a lower tone than that of his ordinary conversation,--"there is a young lady lately become a resident hereabouts. perhaps you can guess her name; for you have a quick apprehension in these matters." "a young lady?" repeated hugh crombie. "and what is your concern with her? do you mean ellen langton, daughter of the old merchant langton, whom you have some cause to remember?" "i do remember him; but he is where he will speedily be forgotten," answered the traveller. "and this girl,--i know your eye has been upon her, hugh,--describe her to me." "describe her!" exclaimed hugh with much animation. "it is impossible in prose; but you shall have her very picture in a verse of one of my own songs." "nay, mine host, i beseech you to spare me. this is no time for quavering," said the guest. "however, i am proud of your approbation, my old friend; for this young lady do i intend to take to wife. what think you of the plan?" hugh crombie gazed into his companion's face for the space of a moment, in silence. there was nothing in its expression that looked like a jest. it still retained the same hard, cold look, that, except when hugh had alluded to his home and family, it had worn through their whole conversation. "on my word, comrade!" he at length replied, "my advice is, that you give over your application to the quart pot, and refresh your brain by a short nap. and yet your eye is cool and steady. what is the meaning of this?" "listen, and you shall know," said the guest. "the old man, her father, is in his grave." "not a bloody grave, i trust," interrupted the landlord, starting, and looking fearfully into his comrade's face. "no, a watery one," he replied calmly. "you see, hugh, i am a better man than you took me for. the old man's blood is not on my head, though my wrongs are on his. now listen: he had no heir but this only daughter; and to her, and to the man she marries, all his wealth will belong. she shall marry me. think you her father will rest easy in the ocean, hugh crombie, when i am his son-in-law?" "no, he will rise up to prevent it, if need be," answered the landlord. "but the dead need not interpose to frustrate so wild a scheme." "i understand you," said his comrade. "you are of opinion that the young lady's consent may not be so soon won as asked. fear not for that, mine host. i have a winning way with me, when opportunity serves; and it shall serve with ellen langton. i will have no rivals in my wooing." "your intention, if i take it rightly, is to get this poor girl into your power, and then to force her into a marriage," said hugh crombie. "it is; and i think i possess the means of doing it," replied his comrade. "but methinks, friend hugh, my enterprise has not your good wishes." "no; and i pray you to give it over," said hugh crombie, very earnestly. "the girl is young, lovely, and as good as she is fair. i cannot aid in her ruin. nay, more: i must prevent it." "prevent it!" exclaimed the traveller, with a darkening countenance. "think twice before you stir in this matter, i advise you. ruin, do you say? does a girl call it ruin to be made an honest wedded wife? no, no, mine host! nor does a widow either, else have you much to answer for." "i gave the widow hutchins fair play, at least, which is more than poor ellen is like to get," observed the landlord. "my old comrade, will you not give up this scheme?" "my old comrade, i will not give up this scheme," returned the other, composedly. "why, hugh, what has come over you since we last met? have we not done twenty worse deeds of a morning, and laughed over them at night?" "he is right there," said hugh crombie, in a meditative tone. "of a certainty, my conscience has grown unreasonably tender within the last two years. this one small sin, if i were to aid in it, would add but a trifle to the sum of mine. but then the poor girl!" his companion overheard him thus communing with himself, and having had much former experience of his infirmity of purpose, doubted not that he should bend him to his will. in fact, his arguments were so effectual, that hugh at length, though reluctantly, promised his cooperation. it was necessary that their motions should be speedy; for on the second day thereafter, the arrival of the post would bring intelligence of the shipwreck by which mr. langton had perished. "and after the deed is done," said the landlord, "i beseech you never to cross my path again. there have been more wicked thoughts in my head within the last hour than for the whole two years that i have been an honest man." "what a saint art thou become, hugh!" said his comrade. "but fear not that we shall meet again. when i leave this valley, it will be to enter it no more." "and there is little danger that any other who has known me will chance upon me here," observed hugh crombie. "our trade was unfavorable to length of days, and i suppose most of our old comrades have arrived at the end of theirs." "one whom you knew well is nearer to you than you think," answered the traveller; "for i did not travel hitherward entirely alone." chapter v "a naughty night to swim in."--shakespeare. the evening of the day succeeding the adventure of the angler was dark and tempestuous. the rain descended almost in a continuous sheet; and occasional powerful gusts of wind drove it hard against the northeastern windows of hugh crombie's inn. but at least one apartment of the interior presented a scene of comfort and of apparent enjoyment, the more delightful from its contrast with the elemental fury that raged without. a fire, which the dullness of the evening, though a summer one, made necessary, was burning brightly on the hearth; and in front was placed a small round table, sustaining wine and glasses. one of the guests for whom these preparations had been made was edward walcott; the other was a shy, awkward young man, distinguished, by the union of classic and rural dress, as having but lately become a student of harley college. he seemed little at his ease, probably from a consciousness that he was on forbidden ground, and that the wine, of which he nevertheless swallowed a larger share than his companion, was an unlawful draught. in the catalogue of crimes provided against by the laws of harley college, that of tavern-haunting was one of the principal. the secluded situation of the seminary, indeed, gave its scholars but a very limited choice of vices; and this was, therefore, the usual channel by which the wildness of youth discharged itself. edward walcott, though naturally temperate, had been not an unfrequent offender in this respect, for which a superfluity both of time and money might plead some excuse. but, since his acquaintance with ellen langton, he had rarely entered hugh crombie's doors; and an interruption in that acquaintance was the cause of his present appearance there. edward's jealous pride had been considerably touched on ellen's compliance with the request of the angler. he had, by degrees, imperceptible perhaps to himself, assumed the right of feeling displeased with her conduct; and she had, as imperceptibly, accustomed herself to consider what would be his wishes, and to act accordingly. he would, indeed, in no contingency have ventured an open remonstrance; and such a proceeding would have been attended by a result the reverse of what he desired. but there existed between them a silent compact (acknowledged perhaps by neither, but felt by both), according to which they had regulated the latter part of their intercourse. their lips had yet spoken no word of love; but some of love's rights and privileges had been assumed on the one side, and at least not disallowed on the other. edward's penetration had been sufficiently quick to discover that there was a mystery about the angler, that there must have been a cause for the blush that rose so proudly on ellen's cheek; and his quixotism had been not a little mortified, because she did not immediately appeal to his protection. he had, however, paid his usual visit the next day at dr. melmoth's, expecting that, by a smile of more than common brightness, she would make amends to his wounded feelings; such having been her usual mode of reparation in the few instances of disagreement that had occurred between them. but he was disappointed. he found her cold, silent, and abstracted, inattentive when he spoke, and indisposed to speak herself. her eye was sedulously averted from his; and the casual meeting of their glances only proved that there were feelings in her bosom which he did not share. he was unable to account for this change in her deportment; and, added to his previous conceptions of his wrongs, it produced an effect upon his rather hasty temper, that might have manifested itself violently, but for the presence of mrs. melmoth. he took his leave in very evident displeasure; but, just as he closed the door, he noticed an expression in ellen's countenance, that, had they been alone, and had not he been quite so proud, would have drawn him down to her feet. their eyes met, when, suddenly, there was a gush of tears into those of ellen; and a deep sadness, almost despair, spread itself over her features. he paused a moment, and then went his way, equally unable to account for her coldness, or for her grief. he was well aware, however, that his situation in respect to her was unaccountably changed,--a conviction so disagreeable, that, but for a hope that is latent even in the despair of youthful hearts, he would have been sorely tempted to shoot himself. the gloom of his thoughts--a mood of mind the more intolerable to him, because so unusual--had driven him to hugh crombie's inn in search of artificial excitement. but even the wine had no attractions; and his first glass stood now almost untouched before him, while he gazed in heavy thought into the glowing embers of the fire. his companion perceived his melancholy, and essayed to dispel it by a choice of such topics of conversation as he conceived would be most agreeable. "there is a lady in the house," he observed. "i caught a glimpse of her in the passage as we came in. did you see her, edward?" "a lady!" repeated edward, carelessly. "what know you of ladies? no, i did not see her; but i will venture to say that it was dame crombie's self, and no other." "well, perhaps it might," said the other, doubtingly. "her head was turned from me, and she was gone like a shadow." "dame crombie is no shadow, and never vanishes like one," resumed edward. "you have mistaken the slipshod servant-girl for a lady." "ay; but she had a white hand, a small white hand," said the student, piqued at edward's contemptuous opinion of his powers of observation; "as white as ellen langton's." he paused; for the lover was offended by the profanity of the comparison, as was made evident by the blood that rushed to his brow. "we will appeal to the landlord," said edward, recovering his equanimity, and turning to hugh, who just then entered the room. "who is this angel, mine host, that has taken up her abode in the hand and bottle?" hugh cast a quick glance from one to another before he answered, "i keep no angels here, gentlemen. dame crombie would make the house anything but heaven for them and me." "and yet glover has seen a vision in the passage-way,--a lady with a small white hand." "ah, i understand! a slight mistake of the young gentleman's," said hugh, with the air of one who could perfectly account for the mystery. "our passageway is dark; or perhaps the light had dazzled his eyes. it was the widow fowler's daughter, that came to borrow a pipe of tobacco for her mother. by the same token, she put it into her own sweet mouth, and puffed as she went along." "but the white hand," said glover, only half convinced. "nay, i know not," answered hugh. "but her hand was at least as white as her face: that i can swear. well, gentlemen, i trust you find everything in my house to your satisfaction. when the fire needs renewing, or the wine runs low, be pleased to tap on the table. i shall appear with the speed of a sunbeam." after the departure of the landlord, the conversation of the young men amounted to little more than monosyllables. edward walcott was wrapped in his own contemplations; and his companion was in a half-slumberous state, from which he started every quarter of an hour, at the chiming of the clock that stood in a corner. the fire died gradually away; the lamps began to burn dim; and glover, rousing himself from one of his periodical slumbers, was about to propose a return to their chambers. he was prevented, however, by the approach of footsteps along the passageway; and hugh crombie, opening the door, ushered a person into the room, and retired. the new-comer was fanshawe. the water that poured plentifully from his cloak evinced that he had but just arrived at the inn; but, whatever was his object, he seemed not to have attained it in meeting with the young men. he paused near the door, as if meditating whether to retire. "my intrusion is altogether owing to a mistake, either of the landlord's or mine," he said. "i came hither to seek another person; but, as i could not mention his name, my inquiries were rather vague." "i thank heaven for the chance that sent you to us," replied edward, rousing himself. "glover is wretched company; and a duller evening have i never spent. we will renew our fire and our wine, and you must sit down with us. and for the man you seek," he continued in a whisper, "he left the inn within a half-hour after we encountered him. i inquired of hugh crombie last night." fanshawe did not express his doubts of the correctness of the information on which edward seemed to rely. laying aside his cloak, he accepted his invitation to make one of the party, and sat down by the fireside. the aspect of the evening now gradually changed. a strange wild glee spread from one to another of the party, which, much to the surprise of his companions, began with and was communicated from, fanshawe. he seemed to overflow with conceptions inimitably ludicrous, but so singular, that, till his hearers had imbibed a portion of his own spirit, they could only wonder at, instead of enjoying them. his applications to the wine were very unfrequent; yet his conversation was such as one might expect from a bottle of champagne endowed by a fairy with the gift of speech. the secret of this strange mirth lay in the troubled state of his spirits, which, like the vexed ocean at midnight (if the simile be not too magnificent), tossed forth a mysterious brightness. the undefined apprehensions that had drawn him to the inn still distracted his mind; but, mixed with them, there was a sort of joy not easily to be described. by degrees, and by the assistance of the wine, the inspiration spread, each one contributing such a quantity, and such quality of wit and whim, as was proportioned to his genius; but each one, and all, displaying a greater share of both than they had ever been suspected of possessing. at length, however, there was a pause,--the deep pause of flagging spirits, that always follows mirth and wine. no one would have believed, on beholding the pensive faces, and hearing the involuntary sighs of the party, that from these, but a moment before, had arisen so loud and wild a laugh. during this interval edward walcott (who was the poet of his class) volunteered the following song, which, from its want of polish, and from its application to his present feelings, might charitably be taken for an extemporaneous production:-- the wine is bright, the wine is bright; and gay the drinkers be: of all that drain the bowl to-night, most jollily drain we. oh, could one search the weary earth,-- the earth from sea to sea,-- he'd turn and mingle in our mirth; for we're the merriest three. yet there are cares, oh, heavy cares! we know that they are nigh: when forth each lonely drinker fares, mark then his altered eye. care comes upon us when the jest and frantic laughter die; and care will watch the parting guest-- oh late, then let us fly! hugh crombie, whose early love of song and minstrelsy was still alive, had entered the room at the sound of edward's voice, in sufficient time to accompany the second stanza on the violin. he now, with the air of one who was entitled to judge in these matters, expressed his opinion of the performance. "really, master walcott, i was not prepared for this," he said in the tone of condescending praise that a great man uses to his inferior when he chooses to overwhelm him with excess of joy. "very well, indeed, young gentleman! some of the lines, it is true, seem to have been dragged in by the head and shoulders; but i could scarcely have done much better myself at your age. with practice, and with such instruction as i might afford you, i should have little doubt of your becoming a distinguished poet. a great defect in your seminary, gentlemen,--the want of due cultivation in this heavenly art." "perhaps, sir," said edward, with much gravity, "you might yourself be prevailed upon to accept the professorship of poetry?" "why, such an offer would require consideration," replied the landlord. "professor hugh crombie of harley college: it has a good sound, assuredly. but i am a public man, master walcott; and the public would be loath to spare me from my present office." "will professor crombie favor us with a specimen of his productions?" inquired edward. "ahem, i shall be happy to gratify you, young gentleman," answered hugh. "it is seldom, in this rude country, master walcott, that we meet with kindred genius; and the opportunity should never be thrown away." thus saying, he took a heavy draught of the liquor by which he was usually inspired, and the praises of which were the prevailing subject of his song; then, after much hemming, thrumming, and prelusion, and with many queer gestures and gesticulations, he began to effuse a lyric in the following fashion:-- i've been a jolly drinker this five-and-twenty year, and still a jolly drinker, my friends, you see me here: i sing the joys of drinking; bear a chorus, every man, with pint pot and quart pot and clattering of can. the sense of the professor's first stanza was not in exact proportion to the sound; but, being executed with great spirit, it attracted universal applause. this hugh appropriated with a condescending bow and smile; and, making a signal for silence, he went on,-- king solomon of old, boys (a jolly king was he),-- but here he was interrupted by a clapping of hands, that seemed a continuance of the applause bestowed on his former stanza. hugh crombie, who, as is the custom of many great performers, usually sang with his eyes shut, now opened them, intending gently to rebuke his auditors for their unseasonable expression of delight. he immediately perceived, however, that the fault was to be attributed to neither of the three young men; and, following the direction of their eyes, he saw near the door, in the dim background of the apartment, a figure in a cloak. the hat was flapped forward, the cloak muffled round the lower part of the face; and only the eyes were visible. the party gazed a moment in silence, and then rushed _en masse_ upon the intruder, the landlord bringing up the rear, and sounding a charge upon his fiddle. but, as they drew nigh, the black cloak began to assume a familiar look; the hat, also, was an old acquaintance; and, these being removed, from beneath them shone forth the reverend face and form of dr. melmoth. the president, in his quality of clergyman, had, late in the preceding afternoon, been called to visit an aged female who was supposed to be at the point of death. her habitation was at the distance of several miles from harley college; so that it was nightfall before dr. melmoth stood at her bedside. his stay had been lengthened beyond his anticipation, on account of the frame of mind in which he found the dying woman; and, after essaying to impart the comforts of religion to her disturbed intellect, he had waited for the abatement of the storm that had arisen while he was thus engaged. as the evening advanced, however, the rain poured down in undiminished cataracts; and the doctor, trusting to the prudence and sure-footedness of his steed, had at length set forth on his return. the darkness of the night, and the roughness of the road, might have appalled him, even had his horsemanship and his courage been more considerable than they were; but by the special protection of providence, as he reasonably supposed (for he was a good man, and on a good errand), he arrived safely as far as hugh crombie's inn. dr. melmoth had no intention of making a stay there; but, as the road passed within a very short distance, he saw lights in the windows, and heard the sound of song and revelry. it immediately occurred to him, that these midnight rioters were, probably, some of the young men of his charge; and he was impelled, by a sense of duty, to enter and disperse them. directed by the voices, he found his way, with some difficulty, to the apartment, just as hugh concluded his first stanza; and, amidst the subsequent applause, his entrance had been un-perceived. there was a silence of a moment's continuance after the discovery of dr. melmoth, during which he attempted to clothe his round, good-natured face in a look of awful dignity. but, in spite of himself, there was a little twisting of the corners of his mouth, and a smothered gleam in his eye. "this has, apparently, been a very merry meeting, young gentlemen," he at length said; "but i fear my presence has cast a damp upon it." "oh yes! your reverence's cloak is wet enough to cast a damp upon anything," exclaimed hugh crombie, assuming a look of tender anxiety. "the young gentlemen are affrighted for your valuable life. fear deprives them of utterance: permit me to relieve you of these dangerous garments." "trouble not yourself, honest man," replied the doctor, who was one of the most gullible of mortals. "i trust i am in no danger; my dwelling being near at hand. but for these young men"-- "would your reverence but honor my sunday suit,--the gray broadcloth coat, and the black velvet smallclothes, that have covered my unworthy legs but once? dame crombie shall have them ready in a moment," continued hugh, beginning to divest the doctor of his garments. "i pray you to appease your anxiety," cried dr. melmoth, retaining a firm hold on such parts of his dress as yet remained to him. "fear not for my health. i will but speak a word to those misguided youth, and be gone." "misguided youth, did your reverence say?" echoed hugh, in a tone of utter astonishment. "never were they better guided than when they entered my poor house. oh, had your reverence but seen them, when i heard their cries, and rushed forth to their assistance. dripping with wet were they, like three drowned men at the resurrec--ahem!" interrupted hugh, recollecting that the comparison he meditated might not suit the doctor's ideas of propriety. "but why were they abroad on such a night?" inquired the president. "ah! doctor, you little know the love these good young gentlemen bear for you," replied the landlord. "your absence, your long absence, had alarmed them; and they rushed forth through the rain and darkness to seek you." "and was this indeed so?" asked the doctor, in a softened tone, and casting a tender and grateful look upon the three students. they, it is but justice to mention, had simultaneously made a step forward in order to contradict the egregious falsehoods of which hugh's fancy was so fertile; but he assumed an expression of such ludicrous entreaty, that it was irresistible. "but methinks their anxiety was not of long continuance," observed dr. melmoth, looking at the wine, and remembering the song that his entrance had interrupted. "ah! your reverence disapproves of the wine, i see," answered hugh crombie. "i did but offer them a drop to keep the life in their poor young hearts. my dame advised strong waters; 'but, dame crombie,' says i, 'would ye corrupt their youth?' and in my zeal for their good, doctor, i was delighting them, just at your entrance, with a pious little melody of my own against the sin of drunkenness." "truly, i remember something of the kind," observed dr. melmoth. "and, as i think, it seemed to meet with good acceptance." "ay, that it did!" said the landlord. "will it please your reverence to hear it?-- king solomon of old, boys (a wise man i'm thinking), has warned you to beware of the horrid vice of drinking-- "but why talk i of drinking, foolish man that i am! and all this time, doctor, you have not sipped a drop of my wine. now i entreat your reverence, as you value your health and the peace and quiet of these youth." dr. melmoth drank a glass of wine, with the benevolent intention of allaying the anxiety of hugh crombie and the students. he then prepared to depart; for a strong wind had partially dispersed the clouds, and occasioned an interval in the cataract of rain. there was, perhaps, a little suspicion yet remaining in the good man's mind respecting the truth of the landlord's story: at least, it was his evident intention to see the students fairly out of the inn before he quitted it himself. they therefore proceeded along the passageway in a body. the lamp that hugh crombie held but dimly enlightened them; and the number and contiguity of the doors caused dr. melmoth to lay his hand upon the wrong one. "not there, not there, doctor! it is dame crombie's bedchamber," shouted hugh, most energetically. "now beelzebub defend me!" he muttered to himself, perceiving that his exclamation had been a moment too late. "heavens! what do i see?" ejaculated dr. melmoth, lifting his hands, and starting back from the entrance of the room. the three students pressed forward; mrs. crombie and the servant-girl had been drawn to the spot by the sound of hugh's voice; and all their wondering eyes were fixed on poor ellen langton. the apartment in the midst of which she stood was dimly lighted by a solitary candle at the farther extremity; but ellen was exposed to the glare of the three lamps, held by hugh, his wife, and the servant-girl. their combined rays seemed to form a focus exactly at the point where they reached her; and the beholders, had any been sufficiently calm, might have watched her features in their agitated workings and frequent change of expression, as perfectly as by the broad light of day. terror had at first blanched her as white as a lily, or as a marble statue, which for a moment she resembled, as she stood motionless in the centre of the room. shame next bore sway; and her blushing countenance, covered by her slender white fingers, might fantastically be compared to a variegated rose with its alternate stripes of white and red. the next instant, a sense of her pure and innocent intentions gave her strength and courage; and her attitude and look had now something of pride and dignity. these, however, in their turn, gave way; for edward walcott pressed forward, and attempted to address her. "ellen, ellen!" he said, in an agitated and quivering whisper; but what was to follow cannot be known; for his emotion checked his utterance. his tone and look, however, again overcame ellen langton, and she burst into tears. fanshawe advanced, and took edward's arm. "she has been deceived," he whispered. "she is innocent: you are unworthy of her if you doubt it." "why do you interfere, sir?" demanded edward, whose passions, thoroughly excited, would willingly have wreaked themselves on any one. "what right have you to speak of her innocence? perhaps," he continued, an undefined and ridiculous suspicion arising in his mind,--"perhaps you are acquainted with her intentions. perhaps you are the deceiver." fanshawe's temper was not naturally of the meekest character; and having had a thousand bitter feelings of his own to overcome, before he could attempt to console edward, this rude repulse had almost aroused him to fierceness. but his pride, of which a more moderate degree would have had a less peaceable effect, came to his assistance; and he turned calmly and contemptuously away. ellen, in the mean time, had been restored to some degree of composure. to this effect, a feeling of pique against edward walcott had contributed. she had distinguished his voice in the neighboring apartment, had heard his mirth and wild laughter, without being aware of the state of feeling that produced them. she had supposed that the terms on which they parted in the morning (which had been very grievous to herself) would have produced a corresponding sadness in him. but while she sat in loneliness and in tears, her bosom distracted by a thousand anxieties and sorrows, of many of which edward was the object, his reckless gayety had seemed to prove the slight regard in which he held her. after the first outbreak of emotion, therefore, she called up her pride (of which, on proper occasions, she had a reasonable share), and sustained his upbraiding glance with a passive composure, which women have more readily at command than men. dr. melmoth's surprise had during this time kept him silent and inactive. he gazed alternately from one to another of those who stood around him, as if to seek some explanation of so strange an event. but the faces of all were as perplexed as his own; even hugh crombie had assumed a look of speechless wonder,--speechless, because his imagination, prolific as it was, could not supply a plausible falsehood. "ellen, dearest child," at length said the doctor, "what is the meaning of this?" ellen endeavored to reply; but, as her composure was merely external, she was unable to render her words audible. fanshawe spoke in a low voice to dr. melmoth, who appeared grateful for his advice. "true, it will be the better way," he replied. "my wits are utterly confounded, or i should not have remained thus long. come, my dear child," he continued, advancing to ellen, and taking her hand, "let us return home, and defer the explanation till the morrow. there, there: only dry your eyes, and we will say no more about it." "and that will be your wisest way, old gentleman," muttered hugh crombie. ellen at first exhibited but little desire, or, rather, an evident reluctance, to accompany her guardian. she hung back, while her glance passed almost imperceptibly over the faces that gazed so eagerly at her; but the one she sought was not visible among them. she had no alternative, and suffered herself to be led from the inn. edward walcott alone remained behind, the most wretched being (at least such was his own opinion) that breathed the vital air. he felt a sinking and sickness of the heart, and alternately a feverish frenzy, neither of which his short and cloudless existence had heretofore occasioned him to experience. he was jealous of, he knew not whom, and he knew not what. he was ungenerous enough to believe that ellen--his pure and lovely ellen--had degraded herself; though from what motive, or by whose agency, he could not conjecture. when dr. melmoth had taken her in charge, edward returned to the apartment where he had spent the evening. the wine was still upon the table; and, in the desperate hope of stupefying his faculties, he unwisely swallowed huge successive draughts. the effect of his imprudence was not long in manifesting itself; though insensibility, which at another time would have been the result, did not now follow. acting upon his previous agitation, the wine seemed to set his blood in a flame; and, for the time being, he was a perfect madman. a phrenologist would probably have found the organ of destructiveness in strong development, just then, upon edward's cranium; for he certainly manifested an impulse to break and destroy whatever chanced to be within his reach. he commenced his operations by upsetting the table, and breaking the bottles and glasses. then, seizing a tall heavy chair in each hand, he hurled them with prodigious force,--one through the window, and the other against a large looking-glass, the most valuable article of furniture in hugh crombie's inn. the crash and clatter of these outrageous proceedings soon brought the master, mistress, and maid-servant to the scene of action; but the two latter, at the first sight of edward's wild demeanor and gleaming eyes, retreated with all imaginable expedition. hugh chose a position behind the door, from whence, protruding his head, he endeavored to mollify his inebriated guest. his interference, however, had nearly been productive of most unfortunate consequences; for a massive andiron, with round brazen head, whizzed past him, within a hair's-breadth of his ear. "i might as safely take my chance in a battle," exclaimed hugh, withdrawing his head, and speaking to a man who stood in the passageway. "a little twist of his hand to the left would have served my turn as well as if i stood in the path of a forty-two pound ball. and here comes another broadside," he added, as some other article of furniture rattled against the door. "let us return his fire, hugh," said the person whom he addressed, composedly lifting the andiron. "he is in want of ammunition: let us send him back his own." the sound of this man's voice produced a most singular effect upon edward. the moment before, his actions had been those of a raving maniac; but, when the words struck his ear, he paused, put his hand to his forehead, seemed to recollect himself, and finally advanced with a firm and steady step. his countenance was dark and angry, but no longer wild. "i have found you, villain!" he said to the angler. "it is you who have done this." "and, having done it, the wrath of a boy--his drunken wrath--will not induce me to deny it," replied the other, scornfully. "the boy will require a man's satisfaction," returned edward, "and that speedily." "will you take it now?" inquired the angler, with a cool, derisive smile, and almost in a whisper. at the same time he produced a brace of pistols, and held them towards the young man. "willingly," answered edward, taking one of the weapons. "choose your distance." the angler stepped back a pace; but before their deadly intentions, so suddenly conceived, could be executed, hugh crombie interposed himself between them. "do you take my best parlor for the cabin of the black andrew, where a pistol-shot was a nightly pastime?" he inquired of his comrade. "and you, master edward, with what sort of a face will you walk into the chapel to morning prayers, after putting a ball through this man's head, or receiving one through your own? though, in this last case, you will be past praying for, or praying either." "stand aside: i will take the risk. make way, or i will put the ball through your own head," exclaimed edward, fiercely: for the interval of rationality that circumstances had produced was again giving way to intoxication. "you see how it is," said hugh to his companion, unheard by edward. "you shall take a shot at me, sooner than at the poor lad in his present state. you have done him harm enough already, and intend him more. i propose," he continued aloud, and with a peculiar glance towards the angler, "that this affair be decided to-morrow, at nine o'clock, under the old oak, on the bank of the stream. in the mean time, i will take charge of these popguns, for fear of accidents." "well, mine host, be it as you wish," said his comrade. "a shot more or less is of little consequence to me." he accordingly delivered his weapon to hugh crombie and walked carelessly away. "come, master walcott, the enemy has retreated. victoria! and now, i see, the sooner i get you to your chamber, the better," added he aside; for the wine was at last beginning to produce its legitimate effect, in stupefying the young man's mental and bodily faculties. hugh crombie's assistance, though not, perhaps, quite indispensable, was certainly very convenient to our unfortunate hero, in the course of the short walk that brought him to his chamber. when arrived there, and in bed, he was soon locked in a sleep scarcely less deep than that of death. the weather, during the last hour, had appeared to be on the point of changing: indeed, there were, every few minutes, most rapid changes. a strong breeze sometimes drove the clouds from the brow of heaven, so as to disclose a few of the stars; but, immediately after, the darkness would again become egyptian, and the rain rush like a torrent from the sky. chapter vi. "about her neck a packet-mail fraught with advice, some fresh, some stale, of men that walked when they were dead." hudibras. scarcely a word had passed between dr. melmoth and ellen langton, on their way home; for, though the former was aware that his duty towards his ward would compel him to inquire into the motives of her conduct, the tenderness of his heart prompted him to defer the scrutiny to the latest moment. the same tenderness induced him to connive at ellen's stealing secretly up to her chamber, unseen by mrs. melmoth; to render which measure practicable, he opened the house-door very softly, and stood before his half-sleeping spouse (who waited his arrival in the parlor) without any previous notice. this act of the doctor's benevolence was not destitute of heroism; for he was well assured that, should the affair come to the lady's knowledge through any other channel, her vengeance would descend not less heavily on him for concealing, than on ellen for perpetrating, the elopement. that she had, thus far, no suspicion of the fact, was evident from her composure, as well as from the reply to a question, which, with more than his usual art, her husband put to her respecting the non-appearance of his ward. mrs. melmoth answered, that ellen had complained of indisposition, and after drinking, by her prescription, a large cup of herb-tea, had retired to her chamber early in the evening. thankful that all was yet safe, the doctor laid his head upon his pillow; but, late as was the hour, his many anxious thoughts long drove sleep from his eyelids. the diminution in the quantity of his natural rest did not, however, prevent dr. melmoth from rising at his usual hour, which at all seasons of the year was an early one. he found, on descending to the parlor, that breakfast was nearly in readiness; for the lady of the house (and, as a corollary, her servant-girl) was not accustomed to await the rising of the sun in order to commence her domestic labors. ellen langton, however, who had heretofore assimilated her habits to those of the family, was this morning invisible,--a circumstance imputed by mrs. melmoth to her indisposition of the preceding evening, and by the doctor, to mortification on account of her elopement and its discovery. "i think i will step into ellen's bedchamber," said mrs. melmoth, "and inquire how she feels herself. the morning is delightful after the storm, and the air will do her good." "had we not better proceed with our breakfast? if the poor child is sleeping, it were a pity to disturb her," observed the doctor; for, besides his sympathy with ellen's feelings, he was reluctant, as if he were the guilty one, to meet her face. "well, be it so. and now sit down, doctor; for the hot cakes are cooling fast. i suppose you will say they are not so good as those ellen made yesterday morning. i know not how you will bear to part with her, though the thing must soon be." "it will be a sore trial, doubtless," replied dr. melmoth,--"like tearing away a branch that is grafted on an old tree. and yet there will be a satisfaction in delivering her safe into her father's hands." "a satisfaction for which you may thank me, doctor," observed the lady. "if there had been none but you to look after the poor thing's doings, she would have been enticed away long ere this, for the sake of her money." dr. melmoth's prudence could scarcely restrain a smile at the thought that an elopement, as he had reason to believe, had been plotted, and partly carried into execution, while ellen was under the sole care of his lady, and had been frustrated only by his own despised agency. he was not accustomed, however,--nor was this an eligible occasion,--to dispute any of mrs. melmoth's claims to superior wisdom. the breakfast proceeded in silence, or, at least, without any conversation material to the tale. at its conclusion, mrs. melmoth was again meditating on the propriety of entering ellen's chamber; but she was now prevented by an incident that always excited much interest both in herself and her husband. this was the entrance of the servant, bearing the letters and newspaper, with which, once a fortnight, the mail-carrier journeyed up the valley. dr. melmoth's situation at the head of a respectable seminary, and his character as a scholar, had procured him an extensive correspondence among the learned men of his own country; and he had even exchanged epistles with one or two of the most distinguished dissenting clergymen of great britain. but, unless when some fond mother enclosed a one-pound note to defray the private expenses of her son at college, it was frequently the case that the packets addressed to the doctor were the sole contents of the mail-bag. in the present instance, his letters were very numerous, and, to judge from the one he chanced first to open, of an unconscionable length. while he was engaged in their perusal, mrs. melmoth amused herself with the newspaper,--a little sheet of about twelve inches square, which had but one rival in the country. commencing with the title, she labored on through advertisements old and new, through poetry lamentably deficient in rhythm and rhymes, through essays, the ideas of which had been trite since the first week of the creation, till she finally arrived at the department that, a fortnight before, had contained the latest news from all quarters. making such remarks upon these items as to her seemed good, the dame's notice was at length attracted by an article which her sudden exclamation proved to possess uncommon interest. casting her eye hastily over it, she immediately began to read aloud to her husband; but he, deeply engaged in a long and learned letter, instead of listening to what she wished to communicate, exerted his own lungs in opposition to hers, as is the custom of abstracted men when disturbed. the result was as follows:-- "a brig just arrived in the outer harbor," began mrs. melmoth, "reports, that on the morning of the th ult."--here the doctor broke in, "wherefore i am compelled to differ from your exposition of the said passage, for those reasons, of the which i have given you a taste; provided"--the lady's voice was now almost audible, "ship bottom upward, discovered by the name on her stern to be the ellen of"--"and in the same opinion are hooker, cotton, and divers learned divines of a later date." the doctor's lungs were deep and strong, and victory seemed to incline toward him; but mrs. melmoth now made use of a tone whose peculiar shrillness, as long experience had taught her husband, augured a mood of mind not to be trifled with. "on my word, doctor," she exclaimed, "this is most unfeeling and unchristian conduct! here am i endeavoring to inform you of the death of an old friend, and you continue as deaf as a post." dr. melmoth, who had heard the sound, without receiving the sense, of these words, now laid aside the letter in despair, and submissively requested to be informed of her pleasure. "there, read for yourself," she replied, handing him the paper, and pointing to the passage containing the important intelligence,--"read, and then finish your letter, if you have a mind." he took the paper, unable to conjecture how the dame could be so much interested in any part of its contents; but, before he had read many words, he grew pale as death. "good heavens! what is this?" he exclaimed. he then read on, "being the vessel wherein that eminent son of new england, john langton, esq., had taken passage for his native country, after an absence of many years." "our poor ellen, his orphan child!" said dr. melmoth, dropping the paper. "how shall we break the intelligence to her? alas! her share of the affliction causes me to forget my own." "it is a heavy misfortune, doubtless; and ellen will grieve as a daughter should," replied mrs. melmoth, speaking with the good sense of which she had a competent share. "but she has never known her father; and her sorrow must arise from a sense of duty, more than from strong affection. i will go and inform her of her loss. it is late, and i wonder if she be still asleep." "be cautious, dearest wife," said the doctor. "ellen has strong feelings, and a sudden shock might be dangerous." "i think i may be trusted, dr. melmoth," replied the lady, who had a high opinion of her own abilities as a comforter, and was not averse to exercise them. her husband, after her departure, sat listlessly turning over the letters that yet remained unopened, feeling little curiosity, after such melancholy intelligence, respecting their contents. but, by the handwriting of the direction on one of them, his attention was gradually arrested, till he found himself gazing earnestly on those strong, firm, regular characters. they were perfectly familiar to his eye; but from what hand they came, he could not conjecture. suddenly, however, the truth burst upon him; and after noticing the date, and reading a few lines, he rushed hastily in pursuit of his wife. he had arrived at the top of his speed and at the middle of the staircase, when his course was arrested by the lady whom he sought, who came, with a velocity equal to his own, in an opposite direction. the consequence was a concussion between the two meeting masses, by which mrs. melmoth was seated securely on the stairs; while the doctor was only preserved from precipitation to the bottom by clinging desperately to the balustrade. as soon as the pair discovered that they had sustained no material injury by their contact, they began eagerly to explain the cause of their mutual haste, without those reproaches, which, on the lady's part, would at another time have followed such an accident. "you have not told her the bad news, i trust?" cried dr. melmoth, after each had communicated his and her intelligence, without obtaining audience of the other. "would you have me tell it to the bare walls?" inquired the lady in her shrillest tone. "have i not just informed you that she has gone, fled, eloped? her chamber is empty; and her bed has not been occupied." "gone!" repeated the doctor. "and, when her father comes to demand his daughter of me, what answer shall i make?" "now, heaven defend us from the visits of the dead and drowned!" cried mrs. melmoth. "this is a serious affair, doctor, but not, i trust, sufficient to raise a ghost." "mr. langton is yet no ghost," answered he; "though this event will go near to make him one. he was fortunately prevented, after he had made every preparation, from taking passage in the vessel that was lost." "and where is he now?" she inquired. "he is in new england. perhaps he is at this moment on his way to us," replied her husband. "his letter is dated nearly a fortnight back; and he expresses an intention of being with us in a few days." "well, i thank heaven for his safety," said mrs. melmoth. "but truly the poor gentleman could not have chosen a better time to be drowned, nor a worse one to come to life, than this. what we shall do, doctor, i know not; but had you locked the doors, and fastened the windows, as i advised, the misfortune could not have happened." "why, the whole country would have flouted us!" answered the doctor. "is there a door in all the province that is barred or bolted, night or day? nevertheless it might have been advisable last night, had it occurred to me." "and why at that time more than at all times?" she inquired. "we had surely no reason to fear this event." dr. melmoth was silent; for his worldly wisdom was sufficient to deter him from giving his lady the opportunity, which she would not fail to use to the utmost, of laying the blame of the elopement at his door. he now proceeded, with a heavy heart, to ellen's chamber, to satisfy himself with his own eyes of the state of affairs. it was deserted too truly; and the wild-flowers with which it was the maiden's custom daily to decorate her premises were drooping, as if in sorrow for her who had placed them there. mrs. melmoth, on this second visit, discovered on the table a note addressed to her husband, and containing a few words of gratitude from ellen, but no explanation of her mysterious flight. the doctor gazed long on the tiny letters, which had evidently been traced with a trembling hand, and blotted with many tears. "there is a mystery in this,--a mystery that i cannot fathom," he said. "and now i would i knew what measures it would be proper to take." "get you on horseback, dr. melmoth, and proceed as speedily as may be down the valley to the town," said the dame, the influence of whose firmer mind was sometimes, as in the present case, most beneficially exerted over his own. "you must not spare for trouble, no, nor for danger. now--oh, if i were a man!"-- "oh, that you were!" murmured the doctor, in a perfectly inaudible voice, "well--and when i reach the town, what then?" "as i am a christian woman, my patience cannot endure you!" exclaimed mrs. melmoth. "oh, i love to see a man with the spirit of a man! but you"--and she turned away in utter scorn. "but, dearest wife," remonstrated the husband, who was really at a loss how to proceed, and anxious for her advice, "your worldly experience is greater than mine, and i desire to profit by it. what should be my next measure after arriving at the town?" mrs. melmoth was appeased by the submission with which the doctor asked her counsel; though, if the truth must be told, she heartily despised him for needing it. she condescended, however, to instruct him in the proper method of pursuing the runaway maiden, and directed him, before his departure, to put strict inquiries to hugh crombie respecting any stranger who might lately have visited his inn. that there would be wisdom in this, dr. melmoth had his own reasons for believing; and still, without imparting them to his lady, he proceeded to do as he had been bid. the veracious landlord acknowledged that a stranger had spent a night and day at his inn, and was missing that morning; but he utterly denied all acquaintance with his character, or privity to his purposes. had mrs. melmoth, instead of her husband, conducted the examination, the result might have been different. as the case was, the doctor returned to his dwelling but little wiser than he went forth; and, ordering his steed to be saddled, he began a journey of which he knew not what would be the end. in the mean time, the intelligence of ellen's disappearance circulated rapidly, and soon sent forth hunters more fit to follow the chase than dr. melmoth. chapter vii. "there was racing and chasing o'er cannobie lee." walter scott. when edward walcott awoke the next morning from his deep slumber, his first consciousness was of a heavy weight upon his mind, the cause of which he was unable immediately to recollect. one by one, however, by means of the association of ideas, the events of the preceding night came back to his memory; though those of latest occurrence were dim as dreams. but one circumstance was only too well remembered,--the discovery of ellen langton. by a strong effort he next attained to an uncertain recollection of a scene of madness and violence, followed, as he at first thought, by a duel. a little further reflection, however, informed him that this event was yet among the things of futurity; but he could by no means recall the appointed time or place. as he had not the slightest intention (praiseworthy and prudent as it would unquestionably have been) to give up the chance of avenging ellen's wrongs and his own, he immediately arose, and began to dress, meaning to learn from hugh crombie those particulars which his own memory had not retained. his chief apprehension was, that the appointed time had already elapsed; for the early sunbeams of a glorious morning were now peeping into his chamber. more than once, during the progress of dressing, he was inclined to believe that the duel had actually taken place, and been fatal to him, and that he was now in those regions to which, his conscience told him, such an event would be likely to send him. this idea resulted from his bodily sensations, which were in the highest degree uncomfortable. he was tormented by a raging thirst, that seemed to have absorbed all the moisture of his throat and stomach; and, in his present agitation, a cup of icy water would have been his first wish, had all the treasures of earth and sea been at his command. his head, too, throbbed almost to bursting; and the whirl of his brain at every movement promised little accuracy in the aim of his pistol, when he should meet the angler. these feelings, together with the deep degradation of his mind, made him resolve that no circumstances should again draw him into an excess of wine. in the mean time, his head was, perhaps, still too much confused to allow him fully to realize his unpleasant situation. before edward was prepared to leave his chamber, the door was opened by one of the college bed-makers, who, perceiving that he was nearly dressed, entered, and began to set the apartment in order. there were two of these officials pertaining to harley college; each of them being (and, for obvious reasons, this was an indispensable qualification) a model of perfect ugliness in her own way. one was a tall, raw-boned, huge-jointed, double-fisted giantess, admirably fitted to sustain the part of glumdalia, in the tragedy of "tom thumb." her features were as excellent as her form, appearing to have been rough-hewn with a broadaxe, and left unpolished. the other was a short, squat figure, about two thirds the height, and three times the circumference, of ordinary females. her hair was gray, her complexion of a deep yellow; and her most remarkable feature was a short snub nose, just discernible amid the broad immensity of her face. this latter lady was she who now entered edward's chamber. notwithstanding her deficiency in personal attractions, she was rather a favorite of the students, being good-natured, anxious for their comfort, and, when duly encouraged, very communicative. edward perceived, as soon as she appeared, that she only waited his assistance in order to disburden herself of some extraordinary information; and, more from compassion than curiosity, he began to question her. "well, dolly, what news this morning?" "why, let me see,--oh, yes! it had almost slipped my memory," replied the bed-maker. "poor widow butler died last night, after her long sickness. poor woman! i remember her forty years ago, or so,--as rosy a lass as you could set eyes on." "ah! has she gone?" said edward, recollecting the sick woman of the cottage which he had entered with ellen and fanshawe. "was she not out of her right mind, dolly?" "yes, this seven years," she answered. "they say she came to her senses a bit, when dr. melmoth visited her yesterday, but was raving mad when she died. ah, that son of hers!--if he is yet alive. well, well!" "she had a son, then?" inquired edward. "yes, such as he was. the lord preserve me from such a one!" said dolly. "it was thought he went off with hugh crombie, that keeps the tavern now. that was fifteen years ago." "and have they heard nothing of him since?" asked edward. "nothing good,--nothing good," said the bed-maker. "stories did travel up the valley now and then; but for five years there has been no word of him. they say merchant langton, ellen's father, met him in foreign parts, and would have made a man of him; but there was too much of the wicked one in him for that. well, poor woman! i wonder who'll preach her funeral sermon." "dr. melmoth, probably," observed the student. "no, no! the doctor will never finish his journey in time. and who knows but his own funeral will be the end of it," said dolly, with a sagacious shake of her head. "dr. melmoth gone a journey!" repeated edward. "what do you mean? for what purpose?" "for a good purpose enough, i may say," replied she. "to search out miss ellen, that was run away with last night." "in the devil's name, woman, of what are you speaking?" shouted edward, seizing the affrighted bed-maker forcibly by the arm. poor dolly had chosen this circuitous method of communicating her intelligence, because she was well aware that, if she first told of ellen's flight, she should find no ear for her account of the widow butler's death. she had not calculated, however, that the news would produce so violent an effect upon her auditor; and her voice faltered as she recounted what she knew of the affair. she had hardly concluded, before edward--who, as she proceeded, had been making hasty preparations--rushed from his chamber, and took the way towards hugh crombie's inn. he had no difficulty in finding the landlord, who had already occupied his accustomed seat, and was smoking his accustomed pipe, under the elm-tree. "well, master walcott, you have come to take a stomach-reliever this morning, i suppose," said hugh, taking the pipe from his mouth. "what shall it be?--a bumper of wine with an egg? or a glass of smooth, old, oily brandy, such as dame crombie and i keep for our own drinking? come, that will do it, i know." "no, no! neither," replied edward, shuddering involuntarily at the bare mention of wine and strong drink. "you know well, hugh crombie, the errand on which i come." "well, perhaps i do," said the landlord. "you come to order me to saddle my best horse. you are for a ride, this fine morning." "true; and i must learn of you in what direction to turn my horse's head," replied edward walcott. "i understand you," said hugh, nodding and smiling. "and now, master edward, i really have taken a strong liking to you; and, if you please to hearken to it, you shall have some of my best advice." "speak," said the young man, expecting to be told in what direction to pursue the chase. "i advise you, then," continued hugh crombie, in a tone in which some real feeling mingled with assumed carelessness,--"i advise you to forget that you have ever known this girl, that she has ever existed; for she is as much lost to you as if she never had been born, or as if the grave had covered her. come, come, man, toss off a quart of my old wine, and kept up a merry heart. this has been my way in many a heavier sorrow than ever you have felt; and you see i am alive and merry yet." but hugh's merriment had failed him just as he was making his boast of it; for edward saw a tear in the corner of his eye. "forget her? never, never!" said the student, while his heart sank within him at the hopelessness of pursuit which hugh's words implied. "i will follow her to the ends of the earth." "then so much the worse for you and for my poor nag, on whose back you shall be in three minutes," rejoined the landlord. "i have spoken to you as i would to my own son, if i had such an incumbrance.--here, you ragamuffin; saddle the gray, and lead him round to the door." "the gray? i will ride the black," said edward. "i know your best horse as well as you do yourself, hugh." "there is no black horse in my stable. i have parted with him to an old comrade of mine," answered the landlord, with a wink of acknowledgment to what he saw were edward's suspicions. "the gray is a stout nag, and will carry you a round pace, though not so fast as to bring you up with them you seek. i reserved him for you, and put mr. fanshawe off with the old white, on which i travelled hitherward a year or two since." "fanshawe! has he, then, the start of me?" asked edward. "he rode off about twenty minutes ago," replied hugh; "but you will overtake him within ten miles, at farthest. but, if mortal man could recover the girl, that fellow would do it, even if he had no better nag than a broomstick, like the witches of old times." "did he obtain any information from you as to the course?" inquired the student. "i could give him only this much," said hugh, pointing down the road in the direction of the town. "my old comrade trusts no man further than is needful, and i ask no unnecessary questions." the hostler now led up to the door the horse which edward was to ride. the young man mounted with all expedition; but, as he was about to apply the spurs, his thirst, which the bed-maker's intelligence had caused him to forget, returned most powerfully upon him. "for heaven's sake, hugh, a mug of your sharpest cider; and let it be a large one!" he exclaimed. "my tongue rattles in my mouth like"-- "like the bones in a dice-box," said the landlord, finishing the comparison, and hastening to obey edward's directions. indeed, he rather exceeded them, by mingling with the juice of the apple a gill of his old brandy, which his own experience told him would at that time have a most desirable effect upon the young man's internal system. "it is powerful stuff, mine host; and i feel like a new man already," observed edward, after draining the mug to the bottom. "he is a fine lad, and sits his horse most gallantly," said hugh crombie to himself as the student rode off. "i heartily wish him success. i wish to heaven my conscience had suffered me to betray the plot before it was too late. well, well, a man must keep his mite of honesty." the morning was now one of the most bright and glorious that ever shone for mortals; and, under other circumstances, edward's bosom would have been as light, and his spirit would have sung as cheerfully, as one of the many birds that warbled around him. the raindrops of the preceding night hung like glittering diamonds on every leaf of every tree, shaken, and rendered more brilliant, by occasional sighs of wind, that removed from the traveller the superfluous heat of an unclouded sun. in spite of the adventure, so mysterious and vexatious, in which he was engaged, edward's elastic spirit (assisted, perhaps, by the brandy he had unwittingly swallowed) rose higher as he rode on; and he soon found himself endeavoring to accommodate the tune of one of hugh crombie's ballads to the motion of the horse. nor did this reviving cheerfulness argue anything against his unwavering faith, and pure and fervent love for ellen langton. a sorrowful and repining disposition is not the necessary accompaniment of a "leal and loving heart"; and edward's spirits were cheered, not by forgetfulness, but by hope, which would not permit him to doubt of the ultimate success of his pursuit. the uncertainty itself, and the probable danger of the expedition, were not without their charm to a youthful and adventurous spirit. in fact, edward would not have been altogether satisfied to recover the errant damsel, without first doing battle in her behalf. he had proceeded but a few miles before he came in sight of fanshawe, who had been accommodated by the landlord with a horse much inferior to his own. the speed to which he had been put had almost exhausted the poor animal, whose best pace was now but little beyond a walk. edward drew his bridle as he came up with fanshawe. "i have been anxious to apologize," he said to him, "for the hasty and unjust expressions of which i made use last evening. may i hope that, in consideration of my mental distraction and the causes of it, you will forget what has passed?" "i had already forgotten it," replied fanshawe, freely offering his hand. "i saw your disturbed state of feeling, and it would have been unjust both to you and to myself to remember the errors it occasioned." "a wild expedition this," observed edward, after shaking warmly the offered hand. "unless we obtain some further information at the town, we shall hardly know which way to continue the pursuit." "we can scarcely fail, i think, of lighting upon some trace of them," said fanshawe. "their flight must have commenced after the storm subsided, which would give them but a few hours the start of us. may i beg," he continued, nothing the superior condition of his rival's horse, "that you will not attempt to accommodate your pace to mine?" edward bowed, and rode on, wondering at the change which a few months had wrought in fanshawe's character. on this occasion, especially, the energy of his mind had communicated itself to his frame. the color was strong and high in his cheek; and his whole appearance was that of a gallant and manly youth, whom a lady might love, or a foe might fear. edward had not been so slow as his mistress in discovering the student's affection; and he could not but acknowledge in his heart that he was a rival not to be despised, and might yet be a successful one, if, by his means, ellen langton were restored to her friends. this consideration caused him to spur forward with increased ardor; but all his speed could not divest him of the idea that fanshawe would finally overtake him, and attain the object of their mutual pursuit. there was certainly no apparent ground for this imagination: for every step of his horse increased the advantage which edward had gained, and he soon lost sight of his rival. shortly after overtaking fanshawe, the young man passed the lonely cottage formerly the residence of the widow butler, who now lay dead within. he was at first inclined to alight, and make inquiries respecting the fugitives; for he observed through the windows the faces of several persons, whom curiosity, or some better feeling, had led to the house of mourning. recollecting, however, that this portion of the road must have been passed by the angler and ellen at too early an hour to attract notice, he forbore to waste time by a fruitless delay. edward proceeded on his journey, meeting with no other noticeable event, till, arriving at the summit of a hill, he beheld, a few hundred yards before him, the rev. dr. melmoth. the worthy president was toiling onward at a rate unexampled in the history either of himself or his steed; the excellence of the latter consisting in sure-footedness rather than rapidity. the rider looked round, seemingly in some apprehension at the sound of hoof-tramps behind him, but was unable to conceal his satisfaction on recognizing edward walcott. in the whole course of his life, dr. melmoth had never been placed in circumstances so embarrassing as the present. he was altogether a child in the ways of the world, having spent his youth and early manhood in abstracted study, and his maturity in the solitude of these hills. the expedition, therefore, on which fate had now thrust him, was an entire deviation from the quiet pathway of all his former years; and he felt like one who sets forth over the broad ocean without chart or compass. the affair would undoubtedly have been perplexing to a man of far more experience than he; but the doctor pictured to himself a thousand difficulties and dangers, which, except in his imagination, had no existence. the perturbation of his spirit had compelled him, more than once since his departure, to regret that he had not invited mrs. melmoth to a share in the adventure; this being an occasion where her firmness, decision, and confident sagacity--which made her a sort of domestic hedgehog--would have been peculiarly appropriate. in the absence of such a counsellor, even edward walcott--young as he was, and indiscreet as the doctor thought him--was a substitute not to be despised; and it was singular and rather ludicrous to observe how the gray-haired man unconsciously became as a child to the beardless youth. he addressed edward with an assumption of dignity, through which his pleasure at the meeting was very obvious. "young gentleman, this is not well," he said. "by what authority have you absented yourself from the walls of alma mater during term-time?" "i conceived that it was unnecessary to ask leave at such a conjuncture, and when the head of the institution was himself in the saddle," replied edward. "it was a fault, it was a fault," said dr. melmoth, shaking his head; "but, in consideration of the motive, i may pass it over. and now, my dear edward, i advise that we continue our journey together, as your youth and inexperience will stand in need of the wisdom of my gray head. nay, i pray you lay not the lash to your steed. you have ridden fast and far; and a slower pace is requisite for a season." and, in order to keep up with his young companion, the doctor smote his own gray nag; which unhappy beast, wondering what strange concatenation of events had procured him such treatment, endeavored to obey his master's wishes. edward had sufficient compassion for dr. melmoth (especially as his own horse now exhibited signs of weariness) to moderate his pace to one attainable by the former. "alas, youth! these are strange times," observed the president, "when a doctor of divinity and an under-graduate set forth, like a knight-errant and his squire, in search of a stray damsel. methinks i am an epitome of the church militant, or a new species of polemical divinity. pray heaven, however, there be no encounter in store for us; for i utterly forgot to provide myself with weapons." "i took some thought for that matter, reverend knight," replied edward, whose imagination was highly tickled by dr. melmoth's chivalrous comparison. "ay, i see that you have girded on a sword," said the divine. "but wherewith shall i defend myself, my hand being empty, except of this golden headed staff, the gift of mr. langton?" "one of these, if you will accept it," answered edward, exhibiting a brace of pistols, "will serve to begin the conflict, before you join the battle hand to hand." "nay, i shall find little safety in meddling with that deadly instrument, since i know not accurately from which end proceeds the bullet," said dr. melmoth. "but were it not better, seeing we are so well provided with artillery, to betake ourselves, in the event of an encounter, to some stone-wall or other place of strength?" "if i may presume to advise," said the squire, "you, as being most valiant and experienced, should ride forward, lance in hand (your long staff serving for a lance), while i annoy the enemy from afar." "like teucer behind the shield of ajax," interrupted dr. melmoth, "or david with his stone and sling. no, no, young man! i have left unfinished in my study a learned treatise, important not only to the present age, but to posterity, for whose sakes i must take heed to my safety.--but, lo! who ride yonder?" he exclaimed, in manifest alarm, pointing to some horsemen upon the brow of a hill at a short distance before them. "fear not, gallant leader," said edward walcott, who had already discovered the objects of the doctor's terror. "they are men of peace, as we shall shortly see. the foremost is somewhere near your own years, and rides like a grave, substantial citizen,--though what he does here, i know not. behind come two servants, men likewise of sober age and pacific appearance." "truly your eyes are better than mine own. of a verity, you are in the right," acquiesced dr. melmoth, recovering his usual quantum of intrepidity. "we will ride forward courageously, as those who, in a just cause, fear neither death nor bonds." the reverend knight-errant and his squire, at the time of discovering the three horsemen, were within a very short distance of the town, which was, however, concealed from their view by the hill that the strangers were descending. the road from harley college, through almost its whole extent, had been rough and wild, and the country thin of population; but now, standing frequent, amid fertile fields on each side of the way, were neat little cottages, from which groups of white-headed children rushed forth to gaze upon the travellers. the three strangers, as well as the doctor and edward, were surrounded, as they approached each other, by a crowd of this kind, plying their little bare legs most pertinaciously in order to keep pace with the horses. as edward gained a nearer view of the foremost rider, his grave aspect and stately demeanor struck him with involuntary respect. there were deep lines of thought across his brow; and his calm yet bright gray eye betokened a steadfast soul. there was also an air of conscious importance, even in the manner in which the stranger sat his horse, which a man's good opinion of himself, unassisted by the concurrence of the world in general, seldom bestows. the two servants rode at a respectable distance in the rear; and the heavy portmanteaus at their backs intimated that the party had journeyed from afar. dr. melmoth endeavored to assume the dignity that became him as the head of harley college; and with a gentle stroke of his staff upon his wearied steed and a grave nod to the principal stranger, was about to commence the ascent of the hill at the foot of which they were. the gentleman, however, made a halt. "dr. melmoth, am i so fortunate as to meet you?" he exclaimed in accents expressive of as much surprise and pleasure as were consistent with his staid demeanor. "have you, then, forgotten your old friend?" "mr. langton! can it be?" said the doctor, after looking him in the face a moment. "yes, it is my old friend indeed: welcome, welcome! though you come at an unfortunate time." "what say you? how is my child? ellen, i trust, is well?" cried mr. langton, a father's anxiety overcoming the coldness and reserve that were natural to him, or that long habit had made a second nature. "she is well in health. she was so, at least, last night," replied dr. melmoth unable to meet the eye of his friend. "but--but i have been a careless shepherd; and the lamb has strayed from the fold while i slept." edward walcott, who was a deeply interested observer of this scene, had anticipated that a burst of passionate grief would follow the disclosure. he was, however, altogether mistaken. there was a momentary convulsion of mr. langton's strong features, as quick to come and go as a flash of lightning; and then his countenance was as composed--though, perhaps, a little sterner--as before. he seemed about to inquire into the particulars of what so nearly concerned him, but changed his purpose on observing the crowd of children, who, with one or two of their parents, were endeavoring to catch the words, that passed between the doctor and himself. "i will turn back with you to the village," he said in a steady voice; "and at your leisure i shall desire to hear the particulars of this unfortunate affair." he wheeled his horse accordingly, and, side by side with dr. melmoth, began to ascend the hill. on reaching the summit, the little country town lay before them, presenting a cheerful and busy spectacle. it consisted of one long, regular street, extending parallel to, and at a short distance from, the river; which here, enlarged by a junction with another stream, became navigable, not indeed for vessels of burden, but for rafts of lumber and boats of considerable size. the houses, with peaked roofs and jutting stories, stood at wide intervals along the street; and the commercial character of the place was manifested by the shop door and windows that occupied the front of almost every dwelling. one or two mansions, however, surrounded by trees, and standing back at a haughty distance from the road, were evidently the abodes of the aristocracy of the village. it was not difficult to distinguish the owners of these--self-important personages, with canes and well-powdered periwigs--among the crowd of meaner men who bestowed their attention upon dr. melmoth and his friend as they rode by. the town being the nearest mart of a large extent of back country, there are many rough farmers and woodsmen, to whom the cavalcade was an object of curiosity and admiration. the former feeling, indeed, was general throughout the village. the shop-keepers left their customers, and looked forth from the doors; the female portion of the community thrust their heads from the windows; and the people in the street formed a lane through which, with all eyes concentrated upon them, the party rode onward to the tavern. the general aptitude that pervades the populace of a small country town to meddle with affairs not legitimately concerning them was increased, on this occasion, by the sudden return of mr. langton after passing through the village. many conjectures were afloat respecting the cause of this retrograde movement; and, by degrees, something like the truth, though much distorted, spread generally among the crowd, communicated, probably, from mr. langton's servants. edward walcott, incensed at the uncourteous curiosity of which he, as well as his companions, was the object, felt a frequent impulse (though, fortunately for himself, resisted) to make use of his riding-switch in clearing a passage. on arriving at the tavern, dr. melmoth recounted to his friend the little he knew beyond the bare fact of ellen's disappearance. had edward walcott been called to their conference, he might, by disclosing the adventure of the angler, have thrown a portion of light upon the affair; but, since his first introduction, the cold and stately merchant had honored him with no sort of notice. edward, on his part, was not well pleased at the sudden appearance of ellen's father, and was little inclined to cooperate in any measures that he might adopt for her recovery. it was his wish to pursue the chase on his own responsibility, and as his own wisdom dictated: he chose to be an independent ally, rather than a subordinate assistant. but, as a step preliminary to his proceedings of every other kind, he found it absolutely necessary, having journeyed far, and fasting, to call upon the landlord for a supply of food. the viands that were set before him were homely but abundant; nor were edward's griefs and perplexities so absorbing as to overcome the appetite of youth and health. dr. melmoth and mr. langton, after a short private conversation, had summoned the landlord, in the hope of obtaining some clew to the development of the mystery. but no young lady, nor any stranger answering to the description the doctor had received from hugh crombie (which was indeed a false one), had been seen to pass through the village since daybreak. here, therefore, the friends were entirely at a loss in what direction to continue the pursuit. the village was the focus of several roads, diverging to widely distant portions of the country; and which of these the fugitives had taken, it was impossible to determine. one point, however, might be considered certain,--that the village was the first stage of their flight; for it commanded the only outlet from the valley, except a rugged path among the hills, utterly impassable by horse. in this dilemma, expresses were sent by each of the different roads; and poor ellen's imprudence--the tale nowise decreasing as it rolled along--became known to a wide extent of country. having thus done everything in his power to recover his daughter, the merchant exhibited a composure which dr. melmoth admired, but could not equal. his own mind, however, was in a far more comfortable state than when the responsibility of the pursuit had rested upon himself. edward walcott, in the mean time, had employed but a very few moments in satisfying his hunger; after which his active intellect alternately formed and relinquished a thousand plans for the recovery of ellen. fanshawe's observation, that her flight must have commenced after the subsiding of the storm, recurred to him. on inquiry, he was informed that the violence of the rain had continued, with a few momentary intermissions, till near daylight. the fugitives must, therefore, have passed through the village long after its inhabitants were abroad; and how, without the gift of invisibility, they had contrived to elude notice, edward could not conceive. "fifty years ago," thought edward, "my sweet ellen would have been deemed a witch for this trackless journey. truly, i could wish i were a wizard, that i might bestride a broomstick, and follow her." while the young man, involved in these perplexing thoughts, looked forth from the open window of the apartment, his attention was drawn to an individual, evidently of a different, though not of a higher, class than the countrymen among whom he stood. edward now recollected that he had noticed his rough dark face among the most earnest of those who had watched the arrival of the party. he had then taken him for one of the boatmen, of whom there were many in the village, and who had much of a sailor-like dress and appearance. a second and more attentive observation, however, convinced edward that this man's life had not been spent upon fresh water; and, had any stronger evidence than the nameless marks which the ocean impresses upon its sons been necessary, it would have been found in his mode of locomotion. while edward was observing him, he beat slowly up to one of mr. langton's servants who was standing near the door of the inn. he seemed to question the man with affected carelessness; but his countenance was dark and perplexed when he turned to mingle again with the crowd. edward lost no time in ascertaining from the servant the nature of his inquiries. they had related to the elopement of mr. langton's daughter, which was, indeed, the prevailing, if not the sole, subject of conversation in the village. the grounds for supposing that this man was in any way connected with the angler were, perhaps, very slight; yet, in the perplexity of the whole affair, they induced edward to resolve to get at the heart of his mystery. to attain this end, he took the most direct method,--by applying to the man himself. he had now retired apart from the throng and bustle of the village, and was seated upon a condemned boat, that was drawn up to rot upon the banks of the river. his arms were folded, and his hat drawn over his brows. the lower part of his face, which alone was visible, evinced gloom and depression, as did also the deep sighs, which, because he thought no one was near him, he did not attempt to restrain. "friend, i must speak with you," said edward walcott, laying his hand upon his shoulder, after contemplating the man a moment, himself unseen. he started at once from his abstraction and his seat, apparently expecting violence, and prepared to resist it; but, perceiving the youthful and solitary intruder upon his privacy, he composed his features with much quickness. "what would you with me?" he asked. "they tarry long,--or you have kept a careless watch," said edward, speaking at a venture. for a moment, there seemed a probability of obtaining such a reply to this observation as the youth had intended to elicit. if any trust could be put in the language of the stranger's countenance, a set of words different from those to which he subsequently gave utterance had risen to his lips. but he seemed naturally slow of speech; and this defect was now, as is frequently the case, advantageous in giving him space for reflection. "look you, youngster: crack no jokes on me," he at length said, contemptuously. "away! back whence you came, or"--and he slightly waved a small rattan that he held in his right hand. edward's eyes sparkled, and his color rose. "you must change this tone, fellow, and that speedily," he observed. "i order you to lower your hand, and answer the questions that i shall put to you." the man gazed dubiously at him, but finally adopted a more conciliatory mode of speech. "well, master; and what is your business with me?" he inquired. "i am a boatman out of employ. any commands in my line?" "pshaw! i know you, my good friend, and you cannot deceive me," replied edward walcott. "we are private here," he continued, looking around. "i have no desire or intention to do you harm; and, if you act according to my directions, you shall have no cause to repent it." "and what if i refuse to put myself under your orders?" inquired the man. "you are but a young captain for such an old hulk as mine." "the ill consequences of a refusal would all be on your own side," replied edward. "i shall, in that case, deliver you up to justice: if i have not the means of capturing you myself," he continued, observing the seaman's eye to wander rather scornfully over his youthful and slender figure, "there are hundreds within call whom it will be in vain to resist. besides, it requires little strength to use this," he added, laying his hand on a pistol. "if that were all, i could suit you there, my lad," muttered the stranger. he continued aloud, "well, what is your will with me? d----d ungenteel treatment this! but put your questions; and, to oblige you, i may answer them,--if so be that i know anything of the matter." "you will do wisely," observed the young man. "and now to business. what reason have you to suppose that the persons for whom you watch are not already beyond the village?" the seaman paused long before he answered, and gazed earnestly at edward, apparently endeavoring to ascertain from his countenance the amount of his knowledge. this he probably overrated, but, nevertheless, hazarded a falsehood. "i doubt not they passed before midnight," he said. "i warrant you they are many a league towards the sea-coast, ere this." "you have kept watch, then, since midnight?" asked edward. "ay, that have i! and a dark and rough one it was," answered the stranger. "and you are certain that, if they passed at all, it must have been before that hour?" "i kept my walk across the road till the village was all astir," said the seaman. "they could not have missed me. so, you see, your best way is to give chase; for they have a long start of you, and you have no time to lose." "your information is sufficient, my good friend," said edward, with a smile. "i have reason to know that they did not commence their flight before midnight. you have made it evident that they have not passed since: ergo, they have not passed at all,--an indisputable syllogism. and now will i retrace my footsteps." "stay, young man," said the stranger, placing himself full in edward's way as he was about to hasten to the inn. "you have drawn me in to betray my comrade; but, before you leave this place, you must answer a question or two of mine. do you mean to take the law with you? or will you right your wrongs, if you have any, with your own right hand?" "it is my intention to take the latter method. but, if i choose the former, what then?" demanded edward. "nay, nothing: only you or i might not have gone hence alive," replied the stranger. "but as you say he shall have fair play"-- "on my word, friend," interrupted the young man, "i fear your intelligence has come too late to do either good or harm. look towards the inn: my companions are getting to horse, and, my life on it, they know whither to ride." so saying, he hastened away, followed by the stranger. it was indeed evident that news of some kind or other had reached the village. the people were gathered in groups, conversing eagerly; and the pale cheeks, uplifted eyebrows, and outspread hands of some of the female sex filled edward's mind with undefined but intolerable apprehensions. he forced his way to dr. melmoth, who had just mounted, and, seizing his bridle, peremptorily demanded if he knew aught of ellen langton. chapter viii. "full many a miserable year hath passed: she knows him as one dead, or worse than dead: and many a change her varied life hath known; but her heart none." maturin. since her interview with the angler, which was interrupted by the appearance of fanshawe, ellen langton's hitherto calm and peaceful mind had been in a state of insufferable doubt and dismay. she was imperatively called upon--at least, she so conceived--to break through the rules which nature and education impose upon her sex, to quit the protection of those whose desire for her welfare was true and strong, and to trust herself, for what purpose she scarcely knew, to a stranger, from whom the instinctive purity of her mind would involuntarily have shrunk, under whatever circumstances she had met him. the letter which she had received from the hands of the angler had seemed to her inexperience to prove beyond a doubt that the bearer was the friend of her father, and authorized by him, if her duty and affection were stronger than her fears, to guide her to his retreat. the letter spoke vaguely of losses and misfortunes, and of a necessity for concealment on her father's part, and secrecy on hers; and, to the credit of ellen's not very romantic understanding, it must be acknowledged that the mystery of the plot had nearly prevented its success. she did not, indeed, doubt that the letter was from her father's hand; for every line and stroke, and even many of its phrases, were familiar to her. her apprehension was, that his misfortunes, of what nature soever they were, had affected his intellect, and that, under such an influence, he had commanded her to take a step which nothing less than such a command could justify. ellen did not, however, remain long in this opinion; for when she reperused the letter, and considered the firm, regular characters, and the style,--calm and cold, even in requesting such a sacrifice,--she felt that there was nothing like insanity here. in fine, she came gradually to the belief that there were strong reasons, though incomprehensible by her, for the secrecy that her father had enjoined. having arrived at this conviction, her decision lay plain before her. her affection for mr. langton was not, indeed,--nor was it possible,--so strong as that she would have felt for a parent who had watched over her from her infancy. neither was the conception she had unavoidably formed of his character such as to promise that in him she would find an equivalent for all she must sacrifice. on the contrary, her gentle nature and loving heart, which otherwise would have rejoiced in a new object of affection, now shrank with something like dread from the idea of meeting her father,--stately, cold, and stern as she could not but imagine him. a sense of duty was therefore ellen's only support in resolving to tread the dark path that lay before her. had there been any person of her own sex in whom ellen felt confidence, there is little doubt that she would so far have disobeyed her father's letter as to communicate its contents, and take counsel as to her proceedings. but mrs. melmoth was the only female--excepting, indeed, the maid-servant--to whom it was possible to make the communication; and, though ellen at first thought of such a step, her timidity, and her knowledge of the lady's character, did not permit her to venture upon it. she next reviewed her acquaintances of the other sex; and dr. melmoth first presented himself, as in every respect but one, an unexceptionable confidant. but the single exception was equivalent to many. the maiden, with the highest opinion of the doctor's learning and talents, had sufficient penetration to know, that, in the ways of the world, she was herself the better skilled of the two. for a moment she thought of edward walcott; but he was light and wild, and, which her delicacy made an insurmountable objection, there was an untold love between them. her thoughts finally centred on fanshawe. in his judgment, young and inexperienced though he was, she would have placed a firm trust; and his zeal, from whatever cause it arose, she could not doubt. if, in the short time allowed her for reflection, an opportunity had occurred for consulting him, she would, in all probability, have taken advantage of it. but the terms on which they had parted the preceding evening had afforded him no reason to hope for her confidence; and he felt that there were others who had a better right to it than himself. he did not, therefore, throw himself in her way; and poor ellen was consequently left without an adviser. the determination that resulted from her own unassisted wisdom has been seen. when discovered by dr. melmoth at hugh crombie's inn, she was wholly prepared for flight, and, but for the intervention of the storm, would, ere then, have been far away. the firmness of resolve that had impelled a timid maiden upon such a step was not likely to be broken by one defeat; and ellen, accordingly, confident that the stranger would make a second attempt, determined that no effort on her part should be wanting to its success. on reaching her chamber, therefore, instead of retiring to rest (of which, from her sleepless thoughts of the preceding night, she stood greatly in need), she sat watching for the abatement of the storm. her meditations were now calmer than at any time since her first meeting with the angler. she felt as if her fate was decided. the stain had fallen upon her reputation: she was no longer the same pure being in the opinion of those whose approbation she most valued. one obstacle to her flight--and, to a woman's mind, a most powerful one--had thus been removed. dark and intricate as was the way, it was easier now to proceed than to pause; and her desperate and forlorn situation gave her a strength which hitherto she had not felt. at every cessation in the torrent of rain that beat against the house, ellen flew to the window, expecting to see the stranger form beneath it. but the clouds would again thicken, and the storm recommence with its former violence; and she began to fear that the approach of morning would compel her to meet the now dreaded face of dr. melmoth. at length, however, a strong and steady wind, supplying the place of the fitful gusts of the preceding part of the night, broke and scattered the clouds from the broad expanse of the sky. the moon, commencing her late voyage not long before the sun, was now visible, setting forth like a lonely ship from the dark line of the horizon, and touching at many a little silver cloud the islands of that aerial deep. ellen felt that now the time was come; and, with a calmness wonderful to herself, she prepared for her final departure. she had not long to wait ere she saw, between the vacancies of the trees, the angler advancing along the shady avenue that led to the principal entrance of dr. melmoth's dwelling. he had no need to summon her either by word or signal; for she had descended, emerged from the door, and stood before him, while he was yet at some distance from the house. "you have watched well," he observed in a low, strange tone. "as saith the scripture, 'many daughters have done virtuously; but thou excellest them all.'" he took her arm; and they hastened down the avenue. then, leaving hugh crombie's inn on their right, they found its master in a spot so shaded that the moonbeams could not enlighten it. he held by the bridle two horses, one of which the angler assisted ellen to mount. then, turning to the landlord he pressed a purse into his hand; but hugh drew back, and it fell to the ground. "no! this would not have tempted me; nor will it reward me," he said. "if you have gold to spare, there are some that need it more than i." "i understand you, mine host. i shall take thought for them; and enough will remain for you and me," replied his comrade. "i have seen the day when such a purse would not have slipped between your fingers. well, be it so. and now, hugh, my old friend, a shake of your hand; for we are seeing our last of each other." "pray heaven it be so! though i wish you no ill," said the landlord, giving his hand. he then seemed about to approach ellen, who had been unable to distinguish the words of this brief conversation; but his comrade prevented him. "there is no time to lose," he observed. "the moon is growing pale already, and we should have been many a mile beyond the valley ere this." he mounted as he spoke; and, guiding ellen's rein till they reached the road, they dashed away. it was now that she felt herself completely in his power; and with that consciousness there came a sudden change of feeling, and an altered view of her conduct. a thousand reasons forced themselves upon her mind, seeming to prove that she had been deceived; while the motives, so powerful with her but a moment before, had either vanished from her memory or lost all their efficacy. her companion, who gazed searchingly into her face, where the moonlight, coming down between the pines, allowed him to read its expression, probably discerned somewhat of the state of her thoughts. "do you repent so soon?" he inquired. "we have a weary way before us. faint not ere we have well entered upon it." "i have left dear friends behind me, and am going i know not whither," replied ellen, tremblingly. "you have a faithful guide," he observed, turning away his head, and speaking in the tone of one who endeavors to smother a laugh. ellen had no heart to continue the conversation; and they rode on in silence, and through a wild and gloomy scene. the wind roared heavily through the forest, and the trees shed their raindrops upon the travellers. the road, at all times rough, was now broken into deep gullies, through which streams went murmuring down to mingle with the river. the pale moonlight combined with the gray of the morning to give a ghastly and unsubstantial appearance to every object. the difficulties of the road had been so much increased by the storm, that the purple eastern clouds gave notice of the near approach of the sun just as the travellers reached the little lonesome cottage which ellen remembered to have visited several months before. on arriving opposite to it, her companion checked his horse, and gazed with a wild earnestness at the wretched habitation. then, stifling a groan that would not altogether be repressed, he was about to pass on; but at that moment the cottage-door opened, and a woman, whose sour, unpleasant countenance ellen recognized, came hastily forth. she seemed not to heed the travellers; but the angler, his voice thrilling and quivering with indescribable emotion, addressed her. "woman, whither do you go?" he inquired. she started, but, after a momentary pause, replied, "there is one within at the point of death. she struggles fearfully; and i cannot endure to watch alone by her bedside. if you are christians, come in with me." ellen's companion leaped hastily from his horse, assisted her also to dismount, and followed the woman into the cottage, having first thrown the bridles of the horses carelessly over the branch of a tree. ellen trembled at the awful scene she would be compelled to witness; but, when death was so near at hand, it was more terrible to stand alone in the dim morning light than even to watch the parting of soul and body. she therefore entered the cottage. her guide, his face muffled in his cloak, had taken his stand at a distance from the death-bed, in a part of the room which neither the increasing daylight nor the dim rays of a solitary lamp had yet enlightened. at ellen's entrance, the dying woman lay still, and apparently calm, except that a plaintive, half-articulate sound occasionally wandered through her lips. "hush! for mercy's sake, silence!" whispered the other woman to the strangers. "there is good hope now that she will die a peaceable death; but, if she is disturbed, the boldest of us will not dare to stand by her bedside." the whisper by which her sister endeavored to preserve quiet perhaps reached the ears of the dying female; for she now raised herself in bed, slowly, but with a strength superior to what her situation promised. her face was ghastly and wild, from long illness, approaching death, and disturbed intellect; and a disembodied spirit could scarcely be a more fearful object than one whose soul was just struggling forth. her sister, approaching with the soft and stealing step appropriate to the chamber of sickness and death, attempted to replace the covering around her, and to compose her again upon the pillow. "lie down and sleep, sister," she said; "and, when the day breaks, i will waken you. methinks your breath comes freer already. a little more slumber, and to-morrow you will be well." "my illness is gone: i am well," said the dying-woman, gasping for breath. "i wander where the fresh breeze comes sweetly over my face; but a close and stifled air has choked my lungs." "yet a little while, and you will no longer draw your breath in pain," observed her sister, again replacing the bedclothes, which she continued to throw off. "my husband is with me," murmured the widow. "he walks by my side, and speaks to me as in old times; but his words come faintly on my ear. cheer me and comfort me, my husband; for there is a terror in those dim, motionless eyes, and in that shadowy voice." as she spoke thus, she seemed to gaze upon some object that stood by her bedside; and the eyes of those who witnessed this scene could not but follow the direction of hers. they observed that the dying woman's own shadow was marked upon the wall, receiving a tremulous motion from the fitful rays of the lamp, and from her own convulsive efforts. "my husband stands gazing on me," she said again; "but my son,--where is he? and, as i ask, the father turns away his face. where is our son? for his sake, i have longed to come to this land of rest. for him i have sorrowed many years. will he not comfort me now?" at these words the stranger made a few hasty steps towards the bed; but, ere he reached it, he conquered the impulse that drew him thither, and, shrouding his face more deeply in his cloak, returned to his former position. the dying woman, in the mean time, had thrown herself back upon the bed; and her sobbing and wailing, imaginary as was their cause, were inexpressibly affecting. "take me back to earth," she said; "for its griefs have followed me hither." the stranger advanced, and, seizing the lamp, knelt down by the bedside, throwing the light full upon his pale and convulsed features. "mother, here is your son!" he exclaimed. at that unforgotten voice, the darkness burst away at once from her soul. she arose in bed, her eyes and her whole countenance beaming with joy, and threw her arms about his neck. a multitude of words seemed struggling for utterance; but they gave place to a low moaning sound, and then to the silence of death. the one moment of happiness, that recompensed years of sorrow, had been her last. her son laid the lifeless form upon the pillow, and gazed with fixed eyes on his mother's face. as he looked, the expression of enthusiastic joy that parting life had left upon the features faded gradually away; and the countenance, though no longer wild, assumed the sadness which it had worn through a long course of grief and pain. on beholding this natural consequence of death, the thought, perhaps, occurred to him, that her soul, no longer dependent on the imperfect means of intercourse possessed by mortals, had communed with his own, and become acquainted with all its guilt and misery. he started from the bedside, and covered his face with his hands, as if to hide it from those dead eyes. such a scene as has been described could not but have a powerful effect upon any one who retained aught of humanity; and the grief of the son, whose natural feelings had been blunted, but not destroyed, by an evil life, was much more violent than his outward demeanor would have expressed. but his deep repentance for the misery he had brought upon his parent did not produce in him a resolution to do wrong no more. the sudden consciousness of accumulated guilt made him desperate. he felt as if no one had thenceforth a claim to justice or compassion at his hands, when his neglect and cruelty had poisoned his mother's life, and hastened her death. thus it was that the devil wrought with him to his own destruction, reversing the salutary effect which his mother would have died exultingly to produce upon his mind. he now turned to ellen langton with a demeanor singularly calm and composed. "we must resume our journey," he said, in his usual tone of voice. "the sun is on the point of rising, though but little light finds its way into this hovel." ellen's previous suspicions as to the character of her companion had now become certainty so far as to convince her that she was in the power of a lawless and guilty man; though what fate he intended for her she was unable to conjecture. an open opposition to his will, however, could not be ventured upon; especially as she discovered, on looking round the apartment, that, with the exception of the corpse, they were alone. "will you not attend your mother's funeral?" she asked, trembling, and conscious that he would discover her fears. "the dead must bury their dead," he replied. "i have brought my mother to her grave,--and what can a son do more? this purse, however, will serve to lay her in the earth, and leave something for the old hag. whither is she gone?" interrupted he, casting a glance round the room in search of the old woman. "nay, then, we must speedily to horse. i know her of old." thus saying, he threw the purse upon the table, and, without trusting himself to look again towards the dead, conducted ellen out of the cottage. the first rays of the sun at that moment gilded the tallest trees of the forest. on looking towards the spot were the horses had stood, ellen thought that providence, in answer to her prayers, had taken care for her deliverance. they were no longer there,--a circumstance easily accounted for by the haste with which the bridles had been thrown over the branch of the tree. her companion, however, imputed it to another cause. "the hag! she would sell her own flesh and blood by weight and measure," he muttered to himself. "this is some plot of hers, i know well." he put his hand to his forehead for a moment's space, seeming to reflect on the course most advisable to be pursued. ellen, perhaps unwisely, interposed. "would it not be well to return?" she asked, timidly. "there is now no hope of escaping; but i might yet reach home undiscovered." "return!" repeated her guide, with a look and smile from which she turned away her face. "have you forgotten your father and his misfortunes? no, no, sweet ellen: it is too late for such thoughts as these." he took her hand, and led her towards the forest, in the rear of the cottage. she would fain have resisted; but they were all alone, and the attempt must have been both fruitless and dangerous. she therefore trod with him a path so devious, so faintly traced, and so overgrown with bushes and young trees, that only a most accurate acquaintance in his early days could have enabled her guide to retain it. to him, however, it seemed so perfectly familiar, that he was not once compelled to pause, though the numerous windings soon deprived ellen of all knowledge of the situation of the cottage. they descended a steep hill, and, proceeding parallel to the river,--as ellen judged by its rushing sound,--at length found themselves at what proved to be the termination of their walk. ellen now recollected a remark of edward walcott's respecting the wild and rude scenery through which the river here kept its way; and, in less agitating circumstances, her pleasure and admiration would have been great. they stood beneath a precipice, so high that the loftiest pine-tops (and many of them seemed to soar to heaven) scarcely surmounted it. this line of rock has a considerable extent, at unequal heights, and with many interruptions, along the course of the river; and it seems probable that, at some former period, it was the boundary of the waters, though they are now confined within far less ambitious limits. the inferior portion of the crag, beneath which ellen and her guide were standing, varies so far from the perpendicular as not to be inaccessible by a careful footstep. but only one person has been known to attempt the ascent of the superior half, and only one the descent; yet, steep as is the height, trees and bushes of various kinds have clung to the rock, wherever their roots could gain the slightest hold; thus seeming to prefer the scanty and difficult nourishment of the cliff to a more luxurious life in the rich interval that extends from its base to the river. but, whether or no these hardy vegetables have voluntarily chosen their rude resting-place, the cliff is indebted to them for much of the beauty that tempers its sublimity. when the eye is pained and wearied by the bold nakedness of the rock, it rests with pleasure on the cheerful foliage of the birch, or upon the darker green of the funereal pine. just at the termination of the accessible portion of the crag, these trees are so numerous, and their foliage so dense, that they completely shroud from view a considerable excavation, formed, probably, hundreds of years since, by the fall of a portion of the rock. the detached fragment still lies at a little distance from the base, gray and moss-grown, but corresponding, in its general outline, to the cavity from which it was rent. but the most singular and beautiful object in all this scene is a tiny fount of crystal water, that gushes forth from the high, smooth forehead of the cliff. its perpendicular descent is of many feet; after which it finds its way, with a sweet diminutive murmur, to the level ground. it is not easy to conceive whence the barren rock procures even the small supply of water that is necessary to the existence of this stream; it is as unaccountable as the gush of gentle feeling which sometimes proceeds from the hardest heart: but there it continues to flow and fall, undiminished and unincreased. the stream is so slender, that the gentlest breeze suffices to disturb its descent, and to scatter its pure sweet waters over the face of the cliff. but in that deep forest there is seldom a breath of wind; so that, plashing continually upon one spot, the fount has worn its own little channel of white sand, by which it finds its way to the river. alas that the naiades have lost their old authority! for what a deity of tiny loveliness must once have presided here! ellen's companion paused not to gaze either upon the loveliness or the sublimity of this scene, but, assisting her where it was requisite, began the steep and difficult ascent of the lower part of the cliff. the maiden's ingenuity in vain endeavored to assign reasons for this movement; but when they reached the tuft of trees, which, as has been noticed, grew at the ultimate point where mortal footstep might safely tread, she perceived through their thick branches the recess in the rock. here they entered; and her guide pointed to a mossy seat, in the formation of which, to judge from its regularity, art had probably a share. "here you may remain in safety," he observed, "till i obtain the means of proceeding. in this spot you need fear no intruder; but it will be dangerous to venture beyond its bounds." the meaning glance that accompanied these words intimated to poor ellen, that, in warning her against danger, he alluded to the vengeance with which he would visit any attempt to escape. to leave her thus alone, trusting to the influence of such a threat, was a bold, yet a necessary and by no means a hopeless measure. on ellen it produced the desired effect; and she sat in the cave as motionless, for a time, as if she had herself been a part of the rock. in other circumstances this shady recess would have been a delightful retreat during the sultry warmth of a summer's day. the dewy coolness of the rock kept the air always fresh and the sunbeams never thrust themselves so as to dissipate the mellow twilight through the green trees with which the chamber was curtained. ellen's sleeplessness and agitation for many preceding hours had perhaps deadened her feelings; for she now felt a sort of indifference creeping upon her, an inability to realize the evils of her situation, at the same time that she was perfectly aware of them all. this torpor of mind increased, till her eyelids began to grow heavy and the cave and trees to swim before her sight. in a few moments more she would probably have been in dreamless slumber; but, rousing herself by a strong effort, she looked round the narrow limits of the cave in search of objects to excite her worn-out mind. she now perceived, wherever the smooth rock afforded place for them, the initials, or the full-length names of former visitants of the cave. what wanderer on mountain-tops or in deep solitudes has not felt the influence of these records of humanity, telling him, when such a conviction is soothing to his heart, that he is not alone in the world? it was singular, that, when her own mysterious situation had almost lost its power to engage her thoughts, ellen perused these barren memorials with a certain degree of interest. she went on repeating them aloud, and starting at the sound of her own voice, till at length, as one name passed through her lips, she paused, and then, leaning her forehead against the letters, burst into tears. it was the name of edward walcott; and it struck upon her heart, arousing her to a full sense of her present misfortunes and dangers, and, more painful still, of her past happiness. her tears had, however, a soothing, and at the same time a strengthening effect upon her mind; for, when their gush was over, she raised her head, and began to meditate on the means of escape. she wondered at the species of fascination that had kept her, as if chained to the rock, so long, when there was, in reality, nothing to bar her pathway. she determined, late as it was, to attempt her own deliverance, and for that purpose began slowly and cautiously to emerge from the cave. peeping out from among the trees, she looked and listened with most painful anxiety to discover if any living thing were in that seeming solitude, or if any sound disturbed the heavy stillness. but she saw only nature in her wildest forms, and heard only the plash and murmur (almost inaudible, because continual) of the little waterfall, and the quick, short throbbing of her own heart, against which she pressed her hand as if to hush it. gathering courage, therefore, she began to descend; and, starting often at the loose stones that even her light footstep displaced and sent rattling down, she at length reached the base of the crag in safety. she then made a few steps in the direction, as nearly as she could judge, by which she arrived at the spot, but paused, with a sudden revulsion of the blood to her heart, as her guide emerged from behind a projecting part of the rock. he approached her deliberately, an ironical smile writhing his features into a most disagreeable expression; while in his eyes there was something that seemed a wild, fierce joy. by a species of sophistry, of which oppressors often make use, he had brought himself to believe that he was now the injured one, and that ellen, by her distrust of him, had fairly subjected herself to whatever evil it consisted with his will and power to inflict upon her. her only restraining influence over him, the consciousness, in his own mind, that he possessed her confidence, was now done away. ellen, as well as her enemy, felt that this was the case. she knew not what to dread; but she was well aware that danger was at hand, and that, in the deep wilderness, there was none to help her, except that being with whose inscrutable purposes it might consist to allow the wicked to triumph for a season, and the innocent to be brought low. "are you so soon weary of this quiet retreat?" demanded her guide, continuing to wear the same sneering smile. "or has your anxiety for your father induced you to set forth alone in quest of the afflicted old man?" "oh, if i were but with him!" exclaimed ellen. "but this place is lonely and fearful; and i cannot endure to remain here." "lonely, is it, sweet ellen?" he rejoined; "am i not with you? yes, it is lonely,--lonely as guilt could wish. cry aloud, ellen, and spare not. shriek, and see if there be any among these rocks and woods to hearken to you!" "there is, there is one," exclaimed ellen, shuddering, and affrighted at the fearful meaning of his countenance. "he is here! he is there!" and she pointed to heaven. "it may be so, dearest," he replied. "but if there be an ear that hears, and an eye that sees all the evil of the earth, yet the arm is slow to avenge. else why do i stand before you a living man?" "his vengeance may be delayed for a time, but not forever," she answered, gathering a desperate courage from the extremity of her fear. "you say true, lovely ellen; and i have done enough, erenow, to insure its heaviest weight. there is a pass, when evil deeds can add nothing to guilt, nor good ones take anything from it." "think of your mother,--of her sorrow through life, and perhaps even after death," ellen began to say. but, as she spoke these words, the expression of his face was changed, becoming suddenly so dark and fiend-like, that she clasped her hands, and fell on her knees before him. "i have thought of my mother," he replied, speaking very low, and putting his face close to hers. "i remember the neglect, the wrong, the lingering and miserable death, that she received at my hands. by what claim can either man or woman henceforth expect mercy from me? if god will help you, be it so; but by those words you have turned my heart to stone." at this period of their conversation, when ellen's peril seemed most imminent, the attention of both was attracted by a fragment of rock, which, falling from the summit of the crag, struck very near them. ellen started from her knees, and, with her false guide, gazed eagerly upward,--he in the fear of interruption, she in the hope of deliverance. chapter ix. "at length, he cries, behold the fated spring! yon rugged cliff conceals the fountain blest, dark rocks its crystal source o'ershadowing." psyche. the tale now returns to fanshawe, who, as will be recollected, after being overtaken by edward walcott, was left with little apparent prospect of aiding in the deliverance of ellen langton. it would be difficult to analyze the feelings with which the student pursued the chase, or to decide whether he was influenced and animated by the same hopes of successful love that cheered his rival. that he was conscious of such hopes, there is little reason to suppose; for the most powerful minds are not always the best acquainted with their own feelings. had fanshawe, moreover, acknowledged to himself the possibility of gaining ellen's affections, his generosity would have induced him to refrain from her society before it was too late. he had read her character with accuracy, and had seen how fit she was to love, and to be loved, by a man who could find his happiness in the common occupations of the world; and fanshawe never deceived himself so far as to suppose that this would be the case with him. indeed, he often wondered at the passion with which ellen's simple loveliness of mind and person had inspired him, and which seemed to be founded on the principle of contrariety, rather than of sympathy. it was the yearning of a soul, formed by nature in a peculiar mould, for communion with those to whom it bore a resemblance, yet of whom it was not. but there was no reason to suppose that ellen, who differed from the multitude only as being purer and better, would cast away her affections on the one, of all who surrounded her, least fitted to make her happy. thus fanshawe reasoned with himself, and of this he believed that he was convinced. yet ever and anon he found himself involved in a dream of bliss, of which ellen was to be the giver and the sharer. then would he rouse himself, and press upon his mind the chilling consciousness that it was and could be but a dream. there was also another feeling, apparently discordant with those which have been enumerated. it was a longing for rest, for his old retirement, that came at intervals so powerfully upon him, as he rode on, that his heart sickened of the active exertion on which fate had thrust him. after being overtaken by edward walcott, fanshawe continued his journey with as much speed as was attainable by his wearied horse, but at a pace infinitely too slow for his earnest thoughts. these had carried him far away, leaving him only such a consciousness of his present situation as to make diligent use of the spur, when a horse's tread at no great distance struck upon his ear. he looked forward and behind; but, though a considerable extent of the narrow, rocky, and grass-grown road was visible, he was the only traveller there. yet again he heard the sound, which, he now discovered, proceeded from among the trees that lined the roadside. alighting, he entered the forest, with the intention, if the steed proved to be disengaged, and superior to his own, of appropriating him to his own use. he soon gained a view of the object he sought; but the animal rendered a closer acquaintance unattainable, by immediately taking to his heels. fanshawe had, however, made a most interesting discovery; for the horse was accoutred with a side-saddle; and who but ellen langton could have been his rider? at this conclusion, though his perplexity was thereby in no degree diminished, the student immediately arrived. returning to the road, and perceiving on the summit of the hill a cottage, which he recognized as the one he had entered with ellen and edward walcott, he determined there to make inquiry respecting the objects of his pursuit. on reaching the door of the poverty-stricken dwelling, he saw that it was not now so desolate of inmates as on his previous visit. in the single inhabitable apartment were several elderly women, clad evidently in their well-worn and well-saved sunday clothes, and all wearing a deep grievous expression of countenance. fanshawe was not long in deciding that death was within the cottage, and that these aged females were of the class who love the house of mourning, because to them it is a house of feasting. it is a fact, disgusting and lamentable, that the disposition which heaven, for the best of purposes, has implanted in the female breast--to watch by the sick and comfort the afflicted--frequently becomes depraved into an odious love of scenes of pain and death and sorrow. such women are like the ghouls of the arabian tales, whose feasting was among tombstones and upon dead carcasses. (it is sometimes, though less frequently, the case, that this disposition to make a "joy of grief" extends to individuals of the other sex. but in us it is even less excusable and more disgusting, because it is our nature to shun the sick and afflicted; and, unless restrained by principles other than we bring into the world with us, men might follow the example of many animals in destroying the infirm of their own species. indeed, instances of this nature might be adduced among savage nations.) sometimes, however, from an original _lusus naturae_, or from the influence of circumstances, a man becomes a haunter of death-beds, a tormentor of afflicted hearts, and a follower of funerals. such an abomination now appeared before fanshawe, and beckoned him into the cottage. he was considerably beyond the middle age, rather corpulent, with a broad, fat, tallow-complexioned countenance. the student obeyed his silent call, and entered the room, through the open door of which he had been gazing. he now beheld, stretched out upon the bed where she had so lately lain in life, though dying, the yet uncoffined corpse of the aged woman, whose death has been described. how frightful it seemed!--that fixed countenance of ashy paleness, amid its decorations of muslin and fine linen, as if a bride were decked for the marriage-chamber, as if death were a bridegroom, and the coffin a bridal bed. alas that the vanity of dress should extend even to the grave! the female who, as being the near and only relative of the deceased, was supposed to stand in need of comfort, was surrounded by five or six of her own sex. these continually poured into her ear the stale, trite maxims which, where consolation is actually required, add torture insupportable to the wounded heart. their present object, however, conducted herself with all due decorum, holding her handkerchief to her tearless eyes, and answering with very grievous groans to the words of her comforters. who could have imagined that there was joy in her heart, because, since her sister's death, there was but one remaining obstacle between herself and the sole property of that wretched cottage? while fanshawe stood silently observing this scene, a low, monotonous voice was uttering some words in his ear, of the meaning of which his mind did not immediately take note. he turned, and saw that the speaker was the person who had invited him to enter. "what is your pleasure with me, sir?" demanded the student. "i make bold to ask," replied the man, "whether you would choose to partake of some creature comfort, before joining in prayer with the family and friends of our deceased sister?" as he spoke, he pointed to a table, on which was a moderate-sized stone jug and two or three broken glasses; for then, as now, there were few occasions of joy or grief on which ardent spirits were not considered indispensable, to heighten the one or to alleviate the other. "i stand in no need of refreshment," answered fanshawe; "and it is not my intention to pray at present." "i pray your pardon, reverend sir," rejoined the other; "but your face is pale, and you look wearied. a drop from yonder vessel is needful to recruit the outward man. and for the prayer, the sisters will expect it; and their souls are longing for the outpouring of the spirit. i was intending to open my own mouth with such words as are given to my poor ignorance, but"-- fanshawe was here about to interrupt this address, which proceeded on the supposition, arising from his black dress and thoughtful countenance, that he was a clergyman. but one of the females now approached him, and intimated that the sister of the deceased was desirous of the benefit of his conversation. he would have returned a negative to this request, but, looking towards the afflicted woman, he saw her withdraw her handkerchief from her eyes, and cast a brief but penetrating and most intelligent glance upon him. he immediately expressed his readiness to offer such consolation as might be in his power. "and in the mean time," observed the lay-preacher, "i will give the sisters to expect a word of prayer and exhortation, either from you or from myself." these words were lost upon the supposed clergyman, who was already at the side of the mourner. the females withdrew out of ear-shot to give place to a more legitimate comforter than themselves. "what know you respecting my purpose?" inquired fanshawe, bending towards her. the woman gave a groan--the usual result of all efforts at consolation--for the edification of the company, and then replied in a whisper, which reached only the ear for which it was intended. "i know whom you come to seek: i can direct you to them. speak low, for god's sake!" she continued, observing that fanshawe was about to utter an exclamation. she then resumed her groans with greater zeal than before. "where--where are they?" asked the student, in a whisper which all his efforts could scarcely keep below his breath. "i adjure you to tell me." "and, if i should, how am i like to be bettered by it?" inquired the old woman, her speech still preceded and followed by a groan. "o god! the _auri sacra fames!_" thought fanshawe with, a sickening heart, looking at the motionless corpse upon the bed, and then at the wretched being, whom the course of nature, in comparatively a moment of time, would reduce to the same condition. he whispered again, however, putting his purse into the hag's hand. "take this. make your own terms when they are discovered. only tell me where i must seek them--and speedily, or it may be too late." "i am a poor woman, and am afflicted," said she, taking the purse, unseen by any who were in the room. "it is little that worldly goods can do for me, and not long can i enjoy them." and here she was delivered of a louder and a more heartfelt groan than ever. she then continued: "follow the path behind the cottage, that leads to the river-side. walk along the foot of the rock, and search for them near the water-spout. keep a slow pace till you are out of sight," she added, as the student started to his feet. the guests of the cottage did not attempt to oppose fanshawe's progress, when they saw him take the path towards the forest, imagining, probably, that he was retiring for the purpose of secret prayer. but the old woman laughed behind the handkerchief with which she veiled her face. "take heed to your steps, boy," she muttered; "for they are leading you whence you will not return. death, too, for the slayer. be it so." fanshawe, in the mean while, contrived to discover, and for a while to retain, the narrow and winding path that led to the river-side. but it was originally no more than a track, by which the cattle belonging to the cottage went down to their watering-place, and by these four-footed passengers it had long been deserted. the fern-bushes, therefore, had grown over it; and in several places trees of considerable size had shot up in the midst. these difficulties could scarcely have been surmounted by the utmost caution; and as fanshawe's thoughts were too deeply fixed upon the end to pay a due regard to the means, he soon became desperately bewildered both as to the locality of the river and of the cottage. had he known, however, in which direction to seek the latter, he would not, probably, have turned back; not that he was infected by any chivalrous desire to finish the adventure alone, but because he would expect little assistance from those he had left there. yet he could not but wonder--though he had not in his first eagerness taken notice of it--at the anxiety of the old woman that he should proceed singly, and without the knowledge of her guests, on the search. he nevertheless continued to wander on,--pausing often to listen for the rush of the river, and then starting forward with fresh rapidity, to rid himself of the sting of his own thoughts, which became painfully intense when undisturbed by bodily motion. his way was now frequently interrupted by rocks, that thrust their huge gray heads from the ground, compelling him to turn aside, and thus depriving him, fortunately, perhaps, of all remaining idea of the direction he had intended to pursue. thus he went on, his head turned back, and taking little heed to his footsteps, when, perceiving that he trod upon a smooth, level rock, he looked forward, and found himself almost on the utmost verge of a precipice. after the throbbing of the heart that followed this narrow escape had subsided, he stood gazing down where the sunbeams slept so pleasantly at the roots of the tall old trees, with whose highest tops he was upon a level. suddenly he seemed to hear voices--one well-remembered voice--ascending from beneath; and, approaching to the edge of the cliff, he saw at its base the two whom he sought. he saw and interpreted ellen's look and attitude of entreaty, though the words with which she sought to soften the ruthless heart of her guide became inaudible ere they reached the height where fanshawe stood. he felt that heaven had sent him thither, at the moment of her utmost need, to be the preserver of all that was dear to him; and he paused only to consider the mode in which her deliverance was to be effected. life he would have laid down willingly, exultingly: his only care was, that the sacrifice should not be in vain. at length, when ellen fell upon her knees, he lifted a small fragment of rock, and threw it down the cliff. it struck so near the pair, that it immediately drew the attention of both. when the betrayer, at the instant in which he had almost defied the power of the omnipotent to bring help to ellen, became aware of fanshawe's presence, his hardihood failed him for a time, and his knees actually tottered beneath him. there was something awful, to his apprehension, in the slight form that stood so far above him, like a being from another sphere, looking down upon his wickedness. but his half-superstitious dread endured only a moment's space; and then, mustering the courage that in a thousand dangers had not deserted him, he prepared to revenge the intrusion by which fanshawe had a second time interrupted his designs. "by heaven, i will cast him down at her feet!" he muttered through his closed teeth. "there shall be no form nor likeness of man left in him. then let him rise up, if he is able, and defend her." thus resolving, and overlooking all hazard in his eager hatred and desire for vengeance, he began a desperate attempt to ascend the cliff. the space which only had hitherto been deemed accessible was quickly passed; and in a moment more he was half-way up the precipice, clinging to trees, shrubs, and projecting portions of the rock, and escaping through hazards which seemed to menace inevitable destruction. fanshawe, as he watched his upward progress, deemed that every step would be his last; but when he perceived that more than half, and apparently the most difficult part, of the ascent was surmounted, his opinion changed. his courage, however, did not fail him as the moment of need drew nigh. his spirits rose buoyantly; his limbs seemed to grow firm and strong; and he stood on the edge of the precipice, prepared for the death-struggle which would follow the success of his enemy's attempt. but that attempt was not successful. when within a few feet of the summit, the adventurer grasped at a twig too slenderly rooted to sustain his weight. it gave way in his hand, and he fell backward down the precipice. his head struck against the less perpendicular part of the rock, whence the body rolled heavily down to the detached fragment, of which mention has heretofore been made. there was no life left in him. with all the passions of hell alive in his heart, he had met the fate that he intended for fanshawe. the student paused not then to shudder at the sudden and awful overthrow of his enemy; for he saw that ellen lay motionless at the foot of the cliff. she had indeed fainted at the moment she became aware of her deliverer's presence; and no stronger proof could she have given of her firm reliance upon his protection. fanshawe was not deterred by the danger, of which he had just received so fearful an evidence, from attempting to descend to her assistance; and, whether owing to his advantage in lightness of frame, or to superior caution, he arrived safely at the base of the precipice. he lifted the motionless form of ellen in his arms, and, resting her head against his shoulder, gazed on her cheek of lily paleness with a joy, a triumph, that rose almost to madness. it contained no mixture of hope; it had no reference to the future: it was the perfect bliss of a moment,--an insulated point of happiness. he bent over her, and pressed a kiss--the first, and he knew it would be the last--on her pale lips; then, bearing her to the fountain, he sprinkled its waters profusely over her face, neck, and bosom. she at length opened her eyes, slowly and heavily; but her mind was evidently wandering, till fanshawe spoke. "fear not, ellen. you are safe," he said. at the sound of his voice, her arm, which was thrown over his shoulder, involuntarily tightened its embrace, telling him, by that mute motion, with how firm a trust she confided in him. but, as a fuller sense of her situation returned, she raised herself to her feet, though still retaining the support of his arm. it was singular, that, although her insensibility had commenced before the fall of her guide, she turned away her eyes, as if instinctively, from the spot where the mangled body lay; nor did she inquire of fanshawe the manner of her deliverance. "let us begone from this place," she said in faint, low accents, and with an inward shudder. they walked along the precipice, seeking some passage by which they might gain its summit, and at length arrived at that by which ellen and her guide had descended. chance--for neither ellen nor fanshawe could have discovered the path--led them, after but little wandering, to the cottage. a messenger was sent forward to the town to inform dr. melmoth of the recovery of his ward; and the intelligence thus received had interrupted edward walcott's conversation with the seaman. it would have been impossible, in the mangled remains of ellen's guide, to discover the son of the widow butler, except from the evidence of her sister, who became, by his death, the sole inheritrix of the cottage. the history of this evil and unfortunate man must be comprised within very narrow limits. a harsh father, and his own untamable disposition, had driven him from home in his boyhood; and chance had made him the temporary companion of hugh crombie. after two years of wandering, when in a foreign country and in circumstances of utmost need, he attracted the notice of mr. langton. the merchant took his young countryman under his protection, afforded him advantages of education, and, as his capacity was above mediocrity, gradually trusted him in many affairs of importance. during this period, there was no evidence of dishonesty on his part. on the contrary, he manifested a zeal for mr. langton's interest, and a respect for his person, that proved his strong sense of the benefits he had received. but he unfortunately fell into certain youthful indiscretions, which, if not entirely pardonable, might have been palliated by many considerations that would have occurred to a merciful man. mr. langton's justice, however, was seldom tempered by mercy; and, on this occasion, he shut the door of repentance against his erring _protégé_, and left him in a situation not less desperate than that from which he had relieved him. the goodness and the nobleness, of which his heart was not destitute, turned, from that time, wholly to evil; and he became irrecoverably ruined and irreclaimably depraved. his wandering life had led him, shortly before the period of this tale, to his native country. here the erroneous intelligence of mr. langton's death had reached him, and suggested the scheme, which circumstances seemed to render practicable, but the fatal termination of which has been related. the body was buried where it had fallen, close by the huge, gray, moss-grown fragment of rock,--a monument on which centuries can work little change. the eighty years that have elapsed since the death of the widow's son have, however, been sufficient to obliterate an inscription, which some one was at the pains to cut in the smooth surface of the stone. traces of letters are still discernible; but the writer's many efforts could never discover a connected meaning. the grave, also, is overgrown with fern-bushes, and sunk to a level with the surrounding soil. but the legend, though my version of it may be forgotten, will long be traditionary in that lonely spot, and give to the rock and the precipice and the fountain an interest thrilling to the bosom of the romantic wanderer. chapter x. "sitting then in shelter shady, to observe and mark his mone. suddenly i saw a lady hasting to him all alone, clad in maiden-white and green, whom i judged the forest queen." the woodman's bear. during several weeks succeeding her danger and deliverance, ellen langton was confined to her chamber by illness, resulting from the agitation she had endured. her father embraced the earliest opportunity to express his deep gratitude to fanshawe for the inestimable service he had rendered, and to intimate a desire to requite it to the utmost of his power. he had understood that the student's circumstances were not prosperous, and, with the feeling of one who was habituated to give and receive a _quid pro quo_ he would have rejoiced to share his abundance with the deliverer of his daughter. but fanshawe's flushed brow and haughty eye, when he perceived the thought that was stirring in mr. langton's mind, sufficiently proved to the discerning merchant that money was not, in the present instance, a circulating medium. his penetration, in fact, very soon informed him of the motives by which the young man had been actuated in risking his life for ellen langton; but he made no allusion to the subject, concealing his intentions, if any he had, in his own bosom. during ellen's illness, edward walcott had manifested the deepest anxiety respecting her: he had wandered around and within the house, like a restless ghost, informing himself of the slightest fluctuation in her health, and thereby graduating his happiness or misery. he was at length informed that her convalescence had so far progressed, that, on the succeeding day, she would venture below. from that time edward's visits to dr. melmoth's mansion were relinquished. his cheek grew pale and his eye lost its merry light; but he resolutely kept himself a banished man. multifarious were the conjectures to which this course of conduct gave rise; but ellen understood and approved his motives. the maiden must have been far more blind than ever woman was in such a matter, if the late events had not convinced her of fanshawe's devoted attachment; and she saw that edward walcott, feeling the superior, the irresistible strength of his rival's claim, had retired from the field. fanshawe, however, discovered no intention to pursue his advantage. he paid her no voluntary visit, and even declined an invitation to tea, with which mrs. melmoth, after extensive preparations, had favored him. he seemed to have resumed all the habits of seclusion by which he was distinguished previous to his acquaintance with ellen, except that he still took his sunset walk on the banks of the stream. on one of these occasions, he stayed his footsteps by the old leafless oak which had witnessed ellen's first meeting with the angler. here he mused upon the circumstances that had resulted from that event, and upon the rights and privileges (for he was well aware of them all) which those circumstances had given him. perhaps the loveliness of the scene and the recollections connected with it, perhaps the warm and mellow sunset, perhaps a temporary weakness in himself, had softened his feelings, and shaken the firmness of his resolution, to leave ellen to be happy with his rival. his strong affections rose up against his reason, whispering that bliss--on earth and in heaven, through time and eternity--might yet be his lot with her. it is impossible to conceive of the flood of momentary joy which the bare admission of such a possibility sent through his frame; and, just when the tide was highest in his heart, a soft little hand was laid upon his own, and, starting, he beheld ellen at his side. her illness, since the commencement of which fanshawe had not seen her, had wrought a considerable, but not a disadvantageous, change in her appearance. she was paler and thinner; her countenance was more intellectual, more spiritual; and a spirit did the student almost deem her, appearing so suddenly in that solitude. there was a quick vibration of the delicate blood in her cheek, yet never brightening to the glow of perfect health; a tear was glittering on each of her long, dark eyelashes; and there was a gentle tremor through all her frame, which compelled her, for a little space, to support herself against the oak. fanshawe's first impulse was to address her in words of rapturous delight; but he checked himself, and attempted--vainly indeed--to clothe his voice in tones of calm courtesy. his remark merely expressed pleasure at her restoration to health; and ellen's low and indistinct reply had as little relation to the feelings that agitated her. "yet i fear," continued fanshawe, recovering a degree of composure, and desirous of assigning a motive (which he felt was not the true one) for ellen's agitation,--"i fear that your walk has extended too far for your strength." "it would have borne me farther with such a motive," she replied, still trembling,--"to express my gratitude to my preserver." "it was needless, ellen, it was needless; for the deed brought with it its own reward," exclaimed fanshawe, with a vehemence that he could not repress. "it was dangerous, for"-- here he interrupted himself, and turned his face away. "and wherefore was it dangerous?" inquired ellen, laying her hand gently on his arm; for he seemed about to leave her. "because you have a tender and generous heart, and i a weak one," he replied. "not so," answered she, with animation. "yours is a heart full of strength and nobleness; and if it have a weakness"-- "you know well that it has, ellen,--one that has swallowed up all its strength," said fanshawe. "was it wise, then, to tempt it thus, when, if it yield, the result must be your own misery?" ellen did not affect to misunderstand his meaning. on the contrary, with a noble frankness, she answered to what was implied rather than expressed. "do me not this wrong," she said, blushing, yet earnestly. "can it be misery? will it not be happiness to form the tie that shall connect you to the world? to be your guide--a humble one, it is true, but the one of your choice--to the quiet paths from which your proud and lonely thoughts have estranged you? oh, i know that there will be happiness in such a lot, from these and a thousand other sources!" the animation with which ellen spoke, and, at the same time, a sense of the singular course to which her gratitude had impelled her, caused her beauty to grow brighter and more enchanting with every word. and when, as she concluded, she extended her hand to fanshawe, to refuse it was like turning from an angel, who would have guided him to heaven. but, had he been capable of making the woman he loved a sacrifice to her own generosity, that act would have rendered him unworthy of her. yet the struggle was a severe one ere he could reply. "yon have spoken generously and nobly, ellen," he said. "i have no way to prove that i deserve your generosity, but by refusing to take advantage of it. even if your heart were yet untouched, if no being more happily constituted than myself had made an impression there, even then, i trust, a selfish passion would not be stronger than my integrity. but now"--he would have proceeded; but the firmness which had hitherto sustained him gave way. he turned aside to hide the tears which all the pride of his nature could not restrain, and which, instead of relieving, added to his anguish. at length he resumed, "no, ellen, we must part now and forever. your life will be long and happy. mine will be short, but not altogether wretched, nor shorter than if we had never met. when you hear that i am in my grave, do not imagine that you have hastened me thither. think that you scattered bright dreams around my pathway,--an ideal happiness, that you would have sacrificed your own to realize." he ceased; and ellen felt that his determination was unalterable. she could not speak; but, taking his hand, she pressed it to her lips, and they saw each other no more. mr. langton and his daughter shortly after returned to the seaport, which, for several succeeding years, was their residence. after ellen's departure, fanshawe returned to his studies with the same absorbing ardor that had formerly characterized him. his face was as seldom seen among the young and gay; the pure breeze and the blessed sunshine as seldom refreshed his pale and weary brow; and his lamp burned as constantly from the first shade of evening till the gray morning light began to dim its beams. nor did he, as weak men will, treasure up his love in a hidden chamber of his breast. he was in reality the thoughtful and earnest student that he seemed. he had exerted the whole might of his spirit over itself, and he was a conqueror. perhaps, indeed, a summer breeze of sad and gentle thoughts would sometimes visit him; but, in these brief memories of his love, he did not wish that it should be revived, or mourn over its event. there were many who felt an interest in fanshawe; but the influence of none could prevail upon him to lay aside the habits, mental and physical, by which he was bringing himself to the grave. his passage thither was consequently rapid, terminating just as he reached his twentieth year. his fellow-students erected to his memory a monument of rough-hewn granite, with a white marble slab for the inscription. this was borrowed from the grave of nathanael mather, whom, in his almost insane eagerness for knowledge, and in his early death, fanshawe resembled. the ashes of a hard student and a good scholar. many tears were shed over his grave; but the thoughtful and the wise, though turf never covered a nobler heart, could not lament that it was so soon at rest. he left a world for which he was unfit; and we trust, that, among the innumerable stars of heaven, there is one where he has found happiness. of the other personages of this tale,--hugh crombie, being exposed to no strong temptations, lived and died an honest man. concerning dr. melmoth, it is unnecessary here to speak. the reader, if he have any curiosity upon the subject, is referred to his life, which, together with several sermons and other productions of the doctor, was published by his successor in the presidency of harley college, about the year . it was not till four years after fanshawe's death, that edward walcott was united to ellen langton. their future lives were uncommonly happy. ellen's gentle, almost imperceptible, but powerful influence drew her husband away from the passions and pursuits that would have interfered with domestic felicity; and he never regretted the worldly distinction of which she thus deprived him. theirs was a long life of calm and quiet bliss; and what matters it, that, except in these pages, they have left no name behind them? septimius felton; or, the elixir of life. by nathanial hawthorne introductory note. septimius felton. the existence of this story, posthumously published, was not known to any one but hawthorne himself, until some time after his death, when the manuscript was found among his papers. the preparation and copying of his note-books for the press occupied the most of mrs. hawthorne's available time during the interval from to ; but in the latter year, having decided to publish the unfinished romance, she began the task of putting together its loose sheets and deciphering the handwriting, which, towards the close of hawthorne's life, had grown somewhat obscure and uncertain. her death occurred while she was thus engaged, and the transcription was completed by her daughters. the book was then issued simultaneously in america and england, in . although "septimius felton" appeared so much later than "the marble faun," it was conceived and, in another form, begun before the italian romance had presented itself to the author's mind. the legend of a bloody foot leaving its imprint where it passed, which figures so prominently in the following fiction, was brought to hawthorne's notice on a visit to smithell's hall, lancashire, england. [footnote: see _english note-books,_ april , and august , .] only five days after hearing of it, he made a note in his journal, referring to "my romance," which had to do with a plot involving the affairs of a family established both in england and new england; and it seems likely that he had already begun to associate the bloody footstep with this project. what is extraordinary, and must be regarded as an unaccountable coincidence--one of the strange premonitions of genius--is that in , before he had ever been to england and before he knew of the existence of smithell's hall, he had jotted down in his note-book, written in america, this suggestion: "the print in blood of a naked foot to be traced through the street of a town." the idea of treating in fiction the attempt to renew youth or to attain an earthly immortality had engaged his fancy quite early in his career, as we discover from "doctor heidegger's experiment," in the "twice-told tales." in , also, we find in the journal: "if a man were sure of living forever, he would not care about his offspring." the "mosses from an old manse" supply another link in this train of reflection; for "the virtuoso's collection" includes some of the elixir vitae "in an antique sepulchral urn." the narrator there represents himself as refusing to quaff it. "'no; i desire not an earthly immortality,' said i. 'were man to live longer on earth, the spiritual would die out of him.... there is a celestial something within us that requires, after a certain time, the atmosphere of heaven to preserve it from ruin.'" on the other hand, just before hearing, for the first time, the legend of smithell's hall, he wrote in his english journal:-- "god himself cannot compensate us for being born for any period short of eternity. all the misery endured here constitutes a claim for another life, and still more _all the happiness;_ because all true happiness involves something more than the earth owns, and needs something more than a mortal capacity for the enjoyment of it." it is sufficiently clear that he had meditated on the main theme of "septimius felton," at intervals, for many years. when, in august, , hawthorne went by invitation to smithell's hall, the lady of the manor, on his taking leave, asked him "to write a ghost-story for her house;" and he observes in his notes, "the legend is a good one." three years afterwards, in , on the eve of departure for france and italy, he began to sketch the outline of a romance laid in england, and having for its hero an american who goes thither to assert his inherited rights in an old manor-house possessing the peculiarity of a supposed bloody foot-print on the threshold-stone. this sketch, which appears in the present edition as "the ancestral footstep," was in journal form, the story continuing from day to day, with the dates attached. there remains also the manuscript without elate, recently edited under the title "dr. grimshawe's secret," which bears a resemblance to some particulars in "septimius felton." nothing further seems to have been done in this direction by the author until he had been to italy, had written "the marble faun," and again returned to the wayside, his home at concord. it was then, in , that he took up once more the "romance of immortality," as the sub-title of the english edition calls it. "i have not found it possible," he wrote to mr. bridge, who remained his confidant, "to occupy my mind with its usual trash and nonsense during these anxious times; but as the autumn advances, i myself sitting down at my desk and blotting successive sheets of paper as of yore." concerning this place, the wayside, he had said in a letter to george william curtis, in : "i know nothing of the history of the house, except thoreau's telling me that it was inhabited a generation or two ago by a man who believed he should never die." it was this legendary personage whom he now proceeded to revive and embody as septimius; and the scene of the story was placed at the wayside itself and the neighboring house, belonging to mr. bronson alcott, both of which stand at the base of a low ridge running beside the lexington road, in the village of concord. rose garfield is mentioned as living "in a small house, the site of which is still indicated by the cavity of a cellar, in which i this very summer planted some sunflowers." the cellar-site remains at this day distinctly visible near the boundary of the land formerly owned by hawthorne. attention may here perhaps appropriately be called to the fact that some of the ancestors of president garfield settled at weston, not many miles from concord, and that the name is still borne by dwellers in the vicinity. one of the last letters written by the president was an acceptance of an invitation to visit concord; and it was his intention to journey thither by carriage, incognito, from boston, passing through the scenes where those ancestors had lived, and entering the village by the old lexington road, on which the wayside faces. it is an interesting coincidence that hawthorne should have chosen for his first heroine's name, either intentionally or through unconscious association, this one which belonged to the region. the house upon which the story was thus centred, and where it was written, had been a farm-house, bought and for a time occupied by hawthorne previous to his departure for europe. on coming back to it, he made some additions to the old wooden structure, and caused to be built a low tower, which rose above the irregular roofs of the older and newer portions, thus supplying him with a study lifted out of reach of noise or interruption, and in a slight degree recalling the tower in which he had taken so much pleasure at the villa montauto. the study was extremely simple in its appointments, being finished chiefly in stained wood, with a vaulted plaster ceiling, and containing, besides a few pictures and some plain furniture, a writing-table, and a shelf at which hawthorne sometimes wrote standing. a story has gone abroad and is widely believed, that, on mounting the steep stairs leading to this study, he passed through a trap-door and afterwards placed upon it the chair in which he sat, so that intrusion or interruption became physically impossible. it is wholly unfounded. there never was any trap-door, and no precaution of the kind described was ever taken. immediately behind the house the hill rises in artificial terraces, which, during the romancer's residence, were grassy and planted with fruit-trees. he afterwards had evergreens set out there, and directed the planting of other trees, which still attest his preference for thick verdure. the twelve acres running back over the hill were closely covered with light woods, and across the road lay a level tract of eight acres more, which included a garden and orchard. from his study hawthorne could overlook a good part of his modest domain; the view embraced a stretch of road lined with trees, wide meadows, and the hills across the shallow valley. the branches of trees rose on all sides as if to embower the house, and birds and bees flew about his casement, through which came the fresh perfumes of the woods, in summer. in this spot "septimius felton" was written; but the manuscript, thrown aside, was mentioned in the dedicatory preface to "our old home" as an "abortive project." as will be found explained in the introductory notes to "the dolliver romance" and "the ancestral footstep," that phase of the same general design which was developed in the "dolliver" was intended to take the place of this unfinished sketch, since resuscitated. g.p.l. preface. the following story is the last written by my father. it is printed as it was found among his manuscripts. i believe it is a striking specimen of the peculiarities and charm of his style, and that it will have an added interest for brother artists, and for those who care to study the method of his composition, from the mere fact of its not having received his final revision. in any case, i feel sure that the retention of the passages within brackets (_e. g._ p. ), which show how my father intended to amplify some of the descriptions and develop more fully one or two of the character studies, will not be regretted by appreciative readers. my earnest thanks are due to mr. robert browning for his kind assistance and advice in interpreting the manuscript, otherwise so difficult to me. una hawthorne. septimius felton; or, the elixir of life. it was a day in early spring; and as that sweet, genial time of year and atmosphere calls out tender greenness from the ground,--beautiful flowers, or leaves that look beautiful because so long unseen under the snow and decay,--so the pleasant air and warmth had called out three young people, who sat on a sunny hill-side enjoying the warm day and one another. for they were all friends: two of them young men, and playmates from boyhood; the third, a girl, who, two or three years younger than themselves, had been the object of their boy-love, their little rustic, childish gallantries, their budding affections; until, growing all towards manhood and womanhood, they had ceased to talk about such matters, perhaps thinking about them the more. these three young people were neighbors' children, dwelling in houses that stood by the side of the great lexington road, along a ridgy hill that rose abruptly behind them, its brow covered with a wood, and which stretched, with one or two breaks and interruptions, into the heart of the village of concord, the county town. it was in the side of this hill that, according to tradition, the first settlers of the village had burrowed in caverns which they had dug out for their shelter, like swallows and woodchucks. as its slope was towards the south, and its ridge and crowning woods defended them from the northern blasts and snow-drifts, it was an admirable situation for the fierce new england winter; and the temperature was milder, by several degrees, along this hill-side than on the unprotected plains, or by the river, or in any other part of concord. so that here, during the hundred years that had elapsed since the first settlement of the place, dwellings had successively risen close to the hill's foot, and the meadow that lay on the other side of the road--a fertile tract--had been cultivated; and these three young people were the children's children's children of persons of respectability who had dwelt there,--rose garfield, in a small house, the site of which is still indicated by the cavity of a cellar, in which i this very past summer planted some sunflowers to thrust their great disks out from the hollow and allure the bee and the humming-bird; robert hagburn, in a house of somewhat more pretension, a hundred yards or so nearer to the village, standing back from the road in the broader space which the retreating hill, cloven by a gap in that place, afforded; where some elms intervened between it and the road, offering a site which some person of a natural taste for the gently picturesque had seized upon. those same elms, or their successors, still flung a noble shade over the same old house, which the magic hand of alcott has improved by the touch that throws grace, amiableness, and natural beauty over scenes that have little pretension in themselves. now, the other young man, septimius felton, dwelt in a small wooden house, then, i suppose, of some score of years' standing,--a two-story house, gabled before, but with only two rooms on a floor, crowded upon by the hill behind,--a house of thick walls, as if the projector had that sturdy feeling of permanence in life which incites people to make strong their earthly habitations, as if deluding themselves with the idea that they could still inhabit them; in short, an ordinary dwelling of a well-to-do new england farmer, such as his race had been for two or three generations past, although there were traditions of ancestors who had led lives of thought and study, and possessed all the erudition that the universities of england could bestow. whether any natural turn for study had descended to septimius from these worthies, or how his tendencies came to be different from those of his family,--who, within the memory of the neighborhood, had been content to sow and reap the rich field in front of their homestead,--so it was, that septimius had early manifested a taste for study. by the kind aid of the good minister of the town he had been fitted for college; had passed through cambridge by means of what little money his father had left him and by his own exertions in school-keeping; and was now a recently decorated baccalaureate, with, as was understood, a purpose to devote himself to the ministry, under the auspices of that reverend and good friend whose support and instruction had already stood him in such stead. now here were these young people, on that beautiful spring morning, sitting on the hill-side, a pleasant spectacle of fresh life,--pleasant, as if they had sprouted like green things under the influence of the warm sun. the girl was very pretty, a little freckled, a little tanned, but with a face that glimmered and gleamed with quick and cheerful expressions; a slender form, not very large, with a quick grace in its movements; sunny hair that had a tendency to curl, which she probably favored at such moments as her household occupation left her; a sociable and pleasant child, as both of the young men evidently thought. robert hagburn, one might suppose, would have been the most to her taste; a ruddy, burly young fellow, handsome, and free of manner, six feet high, famous through the neighborhood for strength and athletic skill, the early promise of what was to be a man fit for all offices of active rural life, and to be, in mature age, the selectman, the deacon, the representative, the colonel. as for septimius, let him alone a moment or two, and then they would see him, with his head bent down, brooding, brooding, his eyes fixed on some chip, some stone, some common plant, any commonest thing, as if it were the clew and index to some mystery; and when, by chance startled out of these meditations, he lifted his eyes, there would be a kind of perplexity, a dissatisfied, foiled look in them, as if of his speculations he found no end. such was now the case, while robert and the girl were running on with a gay talk about a serious subject, so that, gay as it was, it was interspersed with little thrills of fear on the girl's part, of excitement on robert's. their talk was of public trouble. "my grandfather says," said rose garfield, "that we shall never be able to stand against old england, because the men are a weaker race than he remembers in his day,--weaker than his father, who came from england,--and the women slighter still; so that we are dwindling away, grandfather thinks; only a little sprightlier, he says sometimes, looking at me." "lighter, to be sure," said robert hagburn; "there is the lightness of the englishwomen compressed into little space. i have seen them and know. and as to the men, rose, if they have lost one spark of courage and strength that their english forefathers brought from the old land,--lost any one good quality without having made it up by as good or better,--then, for my part, i don't want the breed to exist any longer. and this war, that they say is coming on, will be a good opportunity to test the matter. septimius! don't you think so?" "think what?" asked septimius, gravely, lifting up his head. "think! why, that your countrymen are worthy to live," said robert hagburn, impatiently. "for there is a question on that point." "it is hardly worth answering or considering," said septimius, looking at him thoughtfully. "we live so little while, that (always setting aside the effect on a future existence) it is little matter whether we live or no." "little matter!" said rose, at first bewildered, then laughing,--"little matter! when it is such a comfort to live, so pleasant, so sweet!" "yes, and so many things to do," said robert; "to make fields yield produce; to be busy among men, and happy among the women-folk; to play, work, fight, and be active in many ways." "yes; but so soon stilled, before your activity has come to any definite end," responded septimius, gloomily. "i doubt, if it had been left to my choice, whether i should have taken existence on such terms; so much trouble of preparation to live, and then no life at all; a ponderous beginning, and nothing more." "do you find fault with providence, septimius?" asked rose, a feeling of solemnity coming over her cheerful and buoyant nature. then she burst out a-laughing. "how grave he looks, robert; as if he had lived two or three lives already, and knew all about the value of it. but i think it was worth while to be born, if only for the sake of one such pleasant spring morning as this; and god gives us many and better things when these are past." "we hope so," said septimius, who was again looking on the ground. "but who knows?" "i thought you knew," said robert hagburn. "you have been to college, and have learned, no doubt, a great many things. you are a student of theology, too, and have looked into these matters. who should know, if not you?" "rose and you have just as good means of ascertaining these points as i," said septimius; "all the certainty that can be had lies on the surface, as it should, and equally accessible to every man or woman. if we try to grope deeper, we labor for naught, and get less wise while we try to be more so. if life were long enough to enable us thoroughly to sift these matters, then, indeed!--but it is so short!" "always this same complaint," said robert. "septimius, how long do you wish to live?" "forever!" said septimius. "it is none too long for all i wish to know." "forever?" exclaimed rose, shivering doubtfully. "ah, there would come many, many thoughts, and after a while we should want a little rest." "forever?" said robert hagburn. "and what would the people do who wish to fill our places? you are unfair, septimius. live and let live! turn about! give me my seventy years, and let me go,--my seventy years of what this life has,--toil, enjoyment, suffering, struggle, fight, rest,--only let me have my share of what's going, and i shall be content." "content with leaving everything at odd ends; content with being nothing, as you were before!" "no, septimius, content with heaven at last," said rose, who had come out of her laughing mood into a sweet seriousness. "oh dear! think what a worn and ugly thing one of these fresh little blades of grass would seem if it were not to fade and wither in its time, after being green in its time." "well, well, my pretty rose," said septimius apart, "an immortal weed is not very lovely to think of, that is true; but i should be content with one thing, and that is yourself, if you were immortal, just as you are at seventeen, so fresh, so dewy, so red-lipped, so golden-haired, so gay, so frolicsome, so gentle." "but i am to grow old, and to be brown and wrinkled, gray-haired and ugly," said rose, rather sadly, as she thus enumerated the items of her decay, "and then you would think me all lost and gone. but still there might be youth underneath, for one that really loved me to see. ah, septimius felton! such love as would see with ever-new eyes is the true love." and she ran away and left him suddenly, and robert hagburn departing at the same time, this little knot of three was dissolved, and septimius went along the wayside wall, thoughtfully, as was his wont, to his own dwelling. he had stopped for some moments on the threshold, vaguely enjoying, it is probable, the light and warmth of the new spring day and the sweet air, which was somewhat unwonted to the young man, because he was accustomed to spend much of his day in thought and study within doors, and, indeed, like most studious young men, was overfond of the fireside, and of making life as artificial as he could, by fireside heat and lamplight, in order to suit it to the artificial, intellectual, and moral atmosphere which he derived from books, instead of living healthfully in the open air, and among his fellow-beings. still he felt the pleasure of being warmed through by this natural heat, and, though blinking a little from its superfluity, could not but confess an enjoyment and cheerfulness in this flood of morning light that came aslant the hill-side. while he thus stood, he felt a friendly hand laid upon his shoulder, and, looking up, there was the minister of the village, the old friend of septimius, to whose advice and aid it was owing that septimius had followed his instincts by going to college, instead of spending a thwarted and dissatisfied life in the field that fronted the house. he was a man of middle age, or little beyond, of a sagacious, kindly aspect; the experience, the lifelong, intimate acquaintance with many concerns of his people being more apparent in him than the scholarship for which he had been early distinguished. a tanned man, like one who labored in his own grounds occasionally; a man of homely, plain address, which, when occasion called for it, he could readily exchange for the polished manner of one who had seen a more refined world than this about him. "well, septimius," said the minister, kindly, "have you yet come to any conclusion about the subject of which we have been talking?" "only so far, sir," replied septimius, "that i find myself every day less inclined to take up the profession which i have had in view so many years. i do not think myself fit for the sacred desk." "surely not; no one is," replied the clergyman; "but if i may trust my own judgment, you have at least many of the intellectual qualifications that should adapt you to it. there is something of the puritan character in you, septimius, derived from holy men among your ancestors; as, for instance, a deep, brooding turn, such as befits that heavy brow; a disposition to meditate on things hidden; a turn for meditative inquiry,--all these things, with grace to boot, mark you as the germ of a man who might do god service. your reputation as a scholar stands high at college. you have not a turn for worldly business." "ah, but, sir," said septimius, casting down his heavy brows, "i lack something within." "faith, perhaps," replied the minister; "at least, you think so." "cannot i know it?" asked septimius. "scarcely, just now," said his friend. "study for the ministry; bind your thoughts to it; pray; ask a belief, and you will soon find you have it. doubts may occasionally press in; and it is so with every clergyman. but your prevailing mood will be faith." "it has seemed to me," observed septimius, "that it is not the prevailing mood, the most common one, that is to be trusted. this is habit, formality, the shallow covering which we close over what is real, and seldom suffer to be blown aside. but it is the snake-like doubt that thrusts out its head, which gives us a glimpse of reality. surely such moments are a hundred times as real as the dull, quiet moments of faith or what you call such." "i am sorry for you," said the minister; "yet to a youth of your frame of character, of your ability i will say, and your requisition for something profound in the grounds of your belief, it is not unusual to meet this trouble. men like you have to fight for their faith. they fight in the first place to win it, and ever afterwards to hold it. the devil tilts with them daily and often seems to win." "yes; but," replied septimius, "he takes deadly weapons now. if he meet me with the cold pure steel of a spiritual argument, i might win or lose, and still not feel that all was lost; but he takes, as it were, a great clod of earth, massive rocks and mud, soil and dirt, and flings it at me overwhelmingly; so that i am buried under it." "how is that?" said the minister. "tell me more plainly." "may it not be possible," asked septimius, "to have too profound a sense of the marvellous contrivance and adaptation of this material world to require or believe in anything spiritual? how wonderful it is to see it all alive on this spring day, all growing, budding! do we exhaust it in our little life? not so; not in a hundred or a thousand lives. the whole race of man, living from the beginning of time, have not, in all their number and multiplicity and in all their duration, come in the least to know the world they live in! and how is this rich world thrown away upon us, because we live in it such a moment! what mortal work has ever been done since the world began! because we have no time. no lesson is taught. we are snatched away from our study before we have learned the alphabet. as the world now exists, i confess it to you frankly, my dear pastor and instructor, it seems to me all a failure, because we do not live long enough." "but the lesson is carried on in another state of being!" "not the lesson that we begin here," said septimius. "we might as well train a child in a primeval forest, to teach him how to live in a european court. no, the fall of man, which scripture tells us of, seems to me to have its operation in this grievous shortening of earthly existence, so that our life here at all is grown ridiculous." "well, septimius," replied the minister, sadly, yet not as one shocked by what he had never heard before, "i must leave you to struggle through this form of unbelief as best you may, knowing that it is by your own efforts that you must come to the other side of this slough. we will talk further another time. you are getting worn out, my young friend, with much study and anxiety. it were well for you to live more, for the present, in this earthly life that you prize so highly. cannot you interest yourself in the state of this country, in this coming strife, the voice of which now sounds so hoarsely and so near us? come out of your thoughts and breathe another air." "i will try," said septimius. "do," said the minister, extending his hand to him, "and in a little time you will find the change." he shook the young man's hand kindly, and took his leave, while septimius entered his house, and turning to the right sat down in his study, where, before the fireplace, stood the table with books and papers. on the shelves around the low-studded walls were more books, few in number but of an erudite appearance, many of them having descended to him from learned ancestors, and having been brought to light by himself after long lying in dusty closets; works of good and learned divines, whose wisdom he had happened, by help of the devil, to turn to mischief, reading them by the light of hell-fire. for, indeed, septimius had but given the clergyman the merest partial glimpse of his state of mind. he was not a new beginner in doubt; but, on the contrary, it seemed to him as if he had never been other than a doubter and questioner, even in his boyhood; believing nothing, although a thin veil of reverence had kept him from questioning some things. and now the new, strange thought of the sufficiency of the world for man, if man were only sufficient for that, kept recurring to him; and with it came a certain sense, which he had been conscious of before, that he, at least, might never die. the feeling was not peculiar to septimius. it is an instinct, the meaning of which is mistaken. we have strongly within us the sense of an undying principle, and we transfer that true sense to this life and to the body, instead of interpreting it justly as the promise of spiritual immortality. so septimius looked up out of his thoughts, and said proudly: "why should i die? i cannot die, if worthy to live. what if i should say this moment that i will not die, not till ages hence, not till the world is exhausted? let other men die, if they choose, or yield; let him that is strong enough live!" after this flush of heroic mood, however, the glow subsided, and poor septimius spent the rest of the day, as was his wont, poring over his books, in which all the meanings seemed dead and mouldy, and like pressed leaves (some of which dropped out of the books as he opened them), brown, brittle, sapless; so even the thoughts, which when the writers had gathered them seemed to them so brightly colored and full of life. then he began to see that there must have been some principle of life left out of the book, so that these gathered thoughts lacked something that had given them their only value. then he suspected that the way truly to live and answer the purposes of life was not to gather up thoughts into books, where they grew so dry, but to live and still be going about, full of green wisdom, ripening ever, not in maxims cut and dry, but a wisdom ready for daily occasions, like a living fountain; and that to be this, it was necessary to exist long on earth, drink in all its lessons, and not to die on the attainment of some smattering of truth; but to live all the more for that; and apply it to mankind and increase it thereby. everything drifted towards the strong, strange eddy into which his mind had been drawn: all his thoughts set hitherward. so he sat brooding in his study until the shrill-voiced old woman--an aunt, who was his housekeeper and domestic ruler--called him to dinner,--a frugal dinner,--and chided him for seeming inattentive to a dish of early dandelions which she had gathered for him; but yet tempered her severity with respect for the future clerical rank of her nephew, and for his already being a bachelor of arts. the old woman's voice spoke outside of septimius, rambling away, and he paying little heed, till at last dinner was over, and septimius drew back his chair, about to leave the table. "nephew septimius," said the old woman, "you began this meal to-day without asking a blessing, you get up from it without giving thanks, and you soon to be a minister of the word." "god bless the meat," replied septimius (by way of blessing), "and make it strengthen us for the life he means us to bear. thank god for our food," he added (by way of grace), "and may it become a portion in us of an immortal body." "that sounds good, septimius," said the old lady. "ah! you'll be a mighty man in the pulpit, and worthy to keep up the name of your great-grandfather, who, they say, made the leaves wither on a tree with the fierceness of his blast against a sin. some say, to be sure, it was an early frost that helped him." "i never heard that before, aunt keziah," said septimius. "i warrant you no," replied his aunt. "a man dies, and his greatness perishes as if it had never been, and people remember nothing of him only when they see his gravestone over his old dry bones, and say he was a good man in his day." "what truth there is in aunt keziah's words!" exclaimed septimius. "and how i hate the thought and anticipation of that contemptuous appreciation of a man after his death! every living man triumphs over every dead one, as he lies, poor and helpless, under the mould, a pinch of dust, a heap of bones, an evil odor! i hate the thought! it shall not be so!" it was strange how every little incident thus brought him back to that one subject which was taking so strong hold of his mind; every avenue led thitherward; and he took it for an indication that nature had intended, by innumerable ways, to point out to us the great truth that death was an alien misfortune, a prodigy, a monstrosity, into which man had only fallen by defect; and that even now, if a man had a reasonable portion of his original strength in him, he might live forever and spurn death. our story is an internal one, dealing as little as possible with outward events, and taking hold of these only where it cannot be helped, in order by means of them to delineate the history of a mind bewildered in certain errors. we would not willingly, if we could, give a lively and picturesque surrounding to this delineation, but it is necessary that we should advert to the circumstances of the time in which this inward history was passing. we will say, therefore, that that night there was a cry of alarm passing all through the succession of country towns and rural communities that lay around boston, and dying away towards the coast and the wilder forest borders. horsemen galloped past the line of farm-houses shouting alarm! alarm! there were stories of marching troops coming like dreams through the midnight. around the little rude meeting-houses there was here and there the beat of a drum, and the assemblage of farmers with their weapons. so all that night there was marching, there was mustering, there was trouble; and, on the road from boston, a steady march of soldiers' feet onward, onward into the land whose last warlike disturbance had been when the red indians trod it. septimius heard it, and knew, like the rest, that it was the sound of coming war. "fools that men are!" said he, as he rose from bed and looked out at the misty stars; "they do not live long enough to know the value and purport of life, else they would combine together to live long, instead of throwing away the lives of thousands as they do. and what matters a little tyranny in so short a life? what matters a form of government for such ephemeral creatures?" as morning brightened, these sounds, this clamor,--or something that was in the air and caused the clamor,--grew so loud that septimius seemed to feel it even in his solitude. it was in the atmosphere,--storm, wild excitement, a coming deed. men hurried along the usually lonely road in groups, with weapons in their hands,--the old fowling-piece of seven-foot barrel, with which the puritans had shot ducks on the river and walden pond; the heavy harquebus, which perhaps had levelled one of king philip's indians; the old king gun, that blazed away at the french of louisburg or quebec,--hunter, husbandman, all were hurrying each other. it was a good time, everybody felt, to be alive, a nearer kindred, a closer sympathy between man and man; a sense of the goodness of the world, of the sacredness of country, of the excellence of life; and yet its slight account compared with any truth, any principle; the weighing of the material and ethereal, and the finding the former not worth considering, when, nevertheless, it had so much to do with the settlement of the crisis. the ennobling of brute force; the feeling that it had its godlike side; the drawing of heroic breath amid the scenes of ordinary life, so that it seemed as if they had all been transfigured since yesterday. oh, high, heroic, tremulous juncture, when man felt himself almost an angel; on the verge of doing deeds that outwardly look so fiendish! oh, strange rapture of the coming battle! we know something of that time now; we that have seen the muster of the village soldiery on the meeting-house green, and at railway stations; and heard the drum and fife, and seen the farewells; seen the familiar faces that we hardly knew, now that we felt them to be heroes; breathed higher breath for their sakes; felt our eyes moistened; thanked them in our souls for teaching us that nature is yet capable of heroic moments; felt how a great impulse lifts up a people, and every cold, passionless, indifferent spectator,--lifts him up into religion, and makes him join in what becomes an act of devotion, a prayer, when perhaps he but half approves. septimius could not study on a morning like this. he tried to say to himself that he had nothing to do with this excitement; that his studious life kept him away from it; that his intended profession was that of peace; but say what he might to himself, there was a tremor, a bubbling impulse, a tingling in his ears,--the page that he opened glimmered and dazzled before him. "septimius! septimius!" cried aunt keziah, looking into the room, "in heaven's name, are you going to sit here to-day, and the redcoats coming to burn the house over our heads? must i sweep you out with the broomstick? for shame, boy! for shame!" "are they coming, then, aunt keziah?" asked her nephew. "well, i am not a fighting-man." "certain they are. they have sacked lexington, and slain the people, and burnt the meeting-house. that concerns even the parsons; and you reckon yourself among them. go out, go out, i say, and learn the news!" whether moved by these exhortations, or by his own stifled curiosity, septimius did at length issue from his door, though with that reluctance which hampers and impedes men whose current of thought and interest runs apart from that of the world in general; but forth he came, feeling strangely, and yet with a strong impulse to fling himself headlong into the emotion of the moment. it was a beautiful morning, spring-like and summer-like at once. if there had been nothing else to do or think of, such a morning was enough for life only to breathe its air and be conscious of its inspiring influence. septimius turned along the road towards the village, meaning to mingle with the crowd on the green, and there learn all he could of the rumors that vaguely filled the air, and doubtless were shaping themselves into various forms of fiction. as he passed the small dwelling of rose garfield, she stood on the doorstep, and bounded forth a little way to meet him, looking frightened, excited, and yet half pleased, but strangely pretty; prettier than ever before, owing to some hasty adornment or other, that she would never have succeeded so well in giving to herself if she had had more time to do it in. "septimius--mr. felton," cried she, asking information of him who, of all men in the neighborhood, knew nothing of the intelligence afloat; but it showed a certain importance that septimius had with her. "do you really think the redcoats are coming? ah, what shall we do? what shall we do? but you are not going to the village, too, and leave us all alone?" "i know not whether they are coming or no, rose," said septimius, stopping to admire the young girl's fresh beauty, which made a double stroke upon him by her excitement, and, moreover, made her twice as free with him as ever she had been before; for there is nothing truer than that any breaking up of the ordinary state of things is apt to shake women out of their proprieties, break down barriers, and bring them into perilous proximity with the world. "are you alone here? had you not better take shelter in the village?" "and leave my poor, bedridden grandmother!" cried rose, angrily. "you know i can't, septimius. but i suppose i am in no danger. go to the village, if you like." "where is robert hagburn?" asked septimius. "gone to the village this hour past, with his grandfather's old firelock on his shoulder," said rose; "he was running bullets before daylight." "rose, i will stay with you," said septimius. "oh gracious, here they come, i'm sure!" cried rose. "look yonder at the dust. mercy! a man at a gallop!" in fact, along the road, a considerable stretch of which was visible, they heard the clatter of hoofs and saw a little cloud of dust approaching at the rate of a gallop, and disclosing, as it drew near, a hatless countryman in his shirt-sleeves, who, bending over his horse's neck, applied a cart-whip lustily to the animal's flanks, so as to incite him to most unwonted speed. at the same time, glaring upon rose and septimius, he lifted up his voice and shouted in a strange, high tone, that communicated the tremor and excitement of the shouter to each auditor: "alarum! alarum! alarum! the redcoats! the redcoats! to arms! alarum!" and trailing this sound far wavering behind him like a pennon, the eager horseman dashed onward to the village. "oh dear, what shall we do?" cried rose, her eyes full of tears, yet dancing with excitement. "they are coming! they are coming! i hear the drum and fife." "i really believe they are," said septimius, his cheek flushing and growing pale, not with fear, but the inevitable tremor, half painful, half pleasurable, of the moment. "hark! there was the shrill note of a fife. yes, they are coming!" he tried to persuade rose to hide herself in the house; but that young person would not be persuaded to do so, clinging to septimius in a way that flattered while it perplexed him. besides, with all the girl's fright, she had still a good deal of courage, and much curiosity too, to see what these redcoats were of whom she heard such terrible stories. "well, well, rose," said septimius; "i doubt not we may stay here without danger,--you, a woman, and i, whose profession is to be that of peace and good-will to all men. they cannot, whatever is said of them, be on an errand of massacre. we will stand here quietly; and, seeing that we do not fear them, they will understand that we mean them no harm." they stood, accordingly, a little in front of the door by the well-curb, and soon they saw a heavy cloud of dust, from amidst which shone bayonets; and anon, a military band, which had hitherto been silent, struck up, with drum and fife, to which the tramp of a thousand feet fell in regular order; then came the column, moving massively, and the redcoats who seemed somewhat wearied by a long night-march, dusty, with bedraggled gaiters, covered with sweat which had rundown from their powdered locks. nevertheless, these ruddy, lusty englishmen marched stoutly, as men that needed only a half-hour's rest, a good breakfast, and a pot of beer apiece, to make them ready to face the world. nor did their faces look anywise rancorous; but at most, only heavy, cloddish, good-natured, and humane. "o heavens, mr. felton!" whispered rose, "why should we shoot these men, or they us? they look kind, if homely. each of them has a mother and sisters, i suppose, just like our men." "it is the strangest thing in the world that we can think of killing them," said septimius. "human life is so precious." just as they were passing the cottage, a halt was called by the commanding officer, in order that some little rest might get the troops into a better condition and give them breath before entering the village, where it was important to make as imposing a show as possible. during this brief stop, some of the soldiers approached the well-curb, near which rose and septimius were standing, and let down the bucket to satisfy their thirst. a young officer, a petulant boy, extremely handsome, and of gay and buoyant deportment, also came up. "get me a cup, pretty one," said he, patting rose's cheek with great freedom, though it was somewhat and indefinitely short of rudeness; "a mug, or something to drink out of, and you shall have a kiss for your pains." "stand off, sir!" said septimius, fiercely; "it is a coward's part to insult a woman." "i intend no insult in this," replied the handsome young officer, suddenly snatching a kiss from rose, before she could draw back. "and if you think it so, my good friend, you had better take your weapon and get as much satisfaction as you can, shooting at me from behind a hedge." before septimius could reply or act,--and, in truth, the easy presumption of the young englishman made it difficult for him, an inexperienced recluse as he was, to know what to do or say,--the drum beat a little tap, recalling the soldiers to their rank and to order. the young officer hastened back, with a laughing glance at rose, and a light, contemptuous look of defiance at septimius, the drums rattling out in full beat, and the troops marched on. "what impertinence!" said rose, whose indignant color made her look pretty enough almost to excuse the offence. it is not easy to see how septimius could have shielded her from the insult; and yet he felt inconceivably outraged and humiliated at the thought that this offence had occurred while rose was under his protection, and he responsible for her. besides, somehow or other, he was angry with her for having undergone the wrong, though certainly most unreasonably; for the whole thing was quicker done than said. "you had better go into the house now, rose," said he, "and see to your bedridden grandmother." "and what will you do, septimius?" asked she. "perhaps i will house myself, also," he replied. "perhaps take yonder proud redcoat's counsel, and shoot him behind a hedge." "but not kill him outright; i suppose he has a mother and a sweetheart, the handsome young officer," murmured rose pityingly to herself. septimius went into his house, and sat in his study for some hours, in that unpleasant state of feeling which a man of brooding thought is apt to experience when the world around him is in a state of intense action, which he finds it impossible to sympathize with. there seemed to be a stream rushing past him, by which, even if he plunged into the midst of it, he could not be wet. he felt himself strangely ajar with the human race, and would have given much either to be in full accord with it, or to be separated from it forever. "i am dissevered from it. it is my doom to be only a spectator of life; to look on as one apart from it. is it not well, therefore, that, sharing none of its pleasures and happiness, i should be free of its fatalities its brevity? how cold i am now, while this whirlpool of public feeling is eddying around me! it is as if i had not been born of woman!" thus it was that, drawing wild inferences from phenomena of the mind and heart common to people who, by some morbid action within themselves, are set ajar with the world, septimius continued still to come round to that strange idea of undyingness which had recently taken possession of him. and yet he was wrong in thinking himself cold, and that he felt no sympathy in the fever of patriotism that was throbbing through his countrymen. he was restless as a flame; he could not fix his thoughts upon his book; he could not sit in his chair, but kept pacing to and fro, while through the open window came noises to which his imagination gave diverse interpretation. now it was a distant drum; now shouts; by and by there came the rattle of musketry, that seemed to proceed from some point more distant than the village; a regular roll, then a ragged volley, then scattering shots. unable any longer to preserve this unnatural indifference, septimius snatched his gun, and, rushing out of the house, climbed the abrupt hill-side behind, whence he could see a long way towards the village, till a slight bend hid the uneven road. it was quite vacant, not a passenger upon it. but there seemed to be confusion in that direction; an unseen and inscrutable trouble, blowing thence towards him, intimated by vague sounds,--by no sounds. listening eagerly, however, he at last fancied a mustering sound of the drum; then it seemed as if it were coming towards him; while in advance rode another horseman, the same kind of headlong messenger, in appearance, who had passed the house with his ghastly cry of alarum; then appeared scattered countrymen, with guns in their hands, straggling across fields. then he caught sight of the regular array of british soldiers, filling the road with their front, and marching along as firmly as ever, though at a quick pace, while he fancied that the officers looked watchfully around. as he looked, a shot rang sharp from the hill-side towards the village; the smoke curled up, and septimius saw a man stagger and fall in the midst of the troops. septimius shuddered; it was so like murder that he really could not tell the difference; his knees trembled beneath him; his breath grew short, not with terror, but with some new sensation of awe. another shot or two came almost simultaneously from the wooded height, but without any effect that septimius could perceive. almost at the same moment a company of the british soldiers wheeled from the main body, and, dashing out of the road, climbed the hill, and disappeared into the wood and shrubbery that veiled it. there were a few straggling shots, by whom fired, or with what effect, was invisible, and meanwhile the main body of the enemy proceeded along the road. they had now advanced so nigh that septimius was strangely assailed by the idea that he might, with the gun in his hand, fire right into the midst of them, and select any man of that now hostile band to be a victim. how strange, how strange it is, this deep, wild passion that nature has implanted in us to be the death of our fellow-creatures, and which coexists at the same time with horror! septimius levelled his weapon, and drew it up again; he marked a mounted officer, who seemed to be in chief command, whom he knew that he could kill. but no! he had really no such purpose. only it was such a temptation. and in a moment the horse would leap, the officer would fall and lie there in the dust of the road, bleeding, gasping, breathing in spasms, breathing no more. while the young man, in these unusual circumstances, stood watching the marching of the troops, he heard the noise of rustling boughs, and the voices of men, and soon understood that the party, which he had seen separate itself from the main body and ascend the hill, was now marching along on the hill-top, the long ridge which, with a gap or two, extended as much as a mile from the village. one of these gaps occurred a little way from where septimius stood. they were acting as flank guard, to prevent the up-roused people from coming so close to the main body as to fire upon it. he looked and saw that the detachment of british was plunging down one side of this gap, with intent to ascend the other, so that they would pass directly over the spot where he stood; a slight removal to one side, among the small bushes, would conceal him. he stepped aside accordingly, and from his concealment, not without drawing quicker breaths, beheld the party draw near. they were more intent upon the space between them and the main body than upon the dense thicket of birch-trees, pitch-pines, sumach, and dwarf oaks, which, scarcely yet beginning to bud into leaf, lay on the other side, and in which septimius lurked. [_describe how their faces affected him, passing so near; how strange they seemed_.] they had all passed, except an officer who brought up the rear, and who had perhaps been attracted by some slight motion that septimius made,--some rustle in the thicket; for he stopped, fixed his eyes piercingly towards the spot where he stood, and levelled a light fusil which he carried. "stand out, or i shoot," said he. not to avoid the shot, but because his manhood felt a call upon it not to skulk in obscurity from an open enemy, septimius at once stood forth, and confronted the same handsome young officer with whom those fierce words had passed on account of his rudeness to rose garfield. septimius's fierce indian blood stirred in him, and gave a murderous excitement. "ah, it is you!" said the young officer, with a haughty smile. "you meant, then, to take up with my hint of shooting at me from behind a hedge? this is better. come, we have in the first place the great quarrel between me a king's soldier, and you a rebel; next our private affair, on account of yonder pretty girl. come, let us take a shot on either score!" the young officer was so handsome, so beautiful, in budding youth; there was such a free, gay petulance in his manner; there seemed so little of real evil in him; he put himself on equal ground with the rustic septimius so generously, that the latter, often so morbid and sullen, never felt a greater kindness for fellow-man than at this moment for this youth. "i have no enmity towards you," said he; "go in peace." "no enmity!" replied the officer. "then why were you here with your gun amongst the shrubbery? but i have a mind to do my first deed of arms on you; so give up your weapon, and come with me as prisoner." "a prisoner!" cried septimius, that indian fierceness that was in him arousing itself, and thrusting up its malign head like a snake. "never! if you would have me, you must take my dead body." "ah well, you have pluck in you, i see, only it needs a considerable stirring. come, this is a good quarrel of ours. let us fight it out. stand where you are, and i will give the word of command. now; ready, aim, fire!" as the young officer spoke the three last words, in rapid succession, he and his antagonist brought their firelocks to the shoulder, aimed and fired. septimius felt, as it were, the sting of a gadfly passing across his temple, as the englishman's bullet grazed it; but, to his surprise and horror (for the whole thing scarcely seemed real to him), he saw the officer give a great start, drop his fusil, and stagger against a tree, with his hand to his breast. he endeavored to support himself erect, but, failing in the effort, beckoned to septimius. "come, my good friend," said he, with that playful, petulant smile flitting over his face again. "it is my first and last fight. let me down as softly as you can on mother earth, the mother of both you and me; so we are brothers; and this may be a brotherly act, though it does not look so, nor feel so. ah! that was a twinge indeed!" "good god!" exclaimed septimius. "i had no thought of this, no malice towards you in the least!" "nor i towards you," said the young man. "it was boy's play, and the end of it is that i die a boy, instead of living forever, as perhaps i otherwise might." "living forever!" repeated septimius, his attention arrested, even at that breathless moment, by words that rang so strangely on what had been his brooding thought. "yes; but i have lost my chance," said the young officer. then, as septimius helped him to lie against the little hillock of a decayed and buried stump, "thank you; thank you. if you could only call back one of my comrades to hear my dying words. but i forgot. you have killed me, and they would take your life." in truth, septimius was so moved and so astonished, that he probably would have called back the young man's comrades, had it been possible; but, marching at the swift rate of men in peril, they had already gone far onward, in their passage through the shrubbery that had ceased to rustle behind them. "yes; i must die here!" said the young man, with a forlorn expression, as of a school-boy far away from home, "and nobody to see me now but you, who have killed me. could you fetch me a drop of water? i have a great thirst." septimius, in a dream of horror and pity, rushed down the hill-side; the house was empty, for aunt keziah had gone for shelter and sympathy to some of the neighbors. he filled a jug with cold water, and hurried back to the hill-top, finding the young officer looking paler and more deathlike within those few moments. "i thank you, my enemy that was, my friend that is," murmured he, faintly smiling. "methinks, next to the father and mother that gave us birth, the next most intimate relation must be with the man that slays us, who introduces us to the mysterious world to which this is but the portal. you and i are singularly connected, doubt it not, in the scenes of the unknown world." "oh, believe me," cried septimius, "i grieve for you like a brother!" "i see it, my dear friend," said the young officer; "and though my blood is on your hands, i forgive you freely, if there is anything to forgive. but i am dying, and have a few words to say, which you must hear. you have slain me in fair fight, and my spoils, according to the rules and customs of warfare, belong to the victor. hang up my sword and fusil over your chimney-place, and tell your children, twenty years hence, how they were won. my purse, keep it or give it to the poor. there is something, here next my heart, which i would fain have sent to the address which i will give you." septimius, obeying his directions, took from his breast a miniature that hung round it; but, on examination, it proved that the bullet had passed directly through it, shattering the ivory, so that the woman's face it represented was quite destroyed. "ah! that is a pity," said the young man; and yet septimius thought that there was something light and contemptuous mingled with the pathos in his tones. "well, but send it; cause it to be transmitted, according to the address." he gave septimius, and made him take down on a tablet which he had about him, the name of a hall in one of the midland counties of england. "ah, that old place," said he, "with its oaks, and its lawn, and its park, and its elizabethan gables! i little thought i should die here, so far away, in this barren yankee land. where will you bury me?" as septimius hesitated to answer, the young man continued: "i would like to have lain in the little old church at whitnash, which comes up before me now, with its low, gray tower, and the old yew-tree in front, hollow with age, and the village clustering about it, with its thatched houses. i would be loath to lie in one of your yankee graveyards, for i have a distaste for them,--though i love you, my slayer. bury me here, on this very spot. a soldier lies best where he falls." "here, in secret?" exclaimed septimius. "yes; there is no consecration in your puritan burial-grounds," said the dying youth, some of that queer narrowness of english churchism coming into his mind. "so bury me here, in my soldier's dress. ah! and my watch! i have done with time, and you, perhaps, have a long lease of it; so take it, not as spoil, but as my parting gift. and that reminds me of one other thing. open that pocket-book which you have in your hand." septimius did so, and by the officer's direction took from one of its compartments a folded paper, closely written in a crabbed hand; it was considerably worn in the outer folds, but not within. there was also a small silver key in the pocket-book. "i leave it with you," said the officer; "it was given me by an uncle, a learned man of science, who intended me great good by what he there wrote. reap the profit, if you can. sooth to say, i never read beyond the first lines of the paper." septimius was surprised, or deeply impressed, to see that through this paper, as well as through the miniature, had gone his fatal bullet,--straight through the midst; and some of the young man's blood, saturating his dress, had wet the paper all over. he hardly thought himself likely to derive any good from what it had cost a human life, taken (however uncriminally) by his own hands, to obtain. "is there anything more that i can do for you?" asked he, with genuine sympathy and sorrow, as he knelt by his fallen foe's side. "nothing, nothing, i believe," said he. "there was one thing i might have confessed; if there were a holy man here, i might have confessed, and asked his prayers; for though i have lived few years, it has been long enough to do a great wrong! but i will try to pray in my secret soul. turn my face towards the trunk of the tree, for i have taken my last look at the world. there, let me be now." septimius did as the young man requested, and then stood leaning against one of the neighboring pines, watching his victim with a tender concern that made him feel as if the convulsive throes that passed through his frame were felt equally in his own. there was a murmuring from the youth's lips which seemed to septimius swift, soft, and melancholy, like the voice of a child when it has some naughtiness to confess to its mother at bedtime; contrite, pleading, yet trusting. so it continued for a few minutes; then there was a sudden start and struggle, as if he were striving to rise; his eyes met those of septimius with a wild, troubled gaze, but as the latter caught him in his arms, he was dead. septimius laid the body softly down on the leaf-strewn earth, and tried, as he had heard was the custom with the dead, to compose the features distorted by the dying agony. he then flung himself on the ground at a little distance, and gave himself up to the reflections suggested by the strange occurrences of the last hour. he had taken a human life; and, however the circumstances might excuse him,--might make the thing even something praiseworthy, and that would be called patriotic,--still, it was not at once that a fresh country youth could see anything but horror in the blood with which his hand was stained. it seemed so dreadful to have reduced this gay, animated, beautiful being to a lump of dead flesh for the flies to settle upon, and which in a few hours would begin to decay; which must be put forthwith into the earth, lest it should be a horror to men's eyes; that delicious beauty for woman to love; that strength and courage to make him famous among men,--all come to nothing; all probabilities of life in one so gifted; the renown, the position, the pleasures, the profits, the keen ecstatic joy,--this never could be made up,--all ended quite; for the dark doubt descended upon septimius, that, because of the very fitness that was in this youth to enjoy this world, so much the less chance was thereof his being fit for any other world. what could it do for him there,--this beautiful grace and elegance of feature,--where there was no form, nothing tangible nor visible? what good that readiness and aptness for associating with all created things, doing his part, acting, enjoying, when, under the changed conditions of another state of being, all this adaptedness would fail? had he been gifted with permanence on earth, there could not have been a more admirable creature than this young man; but as his fate had turned out, he was a mere grub, an illusion, something that nature had held out in mockery, and then withdrawn. a weed might grow from his dust now; that little spot on the barren hill-top, where he had desired to be buried, would be greener for some years to come, and that was all the difference. septimius could not get beyond the earthiness; his feeling was as if, by an act of violence, he had forever cut off a happy human existence. and such was his own love of life and clinging to it, peculiar to dark, sombre natures, and which lighter and gayer ones can never know, that he shuddered at his deed, and at himself, and could with difficulty bear to be alone with the corpse of his victim,--trembled at the thought of turning his face towards him. yet he did so, because he could not endure the imagination that the dead youth was turning his eyes towards him as he lay; so he came and stood beside him, looking down into his white, upturned face. but it was wonderful! what a change had come over it since, only a few moments ago, he looked at that death-contorted countenance! now there was a high and sweet expression upon it, of great joy and surprise, and yet a quietude diffused throughout, as if the peace being so very great was what had surprised him. the expression was like a light gleaming and glowing within him. septimius had often, at a certain space of time after sunset, looking westward, seen a living radiance in the sky,--the last light of the dead day that seemed just the counterpart of this death-light in the young man's face. it was as if the youth were just at the gate of heaven, which, swinging softly open, let the inconceivable glory of the blessed city shine upon his face, and kindle it up with gentle, undisturbing astonishment and purest joy. it was an expression contrived by god's providence to comfort; to overcome all the dark auguries that the physical ugliness of death inevitably creates, and to prove by the divine glory on the face, that the ugliness is a delusion. it was as if the dead man himself showed his face out of the sky, with heaven's blessing on it, and bade the afflicted be of good cheer, and believe in immortality. septimius remembered the young man's injunctions to bury him there, on the hill, without uncovering the body; and though it seemed a sin and shame to cover up that beautiful body with earth of the grave, and give it to the worm, yet he resolved to obey. be it confessed that, beautiful as the dead form looked, and guiltless as septimius must be held in causing his death, still he felt as if he should be eased when it was under the ground. he hastened down to the house, and brought up a shovel and a pickaxe, and began his unwonted task of grave-digging, delving earnestly a deep pit, sometimes pausing in his toil, while the sweat-drops poured from him, to look at the beautiful clay that was to occupy it. sometimes he paused, too, to listen to the shots that pealed in the far distance, towards the east, whither the battle had long since rolled out of reach and almost out of hearing. it seemed to have gathered about itself the whole life of the land, attending it along its bloody course in a struggling throng of shouting, shooting men, so still and solitary was everything left behind it. it seemed the very midland solitude of the world where septimius was delving at the grave. he and his dead were alone together, and he was going to put the body under the sod, and be quite alone. the grave was now deep, and septimius was stooping down into its depths among dirt and pebbles, levelling off the bottom, which he considered to be profound enough to hide the young man's mystery forever, when a voice spoke above him; a solemn, quiet voice, which he knew well. "septimius! what are you doing here?" he looked up and saw the minister. "i have slain a man in fair fight," answered he, "and am about to bury him as he requested. i am glad you are come. you, reverend sir, can fitly say a prayer at his obsequies. i am glad for my own sake; for it is very lonely and terrible to be here." he climbed out of the grave, and, in reply to the minister's inquiries, communicated to him the events of the morning, and the youth's strange wish to be buried here, without having his remains subjected to the hands of those who would prepare it for the grave. the minister hesitated. "at an ordinary time," said he, "such a singular request would of course have to be refused. your own safety, the good and wise rules that make it necessary that all things relating to death and burial should be done publicly and in order, would forbid it." "yes," replied septimius; "but, it may be, scores of men will fall to-day, and be flung into hasty graves without funeral rites; without its ever being known, perhaps, what mother has lost her son. i cannot but think that i ought to perform the dying request of the youth whom i have slain. he trusted in me not to uncover his body myself, nor to betray it to the hands of others." "a singular request," said the good minister, gazing with deep interest at the beautiful dead face, and graceful, slender, manly figure. "what could have been its motive? but no matter. i think, septimius, that you are bound to obey his request; indeed, having promised him, nothing short of an impossibility should prevent your keeping your faith. let us lose no time, then." with few but deeply solemn rites the young stranger was laid by the minister and the youth who slew him in his grave. a prayer was made, and then septimius, gathering some branches and twigs, spread them over the face that was turned upward from the bottom of the pit, into which the sun gleamed downward, throwing its rays so as almost to touch it. the twigs partially hid it, but still its white shone through. then the minister threw a handful of earth upon it, and, accustomed as he was to burials, tears fell from his eyes along with the mould. "it is sad," said he, "this poor young man, coming from opulence, no doubt, a dear english home, to die here for no end, one of the first-fruits of a bloody war,--so much privately sacrificed. but let him rest, septimius. i am sorry that he fell by your hand, though it involves no shadow of a crime. but death is a thing too serious not to melt into the nature of a man like you." "it does not weigh upon my conscience, i think," said septimius; "though i cannot but feel sorrow, and wish my hand were as clean as yesterday. it is, indeed, a dreadful thing to take human life." "it is a most serious thing," replied the minister; "but perhaps we are apt to over-estimate the importance of death at any particular moment. if the question were whether to die or to live forever, then, indeed, scarcely anything should justify the putting a fellow-creature to death. but since it only shortens his earthly life, and brings a little forward a change which, since god permits it, is, we may conclude, as fit to take place then as at any other time, it alters the case. i often think that there are many things that occur to us in our daily life, many unknown crises, that are more important to us than this mysterious circumstance of death, which we deem the most important of all. all we understand of it is, that it takes the dead person away from our knowledge of him, which, while we live with him, is so very scanty." "you estimate at nothing, it seems, his earthly life, which might have been so happy." "at next to nothing," said the minister; "since, as i have observed, it must, at any rate, have closed so soon." septimius thought of what the young man, in his last moments, had said of his prospect or opportunity of living a life of interminable length, and which prospect he had bequeathed to himself. but of this he did not speak to the minister, being, indeed, ashamed to have it supposed that he would put any serious weight on such a bequest, although it might be that the dark enterprise of his nature had secretly seized upon this idea, and, though yet sane enough to be influenced by a fear of ridicule, was busy incorporating it with his thoughts. so septimius smoothed down the young stranger's earthy bed, and returned to his home, where he hung up the sword over the mantel-piece in his study, and hung the gold watch, too, on a nail,--the first time he had ever had possession of such a thing. nor did he now feel altogether at ease in his mind about keeping it,--the time-measurer of one whose mortal life he had cut off. a splendid watch it was, round as a turnip. there seems to be a natural right in one who has slain a man to step into his vacant place in all respects; and from the beginning of man's dealings with man this right has been practically recognized, whether among warriors or robbers, as paramount to every other. yet septimius could not feel easy in availing himself of this right. he therefore resolved to keep the watch, and even the sword and fusil,--which were less questionable spoils of war,--only till he should be able to restore them to some representative of the young officer. the contents of the purse, in accordance with the request of the dying youth, he would expend in relieving the necessities of those whom the war (now broken out, and of which no one could see the limit) might put in need of it. the miniature, with its broken and shattered face, that had so vainly interposed itself between its wearer and death, had been sent to its address. but as to the mysterious document, the written paper, that he had laid aside without unfolding it, but with a care that betokened more interest in it than in either gold or weapon, or even in the golden representative of that earthly time on which he set so high a value. there was something tremulous in his touch of it; it seemed as if he were afraid of it by the mode in which he hid it away, and secured himself from it, as it were. this done, the air of the room, the low-ceilinged eastern room where he studied and thought, became too close for him, and he hastened out; for he was full of the unshaped sense of all that had befallen, and the perception of the great public event of a broken-out war was intermixed with that of what he had done personally in the great struggle that was beginning. he longed, too, to know what was the news of the battle that had gone rolling onward along the hitherto peaceful country road, converting everywhere (this demon of war, we mean), with one blast of its red sulphurous breath, the peaceful husbandman to a soldier thirsting for blood. he turned his steps, therefore, towards the village, thinking it probable that news must have arrived either of defeat or victory, from messengers or fliers, to cheer or sadden the old men, the women, and the children, who alone perhaps remained there. but septimius did not get to the village. as he passed along by the cottage that has been already described, rose garfield was standing at the door, peering anxiously forth to know what was the issue of the conflict,--as it has been woman's fate to do from the beginning of the world, and is so still. seeing septimius, she forgot the restraint that she had hitherto kept herself under, and, flying at him like a bird, she cried out, "septimius, dear septimius, where have you been? what news do you bring? you look as if you had seen some strange and dreadful thing." "ah, is it so? does my face tell such stories?" exclaimed the young man. "i did not mean it should. yes, rose, i have seen and done such things as change a man in a moment." "then you have been in this terrible fight," said rose. "yes, rose, i have had my part in it," answered septimius. he was on the point of relieving his overburdened mind by telling her what had happened no farther off than on the hill above them; but, seeing her excitement, and recollecting her own momentary interview with the young officer, and the forced intimacy and link that had been established between them by the kiss, he feared to agitate her further by telling her that that gay and beautiful young man had since been slain, and deposited in a bloody grave by his hands. and yet the recollection of that kiss caused a thrill of vengeful joy at the thought that the perpetrator had since expiated his offence with his life, and that it was himself that did it, so deeply was septimius's indian nature of revenge and blood incorporated with that of more peaceful forefathers, although septimius had grace enough to chide down that bloody spirit, feeling that it made him, not a patriot, but a murderer. "ah," said rose, shuddering, "it is awful when we must kill one another! and who knows where it will end?" "with me it will end here, rose," said septimius. "it may be lawful for any man, even if he have devoted himself to god, or however peaceful his pursuits, to fight to the death when the enemy's step is on the soil of his home; but only for that perilous juncture, which passed, he should return to his own way of peace. i have done a terrible thing for once, dear rose, one that might well trace a dark line through all my future life; but henceforth i cannot think it my duty to pursue any further a work for which my studies and my nature unfit me." "oh no! oh no!" said rose; "never! and you a minister, or soon to be one. there must be some peacemakers left in the world, or everything will turn to blood and confusion; for even women grow dreadfully fierce in these times. my old grandmother laments her bedriddenness, because, she says, she cannot go to cheer on the people against the enemy. but she remembers the old times of the indian wars, when the women were as much in danger of death as the men, and so were almost as fierce as they, and killed men sometimes with their own hands. but women, nowadays, ought to be gentler; let the men be fierce, if they must, except you, and such as you, septimius." "ah, dear rose," said septimius, "i have not the kind and sweet impulses that you speak of. i need something to soften and warm my cold, hard life; something to make me feel how dreadful this time of warfare is. i need you, dear rose, who are all kindness of heart and mercy." and here septimius, hurried away by i know not what excitement of the time,--the disturbed state of the country, his own ebullition of passion, the deed he had done, the desire to press one human being close to his life, because he had shed the blood of another, his half-formed purposes, his shapeless impulses; in short, being affected by the whole stir of his nature,--spoke to rose of love, and with an energy that, indeed, there was no resisting when once it broke bounds. and rose, whose maiden thoughts, to say the truth, had long dwelt upon this young man,--admiring him for a certain dark beauty, knowing him familiarly from childhood, and yet having the sense, that is so bewitching, of remoteness, intermixed with intimacy, because he was so unlike herself; having a woman's respect for scholarship, her imagination the more impressed by all in him that she could not comprehend,--rose yielded to his impetuous suit, and gave him the troth that he requested. and yet it was with a sort of reluctance and drawing back; her whole nature, her secretest heart, her deepest womanhood, perhaps, did not consent. there was something in septimius, in his wild, mixed nature, the monstrousness that had grown out of his hybrid race, the black infusions, too, which melancholic men had left there, the devilishness that had been symbolized in the popular regard about his family, that made her shiver, even while she came the closer to him for that very dread. and when he gave her the kiss of betrothment her lips grew white. if it had not been in the day of turmoil, if he had asked her in any quiet time, when rose's heart was in its natural mood, it may well be that, with tears and pity for him, and half-pity for herself, rose would have told septimius that she did not think she could love him well enough to be his wife. and how was it with septimius? well; there was a singular correspondence in his feelings to those of rose garfield. at first, carried away by a passion that seized him all unawares, and seemed to develop itself all in a moment, he felt, and so spoke to rose, so pleaded his suit, as if his whole earthly happiness depended on her consent to be his bride. it seemed to him that her love would be the sunshine in the gloomy dungeon of his life. but when her bashful, downcast, tremulous consent was given, then immediately came a strange misgiving into his mind. he felt as if he had taken to himself something good and beautiful doubtless in itself, but which might be the exchange for one more suited to him, that he must now give up. the intellect, which was the prominent point in septimius, stirred and heaved, crying out vaguely that its own claims, perhaps, were ignored in this contract. septimius had perhaps no right to love at all; if he did, it should have been a woman of another make, who could be his intellectual companion and helper. and then, perchance,--perchance,--there was destined for him some high, lonely path, in which, to make any progress, to come to any end, he must walk unburdened by the affections. such thoughts as these depressed and chilled (as many men have found them, or similar ones, to do) the moment of success that should have been the most exulting in the world. and so, in the kiss which these two lovers had exchanged there was, after all, something that repelled; and when they parted they wondered at their strange states of mind, but would not acknowledge that they had done a thing that ought not to have been done. nothing is surer, however, than that, if we suffer ourselves to be drawn into too close proximity with people, if we over-estimate the degree of our proper tendency towards them, or theirs towards us, a reaction is sure to follow. * * * * * septimius quitted rose, and resumed his walk towards the village. but now it was near sunset, and there began to be straggling passengers along the road, some of whom came slowly, as if they had received hurts; all seemed wearied. among them one form appeared which rose soon found that she recognized. it was robert hagburn, with a shattered firelock in his hand, broken at the butt, and his left arm bound with a fragment of his shirt, and suspended in a handkerchief; and he walked weariedly, but brightened up at sight of rose, as if ashamed to let her see how exhausted and dispirited he was. perhaps he expected a smile, at least a more earnest reception than he met; for rose, with the restraint of what had recently passed drawing her back, merely went gravely a few steps to meet him, and said, "robert, how tired and pale you look! are you hurt?" "it is of no consequence," replied robert hagburn; "a scratch on my left arm from an officer's sword, with whose head my gunstock made instant acquaintance. it is no matter, rose; you do not care for it, nor do i either." "how can you say so, robert?" she replied. but without more greeting he passed her, and went into his own house, where, flinging himself into a chair, he remained in that despondency that men generally feel after a fight, even if a successful one. septimius, the next day, lost no time in writing a letter to the direction given him by the young officer, conveying a brief account of the latter's death and burial, and a signification that he held in readiness to give up certain articles of property, at any future time, to his representatives, mentioning also the amount of money contained in the purse, and his intention, in compliance with the verbal will of the deceased, to expend it in alleviating the wants of prisoners. having so done, he went up on the hill to look at the grave, and satisfy himself that the scene there had not been a dream; a point which he was inclined to question, in spite of the tangible evidence of the sword and watch, which still hung over the mantel-piece. there was the little mound, however, looking so incontrovertibly a grave, that it seemed to him as if all the world must see it, and wonder at the fact of its being there, and spend their wits in conjecturing who slept within; and, indeed, it seemed to give the affair a questionable character, this secret burial, and he wondered and wondered why the young man had been so earnest about it. well; there was the grave; and, moreover, on the leafy earth, where the dying youth had lain, there were traces of blood, which no rain had yet washed away. septimius wondered at the easiness with which he acquiesced in this deed; in fact, he felt in a slight degree the effects of that taste of blood, which makes the slaying of men, like any other abuse, sometimes become a passion. perhaps it was his indian trait stirring in him again; at any rate, it is not delightful to observe how readily man becomes a blood-shedding animal. looking down from the hill-top, he saw the little dwelling of rose garfield, and caught a glimpse of the girl herself, passing the windows or the door, about her household duties, and listened to hear the singing which usually broke out of her. but rose, for some reason or other, did not warble as usual this morning. she trod about silently, and somehow or other she was translated out of the ideality in which septimius usually enveloped her, and looked little more than a new england girl, very pretty indeed, but not enough so perhaps to engross a man's life and higher purposes into her own narrow circle; so, at least, septimius thought. looking a little farther,--down into the green recess where stood robert hagburn's house,--he saw that young man, looking very pale, with his arm in a sling sitting listlessly on a half-chopped log of wood which was not likely soon to be severed by robert's axe. like other lovers, septimius had not failed to be aware that robert hagburn was sensible to rose garfield's attractions; and now, as he looked down on them both from his elevated position, he wondered if it would not have been better for rose's happiness if her thoughts and virgin fancies had settled on that frank, cheerful, able, wholesome young man, instead of on himself, who met her on so few points; and, in relation to whom, there was perhaps a plant that had its root in the grave, that would entwine itself around his whole life, overshadowing it with dark, rich foliage and fruit that he alone could feast upon. for the sombre imagination of septimius, though he kept it as much as possible away from the subject, still kept hinting and whispering, still coming back to the point, still secretly suggesting that the event of yesterday was to have momentous consequences upon his fate. he had not yet looked at the paper which the young man bequeathed to him; he had laid it away unopened; not that he felt little interest in it, but, on the contrary, because he looked for some blaze of light which had been reserved for him alone. the young officer had been only the bearer of it to him, and he had come hither to die by his hand, because that was the readiest way by which he could deliver his message. how else, in the infinite chances of human affairs, could the document have found its way to its destined possessor? thus mused septimius, pacing to and fro on the level edge of his hill-top, apart from the world, looking down occasionally into it, and seeing its love and interest away from him; while rose, it might be looking upward, saw occasionally his passing figure, and trembled at the nearness and remoteness that existed between them; and robert hagburn looked too, and wondered what manner of man it was who, having won rose garfield (for his instinct told him this was so), could keep that distance between her and him, thinking remote thoughts. yes; there was septimius treading a path of his own on the hill-top; his feet began only that morning to wear it in his walking to and fro, sheltered from the lower world, except in occasional glimpses, by the birches and locusts that threw up their foliage from the hill-side. but many a year thereafter he continued to tread that path, till it was worn deep with his footsteps and trodden down hard; and it was believed by some of his superstitious neighbors that the grass and little shrubs shrank away from his path, and made it wider on that account; because there was something in the broodings that urged him to and fro along the path alien to nature and its productions. there was another opinion, too, that an invisible fiend, one of his relatives by blood, walked side by side with him, and so made the pathway wider than his single footsteps could have made it. but all this was idle, and was, indeed, only the foolish babble that hovers like a mist about men who withdraw themselves from the throng, and involve themselves in unintelligible pursuits and interests of their own. for the present, the small world, which alone knew of him, considered septimius as a studious young man, who was fitting for the ministry, and was likely enough to do credit to the ministerial blood that he drew from his ancestors, in spite of the wild stream that the indian priest had contributed; and perhaps none the worse, as a clergyman, for having an instinctive sense of the nature of the devil from his traditionary claims to partake of his blood. but what strange interest there is in tracing out the first steps by which we enter on a career that influences our life; and this deep-worn pathway on the hill-top, passing and repassing by a grave, seemed to symbolize it in septimius's case. i suppose the morbidness of septimius's disposition was excited by the circumstances which had put the paper into his possession. had he received it by post, it might not have impressed him; he might possibly have looked over it with ridicule, and tossed it aside. but he had taken it from a dying man, and he felt that his fate was in it; and truly it turned out to be so. he waited for a fit opportunity to open it and read it; he put it off as if he cared nothing about it; perhaps it was because he cared so much. whenever he had a happy time with rose (and, moody as septimius was, such happy moments came), he felt that then was not the time to look into the paper,--it was not to be read in a happy mood. once he asked rose to walk with him on the hilltop. "why, what a path you have worn here, septimius!" said the girl. "you walk miles and miles on this one spot, and get no farther on than when you started. that is strange walking!" "i don't know, rose; i sometimes think i get a little onward. but it is sweeter--yes, much sweeter, i find--to have you walking on this path here than to be treading it alone." "i am glad of that," said rose; "for sometimes, when i look up here, and see you through the branches, with your head bent down, and your hands clasped behind you, treading, treading, treading, always in one way, i wonder whether i am at all in your mind. i don't think, septimius," added she, looking up in his face and smiling, "that ever a girl had just such a young man for a lover." "no young man ever had such a girl, i am sure," said septimius; "so sweet, so good for him, so prolific of good influences!" "ah, it makes me think well of myself to bring such a smile into your face! but, septimius, what is this little hillock here so close to our path? have you heaped it up here for a seat? shall we sit down upon it for an instant?--for it makes me more tired to walk backward and forward on one path than to go straight forward a much longer distance." "well; but we will not sit down on this hillock," said septimius, drawing her away from it. "farther out this way, if you please, rose, where we shall have a better view over the wide plain, the valley, and the long, tame ridge of hills on the other side, shutting it in like human life. it is a landscape that never tires, though it has nothing striking about it; and i am glad that there are no great hills to be thrusting themselves into my thoughts, and crowding out better things. it might be desirable, in some states of mind, to have a glimpse of water,--to have the lake that once must have covered this green valley,--because water reflects the sky, and so is like religion in life, the spiritual element." "there is the brook running through it, though we do not see it," replied rose; "a torpid little brook, to be sure; but, as you say, it has heaven in its bosom, like walden pond, or any wider one." as they sat together on the hill-top, they could look down into robert hagburn's enclosure, and they saw him, with his arm now relieved from the sling, walking about, in a very erect manner, with a middle-aged man by his side, to whom he seemed to be talking and explaining some matter. even at that distance septimius could see that the rustic stoop and uncouthness had somehow fallen away from robert, and that he seemed developed. "what has come to robert hagburn?" said he. "he looks like another man than the lout i knew a few weeks ago." "nothing," said rose garfield, "except what comes to a good many young men nowadays. he has enlisted, and is going to the war. it is a pity for his mother." "a great pity," said septimius. "mothers are greatly to be pitied all over the country just now, and there are some even more to be pitied than the mothers, though many of them do not know or suspect anything about their cause of grief at present." "of whom do you speak?" asked rose. "i mean those many good and sweet young girls," said septimius, "who would have been happy wives to the thousands of young men who now, like robert hagburn, are going to the war. those young men--many of them at least--will sicken and die in camp, or be shot down, or struck through with bayonets on battle-fields, and turn to dust and bones; while the girls that would have loved them, and made happy firesides for them, will pine and wither, and tread along many sour and discontented years, and at last go out of life without knowing what life is. so you see, rose, every shot that takes effect kills two at least, or kills one and worse than kills the other." "no woman will live single on account of poor robert hagburn being shot," said rose, with a change of tone; "for he would never be married were he to stay at home and plough the field." "how can you tell that, rose?" asked septimius. rose did not tell how she came to know so much about robert hagburn's matrimonial purposes; but after this little talk it appeared as if something had risen up between them,--a sort of mist, a medium, in which their intimacy was not increased; for the flow and interchange of sentiment was balked, and they took only one or two turns in silence along septimius's trodden path. i don't know exactly what it was; but there are cases in which it is inscrutably revealed to persons that they have made a mistake in what is of the highest concern to them; and this truth often comes in the shape of a vague depression of the spirit, like a vapor settling down on a landscape; a misgiving, coming and going perhaps, a lack of perfect certainty. whatever it was, rose and septimius had no more tender and playful words that day; and rose soon went to look after her grandmother, and septimius went and shut himself up in his study, after making an arrangement to meet rose the next day. septimius shut himself up, and drew forth the document which the young officer, with that singular smile on his dying face, had bequeathed to him as the reward of his death. it was in a covering of folded parchment, right through which, as aforesaid, was a bullet-hole and some stains of blood. septimius unrolled the parchment cover, and found inside a manuscript, closely written in a crabbed hand; so crabbed, indeed, that septimius could not at first read a word of it, nor even satisfy himself in what language it was written. there seemed to be latin words, and some interspersed ones in greek characters, and here and there he could doubtfully read an english sentence; but, on the whole, it was an unintelligible mass, conveying somehow an idea that it was the fruit of vast labor and erudition, emanating from a mind very full of books, and grinding and pressing down the great accumulation of grapes that it had gathered from so many vineyards, and squeezing out rich viscid juices,--potent wine,--with which the reader might get drunk. some of it, moreover, seemed, for the further mystification of the officer, to be written in cipher; a needless precaution, it might seem, when the writer's natural chirography was so full of puzzle and bewilderment. septimius looked at this strange manuscript, and it shook in his hands as he held it before his eyes, so great was his excitement. probably, doubtless, it was in a great measure owing to the way in which it came to him, with such circumstances of tragedy and mystery; as if--so secret and so important was it--it could not be within the knowledge of two persons at once, and therefore it was necessary that one should die in the act of transmitting it to the hand of another, the destined possessor, inheritor, profiter by it. by the bloody hand, as all the great possessions in this world have been gained and inherited, he had succeeded to the legacy, the richest that mortal man ever could receive. he pored over the inscrutable sentences, and wondered, when he should succeed in reading one, if it might summon up a subject-fiend, appearing with thunder and devilish demonstrations. and by what other strange chance had the document come into the hand of him who alone was fit to receive it? it seemed to septimius, in his enthusiastic egotism, as if the whole chain of events had been arranged purposely for this end; a difference had come between two kindred peoples; a war had broken out; a young officer, with the traditions of an old family represented in his line, had marched, and had met with a peaceful student, who had been incited from high and noble motives to take his life; then came a strange, brief intimacy, in which his victim made the slayer his heir. all these chances, as they seemed, all these interferences of providence, as they doubtless were, had been necessary in order to put this manuscript into the hands of septimius, who now pored over it, and could not with certainty read one word! but this did not trouble him, except for the momentary delay. because he felt well assured that the strong, concentrated study that he would bring to it would remove all difficulties, as the rays of a lens melt stones; as the telescope pierces through densest light of stars, and resolves them into their individual brilliancies. he could afford to spend years upon it if it were necessary; but earnestness and application should do quickly the work of years. amid these musings he was interrupted by his aunt keziah; though generally observant enough of her nephew's studies, and feeling a sanctity in them, both because of his intending to be a minister and because she had a great reverence for learning, even if heathenish, this good old lady summoned septimius somewhat peremptorily to chop wood for her domestic purposes. how strange it is,--the way in which we are summoned from all high purposes by these little homely necessities; all symbolizing the great fact that the earthly part of us, with its demands, takes up the greater portion of all our available force. so septimius, grumbling and groaning, went to the woodshed and exercised himself for an hour as the old lady requested; and it was only by instinct that he worked, hardly conscious what he was doing. the whole of passing life seemed impertinent; or if, for an instant, it seemed otherwise, then his lonely speculations and plans seemed to become impalpable, and to have only the consistency of vapor, which his utmost concentration succeeded no further than to make into the likeness of absurd faces, mopping, mowing, and laughing at him. but that sentence of mystic meaning shone out before him like a transparency, illuminated in the darkness of his mind; he determined to take it for his motto until he should be victorious in his quest. when he took his candle, to retire apparently to bed, he again drew forth the manuscript, and, sitting down by the dim light, tried vainly to read it; but he could not as yet settle himself to concentrated and regular effort; he kept turning the leaves of the manuscript, in the hope that some other illuminated sentence might gleam out upon him, as the first had done, and shed a light on the context around it; and that then another would be discovered, with similar effect, until the whole document would thus be illuminated with separate stars of light, converging and concentrating in one radiance that should make the whole visible. but such was his bad fortune, not another word of the manuscript was he able to read that whole evening; and, moreover, while he had still an inch of candle left, aunt keziah, in her nightcap,--as witch-like a figure as ever went to a wizard meeting in the forest with septimius's ancestor,--appeared at the door of the room, aroused from her bed, and shaking her finger at him. "septimius," said she, "you keep me awake, and you will ruin your eyes, and turn your head, if you study till midnight in this manner. you'll never live to be a minister, if this is the way you go on." "well, well, aunt keziah," said septimius, covering his manuscript with a book, "i am just going to bed now." "good night, then," said the old woman; "and god bless your labors." strangely enough, a glance at the manuscript, as he hid it from the old woman, had seemed to septimius to reveal another sentence, of which he had imperfectly caught the purport; and when she had gone, he in vain sought the place, and vainly, too, endeavored to recall the meaning of what he had read. doubtless his fancy exaggerated the importance of the sentence, and he felt as if it might have vanished from the book forever. in fact, the unfortunate young man, excited and tossed to and fro by a variety of unusual impulses, was got into a bad way, and was likely enough to go mad, unless the balancing portion of his mind proved to be of greater volume and effect than as yet appeared to be the case. * * * * * the next morning he was up, bright and early, poring over the manuscript with the sharpened wits of the new day, peering into its night, into its old, blurred, forgotten dream; and, indeed, he had been dreaming about it, and was fully possessed with the idea that, in his dream, he had taken up the inscrutable document, and read it off as glibly as he would the page of a modern drama, in a continual rapture with the deep truth that it made clear to his comprehension, and the lucid way in which it evolved the mode in which man might be restored to his originally undying state. so strong was the impression, that when he unfolded the manuscript, it was with almost the belief that the crabbed old handwriting would be plain to him. such did not prove to be the case, however; so far from it, that poor septimius in vain turned over the yellow pages in quest of the one sentence which he had been able, or fancied he had been able, to read yesterday. the illumination that had brought it out was now faded, and all was a blur, an inscrutableness, a scrawl of unintelligible characters alike. so much did this affect him, that he had almost a mind to tear it into a thousand fragments, and scatter it out of the window to the west-wind, that was then blowing past the house; and if, in that summer season, there had been a fire on the hearth, it is possible that easy realization of a destructive impulse might have incited him to fling the accursed scrawl into the hottest of the flames, and thus returned it to the devil, who, he suspected, was the original author of it. had he done so, what strange and gloomy passages would i have been spared the pain of relating! how different would have been the life of septimius,--a thoughtful preacher of god's word, taking severe but conscientious views of man's state and relations, a heavy-browed walker and worker on earth, and, finally, a slumberer in an honored grave, with an epitaph bearing testimony to his great usefulness in his generation. but, in the mean time, here was the troublesome day passing over him, and pestering, bewildering, and tripping him up with its mere sublunary troubles, as the days will all of us the moment we try to do anything that we flatter ourselves is of a little more importance than others are doing. aunt keziah tormented him a great while about the rich field, just across the road, in front of the house, which septimius had neglected the cultivation of, unwilling to spare the time to plough, to plant, to hoe it himself, but hired a lazy lout of the village, when he might just as well have employed and paid wages to the scarecrow which aunt keziah dressed out in ancient habiliments, and set up in the midst of the corn. then came an old codger from the village, talking to septimius about the war,--a theme of which he was weary: telling the rumor of skirmishes that the next day would prove to be false, of battles that were immediately to take place, of encounters with the enemy in which our side showed the valor of twenty-fold heroes, but had to retreat; babbling about shells and mortars, battalions, manoeuvres, angles, fascines, and other items of military art; for war had filled the whole brain of the people, and enveloped the whole thought of man in a mist of gunpowder. in this way, sitting on his doorstep, or in the very study, haunted by such speculations, this wretched old man would waste the better part of a summer afternoon while septimius listened, returning abstracted monosyllables, answering amiss, and wishing his persecutor jammed into one of the cannons he talked about, and fired off, to end his interminable babble in one roar; [talking] of great officers coming from france and other countries; of overwhelming forces from england, to put an end to the war at once; of the unlikelihood that it ever should be ended; of its hopelessness; of its certainty of a good and speedy end. then came limping along the lane a disabled soldier, begging his way home from the field, which, a little while ago, he had sought in the full vigor of rustic health he was never to know again; with whom septimius had to talk, and relieve his wants as far as he could (though not from the poor young officer's deposit of english gold), and send him on his way. then came the minister to talk with his former pupil, about whom he had latterly had much meditation, not understanding what mood had taken possession of him; for the minister was a man of insight, and from conversations with septimius, as searching as he knew how to make them, he had begun to doubt whether he were sufficiently sound in faith to adopt the clerical persuasion. not that he supposed him to be anything like a confirmed unbeliever: but he thought it probable that these doubts, these strange, dark, disheartening suggestions of the devil, that so surely infect certain temperaments and measures of intellect, were tormenting poor septimius, and pulling him back from the path in which he was capable of doing so much good. so he came this afternoon to talk seriously with him, and to advise him, if the case were as he supposed, to get for a time out of the track of the thought in which he had so long been engaged; to enter into active life; and by and by, when the morbid influences should have been overcome by a change of mental and moral religion, he might return, fresh and healthy, to his original design. "what can i do," asked septimius, gloomily, "what business take up, when the whole land lies waste and idle, except for this war?" "there is the very business, then," said the minister. "do you think god's work is not to be done in the field as well as in the pulpit? you are strong, septimius, of a bold character, and have a mien and bearing that gives you a natural command among men. go to the wars, and do a valiant part for your country, and come back to your peaceful mission when the enemy has vanished. or you might go as chaplain to a regiment, and use either hand in battle,--pray for success before a battle, help win it with sword or gun, and give thanks to god, kneeling on the bloody field, at its close. you have already stretched one foe on your native soil." septimius could not but smile within himself at this warlike and bloody counsel; and, joining it with some similar exhortations from aunt keziah, he was inclined to think that women and clergymen are, in matters of war, the most uncompromising and bloodthirsty of the community. however, he replied, coolly, that his moral impulses and his feelings of duty did not exactly impel him in this direction, and that he was of opinion that war was a business in which a man could not engage with safety to his conscience, unless his conscience actually drove him into it; and that this made all the difference between heroic battle and murderous strife. the good minister had nothing very effectual to answer to this, and took his leave, with a still stronger opinion than before that there was something amiss in his pupil's mind. by this time, this thwarting day had gone on through its course of little and great impediments to his pursuit,--the discouragements of trifling and earthly business, of purely impertinent interruption, of severe and disheartening opposition from the powerful counteraction of different kinds of mind,--until the hour had come at which he had arranged to meet rose garfield. i am afraid the poor thwarted youth did not go to his love-tryst in any very amiable mood; but rather, perhaps, reflecting how all things earthly and immortal, and love among the rest, whichever category, of earth or heaven, it may belong to, set themselves against man's progress in any pursuit that he seeks to devote himself to. it is one struggle, the moment he undertakes such a thing, of everything else in the world to impede him. however, as it turned out, it was a pleasant and happy interview that he had with rose that afternoon. the girl herself was in a happy, tuneful mood, and met him with such simplicity, threw such a light of sweetness over his soul, that septimius almost forgot all the wild cares of the day, and walked by her side with a quiet fulness of pleasure that was new to him. she reconciled him, in some secret way, to life as it was, to imperfection, to decay; without any help from her intellect, but through the influence of her character, she seemed, not to solve, but to smooth away, problems that troubled him; merely by being, by womanhood, by simplicity, she interpreted god's ways to him; she softened the stoniness that was gathering about his heart. and so they had a delightful time of talking, and laughing, and smelling to flowers; and when they were parting, septimius said to her,-- "rose, you have convinced me that this is a most happy world, and that life has its two children, birth and death, and is bound to prize them equally; and that god is very kind to his earthly children; and that all will go well." "and have i convinced you of all this?" replied rose, with a pretty laughter. "it is all true, no doubt, but i should not have known how to argue for it. but you are very sweet, and have not frightened me to-day." "do i ever frighten you then, rose?" asked septimius, bending his black brow upon her with a look of surprise and displeasure. "yes, sometimes," said rose, facing him with courage, and smiling upon the cloud so as to drive it away; "when you frown upon me like that, i am a little afraid you will beat me, all in good time." "now," said septimius, laughing again, "you shall have your choice, to be beaten on the spot, or suffer another kind of punishment,--which?" so saying, he snatched her to him, and strove to kiss her, while rose, laughing and struggling, cried out, "the beating! the beating!" but septimius relented not, though it was only rose's cheek that he succeeded in touching. in truth, except for that first one, at the moment of their plighted troths, i doubt whether septimius ever touched those soft, sweet lips, where the smiles dwelt and the little pouts. he now returned to his study, and questioned with himself whether he should touch that weary, ugly, yellow, blurred, unintelligible, bewitched, mysterious, bullet-penetrated, blood-stained manuscript again. there was an undefinable reluctance to do so, and at the same time an enticement (irresistible, as it proved) drawing him towards it. he yielded, and taking it from his desk, in which the precious, fatal treasure was locked up, he plunged into it again, and this time with a certain degree of success. he found the line which had before gleamed out, and vanished again, and which now started out in strong relief; even as when sometimes we see a certain arrangement of stars in the heavens, and again lose it, by not seeing its individual stars in the same relation as before; even so, looking at the manuscript in a different way, septimius saw this fragment of a sentence, and saw, moreover, what was necessary to give it a certain meaning. "set the root in a grave, and wait for what shall blossom. it will be very rich, and full of juice." this was the purport, he now felt sure, of the sentence he had lighted upon; and he took it to refer to the mode of producing something that was essential to the thing to be concocted. it might have only a moral being; or, as is generally the case, the moral and physical truth went hand in hand. while septimius was busying himself in this way, the summer advanced, and with it there appeared a new character, making her way into our pages. this was a slender and pale girl, whom septimius was once startled to find, when he ascended his hill-top, to take his walk to and fro upon the accustomed path, which he had now worn deep. what was stranger, she sat down close beside the grave, which none but he and the minister knew to be a grave; that little hillock, which he had levelled a little, and had planted with various flowers and shrubs; which the summer had fostered into richness, the poor young man below having contributed what he could, and tried to render them as beautiful as he might, in remembrance of his own beauty. septimius wished to conceal the fact of its being a grave: not that he was tormented with any sense that he had done wrong in shooting the young man, which had been done in fair battle; but still it was not the pleasantest of thoughts, that he had laid a beautiful human creature, so fit for the enjoyment of life, there, when his own dark brow, his own troubled breast, might better, he could not but acknowledge, have been covered up there. [_perhaps there might sometimes be something fantastically gay in the language and behavior of the girl._] well; but then, on this flower and shrub-disguised grave, sat this unknown form of a girl, with a slender, pallid, melancholy grace about her, simply dressed in a dark attire, which she drew loosely about her. at first glimpse, septimius fancied that it might be rose; but it needed only a glance to undeceive him; her figure was of another character from the vigorous, though slight and elastic beauty of rose; this was a drooping grace, and when he came near enough to see her face, he saw that those large, dark, melancholy eyes, with which she had looked at him, had never met his gaze before. "good-morrow, fair maiden," said septimius, with such courtesy as he knew how to use (which, to say truth, was of a rustic order, his way of life having brought him little into female society). "there is a nice air here on the hill-top, this sultry morning below the hill!" as he spoke, he continued to look wonderingly at the strange maiden, half fancying that she might be something that had grown up out of the grave; so unexpected she was, so simply unlike anything that had before come there. the girl did not speak to him, but as she sat by the grave she kept weeding out the little white blades of faded autumn grass and yellow pine-spikes, peering into the soil as if to see what it was all made of, and everything that was growing there; and in truth, whether by septimius's care or no, there seemed to be several kinds of flowers,--those little asters that abound everywhere, and golden flowers, such as autumn supplies with abundance. she seemed to be in quest of something, and several times plucked a leaf and examined it carefully; then threw it down again, and shook her head. at last she lifted up her pale face, and, fixing her eyes quietly on septimius, spoke: "it is not here!" a very sweet voice it was,--plaintive, low,--and she spoke to septimius as if she were familiar with him, and had something to do with him. he was greatly interested, not being able to imagine who the strange girl was, or whence she came, or what, of all things, could be her reason for coming and sitting down by this grave, and apparently botanizing upon it, in quest of some particular plant. "are you in search of flowers?" asked septimius. "this is but a barren spot for them, and this is not a good season. in the meadows, and along the margin of the watercourses, you might find the fringed gentian at this time. in the woods there are several pretty flowers,--the side-saddle flower, the anemone; violets are plentiful in spring, and make the whole hill-side blue. but this hill-top, with its soil strewn over a heap of pebble-stones, is no place for flowers." "the soil is fit," said the maiden, "but the flower has not sprung up." "what flower do you speak of?" asked septimius. "one that is not here," said the pale girl. "no matter. i will look for it again next spring." "do you, then, dwell hereabout?" inquired septimius. "surely," said the maiden, with a look of surprise; "where else should i dwell? my home is on this hilltop." it not a little startled septimius, as may be supposed, to find his paternal inheritance, of which he and his forefathers had been the only owners since the world began (for they held it by an indian deed), claimed as a home and abiding-place by this fair, pale, strange-acting maiden, who spoke as if she had as much right there as if she had grown up out of the soil like one of the wild, indigenous flowers which she had been gazing at and handling. however that might be, the maiden seemed now about to depart, rising, giving a farewell touch or two to the little verdant hillock, which looked much the neater for her ministrations. "are you going?" said septimius, looking at her in wonder. "for a time," said she. "and shall i see you again?" asked he. "surely," said the maiden, "this is my walk, along the brow of the hill." it again smote septimius with a strange thrill of surprise to find the walk which he himself had made, treading it, and smoothing it, and beating it down with the pressure of his continual feet, from the time when the tufted grass made the sides all uneven, until now, when it was such a pathway as you may see through a wood, or over a field, where many feet pass every day,--to find this track and exemplification of his own secret thoughts and plans and emotions, this writing of his body, impelled by the struggle and movement of his soul, claimed as her own by a strange girl with melancholy eyes and voice, who seemed to have such a sad familiarity with him. "you are welcome to come here," said he, endeavoring at least to keep such hold on his own property as was implied in making a hospitable surrender of it to another. "yes," said the girl, "a person should always be welcome to his own." a faint smile seemed to pass over her face as she said this, vanishing, however, immediately into the melancholy of her usual expression. she went along septimius's path, while he stood gazing at her till she reached the brow where it sloped towards robert hagburn's house; then she turned, and seemed to wave a slight farewell towards the young man, and began to descend. when her figure had entirely sunk behind the brow of the hill, septimius slowly followed along the ridge, meaning to watch from that elevated station the course she would take; although, indeed, he would not have been surprised if he had seen nothing, no trace of her in the whole nearness or distance; in short, if she had been a freak, an illusion, of a hard-working mind that had put itself ajar by deeply brooding on abstruse matters, an illusion of eyes that he had tried too much by poring over the inscrutable manuscript, and of intellect that was mystified and bewildered by trying to grasp things that could not be grasped. a thing of witchcraft, a sort of fungus-growth out of the grave, an unsubstantiality altogether; although, certainly, she had weeded the grave with bodily fingers, at all events. still he had so much of the hereditary mysticism of his race in him, that he might have held her supernatural, only that on reaching the brow of the hill he saw her feet approach the dwelling of robert hagburn's mother, who, moreover, appeared at the threshold beckoning her to come, with a motherly, hospitable air, that denoted she knew the strange girl, and recognized her as human. it did not lessen septimius's surprise, however, to think that such a singular being was established in the neighborhood without his knowledge; considered as a real occurrence of this world, it seemed even more unaccountable than if it had been a thing of ghostology and witchcraft. continually through the day the incident kept introducing its recollection among his thoughts and studies; continually, as he paced along his path, this form seemed to hurry along by his side on the track that she had claimed for her own, and he thought of her singular threat or promise, whichever it were to be held, that he should have a companion there in future. in the decline of the day, when he met the schoolmistress coming home from her little seminary, he snatched the first opportunity to mention the apparition of the morning, and ask rose if she knew anything of her. "very little," said rose, "but she is flesh and blood, of that you may be quite sure. she is a girl who has been shut up in boston by the siege; perhaps a daughter of one of the british officers, and her health being frail, she requires better air than they have there, and so permission was got for her, from general washington, to come and live in the country; as any one may see, our liberties have nothing to fear from this poor brain-stricken girl. and robert hagburn, having to bring a message from camp to the selectmen here, had it in charge to bring the girl, whom his mother has taken to board." "then the poor thing is crazy?" asked septimius. "a little brain-touched, that is all," replied rose, "owing to some grief that she has had; but she is quite harmless, robert was told to say, and needs little or no watching, and will get a kind of fantastic happiness for herself, if only she is allowed to ramble about at her pleasure. if thwarted, she might be very wild and miserable." "have you spoken with her?" asked septimius. "a word or two this morning, as i was going to my school," said rose. "she took me by the hand, and smiled, and said we would be friends, and that i should show her where the flowers grew; for that she had a little spot of her own that she wanted to plant with them. and she asked me if the _sanguinea sanguinissima_ grew hereabout. i should not have taken her to be ailing in her wits, only for a kind of free-spokenness and familiarity, as if we had been acquainted a long while; or as if she had lived in some country where there are no forms and impediments in people's getting acquainted." "did you like her?" inquired septimius. "yes; almost loved her at first sight," answered rose, "and i hope may do her some little good, poor thing, being of her own age, and the only companion, hereabouts, whom she is likely to find. but she has been well educated, and is a lady, that is easy to see." "it is very strange," said septimius, "but i fear i shall be a good deal interrupted in my thoughts and studies, if she insists on haunting my hill-top as much as she tells me. my meditations are perhaps of a little too much importance to be shoved aside for the sake of gratifying a crazy girl's fantasies." "ah, that is a hard thing to say!" exclaimed rose, shocked at her lover's cold egotism, though not giving it that title. "let the poor thing glide quietly along in the path, though it be yours. perhaps, after a while, she will help your thoughts." "my thoughts," said septimius, "are of a kind that can have no help from any one; if from any, it would only be from some wise, long-studied, and experienced scientific man, who could enlighten me as to the bases and foundation of things, as to mystic writings, as to chemical elements, as to the mysteries of language, as to the principles and system on which we were created. methinks these are not to be taught me by a girl touched in the wits." "i fear," replied rose garfield with gravity, and drawing imperceptibly apart from him, "that no woman can help you much. you despise woman's thought, and have no need of her affection." septimius said something soft and sweet, and in a measure true, in regard to the necessity he felt for the affection and sympathy of one woman at least--the one now by his side--to keep his life warm and to make the empty chambers of his heart comfortable. but even while he spoke, there was something that dragged upon his tongue; for he felt that the solitary pursuit in which he was engaged carried him apart from the sympathy of which he spoke, and that he was concentrating his efforts and interest entirely upon himself, and that the more he succeeded the more remotely he should be carried away, and that his final triumph would be the complete seclusion of himself from all that breathed,--the converting him, from an interested actor into a cold and disconnected spectator of all mankind's warm and sympathetic life. so, as it turned out, this interview with rose was one of those in which, coming no one knows from whence, a nameless cloud springs up between two lovers, and keeps them apart from one another by a cold, sullen spell. usually, however, it requires only one word, spoken out of the heart, to break that spell, and compel the invisible, unsympathetic medium which the enemy of love has stretched cunningly between them, to vanish, and let them come closer together than ever; but, in this case, it might be that the love was the illusive state, and the estrangement the real truth, the disenchanted verity. at all events, when the feeling passed away, in rose's heart there was no reaction, no warmer love, as is generally the case. as for septimius, he had other things to think about, and when he next met rose garfield, had forgotten that he had been sensible of a little wounded feeling, on her part, at parting. by dint of continued poring over the manuscript, septimius now began to comprehend that it was written in a singular mixture of latin and ancient english, with constantly recurring paragraphs of what he was convinced was a mystic writing; and these recurring passages of complete unintelligibility seemed to be necessary to the proper understanding of any part of the document. what was discoverable was quaint, curious, but thwarting and perplexing, because it seemed to imply some very great purpose, only to be brought out by what was hidden. septimius had read, in the old college library during his pupilage, a work on ciphers and cryptic writing, but being drawn to it only by his curiosity respecting whatever was hidden, and not expecting ever to use his knowledge, he had obtained only the barest idea of what was necessary to the deciphering a secret passage. judging by what he could pick out, he would have thought the whole essay was upon the moral conduct; all parts of that he could make out seeming to refer to a certain ascetic rule of life; to denial of pleasures; these topics being repeated and insisted on everywhere, although without any discoverable reference to religious or moral motives; and always when the author seemed verging towards a definite purpose, he took refuge in his cipher. yet withal, imperfectly (or not at all, rather) as septimius could comprehend its purport, this strange writing had a mystic influence, that wrought upon his imagination, and with the late singular incidents of his life, his continual thought on this one subject, his walk on the hill-top, lonely, or only interrupted by the pale shadow of a girl, combined to set him outside of the living world. rose garfield perceived it, knew and felt that he was gliding away from her, and met him with a reserve which she could not overcome. it was a pity that his early friend, robert hagburn, could not at present have any influence over him, having now regularly joined the continental army, and being engaged in the expedition of arnold against quebec. indeed, this war, in which the country was so earnestly and enthusiastically engaged, had perhaps an influence on septimius's state of mind, for it put everybody into an exaggerated and unnatural state, united enthusiasms of all sorts, heightened everybody either into its own heroism or into the peculiar madness to which each person was inclined; and septimius walked so much the more wildly on his lonely course, because the people were going enthusiastically on another. in times of revolution and public disturbance all absurdities are more unrestrained; the measure of calm sense, the habits, the orderly decency, are partially lost. more people become insane, i should suppose; offences against public morality, female license, are more numerous; suicides, murders, all ungovernable outbreaks of men's thoughts, embodying themselves in wild acts, take place more frequently, and with less horror to the lookers-on. so [with] septimius; there was not, as there would have been at an ordinary time, the same calmness and truth in the public observation, scrutinizing everything with its keen criticism, in that time of seething opinions and overturned principles; a new time was coming, and septimius's phase of novelty attracted less attention so far as it was known. so he continued to brood over the manuscript in his study, and to hide it under lock and key in a recess of the wall, as if it were a secret of murder; to walk, too, on his hill-top, where at sunset always came the pale, crazy maiden, who still seemed to watch the little hillock with a pertinacious care that was strange to septimius. by and by came the winter and the deep snows; and even then, unwilling to give up his habitual place of exercise, the monotonousness of which promoted his wish to keep before his mind one subject of thought, septimius wore a path through the snow, and still walked there. here, however, he lost for a time the companionship of the girl; for when the first snow came, she shivered, and looked at its white heap over the hillock, and said to septimius, "i will look for it again in spring." [_septimius is at the point of despair for want of a guide in his studies_.] the winter swept over, and spring was just beginning to spread its green flush over the more favored exposures of the landscape, although on the north side of stone-walls, and the northern nooks of hills, there were still the remnants of snow-drifts. septimius's hill-top, which was of a soil which quickly rid itself of moisture, now began to be a genial place of resort to him, and he was one morning taking his walk there, meditating upon the still insurmountable difficulties which interposed themselves against the interpretation of the manuscript, yet feeling the new gush of spring bring hope to him, and the energy and elasticity for new effort. thus pacing to and fro, he was surprised, as he turned at the extremity of his walk, to see a figure advancing towards him; not that of the pale maiden whom he was accustomed to see there, but a figure as widely different as possible. [_he sees a spider dangling from his web, and examines him minutely_.] it was that of a short, broad, somewhat elderly man, dressed in a surtout that had a half-military air; the cocked hat of the period, well worn, and having a fresher spot in it, whence, perhaps, a cockade had been recently taken off; and this personage carried a well blackened german pipe in his hand, which, as he walked, he applied to his lips, and puffed out volumes of smoke, filling the pleasant western breeze with the fragrance of some excellent virginia. he came slowly along, and septimius, slackening his pace a little, came as slowly to meet him, feeling somewhat indignant, to be sure, that anybody should intrude on his sacred hill; until at last they met, as it happened, close by the memorable little hillock, on which the grass and flower-leaves also had begun to sprout. the stranger looked keenly at septimius, made a careless salute by putting his hand up, and took the pipe from his mouth. "mr. septimius felton, i suppose?" said he. "that is my name," replied septimius. "i am doctor jabez portsoaken," said the stranger, "late surgeon of his majesty's sixteenth regiment, which i quitted when his majesty's army quitted boston, being desirous of trying my fortunes in your country, and giving the people the benefit of my scientific knowledge; also to practise some new modes of medical science, which i could not so well do in the army." "i think you are quite right, doctor jabez portsoaken," said septimius, a little confused and bewildered, so unused had he become to the society of strangers. "and as to you, sir," said the doctor, who had a very rough, abrupt way of speaking, "i have to thank you for a favor done me." "have you, sir?" said septimius, who was quite sure that he had never seen the doctor's uncouth figure before. "oh, ay, me," said the doctor, puffing coolly,--"me in the person of my niece, a sickly, poor, nervous little thing, who is very fond of walking on your hill-top, and whom you do not send away." "you are the uncle of sibyl dacy?" said septimius. "even so, her mother's brother," said the doctor, with a grotesque bow. "so, being on a visit, the first that the siege allowed me to pay, to see how the girl was getting on, i take the opportunity to pay my respects to you; the more that i understand you to be a young man of some learning, and it is not often that one meets with such in this country." "no," said septimius, abruptly, for indeed he had half a suspicion that this queer doctor portsoaken was not altogether sincere,--that, in short, he was making game of him. "you have been misinformed. i know nothing whatever that is worth knowing." "oho!" said the doctor, with a long puff of smoke out of his pipe. "if you are convinced of that, you are one of the wisest men i have met with, young as you are. i must have been twice your age before i got so far; and even now, i am sometimes fool enough to doubt the only thing i was ever sure of knowing. but come, you make me only the more earnest to collogue with you. if we put both our shortcomings together, they may make up an item of positive knowledge." "what use can one make of abortive thoughts?" said septimius. "do your speculations take a scientific turn?" said doctor portsoaken. "there i can meet you with as much false knowledge and empiricism as you can bring for the life of you. have you ever tried to study spiders?--there is my strong point now! i have hung my whole interest in life on a spider's web." "i know nothing of them, sir," said septimius, "except to crush them when i see them running across the floor, or to brush away the festoons of their webs when they have chanced to escape my aunt keziah's broom." "crush them! brush away their webs!" cried the doctor, apparently in a rage, and shaking his pipe at septimius. "sir, it is sacrilege! yes, it is worse than murder. every thread of a spider's web is worth more than a thread of gold; and before twenty years are passed, a housemaid will be beaten to death with her own broomstick if she disturbs one of these sacred animals. but, come again. shall we talk of botany, the virtues of herbs?" "my aunt keziah should meet you there, doctor," said septimius. "she has a native and original acquaintance with their virtues, and can save and kill with any of the faculty. as for myself, my studies have not turned that way." "they ought! they ought!" said the doctor, looking meaningly at him. "the whole thing lies in the blossom of an herb. now, you ought to begin with what lies about you; on this little hillock, for instance;" and looking at the grave beside which they were standing, he gave it a kick which went to septimius's heart, there seemed to be such a spite and scorn in it. "on this hillock i see some specimens of plants which would be worth your looking at." bending down towards the grave as he spoke, he seemed to give closer attention to what he saw there; keeping in his stooping position till his face began to get a purple aspect, for the erudite doctor was of that make of man who has to be kept right side uppermost with care. at length he raised himself, muttering, "very curious! very curious!" "do you see anything remarkable there?" asked septimius, with some interest. "yes," said the doctor, bluntly. "no matter what! the time will come when you may like to know it." "will you come with me to my residence at the foot of the hill, doctor portsoaken?" asked septimius. "i am not a learned man, and have little or no title to converse with one, except a sincere desire to be wiser than i am. if you can be moved on such terms to give me your companionship, i shall be thankful." "sir, i am with you," said doctor portsoaken. "i will tell you what i know, in the sure belief (for i will be frank with you) that it will add to the amount of dangerous folly now in your mind, and help you on the way to ruin. take your choice, therefore, whether to know me further or not." "i neither shrink nor fear,--neither hope much," said septimius, quietly. "anything that you can communicate--if anything you can--i shall fearlessly receive, and return you such thanks as it may be found to deserve." so saying, he led the way down the hill, by the steep path that descended abruptly upon the rear of his bare and unadorned little dwelling; the doctor following with much foul language (for he had a terrible habit of swearing) at the difficulties of the way, to which his short legs were ill adapted. aunt keziah met them at the door, and looked sharply at the doctor, who returned the gaze with at least as much keenness, muttering between his teeth, as he did so; and to say the truth, aunt keziah was as worthy of being sworn at as any woman could well be, for whatever she might have been in her younger days, she was at this time as strange a mixture of an indian squaw and herb doctress, with the crabbed old maid, and a mingling of the witch-aspect running through all as could well be imagined; and she had a handkerchief over her head, and she was of hue a dusky yellow, and she looked very cross. as septimius ushered the doctor into his study, and was about to follow him, aunt keziah drew him back. "septimius, who is this you have brought here?" asked she. "a man i have met on the hill," answered her nephew; "a doctor portsoaken he calls himself, from the old country. he says he has knowledge of herbs and other mysteries; in your own line, it may be. if you want to talk with him, give the man his dinner, and find out what there is in him." "and what do you want of him yourself, septimius?" asked she. "i? nothing!--that is to say, i expect nothing," said septimius. "but i am astray, seeking everywhere, and so i reject no hint, no promise, no faintest possibility of aid that i may find anywhere. i judge this man to be a quack, but i judge the same of the most learned man of his profession, or any other; and there is a roughness about this man that may indicate a little more knowledge than if he were smoother. so, as he threw himself in my way, i take him in." "a grim, ugly-looking old wretch as ever i saw," muttered aunt keziah. "well, he shall have his dinner; and if he likes to talk about yarb-dishes, i'm with him." so septimius followed the doctor into his study, where he found him with the sword in his hand, which he had taken from over the mantel-piece, and was holding it drawn, examining the hilt and blade with great minuteness; the hilt being wrought in openwork, with certain heraldic devices, doubtless belonging to the family of its former wearer. "i have seen this weapon before," said the doctor. "it may well be," said septimius. "it was once worn by a person who served in the army of your king." "and you took it from him?" said the doctor. "if i did, it was in no way that i need be ashamed of, or afraid to tell, though i choose rather not to speak of it," answered septimius. "have you, then, no desire nor interest to know the family, the personal history, the prospects, of him who once wore this sword, and who will never draw sword again?" inquired doctor portsoaken. "poor cyril norton! there was a singular story attached to that young man, sir, and a singular mystery he carried about with him, the end of which, perhaps, is not yet." septimius would have been, indeed, well enough pleased to learn the mystery which he himself had seen that there was about the man whom he slew; but he was afraid that some question might be thereby started about the secret document that he had kept possession of; and he therefore would have wished to avoid the whole subject. "i cannot be supposed to take much interest in english family history. it is a hundred and fifty years, at least, since my own family ceased to be english," he answered. "i care more for the present and future than for the past." "it is all one," said the doctor, sitting down, taking out a pinch of tobacco and refilling his pipe. it is unnecessary to follow up the description of the visit of the eccentric doctor through the day. suffice it to say that there was a sort of charm, or rather fascination, about the uncouth old fellow, in spite of his strange ways; in spite of his constant puffing of tobacco; and in spite, too, of a constant imbibing of strong liquor, which he made inquiries for, and of which the best that could be produced was a certain decoction, infusion, or distillation, pertaining to aunt keziah, and of which the basis was rum, be it said, done up with certain bitter herbs of the old lady's own gathering, at proper times of the moon, and which was a well-known drink to all who were favored with aunt keziah's friendship; though there was a story that it was the very drink which used to be passed round at witch-meetings, being brewed from the devil's own recipe. and, in truth, judging from the taste (for i once took a sip of a draught prepared from the same ingredients, and in the same way), i should think this hellish origin might be the veritable one. [_"i thought" quoth the doctor, "i could drink anything, but"_--] but the valiant doctor sipped, and sipped again, and said with great blasphemy that it was the real stuff, and only needed henbane to make it perfect. then, taking from his pocket a good-sized leathern-covered flask, with a silver lip fastened on the muzzle, he offered it to septimius, who declined, and to aunt keziah, who preferred her own decoction, and then drank it off himself, with a loud smack of satisfaction, declaring it to be infernally good brandy. well, after this septimius and he talked; and i know not how it was, but there was a great deal of imagination in this queer man, whether a bodily or spiritual influence it might be hard to say. on the other hand septimius had for a long while held little intercourse with men; none whatever with men who could comprehend him; the doctor, too, seemed to bring the discourse singularly in apposition with what his host was continually thinking about, for he conversed on occult matters, on people who had had the art of living long, and had only died at last by accident, on the powers and qualities of common herbs, which he believed to be so great, that all around our feet--growing in the wild forest, afar from man, or following the footsteps of man wherever he fixes his residence, across seas, from the old homesteads whence he migrated, following him everywhere, and offering themselves sedulously and continually to his notice, while he only plucks them away from the comparatively worthless things which he cultivates, and flings them aside, blaspheming at them because providence has sown them so thickly--grow what we call weeds, only because all the generations, from the beginning of time till now, have failed to discover their wondrous virtues, potent for the curing of all diseases, potent for procuring length of days. "everything good," said the doctor, drinking another dram of brandy, "lies right at our feet, and all we need is to gather it up." "that's true," quoth keziah, taking just a little sup of her hellish preparation; "these herbs were all gathered within a hundred yards of this very spot, though it took a wise woman to find out their virtues." the old woman went off about her household duties, and then it was that septimius submitted to the doctor the list of herbs which he had picked out of the old document, asking him, as something apposite to the subject of their discourse, whether he was acquainted with them, for most of them had very queer names, some in latin, some in english. the bluff doctor put on his spectacles, and looked over the slip of yellow and worn paper scrutinizingly, puffing tobacco-smoke upon it in great volumes, as if thereby to make its hidden purport come out; he mumbled to himself, he took another sip from his flask; and then, putting it down on the table, appeared to meditate. "this infernal old document," said he, at length, "is one that i have never seen before, yet heard of, nevertheless; for it was my folly in youth (and whether i am any wiser now is more than i take upon me to say, but it was my folly then) to be in quest of certain kinds of secret knowledge, which the fathers of science thought attainable. now, in several quarters, amongst people with whom my pursuits brought me in contact, i heard of a certain recipe which had been lost for a generation or two, but which, if it could be recovered, would prove to have the true life-giving potency in it. it is said that the ancestor of a great old family in england was in possession of this secret, being a man of science, and the friend of friar bacon, who was said to have concocted it himself, partly from the precepts of his master, partly from his own experiments, and it is thought he might have been living to this day, if he had not unluckily been killed in the wars of the roses; for you know no recipe for long life would be proof against an old english arrow, or a leaden bullet from one of our own firelocks." "and what has been the history of the thing after his death?" asked septimius. "it was supposed to be preserved in the family," said the doctor, "and it has always been said, that the head and eldest son of that family had it at his option to live forever, if he could only make up his mind to it. but seemingly there were difficulties in the way. there was probably a certain diet and regimen to be observed, certain strict rules of life to be kept, a certain asceticism to be imposed on the person, which was not quite agreeable to young men; and after the period of youth was passed, the human frame became incapable of being regenerated from the seeds of decay and death, which, by that time, had become strongly developed in it. in short, while young, the possessor of the secret found the terms of immortal life too hard to be accepted, since it implied the giving up of most of the things that made life desirable in his view; and when he came to a more reasonable mind, it was too late. and so, in all the generations since friar bacon's time, the nortons have been born, and enjoyed their young days, and worried through their manhood, and tottered through their old age (unless taken off sooner by sword, arrow, ball, fever, or what not), and died in their beds, like men that had no such option; and so this old yellow paper has done not the least good to any mortal. neither do i see how it can do any good to you, since you know not the rules, moral or dietetic, that are essential to its effect. but how did you come by it?" "it matters not how," said septimius, gloomily. "enough that i am its rightful possessor and inheritor. can you read these old characters?" "most of them," said the doctor; "but let me tell you, my young friend, i have no faith whatever in this secret; and, having meddled with such things myself, i ought to know. the old physicians and chemists had strange ideas of the virtues of plants, drugs, and minerals, and equally strange fancies as to the way of getting those virtues into action. they would throw a hundred different potencies into a caldron together, and put them on the fire, and expect to brew a potency containing all their potencies, and having a different virtue of its own. whereas, the most likely result would be that they would counteract one another, and the concoction be of no virtue at all; or else some more powerful ingredient would tincture the whole." he read the paper again, and continued:-- "i see nothing else so remarkable in this recipe, as that it is chiefly made up of some of the commonest things that grow; plants that you set your foot upon at your very threshold, in your garden, in your wood-walks, wherever you go. i doubt not old aunt keziah knows them, and very likely she has brewed them up in that hell-drink, the remembrance of which is still rankling in my stomach. i thought i had swallowed the devil himself, whom the old woman had been boiling down. it would be curious enough if the hideous decoction was the same as old friar bacon and his acolyte discovered by their science! one ingredient, however, one of those plants, i scarcely think the old lady can have put into her pot of devil's elixir; for it is a rare plant, that does not grow in these parts." "and what is that?" asked septimius. "_sanguinea sanguinissima_" said the doctor; "it has no vulgar name; but it produces a very beautiful flower, which i have never seen, though some seeds of it were sent me by a learned friend in siberia. the others, divested of their latin names, are as common as plantain, pig-weed, and burdock; and it stands to reason that, if vegetable nature has any such wonderfully efficacious medicine in store for men, and means them to use it, she would have strewn it everywhere plentifully within their reach." "but, after all, it would be a mockery on the old dame's part," said the young man, somewhat bitterly, "since she would thus hold the desired thing seemingly within our reach; but because she never tells us how to prepare and obtain its efficacy, we miss it just as much as if all the ingredients were hidden from sight and knowledge in the centre of the earth. we are the playthings and fools of nature, which she amuses herself with during our little lifetime, and then breaks for mere sport, and laughs in our faces as she does so." "take care, my good fellow," said the doctor, with his great coarse laugh. "i rather suspect that you have already got beyond the age when the great medicine could do you good; that speech indicates a great toughness and hardness and bitterness about the heart that does not accumulate in our tender years." septimius took little or no notice of the raillery of the grim old doctor, but employed the rest of the time in getting as much information as he could out of his guest; and though he could not bring himself to show him the precious and sacred manuscript, yet he questioned him as closely as possible without betraying his secret, as to the modes of finding out cryptic writings. the doctor was not without the perception that his dark-browed, keen-eyed acquaintance had some purpose not openly avowed in all these pertinacious, distinct questions; he discovered a central reference in them all, and perhaps knew that septimius must have in his possession some writing in hieroglyphics, cipher, or other secret mode, that conveyed instructions how to operate with the strange recipe that he had shown him. "you had better trust me fully, my good sir," said he. "not but what i will give you all the aid i can without it; for you have done me a greater benefit than you are aware of, beforehand. no--you will not? well, if you can change your mind, seek me out in boston, where i have seen fit to settle in the practice of my profession, and i will serve you according to your folly; for folly it is, i warn you." nothing else worthy of record is known to have passed during the doctor's visit; and in due time he disappeared, as it were, in a whiff of tobacco-smoke, leaving an odor of brandy and tobacco behind him, and a traditionary memory of a wizard that had been there. septimius went to work with what items of knowledge he had gathered from him; but the interview had at least made him aware of one thing, which was, that he must provide himself with all possible quantity of scientific knowledge of botany, and perhaps more extensive knowledge, in order to be able to concoct the recipe. it was the fruit of all the scientific attainment of the age that produced it (so said the legend, which seemed reasonable enough), a great philosopher had wrought his learning into it; and this had been attempered, regulated, improved, by the quick, bright intellect of his scholar. perhaps, thought septimius, another deep and earnest intelligence added to these two may bring the precious recipe to still greater perfection. at least it shall be tried. so thinking, he gathered together all the books that he could find relating to such studies; he spent one day, moreover, in a walk to cambridge, where he searched the alcoves of the college library for such works as it contained; and borrowing them from the war-disturbed institution of learning, he betook himself homewards, and applied himself to the study with an earnestness of zealous application that perhaps has been seldom equalled in a study of so quiet a character. a month or two of study, with practice upon such plants as he found upon his hill-top, and along the brook and in other neighboring localities, sufficed to do a great deal for him. in this pursuit he was assisted by sibyl, who proved to have great knowledge in some botanical departments, especially among flowers; and in her cold and quiet way, she met him on this subject and glided by his side, as she had done so long, a companion, a daily observer and observed of him, mixing herself up with his pursuits, as if she were an attendant sprite upon him. but this pale girl was not the only associate of his studies, the only instructress, whom septimius found. the observation which doctor portsoaken made about the fantastic possibility that aunt keziah might have inherited the same recipe from her indian ancestry which had been struck out by the science of friar bacon and his pupil had not failed to impress septimius, and to remain on his memory. so, not long after the doctor's departure, the young man took occasion one evening to say to his aunt that he thought his stomach was a little out of order with too much application, and that perhaps she could give him some herb-drink or other that would be good for him. "that i can, seppy, my darling," said the old woman, "and i'm glad you have the sense to ask for it at last. here it is in this bottle; and though that foolish, blaspheming doctor turned up his old brandy nose at it, i'll drink with him any day and come off better than he." so saying, she took out of the closet her brown jug, stopped with a cork that had a rag twisted round it to make it tighter, filled a mug half full of the concoction and set it on the table before septimius. "there, child, smell of that; the smell merely will do you good; but drink it down, and you'll live the longer for it." "indeed, aunt keziah, is that so?" asked septimius, a little startled by a recommendation which in some measure tallied with what he wanted in a medicine. "that's a good quality." he looked into the mug, and saw a turbid, yellow concoction, not at all attractive to the eye; he smelt of it, and was partly of opinion that aunt keziah had mixed a certain unfragrant vegetable, called skunk-cabbage, with the other ingredients of her witch-drink. he tasted it; not a mere sip, but a good, genuine gulp, being determined to have real proof of what the stuff was in all respects. the draught seemed at first to burn in his mouth, unaccustomed to any drink but water, and to go scorching all the way down into his stomach, making him sensible of the depth of his inwards by a track of fire, far, far down; and then, worse than the fire, came a taste of hideous bitterness and nauseousness, which he had not previously conceived to exist, and which threatened to stir up his bowels into utter revolt; but knowing aunt keziah's touchiness with regard to this concoction, and how sacred she held it, he made an effort of real heroism, squelched down his agony, and kept his face quiet, with the exception of one strong convulsion, which he allowed to twist across it for the sake of saving his life. "it tastes as if it might have great potency in it, aunt keziah," said this unfortunate young man. "i wish you would tell me what it is made of, and how you brew it; for i have observed you are very strict and secret about it." "aha! you have seen that, have you?" said aunt keziah, taking a sip of her beloved liquid, and grinning at him with a face and eyes as yellow as that she was drinking. in fact the idea struck him, that in temper, and all appreciable qualities, aunt keziah was a good deal like this drink of hers, having probably become saturated by them while she drank of it. and then, having drunk, she gloated over it, and tasted, and smelt of the cup of this hellish wine, as a winebibber does of that which is most fragrant and delicate. "and you want to know how i make it? but first, child, tell me honestly, do you love this drink of mine? otherwise, here, and at once, we stop talking about it." "i love it for its virtues," said septimius, temporizing with his conscience, "and would prefer it on that account to the rarest wines." "so far good," said aunt keziah, who could not well conceive that her liquor should be otherwise than delicious to the palate. "it is the most virtuous liquor that ever was; and therefore one need not fear drinking too much of it. and you want to know what it is made of? well; i have often thought of telling you, seppy, my boy, when you should come to be old enough; for i have no other inheritance to leave you, and you are all of my blood, unless i should happen to have some far-off uncle among the cape indians. but first, you must know how this good drink, and the faculty of making it, came down to me from the chiefs, and sachems, and peow-wows, that were your ancestors and mine, septimius, and from the old wizard who was my great-grandfather and yours, and who, they say, added the fire-water to the other ingredients, and so gave it the only one thing that it wanted to make it perfect." and so aunt keziah, who had now put herself into a most comfortable and jolly state by sipping again, and after pressing septimius to mind his draught (who declined, on the plea that one dram at a time was enough for a new beginner, its virtues being so strong, as well as admirable), the old woman told him a legend strangely wild and uncouth, and mixed up of savage and civilized life, and of the superstitions of both, but which yet had a certain analogy, that impressed septimius much, to the story that the doctor had told him. she said that, many ages ago, there had been a wild sachem in the forest, a king among the indians, and from whom, the old lady said, with a look of pride, she and septimius were lineally descended, and were probably the very last who inherited one drop of that royal, wise, and warlike blood. the sachem had lived very long, longer than anybody knew, for the indians kept no record, and could only talk of a great number of moons; and they said he was as old, or older, than the oldest trees; as old as the hills almost, and could remember back to the days of godlike men, who had arts then forgotten. he was a wise and good man, and could foretell as far into the future as he could remember into the past; and he continued to live on, till his people were afraid that he would live forever, and so disturb the whole order of nature; and they thought it time that so good a man, and so great a warrior and wizard, should be gone to the happy hunting-grounds, and that so wise a counsellor should go and tell his experience of life to the great father, and give him an account of matters here, and perhaps lead him to make some changes in the conduct of the lower world. and so, all these things duly considered, they very reverently assassinated the great, never-dying sachem; for though safe against disease, and undecayable by age, he was capable of being killed by violence, though the hardness of his skull broke to fragments the stone tomahawk with which they at first tried to kill him. so a deputation of the best and bravest of the tribe went to the great sachem, and told him their thought, and reverently desired his consent to be put out of the world; and the undying one agreed with them that it was better for his own comfort that he should die, and that he had long been weary of the world, having learned all that it could teach him, and having, chiefly, learned to despair of ever making the red race much better than they now were. so he cheerfully consented, and told them to kill him if they could; and first they tried the stone hatchet, which was broken against his skull; and then they shot arrows at him, which could not pierce the toughness of his skin; and finally they plastered up his nose and mouth (which kept uttering wisdom to the last) with clay, and set him to bake in the sun; so at last his life burnt out of his breast, tearing his body to pieces, and he died. [_make this legend grotesque, and express the weariness of the tribe at the intolerable control the undying one had of them; his always bringing up precepts from his own experience, never consenting to anything new, and so impeding progress; his habits hardening into him, his ascribing to himself all wisdom, and depriving everybody of his right to successive command; his endless talk, and dwelling on the past, so that the world could not bear him. describe his ascetic and severe habits, his rigid calmness, etc._] but before the great sagamore died he imparted to a chosen one of his tribe, the next wisest to himself, the secret of a potent and delicious drink, the constant imbibing of which, together with his abstinence from luxury and passion, had kept him alive so long, and would doubtless have compelled him to live forever. this drink was compounded of many ingredients, all of which were remembered and handed down in tradition, save one, which, either because it was nowhere to be found, or for some other reason, was forgotten; so that the drink ceased to give immortal life as before. they say it was a beautiful purple flower. [_perhaps the devil taught him the drink, or else the great spirit,--doubtful which._] but it still was a most excellent drink, and conducive to health, and the cure of all diseases; and the indians had it at the time of the settlement by the english; and at one of those wizard meetings in the forest, where the black man used to meet his red children and his white ones, and be jolly with them, a great indian wizard taught the secret to septimius's great-grandfather, who was a wizard, and died for it; and he, in return, taught the indians to mix it with rum, thinking that this might be the very ingredient that was missing, and that by adding it he might give endless life to himself and all his indian friends, among whom he had taken a wife. "but your great-grandfather, you know, had not a fair chance to test its virtues, having been hanged for a wizard; and as for the indians, they probably mixed too much fire-water with their liquid, so that it burnt them up, and they all died; and my mother, and her mother,--who taught the drink to me,--and her mother afore her, thought it a sin to try to live longer than the lord pleased, so they let themselves die. and though the drink is good, septimius, and toothsome, as you see, yet i sometimes feel as if i were getting old, like other people, and may die in the course of the next half-century; so perhaps the rum was not just the thing that was wanting to make up the recipe. but it is very good! take a drop more of it, dear." "not at present, i thank you, aunt keziah," said septimius, gravely; "but will you tell me what the ingredients are, and how you make it?" "yes, i will, my boy, and you shall write them down," said the old woman; "for it's a good drink, and none the worse, it may be, for not making you live forever. i sometimes think i had as lief go to heaven as keep on living here." accordingly, making septimius take pen and ink, she proceeded to tell him a list of plants and herbs, and forest productions, and he was surprised to find that it agreed most wonderfully with the recipe contained in the old manuscript, as he had puzzled it out, and as it had been explained by the doctor. there were a few variations, it is true; but even here there was a close analogy, plants indigenous to america being substituted for cognate productions, the growth of europe. then there was another difference in the mode of preparation, aunt keziah's nostrum being a concoction, whereas the old manuscript gave a process of distillation. this similarity had a strong effect on septimius's imagination. here was, in one case, a drink suggested, as might be supposed, to a primitive people by something similar to that instinct by which the brute creation recognizes the medicaments suited to its needs, so that they mixed up fragrant herbs for reasons wiser than they knew, and made them into a salutary potion; and here, again, was a drink contrived by the utmost skill of a great civilized philosopher, searching the whole field of science for his purpose; and these two drinks proved, in all essential particulars, to be identically the same. "o aunt keziah," said he, with a longing earnestness, "are you sure that you cannot remember that one ingredient?" "no, septimius, i cannot possibly do it," said she. "i have tried many things, skunk-cabbage, wormwood, and a thousand things; for it is truly a pity that the chief benefit of the thing should be lost for so little. but the only effect was, to spoil the good taste of the stuff, and, two or three times, to poison myself, so that i broke out all over blotches, and once lost the use of my left arm, and got a dizziness in the head, and a rheumatic twist in my knee, a hardness of hearing, and a dimness of sight, and the trembles; all of which i certainly believe to have been caused by my putting something else into this blessed drink besides the good new england rum. stick to that, seppy, my dear." so saying, aunt keziah took yet another sip of the beloved liquid, after vainly pressing septimius to do the like; and then lighting her old clay pipe, she sat down in the chimney-corner, meditating, dreaming, muttering pious prayers and ejaculations, and sometimes looking up the wide flue of the chimney, with thoughts, perhaps, how delightful it must have been to fly up there, in old times, on excursions by midnight into the forest, where was the black man, and the puritan deacons and ladies, and those wild indian ancestors of hers; and where the wildness of the forest was so grim and delightful, and so unlike the common-placeness in which she spent her life. for thus did the savage strain of the woman, mixed up as it was with the other weird and religious parts of her composition, sometimes snatch her back into barbarian life and its instincts; and in septimius, though further diluted, and modified likewise by higher cultivation, there was the same tendency. septimius escaped from the old woman, and was glad to breathe the free air again; so much had he been wrought upon by her wild legends and wild character, the more powerful by its analogy with his own; and perhaps, too, his brain had been a little bewildered by the draught of her diabolical concoction which she had compelled him to take. at any rate, he was glad to escape to his hill-top, the free air of which had doubtless contributed to keep him in health through so long a course of morbid thought and estranged study as he had addicted himself to. here, as it happened, he found both rose garfield and sibyl dacy, whom the pleasant summer evening had brought out. they had formed a friendship, or at least society; and there could not well be a pair more unlike,--the one so natural, so healthy, so fit to live in the world; the other such a morbid, pale thing. so there they were, walking arm in arm, with one arm round each other's waist, as girls love to do. they greeted the young man in their several ways, and began to walk to and fro together, looking at the sunset as it came on, and talking of things on earth and in the clouds. "when has robert hagburn been heard from?" asked septimius, who, involved in his own pursuits, was altogether behindhand in the matters of the war,--shame to him for it! "there came news, two days past," said rose, blushing. "he is on his way home with the remnant of general arnold's command, and will be here soon." "he is a brave fellow, robert," said septimius, carelessly. "and i know not, since life is so short, that anything better can be done with it than to risk it as he does." "i truly think not," said rose garfield, composedly. "what a blessing it is to mortals," said sibyl dacy, "what a kindness of providence, that life is made so uncertain; that death is thrown in among the possibilities of our being; that these awful mysteries are thrown around us, into which we may vanish! for, without it, how would it be possible to be heroic, how should we plod along in commonplaces forever, never dreaming high things, never risking anything? for my part, i think man is more favored than the angels, and made capable of higher heroism, greater virtue, and of a more excellent spirit than they, because we have such a mystery of grief and terror around us; whereas they, being in a certainty of god's light, seeing his goodness and his purposes more perfectly than we, cannot be so brave as often poor weak man, and weaker woman, has the opportunity to be, and sometimes makes use of it. god gave the whole world to man, and if he is left alone with it, it will make a clod of him at last; but, to remedy that, god gave man a grave, and it redeems all, while it seems to destroy all, and makes an immortal spirit of him in the end." "dear sibyl, you are inspired," said rose, gazing in her face. "i think you ascribe a great deal too much potency to the grave," said septimius, pausing involuntarily alone by the little hillock, whose contents he knew so well. "the grave seems to me a vile pitfall, put right in our pathway, and catching most of us,--all of us,--causing us to tumble in at the most inconvenient opportunities, so that all human life is a jest and a farce, just for the sake of this inopportune death; for i observe it never waits for us to accomplish anything: we may have the salvation of a country in hand, but we are none the less likely to die for that. so that, being a believer, on the whole, in the wisdom and graciousness of providence, i am convinced that dying is a mistake, and that by and by we shall overcome it. i say there is no use in the grave." "i still adhere to what i said," answered sibyl dacy; "and besides, there is another use of a grave which i have often observed in old english graveyards, where the moss grows green, and embosses the letters of the gravestones; and also graves are very good for flower-beds." nobody ever could tell when the strange girl was going to say what was laughable,--when what was melancholy; and neither of sibyl's auditors knew quite what to make of this speech. neither could septimius fail to be a little startled by seeing her, as she spoke of the grave as a flower-bed, stoop down to the little hillock to examine the flowers, which, indeed, seemed to prove her words by growing there in strange abundance, and of many sorts; so that, if they could all have bloomed at once, the spot would have looked like a bouquet by itself, or as if the earth were richest in beauty there, or as if seeds had been lavished by some florist. septimius could not account for it, for though the hill-side did produce certain flowers,--the aster, the golden-rod, the violet, and other such simple and common things,--yet this seemed as if a carpet of bright colors had been thrown down there and covered the spot. "this is very strange," said he. "yes," said sibyl dacy, "there is some strange richness in this little spot of soil." "where could the seeds have come from?--that is the greatest wonder," said rose. "you might almost teach me botany, methinks, on this one spot." "do you know this plant?" asked sibyl of septimius, pointing to one not yet in flower, but of singular leaf, that was thrusting itself up out of the ground, on the very centre of the grave, over where the breast of the sleeper below might seem to be. "i think there is no other here like it." septimius stooped down to examine it, and was convinced that it was unlike anything he had seen of the flower kind; a leaf of a dark green, with purple veins traversing it, it had a sort of questionable aspect, as some plants have, so that you would think it very likely to be poison, and would not like to touch or smell very intimately, without first inquiring who would be its guarantee that it should do no mischief. that it had some richness or other, either baneful or beneficial, you could not doubt. "i think it poisonous," said rose garfield, shuddering, for she was a person so natural she hated poisonous things, or anything speckled especially, and did not, indeed, love strangeness. "yet i should not wonder if it bore a beautiful flower by and by. nevertheless, if i were to do just as i feel inclined, i should root it up and fling it away." "shall she do so?" said sibyl to septimius. "not for the world," said he, hastily. "above all things, i desire to see what will come of this plant." "be it as you please," said sibyl. "meanwhile, if you like to sit down here and listen to me, i will tell you a story that happens to come into my mind just now,--i cannot tell why. it is a legend of an old hall that i know well, and have known from my childhood, in one of the northern counties of england, where i was born. would you like to hear it, rose?" "yes, of all things," said she. "i like all stories of hall and cottage in the old country, though now we must not call it our country any more." sibyl looked at septimius, as if to inquire whether he, too, chose to listen to her story, and he made answer:-- "yes, i shall like to hear the legend, if it is a genuine one that has been adopted into the popular belief, and came down in chimney-corners with the smoke and soot that gathers there; and incrusted over with humanity, by passing from one homely mind to another. then, such stories get to be true, in a certain sense, and indeed in that sense may be called true throughout, for the very nucleus, the fiction in them, seems to have come out of the heart of man in a way that cannot be imitated of malice aforethought. nobody can make a tradition; it takes a century to make it." "i know not whether this legend has the character you mean," said sibyl, "but it has lived much more than a century; and here it is. * * * * * "on the threshold of one of the doors of ---- hall there is a bloody footstep impressed into the doorstep, and ruddy as if the bloody foot had just trodden there; and it is averred that, on a certain night of the year, and at a certain hour of the night, if you go and look at that doorstep you will see the mark wet with fresh blood. some have pretended to say that this appearance of blood was but dew; but can dew redden a cambric handkerchief? will it crimson the fingertips when you touch it? and that is what the bloody footstep will surely do when the appointed night and hour come round, this very year, just as it would three hundred years ago. "well; but how did it come there? i know not precisely in what age it was, but long ago, when light was beginning to shine into what were called the dark ages, there was a lord of ---- hall who applied himself deeply to knowledge and science, under the guidance of the wisest man of that age,--a man so wise that he was thought to be a wizard; and, indeed, he may have been one, if to be a wizard consists in having command over secret powers of nature, that other men do not even suspect the existence of, and the control of which enables one to do feats that seem as wonderful as raising the dead. it is needless to tell you all the strange stories that have survived to this day about the old hall; and how it is believed that the master of it, owing to his ancient science, has still a sort of residence there, and control of the place; and how, in one of the chambers, there is still his antique table, and his chair, and some rude old instruments and machinery, and a book, and everything in readiness, just as if he might still come back to finish some experiment. what it is important to say is, that one of the chief things to which the old lord applied himself was to discover the means of prolonging his own life, so that its duration should be indefinite, if not infinite; and such was his science, that he was believed to have attained this magnificent and awful purpose. "so, as you may suppose, the man of science had great joy in having done this thing, both for the pride of it, and because it was so delightful a thing to have before him the prospect of endless time, which he might spend in adding more and more to his science, and so doing good to the world; for the chief obstruction to the improvement of the world and the growth of knowledge is, that mankind cannot go straightforward in it, but continually there have to be new beginnings, and it takes every new man half his life, if not the whole of it, to come up to the point where his predecessor left off. and so this noble man--this man of a noble purpose--spent many years in finding out this mighty secret; and at last, it is said, he succeeded. but on what terms? "well, it is said that the terms were dreadful and horrible; insomuch that the wise man hesitated whether it were lawful and desirable to take advantage of them, great as was the object in view. "you see, the object of the lord of ---- hall was to take a life from the course of nature, and nature did not choose to be defrauded; so that, great as was the power of this scientific man over her, she would not consent that he should escape the necessity of dying at his proper time, except upon condition of sacrificing some other life for his; and this was to be done once for every thirty years that he chose to live, thirty years being the account of a generation of man; and if in any way, in that time, this lord could be the death of a human being, that satisfied the requisition, and he might live on. there is a form of the legend which says, that one of the ingredients of the drink which the nobleman brewed by his science was the heart's blood of a pure young boy or girl. but this i reject, as too coarse an idea; and, indeed, i think it may be taken to mean symbolically, that the person who desires to engross to himself more than his share of human life must do it by sacrificing to his selfishness some dearest interest of another person, who has a good right to life, and may be as useful in it as he. "now, this lord was a just man by nature, and if he had gone astray, it was greatly by reason of his earnest wish to do something for the poor, wicked, struggling, bloody, uncomfortable race of man, to which he belonged. he bethought himself whether he would have a right to take the life of one of those creatures, without their own consent, in order to prolong his own; and after much arguing to and fro, he came to the conclusion that he should not have the right, unless it were a life over which he had control, and which was the next to his own. he looked round him; he was a lonely and abstracted man, secluded by his studies from human affections, and there was but one human being whom he cared for;--that was a beautiful kinswoman, an orphan, whom his father had brought up, and, dying, left her to his care. there was great kindness and affection--as great as the abstracted nature of his pursuits would allow--on the part of this lord towards the beautiful young girl; but not what is called love,--at least, he never acknowledged it to himself. but, looking into his heart, he saw that she, if any one, was to be the person whom the sacrifice demanded, and that he might kill twenty others without effect, but if he took the life of this one, it would make the charm strong and good. "my friends, i have meditated many a time on this ugly feature of my legend, and am unwilling to take it in the literal sense; so i conceive its spiritual meaning (for everything, you know, has its spiritual meaning, which to the literal meaning is what the soul is to the body),--its spiritual meaning was, that to the deep pursuit of science we must sacrifice great part of the joy of life; that nobody can be great, and do great things, without giving up to death, so far as he regards his enjoyment of it, much that he would gladly enjoy; and in that sense i choose to take it. but the earthly old legend will have it that this mad, high-minded, heroic, murderous lord did insist upon it with himself that he must murder this poor, loving, and beloved child. "i do not wish to delay upon this horrible matter, and to tell you how he argued it with himself; and how, the more and more he argued it, the more reasonable it seemed, the more absolutely necessary, the more a duty that the terrible sacrifice should be made. here was this great good to be done to mankind, and all that stood in the way of it was one little delicate life, so frail that it was likely enough to be blown out, any day, by the mere rude blast that the rush of life creates, as it streams along, or by any slightest accident; so good and pure, too, that she was quite unfit for this world, and not capable of any happiness in it; and all that was asked of her was to allow herself to be transported to a place where she would be happy, and would find companions fit for her,--which he, her only present companion, certainly was not. in fine, he resolved to shed the sweet, fragrant blood of this little violet that loved him so. "well; let us hurry over this part of the story as fast as we can. he did slay this pure young girl; he took her into the wood near the house, an old wood that is standing yet, with some of its magnificent oaks; and then he plunged a dagger into her heart, after they had had a very tender and loving talk together, in which he had tried to open the matter tenderly to her, and make her understand that, though he was to slay her, it was really for the very reason that he loved her better than anything else in the world, and that he would far rather die himself, if that would answer the purpose at all. indeed, he is said to have offered her the alternative of slaying him, and taking upon herself the burden of indefinite life, and the studies and pursuits by which he meant to benefit mankind. but she, it is said,--this noble, pure, loving child,--she looked up into his face and smiled sadly, and then snatching the dagger from him, she plunged it into her own heart. i cannot tell whether this be true, or whether she waited to be killed by him; but this i know, that in the same circumstances i think i should have saved my lover or my friend the pain of killing me. there she lay dead, at any rate, and he buried her in the wood, and returned to the house; and, as it happened, he had set his right foot in her blood, and his shoe was wet in it, and by some miraculous fate it left a track all along the wood-path, and into the house, and on the stone steps of the threshold, and up into his chamber, all along; and the servants saw it the next day, and wondered, and whispered, and missed the fair young girl, and looked askance at their lord's right foot, and turned pale, all of them, as death. "and next, the legend says, that sir forrester was struck with horror at what he had done, and could not bear the laboratory where he had toiled so long, and was sick to death of the object that he had pursued, and was most miserable, and fled from his old hall, and was gone full many a day. but all the while he was gone there was the mark of a bloody footstep impressed upon the stone doorstep of the hall. the track had lain all along through the wood-path, and across the lawn, to the old gothic door of the hall; but the rain, the english rain, that is always falling, had come the next day, and washed it all away. the track had lain, too, across the broad hall, and up the stairs, and into the lord's study; but there it had lain on the rushes that were strewn there, and these the servants had gathered carefully up, and thrown them away, and spread fresh ones. so that it was only on the threshold that the mark remained. "but the legend says, that wherever sir forrester went, in his wanderings about the world, he left a bloody track behind him. it was wonderful, and very inconvenient, this phenomenon. when he went into a church, you would see the track up the broad aisle, and a little red puddle in the place where he sat or knelt. once he went to the king's court, and there being a track up to the very throne, the king frowned upon him, so that he never came there any more. nobody could tell how it happened; his foot was not seen to bleed, only there was the bloody track behind him, wherever he went; and he was a horror-stricken man, always looking behind him to see the track, and then hurrying onward, as if to escape his own tracks; but always they followed him as fast. "in the hall of feasting, there was the bloody track to his chair. the learned men whom he consulted about this strange difficulty conferred with one another, and with him, who was equal to any of them, and pished and pshawed, and said, 'oh, there is nothing miraculous in this; it is only a natural infirmity, which can easily be put an end to, though, perhaps, the stoppage of such an evacuation will cause damage to other parts of the frame.' sir forrester always said, 'stop it, my learned brethren, if you can; no matter what the consequences.' and they did their best, but without result; so that he was still compelled to leave his bloody track on their college-rooms and combination-rooms, the same as elsewhere; and in street and in wilderness; yes, and in the battle-field, they said, his track looked freshest and reddest of all. so, at last, finding the notice he attracted inconvenient, this unfortunate lord deemed it best to go back to his own hall, where, living among faithful old servants born in the family, he could hush the matter up better than elsewhere, and not be stared at continually, or, glancing round, see people holding up their hands in terror at seeing a bloody track behind him. and so home he came, and there he saw the bloody track on the doorstep, and dolefully went into the hall, and up the stairs, an old servant ushering him into his chamber, and half a dozen others following behind, gazing, shuddering, pointing with quivering fingers, looking horror-stricken in one another's pale faces, and the moment he had passed, running to get fresh rushes, and to scour the stairs. the next day, sir forrester went into the wood, and by the aged oak he found a grave, and on the grave he beheld a beautiful crimson flower; the most gorgeous and beautiful, surely, that ever grew; so rich it looked, so full of potent juice. that flower he gathered; and the spirit of his scientific pursuits coming upon him, he knew that this was the flower, produced out of a human life, that was essential to the perfection of his recipe for immortality; and he made the drink, and drank it, and became immortal in woe and agony, still studying, still growing wiser and more wretched in every age. by and by he vanished from the old hall, but not by death; for, from generation to generation, they say that a bloody track is seen around that house, and sometimes it is tracked up into the chambers, so freshly that you see he must have passed a short time before; and he grows wiser and wiser, and lonelier and lonelier, from age to age. and this is the legend of the bloody footstep, which i myself have seen at the hall door. as to the flower, the plant of it continued for several years to grow out of the grave; and after a while, perhaps a century ago, it was transplanted into the garden of ---- hall, and preserved with great care, and is so still. and as the family attribute a kind of sacredness, or cursedness, to the flower, they can hardly be prevailed upon to give any of the seeds, or allow it to be propagated elsewhere, though the king should send to ask it. it is said, too, that there is still in the family the old lord's recipe for immortality, and that several of his collateral descendants have tried to concoct it, and instil the flower into it, and so give indefinite life; but unsuccessfully, because the seeds of the flower must be planted in a fresh grave of bloody death, in order to make it effectual." * * * * * so ended sibyl's legend; in which septimius was struck by a certain analogy to aunt keziah's indian legend,--both referring to a flower growing out of a grave; and also he did not fail to be impressed with the wild coincidence of this disappearance of an ancestor of the family long ago, and the appearance, at about the same epoch, of the first known ancestor of his own family, the man with wizard's attributes, with the bloody footstep, and whose sudden disappearance became a myth, under the idea that the devil carried him away. yet, on the whole, this wild tradition, doubtless becoming wilder in sibyl's wayward and morbid fancy, had the effect to give him a sense of the fantasticalness of his present pursuit, and that in adopting it, he had strayed into a region long abandoned to superstition, and where the shadows of forgotten dreams go when men are done with them; where past worships are; where great pan went when he died to the outer world; a limbo into which living men sometimes stray when they think themselves sensiblest and wisest, and whence they do not often find their way back into the real world. visions of wealth, visions of fame, visions of philanthropy,--all visions find room here, and glide about without jostling. when septimius came to look at the matter in his present mood, the thought occurred to him that he had perhaps got into such a limbo, and that sibyl's legend, which looked so wild, might be all of a piece with his own present life; for sibyl herself seemed an illusion, and so, most strangely, did aunt keziah, whom he had known all his life, with her homely and quaint characteristics; the grim doctor, with his brandy and his german pipe, impressed him in the same way; and these, altogether, made his homely cottage by the wayside seem an unsubstantial edifice, such as castles in the air are built of, and the ground he trod on unreal; and that grave, which he knew to contain the decay of a beautiful young man, but a fictitious swell, formed by the fantasy of his eyes. all unreal; all illusion! was rose garfield a deception too, with her daily beauty, and daily cheerfulness, and daily worth? in short, it was such a moment as i suppose all men feel (at least, i can answer for one), when the real scene and picture of life swims, jars, shakes, seems about to be broken up and dispersed, like the picture in a smooth pond, when we disturb its tranquil mirror by throwing in a stone; and though the scene soon settles itself, and looks as real as before, a haunting doubt keeps close at hand, as long as we live, asking, "is it stable? am i sure of it? am i certainly not dreaming? see; it trembles again, ready to dissolve." * * * * * applying himself with earnest diligence to his attempt to decipher and interpret the mysterious manuscript, working with his whole mind and strength, septimius did not fail of some flattering degree of success. a good deal of the manuscript, as has been said, was in an ancient english script, although so uncouth and shapeless were the characters, that it was not easy to resolve them into letters, or to believe that they were anything but arbitrary and dismal blots and scrawls upon the yellow paper; without meaning, vague, like the misty and undefined germs of thought as they exist in our minds before clothing themselves in words. these, however, as he concentrated his mind upon them, took distincter shape, like cloudy stars at the power of the telescope, and became sometimes english, sometimes latin, strangely patched together, as if, so accustomed was the writer to use that language in which all the science of that age was usually embodied, that he really mixed it unconsciously with the vernacular, or used both indiscriminately. there was some greek, too, but not much. then frequently came in the cipher, to the study of which septimius had applied himself for some time back, with the aid of the books borrowed from the college library, and not without success. indeed, it appeared to him, on close observation, that it had not been the intention of the writer really to conceal what he had written from any earnest student, but rather to lock it up for safety in a sort of coffer, of which diligence and insight should be the key, and the keen intelligence with which the meaning was sought should be the test of the seeker's being entitled to possess the secret treasure. amid a great deal of misty stuff, he found the document to consist chiefly, contrary to his supposition beforehand, of certain rules of life; he would have taken it, on a casual inspection, for an essay of counsel, addressed by some great and sagacious man to a youth in whom he felt an interest,--so secure and good a doctrine of life was propounded, such excellent maxims there were, such wisdom in all matters that came within the writer's purview. it was as much like a digested synopsis of some old philosopher's wise rules of conduct, as anything else. but on closer inspection, septimius, in his unsophisticated consideration of this matter, was not so well satisfied. true, everything that was said seemed not discordant with the rules of social morality; not unwise: it was shrewd, sagacious; it did not appear to infringe upon the rights of mankind; but there was something left out, something unsatisfactory,--what was it? there was certainly a cold spell in the document; a magic, not of fire, but of ice; and septimius the more exemplified its power, in that he soon began to be insensible of it. it affected him as if it had been written by some greatly wise and worldly-experienced man, like the writer of ecclesiastes; for it was full of truth. it was a truth that does not make men better, though perhaps calmer; and beneath which the buds of happiness curl up like tender leaves in a frost. what was the matter with this document, that the young man's youth perished out of him as he read? what icy hand had written, it, so that the heart was chilled out of the reader? not that septimius was sensible of this character; at least, not long,--for as he read, there grew upon him a mood of calm satisfaction, such as he had never felt before. his mind seemed to grow clearer; his perceptions most acute; his sense of the reality of things grew to be such, that he felt as if he could touch and handle all his thoughts, feel round about all their outline and circumference, and know them with a certainty, as if they were material things. not that all this was in the document itself; but by studying it so earnestly, and, as it were, creating its meaning anew for himself, out of such illegible materials, he caught the temper of the old writer's mind, after so many ages as that tract had lain in the mouldy and musty manuscript. he was magnetized with him; a powerful intellect acted powerfully upon him; perhaps, even, there was a sort of spell and mystic influence imbued into the paper, and mingled with the yellow ink, that steamed forth by the effort of this young man's earnest rubbing, as it were, and by the action of his mind, applied to it as intently as he possibly could; and even his handling the paper, his bending over it, and breathing upon it, had its effect. it is not in our power, nor in our wish, to produce the original form, nor yet the spirit, of a production which is better lost to the world: because it was the expression of a human intellect originally greatly gifted and capable of high things, but gone utterly astray, partly by its own subtlety, partly by yielding to the temptations of the lower part of its nature, by yielding the spiritual to a keen sagacity of lower things, until it was quite fallen; and yet fallen in such a way, that it seemed not only to itself, but to mankind, not fallen at all, but wise and good, and fulfilling all the ends of intellect in such a life as ours, and proving, moreover, that earthly life was good, and all that the development of our nature demanded. all this is better forgotten; better burnt; better never thought over again; and all the more, because its aspect was so wise, and even praiseworthy. but what we must preserve of it were certain rules of life and moral diet, not exactly expressed in the document, but which, as it were, on its being duly received into septimius's mind, were precipitated from the rich solution, and crystallized into diamonds, and which he found to be the moral dietetics, so to speak, by observing which he was to achieve the end of earthly immortality, whose physical nostrum was given in the recipe which, with the help of doctor portsoaken and his aunt keziah, he had already pretty satisfactorily made out. "keep thy heart at seventy throbs in a minute; all more than that wears away life too quickly. if thy respiration be too quick, think with thyself that thou hast sinned against natural order and moderation. "drink not wine nor strong drink; and observe that this rule is worthiest in its symbolic meaning. "bask daily in the sunshine and let it rest on thy heart. "run not; leap not; walk at a steady pace, and count thy paces per day. "if thou feelest, at any time, a throb of the heart, pause on the instant, and analyze it; fix thy mental eye steadfastly upon it, and inquire why such commotion is. "hate not any man nor woman; be not angry, unless at any time thy blood seem a little cold and torpid; cut out all rankling feelings, they are poisonous to thee. if, in thy waking moments, or in thy dreams, thou hast thoughts of strife or unpleasantness with any man, strive quietly with thyself to forget him. "have no friendships with an imperfect man, with a man in bad health, of violent passions, of any characteristic that evidently disturbs his own life, and so may have disturbing influence on thine. shake not any man by the hand, because thereby, if there be any evil in the man, it is likely to be communicated to thee. "kiss no woman if her lips be red; look not upon her if she be very fair. touch not her hand if thy finger-tips be found to thrill with hers ever so little. on the whole, shun woman, for she is apt to be a disturbing influence. if thou love her, all is over, and thy whole past and remaining labor and pains will be in vain. "do some decent degree of good and kindness in thy daily life, for the result is a slight pleasurable sense that will seem to warm and delectate thee with felicitous self-laudings; and all that brings thy thoughts to thyself tends to invigorate that central principle by the growth of which thou art to give thyself indefinite life. "do not any act manifestly evil; it may grow upon thee, and corrode thee in after-years. do not any foolish good act; it may change thy wise habits. "eat no spiced meats. young chickens, new-fallen lambs, fruits, bread four days old, milk, freshest butter will make thy fleshy tabernacle youthful. "from sick people, maimed wretches, afflicted people--all of whom show themselves at variance with things as they should be,--from people beyond their wits, from people in a melancholic mood, from people in extravagant joy, from teething children, from dead corpses, turn away thine eyes and depart elsewhere. "if beggars haunt thee, let thy servants drive them away, thou withdrawing out of ear-shot. "crying and sickly children, and teething children, as aforesaid, carefully avoid. drink the breath of wholesome infants as often as thou conveniently canst,--it is good for thy purpose; also the breath of buxom maids, if thou mayest without undue disturbance of the flesh, drink it as a morning-draught, as medicine; also the breath of cows as they return from rich pasture at eventide. "if thou seest human poverty, or suffering, and it trouble thee, strive moderately to relieve it, seeing that thus thy mood will be changed to a pleasant self-laudation. "practise thyself in a certain continual smile, for its tendency will be to compose thy frame of being, and keep thee from too much wear. "search not to see if thou hast a gray hair; scrutinize not thy forehead to find a wrinkle; nor the corners of thy eyes to discover if they be corrugated. such things, being gazed at, daily take heart and grow. "desire nothing too fervently, not even life; yet keep thy hold upon it mightily, quietly, unshakably, for as long as thou really art resolved to live, death with all his force, shall have no power against thee. "walk not beneath tottering ruins, nor houses being put up, nor climb to the top of a mast, nor approach the edge of a precipice, nor stand in the way of the lightning, nor cross a swollen river, nor voyage at sea, nor ride a skittish horse, nor be shot at by an arrow, nor confront a sword, nor put thyself in the way of violent death; for this is hateful, and breaketh through all wise rules. "say thy prayers at bedtime, if thou deemest it will give thee quieter sleep; yet let it not trouble thee if thou forgettest them. "change thy shirt daily; thereby thou castest off yesterday's decay, and imbibest the freshness of the morning's life, which enjoy with smelling to roses, and other healthy and fragrant flowers, and live the longer for it. roses are made to that end. "read not great poets; they stir up thy heart; and the human heart is a soil which, if deeply stirred, is apt to give out noxious vapors." such were some of the precepts which septimius gathered and reduced to definite form out of this wonderful document; and he appreciated their wisdom, and saw clearly that they must be absolutely essential to the success of the medicine with which they were connected. in themselves, almost, they seemed capable of prolonging life to an indefinite period, so wisely were they conceived, so well did they apply to the causes which almost invariably wear away this poor short life of men, years and years before even the shattered constitutions that they received from their forefathers need compel them to die. he deemed himself well rewarded for all his labor and pains, should nothing else follow but his reception and proper appreciation of these wise rules; but continually, as he read the manuscript, more truths, and, for aught i know, profounder and more practical ones, developed themselves; and, indeed, small as the manuscript looked, septimius thought that he should find a volume as big as the most ponderous folio in the college library too small to contain its wisdom. it seemed to drip and distil with precious fragrant drops, whenever he took it out of his desk; it diffused wisdom like those vials of perfume which, small as they look, keep diffusing an airy wealth of fragrance for years and years together, scattering their virtue in incalculable volumes of invisible vapor, and yet are none the less in bulk for all they give; whenever he turned over the yellow leaves, bits of gold, diamonds of good size, precious pearls, seemed to drop out from between them. and now ensued a surprise which, though of a happy kind, was almost too much for him to bear; for it made his heart beat considerably faster than the wise rules of his manuscript prescribed. going up on his hill-top, as summer wore away (he had not been there for some time), and walking by the little flowery hillock, as so many a hundred times before, what should he see there but a new flower, that during the time he had been poring over the manuscript so sedulously had developed itself, blossomed, put forth its petals, bloomed into full perfection, and now, with the dew of the morning upon it, was waiting to offer itself to septimius? he trembled as he looked at it, it was too much almost to bear,--it was so very beautiful, so very stately, so very rich, so very mysterious and wonderful. it was like a person, like a life! whence did it come? he stood apart from it, gazing in wonder; tremulously taking in its aspect, and thinking of the legends he had heard from aunt keziah and from sibyl dacy; and how that this flower, like the one that their wild traditions told of, had grown out of a grave,--out of a grave in which he had laid one slain by himself. the flower was of the richest crimson, illuminated with a golden centre of a perfect and stately beauty. from the best descriptions that i have been able to gain of it, it was more like a dahlia than any other flower with which i have acquaintance; yet it does not satisfy me to believe it really of that species, for the dahlia is not a flower of any deep characteristics, either lively or malignant, and this flower, which septimius found so strangely, seems to have had one or the other. if i have rightly understood, it had a fragrance which the dahlia lacks; and there was something hidden in its centre, a mystery, even in its fullest bloom, not developing itself so openly as the heartless, yet not dishonest, dahlia. i remember in england to have seen a flower at eaton hall, in cheshire, in those magnificent gardens, which may have been like this, but my remembrance of it is not sufficiently distinct to enable me to describe it better than by saying that it was crimson, with a gleam of gold in its centre, which yet was partly hidden. it had many petals of great richness. septimius, bending eagerly over the plant, saw that this was not to be the only flower that it would produce that season; on the contrary, there was to be a great abundance of them, a luxuriant harvest; as if the crimson offspring of this one plant would cover the whole hillock,--as if the dead youth beneath had burst into a resurrection of many crimson flowers! and in its veiled heart, moreover, there was a mystery like death, although it seemed to cover something bright and golden. day after day the strange crimson flower bloomed more and more abundantly, until it seemed almost to cover the little hillock, which became a mere bed of it, apparently turning all its capacity of production to this flower; for the other plants, septimius thought, seemed to shrink away, and give place to it, as if they were unworthy to compare with the richness, glory, and worth of this their queen. the fervent summer burned into it, the dew and the rain ministered to it; the soil was rich, for it was a human heart contributing its juices,--a heart in its fiery youth sodden in its own blood, so that passion, unsatisfied loves and longings, ambition that never won its object, tender dreams and throbs, angers, lusts, hates, all concentrated by life, came sprouting in it, and its mysterious being, and streaks and shadows, had some meaning in each of them. the two girls, when they next ascended the hill, saw the strange flower, and rose admired it, and wondered at it, but stood at a distance, without showing an attraction towards it, rather an undefined aversion, as if she thought it might be a poison flower; at any rate she would not be inclined to wear it in her bosom. sibyl dacy examined it closely, touched its leaves, smelt it, looked at it with a botanist's eye, and at last remarked to rose, "yes, it grows well in this new soil; methinks it looks like a new human life." "what is the strange flower?" asked rose. "the _sanguinea sanguinissima_" said sibyl. it so happened about this time that poor aunt keziah, in spite of her constant use of that bitter mixture of hers, was in a very bad state of health. she looked all of an unpleasant yellow, with bloodshot eyes; she complained terribly of her inwards. she had an ugly rheumatic hitch in her motion from place to place, and was heard to mutter many wishes that she had a broomstick to fly about upon, and she used to bind up her head with a dishclout, or what looked to be such, and would sit by the kitchen fire even in the warm days, bent over it, crouching as if she wanted to take the whole fire into her poor cold heart or gizzard,--groaning regularly with each breath a spiteful and resentful groan, as if she fought womanfully with her infirmities; and she continually smoked her pipe, and sent out the breath of her complaint visibly in that evil odor; and sometimes she murmured a little prayer, but somehow or other the evil and bitterness, acridity, pepperiness, of her natural disposition overcame the acquired grace which compelled her to pray, insomuch that, after all, you would have thought the poor old woman was cursing with all her rheumatic might. all the time an old, broken-nosed, brown earthen jug, covered with the lid of a black teapot, stood on the edge of the embers, steaming forever, and sometimes bubbling a little, and giving a great puff, as if it were sighing and groaning in sympathy with poor aunt keziah, and when it sighed there came a great steam of herby fragrance, not particularly pleasant, into the kitchen. and ever and anon,--half a dozen times it might be,--of an afternoon, aunt keziah took a certain bottle from a private receptacle of hers, and also a teacup, and likewise a little, old-fashioned silver teaspoon, with which she measured three teaspoonfuls of some spirituous liquor into the teacup, half filled the cup with the hot decoction, drank it off, gave a grunt of content, and for the space of half an hour appeared to find life tolerable. but one day poor aunt keziah found herself unable, partly from rheumatism, partly from other sickness or weakness, and partly from dolorous ill-spirits, to keep about any longer, so she betook herself to her bed; and betimes in the forenoon septimius heard a tremendous knocking on the floor of her bedchamber, which happened to be the room above his own. he was the only person in or about the house; so with great reluctance, he left his studies, which were upon the recipe, in respect to which he was trying to make out the mode of concoction, which was told in such a mysterious way that he could not well tell either the quantity of the ingredients, the mode of trituration, nor in what way their virtue was to be extracted and combined. running hastily up stairs, he found aunt keziah lying in bed, and groaning with great spite and bitterness; so that, indeed, it seemed not improvidential that such an inimical state of mind towards the human race was accompanied with an almost inability of motion, else it would not be safe to be within a considerable distance of her. "seppy, you good-for-nothing, are you going to see me lying here, dying, without trying to do anything for me?" "dying, aunt keziah?" repeated the young man. "i hope not! what can i do for you? shall i go for rose? or call a neighbor in? or the doctor?" "no, no, you fool!" said the afflicted person. "you can do all that anybody can for me; and that is to put my mixture on the kitchen fire till it steams, and is just ready to bubble; then measure three teaspoonfuls--or it may be four, as i am very bad--of spirit into a teacup, fill it half full,--or it may be quite full, for i am very bad, as i said afore; six teaspoonfuls of spirit into a cup of mixture, and let me have it as soon as may be; and don't break the cup, nor spill the precious mixture, for goodness knows when i can go into the woods to gather any more. ah me! ah me! it's a wicked, miserable world, and i am the most miserable creature in it. be quick, you good-for-nothing, and do as i say!" septimius hastened down; but as he went a thought came into his head, which it occurred to him might result in great benefit to aunt keziah, as well as to the great cause of science and human good, and to the promotion of his own purpose, in the first place. a day or two ago, he had gathered several of the beautiful flowers, and laid them in the fervid sun to dry; and they now seemed to be in about the state in which the old woman was accustomed to use her herbs, so far as septimius had observed. now if these flowers were really, as there was so much reason for supposing, the one ingredient that had for hundreds of years been missing out of aunt keziah's nostrum,--if it was this which that strange indian sagamore had mingled with his drink with such beneficial effect,--why should not septimius now restore it, and if it would not make his beloved aunt young again, at least assuage the violent symptoms, and perhaps prolong her valuable life some years, for the solace and delight of her numerous friends? septimius, like other people of investigating and active minds, had a great tendency to experiment, and so good an opportunity as the present, where (perhaps he thought) there was so little to be risked at worst, and so much to be gained, was not to be neglected; so, without more ado, he stirred three of the crimson flowers into the earthen jug, set it on the edge of the fire, stirred it well, and when it steamed, threw up little scarlet bubbles, and was about to boil, he measured out the spirits, as aunt keziah had bidden him and then filled the teacup. "ah, this will do her good; little does she think, poor old thing, what a rare and costly medicine is about to be given her. this will set her on her feet again." the hue was somewhat changed, he thought, from what he had observed of aunt keziah's customary decoction; instead of a turbid yellow, the crimson petals of the flower had tinged it, and made it almost red; not a brilliant red, however, nor the least inviting in appearance. septimius smelt it, and thought he could distinguish a little of the rich odor of the flower, but was not sure. he considered whether to taste it; but the horrible flavor of aunt keziah's decoction recurred strongly to his remembrance, and he concluded that were he evidently at the point of death, he might possibly be bold enough to taste it again; but that nothing short of the hope of a century's existence at least would repay another taste of that fierce and nauseous bitterness. aunt keziah loved it; and as she brewed, so let her drink. he went up stairs, careful not to spill a drop of the brimming cup, and approached the old woman's bedside, where she lay, groaning as before, and breaking out into a spiteful croak the moment he was within ear-shot. "you don't care whether i live or die," said she. "you've been waiting in hopes i shall die, and so save yourself further trouble." "by no means, aunt keziah," said septimius. "here is the medicine, which i have warmed, and measured out, and mingled, as well as i knew how; and i think it will do you a great deal of good." "won't you taste it, seppy, my dear?" said aunt keziah, mollified by the praise of her beloved mixture. "drink first, dear, so that my sick old lips need not taint it. you look pale, septimius; it will do you good." "no, aunt keziah, i do not need it; and it were a pity to waste your precious drink," said he. "it does not look quite the right color," said aunt keziah, as she took the cup in her hand. "you must have dropped some soot into it." then, as she raised it to her lips, "it does not smell quite right. but, woe's me! how can i expect anybody but myself to make this precious drink as it should be?" she drank it off at two gulps; for she appeared to hurry it off faster than usual, as if not tempted by the exquisiteness of its flavor to dwell upon it so long. "you have not made it just right, seppy," said she in a milder tone than before, for she seemed to feel the customary soothing influence of the draught, "but you'll do better the next time. it had a queer taste, methought; or is it that my mouth is getting out of taste? hard times it will be for poor aunt kezzy, if she's to lose her taste for the medicine that, under providence, has saved her life for so many years." she gave back the cup to septimius, after looking a little curiously at the dregs. "it looks like bloodroot, don't it?" said she. "perhaps it's my own fault after all. i gathered a fresh bunch of the yarbs yesterday afternoon, and put them to steep, and it may be i was a little blind, for it was between daylight and dark, and the moon shone on me before i had finished. i thought how the witches used to gather their poisonous stuff at such times, and what pleasant uses they made of it,--but those are sinful thoughts, seppy, sinful thoughts! so i'll say a prayer and try to go to sleep. i feel very noddy all at once." septimius drew the bedclothes up about her shoulders, for she complained of being very chilly, and, carefully putting her stick within reach, went down to his own room, and resumed his studies, trying to make out from those aged hieroglyphics, to which he was now so well accustomed, what was the precise method of making the elixir of immortality. sometimes, as men in deep thought do, he rose from his chair, and walked to and fro the four or five steps or so that conveyed him from end to end of his little room. at one of these times he chanced to look in the little looking-glass that hung between the windows, and was startled at the paleness of his face. it was quite white, indeed. septimius was not in the least a foppish young man; careless he was in dress, though often his apparel took an unsought picturesqueness that set off his slender, agile figure, perhaps from some quality of spontaneous arrangement that he had inherited from his indian ancestry. yet many women might have found a charm in that dark, thoughtful face, with its hidden fire and energy, although septimius never thought of its being handsome, and seldom looked at it. yet now he was drawn to it by seeing how strangely white it was, and, gazing at it, he observed that since he considered it last, a very deep furrow, or corrugation, or fissure, it might almost be called, had indented his brow, rising from the commencement of his nose towards the centre of the forehead. and he knew it was his brooding thought, his fierce, hard determination, his intense concentrativeness for so many months, that had been digging that furrow; and it must prove indeed a potent specific of the life-water that would smooth that away, and restore him all the youth and elasticity that he had buried in that profound grave. but why was he so pale? he could have supposed himself startled by some ghastly thing that he had just seen; by a corpse in the next room, for instance; or else by the foreboding that one would soon be there; but yet he was conscious of no tremor in his frame, no terror in his heart; as why should there be any? feeling his own pulse, he found the strong, regular beat that should be there. he was not ill, nor affrighted; not expectant of any pain. then why so ghastly pale? and why, moreover, septimius, did you listen so earnestly for any sound in aunt keziah's chamber? why did you creep on tiptoe, once, twice, three times, up to the old woman's chamber, and put your ear to the keyhole, and listen breathlessly? well; it must have been that he was subconscious that he was trying a bold experiment, and that he had taken this poor old woman to be the medium of it, in the hope, of course, that it would turn out well; yet with other views than her interest in the matter. what was the harm of that? medical men, no doubt, are always doing so, and he was a medical man for the time. then why was he so pale? he sat down and fell into a reverie, which perhaps was partly suggested by that chief furrow which he had seen, and which we have spoken of, in his brow. he considered whether there was anything in this pursuit of his that used up life particularly fast; so that, perhaps, unless he were successful soon, he should be incapable of renewal; for, looking within himself, and considering his mode of being, he had a singular fancy that his heart was gradually drying up, and that he must continue to get some moisture for it, or else it would soon be like a withered leaf. supposing his pursuit were vain, what a waste he was making of that little treasure of golden days, which was his all! could this be called life, which he was leading now? how unlike that of other young men! how unlike that of robert hagburn, for example! there had come news yesterday of his having performed a gallant part in the battle of monmouth, and being promoted to be a captain for his brave conduct. without thinking of long life, he really lived in heroic actions and emotions; he got much life in a little, and did not fear to sacrifice a lifetime of torpid breaths, if necessary, to the ecstasy of a glorious death! [_it appears from a written sketch by the author of this story, that he changed his first plan of making septimius and rose lovers, and she was to be represented as his half-sister, and in the copy for publication this alteration would have been made_.--ed.] and then robert loved, too, loved his sister rose, and felt, doubtless, an immortality in that passion. why could not septimius love too? it was forbidden! well, no matter; whom could he have loved? who, in all this world would have been suited to his secret, brooding heart, that he could have let her into its mysterious chambers, and walked with her from one cavernous gloom to another, and said, "here are my treasures. i make thee mistress of all these; with all these goods i thee endow." and then, revealing to her his great secret and purpose of gaining immortal life, have said: "this shall be thine, too. thou shalt share with me. we will walk along the endless path together, and keep one another's hearts warm, and so be content to live." ah, septimius! but now you are getting beyond those rules of yours, which, cold as they are, have been drawn out of a subtle philosophy, and might, were it possible to follow them out, suffice to do all that you ask of them; but if you break them, you do it at the peril of your earthly immortality. each warmer and quicker throb of the heart wears away so much of life. the passions, the affections, are a wine not to be indulged in. love, above all, being in its essence an immortal thing, cannot be long contained in an earthly body, but would wear it out with its own secret power, softly invigorating as it seems. you must be cold, therefore, septimius; you must not even earnestly and passionately desire this immortality that seems so necessary to you. else the very wish will prevent the possibility of its fulfilment. by and by, to call him out of these rhapsodies, came rose home; and finding the kitchen hearth cold, and aunt keziah missing, and no dinner by the fire, which was smouldering,--nothing but the portentous earthen jug, which fumed, and sent out long, ill-flavored sighs, she tapped at septimius's door, and asked him what was the matter. "aunt keziah has had an ill turn," said septimius, "and has gone to bed." "poor auntie!" said rose, with her quick sympathy. "i will this moment run up and see if she needs anything." "no, rose," said septimius, "she has doubtless gone to sleep, and will awake as well as usual. it would displease her much were you to miss your afternoon school; so you had better set the table with whatever there is left of yesterday's dinner, and leave me to take care of auntie." "well," said rose, "she loves you best; but if she be really ill, i shall give up my school and nurse her." "no doubt," said septimius, "she will be about the house again to-morrow." so rose ate her frugal dinner (consisting chiefly of purslain, and some other garden herbs, which her thrifty aunt had prepared for boiling), and went away as usual to her school; for aunt keziah, as aforesaid, had never encouraged the tender ministrations of rose, whose orderly, womanly character, with its well-defined orb of daily and civilized duties, had always appeared to strike her as tame; and she once said to her, "you are no squaw, child, and you'll never make a witch." nor would she even so much as let rose put her tea to steep, or do anything whatever for herself personally; though, certainly, she was not backward in requiring of her a due share of labor for the general housekeeping. septimius was sitting in his room, as the afternoon wore away; because, for some reason or other, or, quite as likely, for no reason at all, he did not air himself and his thoughts, as usual, on the hill; so he was sitting musing, thinking, looking into his mysterious manuscript, when he heard aunt keziah moving in the chamber above. first she seemed to rattle a chair; then she began a slow, regular beat with the stick which septimius had left by her bedside, and which startled him strangely,--so that, indeed, his heart beat faster than the five-and-seventy throbs to which he was restricted by the wise rules that he had digested. so he ran hastily up stairs, and behold, aunt keziah was sitting up in bed, looking very wild,--so wild that you would have thought she was going to fly up chimney the next minute; her gray hair all dishevelled, her eyes staring, her hands clutching forward, while she gave a sort of howl, what with pain and agitation. "seppy! seppy!" said she,--"seppy, my darling! are you quite sure you remember how to make that precious drink?" "quite well, aunt keziah," said septimius, inwardly much alarmed by her aspect, but preserving a true indian composure of outward mien. "i wrote it down, and could say it by heart besides. shall i make you a fresh pot of it? for i have thrown away the other." "that was well, seppy," said the poor old woman, "for there is something wrong about it; but i want no more, for, seppy dear, i am going fast out of this world, where you and that precious drink were my only treasures and comforts. i wanted to know if you remembered the recipe; it is all i have to leave you, and the more you drink of it, seppy, the better. only see to make it right!" "dear auntie, what can i do for you?" said septimius, in much consternation, but still calm. "let me run for the doctor,--for the neighbors? something must be done!" the old woman contorted herself as if there were a fearful time in her insides; and grinned, and twisted the yellow ugliness of her face, and groaned, and howled; and yet there was a tough and fierce kind of endurance with which she fought with her anguish, and would not yield to it a jot, though she allowed herself the relief of shrieking savagely at it,--much more like a defiance than a cry for mercy. "no doctor! no woman!" said she; "if my drink could not save me, what would a doctor's foolish pills and powders do? and a woman! if old martha denton, the witch, were alive, i would be glad to see her. but other women! pah! ah! ai! oh! phew! ah, seppy, what a mercy it would be now if i could set to and blaspheme a bit, and shake my fist at the sky! but i'm a christian woman, seppy,--a christian woman." "shall i send for the minister, aunt keziah?" asked septimius. "he is a good man, and a wise one." "no minister for me, seppy," said aunt keziah, howling as if somebody were choking her. "he may be a good man, and a wise one, but he's not wise enough to know the way to my heart, and never a man as was! eh, seppy, i'm a christian woman, but i'm not like other christian women; and i'm glad i'm going away from this stupid world. i've not been a bad woman, and i deserve credit for it, for it would have suited me a great deal better to be bad. oh, what a delightful time a witch must have had, starting off up chimney on her broomstick at midnight, and looking down from aloft in the sky on the sleeping village far below, with its steeple pointing up at her, so that she might touch the golden weathercock! you, meanwhile, in such an ecstasy, and all below you the dull, innocent, sober humankind; the wife sleeping by her husband, or mother by her child, squalling with wind in its stomach; the goodman driving up his cattle and his plough,--all so innocent, all so stupid, with their dull days just alike, one after another. and you up in the air, sweeping away to some nook in the forest! ha! what's that? a wizard! ha! ha! known below as a deacon! there is goody chickering! how quietly she sent the young people to bed after prayers! there is an indian; there a nigger; they all have equal rights and privileges at a witch-meeting. phew! the wind blows cold up here! why does not the black man have the meeting at his own kitchen hearth? ho! ho! oh dear me! but i'm a christian woman and no witch; but those must have been gallant times!" doubtless it was a partial wandering of the mind that took the poor old woman away on this old-witch flight; and it was very curious and pitiful to witness the compunction with which she returned to herself and took herself to task for the preference which, in her wild nature, she could not help giving to harum-scarum wickedness over tame goodness. now she tried to compose herself, and talk reasonably and godly. "ah, septimius, my dear child, never give way to temptation, nor consent to be a wizard, though the black man persuade you ever so hard. i know he will try. he has tempted me, but i never yielded, never gave him his will; and never do you, my boy, though you, with your dark complexion, and your brooding brow, and your eye veiled, only when it suddenly looks out with a flash of fire in it, are the sort of man he seeks most, and that afterwards serves him. but don't do it, septimius. but if you could be an indian, methinks it would be better than this tame life we lead. 't would have been better for me, at all events. oh, how pleasant 't would have been to spend my life wandering in the woods, smelling the pines and the hemlock all day, and fresh things of all kinds, and no kitchen work to do,--not to rake up the fire, nor sweep the room, nor make the beds,--but to sleep on fresh boughs in a wigwam, with the leaves still on the branches that made the roof! and then to see the deer brought in by the red hunter, and the blood streaming from the arrow-dart! ah! and the fight too! and the scalping! and, perhaps, a woman might creep into the battle, and steal the wounded enemy away of her tribe and scalp him, and be praised for it! o seppy, how i hate the thought of the dull life women lead! a white woman's life is so dull! thank heaven, i'm done with it! if i'm ever to live again, may i be whole indian, please my maker!" after this goodly outburst, aunt keziah lay quietly for a few moments, and her skinny claws being clasped together, and her yellow visage grinning, as pious an aspect as was attainable by her harsh and pain-distorted features, septimius perceived that she was in prayer. and so it proved by what followed, for the old woman turned to him with a grim tenderness on her face, and stretched out her hand to be taken in his own. he clasped the bony talon in both his hands. "seppy, my dear, i feel a great peace, and i don't think there is so very much to trouble me in the other world. it won't be all house-work, and keeping decent, and doing like other people there. i suppose i needn't expect to ride on a broomstick,--that would be wrong in any kind of a world,--but there may be woods to wander in, and a pipe to smoke in the air of heaven; trees to hear the wind in, and to smell of, and all such natural, happy things; and by and by i shall hope to see you there, seppy, my darling boy! come by and by; 't is n't worth your while to live forever, even if you should find out what's wanting in the drink i've taught you. i can see a little way into the next world now, and i see it to be far better than this heavy and wretched old place. you'll die when your time comes; won't you, seppy, my darling?" "yes, dear auntie, when my time comes," said septimius. "very likely i shall want to live no longer by that time." "likely not," said the old woman. "i'm sure i don't. it is like going to sleep on my mother's breast to die. so good night, dear seppy!" "good night, and god bless you, auntie!" said septimius, with a gush of tears blinding him, spite of his indian nature. the old woman composed herself, and lay quite still and decorous for a short time; then, rousing herself a little, "septimius," said she, "is there just a little drop of my drink left? not that i want to live any longer, but if i could sip ever so little, i feel as if i should step into the other world quite cheery, with it warm in my heart, and not feel shy and bashful at going among strangers." "not one drop, auntie." "ah, well, no matter! it was not quite right, that last cup. it had a queer taste. what could you have put into it, seppy, darling? but no matter, no matter! it's a precious stuff, if you make it right. don't forget the herbs, septimius. something wrong had certainly got into it." these, except for some murmurings, some groanings and unintelligible whisperings, were the last utterances of poor aunt keziah, who did not live a great while longer, and at last passed away in a great sigh, like a gust of wind among the trees, she having just before stretched out her hand again and grasped that of septimius; and he sat watching her and gazing at her, wondering and horrified, touched, shocked by death, of which he had so unusual a terror,--and by the death of this creature especially, with whom he felt a sympathy that did not exist with any other person now living. so long did he sit, holding her hand, that at last he was conscious that it was growing cold within his own, and that the stiffening fingers clutched him, as if they were disposed to keep their hold, and not forego the tie that had been so peculiar. then rushing hastily forth, he told the nearest available neighbor, who was robert hagburn's mother; and she summoned some of her gossips, and came to the house, and took poor aunt keziah in charge. they talked of her with no great respect, i fear, nor much sorrow, nor sense that the community would suffer any great deprivation in her loss; for, in their view, she was a dram-drinking, pipe-smoking, cross-grained old maid, and, as some thought, a witch; and, at any rate, with too much of the indian blood in her to be of much use; and they hoped that now rose garfield would have a pleasanter life, and septimius study to be a minister, and all things go well, and the place be cheerfuller. they found aunt keziah's bottle in the cupboard, and tasted and smelt of it. "good west indjy as ever i tasted," said mrs. hagburn; "and there stands her broken pitcher, on the hearth. ah, empty! i never could bring my mind to taste it; but now i'm sorry i never did, for i suppose nobody in the world can make any more of it." septimius, meanwhile, had betaken himself to the hill-top, which was his place of refuge on all occasions when the house seemed too stifled to contain him; and there he walked to and fro, with a certain kind of calmness and indifference that he wondered at; for there is hardly anything in this world so strange as the quiet surface that spreads over a man's mind in his greatest emergencies: so that he deems himself perfectly quiet, and upbraids himself with not feeling anything, when indeed he is passion-stirred. as septimius walked to and fro, he looked at the rich crimson flowers, which seemed to be blooming in greater profusion and luxuriance than ever before. he had made an experiment with these flowers, and he was curious to know whether that experiment had been the cause of aunt keziah's death. not that he felt any remorse therefor, in any case, or believed himself to have committed a crime, having really intended and desired nothing but good. i suppose such things (and he must be a lucky physician, methinks, who has no such mischief within his own experience) never weigh with deadly weight on any man's conscience. something must be risked in the cause of science, and in desperate cases something must be risked for the patient's self. septimius, much as he loved life, would not have hesitated to put his own life to the same risk that he had imposed on aunt keziah; or, if he did hesitate, it would have been only because, if the experiment turned out disastrously in his own person, he would not be in a position to make another and more successful trial; whereas, by trying it on others, the man of science still reserves himself for new efforts, and does not put all the hopes of the world, so far as involved in his success, on one cast of the die. by and by he met sibyl dacy, who had ascended the hill, as was usual with her, at sunset, and came towards him, gazing earnestly in his face. "they tell me poor aunt keziah is no more," said she. "she is dead," said septimius. "the flower is a very famous medicine," said the girl, "but everything depends on its being applied in the proper way." "do you know the way, then?" asked septimius. "no; you should ask doctor portsoaken about that," said sibyl. doctor portsoaken! and so he should consult him. that eminent chemist and scientific man had evidently heard of the recipe, and at all events would be acquainted with the best methods of getting the virtues out of flowers and herbs, some of which, septimius had read enough to know, were poison in one phase and shape of preparation, and possessed of richest virtues in others; their poison, as one may say, serving as a dark and terrible safeguard, which providence has set to watch over their preciousness; even as a dragon, or some wild and fiendish spectre, is set to watch and keep hidden gold and heaped-up diamonds. a dragon always waits on everything that is very good. and what would deserve the watch and ward of danger of a dragon, or something more fatal than a dragon, if not this treasure of which septimius was in quest, and the discovery and possession of which would enable him to break down one of the strongest barriers of nature? it ought to be death, he acknowledged it, to attempt such a thing; for how hanged would be life if he should succeed; how necessary it was that mankind should be defended from such attempts on the general rule on the part of all but him. how could death be spared?--then the sire would live forever, and the heir never come to his inheritance, and so he would at once hate his own father, from the perception that he would never be out of his way. then the same class of powerful minds would always rule the state, and there would never be a change of policy. [_here several pages are missing_.--ed.] * * * * * through such scenes septimius sought out the direction that doctor portsoaken had given him, and came to the door of a house in the olden part of the town. the boston of those days had very much the aspect of provincial towns in england, such as may still be seen there, while our own city has undergone such wonderful changes that little likeness to what our ancestors made it can now be found. the streets, crooked and narrow; the houses, many gabled, projecting, with latticed windows and diamond panes; without sidewalks; with rough pavements. septimius knocked loudly at the door, nor had long to wait before a serving-maid appeared, who seemed to be of english nativity; and in reply to his request for doctor portsoaken bade him come in, and led him up a staircase with broad landing-places; then tapped at the door of a room, and was responded to by a gruff voice saying, "come in!" the woman held the door open, and septimius saw the veritable doctor portsoaken in an old, faded morning-gown, and with a nightcap on his head, his german pipe in his mouth, and a brandy-bottle, to the best of our belief, on the table by his side. "come in, come in," said the gruff doctor, nodding to septimius. "i remember you. come in, man, and tell me your business." septimius did come in, but was so struck by the aspect of dr. portsoaken's apartment, and his gown, that he did not immediately tell his business. in the first place, everything looked very dusty and dirty, so that evidently no woman had ever been admitted into this sanctity of a place; a fact made all the more evident by the abundance of spiders, who had spun their webs about the walls and ceiling in the wildest apparent confusion, though doubtless each individual spider knew the cordage which he had lengthened out of his own miraculous bowels. but it was really strange. they had festooned their cordage on whatever was stationary in the room, making a sort of gray, dusky tapestry, that waved portentously in the breeze, and flapped, heavy and dismal, each with its spider in the centre of his own system. and what was most marvellous was a spider over the doctor's head; a spider, i think, of some south american breed, with a circumference of its many legs as big, unless i am misinformed, as a teacup, and with a body in the midst as large as a dollar; giving the spectator horrible qualms as to what would be the consequence if this spider should be crushed, and, at the same time, suggesting the poisonous danger of suffering such a monster to live. the monster, however, sat in the midst of the stalwart cordage of his web, right over the doctor's head; and he looked, with all those complicated lines, like the symbol of a conjurer or crafty politician in the midst of the complexity of his scheme; and septimius wondered if he were not the type of dr. portsoaken himself, who, fat and bloated as the spider, seemed to be the centre of some dark contrivance. and could it be that poor septimius was typified by the fascinated fly, doomed to be entangled by the web? "good day to you," said the gruff doctor, taking his pipe from his mouth. "here i am, with my brother spiders, in the midst of my web. i told you, you remember, the wonderful efficacy which i had discovered in spiders' webs; and this is my laboratory, where i have hundreds of workmen concocting my panacea for me. is it not a lovely sight?" "a wonderful one, at least," said septimius. "that one above your head, the monster, is calculated to give a very favorable idea of your theory. what a quantity of poison there must be in him!" "poison, do you call it?" quoth the grim doctor. "that's entirely as it may be used. doubtless his bite would send a man to kingdom come; but, on the other hand, no one need want a better life-line than that fellow's web. he and i are firm friends, and i believe he would know my enemies by instinct. but come, sit down, and take a glass of brandy. no? well, i'll drink it for you. and how is the old aunt yonder, with her infernal nostrum, the bitterness and nauseousness of which my poor stomach has not yet forgotten?" "my aunt keziah is no more," said septimius. "no more! well, i trust in heaven she has carried her secret with her," said the doctor. "if anything could comfort you for her loss, it would be that. but what brings you to boston?" "only a dried flower or two," said septimius, producing some specimens of the strange growth of the grave. "i want you to tell me about them." the naturalist took the flowers in his hand, one of which had the root appended, and examined them with great minuteness and some surprise; two or three times looking in septimius's face with a puzzled and inquiring air; then examined them again. "do you tell me," said he, "that the plant has been found indigenous in this country, and in your part of it? and in what locality?" "indigenous, so far as i know," answered septimius. "as to the locality,"--he hesitated a little,--"it is on a small hillock, scarcely bigger than a molehill, on the hill-top behind my house." the naturalist looked steadfastly at him with red, burning eyes, under his deep, impending, shaggy brows; then again at the flower. "flower, do you call it?" said he, after a reëxamination. "this is no flower, though it so closely resembles one, and a beautiful one,--yes, most beautiful. but it is no flower. it is a certain very rare fungus,--so rare as almost to be thought fabulous; and there are the strangest superstitions, coming down from ancient times, as to the mode of production. what sort of manure had been put into that hillock? was it merely dried leaves, the refuse of the forest, or something else?" septimius hesitated a little; but there was no reason why he should not disclose the truth,--as much of it as doctor portsoaken cared to know. "the hillock where it grew," answered he, "was a grave." "a grave! strange! strange!" quoth doctor portsoaken. "now these old superstitions sometimes prove to have a germ of truth in them, which some philosopher has doubtless long ago, in forgotten ages, discovered and made known; but in process of time his learned memory passes away, but the truth, undiscovered, survives him, and the people get hold of it, and make it the nucleus of all sorts of folly. so it grew out of a grave! yes, yes; and probably it would have grown out of any other dead flesh, as well as that of a human being; a dog would have answered the purpose as well as a man. you must know that the seeds of fungi are scattered so universally over the world that, only comply with the conditions, and you will produce them everywhere. prepare the bed it loves, and a mushroom will spring up spontaneously, an excellent food, like manna from heaven. so superstition says, kill your deadliest enemy, and plant him, and he will come up in a delicious fungus, which i presume to be this; steep him, or distil him, and he will make an elixir of life for you. i suppose there is some foolish symbolism or other about the matter; but the fact i affirm to be nonsense. dead flesh under some certain conditions of rain and sunshine, not at present ascertained by science, will produce the fungus, whether the manure be friend, or foe, or cattle." "and as to its medical efficacy?" asked septimius. "that may be great for aught i know," said portsoaken; "but i am content with my cobwebs. you may seek it out for yourself. but if the poor fellow lost his life in the supposition that he might be a useful ingredient in a recipe, you are rather an unscrupulous practitioner." "the person whose mortal relics fill that grave," said septimius, "was no enemy of mine (no private enemy, i mean, though he stood among the enemies of my country), nor had i anything to gain by his death. i strove to avoid aiming at his life, but he compelled me." "many a chance shot brings down the bird," said doctor portsoaken. "you say you had no interest in his death. we shall see that in the end." septimius did not try to follow the conversation among the mysterious hints with which the doctor chose to involve it; but he now sought to gain some information from him as to the mode of preparing the recipe, and whether he thought it would be most efficacious as a decoction, or as a distillation. the learned chemist supported most decidedly the latter opinion, and showed septimius how he might make for himself a simpler apparatus, with no better aids than aunt keziah's teakettle, and one or two trifling things, which the doctor himself supplied, by which all might be done with every necessary scrupulousness. "let me look again at the formula," said he. "there are a good many minute directions that appear trifling, but it is not safe to neglect any minutiae in the preparation of an affair like this; because, as it is all mysterious and unknown ground together, we cannot tell which may be the important and efficacious part. for instance, when all else is done, the recipe is to be exposed seven days to the sun at noon. that does not look very important, but it may be. then again, 'steep it in moonlight during the second quarter.' that's all moonshine, one would think; but there's no saying. it is singular, with such preciseness, that no distinct directions are given whether to infuse, decoct, distil, or what other way; but my advice is to distil." "i will do it," said septimius, "and not a direction shall be neglected." "i shall be curious to know the result," said doctor portsoaken, "and am glad to see the zeal with which you enter into the matter. a very valuable medicine may be recovered to science through your agency, and you may make your fortune by it; though, for my part, i prefer to trust to my cobwebs. this spider, now, is not he a lovely object? see, he is quite capable of knowledge and affection." there seemed, in fact, to be some mode of communication between the doctor and his spider, for on some sign given by the former, imperceptible to septimius, the many-legged monster let himself down by a cord, which he extemporized out of his own bowels, and came dangling his huge bulk down before his master's face, while the latter lavished many epithets of endearment upon him, ludicrous, and not without horror, as applied to such a hideous production of nature. "i assure you," said dr. portsoaken, "i run some risk from my intimacy with this lovely jewel, and if i behave not all the more prudently, your countrymen will hang me for a wizard, and annihilate this precious spider as my familiar. there would be a loss to the world; not small in my own case, but enormous in the case of the spider. look at him now, and see if the mere uninstructed observation does not discover a wonderful value in him." in truth, when looked at closely, the spider really showed that a care and art had been bestowed upon his make, not merely as regards curiosity, but absolute beauty, that seemed to indicate that he must be a rather distinguished creature in the view of providence; so variegated was he with a thousand minute spots, spots of color, glorious radiance, and such a brilliance was attained by many conglomerated brilliancies; and it was very strange that all this care was bestowed on a creature that, probably, had never been carefully considered except by the two pair of eyes that were now upon it; and that, in spite of its beauty and magnificence, could only be looked at with an effort to overcome the mysterious repulsiveness of its presence; for all the time that septimius looked and admired, he still hated the thing, and thought it wrong that it was ever born, and wished that it could be annihilated. whether the spider was conscious of the wish, we are unable to say; but certainly septimius felt as if he were hostile to him, and had a mind to sting him; and, in fact, dr. portsoaken seemed of the same opinion. "aha, my friend," said he, "i would advise you not to come too near orontes! he is a lovely beast, it is true; but in a certain recess of this splendid form of his he keeps a modest supply of a certain potent and piercing poison, which would produce a wonderful effect on any flesh to which he chose to apply it. a powerful fellow is orontes; and he has a great sense of his own dignity and importance, and will not allow it to be imposed on." septimius moved from the vicinity of the spider, who, in fact, retreated, by climbing up his cord, and ensconced himself in the middle of his web, where he remained waiting for his prey. septimius wondered whether the doctor were symbolized by the spider, and was likewise waiting in the middle of his web for his prey. as he saw no way, however, in which the doctor could make a profit out of himself, or how he could be victimized, the thought did not much disturb his equanimity. he was about to take his leave, but the doctor, in a derisive kind of way, bade him sit still, for he purposed keeping him as a guest, that night, at least. "i owe you a dinner," said he, "and will pay it with a supper and knowledge; and before we part i have certain inquiries to make, of which you may not at first see the object, but yet are not quite purposeless. my familiar, up aloft there, has whispered me something about you, and i rely greatly on his intimations." septimius, who was sufficiently common-sensible, and invulnerable to superstitious influences on every point except that to which he had surrendered himself, was easily prevailed upon to stay; for he found the singular, charlatanic, mysterious lore of the man curious, and he had enough of real science to at least make him an object of interest to one who knew nothing of the matter; and septimius's acuteness, too, was piqued in trying to make out what manner of man he really was, and how much in him was genuine science and self-belief, and how much quackery and pretension and conscious empiricism. so he stayed, and supped with the doctor at a table heaped more bountifully, and with rarer dainties, than septimius had ever before conceived of; and in his simpler cognizance, heretofore, of eating merely to live, he could not but wonder to see a man of thought caring to eat of more than one dish, so that most of the meal, on his part, was spent in seeing the doctor feed and hearing him discourse upon his food. "if man lived only to eat," quoth the doctor, "one life would not suffice, not merely to exhaust the pleasure of it, but even to get the rudiments of it." when this important business was over, the doctor and his guest sat down again in his laboratory, where the former took care to have his usual companion, the black bottle, at his elbow, and filled his pipe, and seemed to feel a certain sullen, genial, fierce, brutal, kindly mood enough, and looked at septimius with a sort of friendship, as if he had as lief shake hands with him as knock him down. "now for a talk about business," said he. septimius thought, however, that the doctor's talk began, at least, at a sufficient remoteness from any practical business; for he began to question about his remote ancestry, what he knew, or what record had been preserved, of the first emigrant from england; whence, from what shire or part of england, that ancestor had come; whether there were any memorial of any kind remaining of him, any letters or written documents, wills, deeds, or other legal paper; in short, all about him. septimius could not satisfactorily see whether these inquiries were made with any definite purpose, or from a mere general curiosity to discover how a family of early settlement in america might still be linked with the old country; whether there were any tendrils stretching across the gulf of a hundred and fifty years by which the american branch of the family was separated from the trunk of the family tree in england. the doctor partly explained this. "you must know," said he, "that the name you bear, felton, is one formerly of much eminence and repute in my part of england, and, indeed, very recently possessed of wealth and station. i should like to know if you are of that race." septimius answered with such facts and traditions as had come to his knowledge respecting his family history; a sort of history that is quite as liable to be mythical, in its early and distant stages, as that of rome, and, indeed, seldom goes three or four generations back without getting into a mist really impenetrable, though great, gloomy, and magnificent shapes of men often seem to loom in it, who, if they could be brought close to the naked eye, would turn out as commonplace as the descendants who wonder at and admire them. he remembered aunt keziah's legend and said he had reason to believe that his first ancestor came over at a somewhat earlier date than the first puritan settlers, and dwelt among the indians where (and here the young man cast down his eyes, having the customary american abhorrence for any mixture of blood) he had intermarried with the daughter of a sagamore, and succeeded to his rule. this might have happened as early as the end of elizabeth's reign, perhaps later. it was impossible to decide dates on such a matter. there had been a son of this connection, perhaps more than one, but certainly one son, who, on the arrival of the puritans, was a youth, his father appearing to have been slain in some outbreak of the tribe, perhaps owing to the jealousy of prominent chiefs at seeing their natural authority abrogated or absorbed by a man of different race. he slightly alluded to the supernatural attributes that gathered round this predecessor, but in a way to imply that he put no faith in them; for septimius's natural keen sense and perception kept him from betraying his weaknesses to the doctor, by the same instinctive and subtle caution with which a madman can so well conceal his infirmity. on the arrival of the puritans, they had found among the indians a youth partly of their own blood, able, though imperfectly, to speak their language,--having, at least, some early recollections of it,--inheriting, also, a share of influence over the tribe on which his father had grafted him. it was natural that they should pay especial attention to this youth, consider it their duty to give him religious instruction in the faith of his fathers, and try to use him as a means of influencing his tribe. they did so, but did not succeed in swaying the tribe by his means, their success having been limited to winning the half-indian from the wild ways of his mother's people, into a certain partial, but decent accommodation to those of the english. a tendency to civilization was brought out in his character by their rigid training; at least, his savage wildness was broken. he built a house among them, with a good deal of the wigwam, no doubt, in its style of architecture, but still a permanent house, near which he established a corn-field, a pumpkin-garden, a melon-patch, and became farmer enough to be entitled to ask the hand of a puritan maiden. there he spent his life, with some few instances of temporary relapse into savage wildness, when he fished in the river musquehannah, or in walden, or strayed in the woods, when he should have been planting or hoeing; but, on the whole, the race had been redeemed from barbarism in his person, and in the succeeding generations had been tamed more and more. the second generation had been distinguished in the indian wars of the provinces, and then intermarried with the stock of a distinguished puritan divine, by which means septimius could reckon great and learned men, scholars of old cambridge, among his ancestry on one side, while on the other it ran up to the early emigrants, who seemed to have been remarkable men, and to that strange wild lineage of indian chiefs, whose blood was like that of persons not quite human, intermixed with civilized blood. "i wonder," said the doctor, musingly, "whether there are really no documents to ascertain the epoch at which that old first emigrant came over, and whence he came, and precisely from what english family. often the last heir of some respectable name dies in england, and we say that the family is extinct; whereas, very possibly, it may be abundantly flourishing in the new world, revived by the rich infusion of new blood in a new soil, instead of growing feebler, heavier, stupider, each year by sticking to an old soil, intermarrying over and over again with the same respectable families, till it has made common stock of all their vices, weaknesses, madnesses. have you no documents, i say, no muniment deed?" "none," said septimius. "no old furniture, desks, trunks, chests, cabinets?" "you must remember," said septimius, "that my indian ancestor was not very likely to have brought such things out of the forest with him. a wandering indian does not carry a chest of papers with him. i do remember, in my childhood, a little old iron-bound chest, or coffer, of which the key was lost, and which my aunt keziah used to say came down from her great-great-grandfather. i don't know what has become of it, and my poor old aunt kept it among her own treasures." "well, my friend, do you hunt up that old coffer, and, just as a matter of curiosity, let me see the contents." "i have other things to do," said septimius. "perhaps so," quoth the doctor, "but no other, as it may turn out, of quite so much importance as this. i'll tell you fairly: the heir of a great english house is lately dead, and the estate lies open to any well-sustained, perhaps to any plausible, claimant. if it should appear from the records of that family, as i have some reason to suppose, that a member of it, who would now represent the older branch, disappeared mysteriously and unaccountably, at a date corresponding with what might be ascertained as that of your ancestor's first appearance in this country; if any reasonable proof can be brought forward, on the part of the representatives of that white sagamore, that wizard pow-wow, or however you call him, that he was the disappearing englishman, why, a good case is made out. do you feel no interest in such a prospect?" "very little, i confess," said septimius. "very little!" said the grim doctor, impatiently. "do not you see that, if you make good your claim, you establish for yourself a position among the english aristocracy, and succeed to a noble english estate, an ancient hall, where your forefathers have dwelt since the conqueror; splendid gardens, hereditary woods and parks, to which anything america can show is despicable,--all thoroughly cultivated and adorned, with the care and ingenuity of centuries; and an income, a month of which would be greater wealth than any of your american ancestors, raking and scraping for his lifetime, has ever got together, as the accumulated result of the toil and penury by which he has sacrificed body and soul?" "that strain of indian blood is in me yet," said septimius, "and it makes me despise,--no, not despise; for i can see their desirableness for other people,--but it makes me reject for myself what you think so valuable. i do not care for these common aims. i have ambition, but it is for prizes such as other men cannot gain, and do not think of aspiring after. i could not live in the habits of english life, as i conceive it to be, and would not, for my part, be burdened with the great estate you speak of. it might answer my purpose for a time. it would suit me well enough to try that mode of life, as well as a hundred others, but only for a time. it is of no permanent importance." "i'll tell you what it is, young man," said the doctor, testily, "you have something in your brain that makes you talk very foolishly; and i have partly a suspicion what it is,--only i can't think that a fellow who is really gifted with respectable sense, in other directions, should be such a confounded idiot in this." septimius blushed, but held his peace, and the conversation languished after this; the doctor grimly smoking his pipe, and by no means increasing the milkiness of his mood by frequent applications to the black bottle, until septimius intimated that he would like to go to bed. the old woman was summoned, and ushered him to his chamber. at breakfast, the doctor partially renewed the subject which he seemed to consider most important in yesterday's conversation. "my young friend," said he, "i advise you to look in cellar and garret, or wherever you consider the most likely place, for that iron-bound coffer. there may be nothing in it; it may be full of musty love-letters, or old sermons, or receipted bills of a hundred years ago; but it may contain what will be worth to you an estate of five thousand pounds a year. it is a pity the old woman with the damnable decoction is gone off. look it up, i say." "well, well," said septimius, abstractedly, "when i can find time." so saying, he took his leave, and retraced his way back to his home. he had not seemed like himself during the time that elapsed since he left it, and it appeared an infinite space that he had lived through and travelled over, and he fancied it hardly possible that he could ever get back again. but now, with every step that he took, he found himself getting miserably back into the old enchanted land. the mist rose up about him, the pale mist-bow of ghostly promise curved before him; and he trod back again, poor boy, out of the clime of real effort, into the land of his dreams and shadowy enterprise. "how was it," said he, "that i can have been so untrue to my convictions? whence came that dark and dull despair that weighed upon me? why did i let the mocking mood which i was conscious of in that brutal, brandy-burnt sceptic have such an influence on me? let him guzzle! he shall not tempt me from my pursuit, with his lure of an estate and name among those heavy english beef-eaters of whom he is a brother. my destiny is one which kings might envy, and strive in vain to buy with principalities and kingdoms." so he trod on air almost, in the latter parts of his journey, and instead of being wearied, grew more airy with the latter miles that brought him to his wayside home. so now septimius sat down and began in earnest his endeavors and experiments to prepare the medicine, according to the mysterious terms of the recipe. it seemed not possible to do it, so many rebuffs and disappointments did he meet with. no effort would produce a combination answering to the description of the recipe, which propounded a brilliant, gold-colored liquid, clear as the air itself, with a certain fragrance which was peculiar to it, and also, what was the more individual test of the correctness of the mixture, a certain coldness of the feeling, a chillness which was described as peculiarly refreshing and invigorating. with all his trials, he produced nothing but turbid results, clouded generally, or lacking something in color, and never that fragrance, and never that coldness which was to be the test of truth. he studied all the books of chemistry which at that period were attainable,--a period when, in the world, it was a science far unlike what it has since become; and when septimius had no instruction in this country, nor could obtain any beyond the dark, mysterious charlatanic communications of doctor portsoaken. so that, in fact, he seemed to be discovering for himself the science through which he was to work. he seemed to do everything that was stated in the recipe, and yet no results came from it; the liquid that he produced was nauseous to the smell,--to taste it he had a horrible repugnance, turbid, nasty, reminding him in most respects of poor aunt keziah's elixir; and it was a body without a soul, and that body dead. and so it went on; and the poor, half-maddened septimius began to think that his immortal life was preserved by the mere effort of seeking for it, but was to be spent in the quest, and was therefore to be made an eternity of abortive misery. he pored over the document that had so possessed him, turning its crabbed meanings every way, trying to get out of it some new light, often tempted to fling it into the fire which he kept under his retort, and let the whole thing go; but then again, soon rising out of that black depth of despair, into a determination to do what he had so long striven for. with such intense action of mind as he brought to bear on this paper, it is wonderful that it was not spiritually distilled; that its essence did not arise, purified from all alloy of falsehood, from all turbidness of obscurity and ambiguity, and form a pure essence of truth and invigorating motive, if of any it were capable. in this interval, septimius is said by tradition to have found out many wonderful secrets that were almost beyond the scope of science. it was said that old aunt keziah used to come with a coal of fire from unknown furnaces, to light his distilling apparatus; it was said, too, that the ghost of the old lord, whose ingenuity had propounded this puzzle for his descendants, used to come at midnight and strive to explain to him this manuscript; that the black man, too, met him on the hill-top, and promised him an immediate release from his difficulties, provided he would kneel down and worship him, and sign his name in his book, an old, iron-clasped, much-worn volume, which he produced from his ample pockets, and showed him in it the names of many a man whose name has become historic, and above whose ashes kept watch an inscription testifying to his virtues and devotion,--old autographs,--for the black man was the original autograph collector. but these, no doubt, were foolish stories, conceived andpropagated in chimney-corners, while yet there were chimney-corners and firesides, and smoky flues. there wasno truth in such things, i am sure; the black man had changedhis tactics, and knew better than to lure the human soul thus to come to him with his musty autograph-book. so septimiusfought with his difficulty by himself, as many a beginner inscience has done before him; and to his efforts in this way arepopularly attributed many herb-drinks, and some kinds ofspruce-beer, and nostrums used for rheumatism, sore throat,and typhus fever; but i rather think they all came from aunt keziah; or perhaps, like jokes to joe miller, all sorts ofquack medicines, flocking at large through the community, areassigned to him or her. the people have a little mistaken thecharacter and purpose of poor septimius, and remember him as aquack doctor, instead of a seeker for a secret, not the lesssublime and elevating because it happened to be unattainable. i know not through what medium or by what means, but it got noised abroad that septimius was engaged in some mysterious work; and, indeed, his seclusion, his absorption, his indifference to all that was going on in that weary time of war, looked strange enough to indicate that it must be some most important business that engrossed him. on the few occasions when he came out from his immediate haunts into the village, he had a strange, owl-like appearance, uncombed, unbrushed, his hair long and tangled; his face, they said, darkened with smoke; his cheeks pale; the indentation of his brow deeper than ever before; an earnest, haggard, sulking look; and so he went hastily along the village street, feeling as if all eyes might find out what he had in his mind from his appearance; taking by-ways where they were to be found, going long distances through woods and fields, rather than short ones where the way lay through the frequented haunts of men. for he shunned the glances of his fellow-men, probably because he had learnt to consider them not as fellows, because he was seeking to withdraw himself from the common bond and destiny,--because he felt, too, that on that account his fellow-men would consider him as a traitor, an enemy, one who had deserted their cause, and tried to withdraw his feeble shoulder from under that great burden of death which is imposed on all men to bear, and which, if one could escape, each other would feel his load propertionably heavier. with these beings of a moment he had no longer any common cause; they must go their separate ways, yet apparently the same,--they on the broad, dusty, beaten path, that seemed always full, but from which continually they so strangely vanished into invisibility, no one knowing, nor long inquiring, what had become of them; he on his lonely path, where he should tread secure, with no trouble but the loneliness, which would be none to him. for a little while he would seem to keep them company, but soon they would all drop away, the minister, his accustomed towns-people, robert hagburn, rose, sibyl dacy,--all leaving him in blessed unknownness to adopt new temporary relations, and take a new course. sometimes, however, the prospect a little chilled him. could he give them all up,--the sweet sister; the friend of his childhood; the grave instructor of his youth; the homely, life-known faces? yes; there were such rich possibilities in the future: for he would seek out the noblest minds, the deepest hearts in every age, and be the friend of human time. only it might be sweet to have one unchangeable companion; for, unless he strung the pearls and diamonds of life upon one unbroken affection, he sometimes thought that his life would have nothing to give it unity and identity; and so the longest life would be but an aggregate of insulated fragments, which would have no relation to one another. and so it would not be one life, but many unconnected ones. unless he could look into the same eyes, through the mornings of future time, opening and blessing him with the fresh gleam of love and joy; unless the same sweet voice could melt his thoughts together; unless some sympathy of a life side by side with his could knit them into one; looking back upon the same things, looking forward to the same; the long, thin thread of an individual life, stretching onward and onward, would cease to be visible, cease to be felt, cease, by and by, to have any real bigness in proportion to its length, and so be virtually non-existent, except in the mere inconsiderable now. if a group of chosen friends, chosen out of all the world for their adaptedness, could go on in endless life together, keeping themselves mutually warm on the high, desolate way, then none of them need ever sigh to be comforted in the pitiable snugness of the grave. if one especial soul might be his companion, then how complete the fence of mutual arms, the warmth of close-pressing breast to breast! might there be one! o sibyl dacy! perhaps it could not be. who but himself could undergo that great trial, and hardship, and self-denial, and firm purpose, never wavering, never sinking for a moment, keeping his grasp on life like one who holds up by main force a sinking and drowning friend?--how could a woman do it! he must then give up the thought. there was a choice,--friendship, and the love of woman,--the long life of immortality. there was something heroic and ennobling in choosing the latter. and so he walked with the mysterious girl on the hill-top, and sat down beside her on the grave, which still ceased not to redden, portentously beautiful, with that unnatural flower,--and they talked together; and septimius looked on her weird beauty, and often said to himself, "this, too, will pass away; she is not capable of what i am; she is a woman. it must be a manly and courageous and forcible spirit, vastly rich in all three particulars, that has strength enough to live! ah, is it surely so? there is such a dark sympathy between us, she knows me so well, she touches my inmost so at unawares, that i could almost think i had a companion here. perhaps not so soon. at the end of centuries i might wed one; not now." but once he said to sibyl dacy, "ah, how sweet it would be--sweet for me, at least--if this intercourse might last forever!" "that is an awful idea that you present," said sibyl, with a hardly perceptible, involuntary shudder; "always on this hill-top, always passing and repassing this little hillock; always smelling these flowers! i always looking at this deep chasm in your brow; you always seeing my bloodless cheek!--doing this till these trees crumble away, till perhaps a new forest grew up wherever this white race had planted, and a race of savages again possess the soil. i should not like it. my mission here is but for a short time, and will soon be accomplished, and then i go." "you do not rightly estimate the way in which the long time might be spent," said septimius. "we would find out a thousand uses of this world, uses and enjoyments which now men never dream of, because the world is just held to their mouths, and then snatched away again, before they have time hardly to taste it, instead of becoming acquainted with the deliciousness of this great world-fruit. but you speak of a mission, and as if you were now in performance of it. will you not tell me what it is?" "no," said sibyl dacy, smiling on him. "but one day you shall know what it is,--none sooner nor better than you,--so much i promise you." "are we friends?" asked septimius, somewhat puzzled by her look. "we have an intimate relation to one another," replied sibyl. "and what is it?" demanded septimius. "that will appear hereafter," answered sibyl, again smiling on him. he knew not what to make of this, nor whether to be exalted or depressed; but, at all events, there seemed to be an accordance, a striking together, a mutual touch of their two natures, as if, somehow or other, they were performing the same part of solemn music; so that he felt his soul thrill, and at the same time shudder. some sort of sympathy there surely was, but of what nature he could not tell; though often he was impelled to ask himself the same question he asked sibyl, "are we friends?" because of a sudden shock and repulsion that came between them, and passed away in a moment; and there would be sibyl, smiling askance on him. and then he toiled away again at his chemical pursuits; tried to mingle things harmoniously that apparently were not born to be mingled; discovering a science for himself, and mixing it up with absurdities that other chemists had long ago flung aside; but still there would be that turbid aspect, still that lack of fragrance, still that want of the peculiar temperature, that was announced as the test of the matter. over and over again he set the crystal vase in the sun, and let it stay there the appointed time, hoping that it would digest in such a manner as to bring about the desired result. one day, as it happened, his eyes fell upon the silver key which he had taken from the breast of the dead young man, and he thought within himself that this might have something to do with the seemingly unattainable success of his pursuit. he remembered, for the first time, the grim doctor's emphatic injunction to search for the little iron-bound box of which he had spoken, and which had come down with such legends attached to it; as, for instance, that it held the devil's bond with his great-great-grandfather, now cancelled by the surrender of the latter's soul; that it held the golden key of paradise; that it was full of old gold, or of the dry leaves of a hundred years ago; that it had a familiar fiend in it, who would be exorcised by the turning of the lock, but would otherwise remain a prisoner till the solid oak of the box mouldered, or the iron rusted away; so that between fear and the loss of the key, this curious old box had remained unopened, till itself was lost. but now septimius, putting together what aunt keziah had said in her dying moments, and what doctor portsoaken had insisted upon, suddenly came to the conclusion that the possession of the old iron box might be of the greatest importance to him. so he set himself at once to think where he had last seen it. aunt keziah, of course, had put it away in some safe place or other, either in cellar or garret, no doubt; so septimius, in the intervals of his other occupations, devoted several days to the search; and not to weary the reader with the particulars of the quest for an old box, suffice it to say that he at last found it, amongst various other antique rubbish, in a corner of the garret. it was a very rusty old thing, not more than a foot in length, and half as much in height and breadth; but most ponderously iron-bound, with bars, and corners, and all sorts of fortification; looking very much like an ancient alms-box, such as are to be seen in the older rural churches of england, and which seem to intimate great distrust of those to whom the funds are committed. indeed, there might be a shrewd suspicion that some ancient church beadle among septimius's forefathers, when emigrating from england, had taken the opportunity of bringing the poor-box along with him. on looking close, too, there were rude embellishments on the lid and sides of the box in long-rusted steel, designs such as the middle ages were rich in; a representation of adam and eve, or of satan and a soul, nobody could tell which; but, at any rate, an illustration of great value and interest. septimius looked at this ugly, rusty, ponderous old box, so worn and battered with time, and recollected with a scornful smile the legends of which it was the object; all of which he despised and discredited, just as much as he did that story in the "arabian nights," where a demon comes out of a copper vase, in a cloud of smoke that covers the sea-shore; for he was singularly invulnerable to all modes of superstition, all nonsense, except his own. but that one mode was ever in full force and operation with him. he felt strongly convinced that inside the old box was something that appertained to his destiny; the key that he had taken from the dead man's breast, had that come down through time, and across the sea, and had a man died to bring and deliver it to him, merely for nothing? it could not be. he looked at the old, rusty, elaborated lock of the little receptacle. it was much flourished about with what was once polished steel; and certainly, when thus polished, and the steel bright with which it was hooped, defended, and inlaid, it must have been a thing fit to appear in any cabinet; though now the oak was worm-eaten as an old coffin, and the rust of the iron came off red on septimius's fingers, after he had been fumbling at it. he looked at the curious old silver key, too, and fancied that he discovered in its elaborate handle some likeness to the ornaments about the box; at any rate, this he determined was the key of fate, and he was just applying it to the lock when somebody tapped familiarly at the door, having opened the outer one, and stepped in with a manly stride. septimius, inwardly blaspheming, as secluded men are apt to do when any interruption comes, and especially when it comes at some critical moment of projection, left the box as yet unbroached, and said, "come in." the door opened, and robert hagburn entered; looking so tall and stately, that septimius hardly knew him for the youth with whom he had grown up familiarly. he had on the revolutionary dress of buff and blue, with decorations that to the initiated eye denoted him an officer, and certainly there was a kind of authority in his look and manner, indicating that heavy responsibilities, critical moments, had educated him, and turned the ploughboy into a man. "is it you?" exclaimed septimius. "i scarcely knew you. how war has altered you!" "and i may say, is it you? for you are much altered likewise, my old friend. study wears upon you terribly. you will be an old man, at this rate, before you know you are a young one. you will kill yourself, as sure as a gun!" "do you think so?" said septimius, rather startled, for the queer absurdity of the position struck him, if he should so exhaust and wear himself as to die, just at the moment when he should have found out the secret of everlasting life. "but though i look pale, i am very vigorous. judging from that scar, slanting down from your temple, you have been nearer death than you now think me, though in another way." "yes," said robert hagburn; "but in hot blood, and for a good cause, who cares for death? and yet i love life; none better, while it lasts, and i love it in all its looks and turns and surprises,--there is so much to be got out of it, in spite of all that people say. youth is sweet, with its fiery enterprise, and i suppose mature manhood will be just as much so, though in a calmer way, and age, quieter still, will have its own merits,--the thing is only to do with life what we ought, and what is suited to each of its stages; do all, enjoy all,--and i suppose these two rules amount to the same thing. only catch real earnest hold of life, not play with it, and not defer one part of it for the sake of another, then each part of life will do for us what was intended. people talk of the hardships of military service, of the miseries that we undergo fighting for our country. i have undergone my share, i believe,--hard toil in the wilderness, hunger, extreme weariness, pinching cold, the torture of a wound, peril of death; and really i have been as happy through it as ever i was at my mother's cosey fireside of a winter's evening. if i had died, i doubt not my last moments would have been happy. there is no use of life, but just to find out what is fit for us to do; and, doing it, it seems to be little matter whether we live or die in it. god does not want our work, but only our willingness to work; at least, the last seems to answer all his purposes." "this is a comfortable philosophy of yours," said septimius, rather contemptuously, and yet enviously. "where did you get it, robert?" "where? nowhere; it came to me on the march; and though i can't say that i thought it when the bullets pattered into the snow about me, in those narrow streets of quebec, yet, i suppose, it was in my mind then; for, as i tell you, i was very cheerful and contented. and you, septimius? i never saw such a discontented, unhappy-looking fellow as you are. you have had a harder time in peace than i in war. you have not found what you seek, whatever that may be. take my advice. give yourself to the next work that comes to hand. the war offers place to all of us; we ought to be thankful,--the most joyous of all the generations before or after us,--since providence gives us such good work to live for, or such a good opportunity to die. it is worth living for, just to have the chance to die so well as a man may in these days. come, be a soldier. be a chaplain, since your education lies that way; and you will find that nobody in peace prays so well as we do, we soldiers; and you shall not be debarred from fighting, too; if war is holy work, a priest may lawfully do it, as well as pray for it. come with us, my old friend septimius, be my comrade, and, whether you live or die, you will thank me for getting you out of the yellow forlornness in which you go on, neither living nor dying." septimius looked at robert hagburn in surprise; so much was he altered and improved by this brief experience of war, adventure, responsibility, which he had passed through. not less than the effect produced on his loutish, rustic air and deportment, developing his figure, seeming to make him taller, setting free the manly graces that lurked within his awkward frame,--not less was the effect on his mind and moral nature, giving freedom of ideas, simple perception of great thoughts, a free natural chivalry; so that the knight, the homeric warrior, the hero, seemed to be here, or possible to be here, in the young new england rustic; and all that history has given, and hearts throbbed and sighed and gloried over, of patriotism and heroic feeling and action, might be repeated, perhaps, in the life and death of this familiar friend and playmate of his, whom he had valued not over highly,--robert hagburn. he had merely followed out his natural heart, boldly and singly,--doing the first good thing that came to hand,--and here was a hero. "you almost make me envy you, robert," said he, sighing. "then why not come with me?" asked robert. "because i have another destiny," said septimius. "well, you are mistaken; be sure of that," said robert. "this is not a generation for study, and the making of books; that may come by and by. this great fight has need of all men to carry it on, in one way or another; and no man will do well, even for himself, who tries to avoid his share in it. but i have said my say. and now, septimius, the war takes much of a man, but it does not take him all, and what it leaves is all the more full of life and health thereby. i have something to say to you about this." "say it then, robert," said septimius, who, having got over the first excitement of the interview, and the sort of exhilaration produced by the healthful glow of robert's spirit, began secretly to wish that it might close, and to be permitted to return to his solitary thoughts again. "what can i do for you?" "why, nothing," said robert, looking rather confused, "since all is settled. the fact is, my old friend, as perhaps you have seen, i have very long had an eye upon your sister rose; yes, from the time we went together to the old school-house, where she now teaches children like what we were then. the war took me away, and in good time, for i doubt if rose would ever have cared enough for me to be my wife, if i had stayed at home, a country lout, as i was getting to be, in shirt-sleeves and bare feet. but now, you see, i have come back, and this whole great war, to her woman's heart, is represented in me, and makes me heroic, so to speak, and strange, and yet her old familiar lover. so i found her heart tenderer for me than it was; and, in short, rose has consented to be my wife, and we mean to be married in a week; my furlough permits little delay." "you surprise me," said septimius, who, immersed in his own pursuits, had taken no notice of the growing affection between robert and his sister. "do you think it well to snatch this little lull that is allowed you in the wild striving of war to try to make a peaceful home? shall you like to be summoned from it soon? shall you be as cheerful among dangers afterwards, when one sword may cut down two happinesses?" "there is something in what you say, and i have thought of it," said robert, sighing. "but i can't tell how it is; but there is something in this uncertainty, this peril, this cloud before us, that makes it sweeter to love and to be loved than amid all seeming quiet and serenity. really, i think, if there were to be no death, the beauty of life would be all tame. so we take our chance, or our dispensation of providence, and are going to love, and to be married, just as confidently as if we were sure of living forever." "well, old fellow," said septimius, with more cordiality and outgush of heart than he had felt for a long while, "there is no man whom i should be happier to call brother. take rose, and all happiness along with her. she is a good girl, and not in the least like me. may you live out your threescore years and ten, and every one of them be happy." little more passed, and robert hagburn took his leave with a hearty shake of septimius's hand, too conscious of his own happiness to be quite sensible how much the latter was self-involved, strange, anxious, separated from healthy life and interests; and septimius, as soon as robert had disappeared, locked the door behind him, and proceeded at once to apply the silver key to the lock of the old strong box. the lock resisted somewhat, being rusty, as might well be supposed after so many years since it was opened; but it finally allowed the key to turn, and septimius, with a good deal of flutter at his heart, opened the lid. the interior had a very different aspect from that of the exterior; for, whereas the latter looked so old, this, having been kept from the air, looked about as new as when shut up from light and air two centuries ago, less or more. it was lined with ivory, beautifully carved in figures, according to the art which the mediæval people possessed in great perfection; and probably the box had been a lady's jewel-casket formerly, and had glowed with rich lustre and bright colors at former openings. but now there was nothing in it of that kind,--nothing in keeping with those figures carved in the ivory representing some mythical subjects,--nothing but some papers in the bottom of the box written over in an ancient hand, which septimius at once fancied that he recognized as that of the manuscript and recipe which he had found on the breast of the young soldier. he eagerly seized them, but was infinitely disappointed to find that they did not seem to refer at all to the subjects treated by the former, but related to pedigrees and genealogies, and were in reference to an english family and some member of it who, two centuries before, had crossed the sea to america, and who, in this way, had sought to preserve his connection with his native stock, so as to be able, perhaps, to prove it for himself or his descendants; and there was reference to documents and records in england in confirmation of the genealogy. septimius saw that this paper had been drawn up by an ancestor of his own, the unfortunate man who had been hanged for witchcraft; but so earnest had been his expectation of something different, that he flung the old papers down with bitter indifference. then again he snatched them up, and contemptuously read them,--those proofs of descent through generations of esquires and knights, who had been renowned in war; and there seemed, too, to be running through the family a certain tendency to letters, for three were designated as of the colleges of oxford or cambridge; and against one there was the note, "he that sold himself to sathan;" and another seemed to have been a follower of wickliffe; and they had murdered kings, and been beheaded, and banished, and what not; so that the age-long life of this ancient family had not been after all a happy or very prosperous one, though they had kept their estate, in one or another descendant, since the conquest. it was not wholly without interest that septimius saw that this ancient descent, this connection with noble families, and intermarriages with names, some of which he recognized as known in english history, all referred to his own family, and seemed to centre in himself, the last of a poverty-stricken line, which had dwindled down into obscurity, and into rustic labor and humble toil, reviving in him a little; yet how little, unless he fulfilled his strange purpose. was it not better worth his while to take this english position here so strangely offered him? he had apparently slain unwittingly the only person who could have contested his rights,--the young man who had so strangely brought him the hope of unlimited life at the same time that he was making room for him among his forefathers. what a change in his lot would have been here, for there seemed to be some pretensions to a title, too, from a barony which was floating about and occasionally moving out of abeyancy! "perhaps," said septimius to himself, "i may hereafter think it worth while to assert my claim to these possessions, to this position amid an ancient aristocracy, and try that mode of life for one generation. yet there is something in my destiny incompatible, of course, with the continued possession of an estate. i must be, of necessity, a wanderer on the face of the earth, changing place at short intervals, disappearing suddenly and entirely; else the foolish, short-lived multitude and mob of mortals will be enraged with one who seems their brother, yet whose countenance will never be furrowed with his age, nor his knees totter, nor his force be abated; their little brevity will be rebuked by his age-long endurance, above whom the oaken roof-tree of a thousand years would crumble, while still he would be hale and strong. so that this house, or any other, would be but a resting-place of a day, and then i must away into another obscurity." with almost a regret, he continued to look over the documents until he reached one of the persons recorded in the line of pedigree,--a worthy, apparently, of the reign of elizabeth, to whom was attributed a title of doctor in utriusque juris; and against his name was a verse of latin written, for what purpose septimius knew not, for, on reading it, it appeared to have no discoverable appropriateness; but suddenly he remembered the blotted and imperfect hieroglyphical passage in the recipe. he thought an instant, and was convinced this was the full expression and outwriting of that crabbed little mystery; and that here was part of that secret writing for which the age of elizabeth was so famous and so dexterous. his mind had a flash of light upon it, and from that moment he was enabled to read not only the recipe but the rules, and all the rest of that mysterious document, in a way which he had never thought of before; to discern that it was not to be taken literally and simply, but had a hidden process involved in it that made the whole thing infinitely deeper than he had hitherto deemed it to be. his brain reeled, he seemed to have taken a draught of some liquor that opened infinite depths before him, he could scarcely refrain from giving a shout of triumphant exultation, the house could not contain him, he rushed up to his hill-top, and there, after walking swiftly to and fro, at length flung himself on the little hillock, and burst forth, as if addressing him who slept beneath. "o brother, o friend!" said he, "i thank thee for thy matchless beneficence to me; for all which i rewarded thee with this little spot on my hill-top. thou wast very good, very kind. it would not have been well for thee, a youth of fiery joys and passions, loving to laugh, loving the lightness and sparkling brilliancy of life, to take this boon to thyself; for, o brother! i see, i see, it requires a strong spirit, capable of much lonely endurance, able to be sufficient to itself, loving not too much, dependent on no sweet ties of affection, to be capable of the mighty trial which now devolves on me. i thank thee, o kinsman! yet thou, i feel, hast the better part, who didst so soon lie down to rest, who hast done forever with this troublesome world, which it is mine to contemplate from age to age, and to sum up the meaning of it. thou art disporting thyself in other spheres. i enjoy the high, severe, fearful office of living here, and of being the minister of providence from one age to many successive ones." in this manner he raved, as never before, in a strain of exalted enthusiasm, securely treading on air, and sometimes stopping to shout aloud, and feeling as if he should burst if he did not do so; and his voice came back to him again from the low hills on the other side of the broad, level valley, and out of the woods afar, mocking him; or as if it were airy spirits, that knew how it was all to be, confirming his cry, saying "it shall be so," "thou hast found it at last," "thou art immortal." and it seemed as if nature were inclined to celebrate his triumph over herself; for above the woods that crowned the hill to the northward, there were shoots and streams of radiance, a white, a red, a many-colored lustre, blazing up high towards the zenith, dancing up, flitting down, dancing up again; so that it seemed as if spirits were keeping a revel there. the leaves of the trees on the hill-side, all except the evergreens, had now mostly fallen with the autumn; so that septimius was seen by the few passers-by, in the decline of the afternoon, passing to and fro along his path, wildly gesticulating; and heard to shout so that the echoes came from all directions to answer him. after nightfall, too, in the harvest moonlight, a shadow was still seen passing there, waving its arms in shadowy triumph; so, the next day, there were various goodly stories afloat and astir, coming out of successive mouths, more wondrous at each birth; the simplest form of the story being, that septimius felton had at last gone raving mad on the hill-top that he was so fond of haunting; and those who listened to his shrieks said that he was calling to the devil; and some said that by certain exorcisms he had caused the appearance of a battle in the air, charging squadrons, cannon-flashes, champions encountering; all of which foreboded some real battle to be fought with the enemies of the country; and as the battle of monmouth chanced to occur, either the very next day, or about that time, this was supposed to be either caused or foretold by septimius's eccentricities; and as the battle was not very favorable to our arms, the patriotism of septimius suffered much in popular estimation. but he knew nothing, thought nothing, cared nothing about his country, or his country's battles; he was as sane as he had been for a year past, and was wise enough, though merely by instinct, to throw off some of his superfluous excitement by these wild gestures, with wild shouts, and restless activity; and when he had partly accomplished this he returned to the house, and, late as it was, kindled his fire, and began anew the processes of chemistry, now enlightened by the late teachings. a new agent seemed to him to mix itself up with his toil and to forward his purpose; something helped him along; everything became facile to his manipulation, clear to his thought. in this way he spent the night, and when at sunrise he let in the eastern light upon his study, the thing was done. septimius had achieved it. that is to say, he had succeeded in amalgamating his materials so that they acted upon one another, and in accordance; and had produced a result that had a subsistence in itself, and a right to be; a something potent and substantial; each ingredient contributing its part to form a new essence, which was as real and individual as anything it was formed from. but in order to perfect it, there was necessity that the powers of nature should act quietly upon it through a month of sunshine; that the moon, too, should have its part in the production; and so he must wait patiently for this. wait! surely he would! had he not time for waiting? were he to wait till old age, it would not be too much; for all future time would have it in charge to repay him. so he poured the inestimable liquor into a glass vase, well secured from the air, and placed it in the sunshine, shifting it from one sunny window to another, in order that it might ripen; moving it gently lest he should disturb the living spirit that he knew to be in it. and he watched it from day to day, watched the reflections in it, watched its lustre, which seemed to him to grow greater day by day, as if it imbibed the sunlight into it. never was there anything so bright as this. it changed its hue, too, gradually, being now a rich purple, now a crimson, now a violet, now a blue; going through all these prismatic colors without losing any of its brilliance, and never was there such a hue as the sunlight took in falling through it and resting on his floor. and strange and beautiful it was, too, to look through this medium at the outer world, and see how it was glorified and made anew, and did not look like the same world, although there were all its familiar marks. and then, past his window, seen through this, went the farmer and his wife, on saddle and pillion, jogging to meeting-house or market; and the very dog, the cow coming home from pasture, the old familiar faces of his childhood, looked differently. and so at last, at the end of the month, it settled into a most deep and brilliant crimson, as if it were the essence of the blood of the young man whom he had slain; the flower being now triumphant, it had given its own hue to the whole mass, and had grown brighter every day; so that it seemed to have inherent light, as if it were a planet by itself, a heart of crimson fire burning within it. and when this had been done, and there was no more change, showing that the digestion was perfect, then he took it and placed it where the changing moon would fall upon it; and then again he watched it, covering it in darkness by day, revealing it to the moon by night; and watching it here, too, through more changes. and by and by he perceived that the deep crimson hue was departing,--not fading; we cannot say that, because of the prodigious lustre which still pervaded it, and was not less strong than ever; but certainly the hue became fainter, now a rose-color, now fainter, fainter still, till there was only left the purest whiteness of the moon itself; a change that somewhat disappointed and grieved septimius, though still it seemed fit that the water of life should be of no one richness, because it must combine all. as the absorbed young man gazed through the lonely nights at his beloved liquor, he fancied sometimes that he could see wonderful things in the crystal sphere of the vase; as in doctor dee's magic crystal used to be seen, which now lies in the british museum; representations, it might be, of things in the far past, or in the further future, scenes in which he himself was to act, persons yet unborn, the beautiful and the wise, with whom he was to be associated, palaces and towers, modes of hitherto unseen architecture, that old hall in england to which he had a hereditary right, with its gables, and its smooth lawn; the witch-meetings in which his ancestor used to take part; aunt keziah on her death-bed; and, flitting through all, the shade of sibyl dacy, eying him from secret nooks, or some remoteness, with her peculiar mischievous smile, beckoning him into the sphere. all such visions would he see, and then become aware that he had been in a dream, superinduced by too much watching, too intent thought; so that living among so many dreams, he was almost afraid that he should find himself waking out of yet another, and find that the vase itself and the liquid it contained were also dream-stuff. but no; these were real. there was one change that surprised him, although he accepted it without doubt, and, indeed, it did imply a wonderful efficacy, at least singularity, in the newly converted liquid. it grew strangely cool in temperature in the latter part of his watching it. it appeared to imbibe its coldness from the cold, chaste moon, until it seemed to septimius that it was colder than ice itself; the mist gathered upon the crystal vase as upon a tumbler of iced water in a warm room. some say it actually gathered thick with frost, crystallized into a thousand fantastic and beautiful shapes, but this i do not know so well. only it was very cold. septimius pondered upon it, and thought he saw that life itself was cold, individual in its being, a high, pure essence, chastened from all heats; cold, therefore, and therefore invigorating. thus much, inquiring deeply, and with painful research into the liquid which septimius concocted, have i been able to learn about it,--its aspect, its properties; and now i suppose it to be quite perfect, and that nothing remains but to put it to such use as he had so long been laboring for. but this, somehow or other, he found in himself a strong reluctance to do; he paused, as it were, at the point where his pathway separated itself from that of other men, and meditated whether it were worth while to give up everything that providence had provided, and take instead only this lonely gift of immortal life. not that he ever really had any doubt about it; no, indeed; but it was his security, his consciousness that he held the bright sphere of all futurity in his hand, that made him dally a little, now that he could quaff immortality as soon as he liked. besides, now that he looked forward from the verge of mortal destiny, the path before him seemed so very lonely. might he not seek some one own friend--one single heart--before he took the final step? there was sibyl dacy! oh, what bliss, if that pale girl might set out with him on his journey! how sweet, how sweet, to wander with her through the places else so desolate! for he could but half see, half know things, without her to help him. and perhaps it might be so. she must already know, or strongly suspect, that he was engaged in some deep, mysterious research; it might be that, with her sources of mysterious knowledge among her legendary lore, she knew of this. then, oh, to think of those dreams which lovers have always had, when their new love makes the old earth seem so happy and glorious a place, that not a thousand nor an endless succession of years can exhaust it,--all those realized for him and her! if this could not be, what should he do? would he venture onward into such a wintry futurity, symbolized, perhaps, by the coldness of the crystal goblet? he shivered at the thought. now, what had passed between septimius and sibyl dacy is not upon record, only that one day they were walking together on the hill-top, or sitting by the little hillock, and talking earnestly together. sibyl's face was a little flushed with some excitement, and really she looked very beautiful; and septimius's dark face, too, had a solemn triumph in it that made him also beautiful; so rapt he was after all those watchings, and emaciations, and the pure, unworldly, self-denying life that he had spent. they talked as if there were some foregone conclusion on which they based what they said. "will you not be weary in the time that we shall spend together?" asked he. "oh no," said sibyl, smiling, "i am sure that it will be very full of enjoyment." "yes," said septimius, "though now i must remould my anticipations; for i have only dared, hitherto, to map out a solitary existence." "and how did you do that?" asked sibyl. "oh, there is nothing that would come amiss," answered septimius; "for, truly, as i have lived apart from men, yet it is really not because i have no taste for whatever humanity includes: but i would fain, if i might, live everybody's life at once, or, since that may not be, each in succession. i would try the life of power, ruling men; but that might come later, after i had had long experience of men, and had lived through much history, and had seen, as a disinterested observer, how men might best be influenced for their own good. i would be a great traveller at first; and as a man newly coming into possession of an estate goes over it, and views each separate field and wood-lot, and whatever features it contains, so will i, whose the world is, because i possess it forever; whereas all others are but transitory guests. so will i wander over this world of mine, and be acquainted with all its shores, seas, rivers, mountains, fields, and the various peoples who inhabit them, and to whom it is my purpose to be a benefactor; for think not, dear sibyl, that i suppose this great lot of mine to have devolved upon me without great duties,--heavy and difficult to fulfil, though glorious in their adequate fulfilment. but for all this there will be time. in a century i shall partially have seen this earth, and known at least its boundaries,--have gotten for myself the outline, to be filled up hereafter." "and i, too," said sibyl, "will have my duties and labors; for while you are wandering about among men, i will go among women, and observe and converse with them, from the princess to the peasant-girl; and will find out what is the matter, that woman gets so large a share of human misery laid on her weak shoulders. i will see why it is that, whether she be a royal princess, she has to be sacrificed to matters of state, or a cottage-girl, still somehow the thing not fit for her is done; and whether there is or no some deadly curse on woman, so that she has nothing to do, and nothing to enjoy, but only to be wronged by man and still to love him, and despise herself for it,--to be shaky in her revenges. and then if, after all this investigation, it turns out--as i suspect--that woman is not capable of being helped, that there is something inherent in herself that makes it hopeless to struggle for her redemption, then what shall i do? nay, i know not, unless to preach to the sisterhood that they all kill their female children as fast as they are born, and then let the generations of men manage as they can! woman, so feeble and crazy in body, fair enough sometimes, but full of infirmities; not strong, with nerves prone to every pain; ailing, full of little weaknesses, more contemptible than great ones!" "that would be a dreary end, sibyl," said septimius. "but i trust that we shall be able to hush up this weary and perpetual wail of womankind on easier terms than that. well, dearest sibyl, after we have spent a hundred years in examining into the real state of mankind, and another century in devising and putting in execution remedies for his ills, until our maturer thought has time to perfect his cure, we shall then have earned a little playtime,--a century of pastime, in which we will search out whatever joy can be had by thoughtful people, and that childlike sportiveness which comes out of growing wisdom, and enjoyment of every kind. we will gather about us everything beautiful and stately, a great palace, for we shall then be so experienced that all riches will be easy for us to get; with rich furniture, pictures, statues, and all royal ornaments; and side by side with this life we will have a little cottage, and see which is the happiest, for this has always been a dispute. for this century we will neither toil nor spin, nor think of anything beyond the day that is passing over us. there is time enough to do all that we have to do." "a hundred years of play! will not that be tiresome?" said sibyl. "if it is," said septimius, "the next century shall make up for it; for then we will contrive deep philosophies, take up one theory after another, and find out its hollowness and inadequacy, and fling it aside, the rotten rubbish that they all are, until we have strewn the whole realm of human thought with the broken fragments, all smashed up. and then, on this great mound of broken potsherds (like that great monte testaccio, which we will go to rome to see), we will build a system that shall stand, and by which mankind shall look far into the ways of providence, and find practical uses of the deepest kind in what it has thought merely speculation. and then, when the hundred years are over, and this great work done, we will still be so free in mind, that we shall see the emptiness of our own theory, though men see only its truth. and so, if we like more of this pastime, then shall another and another century, and as many more as we like, be spent in the same way." "and after that another play-day?" asked sibyl dacy. "yes," said septimius, "only it shall not be called so; for the next century we will get ourselves made rulers of the earth; and knowing men so well, and having so wrought our theories of government and what not, we will proceed to execute them,--which will be as easy to us as a child's arrangement of its dolls. we will smile superior, to see what a facile thing it is to make a people happy. in our reign of a hundred years, we shall have time to extinguish errors, and make the world see the absurdity of them; to substitute other methods of government for the old, bad ones; to fit the people to govern itself, to do with little government, to do with none; and when this is effected, we will vanish from our loving people, and be seen no more, but be reverenced as gods,--we, meanwhile, being overlooked, and smiling to ourselves, amid the very crowd that is looking for us." "i intend," said sibyl, making this wild talk wilder by that petulance which she so often showed,--"i intend to introduce a new fashion of dress when i am queen, and that shall be my part of the great reform which you are going to make. and for my crown, i intend to have it of flowers, in which that strange crimson one shall be the chief; and when i vanish, this flower shall remain behind, and perhaps they shall have a glimpse of me wearing it in the crowd. well, what next?" "after this," said septimius, "having seen so much of affairs, and having lived so many hundred years, i will sit down and write a history, such as histories ought to be, and never have been. and it shall be so wise, and so vivid, and so self-evidently true, that people shall be convinced from it that there is some undying one among them, because only an eye-witness could have written it, or could have gained so much wisdom as was needful for it." "and for my part in the history," said sibyl, "i will record the various lengths of women's waists, and the fashion of their sleeves. what next?" "by this time," said septimius,--"how many hundred years have we now lived?--by this time, i shall have pretty well prepared myself for what i have been contemplating from the first. i will become a religious teacher, and promulgate a faith, and prove it by prophecies and miracles; for my long experience will enable me to do the first, and the acquaintance which i shall have formed with the mysteries of science will put the latter at my fingers' ends. so i will be a prophet, a greater than mahomet, and will put all man's hopes into my doctrine, and make him good, holy, happy; and he shall put up his prayers to his creator, and find them answered, because they shall be wise, and accompanied with effort. this will be a great work, and may earn me another rest and pastime." [_he would see, in one age, the column raised in memory of some great dead of his in a former one_.] "and what shall that be?" asked sibyl dacy. "why," said septimius, looking askance at her, and speaking with a certain hesitation, "i have learned, sibyl, that it is a weary toil for a man to be always good, holy, and upright. in my life as a sainted prophet, i shall have somewhat too much of this; it will be enervating and sickening, and i shall need another kind of diet. so, in the next hundred years, sibyl,--in that one little century,--methinks i would fain be what men call wicked. how can i know my brethren, unless i do that once? i would experience all. imagination is only a dream. i can imagine myself a murderer, and all other modes of crime; but it leaves no real impression on the heart. i must live these things." [_the rampant unrestraint, which is the characteristic of wickedness_.] "good," said sibyl, quietly; "and i too." "and thou too!" exclaimed septimius. "not so, sibyl. i would reserve thee, good and pure, so that there may be to me the means of redemption,--some stable hold in the moral confusion that i will create around myself, whereby i shall by and by get back into order, virtue, and religion. else all is lost, and i may become a devil, and make my own hell around me; so, sibyl, do thou be good forever, and not fall nor slip a moment. promise me!" "we will consider about that in some other century," replied sibyl, composedly. "there is time enough yet. what next?" "nay, this is enough for the present," said septimius. "new vistas will open themselves before us continually, as we go onward. how idle to think that one little lifetime would exhaust the world! after hundreds of centuries, i feel as if we might still be on the threshold. there is the material world, for instance, to perfect; to draw out the powers of nature, so that man shall, as it were, give life to all modes of matter, and make them his ministering servants. swift ways of travel, by earth, sea, and air; machines for doing whatever the hand of man now does, so that we shall do all but put souls into our wheel-work and watch-work; the modes of making night into day; of getting control over the weather and the seasons; the virtues of plants,--these are some of the easier things thou shalt help me do." "i have no taste for that," said sibyl, "unless i could make an embroidery worked of steel." "and so, sibyl," continued septimius, pursuing his strain of solemn enthusiasm, intermingled as it was with wild, excursive vagaries, "we will go on as many centuries as we choose. perhaps,--yet i think not so,--perhaps, however, in the course of lengthened time, we may find that the world is the same always, and mankind the same, and all possibilities of human fortune the same; so that by and by we shall discover that the same old scenery serves the world's stage in all ages, and that the story is always the same; yes, and the actors always the same, though none but we can be aware of it; and that the actors and spectators would grow weary of it, were they not bathed in forgetful sleep, and so think themselves new made in each successive lifetime. we may find that the stuff of the world's drama, and the passions which seem to play in it, have a monotony, when once we have tried them; that in only once trying them, and viewing them, we find out their secret, and that afterwards the show is too superficial to arrest our attention. as dramatists and novelists repeat their plots, so does man's life repeat itself, and at length grows stale. this is what, in my desponding moments, i have sometimes suspected. what to do, if this be so?" "nay, that is a serious consideration," replied sibyl, assuming an air of mock alarm, "if you really think we shall be tired of life, whether or no." "i do not think it, sibyl," replied septimius. "by much musing on this matter, i have convinced myself that man is not capable of debarring himself utterly from death, since it is evidently a remedy for many evils that nothing else would cure. this means that we have discovered of removing death to an indefinite distance is not supernatural; on the contrary, it is the most natural thing in the world,--the very perfection of the natural, since it consists in applying the powers and processes of nature to the prolongation of the existence of man, her most perfect handiwork; and this could only be done by entire accordance and co-effort with nature. therefore nature is not changed, and death remains as one of her steps, just as heretofore. therefore, when we have exhausted the world, whether by going through its apparently vast variety, or by satisfying ourselves that it is all a repetition of one thing, we will call death as the friend to introduce us to something new." [_he would write a poem, or other great work, inappreciable at first, and live to see it famous,--himself among his own posterity_.] "oh, insatiable love of life!" exclaimed sibyl, looking at him with strange pity. "canst thou not conceive that mortal brain and heart might at length be content to sleep?" "never, sibyl!" replied septimius, with horror. "my spirit delights in the thought of an infinite eternity. does not thine?" "one little interval--a few centuries only--of dreamless sleep," said sibyl, pleadingly. "cannot you allow me that?" "i fear," said septimius, "our identity would change in that repose; it would be a lethe between the two parts of our being, and with such disconnection a continued life would be equivalent to a new one, and therefore valueless." in such talk, snatching in the fog at the fragments of philosophy, they continued fitfully; septimius calming down his enthusiasm thus, which otherwise might have burst forth in madness, affrighting the quiet little village with the marvellous things about which they mused. septimius could not quite satisfy himself whether sibyl dacy shared in his belief of the success of his experiment, and was confident, as he was, that he held in his control the means of unlimited life; neither was he sure that she loved him,--loved him well enough to undertake with him the long march that he propounded to her, making a union an affair of so vastly more importance than it is in the brief lifetime of other mortals. but he determined to let her drink the invaluable draught along with him, and to trust to the long future, and the better opportunities that time would give him, and his outliving all rivals, and the loneliness which an undying life would throw around her, without him, as the pledges of his success. * * * * * and now the happy day had come for the celebration of robert hagburn's marriage with pretty rose garfield, the brave with the fair; and, as usual, the ceremony was to take place in the evening, and at the house of the bride; and preparations were made accordingly: the wedding-cake, which the bride's own fair hands had mingled with her tender hopes, and seasoned it with maiden fears, so that its composition was as much ethereal as sensual; and the neighbors and friends were invited, and came with their best wishes and good-will. for rose shared not at all the distrust, the suspicion, or whatever it was, that had waited on the true branch of septimius's family, in one shape or another, ever since the memory of man; and all--except, it might be, some disappointed damsels who had hoped to win robert hagburn for themselves--rejoiced at the approaching union of this fit couple, and wished them happiness. septimius, too, accorded his gracious consent to the union, and while he thought within himself that such a brief union was not worth the trouble and feeling which his sister and her lover wasted on it, still he wished them happiness. as he compared their brevity with his long duration, he smiled at their little fancies of loves, of which he seemed to see the end; the flower of a brief summer, blooming beautifully enough, and shedding its leaves, the fragrance of which would linger a little while in his memory, and then be gone. he wondered how far in the coming centuries he should remember this wedding of his sister rose; perhaps he would meet, five hundred years hence, some descendant of the marriage,--a fair girl, bearing the traits of his sister's fresh beauty; a young man, recalling the strength and manly comeliness of robert hagburn,--and could claim acquaintance and kindred. he would be the guardian, from generation to generation, of this race; their ever-reappearing friend at times of need; and meeting them from age to age, would find traditions of himself growing poetical in the lapse of time; so that he would smile at seeing his features look so much more majestic in their fancies than in reality. so all along their course, in the history of the family, he would trace himself, and by his traditions he would make them acquainted with all their ancestors, and so still be warmed by kindred blood. and robert hagburn, full of the life of the moment, warm with generous blood, came in a new uniform, looking fit to be the founder of a race who should look back to a hero sire. he greeted septimius as a brother. the minister, too, came, of course, and mingled with the throng, with decorous aspect, and greeted septimius with more formality than he had been wont; for septimius had insensibly withdrawn himself from the minister's intimacy, as he got deeper and deeper into the enthusiasm of his own cause. besides, the minister did not fail to see that his once devoted scholar had contracted habits of study into the secrets of which he himself was not admitted, and that he no longer alluded to studies for the ministry; and he was inclined to suspect that septimius had unfortunately allowed infidel ideas to assail, at least, if not to overcome, that fortress of firm faith, which he had striven to found and strengthen in his mind,--a misfortune frequently befalling speculative and imaginative and melancholic persons, like septimius, whom the devil is all the time planning to assault, because he feels confident of having a traitor in the garrison. the minister had heard that this was the fashion of septimius's family, and that even the famous divine, who, in his eyes, was the glory of it, had had his season of wild infidelity in his youth, before grace touched him; and had always thereafter, throughout his long and pious life, been subject to seasons of black and sulphurous despondency, during which he disbelieved the faith which, at other times, he preached powerfully." "septimius, my young friend," said he, "are you yet ready to be a preacher of the truth?" "not yet, reverend pastor," said septimius, smiling at the thought of the day before, that the career of a prophet would be one that he should some time assume. "there will be time enough to preach the truth when i better know it." "you do not look as if you knew it so well as formerly, instead of better," said his reverend friend, looking into the deep furrows of his brow, and into his wild and troubled eyes. "perhaps not," said septimius. "there is time yet." these few words passed amid the bustle and murmur of the evening, while the guests were assembling, and all were awaiting the marriage with that interest which the event continually brings with it, common as it is, so that nothing but death is commoner. everybody congratulated the modest rose, who looked quiet and happy; and so she stood up at the proper time, and the minister married them with a certain fervor and individual application, that made them feel they were married indeed. then there ensued a salutation of the bride, the first to kiss her being the minister, and then some respectable old justices and farmers, each with his friendly smile and joke. then went round the cake and wine, and other good cheer, and the hereditary jokes with which brides used to be assailed in those days. i think, too, there was a dance, though how the couples in the reel found space to foot it in the little room, i cannot imagine; at any rate, there was a bright light out of the windows, gleaming across the road, and such a sound of the babble of numerous voices and merriment, that travellers passing by, on the lonely lexington road, wished they were of the party; and one or two of them stopped and went in, and saw the new-made bride, drank to her health, and took a piece of the wedding-cake home to dream upon. [_it is to be observed that rose had requested of her friend, sibyl dacy, to act as one of her bridesmaids, of whom she had only the modest number of two; and the strange girl declined, saying that her intermeddling would bring ill-fortune to the marriage_.] "why do you talk such nonsense, sibyl?" asked rose. "you love me, i am sure, and wish me well; and your smile, such as it is, will be the promise of prosperity, and i wish for it on my wedding-day." "i am an ill-fate, a sinister demon, rose; a thing that has sprung out of a grave; and you had better not entreat me to twine my poison tendrils round your destinies. you would repent it." "oh, hush, hush!" said rose, putting her hand over her friend's mouth. "naughty one! you can bless me, if you will, only you are wayward." "bless you, then, dearest rose, and all happiness on your marriage!" septimius had been duly present at the marriage, and kissed his sister with moist eyes, it is said, and a solemn smile, as he gave her into the keeping of robert hagburn; and there was something in the words he then used that afterwards dwelt on her mind, as if they had a meaning in them that asked to be sought into, and needed reply. "there, rose," he had said, "i have made myself ready for my destiny. i have no ties any more, and may set forth on my path without scruple." "am i not your sister still, septimius?" said she, shedding a tear or two. "a married woman is no sister; nothing but a married woman till she becomes a mother; and then what shall i have to do with you?" he spoke with a certain eagerness to prove his case, which rose could not understand, but which was probably to justify himself in severing, as he was about to do, the link that connected him with his race, and making for himself an exceptional destiny, which, if it did not entirely insulate him, would at least create new relations with all. there he stood, poor fellow, looking on the mirthful throng, not in exultation, as might have been supposed, but with a strange sadness upon him. it seemed to him, at that final moment, as if it were death that linked together all; yes, and so gave the warmth to all. wedlock itself seemed a brother of death; wedlock, and its sweetest hopes, its holy companionship, its mysteries, and all that warm mysterious brotherhood that is between men; passing as they do from mystery to mystery in a little gleam of light; that wild, sweet charm of uncertainty and temporariness,--how lovely it made them all, how innocent, even the worst of them; how hard and prosaic was his own situation in comparison to theirs. he felt a gushing tenderness for them, as if he would have flung aside his endless life, and rushed among them, saying,-- "embrace me! i am still one of you, and will not leave you! hold me fast!" after this it was not particularly observed that both septimius and sibyl dacy had disappeared from the party, which, however, went on no less merrily without them. in truth, the habits of sibyl dacy were so wayward, and little squared by general rules, that nobody wondered or tried to account for them; and as for septimius, he was such a studious man, so little accustomed to mingle with his fellow-citizens on any occasion, that it was rather wondered at that he should have spent so large a part of a sociable evening with them, than that he should now retire. after they were gone the party received an unexpected addition, being no other than the excellent doctor portsoaken, who came to the door, announcing that he had just arrived on horseback from boston, and that, his object being to have an interview with sibyl dacy, he had been to robert hagburn's house in quest of her; but, learning from the old grandmother that she was here, he had followed. not finding her, he evinced no alarm, but was easily induced to sit down among the merry company, and partake of some brandy, which, with other liquors, robert had provided in sufficient abundance; and that being a day when man had not learned to fear the glass, the doctor found them all in a state of hilarious chat. taking out his german pipe, he joined the group of smokers in the great chimney-corner, and entered into conversation with them, laughing and joking, and mixing up his jests with that mysterious suspicion which gave so strange a character to his intercourse. "it is good fortune, mr. hagburn," quoth he, "that brings me here on this auspicious day. and how has been my learned young friend dr. septimius,--for so he should be called,--and how have flourished his studies of late? the scientific world may look for great fruits from that decoction of his." "he'll never equal aunt keziah for herb-drinks," said an old woman, smoking her pipe in the corner, "though i think likely he'll make a good doctor enough by and by. poor kezzy, she took a drop too much of her mixture, after all. i used to tell her how it would be; for kezzy and i were pretty good friends once, before the indian in her came out so strongly,--the squaw and the witch, for she had them both in her blood, poor yellow kezzy!" "yes! had she indeed?" quoth the doctor; "and i have heard an odd story, that if the feltons chose to go back to the old country, they'd find a home and an estate there ready for them." the old woman mused, and puffed at her pipe. "ah, yes," muttered she, at length, "i remember to have heard something about that; and how, if felton chose to strike into the woods, he'd find a tribe of wild indians there ready to take him for their sagamore, and conquer the whites; and how, if he chose to go to england, there was a great old house all ready for him, and a fire burning in the hall, and a dinner-table spread, and the tall-posted bed ready, with clean sheets, in the best chamber, and a man waiting at the gate to show him in. only there was a spell of a bloody footstep left on the threshold by the last that came out, so that none of his posterity could ever cross it again. but that was all nonsense!" "strange old things one dreams in a chimney-corner," quoth the doctor. "do you remember any more of this?" "no, no; i'm so forgetful nowadays," said old mrs. hagburn; "only it seems as if i had my memories in my pipe, and they curl up in smoke. i've known these feltons all along, or it seems as if i had; for i'm nigh ninety years old now, and i was two year old in the witch's time, and i have seen a piece of the halter that old felton was hung with." some of the company laughed. "that must have been a curious sight," quoth the doctor. "it is not well," said the minister seriously to the doctor, "to stir up these old remembrances, making the poor old lady appear absurd. i know not that she need to be ashamed of showing the weaknesses of the generation to which she belonged; but i do not like to see old age put at this disadvantage among the young." "nay, my good and reverend sir," returned the doctor, "i mean no such disrespect as you seem to think. forbid it, ye upper powers, that i should cast any ridicule on beliefs,--superstitions, do you call them?--that are as worthy of faith, for aught i know, as any that are preached in the pulpit. if the old lady would tell me any secret of the old felton's science, i shall treasure it sacredly; for i interpret these stories about his miraculous gifts as meaning that he had a great command over natural science, the virtues of plants, the capacities of the human body." "while these things were passing, or before they passed, or some time in that eventful night, septimius had withdrawn to his study, when there was a low tap at the door, and, opening it, sibyl dacy stood before him. it seemed as if there had been a previous arrangement between them; for septimius evinced no surprise, only took her hand and drew her in. "how cold your hand is!" he exclaimed. "nothing is so cold, except it be the potent medicine. it makes me shiver." "never mind that," said sibyl. "you look frightened at me." "do i?" said septimius. "no, not that; but this is such a crisis; and methinks it is not yourself. your eyes glare on me strangely." "ah, yes; and you are not frightened at me? well, i will try not to be frightened at myself. time was, however, when i should have been." she looked round at septimius's study, with its few old books, its implements of science, crucibles, retorts, and electrical machines; all these she noticed little; but on the table drawn before the fire, there was something that attracted her attention; it was a vase that seemed of crystal, made in that old fashion in which the venetians made their glasses,--a most pure kind of glass, with a long stalk, within which was a curved elaboration of fancy-work, wreathed and twisted. this old glass was an heirloom of the feltons, a relic that had come down with many traditions, bringing its frail fabric safely through all the perils of time, that had shattered empires; and, if space sufficed, i could tell many stories of this curious vase, which was said, in its time, to have been the instrument both of the devil's sacrament in the forest, and of the christian in the village meeting-house. but, at any rate, it had been a part of the choice household gear of one of septimius's ancestors, and was engraved with his arms, artistically done. "is that the drink of immortality?" said sibyl. "yes, sibyl," said septimius. "do but touch the goblet; see how cold it is." she put her slender, pallid fingers on the side of the goblet, and shuddered, just as septimius did when he touched her hand. "why should it be so cold?" said she, looking at septimius. "nay, i know not, unless because endless life goes round the circle and meets death, and is just the same with it. o sibyl, it is a fearful thing that i have accomplished! do you not feel it so? what if this shiver should last us through eternity?" "have you pursued this object so long," said sibyl, "to have these fears respecting it now? in that case, methinks i could be bold enough to drink it alone, and look down upon you, as i did so, smiling at your fear to take the life offered you." "i do not fear," said septimius; "but yet i acknowledge there is a strange, powerful abhorrence in me towards this draught, which i know not how to account for, except as the reaction, the revulsion of feeling, consequent upon its being too long overstrained in one direction. i cannot help it. the meannesses, the littlenesses, the perplexities, the general irksomeness of life, weigh upon me strangely. thou didst refuse to drink with me. that being the case, methinks i could break the jewelled goblet now, untasted, and choose the grave as the wiser part." "the beautiful goblet! what a pity to break it!" said sibyl, with her characteristic malign and mysterious smile. "you cannot find it in your heart to do it." "i could,--i can. so thou wilt not drink with me?" "do you know what you ask?" said sibyl. "i am a being that sprung up, like this flower, out of a grave; or, at least, i took root in a grave, and, growing there, have twined about your life, until you cannot possibly escape from me. ah, septimius! you know me not. you know not what is in my heart towards you. do you remember this broken miniature? would you wish to see the features that were destroyed when that bullet passed? then look at mine!" "sibyl! what do you tell me? was it you--were they your features--which that young soldier kissed as he lay dying?" "they were," said sibyl. "i loved him, and gave him that miniature, and the face they represented. i had given him all, and you slew him." "then you hate me," whispered, septimius. "do you call it hatred?" asked sibyl, smiling. "have i not aided you, thought with you, encouraged you, heard all your wild ravings when you dared to tell no one else? kept up your hopes; suggested; helped you with my legendary lore to useful hints; helped you, also, in other ways, which you do not suspect? and now you ask me if i hate you. does this look like it?" "no," said septimius. "and yet, since first i knew you, there has been something whispering me of harm, as if i sat near some mischief. there is in me the wild, natural blood of the indian, the instinctive, the animal nature, which has ways of warning that civilized life polishes away and cuts out; and so, sibyl, never did i approach you, but there were reluctances, drawings back, and, at the same time, a strong impulse to come closest to you; and to that i yielded. but why, then, knowing that in this grave lay the man you loved, laid there by my hand,--why did you aid me in an object which you must have seen was the breath of my life?" "ah, my friend,--my enemy, if you will have it so,--are you yet to learn that the wish of a man's inmost heart is oftenest that by which he is ruined and made miserable? but listen to me, septimius. no matter for my earlier life; there is no reason why i should tell you the story, and confess to you its weakness, its shame. it may be, i had more cause to hate the tenant of that grave, than to hate you who unconsciously avenged my cause; nevertheless, i came here in hatred, and desire of revenge, meaning to lie in wait, and turn your dearest desire against you, to eat into your life, and distil poison into it, i sitting on this grave, and drawing fresh hatred from it; and at last, in the hour of your triumph, i meant to make the triumph mine." "is this still so?" asked septimius, with pale lips: "or did your fell purpose change?" "septimius, i am weak,--a weak, weak girl,--only a girl, septimius; only eighteen yet," exclaimed sibyl. "it is young, is it not? i might be forgiven much. you know not how bitter my purpose was to you. but look, septimius,--could it be worse than this? hush, be still! do not stir!" she lifted the beautiful goblet from the table, put it to her lips, and drank a deep draught from it; then, smiling mockingly, she held it towards him. "see; i have made myself immortal before you. will you drink?" he eagerly held out his hand to receive the goblet, but sibyl, holding it beyond his reach a moment, deliberately let it fall upon the hearth, where it shivered into fragments, and the bright, cold water of immortality was all spilt, shedding its strange fragrance around. "sibyl, what have you done?" cried septimius in rage and horror. "be quiet! see what sort of immortality i win by it,--then, if you like, distil your drink of eternity again, and quaff it." "it is too late, sibyl; it was a happiness that may never come again in a lifetime. i shall perish as a dog does. it is too late!" "septimius," said sibyl, who looked strangely beautiful, as if the drink, giving her immortal life, had likewise the potency to give immortal beauty answering to it, "listen to me. you have not learned all the secrets that lay in those old legends, about which we have talked so much. there were two recipes, discovered or learned by the art of the studious old gaspar felton. one was said to be that secret of immortal life which so many old sages sought for, and which some were said to have found; though, if that were the case, it is strange some of them have not lived till our day. its essence lay in a certain rare flower, which mingled properly with other ingredients of great potency in themselves, though still lacking the crowning virtue till the flower was supplied, produced the drink of immortality." "yes, and i had the flower, which i found in a grave," said septimius, "and distilled the drink which you have spilt." "you had a flower, or what you called a flower," said the girl. "but, septimius, there was yet another drink, in which the same potent ingredients were used; all but the last. in this, instead of the beautiful flower, was mingled the semblance of a flower, but really a baneful growth out of a grave. this i sowed there, and it converted the drink into a poison, famous in old science,--a poison which the borgias used, and mary de medicis,--and which has brought to death many a famous person, when it was desirable to his enemies. this is the drink i helped you to distil. it brings on death with pleasant and delightful thrills of the nerves. o septimius, septimius, it is worth while to die, to be so blest, so exhilarated as i am now." "good god, sibyl, is this possible?" "even so, septimius. i was helped by that old physician, doctor portsoaken, who, with some private purpose of his own, taught me what to do; for he was skilled in all the mysteries of those old physicians, and knew that their poisons at least were efficacious, whatever their drinks of immortality might be. but the end has not turned out as i meant. a girl's fancy is so shifting, septimius. i thought i loved that youth in the grave yonder; but it was you i loved,--and i am dying. forgive me for my evil purposes, for i am dying." "why hast thou spilt the drink?" said septimius, bending his dark brows upon her, and frowning over her. "we might have died together." "no, live, septimius," said the girl, whose face appeared to grow bright and joyous, as if the drink of death exhilarated her like an intoxicating fluid. "i would not let you have it, not one drop. but to think," and here she laughed, "what a penance,--what months of wearisome labor thou hast had,--and what thoughts, what dreams, and how i laughed in my sleeve at them all the time! ha, ha, ha! then thou didst plan out future ages, and talk poetry and prose to me. did i not take it very demurely, and answer thee in the same style? and so thou didst love me, and kindly didst wish to take me with thee in thy immortality. o septimius, i should have liked it well! yes, latterly, only, i knew how the case stood. oh, how i surrounded thee with dreams, and instead of giving thee immortal life, so kneaded up the little life allotted thee with dreams and vaporing stuff, that thou didst not really live even that. ah, it was a pleasant pastime, and pleasant is now the end of it. kiss me, thou poor septimius, one kiss!" [_she gives the ridiculous aspect to his scheme, in an airy way_.] but as septimius, who seemed stunned, instinctively bent forward to obey her, she drew back. "no, there shall be no kiss! there may a little poison linger on my lips. farewell! dost thou mean still to seek for thy liquor of immortality?--ah, ah! it was a good jest. we will laugh at it when we meet in the other world." and here poor sibyl dacy's laugh grew fainter, and dying away, she seemed to die with it; for there she was, with that mirthful, half-malign expression still on her face, but motionless; so that however long septimius's life was likely to be, whether a few years or many centuries, he would still have her image in his memory so. and here she lay among his broken hopes, now shattered as completely as the goblet which held his draught, and as incapable of being formed again. * * * * * the next day, as septimius did not appear, there was research for him on the part of doctor portsoaken. his room was found empty, the bed untouched. then they sought him on his favorite hill-top; but neither was he found there, although something was found that added to the wonder and alarm of his disappearance. it was the cold form of sibyl dacy, which was extended on the hillock so often mentioned, with her arms thrown over it; but, looking in the dead face, the beholders were astonished to see a certain malign and mirthful expression, as if some airy part had been played out,--some surprise, some practical joke of a peculiarly airy kind had burst with fairy shoots of fire among the company. "ah, she is dead! poor sibyl dacy!" exclaimed doctor portsoaken. "her scheme, then, has turned out amiss." this exclamation seemed to imply some knowledge of the mystery; and it so impressed the auditors, among whom was robert hagburn, that they thought it not inexpedient to have an investigation; so the learned doctor was not uncivilly taken into custody and examined. several interesting particulars, some of which throw a certain degree of light on our narrative, were discovered. for instance, that sibyl dacy, who was a niece of the doctor, had been beguiled from her home and led over the sea by cyril norton, and that the doctor, arriving in boston with another regiment, had found her there, after her lover's death. here there was some discrepancy or darkness in the doctor's narrative. he appeared to have consented to, or instigated (for it was not quite evident how far his concurrence had gone) this poor girl's scheme of going and brooding over her lover's grave, and living in close contiguity with the man who had slain him. the doctor had not much to say for himself on this point; but there was found reason to believe that he was acting in the interest of some english claimant of a great estate that was left without an apparent heir by the death of cyril norton, and there was even a suspicion that he, with his fantastic science and antiquated empiricism, had been at the bottom of the scheme of poisoning, which was so strangely intertwined with septimius's notion, in which he went so nearly crazed, of a drink of immortality. it was observable, however, that the doctor--such a humbug in scientific matters, that he had perhaps bewildered himself--seemed to have a sort of faith in the efficacy of the recipe which had so strangely come to light, provided the true flower could be discovered; but that flower, according to doctor portsoaken, had not been seen on earth for many centuries, and was banished probably forever. the flower, or fungus, which septimius had mistaken for it, was a sort of earthly or devilish counterpart of it, and was greatly in request among the old poisoners for its admirable uses in their art. in fine, no tangible evidence being found against the worthy doctor, he was permitted to depart, and disappeared from the neighborhood, to the scandal of many people, unhanged; leaving behind him few available effects beyond the web and empty skin of an enormous spider. as to septimius, he returned no more to his cottage by the wayside, and none undertook to tell what had become of him; crushed and annihilated, as it were, by the failure of his magnificent and most absurd dreams. rumors there have been, however, at various times, that there had appeared an american claimant, who had made out his right to the great estate of smithell's hall, and had dwelt there, and left posterity, and that in the subsequent generation an ancient baronial title had been revived in favor of the son and heir of the american. whether this was our septimius, i cannot tell; but i should be rather sorry to believe that after such splendid schemes as he had entertained, he should have been content to settle down into the fat substance and reality of english life, and die in his due time, and be buried like any other man. a few years ago, while in england, i visited smithell's hall, and was entertained there, not knowing at the time that i could claim its owner as my countryman by descent; though, as i now remember, i was struck by the thin, sallow, american cast of his face, and the lithe slenderness of his figure, and seem now (but this may be my fancy) to recollect a certain indian glitter of the eye and cast of feature. as for the bloody footstep, i saw it with my own eyes, and will venture to suggest that it was a mere natural reddish stain in the stone, converted by superstition into a bloody footstep. our old home a series of english sketches by nathaniel hawthorne to franklin pierce, as a slight memorial of a college friendship, prolonged through manhood, and retaining all its vitality in our autumnal years, this volume is inscribed by nathaniel hawthorne. to a friend. i have not asked your consent, my dear general, to the foregoing inscription, because it would have been no inconsiderable disappointment to me had you withheld it; for i have long desired to connect your name with some book of mine, in commemoration of an early friendship that has grown old between two individuals of widely dissimilar pursuits and fortunes. i only wish that the offering were a worthier one than this volume of sketches, which certainly are not of a kind likely to prove interesting to a statesman in retirement, inasmuch as they meddle with no matters of policy or government, and have very little to say about the deeper traits of national character. in their humble way, they belong entirely to aesthetic literature, and can achieve no higher success than to represent to the american reader a few of the external aspects of english scenery and life, especially those that are touched with the antique charm to which our countrymen are more susceptible than are the people among whom it is of native growth. i once hoped, indeed, that so slight a volume would not be all that i might write. these and other sketches, with which, in a somewhat rougher form than i have given them here, my journal was copiously filled, were intended for the side-scenes and backgrounds and exterior adornment of a work of fiction of which the plan had imperfectly developed itself in my mind, and into which i ambitiously proposed to convey more of various modes of truth than i could have grasped by a direct effort. of course, i should not mention this abortive project, only that it has been utterly thrown aside and will never now be accomplished. the present, the immediate, the actual, has proved too potent for me. it takes away not only my scanty faculty, but even my desire for imaginative composition, and leaves me sadly content to scatter a thousand peaceful fantasies upon the hurricane that is sweeping us all along with it, possibly, into a limbo where our nation and its polity may be as literally the fragments of a shattered dream as my unwritten romance. but i have far better hopes for our dear country; and for my individual share of the catastrophe, i afflict myself little, or not at all, and shall easily find room for the abortive work on a certain ideal shelf, where are reposited many other shadowy volumes of mine, more in number, and very much superior in quality, to those which i have succeeded in rendering actual. to return to these poor sketches; some of my friends have told me that they evince an asperity of sentiment towards the english people which i ought not to feel, and which it is highly inexpedient to express. the charge surprises me, because, if it be true, i have written from a shallower mood than i supposed. i seldom came into personal relations with an englishman without beginning to like him, and feeling my favorable impression wax stronger with the progress of the acquaintance. i never stood in an english crowd without being conscious of hereditary sympathies. nevertheless, it is undeniable that an american is continually thrown upon his national antagonism by some acrid quality in the moral atmosphere of england. these people think so loftily of themselves, and so contemptuously of everybody else, that it requires more generosity than i possess to keep always in perfectly good-humor with them. jotting down the little acrimonies of the moment in my journal, and transferring them thence (when they happened to be tolerably well expressed) to these pages, it is very possible that i may have said things which a profound observer of national character would hesitate to sanction, though never any, i verily believe, that had not more or less of truth. if they be true, there is no reason in the world why they should not be said. not an englishman of them all ever spared america for courtesy's sake or kindness; nor, in my opinion, would it contribute in the least to our mutual advantage and comfort if we were to besmear one another all over with butter and honey. at any rate, we must not judge of an englishman's susceptibilities by our own, which, likewise, i trust, are of a far less sensitive texture than formerly. and now farewell, my dear friend; and excuse (if you think it needs any excuse) the freedom with which i thus publicly assert a personal friendship between a private individual and a statesman who has filled what was then the most august position in the world. but i dedicate my book to the friend, and shall defer a colloquy with the statesman till some calmer and sunnier hour. only this let me say, that, with the record of your life in my memory, and with a sense of your character in my deeper consciousness as among the few things that time has left as it found them, i need no assurance that you continue faithful forever to that grand idea of an irrevocable union, which, as you once told me, was the earliest that your brave father taught you. for other men there may be a choice of paths,--for you, but one; and it rests among my certainties that no man's loyalty is more steadfast, no man's hopes or apprehensions on behalf of our national existence more deeply heartfelt, or more closely intertwined with his possibilities of personal happiness, than those of franklin pierce. the wayside, july , . contents. consular experiences leamington spa about warwick recollections of a gifted woman lichfield and uttoxeter pilgrimage to old boston near oxford some of the haunts of burns a london suburb up the thames outside glimpses of english poverty civic banquets. our old home. consular experiences. the consulate of the united states, in my day, was located in washington buildings (a shabby and smoke-stained edifice of four stories high, thus illustriously named in honor of our national establishment), at the lower corner of brunswick street, contiguous to the gorec arcade, and in the neighborhood of scone of the oldest docks. this was by no means a polite or elegant portion of england's great commercial city, nor were the apartments of the american official so splendid as to indicate the assumption of much consular pomp on his part. a narrow and ill-lighted staircase gave access to an equally narrow and ill-lighted passageway on the first floor, at the extremity of which, surmounting a door-frame, appeared an exceedingly stiff pictorial representation of the goose and gridiron, according to the english idea of those ever-to-be-honored symbols. the staircase and passageway were often thronged, of a morning, with a set of beggarly and piratical-looking scoundrels (i do no wrong to our own countrymen in styling them so, for not one in twenty was a genuine american), purporting to belong to our mercantile marine, and chiefly composed of liverpool blackballers and the scum of every maritime nation on earth; such being the seamen by whose assistance we then disputed the navigation of the world with england. these specimens of a most unfortunate class of people were shipwrecked crews in quest of bed, board, and clothing, invalids asking permits for the hospital, bruised and bloody wretches complaining of ill-treatment by their officers, drunkards, desperadoes, vagabonds, and cheats, perplexingly intermingled with an uncertain proportion of reasonably honest men. all of them (save here and there a poor devil of a kidnapped landsman in his shore-going rags) wore red flannel shirts, in which they had sweltered or shivered throughout the voyage, and all required consular assistance in one form or another. any respectable visitor, if he could make up his mind to elbow a passage among these sea-monsters, was admitted into an outer office, where he found more of the same species, explaining their respective wants or grievances to the vice-consul and clerks, while their shipmates awaited their turn outside the door. passing through this exterior court, the stranger was ushered into an inner privacy, where sat the consul himself, ready to give personal attention to such peculiarly difficult and more important cases as might demand the exercise of (what we will courteously suppose to be) his own higher judicial or administrative sagacity. it was an apartment of very moderate size, painted in imitation of oak, and duskily lighted by two windows looking across a by-street at the rough brick-side of an immense cotton warehouse, a plainer and uglier structure than ever was built in america. on the walls of the room hung a large map of the united states (as they were, twenty years ago, but seem little likely to be, twenty years hence), and a similar one of great britain, with its territory so provokingly compact, that we may expect it to sink sooner than sunder. farther adornments were some rude engravings of our naval victories in the war of , together with the tennessee state house, and a hudson river steamer, and a colored, life-size lithograph of general taylor, with an honest hideousness of aspect, occupying the place of honor above the mantel-piece. on the top of a bookcase stood a fierce and terrible bust of general jackson, pilloried in a military collar which rose above his ears, and frowning forth immitigably at any englishman who might happen to cross the threshold. i am afraid, however, that the truculence of the old general's expression was utterly thrown away on this stolid and obdurate race of men; for, when they occasionally inquired whom this work of art represented, i was mortified to find that the younger ones had never heard of the battle of new orleans, and that their elders had either forgotten it altogether, or contrived to misremember, and twist it wrong end foremost into something like an english victory. they have caught from the old romans (whom they resemble in so many other characteristics) this excellent method of keeping the national glory intact by sweeping all defeats and humiliations clean out of their memory. nevertheless, my patriotism forbade me to take down either the bust, or the pictures, both because it seemed no more than right that an american consulate (being a little patch of our nationality imbedded into the soil and institutions of england) should fairly represent the american taste in the fine arts, and because these decorations reminded me so delightfully of an old-fashioned american barber's shop. one truly english object was a barometer hanging on the wall, generally indicating one or another degree of disagreeable weather, and so seldom pointing to fair, that i began to consider that portion of its circle as made superfluously. the deep chimney, with its grate of bituminous coal, was english too, as was also the chill temperature that sometimes called for a fire at midsummer, and the foggy or smoky atmosphere which often, between november and march, compelled me to set the gas aflame at noonday. i am not aware of omitting anything important in the above descriptive inventory, unless it be some book-shelves filled with octavo volumes of the american statutes, and a good many pigeon-holes stuffed with dusty communications from former secretaries of state, and other official documents of similar value, constituting part of the archives of the consulate, which i might have done my successor a favor by flinging into the coal-grate. yes; there was one other article demanding prominent notice: the consular copy of the new testament, bound in black morocco, and greasy, i fear, with a daily succession of perjured kisses; at least, i can hardly hope that all the ten thousand oaths, administered by me between two breaths, to all sorts of people and on all manner of worldly business, were reckoned by the swearer as if taken at his soul's peril. such, in short, was the dusky and stifled chamber in which i spent wearily a considerable portion of more than four good years of my existence. at first, to be quite frank with the reader, i looked upon it as not altogether fit to be tenanted by the commercial representative of so great and prosperous a country as the united states then were; and i should speedily have transferred my headquarters to airier and loftier apartments, except for the prudent consideration that my government would have left me thus to support its dignity at my own personal expense. besides, a long line of distinguished predecessors, of whom the latest is now a gallant general under the union banner, had found the locality good enough for them; it might certainly be tolerated, therefore, by an individual so little ambitious of external magnificence as myself. so i settled quietly down, striking some of my roots into such soil as i could find, adapting myself to circumstances, and with so much success, that, though from first to last i hated the very sight of the little room, i should yet have felt a singular kind of reluctance in changing it for a better. hither, in the course of my incumbency, came a great variety of visitors, principally americans, but including almost every other nationality on earth, especially the distressed and downfallen ones like those of poland and hungary. italian bandits (for so they looked), proscribed conspirators from old spain, spanish-americans, cubans who processed to have stood by lopez and narrowly escaped his fate, scarred french soldiers of the second republic,--in a word, all sufferers, or pretended ones, in the cause of liberty, all people homeless in the widest sense, those who never had a country or had lost it, those whom their native land had impatiently flung off for planning a better system of things than they were born to,--a multitude of these and, doubtless, an equal number of jail-birds, outwardly of the same feather, sought the american consulate, in hopes of at least a bit of bread, and, perhaps, to beg a passage to the blessed shores of freedom. in most cases there was nothing, and in any case distressingly little, to be done for them; neither was i of a proselyting disposition, nor desired to make my consulate a nucleus for the vagrant discontents of other lands. and yet it was a proud thought, a forcible appeal to the sympathies of an american, that these unfortunates claimed the privileges of citizenship in our republic on the strength of the very same noble misdemeanors that had rendered them outlaws to their native despotisms. so i gave them what small help i could. methinks the true patriots and martyr-spirits of the whole world should have been conscious of a pang near the heart, when a deadly blow was aimed at the vitality of a country which they have felt to be their own in the last resort. as for my countrymen, i grew better acquainted with many of our national characteristics during those four years than in all my preceding life. whether brought more strikingly out by the contrast with english manners, or that my yankee friends assumed an extra peculiarity from a sense of defiant patriotism, so it was that their tones, sentiments, and behavior, even their figures and cast of countenance, all seemed chiselled in sharper angles than ever i had imagined them to be at home. it impressed me with an odd idea of having somehow lost the property of my own person, when i occasionally heard one of them speaking of me as "my consul"! they often came to the consulate in parties of half a dozen or more, on no business whatever, but merely to subject their public servant to a rigid examination, and see how he was getting on with his duties. these interviews were rather formidable, being characterized by a certain stiffness which i felt to be sufficiently irksome at the moment, though it looks laughable enough in the retrospect. it is my firm belief that these fellow-citizens, possessing a native tendency to organization, generally halted outside of the door to elect a speaker, chairman, or moderator, and thus approached me with all the formalities of a deputation from the american people. after salutations on both sides,-- abrupt, awful, and severe on their part, and deprecatory on mine,--and the national ceremony of shaking hands being duly gone through with, the interview proceeded by a series of calm and well-considered questions or remarks from the spokesman (no other of the guests vouchsafing to utter a word), and diplomatic responses from the consul, who sometimes found the investigation a little more searching than he liked. i flatter myself, however, that, by much practice, i attained considerable skill in this kind of intercourse, the art of which lies in passing off commonplaces for new and valuable truths, and talking trash and emptiness in such a way that a pretty acute auditor might mistake it for something solid. if there be any better method of dealing with such junctures,--when talk is to be created out of nothing, and within the scope of several minds at once, so that you cannot apply yourself to your interlocutor's individuality,--i have not learned it. sitting, as it were, in the gateway between the old world and the new, where the steamers and packets landed the greater part of our wandering countrymen, and received them again when their wanderings were done, i saw that no people on earth have such vagabond habits as ourselves. the continental races never travel at all if they can help it; nor does an englishman ever think of stirring abroad, unless he has the money to spare, or proposes to himself some definite advantage from the journey; but it seemed to me that nothing was more common than for a young american deliberately to spend all his resources in an aesthetic peregrination about europe, returning with pockets nearly empty to begin the world in earnest. it happened, indeed, much oftener than was at all agreeable to myself, that their funds held out just long enough to bring them to the door of my consulate, where they entered as if with an undeniable right to its shelter and protection, and required at my hands to be sent home again. in my first simplicity,--finding them gentlemanly in manners, passably educated, and only tempted a little beyond their means by a laudable desire of improving and refining themselves, or, perhaps for the sake of getting better artistic instruction in music, painting, or sculpture than our country could supply,--i sometimes took charge of them on my private responsibility, since our government gives itself no trouble about its stray children, except the seafaring class. but, after a few such experiments, discovering that none of these estimable and ingenuous young men, however trustworthy they might appear, ever dreamed of reimbursing the consul, i deemed it expedient to take another course with them. applying myself to some friendly shipmaster, i engaged homeward passages on their behalf, with the understanding that they were to make themselves serviceable on shipboard; and i remember several very pathetic appeals from painters and musicians, touching the damage which their artistic fingers were likely to incur from handling the ropes. but my observation of so many heavier troubles left me very little tenderness for their finger-ends. in time i grew to be reasonably hard-hearted, though it never was quite possible to leave a countryman with no shelter save an english poorhouse, when, as he invariably averred, he had only to set foot on his native soil to be possessed of ample funds. it was my ultimate conclusion, however, that american ingenuity may be pretty safely left to itself, and that, one way or another, a yankee vagabond is certain to turn up at his own threshold, if he has any, without help of a consul, and perhaps be taught a lesson of foresight that may profit him hereafter. among these stray americans, i met with no other case so remarkable as that of an old man, who was in the habit of visiting me once in a few months, and soberly affirmed that he had been wandering about england more than a quarter of a century (precisely twenty-seven years, i think), and all the while doing his utmost to get home again. herman melville, in his excellent novel or biography of "israel potter," has an idea somewhat similar to this. the individual now in question was a mild and patient, but very ragged and pitiable old fellow, shabby beyond description, lean and hungry-looking, but with a large and somewhat red nose. he made no complaint of his ill-fortune, but only repeated in a quiet voice, with a pathos of which he was himself evidently unconscious, "i want to get home to ninety-second street, philadelphia." he described himself as a printer by trade, and said that he had come over when he was a younger man, in the hope of bettering himself, and for the sake of seeing the old country, but had never since been rich enough to pay his homeward passage. his manner and accent did not quite convince me that he was an american, and i told him so; but he steadfastly affirmed, "sir, i was born and have lived in ninety-second street, philadelphia," and then went on to describe some public edifices and other local objects with which he used to be familiar, adding, with a simplicity that touched me very closely, "sir, i had rather be there than here!" though i still manifested a lingering doubt, he took no offence, replying with the same mild depression as at first, and insisting again and again on ninety-second street. up to the time when i saw him, he still got a little occasional job-work at his trade, but subsisted mainly on such charity as he met with in his wanderings, shifting from place to place continually, and asking assistance to convey him to his native land. possibly he was an impostor, one of the multitudinous shapes of english vagabondism, and told his falsehood with such powerful simplicity, because, by many repetitions, he had convinced himself of its truth. but if, as i believe, the tale was fact, how very strange and sad was this old man's fate! homeless on a foreign shore, looking always towards his country, coming again and again to the point whence so many were setting sail for it,--so many who would soon tread in ninety-second street,-- losing, in this long series of years, some of the distinctive characteristics of an american, and at last dying and surrendering his clay to be a portion of the soil whence he could not escape in his lifetime. he appeared to see that he had moved me, but did not attempt to press his advantage with any new argument, or any varied form of entreaty. he had but scanty and scattered thoughts in his gray head, and in the intervals of those, like the refrain of an old ballad, came in the monotonous burden of his appeal, "if i could only find myself in ninety-second street, philadelphia!" but even his desire of getting home had ceased to be an ardent one (if, indeed, it had not always partaken of the dreamy sluggishness of his character), although it remained his only locomotive impulse, and perhaps the sole principle of life that kept his blood from actual torpor. the poor old fellow's story seemed to me almost as worthy of being chanted in immortal song as that of odysseus or evangeline. i took his case into deep consideration, but dared not incur the moral responsibility of sending him across the sea, at his age, after so many years of exile, when the very tradition of him had passed away, to find his friends dead, or forgetful, or irretrievably vanished, and the whole country become more truly a foreign land to him than england was now,-- and even ninety-second street, in the weedlike decay and growth of our localities, made over anew and grown unrecognizable by his old eyes. that street, so patiently longed for, had transferred itself to the new jerusalem, and he must seek it there, contenting his slow heart, meanwhile, with the smoke-begrimed thoroughfares of english towns, or the green country lanes and by-paths with which his wanderings had made him familiar; for doubtless he had a beaten track and was the "long-remembered beggar" now, with food and a roughly hospitable greeting ready for him at many a farm-house door, and his choice of lodging under a score of haystacks. in america, nothing awaited him but that worst form of disappointment which comes under the guise of a long-cherished and late-accomplished purpose, and then a year or two of dry and barren sojourn in an almshouse, and death among strangers at last, where he had imagined a circle of familiar faces. so i contented myself with giving him alms, which he thankfully accepted, and went away with bent shoulders and an aspect of gentle forlornness; returning upon his orbit, however, after a few months, to tell the same sad and quiet story of his abode in england for more than twenty-seven years, in all which time he had been endeavoring, and still endeavored as patiently as ever, to find his way home to ninety-second street, philadelphia. i recollect another case, of a more ridiculous order, but still with a foolish kind of pathos entangled in it, which impresses me now more forcibly than it did at the moment. one day, a queer, stupid, good-natured, fat-faced individual came into my private room, dressed in a sky-blue, cut-away coat and mixed trousers, both garments worn and shabby, and rather too small for his overgrown bulk. after a little preliminary talk, he turned out to be a country shopkeeper (from connecticut, i think), who had left a flourishing business, and come over to england purposely and solely to have an interview with the queen. some years before he had named his two children, one for her majesty and the other for prince albert, and had transmitted photographs of the little people, as well as of his wife and himself, to the illustrious godmother. the queen had gratefully acknowledged the favor in a letter under the hand of her private secretary. now, the shopkeeper, like a great many other americans, had long cherished a fantastic notion that he was one of the rightful heirs of a rich english estate; and on the strength of her majesty's letter and the hopes of royal patronage which it inspired, he had shut up his little country-store and come over to claim his inheritance. on the voyage, a german fellow-passenger had relieved him of his money on pretence of getting it favorably exchanged, and had disappeared immediately on the ship's arrival; so that the poor fellow was compelled to pawn all his clothes, except the remarkably shabby ones in which i beheld him, and in which (as he himself hinted, with a melancholy, yet good-natured smile) he did not look altogether fit to see the queen. i agreed with him that the bobtailed coat and mixed trousers constituted a very odd-looking court-dress, and suggested that it was doubtless his present purpose to get back to connecticut as fast as possible. but no! the resolve to see the queen was as strong in him as ever; and it was marvellous the pertinacity with which he clung to it amid raggedness and starvation, and the earnestness of his supplication that i would supply him with funds for a suitable appearance at windsor castle. i never had so satisfactory a perception of a complete booby before in my life; and it caused me to feel kindly towards him, and yet impatient and exasperated on behalf of common-sense, which could not possibly tolerate that such an unimaginable donkey should exist. i laid his absurdity before him in the very plainest terms, but without either exciting his anger or shaking his resolution. "o my dear man," quoth he, with good-natured, placid, simple, and tearful stubbornness, "if you could but enter into my feelings and see the matter from beginning to end as i see it!" to confess the truth, i have since felt that i was hard-hearted to the poor simpleton, and that there was more weight in his remonstrance than i chose to be sensible of, at the time; for, like many men who have been in the habit of making playthings or tools of their imagination and sensibility, i was too rigidly tenacious of what was reasonable in the affairs of real life. and even absurdity has its rights, when, as in this case, it has absorbed a human being's entire nature and purposes. i ought to have transmitted him to mr. buchanan, in london, who, being a good-natured old gentleman, and anxious, just then, to gratify the universal yankee nation, might, for the joke's sake, have got him admittance to the queen, who had fairly laid herself open to his visit, and has received hundreds of our countrymen on infinitely slighter grounds. but i was inexorable, being turned to flint by the insufferable proximity of a fool, and refused to interfere with his business in any way except to procure him a passage home. i can see his face of mild, ridiculous despair, at this moment, and appreciate, better than i could then, how awfully cruel he must have felt my obduracy to be. for years and years, the idea of an interview with queen victoria had haunted his poor foolish mind; and now, when he really stood on english ground, and the palace-door was hanging ajar for him, he was expected to turn brick, a penniless and bamboozled simpleton, merely because an iron-hearted consul refused to lend him thirty shillings (so low had his demand ultimately sunk) to buy a second-class ticket on the rail for london! he visited the consulate several times afterwards, subsisting on a pittance that i allowed him in the hope of gradually starving him back to connecticut, assailing me with the old petition at every opportunity, looking shabbier at every visit, but still thoroughly good-tempered, mildly stubborn, and smiling through his tears, not without a perception of the ludicrousness of his own position. finally, he disappeared altogether, and whither he had wandered, and whether he ever saw the queen, or wasted quite away in the endeavor, i never knew; but i remember unfolding the "times," about that period, with a daily dread of reading an account of a ragged yankee's attempt to steal into buckingham palace, and how he smiled tearfully at his captors and besought them to introduce him to her majesty. i submit to mr. secretary seward that he ought to make diplomatic remonstrances to the british ministry, and require them to take such order that the queen shall not any longer bewilder the wits of our poor compatriots by responding to their epistles and thanking them for their photographs. one circumstance in the foregoing incident--i mean the unhappy storekeeper's notion of establishing his claim to an english estate--was common to a great many other applications, personal or by letter, with which i was favored by my countrymen. the cause of this peculiar insanity lies deep in the anglo-american heart. after all these bloody wars and vindictive animosities, we have still an unspeakable yearning towards england. when our forefathers left the old home, they pulled up many of their roots, but trailed along with them others, which were never snapt asunder by the tug of such a lengthening distance, nor have been torn out of the original soil by the violence of subsequent struggles, nor severed by the edge of the sword. even so late as these days, they remain entangled with our heart-strings, and might often have influenced our national cause like the tiller-ropes of a ship, if the rough gripe of england had been capable of managing so sensitive a kind of machinery. it has required nothing less than the boorishness, the stolidity, the self-sufficiency, the contemptuous jealousy, the half-sagacity, invariably blind of one eye and often distorted of the other, that characterize this strange people, to compel us to be a great nation in our own right, instead of continuing virtually, if not in name, a province of their small island. what pains did they take to shake us off, and have ever since taken to keep us wide apart from them! it might seem their folly, but was really their fate, or, rather, the providence of god, who has doubtless a work for us to do, in which the massive materiality of the english character would have been too ponderous a dead-weight upon our progress. and, besides, if england had been wise enough to twine our new vigor round about her ancient strength, her power would have been too firmly established ever to yield, in its due season, to the otherwise immutable law of imperial vicissitude. the earth might then have beheld the intolerable spectacle of a sovereignty and institutions, imperfect, but indestructible. nationally, there has ceased to be any peril of so inauspicious and yet outwardly attractive an amalgamation. but as an individual, the american is often conscious of the deep-rooted sympathies that belong more fitly to times gone by, and feels a blind pathetic tendency to wander back again, which makes itself evident in such wild dreams as i have alluded to above, about english inheritances. a mere coincidence of names (the yankee one, perhaps, having been assumed by legislative permission), a supposititious pedigree, a silver mug on which an anciently engraved coat-of-arms has been half scrubbed out, a seal with an uncertain crest, an old yellow letter or document in faded ink, the more scantily legible the better,--rubbish of this kind, found in a neglected drawer, has been potent enough to turn the brain of many an honest republican, especially if assisted by an advertisement for lost heirs, cut out of a british newspaper. there is no estimating or believing, till we come into a position to know it, what foolery lurks latent in the breasts of very sensible people. remembering such sober extravagances, i should not be at all surprised to find that i am myself guilty of some unsuspected absurdity, that may appear to me the most substantial trait in my character. i might fill many pages with instances of this diseased american appetite for english soil. a respectable-looking woman, well advanced in life, of sour aspect, exceedingly homely, but decidedly new-englandish in figure and manners, came to my office with a great bundle of documents, at the very first glimpse of which i apprehended something terrible. nor was i mistaken. the bundle contained evidences of her indubitable claim to the site on which castle street, the town hall, the exchange, and all the principal business part of liverpool have long been situated; and with considerable peremptoriness, the good lady signified her expectation that i should take charge of her suit, and prosecute it to judgment; not, however, on the equitable condition of receiving half the value of the property recovered (which, in case of complete success, would have made both of us ten or twenty fold millionaires), but without recompense or reimbursement of legal expenses, solely as an incident of my official duty. another time came two ladies, bearing a letter of emphatic introduction from his excellency the governor of their native state, who testified in most satisfactory terms to their social respectability. they were claimants of a great estate in cheshire, and announced themselves as blood-relatives of queen victoria,--a point, however, which they deemed it expedient to keep in the background until their territorial rights should be established, apprehending that the lord high chancellor might otherwise be less likely to come to a fair decision in respect to them, from a probable disinclination to admit new members into the royal kin. upon my honor, i imagine that they had an eye to the possibility of the eventual succession of one or both of them to the crown of great britain through superiority of title over the brunswick line; although, being maiden ladies, like their predecessor elizabeth, they could hardly have hoped to establish a lasting dynasty upon the throne. it proves, i trust, a certain disinterestedness on my part, that, encountering them thus in the dawn of their fortunes, i forbore to put in a plea for a future dukedom. another visitor of the same class was a gentleman of refined manners, handsome figure, and remarkably intellectual aspect. like many men of an adventurous cast, he had so quiet a deportment, and such an apparent disinclination to general sociability, that you would have fancied him moving always along some peaceful and secluded walk of life. yet, literally from his first hour, he had been tossed upon the surges of a most varied and tumultuous existence, having been born at sea, of american parentage, but on board of a spanish vessel, and spending many of the subsequent years in voyages, travels, and outlandish incidents and vicissitudes, which, methought, had hardly been paralleled since the days of gulliver or de foe. when his dignified reserve was overcome, he had the faculty of narrating these adventures with wonderful eloquence, working up his descriptive sketches with such intuitive perception of the picturesque points that the whole was thrown forward with a positively illusive effect, like matters of your own visual experience. in fact, they were so admirably done that i could never more than half believe them, because the genuine affairs of life are not apt to transact themselves so artistically. many of his scenes were laid in the east, and among those seldom-visited archipelagoes of the indian ocean, so that there was an oriental fragrance breathing through his talk and an odor of the spice islands still lingering in his garments. he had much to say of the delightful qualities of the malay pirates, who, indeed, carry on a predatory warfare against the ships of all civilized nations, and cut every christian throat among their prisoners; but (except for deeds of that character, which are the rule and habit of their life, and matter of religion and conscience with them) they are a gentle-natured people, of primitive innocence and integrity. but his best story was about a race of men (if men they were) who seemed so fully to realize swift's wicked fable of the yahoos, that my friend was much exercised with psychological speculations whether or no they had any souls. they dwelt in the wilds of ceylon, like other savage beasts, hairy, and spotted with tufts of fur, filthy, shameless, weaponless (though warlike in their individual bent), tool-less, houseless, language-less, except for a few guttural sounds, hideously dissonant, whereby they held some rudest kind of communication among themselves. they lacked both memory and foresight, and were wholly destitute of government, social institutions, or law or rulership of any description, except the immediate tyranny of the strongest; radically untamable, moreover, save that the people of the country managed to subject a few of the less ferocious and stupid ones to outdoor servitude among their other cattle. they were beastly in almost all their attributes, and that to such a degree that the observer, losing sight of any link betwixt them and manhood, could generally witness their brutalities without greater horror than at those of some disagreeable quadruped in a menagerie. and yet, at times, comparing what were the lowest general traits in his own race with what was highest in these abominable monsters, he found a ghastly similitude that half compelled him to recognize them as human brethren. after these gulliverian researches, my agreeable acquaintance had fallen under the ban of the dutch government, and had suffered (this, at least, being matter of fact) nearly two years' imprisonment, with confiscation of a large amount of property, for which mr. belmont, our minister at the hague, had just made a peremptory demand of reimbursement and damages. meanwhile, since arriving in england on his way to the united states, he had been providentially led to inquire into the circumstances of his birth on shipboard, and had discovered that not himself alone, but another baby, had come into the world during the same voyage of the prolific vessel, and that there were almost irrefragable reasons for believing that these two children had been assigned to the wrong mothers. many reminiscences of his early days confirmed him in the idea that his nominal parents were aware of the exchange. the family to which he felt authorized to attribute his lineage was that of a nobleman, in the picture-gallery of whose country-seat (whence, if i mistake not, our adventurous friend had just returned) he had discovered a portrait bearing a striking resemblance to himself. as soon as he should have reported the outrageous action of the dutch government to president pierce and the secretary of state, and recovered the confiscated property, he purposed to return to england and establish his claim to the nobleman's title and estate. i had accepted his oriental fantasies (which, indeed, to do him justice, have been recorded by scientific societies among the genuine phenomena of natural history), not as matters of indubitable credence, but as allowable specimens of an imaginative traveller's vivid coloring and rich embroidery on the coarse texture and dull neutral tints of truth. the english romance was among the latest communications that he intrusted to my private ear; and as soon as i heard the first chapter,--so wonderfully akin to what i might have wrought out of my own head, not unpractised in such figments,--i began to repent having made myself responsible for the future nobleman's passage homeward in the next collins steamer. nevertheless, should his english rent-roll fall a little behindhand, his dutch claim for a hundred thousand dollars was certainly in the hands of our government, and might at least be valuable to the extent of thirty pounds, which i had engaged to pay on his behalf. but i have reason to fear that his dutch riches turned out to be dutch gilt, or fairy gold, and his english country-seat a mere castle in the air,--which i exceedingly regret, for he was a delightful companion and a very gentlemanly man. a consul, in his position of universal responsibility, the general adviser and helper, sometimes finds himself compelled to assume the guardianship of personages who, in their own sphere, are supposed capable of superintending the highest interests of whole communities. an elderly irishman, a naturalized citizen, once put the desire and expectation of all our penniless vagabonds into a very suitable phrase, by pathetically entreating me to be a "father to him"; and, simple as i sit scribbling here, i have acted a father's part, not only by scores of such unthrifty old children as himself, but by a progeny of far loftier pretensions. it may be well for persons who are conscious of any radical weakness in their character, any besetting sin, any unlawful propensity, any unhallowed impulse, which (while surrounded with the manifold restraints that protect a man from that treacherous and lifelong enemy, his lower self, in the circle of society where he is at home) they may have succeeded in keeping under the lock and key of strictest propriety,--it may be well for them, before seeking the perilous freedom of a distant land, released from the watchful eyes of neighborhoods and coteries, lightened of that wearisome burden, an immaculate name, and blissfully obscure after years of local prominence,--it may be well for such individuals to know that when they set foot on a foreign shore, the long-imprisoned evil, scenting a wild license in the unaccustomed atmosphere, is apt to grow riotous in its iron cage. it rattles the rusty barriers with gigantic turbulence, and if there be an infirm joint anywhere in the framework, it breaks madly forth, compressing the mischief of a lifetime into a little space. a parcel of letters had been accumulating at the consulate for two or three weeks, directed to a certain doctor of divinity, who had left america by a sailing-packet and was still upon the sea. in due time, the vessel arrived, and the reverend doctor paid me a visit. he was a fine-looking middle-aged gentleman, a perfect model of clerical propriety, scholar-like, yet with the air of a man of the world rather than a student, though overspread with the graceful sanctity of a popular metropolitan divine, a part of whose duty it might be to exemplify the natural accordance between christianity and good-breeding. he seemed a little excited, as an american is apt to be on first arriving in england, but conversed with intelligence as well as animation, making himself so agreeable that his visit stood out in considerable relief from the monotony of my daily commonplace. as i learned from authentic sources, he was somewhat distinguished in his own region for fervor and eloquence in the pulpit, but was now compelled to relinquish it temporarily for the purpose of renovating his impaired health by an extensive tour in europe. promising to dine with me, he took up his bundle of letters and went away. the doctor, however, failed to make his appearance at dinner-time, or to apologize the next day for his absence; and in the course of a day or two more, i forgot all about him, concluding that he must have set forth on his continental travels, the plan of which he had sketched out at our interview. but, by and by, i received a call from the master of the vessel in which he had arrived. he was in some alarm about his passenger, whose luggage remained on shipboard, but of whom nothing had been heard or seen since the moment of his departure from the consulate. we conferred together, the captain and i, about the expediency of setting the police on the traces (if any were to be found) of our vanished friend; but it struck me that the good captain was singularly reticent, and that there was something a little mysterious in a few points that he hinted at rather than expressed; so that, scrutinizing the affair carefully, i surmised that the intimacy of life on shipboard might have taught him more about the reverend gentleman than, for some reason or other, he deemed it prudent to reveal. at home, in our native country, i would have looked to the doctor's personal safety and left his reputation to take care of itself, knowing that the good fame of a thousand saintly clergymen would amply dazzle out any lamentable spot on a single brother's character. but in scornful and invidious england, on the idea that the credit of the sacred office was measurably intrusted to my discretion, i could not endure, for the sake of american doctors of divinity generally, that this particular doctor should cut an ignoble figure in the police reports of the english newspapers, except at the last necessity. the clerical body, i flatter myself, will acknowledge that i acted on their own principle. besides, it was now too late; the mischief and violence, if any had been impending, were not of a kind which it requires the better part of a week to perpetrate; and to sum up the entire matter, i felt certain, from a good deal of somewhat similar experience, that, if the missing doctor still breathed this vital air, he would turn up at the consulate as soon as his money should be stolen or spent. precisely a week after this reverend person's disappearance, there came to my office a tall, middle-aged gentleman in a blue military surtout, braided at the seams, but out at elbows, and as shabby as if the wearer had been bivouacking in it throughout a crimean campaign. it was buttoned up to the very chin, except where three or four of the buttons were lost; nor was there any glimpse of a white shirt-collar illuminating the rusty black cravat. a grisly mustache was just beginning to roughen the stranger's upper lip. he looked disreputable to the last degree, but still had a ruined air of good society glimmering about him, like a few specks of polish on a sword-blade that has lain corroding in a mud-puddle. i took him to be some american marine officer, of dissipated habits, or perhaps a cashiered british major, stumbling into the wrong quarters through the unrectified bewilderment of last night's debauch. he greeted me, however, with polite familiarity, as though we had been previously acquainted; whereupon i drew coldly back (as sensible people naturally do, whether from strangers or former friends, when too evidently at odds with fortune) and requested to know who my visitor might be, and what was his business at the consulate. "am i then so changed?" he exclaimed with a vast depth of tragic intonation; and after a little blind and bewildered talk, behold! the truth flashed upon me. it was the doctor of divinity! if i had meditated a scene or a coup de theatre, i could not have contrived a more effectual one than by this simple and genuine difficulty of recognition. the poor divine must have felt that he had lost his personal identity through the misadventures of one little week. and, to say the truth, he did look as if, like job, on account of his especial sanctity, he had been delivered over to the direst temptations of satan, and proving weaker than the man of uz, the arch enemy had been empowered to drag him through tophet, transforming him, in the process, from the most decorous of metropolitan clergymen into the rowdiest and dirtiest of disbanded officers. i never fathomed the mystery of his military costume, but conjectured that a lurking sense of fitness had induced him to exchange his clerical garments for this habit of a sinner; nor can i tell precisely into what pitfall, not more of vice than terrible calamity, he had precipitated himself,--being more than satisfied to know that the outcasts of society can sink no lower than this poor, desecrated wretch had sunk. the opportunity, i presume, does not often happen to a layman, of administering moral and religious reproof to a doctor of divinity; but finding the occasion thrust upon me, and the hereditary puritan waxing strong in my breast, i deemed it a matter of conscience not to let it pass entirely unimproved. the truth is, i was unspeakably shocked and disgusted. not, however, that i was then to learn that clergymen are made of the same flesh and blood as other people, and perhaps lack one small safeguard which the rest of us possess, because they are aware of their own peccability, and therefore cannot look up to the clerical class for the proof of the possibility of a pure life on earth, with such reverential confidence as we are prone to do. but i remembered the innocent faith of my boyhood, and the good old silver-headed clergyman, who seemed to me as much a saint then on earth as he is now in heaven, and partly for whose sake, through all these darkening years, i retain a devout, though not intact nor unwavering respect for the entire fraternity. what a hideous wrong, therefore, had the backslider inflicted on his brethren, and still more on me, who much needed whatever fragments of broken reverence (broken, not as concerned religion, but its earthly institutions and professors) it might yet be possible to patch into a sacred image! should all pulpits and communion-tables have thenceforth a stain upon them, and the guilty one go unrebuked for it? so i spoke to the unhappy man as i never thought myself warranted in speaking to any other mortal, hitting him hard, doing my utmost to find out his vulnerable part, and prick him into the depths of it. and not without more effect than i had dreamed of, or desired! no doubt, the novelty of the doctor's reversed position, thus standing up to receive such a fulmination as the clergy have heretofore arrogated the exclusive right of inflicting, might give additional weight and sting to the words which i found utterance for. but there was another reason (which, had i in the least suspected it, would have closed my lips at once) for his feeling morbidly sensitive to the cruel rebuke that i administered. the unfortunate man had come to me, laboring under one of the consequences of his riotous outbreak, in the shape of delirium tremens; he bore a hell within the compass of his own breast, all the torments of which blazed up with tenfold inveteracy when i thus took upon myself the devil's office of stirring up the red-hot embers. his emotions, as well as the external movement and expression of them by voice, countenance, and gesture, were terribly exaggerated by the tremendous vibration of nerves resulting from the disease. it was the deepest tragedy i ever witnessed. i know sufficiently, from that one experience, how a condemned soul would manifest its agonies; and for the future, if i have anything to do with sinners, i mean to operate upon them through sympathy, and not rebuke. what had i to do with rebuking him? the disease, long latent in his heart, had shown itself in a frightful eruption on the surface of his life. that was all! is it a thing to scold the sufferer for? to conclude this wretched story, the poor doctor of divinity, having been robbed of all his money in this little airing beyond the limits of propriety, was easily persuaded to give up the intended tour and return to his bereaved flock, who, very probably, were thereafter conscious of an increased unction in his soul-stirring eloquence, without suspecting the awful depths into which their pastor had dived in quest of it. his voice is now silent. i leave it to members of his own profession to decide whether it was better for him thus to sin outright, and so to be let into the miserable secret what manner of man he was, or to have gone through life outwardly unspotted, making the first discovery of his latent evil at the judgment-seat. it has occurred to me that his dire calamity, as both he and i regarded it, might have been the only method by which precisely such a man as himself, and so situated, could be redeemed. he has learned, ere now, how that matter stood. for a man, with a natural tendency to meddle with other people's business, there could not possibly be a more congenial sphere than the liverpool consulate. for myself, i had never been in the habit of feeling that i could sufficiently comprehend any particular conjunction of circumstances with human character, to justify me in thrusting in my awkward agency among the intricate and unintelligible machinery of providence. i have always hated to give advice, especially when there is a prospect of its being taken. it is only one-eyed people who love to advise, or have any spontaneous promptitude of action. when a man opens both his eyes, he generally sees about as many reasons for acting in any one way as in any other, and quite as many for acting in neither; and is therefore likely to leave his friends to regulate their own conduct, and also to remain quiet as regards his especial affairs till necessity shall prick him onward. nevertheless, the world and individuals flourish upon a constant succession of blunders. the secret of english practical success lies in their characteristic faculty of shutting one eye, whereby they get so distinct and decided a view of what immediately concerns them that they go stumbling towards it over a hundred insurmountable obstacles, and achieve a magnificent triumph without ever being aware of half its difficulties. if general mcclellan could but have shut his left eye, the right one would long ago have guided us into richmond. meanwhile, i have strayed far away from the consulate, where, as i was about to say, i was compelled, in spite of my disinclination, to impart both advice and assistance in multifarious affairs that did not personally concern me, and presume that i effected about as little mischief as other men in similar contingencies. the duties of the office carried me to prisons, police-courts, hospitals, lunatic asylums, coroner's inquests, death-beds, funerals, and brought me in contact with insane people, criminals, ruined speculators, wild adventurers, diplomatists, brother-consuls, and all manner of simpletons and unfortunates, in greater number and variety than i had ever dreamed of as pertaining to america; in addition to whom there was an equivalent multitude of english rogues, dexterously counterfeiting the genuine yankee article. it required great discrimination not to be taken in by these last-mentioned scoundrels; for they knew how to imitate our national traits, had been at great pains to instruct themselves as regarded american localities, and were not readily to be caught by a cross-examination as to the topographical features, public institutions, or prominent inhabitants of the places where they pretended to belong. the best shibboleth i ever hit upon lay in the pronunciation of the word "been," which the english invariably make to rhyme with "green," and we northerners, at least (in accordance, i think, with the custom of shakespeare's time), universally pronounce "bin." all the matters that i have been treating of, however, were merely incidental, and quite distinct from the real business of the office. a great part of the wear and tear of mind and temper resulted from the bad relations between the seamen and officers of american ships. scarcely a morning passed, but that some sailor came to show the marks of his ill-usage on shipboard. often, it was a whole crew of them, each with his broken head or livid bruise, and all testifying with one voice to a constant series of savage outrages during the voyage; or, it might be, they laid an accusation of actual murder, perpetrated by the first or second officers with many blows of steel-knuckles, a rope's end, or a marline-spike, or by the captain, in the twinkling of an eye, with a shot of his pistol. taking the seamen's view of the case, you would suppose that the gibbet was hungry for the murderers. listening to the captain's defence, you would seem to discover that he and his officers were the humanest of mortals, but were driven to a wholesome severity by the mutinous conduct of the crew, who, moreover, had themselves slain their comrade in the drunken riot and confusion of the first day or two after they were shipped. looked at judicially, there appeared to be no right side to the matter, nor any right side possible in so thoroughly vicious a system as that of the american mercantile marine. the consul could do little, except to take depositions, hold forth the greasy testament to be profaned anew with perjured kisses, and, in a few instances of murder or manslaughter, carry the case before an english magistrate, who generally decided that the evidence was too contradictory to authorize the transmission of the accused for trial in america. the newspapers all over england contained paragraphs, inveighing against the cruelties of american shipmasters. the british parliament took up the matter (for nobody is so humane as john bull, when his benevolent propensities are to be gratified by finding fault with his neighbor), and caused lord john russell to remonstrate with our government on the outrages for which it was responsible before the world, and which it failed to prevent or punish. the american secretary of state, old general cass, responded, with perfectly astounding ignorance of the subject, to the effect that the statements of outrages had probably been exaggerated, that the present laws of the united states were quite adequate to deal with them, and that the interference of the british minister was uncalled for. the truth is, that the state of affairs was really very horrible, and could be met by no laws at that time (or i presume now) in existence. i once thought of writing a pamphlet on the subject, but quitted the consulate before finding time to effect my purpose; and all that phase of my life immediately assumed so dreamlike a consistency that i despaired of making it seem solid or tangible to the public. and now it looks distant and dim, like troubles of a century ago. the origin of the evil lay in the character of the seamen, scarcely any of whom were american, but the offscourings and refuse of all the seaports of the world, such stuff as piracy is made of, together with a considerable intermixture of returning emigrants, and a sprinkling of absolutely kidnapped american citizens. even with such material, the ships were very inadequately manned. the shipmaster found himself upon the deep, with a vast responsibility of property and human life upon his hands, and no means of salvation except by compelling his inefficient and demoralized crew to heavier exertions than could reasonably be required of the same number of able seamen. by law he had been intrusted with no discretion of judicious punishment, he therefore habitually left the whole matter of discipline to his irresponsible mates, men often of scarcely a superior quality to the crew. hence ensued a great mass of petty outrages, unjustifiable assaults, shameful indignities, and nameless cruelty, demoralizing alike to the perpetrators and the sufferers; these enormities fell into the ocean between the two countries, and could be punished in neither. many miserable stories come back upon my memory as i write; wrongs that were immense, but for which nobody could be held responsible, and which, indeed, the closer you looked into them, the more they lost the aspect of wilful misdoing and assumed that of an inevitable calamity. it was the fault of a system, the misfortune of an individual. be that as it may, however, there will be no possibility of dealing effectually with these troubles as long as we deem it inconsistent with our national dignity or interests to allow the english courts, under such restrictions as may seem fit, a jurisdiction over offences perpetrated on board our vessels in mid-ocean. in such a life as this, the american shipmaster develops himself into a man of iron energies, dauntless courage, and inexhaustible resource, at the expense, it must be acknowledged, of some of the higher and gentler traits which might do him excellent service in maintaining his authority. the class has deteriorated of late years on account of the narrower field of selection, owing chiefly to the diminution of that excellent body of respectably educated new england seamen, from the flower of whom the officers used to be recruited. yet i found them, in many cases, very agreeable and intelligent companions, with less nonsense about them than landsmen usually have, eschewers of fine-spun theories, delighting in square and tangible ideas, but occasionally infested with prejudices that stuck to their brains like barnacles to a ship's bottom. i never could flatter myself that i was a general favorite with them. one or two, perhaps, even now, would scarcely meet me on amicable terms. endowed universally with a great pertinacity of will, they especially disliked the interference of a consul with their management on shipboard; notwithstanding which i thrust in my very limited authority at every available opening, and did the utmost that lay in my power, though with lamentably small effect, towards enforcing a better kind of discipline. they thought, no doubt (and on plausible grounds enough, but scarcely appreciating just that one little grain of hard new england sense, oddly thrown in among the flimsier composition of the consul's character), that he, a landsman, a bookman, and, as people said of him, a fanciful recluse, could not possibly understand anything of the difficulties or the necessities of a shipmaster's position. but their cold regards were rather acceptable than otherwise, for it is exceedingly awkward to assume a judicial austerity in the morning towards a man with whom you have been hobnobbing over night. with the technical details of the business of that great consulate (for great it then was, though now, i fear, wofully fallen off, and perhaps never to be revived in anything like its former extent), i did not much interfere. they could safely be left to the treatment of two as faithful, upright, and competent subordinates, both englishmen, as ever a man was fortunate enough to meet with, in a line of life altogether new and strange to him. i had come over with instructions to supply both their places with americans, but, possessing a happy faculty of knowing my own interest and the public's, i quietly kept hold of them, being little inclined to open the consular doors to a spy of the state department or an intriguer for my own office. the venerable vice-consul, mr. pearce, had witnessed the successive arrivals of a score of newly appointed consuls, shadowy and short-lived dignitaries, and carried his reminiscences back to the epoch of consul maury, who was appointed by washington, and has acquired almost the grandeur of a mythical personage in the annals of the consulate. the principal clerk, mr. wilding, who has since succeeded to the vice-consulship, was a man of english integrity,--not that the english are more honest than ourselves, but only there is a certain sturdy reliableness common among them, which we do not quite so invariably manifest in just these subordinate positions,--of english integrity, combined with american acuteness of intellect, quick-wittedness, and diversity of talent. it seemed an immense pity that he should wear out his life at a desk, without a step in advance from year's end to year's end, when, had it been his luck to be born on our side of the water, his bright faculties and clear probity would have insured him eminent success in whatever path he night adopt. meanwhile, it would have been a sore mischance to me, had any better fortune on his part deprived me of mr. wilding's services. a fair amount of common-sense, some acquaintance with the united states statutes, an insight into character, a tact of management, a general knowledge of the world, and a reasonable but not too inveterately decided preference for his own will and judgment over those of interested people,--these natural attributes and moderate acquirements will enable a consul to perform many of his duties respectably, but not to dispense with a great variety of other qualifications, only attainable by long experience. yet, i think, few consuls are so well accomplished. an appointment of whatever grade, in the diplomatic or consular service of america, is too often what the english call a "job"; that is to say, it is made on private and personal grounds, without a paramount eye to the public good or the gentleman's especial fitness for the position. it is not too much to say (of course allowing for a brilliant exception here and there), that an american never is thoroughly qualified for a foreign post, nor has time to make himself so, before the revolution of the political wheel discards him from his office. our country wrongs itself by permitting such a system of unsuitable appointments, and, still more, of removals for no cause, just when the incumbent might be beginning to ripen into usefulness. mere ignorance of official detail is of comparatively small moment; though it is considered indispensable, i presume, that a man in any private capacity shall be thoroughly acquainted with the machinery and operation of his business, and shall not necessarily lose his position on having attained such knowledge. but there are so many more important things to be thought of, in the qualifications of a foreign resident, that his technical dexterity or clumsiness is hardly worth mentioning. one great part of a consul's duty, for example, should consist in building up for himself a recognized position in the society where he resides, so that his local influence might be felt in behalf of his own country, and, so far as they are compatible (as they generally are to the utmost extent), for the interests of both nations. the foreign city should know that it has a permanent inhabitant and a hearty well-wisher in him. there are many conjunctures (and one of them is now upon us) where a long-established, honored, and trusted american citizen, holding a public position under our government in such a town as liverpool, might go far towards swaying and directing the sympathies of the inhabitants. he might throw his own weight into the balance against mischief makers; he might have set his foot on the first little spark of malignant purpose, which the next wind may blow into a national war. but we wilfully give up all advantages of this kind. the position is totally beyond the attainment of an american; there to-day, bristling all over with the porcupine quills of our republic, and gone to-morrow, just as he is becoming sensible of the broader and more generous patriotism which might almost amalgamate with that of england, without losing an atom of its native force and flavor. in the changes that appear to await us, and some of which, at least, can hardly fail to be for good, let us hope for a reform in this matter. for myself, as the gentle reader would spare me the trouble of saying, i was not at all the kind of man to grow into such an ideal consul as i have here suggested. i never in my life desired to be burdened with public influence. i disliked my office from the first, and never came into any good accordance with it. its dignity, so far as it had any, was an encumbrance; the attentions it drew upon me (such as invitations to mayor's banquets and public celebrations of all kinds, where, to my horror, i found myself expected to stand up and speak) were--as i may say without incivility or ingratitude, because there is nothing personal in that sort of hospitality--a bore. the official business was irksome, and often painful. there was nothing pleasant about the whole affair, except the emoluments; and even those, never too bountifully reaped, were diminished by more than half in the second or third year of my incumbency. all this being true, i was quite prepared, in advance of the inauguration of mr. buchanan, to send in my resignation. when my successor arrived, i drew the long, delightful breath which first made me thoroughly sensible what an unnatural life i had been leading, and compelled me to admire myself for having battled with it so sturdily. the newcomer proved to be a very genial and agreeable gentleman, an f. f. v., and, as he pleasantly acknowledged, a southern fire eater, --an announcement to which i responded, with similar good-humor and self-complacency, by parading my descent from an ancient line of massachusetts puritans. since our brief acquaintanceship, my fire-eating friend has had ample opportunities to banquet on his favorite diet, hot and hot, in the confederate service. for myself, as soon as i was out of office, the retrospect began to look unreal. i could scarcely believe that it was i,--that figure whom they called a consul,--but a sort of double ganger, who had been permitted to assume my aspect, under which he went through his shadowy duties with a tolerable show of efficiency, while my real self had lain, as regarded my proper mode of being and acting, in a state of suspended animation. the same sense of illusion still pursues me. there is some mistake in this matter. i have been writing about another man's consular experiences, with which, through some mysterious medium of transmitted ideas, i find myself intimately acquainted, but in which i cannot possibly have had a personal interest. is it not a dream altogether? the figure of that poor doctor of divinity looks wonderfully lifelike; so do those of the oriental adventurer with the visionary coronet above his brow, and the moonstruck visitor of the queen, and the poor old wanderer, seeking his native country through english highways and by-ways for almost thirty years; and so would a hundred others that i might summon up with similar distinctness. but were they more than shadows? surely, i think not. nor are these present pages a bit of intrusive autobiography. let not the reader wrong me by supposing it. i never should have written with half such unreserve, had it been a portion of this life congenial with my nature, which i am living now, instead of a series of incidents and characters entirely apart from my own concerns, and on which the qualities personally proper to me could have had no bearing. almost the only real incidents, as i see them now, were the visits of a young english friend, a scholar and a literary amateur, between whom and myself there sprung up an affectionate, and, i trust, not transitory regard. he used to come and sit or stand by my fireside, talking vivaciously and eloquently with me about literature and life, his own national characteristics and mine, with such kindly endurance of the many rough republicanisms wherewith i assailed him, and such frank and amiable assertion of all sorts of english prejudices and mistakes, that i understood his countrymen infinitely the better for him, and was almost prepared to love the intensest englishman of them all, for his sake. it would gratify my cherished remembrance of this dear friend, if i could manage, without offending him, or letting the public know it, to introduce his name upon my page. bright was the illumination of my dusky little apartment, as often as he made his appearance there! the english sketches which i have been offering to the public comprise a few of the more external and therefore more readily manageable things that i took note of, in many escapes from the imprisonment of my consular servitude. liverpool, though not very delightful as a place of residence, is a most convenient and admirable point to get away from. london is only five hours off by the fast train. chester, the most curious town in england, with its encompassing wall, its ancient rows, and its venerable cathedral, is close at hand. north wales, with all its hills and ponds, its noble sea-scenery, its multitude of gray castles and strange old villages, may be glanced at in a summer day or two. the lakes and mountains of cumberland and westmoreland may be reached before dinner-time. the haunted and legendary isle of man, a little kingdom by itself, lies within the scope of an afternoon's voyage. edinburgh or glasgow are attainable over night, and loch lomond betimes in the morning. visiting these famous localities, and a great many others, i hope that i do not compromise my american patriotism by acknowledging that i was often conscious of a fervent hereditary attachment to the native soil of our forefathers, and felt it to be our own old home. leamington spa. in the course of several visits and stays of considerable length we acquired a homelike feeling towards leamington, and came back thither again and again, chiefly because we had been there before. wandering and wayside people, such as we had long since become, retain a few of the instincts that belong to a more settled way of life, and often prefer familiar and commonplace objects (for the very reason that they are so) to the dreary strangeness of scenes that might be thought much better worth the seeing. there is a small nest of a place in leamington--at no. , lansdowne circus--upon which, to this day, my reminiscences are apt to settle as one of the coziest nooks in england or in the world; not that it had any special charm of its own, but only that we stayed long enough to know it well, and even to grow a little tired of it. in my opinion, the very tediousness of home and friends makes a part of what we love them for; if it be not mixed in sufficiently with the other elements of life, there may be mad enjoyment, but no happiness. the modest abode to which i have alluded forms one of a circular range of pretty, moderate-sized, two-story houses, all built on nearly the same plan, and each provided with its little grass-plot, its flowers, its tufts of box trimmed into globes and other fantastic shapes, and its verdant hedges shutting the house in from the common drive and dividing it from its equally cosey neighbors. coming out of the door, and taking a turn round the circle of sister-dwellings, it is difficult to find your way back by any distinguishing individuality of your own habitation. in the centre of the circus is a space fenced in with iron railing, a small play-place and sylvan retreat for the children of the precinct, permeated by brief paths through the fresh english grass, and shadowed by various shrubbery; amid which, if you like, you may fancy yourself in a deep seclusion, though probably the mark of eye-shot from the windows of all the surrounding houses. but, in truth, with regard to the rest of the town and the world at large, all abode here is a genuine seclusion; for the ordinary stream of life does not run through this little, quiet pool, and few or none of the inhabitants seem to be troubled with any business or outside activities. i used to set them down as half-pay officers, dowagers of narrow income, elderly maiden ladies, and other people of respectability, but small account, such as hang on the world's skirts rather than actually belong to it. the quiet of the place was seldom disturbed, except by the grocer and butcher, who came to receive orders, or by the cabs, hackney-coaches, and bath-chairs, in which the ladies took an infrequent airing, or the livery-steed which the retired captain sometimes bestrode for a morning ride, or by the red-coated postman who went his rounds twice a day to deliver letters, and again in the evening, ringing a hand-bell, to take letters for the mail. in merely mentioning these slight interruptions of its sluggish stillness, i seem to myself to disturb too much the atmosphere of quiet that brooded over the spot; whereas its impression upon me was, that the world had never found the way hither, or had forgotten it, and that the fortunate inhabitants were the only ones who possessed the spell-word of admittance. nothing could have suited me better, at the time; for i had been holding a position of public servitude, which imposed upon me (among a great many lighter duties) the ponderous necessity of being universally civil and sociable. nevertheless, if a man were seeking the bustle of society, he might find it more readily in leamington than in most other english towns. it is a permanent watering-place, a sort of institution to which i do not know any close parallel in american life: for such places as saratoga bloom only for the summer-season, and offer a thousand dissimilitudes even then; while leamington seems to be always in flower, and serves as a home to the homeless all the year round. its original nucleus, the plausible excuse for the town's coming into prosperous existence, lies in the fiction of a chalybeate well, which, indeed, is so far a reality that out of its magical depths have gushed streets, groves, gardens, mansions, shops, and churches, and spread themselves along the banks of the little river leam. this miracle accomplished, the beneficent fountain has retired beneath a pump-room, and appears to have given up all pretensions to the remedial virtues formerly attributed to it. i know not whether its waters are ever tasted nowadays; but not the less does leamington--in pleasant warwickshire, at the very midmost point of england, in a good hunting neighborhood, and surrounded by country-seats and castles-- continue to be a resort of transient visitors, and the more permanent abode of a class of genteel, unoccupied, well-to-do, but not very wealthy people, such as are hardly known among ourselves. persons who have no country-houses, and whose fortunes are inadequate to a london expenditure, find here, i suppose, a sort of town and country life in one. in its present aspect the town is of no great age. in contrast with the antiquity of many places in its neighborhood, it has a bright, new face, and seems almost to smile even amid the sombreness of an english autumn. nevertheless, it is hundreds upon hundreds of years old, if we reckon up that sleepy lapse of time during which it existed as a small village of thatched houses, clustered round a priory; and it would still have been precisely such a rural village, but for a certain dr. jephson, who lived within the memory of man, and who found out the magic well, and foresaw what fairy wealth might be made to flow from it. a public garden has been laid out along the margin of the leam, and called the jephson garden, in honor of him who created the prosperity of his native spot. a little way within the garden-gate there is a circular temple of grecian architecture, beneath the dome of which stands a marble statue of the good doctor, very well executed, and representing him with a face of fussy activity and benevolence: just the kind of man, if luck favored him, to build up the fortunes of those about him, or, quite as probably, to blight his whole neighborhood by some disastrous speculation. the jephson garden is very beautiful, like most other english pleasure-grounds; for, aided by their moist climate and not too fervid sun, the landscape-gardeners excel in converting flat or tame surfaces into attractive scenery, chiefly through the skilful arrangement of trees and shrubbery. an englishman aims at this effect even in the little patches under the windows of a suburban villa, and achieves it on a larger scale in a tract of many acres. the garden is shadowed with trees of a fine growth, standing alone, or in dusky groves and dense entanglements, pervaded by woodland paths; and emerging from these pleasant glooms, we come upon a breadth of sunshine, where the greensward--so vividly green that it has a kind of lustre in it--is spotted with beds of gemlike flowers. rustic chairs and benches are scattered about, some of them ponderously fashioned out of the stumps of obtruncated trees, and others more artfully made with intertwining branches, or perhaps an imitation of such frail handiwork in iron. in a central part of the garden is an archery-ground, where laughing maidens practise at the butts, generally missing their ostensible mark, but, by the mere grace of their action, sending an unseen shaft into some young man's heart. there is space, moreover, within these precincts, for an artificial lake, with a little green island in the midst of it; both lake and island being the haunt of swans, whose aspect and movement in the water are most beautiful and stately,--most infirm, disjointed, and decrepit, when, unadvisedly, they see fit to emerge, and try to walk upon dry land. in the latter case, they look like a breed of uncommonly ill-contrived geese; and i record the matter here for the sake of the moral,--that we should never pass judgment on the merits of any person or thing, unless we behold them in the sphere and circumstances to which they are specially adapted. in still another part of the garden there is a labyrinthine maze, formed of an intricacy of hedge-bordered walks, involving himself in which, a man might wander for hours inextricably within a circuit of only a few yards. it seemed to me a sad emblem of the mental and moral perplexities in which we sometimes go astray, petty in scope, yet large enough to entangle a lifetime, and bewilder us with a weary movement, but no genuine progress. the leam,--the "high complectioned leam," as drayton calls it,--after drowsing across the principal street of the town beneath a handsome bridge, skirts along the margin of the garden without any perceptible flow. heretofore i had fancied the concord the laziest river in the world, but now assign that amiable distinction to the little english stream. its water is by no means transparent, but has a greenish, goose-puddly hue, which, however, accords well with the other coloring and characteristics of the scene, and is disagreeable neither to sight nor smell. certainly, this river is a perfect feature of that gentle picturesqueness in which england is so rich, sleeping, as it does, beneath a margin of willows that droop into its bosom, and other trees, of deeper verdure than our own country can boast, inclining lovingly over it. on the garden-side it is bordered by a shadowy, secluded grove, with winding paths among its boskiness, affording many a peep at the river's imperceptible lapse and tranquil gleam; and on the opposite shore stands the priory-church, with its churchyard full of shrubbery and tombstones. the business portion of the town clusters about the banks of the leam, and is naturally densest around the well to which the modern settlement owes its existence. here are the commercial inns, the post-office, the furniture-dealers, the iron-mongers, and all the heavy and homely establishments that connect themselves even with the airiest modes of human life; while upward from the river, by a long and gentle ascent, rises the principal street, which is very bright and cheerful in its physiognomy, and adorned with shop-fronts almost as splendid as those of london, though on a diminutive scale. there are likewise side-streets and cross-streets, many of which are bordered with the beautiful warwickshire elm, a most unusual kind of adornment for an english town; and spacious avenues, wide enough to afford room for stately groves, with foot-paths running beneath the lofty shade, and rooks cawing and chattering so high in the tree-tops that their voices get musical before reaching the earth. the houses are mostly built in blocks and ranges, in which every separate tenement is a repetition of its fellow, though the architecture of the different ranges is sufficiently various. some of them are almost palatial in size and sumptuousness of arrangement. then, on the outskirts of the town, there are detached villas, enclosed within that separate domain of high stone fence and embowered shrubbery which an englishman so loves to build and plant around his abode, presenting to the public only an iron gate, with a gravelled carriage-drive winding away towards the half-hidden mansion. whether in street or suburb, leamington may fairly be called beautiful, and, at some points, magnificent; but by and by you become doubtfully suspicious of a somewhat unreal finery: it is pretentious, though not glaringly so; it has been built with malice aforethought, as a place of gentility and enjoyment. moreover, splendid as the houses look, and comfortable as they often are, there is a nameless something about them, betokening that they have not grown out of human hearts, but are the creations of a skilfully applied human intellect: no man has reared any one of them, whether stately or humble, to be his lifelong residence, wherein to bring up his children, who are to inherit it as a home. they are nicely contrived lodging-houses, one and all,--the best as well as the shabbiest of them, --and therefore inevitably lack some nameless property that a home should have. this was the case with our own little snuggery in lansdowne circus, as with all the rest; it had not grown out of anybody's individual need, but was built to let or sell, and was therefore like a ready-made garment,--a tolerable fit, but only tolerable. all these blocks, ranges, and detached villas are adorned with the finest and most aristocratic manes that i have found anywhere in england, except, perhaps, in bath, which is the great metropolis of that second-class gentility with which watering-places are chiefly populated. lansdowne crescent, lansdowne circus, lansdowne terrace, regent street, warwick street, clarendon street, the upper and lower parade: such are a few of the designations. parade, indeed, is a well-chosen name for the principal street, along which the population of the idle town draws itself out for daily review and display. i only wish that my descriptive powers would enable me to throw off a picture of the scene at a sunny noontide, individualizing each character with a touch the great people alighting from their carriages at the principal shop-doors; the elderly ladies and infirm indian officers drawn along in bath-chairs; the comely, rather than pretty, english girls, with their deep, healthy bloom, which an american taste is apt to deem fitter for a milkmaid than for a lady; the mustached gentlemen with frogged surtouts and a military air; the nursemaids and chubby children, but no chubbier than our own, and scampering on slenderer legs; the sturdy figure of john bull in all varieties and of all ages, but ever with the stamp of authenticity somewhere about him. to say the truth, i have been holding the pen over my paper, purposing to write a descriptive paragraph or two about the throng on the principal parade of leamington, so arranging it as to present a sketch of the british out-of-door aspect on a morning walk of gentility; but i find no personages quite sufficiently distinct and individual in my memory to supply the materials of such a panorama. oddly enough, the only figure that comes fairly forth to my mind's eye is that of a dowager, one of hundreds whom i used to marvel at, all over england, but who have scarcely a representative among our own ladies of autumnal life, so thin, careworn, and frail, as age usually makes the latter. i have heard a good deal of the tenacity with which english ladies retain their personal beauty to a late period of life; but (not to suggest that an american eye needs use and cultivation before it can quite appreciate the charm of english beauty at any age) it strikes me that an english lady of fifty is apt to become a creature less refined and delicate, so far as her physique goes, than anything that we western people class under the name of woman. she has an awful ponderosity of frame, not pulpy, like the looser development of our few fat women, but massive with solid beef and streaky tallow; so that (though struggling manfully against the idea) you inevitably think of her as made up of steaks and sirloins. when she walks, her advance is elephantine. when she sits down, it is on a great round space of her maker's footstool, where she looks as if nothing could ever move her. she imposes awe and respect by the muchness of her personality, to such a degree that you probably credit her with far greater moral and intellectual force than she can fairly claim. her visage is usually grim and stern, seldom positively forbidding, yet calmly terrible, not merely by its breadth and weight of feature, but because it seems to express so much well-founded self-reliance, such acquaintance with the world, its toils, troubles, and dangers, and such sturdy capacity for trampling down a foe. without anything positively salient, or actively offensive, or, indeed, unjustly formidable to her neighbors, she has the effect of a seventy-four gun-ship in time of peace; for, while you assure yourself that there is no real danger, you cannot help thinking how tremendous would be her onset, if pugnaciously inclined, and how futile the effort to inflict any counter-injury. she certainly looks tenfold--nay, a hundred-fold--better able to take care of herself than our slender-framed and haggard womankind; but i have not found reason to suppose that the english dowager of fifty has actually greater courage, fortitude, and strength of character than our women of similar age, or even a tougher physical endurance than they. morally, she is strong, i suspect, only in society, and in the common routine of social affairs, and would be found powerless and timid in any exceptional strait that might call for energy outside of the conventionalities amid which she has grown up. you can meet this figure in the street, and live, and even smile at the recollection. but conceive of her in a ball-room, with the bare, brawny arms that she invariably displays there, and all the other corresponding development, such as is beautiful in the maiden blossom, but a spectacle to howl at in such an over-blown cabbage-rose as this. yet, somewhere in this enormous bulk there must be hidden the modest, slender, violet-nature of a girl, whom an alien mass of earthliness has unkindly overgrown; for an english maiden in her teens, though very seldom so pretty as our own damsels, possesses, to say the truth, a certain charm of half-blossom, and delicately folded leaves, and tender womanhood shielded by maidenly reserves, with which, somehow or other, our american girls often fail to adorn themselves during an appreciable moment. it is a pity that the english violet should grow into such an outrageously developed peony as i have attempted to describe. i wonder whether a middle-aged husband ought to be considered as legally married to all the accretions that have overgrown the slenderness of his bride, since he led her to the altar, and which make her so much more than he ever bargained for! is it not a sounder view of the case, that the matrimonial bond cannot be held to include the three fourths of the wife that had no existence when the ceremony was performed? and as a matter of conscience and good morals, ought not an english married pair to insist upon the celebration of a silver-wedding at the end of twenty-five years, in order to legalize and mutually appropriate that corporeal growth of which both parties have individually come into possession since they were pronounced one flesh? the chief enjoyment of my several visits to leamington lay in rural walks about the neighborhood, and in jaunts to places of note and interest, which are particularly abundant in that region. the high-roads are made pleasant to the traveller by a border of trees, and often afford him the hospitality of a wayside bench beneath a comfortable shade. but a fresher delight is to be found in the foot-paths, which go wandering away from stile to stile, along hedges, and across broad fields, and through wooded parks, leading you to little hamlets of thatched cottages, ancient, solitary farm-houses, picturesque old mills, streamlets, pools, and all those quiet, secret, unexpected, yet strangely familiar features of english scenery that tennyson shows us in his idyls and eclogues. these by-paths admit the wayfarer into the very heart of rural life, and yet do not burden him with a sense of intrusiveness. he has a right to go whithersoever they lead him; for, with all their shaded privacy, they are as much the property of the public as the dusty high-road itself, and even by an older tenure. their antiquity probably exceeds that of the roman ways; the footsteps of the aboriginal britons first wore away the grass, and the natural flow of intercourse between village and village has kept the track bare ever since. an american farmer would plough across any such path, and obliterate it with his hills of potatoes and indian corn; but here it is protected by law, and still more by the sacredness that inevitably springs up, in this soil, along the well-defined footprints of centuries. old associations are sure to be fragrant herbs in english nostrils; we pull them up as weeds. i remember such a path, the access to which is from lovers' grove, a range of tall old oaks and elms on a high hill-top, whence there is a view of warwick castle, and a wide extent of landscape, beautiful, though bedimmed with english mist. this particular foot-path, however, is not a remarkably good specimen of its kind, since it leads into no hollows and seclusions, and soon terminates in a high-road. it connects leamington by a short cut with the small neighboring village of lillington, a place which impresses an american observer with its many points of contrast to the rural aspects of his own country. the village consists chiefly of one row of contiguous dwellings, separated only by party-walls, but ill-matched among themselves, being of different heights, and apparently of various ages, though all are of an antiquity which we should call venerable. some of the windows are leaden-framed lattices, opening on hinges. these houses are mostly built of gray stone; but others, in the same range, are of brick, and one or two are in a very old fashion,-- elizabethan, or still older,--having a ponderous framework of oak, painted black, and filled in with plastered stone or bricks. judging by the patches of repair, the oak seems to be the more durable part of the structure. some of the roofs are covered with earthen tiles; others (more decayed and poverty-stricken) with thatch, out of which sprouts a luxurious vegetation of grass, house-leeks, and yellow flowers. what especially strikes an american is the lack of that insulated space, the intervening gardens, grass-plots, orchards, broad-spreading shade-trees, which occur between our own village-houses. these english dwellings have no such separate surroundings; they all grow together, like the cells of a honeycomb. beyond the first row of houses, and hidden from it by a turn of the road, there was another row (or block, as we should call it) of small old cottages, stuck one against another, with their thatched roofs forming a single contiguity. these, i presume, were the habitations of the poorest order of rustic laborers; and the narrow precincts of each cottage, as well as the close neighborhood of the whole, gave the impression of a stifled, unhealthy atmosphere among the occupants. it seemed impossible that there should be a cleanly reserve, a proper self-respect among individuals, or a wholesome unfamiliarity between families where human life was crowded and massed into such intimate communities as these. nevertheless, not to look beyond the outside, i never saw a prettier rural scene than was presented by this range of contiguous huts. for in front of the whole row was a luxuriant and well-trimmed hawthorn hedge, and belonging to each cottage was a little square of garden-ground, separated from its neighbors by a line of the same verdant fence. the gardens were chockfull, not of esculent vegetables, but of flowers, familiar ones, but very bright-colored, and shrubs of box, some of which were trimmed into artistic shapes; and i remember, before one door, a representation of warwick castle, made of oyster-shells. the cottagers evidently loved the little nests in which they dwelt, and did their best to make them beautiful, and succeeded more than tolerably well,--so kindly did nature help their humble efforts with its verdure, flowers, moss, lichens, and the green things that grew out of the thatch. through some of the open doorways we saw plump children rolling about on the stone floors, and their mothers, by no means very pretty, but as happy-looking as mothers generally are; and while we gazed at these domestic matters, an old woman rushed wildly out of one of the gates, upholding a shovel, on which she clanged and clattered with a key. at first we fancied that she intended an onslaught against ourselves, but soon discovered that a more dangerous enemy was abroad; for the old lady's bees had swarmed, and the air was full of them, whizzing by our heads like bullets. not far from these two rows of houses and cottages, a green lane, overshadowed with trees, turned aside from the main road, and tended towards a square, gray tower, the battlements of which were just high enough to be visible above the foliage. wending our way thitherward, we found the very picture and ideal of a country church and churchyard. the tower seemed to be of norman architecture, low, massive, and crowned with battlements. the body of the church was of very modest dimensions, and the eaves so low that i could touch them with my walking-stick. we looked into the windows and beheld the dim and quiet interior, a narrow space, but venerable with the consecration of many centuries, and keeping its sanctity as entire and inviolate as that of a vast cathedral. the nave was divided from the side aisles of the church by pointed arches resting on very sturdy pillars: it was good to see how solemnly they held themselves to their age-long task of supporting that lowly roof. there was a small organ, suited in size to the vaulted hollow, which it weekly filled with religious sound. on the opposite wall of the church, between two windows, was a mural tablet of white marble, with an inscription in black letters,--the only such memorial that i could discern, although many dead people doubtless lay beneath the floor, and had paved it with their ancient tombstones, as is customary in old english churches. there were no modern painted windows, flaring with raw colors, nor other gorgeous adornments, such as the present taste for mediaeval restoration often patches upon the decorous simplicity of the gray village-church. it is probably the worshipping-place of no more distinguished a congregation than the farmers and peasantry who inhabit the houses and cottages which i have just described. had the lord of the manor been one of the parishioners, there would have been an eminent pew near the chancel, walled high about, curtained, and softly cushioned, warmed by a fireplace of its own, and distinguished by hereditary tablets and escutcheons on the enclosed stone pillar. a well-trodden path led across the churchyard, and the gate being on the latch, we entered, and walked round among the graves and monuments. the latter were chiefly head-stones, none of which were very old, so far as was discoverable by the dates; some, indeed, in so ancient a cemetery, were disagreeably new, with inscriptions glittering like sunshine in gold letters. the ground must have been dug over and over again, innumerable times, until the soil is made up of what was once human clay, out of which have sprung successive crops of gravestones, that flourish their allotted time, and disappear, like the weeds and flowers in their briefer period. the english climate is very unfavorable to the endurance of memorials in the open air. twenty years of it suffice to give as much antiquity of aspect, whether to tombstone or edifice, as a hundred years of our own drier atmosphere,--so soon do the drizzly rains and constant moisture corrode the surface of marble or freestone. sculptured edges loose their sharpness in a year or two; yellow lichens overspread a beloved name, and obliterate it while it is yet fresh upon some survivor's heart. time gnaws an english gravestone with wonderful appetite; and when the inscription is quite illegible, the sexton takes the useless slab away, and perhaps makes a hearthstone of it, and digs up the unripe bones which it ineffectually tried to memorialize, and gives the bed to another sleeper. in the charter street burial-ground at salem, and in the old graveyard on the hill at ipswich, i have seen more ancient gravestones, with legible inscriptions on them, than in any english churchyard. and yet this same ungenial climate, hostile as it generally is to the long remembrance of departed people, has sometimes a lovely way of dealing with the records on certain monuments that lie horizontally in the open air. the rain falls into the deep incisions of the letters, and has scarcely time to be dried away before another shower sprinkles the flat stone again, and replenishes those little reservoirs. the unseen, mysterious seeds of mosses find their way into the lettered furrows, and are made to germinate by the continual moisture and watery sunshine of the english sky; and by and by, in a year, or two years, or many years, behold the complete inscription-- here lieth the body, and all the rest of the tender falsehood--beautifully embossed in raised letters of living green, a bas-relief of velvet moss on the marble slab! it becomes more legible, under the skyey influences, after the world has forgotten the deceased, than when it was fresh from the stone-cutter's hands. it outlives the grief of friends. i first saw an example of this in bebbington churchyard, in cheshire, and thought that nature must needs have had a special tenderness for the person (no noted man, however, in the world's history) so long ago laid beneath that stone, since she took such wonderful pains to "keep his memory green." perhaps the proverbial phrase just quoted may have had its origin in the natural phenomenon here described. while we rested ourselves on a horizontal monument, which was elevated just high enough to be a convenient seat, i observed that one of the gravestones lay very close to the church,--so close that the droppings of the eaves would fall upon it. it seemed as if the inmate of that grave had desired to creep under the church-wall. on closer inspection, we found an almost illegible epitaph on the stone, and with difficulty made out this forlorn verse:-- "poorly lived, and poorly died, poorly buried, and no one cried." it would be hard to compress the story of a cold and luckless life, death, and burial into fewer words, or more impressive ones; at least, we found them impressive, perhaps because we had to re-create the inscription by scraping away the lichens from the faintly traced letters. the grave was on the shady and damp side of the church, endwise towards it, the head-stone being within about three feet of the foundation-wall; so that, unless the poor man was a dwarf, he must have been doubled up to fit him into his final resting-place. no wonder that his epitaph murmured against so poor a burial as this! his name, as well as i could make it out, was treeo,--john treeo, i think,--and he died in , at the age of seventy-four. the gravestone is so overgrown with grass and weeds, so covered with unsightly lichens, and so crumbly with time and foul weather, that it is questionable whether anybody will ever be at the trouble of deciphering it again. but there is a quaint and sad kind of enjoyment in defeating (to such slight degree as my pen may do it) the probabilities of oblivion for poor john treeo, and asking a little sympathy for him, half a century after his death, and making him better and more widely known, at least, than any other slumberer in lillington churchyard: he having been, as appearances go, the outcast of them all. you find similar old churches and villages in all the neighboring country, at the distance of every two or three miles; and i describe them, not as being rare, but because they are so common and characteristic. the village of whitnash, within twenty minutes' walk of leamington, looks as secluded, as rural, and as little disturbed by the fashions of to-day, as if dr. jephson had never developed all those parades and crescents out of his magic well. i used to wonder whether the inhabitants had ever yet heard of railways, or, at their slow rate of progress, had even reached the epoch of stage-coaches. as you approach the village, while it is yet unseen, you observe a tall, overshadowing canopy of elm-tree tops, beneath which you almost hesitate to follow the public road, on account of the remoteness that seems to exist between the precincts of this old-world community and the thronged modern street out of which you have so recently emerged. venturing onward, however, you soon find yourself in the heart of whitnash, and see an irregular ring of ancient rustic dwellings surrounding the village-green, on one side of which stands the church, with its square norman tower and battlements, while close adjoining is the vicarage, made picturesque by peaks and gables. at first glimpse, none of the houses appear to be less than two or three centuries old, and they are of the ancient, wooden-framed fashion, with thatched roofs, which give them the air of birds' nests, thereby assimilating them closely to the simplicity of nature. the church-tower is mossy and much gnawed by time; it has narrow loopholes up and down its front and sides, and an arched window over the low portal, set with small panes of glass, cracked, dim, and irregular, through which a bygone age is peeping out into the daylight. some of those old, grotesque faces, called gargoyles, are seen on the projections of the architecture. the churchyard is very small, and is encompassed by a gray stone fence that looks as ancient as the church itself. in front of the tower, on the village-green, is a yew-tree of incalculable age, with a vast circumference of trunk, but a very scanty head of foliage; though its boughs still keep some of the vitality which perhaps was in its early prime when the saxon invaders founded whitnash. a thousand years is no extraordinary antiquity in the lifetime of a yew. we were pleasantly startled, however, by discovering an exuberance of more youthful life than we had thought possible in so old a tree; for the faces of two children laughed at us out of an opening in the trunk, which had become hollow with long decay. on one side of the yew stood a framework of worm-eaten timber, the use and meaning of which puzzled me exceedingly, till i made it out to be the village-stocks; a public institution that, in its day, had doubtless hampered many a pair of shank-bones, now crumbling in the adjacent churchyard. it is not to be supposed, however, that this old-fashioned mode of punishment is still in vogue among the good people of whitnash. the vicar of the parish has antiquarian propensities, and had probably dragged the stocks out of some dusty hiding-place, and set them up on their former site as a curiosity. i disquiet myself in vain with the effort to hit upon some characteristic feature, or assemblage of features, that shall convey to the reader the influence of hoar antiquity lingering into the present daylight, as i so often felt it in these old english scenes. it is only an american who can feel it; and even he begins to find himself growing insensible to its effect, after a long residence in england. but while you are still new in the old country, it thrills you with strange emotion to think that this little church of whitnash, humble as it seems, stood for ages under the catholic faith, and has not materially changed since wickcliffe's days, and that it looked as gray as now in bloody mary's time, and that cromwell's troopers broke off the stone noses of those same gargoyles that are now grinning in your face. so, too, with the immemorial yew-tree: you see its great roots grasping hold of the earth like gigantic claws, clinging so sturdily that no effort of time can wrench them away; and there being life in the old tree, you feel all the more as if a contemporary witness were telling you of the things that have been. it has lived among men, and been a familiar object to them, and seen them brought to be christened and married and buried in the neighboring church and churchyard, through so many centuries, that it knows all about our race, so far as fifty generations of the whitnash people can supply such knowledge. and, after all, what a weary life it must have been for the old tree! tedious beyond imagination! such, i think, is the final impression on the mind of an american visitor, when his delight at finding something permanent begins to yield to his western love of change, and he becomes sensible of the heavy air of a spot where the forefathers and foremothers have grown up together, intermarried, and died, through a long succession of lives, without any intermixture of new elements, till family features and character are all run in the same inevitable mould. life is there fossilized in its greenest leaf. the man who died yesterday or ever so long ago walks the village-street to day, and chooses the same wife that he married a hundred years since, and must be buried again to-morrow under the same kindred dust that has already covered him half a score of times. the stone threshold of his cottage is worn away with his hobnailed footsteps, shuffling over it from the reign of the first plantagenet to that of victoria. better than this is the lot of our restless countrymen, whose modern instinct bids them tend always towards "fresh woods and pastures new." rather than such monotony of sluggish ages, loitering on a village-green, toiling in hereditary fields, listening to the parson's drone lengthened through centuries in the gray norman church, let us welcome whatever change may come,--change of place, social customs, political institutions, modes of worship,--trusting, that, if all present things shall vanish, they will but make room for better systems, and for a higher type of man to clothe his life in them, and to fling them off in turn. nevertheless, while an american willingly accepts growth and change as the law of his own national and private existence, he has a singular tenderness for the stone-incrusted institutions of the mother-country. the reason may be (though i should prefer a more generous explanation) that he recognizes the tendency of these hardened forms to stiffen her joints and fetter her ankles, in the race and rivalry of improvement. i hated to see so much as a twig of ivy wrenched away from an old wall in england. yet change is at work, even in such a village as whitnash. at a subsequent visit, looking more critically at the irregular circle of dwellings that surround the yew-tree and confront the church, i perceived that some of the houses must have been built within no long time, although the thatch, the quaint gables, and the old oaken framework of the others diffused an air of antiquity over the whole assemblage. the church itself was undergoing repair and restoration, which is but another name for change. masons were making patchwork on the front of the tower, and were sawing a slab of stone and piling up bricks to strengthen the side-wall, or possibly to enlarge the ancient edifice by an additional aisle. moreover, they had dug an immense pit in the churchyard, long and broad, and fifteen feet deep, two thirds of which profundity were discolored by human decay, and mixed up with crumbly bones. what this excavation was intended for i could nowise imagine, unless it were the very pit in which longfellow bids the "dead past bury its dead," and whitnash, of all places in the world, were going to avail itself of our poet's suggestion. if so, it must needs be confessed that many picturesque and delightful things would be thrown into the hole, and covered out of sight forever. the article which i am writing has taken its own course, and occupied itself almost wholly with country churches; whereas i had purposed to attempt a description of some of the many old towns--warwick, coventry, kenilworth, stratford-on-avon--which lie within an easy scope of leamington. and still another church presents itself to my remembrance. it is that of hatton, on which i stumbled in the course of a forenoon's ramble, and paused a little while to look at it for the sake of old dr. parr, who was once its vicar. hatton, so far as i could discover, has no public-house, no shop, no contiguity of roofs (as in most english villages, however small), but is merely an ancient neighborhood of farm-houses, spacious, and standing wide apart, each within its own precincts, and offering a most comfortable aspect of orchards, harvest-fields, barns, stacks, and all manner of rural plenty. it seemed to be a community of old settlers, among whom everything had been going on prosperously since an epoch beyond the memory of man; and they kept a certain privacy among themselves, and dwelt on a cross-road, at the entrance of which was a barred gate, hospitably open, but still impressing me with a sense of scarcely warrantable intrusion. after all, in some shady nook of those gentle warwickshire slopes there may have been a denser and more populous settlement, styled hatton, which i never reached. emerging from the by-road, and entering upon one that crossed it at right angles and led to warwick, i espied the church of dr. parr. like the others which i have described, it had a low stone tower, square, and battlemented at its summit: for all these little churches seem to have been built on the same model, and nearly at the same measurement, and have even a greater family-likeness than the cathedrals. as i approached, the bell of the tower (a remarkably deep-toned bell, considering how small it was) flung its voice abroad, and told me that it was noon. the church stands among its graves, a little removed from the wayside, quite apart from any collection of houses, and with no signs of vicarage; it is a good deal shadowed by trees, and not wholly destitute of ivy. the body of the edifice, unfortunately (and it is an outrage which the english church-wardens are fond of perpetrating), has been newly covered with a yellowish plaster or wash, so as quite to destroy the aspect of antiquity, except upon the tower, which wears the dark gray hue of many centuries. the chancel-window is painted with a representation of christ upon the cross, and all the other windows are full of painted or stained glass, but none of it ancient, nor (if it be fair to judge from without of what ought to be seen within) possessing any of the tender glory that should be the inheritance of this branch of art, revived from mediaeval times. i stepped over the graves, and peeped in at two or three of the windows, and saw the snug interior of the church glimmering through the many-colored panes, like a show of commonplace objects under the fantastic influence of a dream: for the floor was covered with modern pews, very like what we may see in a new england meeting-house, though, i think, a little more favorable than those would be to the quiet slumbers of the hatton farmers and their families. those who slept under dr. parr's preaching now prolong their nap, i suppose, in the churchyard round about, and can scarcely have drawn much spiritual benefit from any truths that he contrived to tell them in their lifetime. it struck me as a rare example (even where examples are numerous) of a man utterly misplaced, that this enormous scholar, great in the classic tongues, and inevitably converting his own simplest vernacular into a learned language, should have been set up in this homely pulpit, and ordained to preach salvation to a rustic audience, to whom it is difficult to imagine how he could ever have spoken one available word. almost always, in visiting such scenes as i have been attempting to describe, i had a singular sense of having been there before. the ivy-grown english churches (even that of bebbington, the first that i beheld) were quite as familiar to me, when fresh from home, as the old wooden meeting-house in salem, which used, on wintry sabbaths, to be the frozen purgatory of my childhood. this was a bewildering, yet very delightful emotion fluttering about me like a faint summer wind, and filling my imagination with a thousand half-remembrances, which looked as vivid as sunshine, at a side-glance, but faded quite away whenever i attempted to grasp and define them. of course, the explanation of the mystery was, that history, poetry, and fiction, books of travel, and the talk of tourists, had given me pretty accurate preconceptions of the common objects of english scenery, and these, being long ago vivified by a youthful fancy, had insensibly taken their places among the images of things actually seen. yet the illusion was often so powerful, that i almost doubted whether such airy remembrances might not be a sort of innate idea, the print of a recollection in some ancestral mind, transmitted, with fainter and fainter impress through several descents, to my own. i felt, indeed, like the stalwart progenitor in person, returning to the hereditary haunts after more than two hundred years, and finding the church, the hall, the farm-house, the cottage, hardly changed during his long absence,--the same shady by-paths and hedge-lanes, the same veiled sky, and green lustre of the lawns and fields,--while his own affinities for these things, a little obscured by disuse, were reviving at every step. an american is not very apt to love the english people, as a whole, on whatever length of acquaintance. i fancy that they would value our regard, and even reciprocate it in their ungracious way, if we could give it to them in spite of all rebuffs; but they are beset by a curious and inevitable infelicity, which compels them, as it were, to keep up what they seem to consider a wholesome bitterness of feeling between themselves and all other nationalities, especially that of america. they will never confess it; nevertheless, it is as essential a tonic to them as their bitter ale. therefore,--and possibly, too, from a similar narrowness in his own character,--an american seldom feels quite as if he were at home among the english people. if he do so, he has ceased to be an american. but it requires no long residence to make him love their island, and appreciate it as thoroughly as they themselves do. for my part, i used to wish that we could annex it, transferring their thirty millions of inhabitants to some convenient wilderness in the great west, and putting half or a quarter as many of ourselves into their places. the change would be beneficial to both parties. we, in our dry atmosphere, are getting too nervous, haggard, dyspeptic, extenuated, unsubstantial, theoretic, and need to be made grosser. john bull, on the other hand, has grown bulbous, long-bodied, short-legged, heavy-witted, material, and, in a word, too intensely english. in a few more centuries he will be the earthliest creature that ever the earth saw. heretofore providence has obviated such a result by timely intermixtures of alien races with the old english stock; so that each successive conquest of england has proved a victory by the revivification and improvement of its native manhood. cannot america and england hit upon some scheme to secure even greater advantages to both nations? about warwick. between bright, new leamington, the growth of the present century, and rusty warwick, founded by king cymbeline in the twilight ages, a thousand years before the mediaeval darkness, there are two roads, either of which may be measured by a sober-paced pedestrian in less than half an hour. one of these avenues flows out of the midst of the smart parades and crescents of the former town,--along by hedges and beneath the shadow of great elms, past stuccoed elizabethan villas and wayside alehouses, and through a hamlet of modern aspect,--and runs straight into the principal thoroughfare of warwick. the battlemented turrets of the castle, embowered half-way up in foliage, and the tall, slender tower of st. mary's church, rising from among clustered roofs, have been visible almost from the commencement of the walk. near the entrance of the town stands st. john's school-house, a picturesque old edifice of stone, with four peaked gables in a row, alternately plain and ornamented, and wide, projecting windows, and a spacious and venerable porch, all overgrown with moss and ivy, and shut in from the world by a high stone fence, not less mossy than the gabled front. there is an iron gate, through the rusty open-work of which you see a grassy lawn, and almost expect to meet the shy, curious eyes of the little boys of past generations, peeping forth from their infantile antiquity into the strangeness of our present life. i find a peculiar charm in these long-established english schools, where the school-boy of to-day sits side by side, as it were, with his great-grandsire, on the same old benches, and often, i believe, thumbs a later, but unimproved edition of the same old grammar or arithmetic. the newfangled notions of a yankee school-committee would madden many a pedagogue, and shake down the roof of many a time-honored seat of learning, in the mother-country. at this point, however, we will turn back, in order to follow up the other road from leamington, which was the one that i loved best to take. it pursues a straight and level course, bordered by wide gravel-walks and overhung by the frequent elm, with here a cottage and there a villa, on one side a wooded plantation, and on the other a rich field of grass or grain, until, turning at right angles, it brings you to an arched bridge over the avon. its parapet is a balustrade carved out of freestone, into the soft substance of which a multitude of persons have engraved their names or initials, many of them now illegible, while others, more deeply cut, are illuminated with fresh green moss. these tokens indicate a famous spot; and casting our eyes along the smooth gleam and shadow of the quiet stream, through a vista of willows that droop on either side into the water, we behold the gray magnificence of warwick castle, uplifting itself among stately trees, and rearing its turrets high above their loftiest branches. we can scarcely think the scene real, so completely do those machicolated towers, the long line of battlements, the massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out our indistinct ideas of the antique time. it might rather seem as if the sleepy river (being shakespeare's avon, and often, no doubt, the mirror of his gorgeous visions) were dreaming now of a lordly residence that stood here many centuries ago; and this fantasy is strengthened, when you observe that the image in the tranquil water has all the distinctness of the actual structure. either might be the reflection of the other. wherever time has gnawed one of the stones, you see the mark of his tooth just as plainly in the sunken reflection. each is so perfect, that the upper vision seems a castle in the air, and the lower one an old stronghold of feudalism, miraculously kept from decay in an enchanted river. a ruinous and ivy-grown bridge, that projects from the bank a little on the hither side of the castle, has the effect of making the scene appear more entirely apart from the every-day world, for it ends abruptly in the middle of the stream,--so that, if a cavalcade of the knights and ladies of romance should issue from the old walls, they could never tread on earthly ground, any more than we, approaching from the side of modern realism, can overleap the gulf between our domain and theirs. yet, if we seek to disenchant ourselves, it may readily be done. crossing the bridge on which we stand, and passing a little farther on, we come to the entrance of the castle, abutting on the highway, and hospitably open at certain hours to all curious pilgrims who choose to disburse half a crown or so toward the support of the earl's domestics. the sight of that long series of historic rooms, full of such splendors and rarities as a great english family necessarily gathers about itself, in its hereditary abode, and in the lapse of ages, is well worth the money, or ten times as much, if indeed the value of the spectacle could be reckoned in money's-worth. but after the attendant has hurried you from end to end of the edifice, repeating a guide-book by rote, and exorcising each successive hall of its poetic glamour and witchcraft by the mere tone in which he talks about it, you will make the doleful discovery that warwick castle has ceased to be a dream. it is better, methinks, to linger on the bridge, gazing at caesar's tower and guy's tower in the dim english sunshine above, and in the placid avon below, and still keep them as thoughts in your own mind, than climb to their summits, or touch even a stone of their actual substance. they will have all the more reality for you, as stalwart relics of immemorial time, if you are reverent enough to leave them in the intangible sanctity of a poetic vision. from the bridge over the avon, the road passes in front of the castle-gate, and soon enters the principal street of warwick, a little beyond st. john's school-house, already described. chester itself, most antique of english towns, can hardly show quainter architectural shapes than many of the buildings that border this street. they are mostly of the timber-and-plaster kind, with bowed and decrepit ridge-poles, and a whole chronology of various patchwork in their walls; their low-browed doorways open upon a sunken floor; their projecting stories peep, as it were, over one another's shoulders, and rise into a multiplicity of peaked gables; they have curious windows, breaking out irregularly all over the house, some even in the roof, set in their own little peaks, opening lattice-wise, and furnished with twenty small panes of lozenge-shaped glass. the architecture of these edifices (a visible oaken framework, showing the whole skeleton of the house,--as if a man's bones should be arranged on his outside, and his flesh seen through the interstices) is often imitated by modern builders, and with sufficiently picturesque effect. the objection is, that such houses, like all imitations of bygone styles, have an air of affectation; they do not seem to be built in earnest; they are no better than playthings, or overgrown baby-houses, in which nobody should be expected to encounter the serious realities of either birth or death. besides, originating nothing, we leave no fashions for another age to copy, when we ourselves shall have grown antique. old as it looks, all this portion of warwick has overbrimmed, as it were, from the original settlement, being outside of the ancient wall. the street soon runs under an arched gateway, with a church or some other venerable structure above it, and admits us into the heart of the town. at one of my first visits, i witnessed a military display. a regiment of warwickshire militia, probably commanded by the earl, was going through its drill in the market-place; and on the collar of one of the officers was embroidered the bear and ragged staff, which has been the cognizance of the warwick earldom from time immemorial. the soldiers were sturdy young men, with the simple, stolid, yet kindly faces of english rustics, looking exceedingly well in a body, but slouching into a yeoman-like carriage and appearance the moment they were dismissed from drill. squads of them were distributed everywhere about the streets, and sentinels were posted at various points; and i saw a sergeant, with a great key in his hand (big enough to have been the key of the castle's main entrance when the gate was thickest and heaviest), apparently setting a guard. thus, centuries after feudal times are past, we find warriors still gathering under the old castle-walls, and commanded by a feudal lord, just as in the days of the king-maker, who, no doubt, often mustered his retainers in the same market-place where i beheld this modern regiment. the interior of the town wears a less old-fashioned aspect than the suburbs through which we approach it; and the high street has shops with modern plate-glass, and buildings with stuccoed fronts, exhibiting as few projections to hang a thought or sentiment upon as if an architect of to-day had planned them. and, indeed, so far as their surface goes, they are perhaps new enough to stand unabashed in an american street; but behind these renovated faces, with their monotonous lack of expression, there is probably the substance of the same old town that wore a gothic exterior in the middle ages. the street is an emblem of england itself. what seems new in it is chiefly a skilful and fortunate adaptation of what such a people as ourselves would destroy. the new things are based and supported on sturdy old things, and derive a massive strength from their deep and immemorial foundations, though with such limitations and impediments as only an englishman could endure. but he likes to feel the weight of all the past upon his back; and, moreover, the antiquity that overburdens him has taken root in his being, and has grown to be rather a hump than a pack, so that there is no getting rid of it without tearing his whole structure to pieces. in my judgment, as he appears to be sufficiently comfortable under the mouldy accretion, he had better stumble on with it as long as he can. he presents a spectacle which is by no means without its charm for a disinterested and unencumbered observer. when the old edifice, or the antiquated custom or institution, appears in its pristine form, without any attempt at intermarrying it with modern fashions, an american cannot but admire the picturesque effect produced by the sudden cropping up of an apparently dead-and-buried state of society into the actual present, of which he is himself a part. we need not go far in warwick without encountering an instance of the kind. proceeding westward through the town, we find ourselves confronted by a huge mass of natural rock, hewn into something like architectural shape, and penetrated by a vaulted passage, which may well have been one of king cymbeline's original gateways; and on the top of the rock, over the archway, sits a small old church, communicating with an ancient edifice, or assemblage of edifices, that look down from a similar elevation on the side of the street. a range of trees half hides the latter establishment from the sun. it presents a curious and venerable specimen of the timber-and-plaster style of building, in which some of the finest old houses in england are constructed; the front projects into porticos and vestibules, and rises into many gables, some in a row, and others crowning semi-detached portions of the structure; the windows mostly open on hinges, but show a delightful irregularity of shape and position; a multiplicity of chimneys break through the roof at their own will, or, at least, without any settled purpose of the architect. the whole affair looks very old,--so old indeed that the front bulges forth, as if the timber framework were a little weary, at last, of standing erect so long; but the state of repair is so perfect, and there is such an indescribable aspect of continuous vitality within the system of this aged house, that you feel confident that there may be safe shelter yet, and perhaps for centuries to come, under its time-honored roof. and on a bench, sluggishly enjoying the sunshine, and looking into the street of warwick as from a life apart, a few old men are generally to be seen, wrapped in long cloaks, on which you may detect the glistening of a silver badge representing the bear and ragged staff. these decorated worthies are some of the twelve brethren of leicester's hospital,--a community which subsists to-day under the identical modes that were established for it in the reign of queen elizabeth, and of course retains many features of a social life that has vanished almost everywhere else. the edifice itself dates from a much older period than the charitable institution of which it is now the home. it was the seat of a religious fraternity far back in the middle ages, and continued so till henry viii. turned all the priesthood of england out of doors, and put the most unscrupulous of his favorites into their vacant abodes. in many instances, the old monks had chosen the sites of their domiciles so well, and built them on such a broad system of beauty and convenience, that their lay-occupants found it easy to convert them into stately and comfortable homes; and as such they still exist, with something of the antique reverence lingering about them. the structure now before us seems to have been first granted to sir nicholas lestrange, who perhaps intended, like other men, to establish his household gods in the niches whence he had thrown down the images of saints, and to lay his hearth where an altar had stood. but there was probably a natural reluctance in those days (when catholicism, so lately repudiated, must needs have retained an influence over all but the most obdurate characters) to bring one's hopes of domestic prosperity and a fortunate lineage into direct hostility with the awful claims of the ancient religion. at all events, there is still a superstitious idea, betwixt a fantasy and a belief, that the possession of former church-property has drawn a curse along with it, not only among the posterity of those to whom it was originally granted, but wherever it has subsequently been transferred, even if honestly bought and paid for. there are families, now inhabiting some of the beautiful old abbeys, who appear to indulge a species of pride in recording the strange deaths and ugly shapes of misfortune that have occurred among their predecessors, and may be supposed likely to dog their own pathway down the ages of futurity. whether sir nicholas lestrange, in the beef-eating days of old harry and elizabeth, was a nervous man, and subject to apprehensions of this kind, i cannot tell; but it is certain that he speedily rid himself of the spoils of the church, and that, within twenty years afterwards, the edifice became the property of the famous dudley, earl of leicester, brother of the earl of warwick. he devoted the ancient religious precinct to a charitable use, endowing it with an ample revenue, and making it the perpetual home of twelve poor, honest, and war-broken soldiers, mostly his own retainers, and natives either of warwickshire or gloucestershire. these veterans, or others wonderfully like them, still occupy their monkish dormitories and haunt the time-darkened corridors and galleries of the hospital, leading a life of old-fashioned comfort, wearing the old-fashioned cloaks, and burnishing the identical silver badges which the earl of leicester gave to the original twelve. he is said to have been a bad man in his day; but he has succeeded in prolonging one good deed into what was to him a distant future. on the projecting story, over the arched entrance, there is the date, , and several coats-of-arms, either the earl's or those of his kindred, and immediately above the doorway a stone sculpture of the bear and ragged staff. passing through the arch, we find ourselves in a quadrangle, or enclosed court, such as always formed the central part of a great family residence in queen elizabeth's time, and earlier. there can hardly be a more perfect specimen of such an establishment than leicester's hospital. the quadrangle is a sort of sky-roofed hall, to which there is convenient access from all parts of the house. the four inner fronts, with their high, steep roofs and sharp gables, look into it from antique windows, and through open corridors and galleries along the sides; and there seems to be a richer display of architectural devices and ornaments, quainter carvings in oak, and more fantastic shapes of the timber framework, than on the side toward the street. on the wall opposite the arched entrance are the following inscriptions, comprising such moral rules, i presume, as were deemed most essential for the daily observance of the community: "honor all men"--"fear god"--"honor the king"--"love the brotherhood"; and again, as if this latter injunction needed emphasis and repetition among a household of aged people soured with the hard fortune of their previous lives,--"be kindly affectioned one to another." one sentence, over a door communicating with the master's side of the house, is addressed to that dignitary,--"he that ruleth over men must be just." all these are charactered in old english letters, and form part of the elaborate ornamentation of the house. everywhere--on the walls, over windows and doors, and at all points where there is room to place them-- appear escutcheons of arms, cognizances, and crests, emblazoned in their proper colors, and illuminating the ancient quadrangle with their splendor. one of these devices is a large image of a porcupine on an heraldic wreath, being the crest of the lords de lisle. but especially is the cognizance of the bear and ragged staff repeated over and over, and over again and again, in a great variety of attitudes, at full-length, and half-length, in paint and in oaken sculpture, in bas-relief and rounded image. the founder of the hospital was certainly disposed to reckon his own beneficence as among the hereditary glories of his race; and had he lived and died a half-century earlier, he would have kept up an old catholic custom by enjoining the twelve bedesmen to pray for the welfare of his soul. at my first visit, some of the brethren were seated on the bench outside of the edifice, looking down into the street; but they did not vouchsafe me a word, and seemed so estranged from modern life, so enveloped in antique customs and old-fashioned cloaks, that to converse with them would have been like shouting across the gulf between our age and queen elizabeth's. so i passed into the quadrangle, and found it quite solitary, except that a plain and neat old woman happened to be crossing it, with an aspect of business and carefulness that bespoke her a woman of this world, and not merely a shadow of the past. asking her if i could come in, she answered very readily and civilly that i might, and said that i was free to look about me, hinting a hope, however, that i would not open the private doors of the brotherhood, as some visitors were in the habit of doing. under her guidance, i went into what was formerly the great hall of the establishment, where king james i. had once been feasted by an earl of warwick, as is commemorated by an inscription on the cobwebbed and dingy wall. it is a very spacious and barn-like apartment, with a brick floor, and a vaulted roof, the rafters of which are oaken beams, wonderfully carved, but hardly visible in the duskiness that broods aloft. the hall may have made a splendid appearance, when it was decorated with rich tapestry, and illuminated with chandeliers, cressets, and torches glistening upon silver dishes, where king james sat at supper among his brilliantly dressed nobles; but it has come to base uses in these latter days,--being improved, in yankee phrase, as a brewery and wash-room, and as a cellar for the brethren's separate allotments of coal. the old lady here left me to myself, and i returned into the quadrangle. it was very quiet, very handsome, in its own obsolete style, and must be an exceedingly comfortable place for the old people to lounge in, when the inclement winds render it inexpedient to walk abroad. there are shrubs against the wall, on one side; and on another is a cloistered walk, adorned with stags' heads and antlers, and running beneath a covered gallery, up to which ascends a balustraded staircase. in the portion of the edifice opposite the entrance-arch are the apartments of the master; and looking into the window (as the old woman, at no request of mine, had specially informed me that i might), i saw a low, but vastly comfortable parlor, very handsomely furnished, and altogether a luxurious place. it had a fireplace with an immense arch, the antique breadth of which extended almost from wall to wall of the room, though now fitted up in such a way, that the modern coal-grate looked very diminutive in the midst. gazing into this pleasant interior, it seemed to me, that, among these venerable surroundings, availing himself of whatever was good in former things, and eking out their imperfection with the results of modern ingenuity, the master might lead a not unenviable life. on the cloistered side of the quadrangle, where the dark oak panels made the enclosed space dusky, i beheld a curtained window reddened by a great blaze from within, and heard the bubbling and squeaking of something-- doubtless very nice and succulent--that was being cooked at the kitchen-fire. i think, indeed, that a whiff or two of the savory fragrance reached my nostrils; at all events, the impression grew upon me that leicester's hospital is one of the jolliest old domiciles in england. i was about to depart, when another old woman, very plainly dressed, but fat, comfortable, and with a cheerful twinkle in her eyes, came in through the arch, and looked curiously at me. this repeated apparition of the gentle sex (though by no means under its loveliest guise) had still an agreeable effect in modifying my ideas of an institution which i had supposed to be of a stern and monastic character. she asked whether i wished to see the hospital, and said that the porter, whose office it was to attend to visitors, was dead, and would be buried that very day, so that the whole establishment could not conveniently be shown me. she kindly invited me, however, to visit the apartment occupied by her husband and herself; so i followed her up the antique staircase, along the gallery, and into a small, oak-panelled parlor, where sat an old man in a long blue garment, who arose and saluted me with much courtesy. he seemed a very quiet person, and yet had a look of travel and adventure, and gray experience, such as i could have fancied in a palmer of ancient times, who might likewise have worn a similar costume. the little room was carpeted and neatly furnished; a portrait of its occupant was hanging on the wall; and on a table were two swords crossed,--one, probably, his own battle-weapon, and the other, which i drew half out of the scabbard, had an inscription on the blade, purporting that it had been taken from the field of waterloo. my kind old hostess was anxious to exhibit all the particulars of their housekeeping, and led me into the bedroom, which was in the nicest order, with a snow-white quilt upon the bed; and in a little intervening room was a washing and bathing apparatus; a convenience (judging from the personal aspect and atmosphere of such parties) seldom to be met with in the humbler ranks of british life. the old soldier and his wife both seemed glad of somebody to talk with; but the good woman availed herself of the privilege far more copiously than the veteran himself, insomuch that he felt it expedient to give her an occasional nudge with his elbow in her well-padded ribs. "don't you be so talkative!" quoth he; and, indeed, he could hardly find space for a word, and quite as little after his admonition as before. her nimble tongue ran over the whole system of life in the hospital. the brethren, she said, had a yearly stipend (the amount of which she did not mention), and such decent lodgings as i saw, and some other advantages, free; and, instead of being pestered with a great many rules, and made to dine together at a great table, they could manage their little household matters as they liked, buying their own dinners and having them cooked in the general kitchen, and eating them snugly in their own parlors. "and," added she, rightly deeming this the crowning privilege, "with the master's permission, they can have their wives to take care of them; and no harm comes of it; and what more can an old man desire?" it was evident enough that the good dame found herself in what she considered very rich clover, and, moreover, had plenty of small occupations to keep her from getting rusty and dull; but the veteran impressed me as deriving far less enjoyment from the monotonous ease, without fear of change or hope of improvement, that had followed upon thirty years of peril and vicissitude. i fancied, too, that, while pleased with the novelty of a stranger's visit, he was still a little shy of becoming a spectacle for the stranger's curiosity; for, if he chose to be morbid about the matter, the establishment was but an almshouse, in spite of its old-fashioned magnificence, and his fine blue cloak only a pauper's garment, with a silver badge on it that perhaps galled his shoulder. in truth, the badge and the peculiar garb, though quite in accordance with the manners of the earl of leicester's age, are repugnant to modern prejudices, and might fitly and humanely be abolished. a year or two afterwards i paid another visit to the hospital, and found a new porter established in office, and already capable of talking like a guide-book about the history, antiquities, and present condition of the charity. he informed me that the twelve brethren are selected from among old soldiers of good character, whose other resources must not exceed an income of five pounds; thus excluding all commissioned officers, whose half-pay would of course be more than that amount. they receive from the hospital an annuity of eighty pounds each, besides their apartments, a garment of fine blue cloth, an annual abundance of ale, and a privilege at the kitchen-fire; so that, considering the class from which they are taken, they may well reckon themselves among the fortunate of the earth. furthermore, they are invested with political rights, acquiring a vote for member of parliament in virtue either of their income or brotherhood. on the other hand, as regards their personal freedom or conduct, they are subject to a supervision which the master of the hospital might render extremely annoying, were he so inclined; but the military restraint under which they have spent the active portion of their lives makes it easier for them to endure the domestic discipline here imposed upon their age. the porter bore his testimony (whatever were its value) to their being as contented and happy as such a set of old people could possibly be, and affirmed that they spent much time in burnishing their silver badges, and were as proud of them as a nobleman of his star. these badges, by the by, except one that was stolen and replaced in queen anne's time, are the very same that decorated the original twelve brethren. i have seldom met with a better guide than my friend the porter. he appeared to take a genuine interest in the peculiarities of the establishment, and yet had an existence apart from them, so that he could the better estimate what those peculiarities were. to be sure, his knowledge and observation were confined to external things, but, so far, had a sufficiently extensive scope. he led me up the staircase and exhibited portions of the timber framework of the edifice that are reckoned to be eight or nine hundred years old, and are still neither worm-eaten nor decayed; and traced out what had been a great hall in the days of the catholic fraternity, though its area is now filled up with the apartments of the twelve brethren; and pointed to ornaments of sculptured oak, done in an ancient religious style of art, but hardly visible amid the vaulted dimness of the roof. thence we went to the chapel--the gothic church which i noted several pages back--surmounting the gateway that stretches half across the street. here the brethren attend daily prayer, and have each a prayer-book of the finest paper, with a fair, large type for their old eyes. the interior of the chapel is very plain, with a picture of no merit for an altar-piece, and a single old pane of painted glass in the great eastern window, representing,--no saint, nor angel, as is customary in such cases,--but that grim sinner, the earl of leicester. nevertheless, amid so many tangible proofs of his human sympathy, one comes to doubt whether the earl could have been such a hardened reprobate, after all. we ascended the tower of the chapel, and looked down between its battlements into the street, a hundred feet below us; while clambering half-way up were foxglove-flowers, weeds, small shrubs, and tufts of grass, that had rooted themselves into the roughnesses of the stone foundation. far around us lay a rich and lovely english landscape, with many a church-spire and noble country-seat, and several objects of high historic interest. edge hill, where the puritans defeated charles i., is in sight on the edge of the horizon, and much nearer stands the house where cromwell lodged on the night before the battle. right under our eyes, and half enveloping the town with its high-shouldering wall, so that all the closely compacted streets seemed but a precinct of the estate, was the earl of warwick's delightful park, a wide extent of sunny lawns, interspersed with broad contiguities of forest-shade. some of the cedars of lebanon were there,--a growth of trees in which the warwick family take an hereditary pride. the two highest towers of the castle heave themselves up out of a mass of foliage, and look down in a lordly manner upon the plebeian roofs of the town, a part of which are slate-covered (these are the modern houses), and a part are coated with old red tiles, denoting the more ancient edifices. a hundred and sixty or seventy years ago, a great fire destroyed a considerable portion of the town, and doubtless annihilated many structures of a remote antiquity; at least, there was a possibility of very old houses in the long past of warwick, which king cymbeline is said to have founded in the year one of the christian era! and this historic fact or poetic fiction, whichever it may be, brings to mind a more indestructible reality than anything else that has occurred within the present field of our vision; though this includes the scene of guy of warwick's legendary exploits, and some of those of the round table, to say nothing of the battle of edge hill. for perhaps it was in the landscape now under our eyes that posthumus wandered with the king's daughter, the sweet, chaste, faithful, and courageous imogen, the tenderest and womanliest woman that shakespeare ever made immortal in the world. the silver avon, which we see flowing so quietly by the gray castle, may have held their images in its bosom. the day, though it began brightly, had long been overcast, and the clouds now spat down a few spiteful drops upon us, besides that the east-wind was very chill; so we descended the winding tower-stair, and went next into the garden, one side of which is shut in by almost the only remaining portion of the old city-wall. a part of the garden-ground is devoted to grass and shrubbery, and permeated by gravel-walks, in the centre of one of which is a beautiful stone vase of egyptian sculpture, that formerly stood on the top of a nilometer, or graduated pillar for measuring the rise and fall of the river nile. on the pedestal is a latin inscription by dr. parr, who (his vicarage of hatton being so close at hand) was probably often the master's guest, and smoked his interminable pipe along these garden-walks. of the vegetable-garden, which lies adjacent, the lion's share is appropriated to the master, and twelve small, separate patches to the individual brethren, who cultivate them at their own judgment and by their own labor; and their beans and cauliflowers have a better flavor, i doubt not, than if they had received them directly from the dead hand of the earl of leicester, like the rest of their food. in the farther part of the garden is an arbor for the old men's pleasure and convenience, and i should like well to sit down among them there, and find out what is really the bitter and the sweet of such a sort of life. as for the old gentlemen themselves, they put me queerly in mind of the salem custom-house, and the venerable personages whom i found so quietly at anchor there. the master's residence, forming one entire side of the quadrangle, fronts on the garden, and wears an aspect at once stately and homely. it can hardly have undergone any perceptible change within three centuries; but the garden, into which its old windows look, has probably put off a great many eccentricities and quaintnesses, in the way of cunningly clipped shrubbery, since the gardener of queen elizabeth's reign threw down his rusty shears and took his departure. the present master's name is harris; he is a descendant of the founder's family, a gentleman of independent fortune, and a clergyman of the established church, as the regulations of the hospital require him to be. i know not what are his official emoluments; but, according to an english precedent, an ancient charitable fund is certain to be held directly for the behoof of those who administer it, and perhaps incidentally, in a moderate way, for the nominal beneficiaries; and, in the case before us, the twelve brethren being so comfortably provided for, the master is likely to be at least as comfortable as all the twelve together. yet i ought not, even in a distant land, to fling an idle gibe against a gentleman of whom i really know nothing, except that the people under his charge bear all possible tokens of being tended and cared for as sedulously as if each of them sat by a warm fireside of his own, with a daughter bustling round the hearth to make ready his porridge and his titbits. it is delightful to think of the good life which a suitable man, in the master's position, has an opportunity to lead,--linked to time-honored customs, welded in with an ancient system, never dreaming of radical change, and bringing all the mellowness and richness of the past down into these railway-days, which do not compel him or his community to move a whit quicker than of yore. everybody can appreciate the advantages of going ahead; it might be well, sometimes, to think whether there is not a word or two to be said in favor of standing still or going to sleep. from the garden we went into the kitchen, where the fire was burning hospitably, and diffused a genial warmth far and wide, together with the fragrance of some old english roast-beef, which, i think, must at that moment have been done nearly to a turn. the kitchen is a lofty, spacious, and noble room, partitioned off round the fireplace, by a sort of semicircular oaken screen, or rather, an arrangement of heavy and high-backed settles, with an ever-open entrance between them, on either side of which is the omnipresent image of the bear and ragged staff, three feet high, and excellently carved in oak, now black with time and unctuous kitchen-smoke. the ponderous mantel-piece, likewise of carved oak, towers high towards the dusky ceiling, and extends its mighty breadth to take in a vast area of hearth, the arch of the fireplace being positively so immense that i could compare it to nothing but the city gateway. above its cavernous opening were crossed two ancient halberds, the weapons, possibly, of soldiers who had fought under leicester in the low countries; and elsewhere on the walls were displayed several muskets, which some of the present inmates of the hospital may have levelled against the french. another ornament of the mantel-piece was a square of silken needlework or embroidery, faded nearly white, but dimly representing that wearisome bear and ragged staff, which we should hardly look twice at, only that it was wrought by the fair fingers of poor amy robsart, and beautifully framed in oak from kenilworth castle, at the expense of a mr. conner, a countryman of our own. certainly, no englishman would be capable of this little bit of enthusiasm. finally, the kitchen-firelight glistens on a splendid display of copper flagons, all of generous capacity, and one of them about as big as a half-barrel; the smaller vessels contain the customary allowance of ale, and the larger one is filled with that foaming liquor on four festive occasions of the year, and emptied amain by the jolly brotherhood. i should be glad to see them do it; but it would be an exploit fitter for queen elizabeth's age than these degenerate times. the kitchen is the social hall of the twelve brethren. in the daytime, they bring their little messes to be cooked here, and eat them in their own parlors; but after a certain hour, the great hearth is cleared and swept, and the old men assemble round its blaze, each with his tankard and his pipe, and hold high converse through the evening. if the master be a fit man for his office, methinks he will sometimes sit down sociably among them; for there is an elbow-chair by the fireside which it would not demean his dignity to fill, since it was occupied by king james at the great festival of nearly three centuries ago. a sip of the ale and a whiff of the tobacco-pipe would put him in friendly relations with his venerable household; and then we can fancy him instructing them by pithy apothegms and religious texts which were first uttered here by some catholic priest and have impregnated the atmosphere ever since. if a joke goes round, it shall be of an elder coinage than joe miller's, as old as lord bacon's collection, or as the jest-book that master slender asked for when he lacked small-talk for sweet anne page. no news shall be spoken of later than the drifting ashore, on the northern coast, of some stern-post or figure-head, a barnacled fragment of one of the great galleons of the spanish armada. what a tremor would pass through the antique group, if a damp newspaper should suddenly be spread to dry before the fire! they would feel as if either that printed sheet or they themselves must be an unreality. what a mysterious awe, if the shriek of the railway-train, as it reaches the warwick station, should ever so faintly invade their ears! movement of any kind seems inconsistent with the stability of such an institution. nevertheless, i trust that the ages will carry it along with them; because it is such a pleasant kind of dream for an american to find his way thither, and behold a piece of the sixteenth century set into our prosaic times, and then to depart, and think of its arched doorway as a spell-guarded entrance which will never be accessible or visible to him any more. not far from the market-place of warwick stands the great church of st. mary's: a vast edifice, indeed, and almost worthy to be a cathedral. people who pretend to skill in such matters say that it is in a poor style of architecture, though designed (or, at least, extensively restored) by sir christopher wren; but i thought it very striking, with its wide, high, and elaborate windows, its tall towers, its immense length, and (for it was long before i outgrew this americanism, the love of an old thing merely for the sake of its age) the tinge of gray antiquity over the whole. once, while i stood gazing up at the tower, the clock struck twelve with a very deep intonation, and immediately some chivies began to play, and kept up their resounding music for five minutes, as measured by the hand upon the dial. it was a very delightful harmony, as airy as the notes of birds, and seemed, a not unbecoming freak of half-sportive fancy in the huge, ancient, and solemn church; although i have seen an old-fashioned parlor-clock that did precisely the same thing, in its small way. the great attraction of this edifice is the beauchamp (or, as the english, who delight in vulgarizing their fine old norman names, call it, the beechum) chapel, where the earls of warwick and their kindred have been buried, from four hundred years back till within a recent period. it is a stately and very elaborate chapel, with a large window of ancient painted glass, as perfectly preserved as any that i remember seeing in england, and remarkably vivid in its colors. here are several monuments with marble figures recumbent upon them, representing the earls in their knightly armor, and their dames in the ruffs and court-finery of their day, looking hardly stiffer in stone than they must needs have been in their starched linen and embroidery. the renowned earl of leicester of queen elizabeth's time, the benefactor of the hospital, reclines at full length on the tablet of one of these tombs, side by side with his countess,--not amy robsart, but a lady who (unless i have confused the story with some other mouldy scandal) is said to have avenged poor amy's murder by poisoning the earl himself. be that as it may, both figures, and especially the earl, look like the very types of ancient honor and conjugal faith. in consideration of his long-enduring kindness to the twelve brethren, i cannot consent to believe him as wicked as he is usually depicted; and it seems a marvel, now that so many well-established historical verdicts have been reversed, why some enterprising writer does not make out leicester to have been the pattern nobleman of his age. in the centre of the chapel is the magnificent memorial of its founder, richard beauchamp, earl of warwick in the time of henry vi. on a richly ornamented altar-tomb of gray marble lies the bronze figure of a knight in gilded armor, most admirably executed: for the sculptors of those days had wonderful skill in their own style, and could make so lifelike an image of a warrior, in brass or marble, that, if a trumpet were sounded over his tomb, you would expect him to start up and handle his sword. the earl whom we now speak of, however, has slept soundly in spite of a more serious disturbance than any blast of a trumpet, unless it were the final one. some centuries after his death, the floor of the chapel fell down and broke open the stone coffin in which he was buried; and among the fragments appeared the anciently entombed earl of warwick, with the color scarcely faded out of his cheeks, his eyes a little sunken, but in other respects looking as natural as if he had died yesterday. but exposure to the atmosphere appeared to begin and finish the long-delayed process of decay in a moment, causing him to vanish like a bubble; so, that, almost before there had been time to wonder at him, there was nothing left of the stalwart earl save his hair. this sole relic the ladies of warwick made prize of, and braided it into rings and brooches for their own adornment; and thus, with a chapel and a ponderous tomb built on purpose to protect his remains, this great nobleman could not help being brought untimely to the light of day, nor even keep his lovelocks on his skull after he had so long done with love. there seems to be a fatality that disturbs people in their sepulchres, when they have been over-careful to render them magnificent and impregnable,--as witness the builders of the pyramids, and hadrian, augustus, and the scipios, and most other personages whose mausoleums have been conspicuous enough to attract the violator; and as for dead men's hair, i have seen a lock of king edward the fourth's, of a reddish-brown color, which perhaps was once twisted round the delicate forefinger of mistress shore. the direct lineage of the renowned characters that lie buried in this splendid chapel has long been extinct. the earldom is now held by the grevilles, descendants of the lord brooke who was slain in the parliamentary war; and they have recently (that is to say, within a century) built a burial-vault on the other side of the church, calculated (as the sexton assured me, with a nod as if he were pleased) to afford suitable and respectful accommodation to as many as fourscore coffins. thank heaven, the old man did not call them "caskets"!--a vile modern phrase, which compels a person of sense and good taste to shrink more disgustfully than ever before from the idea of being buried at all. but as regards those eighty coffins, only sixteen have as yet been contributed; and it may be a question with some minds, not merely whether the grevilles will hold the earldom of warwick until the full number shall be made up, but whether earldoms and all manner of lordships will not have faded out of england long before those many generations shall have passed from the castle to the vault. i hope not. a titled and landed aristocracy, if anywise an evil and an encumbrance, is so only to the nation which is doomed to bear it on its shoulders; and an american, whose sole relation to it is to admire its picturesque effect upon society, ought to be the last man to quarrel with what affords him so much gratuitous enjoyment. nevertheless, conservative as england is, and though i scarce ever found an englishman who seemed really to desire change, there was continually a dull sound in my ears as if the old foundations of things were crumbling away. some time or other,--by no irreverent effort of violence, but, rather, in spite of all pious efforts to uphold a heterogeneous pile of institutions that will have outlasted their vitality,--at some unexpected moment, there must come a terrible crash. the sole reason why i should desire it to happen in my day is, that i might be there to see! but the ruin of my own country is, perhaps, all that i am destined to witness; and that immense catastrophe (though i am strong in the faith that there is a national lifetime of a thousand years in us yet) would serve any man well enough as his final spectacle on earth. if the visitor is inclined to carry away any little memorial of warwick, he had better go to an old curiosity shop in the high street, where there is a vast quantity of obsolete gewgaws, great and small, and many of them so pretty and ingenious that you wonder how they came to be thrown aside and forgotten. as regards its minor tastes, the world changes, but does not improve; it appears to me, indeed, that there have been epochs of far more exquisite fancy than the present one, in matters of personal ornament, and such delicate trifles as we put upon a drawing-room table, a mantel-piece, or a whatnot. the shop in question is near the east gate, but is hardly to be found without careful search, being denoted only by the name of "redfern," painted not very conspicuously in the top-light of the door. immediately on entering, we find ourselves among a confusion of old rubbish and valuables, ancient armor, historic portraits, ebony cabinets inlaid with pearl, tall, ghostly clocks, hideous old china, dim looking-glasses in frames of tarnished magnificence,--a thousand objects of strange aspect, and others that almost frighten you by their likeness in unlikeness to things now in use. it is impossible to give an idea of the variety of articles, so thickly strewn about that we can scarcely move without overthrowing some great curiosity with a crash, or sweeping away some small one hitched to our sleeves. three stories of the entire house are crowded in like manner. the collection, even as we see it exposed to view, must have been got together at great cost; but the real treasures of the establishment lie in secret repositories, whence they are not likely to be drawn forth at an ordinary summons; though, if a gentleman with a competently long purse should call for them, i doubt not that the signet-ring of joseph's friend pharaoh, or the duke of alva's leading-staff, or the dagger that killed the duke of buckingham (all of which i have seen), or any other almost incredible thing, might make its appearance. gold snuff-boxes, antique gems, jewelled goblets, venetian wine-glasses (which burst when poison is poured into them, and therefore must not be used for modern wine-drinking), jasper-handled knives, painted sevres teacups,--in short, there are all sorts of things that a virtuoso ransacks the world to discover. it would be easier to spend a hundred pounds in mr. redfern's shop than to keep the money in one's pocket; but, for my part, i contented myself with buying a little old spoon of silver-gilt, and fantastically shaped, and got it at all the more reasonable rate because there happened to be no legend attached to it. i could supply any deficiency of that kind at much less expense than regilding the spoon! recollections of a gifted woman. from leamington to stratford-on-avon the distance is eight or nine miles, over a road that seemed to me most beautiful. not that i can recall any memorable peculiarities; for the country, most of the way, is a succession of the gentlest swells and subsidences, affording wide and far glimpses of champaign scenery here and there, and sinking almost to a dead level as we draw near stratford. any landscape in new england, even the tamest, has a more striking outline, and besides would have its blue eyes open in those lakelets that we encounter almost from mile to mile at home, but of which the old country is utterly destitute; or it would smile in our faces through the medium of the wayside brooks that vanish under a low stone arch on one side of the road, and sparkle out again on the other. neither of these pretty features is often to be found in an english scene. the charm of the latter consists in the rich verdure of the fields, in the stately wayside trees and carefully kept plantations of wood, and in the old and high cultivation that has humanized the very sods by mingling so much of man's toil and care among them. to an american there is a kind of sanctity even in an english turnip-field, when he thinks how long that small square of ground has been known and recognized as a possession, transmitted from father to son, trodden often by memorable feet, and utterly redeemed from savagery by old acquaintanceship with civilized eyes. the wildest things in england are more than half tame. the trees, for instance, whether in hedge-row, park, or what they call forest, have nothing wild about them. they are never ragged; there is a certain decorous restraint in the freest outspread of their branches, though they spread wider than any self-nurturing tree; they are tall, vigorous, bulky, with a look of age-long life, and a promise of more years to come, all of which will bring them into closer kindred with the race of man. somebody or other has known them from the sapling upward; and if they endure long enough, they grow to be traditionally observed and honored, and connected with the fortunes of old families, till, like tennyson's talking oak, they babble with a thousand leafy tongues to ears that can understand them. an american tree, however, if it could grow in fair competition with an english one of similar species, would probably be the more picturesque object of the two. the warwickshire elm has not so beautiful a shape as those that overhang our village street; and as for the redoubtable english oak, there is a certain john bullism in its figure, a compact rotundity of foliage, a lack of irregular and various outline, that make it look wonderfully like a gigantic cauliflower. its leaf, too, is much smaller than that of most varieties of american oak; nor do i mean to doubt that the latter, with free leave to grow, reverent care and cultivation, and immunity from the axe, would live out its centuries as sturdily as its english brother, and prove far the nobler and more majestic specimen of a tree at the end of them. still, however one's yankee patriotism may struggle against the admission, it must be owned that the trees and other objects of an english landscape take hold of the observer by numberless minute tendrils, as it were, which, look as closely as we choose, we never find in an american scene. the parasitic growth is so luxuriant, that the trunk of the tree, so gray and dry in our climate, is better worth observing than the boughs and foliage; a verdant messiness coats it all over; so that it looks almost as green as the leaves; and often, moreover, the stately stem is clustered about, high upward, with creeping and twining shrubs, the ivy, and sometimes the mistletoe, close-clinging friends, nurtured by the moisture and never too fervid sunshine, and supporting themselves by the old tree's abundant strength. we call it a parasitical vegetation; but, if the phrase imply any reproach, it is unkind to bestow it on this beautiful affection and relationship which exist in england between one order of plants and another: the strong tree being always ready to give support to the trailing shrub, lift it to the sun, and feed it out of its own heart, if it crave such food; and the shrub, on its part, repaying its foster-father with an ample luxuriance of beauty, and adding corinthian grace to the tree's lofty strength. no bitter winter nips these tender little sympathies, no hot sun burns the life out of them; and therefore they outlast the longevity of the oak, and, if the woodman permitted, would bury it in a green grave, when all is over. should there be nothing else along the road to look at, an english hedge might well suffice to occupy the eyes, and, to a depth beyond what he would suppose, the heart of an american. we often set out hedges in our own soil, but might as well set out figs or pineapples and expect to gather fruit of them. something grows, to be sure, which we choose to call a hedge; but it lacks the dense, luxuriant variety of vegetation that is accumulated into the english original, in which a botanist would find a thousand shrubs and gracious herbs that the hedgemaker never thought of planting there. among them, growing wild, are many of the kindred blossoms of the very flowers which our pilgrim fathers brought from england, for the sake of their simple beauty and homelike associations, and which we have ever since been cultivating in gardens. there is not a softer trait to be found in the character of those stern men than that they should have been sensible of these flower-roots clinging among the fibres of their rugged hearts, and have felt the necessity of bringing them over sea and making them hereditary in the new land, instead of trusting to what rarer beauty the wilderness might have in store for them. or, if the roadside has no hedge, the ugliest stone fence (such as, in america, would keep itself bare and unsympathizing till the end of time) is sure to be covered with the small handiwork of nature; that careful mother lets nothing go naked there, and if she cannot provide clothing, gives at least embroidery. no sooner is the fence built than she adopts and adorns it as a part of her original plan, treating the hard, uncomely construction as if it had all along been a favorite idea of her own. a little sprig of ivy may be seen creeping up the side of the low wall and clinging fast with its many feet to the rough surface; a tuft of grass roots itself between two of the stones, where a pinch or two of wayside dust has been moistened into nutritious soil for it; a small bunch of fern grows in another crevice; a deep, soft, verdant moss spreads itself along the top and over all the available inequalities of the fence; and where nothing else will grow, lichens stick tenaciously to the bare stones and variegate the monotonous gray with hues of yellow and red. finally, a great deal of shrubbery clusters along the base of the stone wall, and takes away the hardness of its outline; and in due time, as the upshot of these apparently aimless or sportive touches, we recognize that the beneficent creator of all things, working through his handmaiden whom we call nature, has deigned to mingle a charm of divine gracefulness even with so earthly an institution as a boundary fence. the clown who wrought at it little dreamed what fellow-laborer he had. the english should send us photographs of portions of the trunks of trees, the tangled and various products of a hedge, and a square foot of an old wall. they can hardly send anything else so characteristic. their artists, especially of the later school, sometimes toil to depict such subjects, but are apt to stiffen the lithe tendrils in the process. the poets succeed better, with tennyson at their head, and often produce ravishing effects by dint of a tender minuteness of touch, to which the genius of the soil and climate artfully impels them: for, as regards grandeur, there are loftier scenes in many countries than the best that england can show; but, for the picturesqueness of the smallest object that lies under its gentle gloom and sunshine, there is no scenery like it anywhere. in the foregoing paragraphs i have strayed away to a long distance from the road to stratford-on-avon; for i remember no such stone fences as i have been speaking of in warwickshire, nor elsewhere in england, except among the lakes, or in yorkshire, and the rough and hilly countries to the north of it. hedges there were along my road, however, and broad, level fields, rustic hamlets, and cottages of ancient date,--from the roof of one of which the occupant was tearing away the thatch, and showing what an accumulation of dust, dirt, mouldiness, roots of weeds, families of mice, swallows' nests, and hordes of insects had been deposited there since that old straw was new. estimating its antiquity from these tokens, shakespeare himself, in one of his morning rambles out of his native town, might have seen the thatch laid on; at all events, the cottage-walls were old enough to have known him as a guest. a few modern villas were also to be seen, and perhaps there were mansions of old gentility at no great distance, but hidden among trees; for it is a point of english pride that such houses seldom allow themselves to be visible from the high-road. in short, i recollect nothing specially remarkable along the way, nor in the immediate approach to stratford; and yet the picture of that june morning has a glory in my memory, owing chiefly, i believe, to the charm of the english summer-weather, the really good days of which are the most delightful that mortal man can ever hope to be favored with. such a genial warmth! a little too warm, it might be, yet only to such a degree as to assure an american (a certainty to which he seldom attains till attempered to the customary austerity of an english summer-day) that he was quite warm enough. and after all, there was an unconquerable freshness in the atmosphere, which every little movement of a breeze shook over me like a dash of the ocean-spray. such days need bring us no other happiness than their own light and temperature. no doubt, i could not have enjoyed it so exquisitely, except that there must be still latent in us western wanderers (even after an absence of two centuries and more), an adaptation to the english climate which makes us sensible of a motherly kindness in its scantiest sunshine, and overflows us with delight at its more lavish smiles. the spire of shakespeare's church--the church of the holy trinity--begins to show itself among the trees at a little distance from stratford. next we see the shabby old dwellings, intermixed with mean-looking houses of modern date; and the streets being quite level, you are struck and surprised by nothing so much as the tameness of the general scene, as if shakespeare's genius were vivid enough to have wrought pictorial splendors in the town where he was born. here and there, however, a queer edifice meets your eye, endowed with the individuality that belongs only to the domestic architecture of times gone by; the house seems to have grown out of some odd quality in its inhabitant, as a sea-shell is moulded from within by the character of its innate; and having been built in a strange fashion, generations ago, it has ever since been growing stranger and quainter, as old humorists are apt to do. here, too (as so often impressed me in decayed english towns), there appeared to be a greater abundance of aged people wearing small-clothes and leaning on sticks than you could assemble on our side of the water by sounding a trumpet and proclaiming a reward for the most venerable. i tried to account for this phenomenon by several theories: as, for example, that our new towns are unwholesome for age and kill it off unseasonably; or that our old men have a subtile sense of fitness, and die of their own accord rather than live in an unseemly contrast with youth and novelty but the secret may be, after all, that hair-dyes, false teeth, modern arts of dress, and other contrivances of a skin-deep youthfulness, have not crept into these antiquated english towns, and so people grow old without the weary necessity of seeming younger than they are. after wandering through two or three streets, i found my way to shakespeare's birthplace, which is almost a smaller and humbler house than any description can prepare the visitor to expect; so inevitably does an august inhabitant make his abode palatial to our imaginations, receiving his guests, indeed, in a castle in the air, until we unwisely insist on meeting him among the sordid lanes and alleys of lower earth. the portion of the edifice with which shakespeare had anything to do is hardly large enough, in the basement, to contain the butcher's stall that one of his descendants kept, and that still remains there, windowless, with the cleaver-cuts in its hacked counter, which projects into the street under a little penthouse-roof, as if waiting for a new occupant. the upper half of the door was open, and, on my rapping at it, a young person in black made her appearance and admitted me; she was not a menial, but remarkably genteel (an american characteristic) for an english girl, and was probably the daughter of the old gentlewoman who takes care of the house. this lower room has a pavement of gray slabs of stone, which may have been rudely squared when the house was new, but are now all cracked, broken, and disarranged in a most unaccountable way. one does not see how any ordinary usage, for whatever length of time, should have so smashed these heavy stones; it is as if an earthquake had burst up through the floor, which afterwards had been imperfectly trodden down again. the room is whitewashed and very clean, but wofully shabby and dingy, coarsely built, and such as the most poetical imagination would find it difficult to idealize. in the rear of this apartment is the kitchen, a still smaller room, of a similar rude aspect; it has a great, rough fireplace, with space for a large family under the blackened opening of the chimney, and an immense passageway for the smoke, through which shakespeare may have seen the blue sky by day and the stars glimmering down at him by night. it is now a dreary spot where the long-extinguished embers used to be. a glowing fire, even if it covered only a quarter part of the hearth, might still do much towards making the old kitchen cheerful. but we get a depressing idea of the stifled, poor, sombre kind of life that could have been lived in such a dwelling, where this room seems to have been the gathering-place of the family, with no breadth or scope, no good retirement, but old and young huddling together cheek by jowl. what a hardy plant was shakespeare's genius, how fatal its development, since it could not be blighted in such an atmosphere! it only brought human nature the closer to him, and put more unctuous earth about his roots. thence i was ushered up stairs to the room in which shakespeare is supposed to have been born: though, if you peep too curiously into the matter, you may find the shadow of an ugly doubt on this, as well as most other points of his mysterious life. it is the chamber over the butcher's shop, and is lighted by one broad window containing a great many small, irregular panes of glass. the floor is made of planks, very rudely hewn, and fitting together with little neatness; the naked beams and rafters, at the sides of the room and overhead, bear the original marks of the builder's broad-axe, with no evidence of an attempt to smooth off the job. again we have to reconcile ourselves to the smallness of the space enclosed by these illustrious walls,--a circumstance more difficult to accept, as regards places that we have heard, read, thought, and dreamed much about, than any other disenchanting particular of a mistaken ideal. a few paces--perhaps seven or eight--take us from end to end of it. so low it is, that i could easily touch the ceiling, and might have done so without a tiptoe-stretch, had it been a good deal higher; and this humility of the chamber has tempted a vast multitude of people to write their names overhead in pencil. every inch of the sidewalls, even into the obscurest nooks and corners, is covered with a similar record; all the window-panes, moreover, are scrawled with diamond signatures, among which is said to be that of walter scott; but so many persons have sought to immortalize themselves in close vicinity to his name, that i really could not trace him out. methinks it is strange that people do not strive to forget their forlorn little identities, in such situations, instead of thrusting them forward into the dazzle of a great renown, where, if noticed, they cannot but be deemed impertinent. this room, and the entire house, so far as i saw it, are whitewashed and exceedingly clean; nor is there the aged, musty smell with which old chester first made me acquainted, and which goes far to cure an american of his excessive predilection for antique residences. an old lady, who took charge of me up stairs, had the manners and aspect of a gentlewoman, and talked with somewhat formidable knowledge and appreciative intelligence about shakespeare. arranged on a table and in chairs were various prints, views of houses and scenes connected with shakespeare's memory, together with editions of his works and local publications about his home and haunts, from the sale of which this respectable lady perhaps realizes a handsome profit. at any rate, i bought a good many of them, conceiving that it might be the civillest way of requiting her for her instructive conversation and the trouble she took in showing me the house. it cost me a pang (not a curmudgeonly, but a gentlemanly one) to offer a downright fee to the lady-like girl who had admitted me; but i swallowed my delicate scruples with some little difficulty, and she digested hers, so far as i could observe, with no difficulty at all. in fact, nobody need fear to hold out half a crown to any person with whom he has occasion to speak a word in england. i should consider it unfair to quit shakespeare's house without the frank acknowledgment that i was conscious of not the slightest emotion while viewing it, nor any quickening of the imagination. this has often happened to me in my visits to memorable places. whatever pretty and apposite reflections i may have made upon the subject had either occurred to me before i ever saw stratford, or have been elaborated since. it is pleasant, nevertheless, to think that i have seen the place; and i believe that i can form a more sensible and vivid idea of shakespeare as a flesh-and-blood individual now that i have stood on the kitchen-hearth and in the birth-chamber; but i am not quite certain that this power of realization is altogether desirable in reference to a great poet. the shakespeare whom i met there took various guises, but had not his laurel on. he was successively the roguish boy,--the youthful deer-stealer,-- the comrade of players,--the too familiar friend of davenant's mother,-- the careful, thrifty, thriven man of property who came back from london to lend money on bond, and occupy the best house in stratford,--the mellow, red-nosed, autumnal boon-companion of john a' combe,--and finally (or else the stratford gossips belied him), the victim of convivial habits, who met his death by tumbling into a ditch on his way home from a drinking-bout, and left his second-best bed to his poor wife. i feel, as sensibly as the reader can, what horrible impiety it is to remember these things, be they true or false. in either case, they ought to vanish out of sight on the distant ocean-line of the past, leaving a pure, white memory, even as a sail, though perhaps darkened with many stains, looks snowy white on the far horizon. but i draw a moral from these unworthy reminiscences and this embodiment of the poet, as suggested by some of the grimy actualities of his life. it is for the high interests of the world not to insist upon finding out that its greatest men are, in a certain lower sense, very much the same kind of men as the rest of us, and often a little worse; because a common mind cannot properly digest such a discovery, nor ever know the true proportion of the great man's good and evil, nor how small a part of him it was that touched our muddy or dusty earth. thence comes moral bewilderment, and even intellectual loss, in regard to what is best of him. when shakespeare invoked a curse on the man who should stir his bones, he perhaps meant the larger share of it for him or them who should pry into his perishing earthliness, the defects or even the merits of the character that he wore in stratford, when he had left mankind so much to muse upon that was imperishable and divine. heaven keep me from incurring any part of the anathema in requital for the irreverent sentences above written! from shakespeare's house, the next step, of course, is to visit his burial-place. the appearance of the church is most venerable and beautiful, standing amid a great green shadow of lime-trees, above which rises the spire, while the gothic battlements and buttresses and vast arched windows are obscurely seen through the boughs. the avon loiters past the churchyard, an exceedingly sluggish river, which might seem to have been considering which way it should flow ever since shakespeare left off paddling in it and gathering the large forget-me-nots that grow among its flags and water-weeds. an old man in small-clothes was waiting at the gate; and inquiring whether i wished to go in, he preceded me to the church-porch, and rapped. i could have done it quite as effectually for myself; but it seems, the old people of the neighborhood haunt about the churchyard, in spite of the frowns and remonstrances of the sexton, who grudges them the half-eleemosynary sixpence which they sometimes get from visitors. i was admitted into the church by a respectable-looking and intelligent man in black, the parish-clerk, i suppose, and probably holding a richer incumbency than his vicar, if all the fees which he handles remain in his own pocket. he was already exhibiting the shakespeare monuments to two or three visitors, and several other parties came in while i was there. the poet and his family are in possession of what may be considered the very best burial-places that the church affords. they lie in a row, right across the breadth of the chancel, the foot of each gravestone being close to the elevated floor on which the altar stands. nearest to the side-wall, beneath shakespeare's bust, is a slab bearing a latin inscription addressed to his wife, and covering her remains; then his own slab, with the old anathematizing stanza upon it; then that of thomas nash, who married his granddaughter; then that of dr. hall, the husband of his daughter susannah; and, lastly, susannah's own. shakespeare's is the commonest-looking slab of all, being just such a flag-stone as essex street in salem used to be paved with, when i was a boy. moreover, unless my eyes or recollection deceive me, there is a crack across it, as if it had already undergone some such violence as the inscription deprecates. unlike the other monuments of the family, it bears no name, nor am i acquainted with the grounds or authority on which it is absolutely determined to be shakespeare's; although, being in a range with those of his wife and children, it might naturally be attributed to him. but, then, why does his wife, who died afterwards, take precedence of him and occupy the place next his bust? and where are the graves of another daughter and a son, who have a better right in the family row than thomas nash, his grandson-in-law? might not one or both of them have been laid under the nameless stone? but it is dangerous trifling with shakespeare's dust; so i forbear to meddle further with the grave (though the prohibition makes it tempting), and shall let whatever bones be in it rest in peace. yet i must needs add that the inscription on the bust seems to imply that shakespeare's grave was directly underneath it. the poet's bust is affixed to the northern wall of the church, the base of it being about a man's height, or rather more, above the floor of the chancel. the features of this piece of sculpture are entirely unlike any portrait of shakespeare that i have ever seen, and compel me to take down the beautiful, lofty-browed, and noble picture of him which has hitherto hung in my mental portrait-gallery. the bust cannot be said to represent a beautiful face or an eminently noble head; but it clutches firmly hold of one's sense of reality and insists upon your accepting it, if not as shakespeare the poet, yet as the wealthy burgher of stratford, the friend of john a' combe, who lies yonder in the corner. i know not what the phrenologists say to the bust. the forehead is but moderately developed, and retreats somewhat, the upper part of the skull rising pyramidally; the eyes are prominent almost beyond the penthouse of the brow; the upper lip is so long that it must have been almost a deformity, unless the sculptor artistically exaggerated its length, in consideration, that, on the pedestal, it must be foreshortened by being looked at from below. on the whole, shakespeare must have had a singular rather than a prepossessing face; and it is wonderful how, with this bust before its eyes, the world has persisted in maintaining an erroneous notion of his appearance, allowing painters and sculptors to foist their idealized nonsense on its all, instead of the genuine man. for my part, the shakespeare of my mind's eye is henceforth to be a personage of a ruddy english complexion, with a reasonably capacious brow, intelligent and quickly observant eyes, a nose curved slightly outward, a long, queer upper lip, with the mouth a little unclosed beneath it, and cheeks considerably developed in the lower part and beneath the chin. but when shakespeare was himself (for nine tenths of the time, according to all appearances, he was but the burgher of stratford), he doubtless shone through this dull mask and transfigured it into the face of an angel. fifteen or twenty feet behind the row of shakespeare gravestones is the great east-window of the church, now brilliant with stained glass of recent manufacture. on one side of this window, under a sculptured arch of marble, lies a full-length marble figure of john a' combe, clad in what i take to be a robe of municipal dignity, and holding its hands devoutly clasped. it is a sturdy english figure, with coarse features, a type of ordinary man whom we smile to see immortalized in the sculpturesque material of poets and heroes; but the prayerful attitude encourages us to believe that the old usurer may not, after all, have had that grim reception in the other world which shakespeare's squib foreboded for him. by the by, till i grew somewhat familiar with warwickshire pronunciation, i never understood that the point of those ill-natured lines was a pun. "'oho!' quoth the devil, ''t is my john a' combe'"--that is, "my john has come!" close to the poet's bust is a nameless, oblong, cubic tomb, supposed to be that of a clerical dignitary of the fourteenth century. the church has other mural monuments and altar-tombs, one or two of the latter upholding the recumbent figures of knights in armor and their dames, very eminent and worshipful personages in their day, no doubt, but doomed to appear forever intrusive and impertinent within the precincts which shakespeare has made his own. his renown is tyrannous, and suffers nothing else to be recognized within the scope of its material presence, unless illuminated by some side-ray from himself. the clerk informed me that interments no longer take place in any part of the church. and it is better so; for methinks a person of delicate individuality, curious about his burial-place, and desirous of six feet of earth for himself alone, could never endure to be buried near shakespeare, but would rise up at midnight and grope his way out of the church-door, rather than sleep in the shadow of so stupendous a memory. i should hardly have dared to add another to the innumerable descriptions of stratford-on-avon, if it had not seemed to me that this would form a fitting framework to some reminiscences of a very remarkable woman. her labor, while she lived, was of a nature and purpose outwardly irreverent to the name of shakespeare, yet, by its actual tendency, entitling her to the distinction of being that one of all his worshippers who sought, though she knew it not, to place the richest and stateliest diadem upon his brow. we americans, at least, in the scanty annals of our literature, cannot afford to forget her high and conscientious exercise of noble faculties, which, indeed, if you look at the matter in one way, evolved only a miserable error, but, more fairly considered, produced a result worth almost what it cost her. her faith in her own ideas was so genuine, that, erroneous as they were, it transmuted them to gold, or, at all events, interfused a large proportion of that precious and indestructible substance among the waste material from which it can readily be sifted. the only time i ever saw miss bacon was in london, where she had lodgings in spring street, sussex gardens, at the house of a grocer, a portly, middle-aged, civil, and friendly man, who, as well as his wife, appeared to feel a personal kindness towards their lodger. i was ushered up two (and i rather believe three) pair of stairs into a parlor somewhat humbly furnished, and told that miss bacon would come soon. there were a number of books on the table, and, looking into them, i found that every one had some reference, more or less immediate, to her shakespearian theory,--a volume of raleigh's "history of the world," a volume of montaigne, a volume of lord bacon's letters, a volume of shakespeare's plays; and on another table lay a large roll of manuscript, which i presume to have been a portion of her work. to be sure, there was a pocket-bible among the books, but everything else referred to the one despotic idea that had got possession of her mind; and as it had engrossed her whole soul as well as her intellect, i have no doubt that she had established subtile connections between it and the bible likewise. as is apt to be the case with solitary students, miss bacon probably read late and rose late; for i took up montaigne (it was hazlitt's translation) and had been reading his journey to italy a good while before she appeared. i had expected (the more shame for me, having no other ground of such expectation than that she was a literary woman) to see a very homely, uncouth, elderly personage, and was quite agreeably disappointed by her aspect. she was rather uncommonly tall, and had a striking and expressive face, dark hair, dark eyes, which shone with an inward light as soon as she began to speak, and by and by a color came into her cheeks and made her look almost young. not that she really was so; she must have been beyond middle age: and there was no unkindness in coming to that conclusion, because, making allowance for years and ill-health, i could suppose her to have been handsome and exceedingly attractive once. though wholly estranged from society, there was little or no restraint or embarrassment in her manner: lonely people are generally glad to give utterance to their pent-up ideas, and often bubble over with them as freely as children with their new-found syllables. i cannot tell how it came about, but we immediately found ourselves taking a friendly and familiar tone together, and began to talk as if we had known one another a very long while. a little preliminary correspondence had indeed smoothed the way, and we had a definite topic in the contemplated publication of her book. she was very communicative about her theory, and would have been much more so had i desired it; but, being conscious within myself of a sturdy unbelief, i deemed it fair and honest rather to repress than draw her out upon the subject. unquestionably, she was a monomaniac; these overmastering ideas about the authorship of shakespeare's plays, and the deep political philosophy concealed beneath the surface of them, had completely thrown her off her balance; but at the same time they had wonderfully developed her intellect, and made her what she could not otherwise have become. it was a very singular phenomenon: a system of philosophy growing up in thus woman's mind without her volition,-- contrary, in fact, to the determined resistance of her volition,--and substituting itself in the place of everything that originally grew there. to have based such a system on fancy, and unconsciously elaborated it for herself, was almost as wonderful as really to have found it in the plays. but, in a certain sense, she did actually find it there. shakespeare has surface beneath surface, to an immeasurable depth, adapted to the plummet-line of every reader; his works present many phases of truth, each with scope large enough to fill a contemplative mind. whatever you seek in him you will surely discover, provided you seek truth. there is no exhausting the various interpretation of his symbols; and a thousand years hence, a world of new readers will possess a whole library of new books, as we ourselves do, in these volumes old already. i had half a mind to suggest to miss bacon this explanation of her theory, but forbore, because (as i could readily perceive) she had as princely a spirit as queen elizabeth herself, and would at once have motioned me from the room. i had heard, long ago, that she believed that the material evidences of her dogma as to the authorship, together with the key of the new philosophy, would be found buried in shakespeare's grave. recently, as i understood her, this notion had been somewhat modified, and was now accurately defined and fully developed in her mind, with a result of perfect certainty. in lord bacon's letters, on which she laid her finger as she spoke, she had discovered the key and clew to the whole mystery. there were definite and minute instructions how to find a will and other documents relating to the conclave of elizabethan philosophers, which were concealed (when and by whom she did not inform me) in a hollow space in the under surface of shakespeare's gravestone. thus the terrible prohibition to remove the stone was accounted for. the directions, she intimated, went completely and precisely to the point, obviating all difficulties in the way of coming at the treasure, and even, if i remember right, were so contrived as to ward off any troublesome consequences likely to ensue from the interference of the parish-officers. all that miss bacon now remained in england for-- indeed, the object for which she had come hither, and which had kept her here for three years past--was to obtain possession of these material and unquestionable proofs of the authenticity of her theory. she communicated all this strange matter in a low, quiet tone; while, on my part, i listened as quietly, and without any expression of dissent. controversy against a faith so settled would have shut her up at once, and that, too, without in the least weakening her belief in the existence of those treasures of the tomb; and had it been possible to convince her of their intangible nature, i apprehend that there would have been nothing left for the poor enthusiast save to collapse and die. she frankly confessed that she could no longer bear the society of those who did not at least lend a certain sympathy to her views, if not fully share in them; and meeting little sympathy or none, she had now entirely secluded herself from the world. in all these years, she had seen mrs. farrar a few times, but had long ago given her up,--carlyle once or twice, but not of late, although he had received her kindly; mr. buchanan, while minister in england, had once called on her, and general campbell, our consul in london, had met her two or three times on business. with these exceptions, which she marked so scrupulously that it was perceptible what epochs they were in the monotonous passage of her days, she had lived in the profoundest solitude. she never walked out; she suffered much from ill-health; and yet, she assured me, she was perfectly happy. i could well conceive it; for miss bacon imagined herself to have received (what is certainly the greatest boon ever assigned to mortals) a high mission in the world, with adequate powers for its accomplishment; and lest even these should prove insufficient, she had faith that special interpositions of providence were forwarding her human efforts. this idea was continually coming to the surface, during our interview. she believed, for example, that she had been providentially led to her lodging-house and put in relations with the good-natured grocer and his family; and, to say the truth, considering what a savage and stealthy tribe the london lodging-house keepers usually are, the honest kindness of this man and his household appeared to have been little less than miraculous. evidently, too, she thought that providence had brought me forward--a man somewhat connected with literature--at the critical juncture when she needed a negotiator with the booksellers; and, on my part, though little accustomed to regard myself as a divine minister, and though i might even have preferred that providence should select some other instrument, i had no scruple in undertaking to do what i could for her. her book, as i could see by turning it over, was a very remarkable one, and worthy of being offered to the public, which, if wise enough to appreciate it, would be thankful for what was good in it and merciful to its faults. it was founded on a prodigious error, but was built up from that foundation with a good many prodigious truths. and, at all events, whether i could aid her literary views or no, it would have been both rash and impertinent in me to attempt drawing poor miss bacon out of her delusions, which were the condition on which she lived in comfort and joy, and in the exercise of great intellectual power. so i left her to dream as she pleased about the treasures of shakespeare's tombstone, and to form whatever designs might seem good to herself for obtaining possession of them. i was sensible of a ladylike feeling of propriety in miss bacon, and a new england orderliness in her character, and, in spite of her bewilderment, a sturdy common-sense, which i trusted would begin to operate at the right time, and keep her from any actual extravagance. and as regarded this matter of the tombstone, so it proved. the interview lasted above an hour, during which she flowed out freely, as to the sole auditor, capable of any degree of intelligent sympathy, whom she had met with in a very long while. her conversation was remarkably suggestive, alluring forth one's own ideas and fantasies from the shy places where they usually haunt. she was indeed an admirable talker, considering how long she had held her tongue for lack of a listener,--pleasant, sunny and shadowy, often piquant, and giving glimpses of all a woman's various and readily changeable moods and humors; and beneath them all there ran a deep and powerful under-current of earnestness, which did not fail to produce in the listener's mind something like a temporary faith in what she herself believed so fervently. but the streets of london are not favorable to enthusiasms of this kind, nor, in fact, are they likely to flourish anywhere in the english atmosphere; so that, long before reaching paternoster row, i felt that it would be a difficult and doubtful matter to advocate the publication of miss bacon's book. nevertheless, it did finally get published. months before that happened, however, miss bacon had taken up her residence at stratford-on-avon, drawn thither by the magnetism of those rich secrets which she supposed to have been hidden by raleigh, or bacon, or i know not whom, in shakespeare's grave, and protected there by a curse, as pirates used to bury their gold in the guardianship of a fiend. she took a humble lodging and began to haunt the church like a ghost. but she did not condescend to any stratagem or underhand attempt to violate the grave, which, had she been capable of admitting such an idea, might possibly have been accomplished by the aid of a resurrection-man. as her first step, she made acquaintance with the clerk, and began to sound him as to the feasibility of her enterprise and his own willingness to engage in it. the clerk apparently listened with not unfavorable ears; but, as his situation (which the fees of pilgrims, more numerous than at any catholic shrine, render lucrative) would have been forfeited by any malfeasance in office, he stipulated for liberty to consult the vicar. miss bacon requested to tell her own story to the reverend gentleman, and seems to have been received by him with the utmost kindness, and even to have succeeded in making a certain impression on his mind as to the desirability of the search. as their interview had been under the seal of secrecy, he asked permission to consult a friend, who, as miss bacon either found out or surmised, was a practitioner of the law. what the legal friend advised she did not learn; but the negotiation continued, and certainly was never broken off by an absolute refusal on the vicar's part. he, perhaps, was kindly temporizing with our poor countrywoman, whom an englishman of ordinary mould would have sent to a lunatic asylum at once. i cannot help fancying, however, that her familiarity with the events of shakespeare's life, and of his death and burial (of which she would speak as if she had been present at the edge of the grave), and all the history, literature, and personalities of the elizabethan age, together with the prevailing power of her own belief, and the eloquence with which she knew how to enforce it, had really gone some little way toward making a convert of the good clergyman. if so, i honor him above all the hierarchy of england. the affair certainly looked very hopeful. however erroneously, miss bacon had understood from the vicar that no obstacles would be interposed to the investigation, and that he himself would sanction it with his presence. it was to take place after nightfall; and all preliminary arrangements being made, the vicar and clerk professed to wait only her word in order to set about lifting the awful stone from the sepulchre. so, at least, miss bacon believed; and as her bewilderment was entirely in her own thoughts, and never disturbed her perception or accurate remembrance of external things, i see no reason to doubt it, except it be the tinge of absurdity in the fact. but, in this apparently prosperous state of things, her own convictions began to falter. a doubt stole into her mind whether she might not have mistaken the depository and mode of concealment of those historic treasures; and after once admitting the doubt, she was afraid to hazard the shock of uplifting the stone and finding nothing. she examined the surface of the gravestone, and endeavored, without stirring it, to estimate whether it were of such thickness as to be capable of containing the archives of the elizabethan club. she went over anew the proofs, the clews, the enigmas, the pregnant sentences, which she had discovered in bacon's letters and elsewhere, and now was frightened to perceive that they did not point so definitely to shakespeare's tomb as she had heretofore supposed. there was an unmistakably distinct reference to a tomb, but it might be bacon's, or raleigh's, or spenser's; and instead of the "old player," as she profanely called him, it might be either of those three illustrious dead, poet, warrior, or statesman, whose ashes, in westminster abbey, or the tower burial-ground, or wherever they sleep, it was her mission to disturb. it is very possible, moreover, that her acute mind may always have had a lurking and deeply latent distrust of its own fantasies, and that this now became strong enough to restrain her from a decisive step. but she continued to hover around the church, and seems to have had full freedom of entrance in the daytime, and special license, on one occasion at least, at a late hour of the night. she went thither with a dark-lantern, which could but twinkle like a glow-worm through the volume of obscurity that filled the great dusky edifice. groping her way up the aisle and towards the chancel, she sat down on the elevated part of the pavement above shakespeare's grave. if the divine poet really wrote the inscription there, and cared as much about the quiet of his bones as its deprecatory earnestness would imply, it was time for those crumbling relics to bestir themselves under her sacrilegious feet. but they were safe. she made no attempt to disturb them; though, i believe, she looked narrowly into the crevices between shakespeare's and the two adjacent stones, and in some way satisfied herself that her single strength would suffice to lift the former, in case of need. she threw the feeble ray of her lantern up towards the bust, but could not make it visible beneath the darkness of the vaulted roof. had she been subject to superstitious terrors, it is impossible to conceive of a situation that could better entitle her to feel them, for, if shakespeare's ghost would rise at any provocation, it must have shown itself then; but it is my sincere belief, that, if his figure had appeared within the scope of her dark-lantern, in his slashed doublet and gown, and with his eyes bent on her beneath the high, bald forehead, just as we see him in the bust, she would have met him fearlessly and controverted his claims to the authorship of the plays, to his very face. she had taught herself to contemn "lord leicester's groom" (it was one of her disdainful epithets for the world's incomparable poet) so thoroughly, that even his disembodied spirit would hardly have found civil treatment at miss bacon's hands. her vigil, though it appears to have had no definite object, continued far into the night. several times she heard a low movement in the aisles: a stealthy, dubious footfall prowling about in the darkness, now here, now there, among the pillars and ancient tombs, as if some restless inhabitant of the latter had crept forth to peep at the intruder. by and by the clerk made his appearance, and confessed that he had been watching her ever since she entered the church. about this time it was that a strange sort of weariness seems to have fallen upon her: her toil was all but done, her great purpose, as she believed, on the very point of accomplishment, when she began to regret that so stupendous a mission had been imposed on the fragility of a woman. her faith in the new philosophy was as mighty as ever, and so was her confidence in her own adequate development of it, now about to be given to the world; yet she wished, or fancied so, that it might never have been her duty to achieve this unparalleled task, and to stagger feebly forward under her immense burden of responsibility and renown. so far as her personal concern in the matter went, she would gladly have forfeited the reward of her patient study and labor for so many years, her exile from her country and estrangement from her family and friends, her sacrifice of health and all other interests to this one pursuit, if she could only find herself free to dwell in stratford and be forgotten. she liked the old slumberous town, and awarded the only praise that ever i knew her to bestow on shakespeare, the individual man, by acknowledging that his taste in a residence was good, and that he knew how to choose a suitable retirement for a person of shy, but genial temperament. and at this point, i cease to possess the means of tracing her vicissitudes of feeling any further. in consequence of some advice which i fancied it my duty to tender, as being the only confidant whom she now had in the world, i fell under miss bacon's most severe and passionate displeasure, and was cast off by her in the twinkling of an eye. it was a misfortune to which her friends were always particularly liable; but i think that none of them ever loved, or even respected, her most ingenuous and noble, but likewise most sensitive and tumultuous, character the less for it. at that time her book was passing through the press. without prejudice to her literary ability, it must be allowed that miss bacon was wholly unfit to prepare her own work for publication, because, among many other reasons, she was too thoroughly in earnest to know what to leave out. every leaf and line was sacred, for all had been written under so deep a conviction of truth as to assume, in her eyes, the aspect of inspiration. a practised book-maker, with entire control of her materials, would have shaped out a duodecimo volume full of eloquent and ingenious dissertation,--criticisms which quite take the color and pungency out of other people's critical remarks on shakespeare,--philosophic truths which she imagined herself to have found at the roots of his conceptions, and which certainly come from no inconsiderable depth somewhere. there was a great amount of rubbish, which any competent editor would have shovelled out of the way. but miss bacon thrust the whole bulk of inspiration and nonsense into the press in a lump, and there tumbled out a ponderous octavo volume, which fell with a dead thump at the feet of the public, and has never been picked up. a few persons turned over one or two of the leaves, as it lay there, and essayed to kick the volume deeper into the mud; for they were the hack critics of the minor periodical press in london, than whom, i suppose, though excellent fellows in their way, there are no gentlemen in the world less sensible of any sanctity in a book, or less likely to recognize an author's heart in it, or more utterly careless about bruising, if they do recognize it. it is their trade. they could not do otherwise. i never thought of blaming them. it was not for such an englishman as one of these to get beyond the idea that an assault was meditated on england's greatest poet. from the scholars and critics of her own country, indeed, miss bacon might have looked for a worthier appreciation, because many of the best of them have higher cultivation, and finer and deeper literary sensibilities than all but the very profoundest and brightest of englishmen. but they are not a courageous body of men; they dare not think a truth that has an odor of absurdity, lest they should feel themselves bound to speak it out. if any american ever wrote a word in her behalf, miss bacon never knew it, nor did i. our journalists at once republished some of the most brutal vituperations of the english press, thus pelting their poor countrywoman with stolen mud, without even waiting to know whether the ignominy was deserved. and they never have known it, to this day, nor ever will. the next intelligence that i had of miss bacon was by a letter from the mayor of stratford-on-avon. he was a medical man, and wrote both in his official and professional character, telling me that an american lady, who had recently published what the mayor called a "shakespeare book," was afflicted with insanity. in a lucid interval she had referred to me, as a person who had some knowledge of her family and affairs. what she may have suffered before her intellect gave way, we had better not try to imagine. no author had ever hoped so confidently as she; none ever failed more utterly. a superstitious fancy might suggest that the anathema on shakespeare's tombstone had fallen heavily on her head in requital of even the unaccomplished purpose of disturbing the dust beneath, and that the "old player" had kept so quietly in his grave, on the night of her vigil, because he foresaw how soon and terribly he would be avenged. but if that benign spirit takes any care or cognizance of such things now, he has surely requited the injustice that she sought to do him--the high justice that she really did--by a tenderness of love and pity of which only he could be capable. what matters it though she called him by some other name? he had wrought a greater miracle on her than on all the world besides. this bewildered enthusiast had recognized a depth in the man whom she decried, which scholars, critics, and learned societies, devoted to the elucidation of his unrivalled scenes, had never imagined to exist there. she had paid him the loftiest honor that all these ages of renown have been able to accumulate upon his memory. and when, not many months after the outward failure of her lifelong object, she passed into the better world, i know not why we should hesitate to believe that the immortal poet may have met her on the threshold and led her in, reassuring her with friendly and comfortable words, and thanking her (yet with a smile of gentle humor in his eyes at the thought of certain mistaken speculations) for having interpreted him to mankind so well. i believe that it has been the fate of this remarkable book never to have had more than a single reader. i myself am acquainted with it only in insulated chapters and scattered pages and paragraphs. but, since my return to america, a young man of genius and enthusiasm has assured me that he has positively read the book from beginning to end, and is completely a convert to its doctrines. it belongs to him, therefore, and not to me, whom, in almost the last letter that i received from her, she declared unworthy to meddle with her work,--it belongs surely to this one individual, who has done her so much justice as to know what she wrote, to place miss bacon in her due position before the public and posterity. this has been too sad a story. to lighten the recollection of it, i will think of my stroll homeward past charlecote park, where i beheld the most stately elms, singly, in clumps, and in groves, scattered all about in the sunniest, shadiest, sleepiest fashion; so that i could not but believe in a lengthened, loitering, drowsy enjoyment which these trees must have in their existence. diffused over slow-paced centuries, it need not be keen nor bubble into thrills and ecstasies, like the momentary delights of short-lived human beings. they were civilized trees, known to man and befriended by him for ages past. there is an indescribable difference--as i believe i have heretofore endeavored to express--between the tamed, but by no means effete (on the contrary, the richer and more luxuriant) nature of england, and the rude, shaggy, barbarous nature which offers as its racier companionship in america. no less a change has been wrought among the wildest creatures that inhabit what the english call their forests. by and by, among those refined and venerable trees, i saw a large herd of deer, mostly reclining, but some standing in picturesque groups, while the stags threw their large antlers aloft, as if they had been taught to make themselves tributary to the scenic effect. some were running fleetly about, vanishing from light into shadow and glancing forth again, with here and there a little fawn careering at its mother's heels. these deer are almost in the same relation to the wild, natural state of their kind that the trees of an english park hold to the rugged growth of an american forest. they have held a certain intercourse with man for immemorial years; and, most probably, the stag that shakespeare killed was one of the progenitors of this very herd, and may himself have been a partly civilized and humanized deer, though in a less degree than these remote posterity. they are a little wilder than sheep, but they do not snuff the air at the approach of human beings, nor evince much alarm at their pretty close proximity; although if you continue to advance, they toss their heads and take to their heels in a kind of mimic terror, or something akin to feminine skittishness, with a dim remembrance or tradition, as it were, of their having come of a wild stock. they have so long been fed and protected by man, that they must have lost many of their native instincts, and, i suppose, could not live comfortably through, even an english winter without human help. one is sensible of a gentle scorn at them for such dependency, but feels none the less kindly disposed towards the half-domesticated race; and it may have been his observation of these tamer characteristics in the charlecote herd that suggested to shakespeare the tender and pitiful description of a wounded stag, in "as you like it." at a distance of some hundreds of yards from charlecote hall, and almost hidden by the trees between it and the roadside, is an old brick archway and porter's lodge. in connection with this entrance there appears to have been a wall and an ancient moat, the latter of which is still visible, a shallow, grassy scoop along the base of an embankment of the lawn. about fifty yards within the gateway stands the house, forming three sides of a square, with three gables in a row on the front, and on each of the two wings; and there are several towers and turrets at the angles, together with projecting windows, antique balconies, and other quaint ornaments suitable to the half-gothic taste in which the edifice was built. over the gateway is the lucy coat-of-arms, emblazoned in its proper colors. the mansion dates from the early days of elizabeth, and probably looked very much the same as now when shakespeare was brought before sir thomas lucy for outrages among his deer. the impression is not that of gray antiquity, but of stable and time-honored gentility, still as vital as ever. it is a most delightful place. all about the house and domain there is a perfection of comfort and domestic taste, an amplitude of convenience, which could have been brought about only by the slow ingenuity and labor of many successive generations, intent upon adding all possible improvement to the home where years gone by and years to come give a sort of permanence to the intangible present. an american is sometimes tempted to fancy that only by this long process can real homes be produced. one man's lifetime is not enough for the accomplishment of such a work of art and nature, almost the greatest merely temporary one that is confided to him; too little, at any rate,--yet perhaps too long when he is discouraged by the idea that he must make his house warm and delightful for a miscellaneous race of successors, of whom the one thing certain is, that his own grandchildren will not be among them. such repinings as are here suggested, however, come only from the fact, that, bred in english habits of thought, as most of us are, we have not yet modified our instincts to the necessities of our new forms of life. a lodging in a wigwam or under a tent has really as many advantages, when we come to know them, as a home beneath the roof-tree of charlecote hall. but, alas! our philosophers have not yet taught us what is best, nor have our poets sung us what is beautifulest, in the kind of life that we must lead; and therefore we still read the old english wisdom, and harp upon the ancient strings. and thence it happens, that, when we look at a time-honored hall, it seems more possible for men who inherit such a home, than for ourselves, to lead noble and graceful lives, quietly doing good and lovely things as their daily work, and achieving deeds of simple greatness when circumstances require them. i sometimes apprehend that our institutions may perish before we shall have discovered the most precious of the possibilities which they involve. lichfield and uttoxeter. after my first visit to leamington spa, i went by an indirect route to lichfield, and put up at the black swan. had i known where to find it, i would much rather have established myself at the inn formerly kept by the worthy mr. boniface, so famous for his ale in farquhar's time. the black swan is an old-fashioned hotel, its street-front being penetrated by an arched passage, in either side of which is an entrance door to the different parts of the house, and through which, and over the large stones of its pavement, all vehicles and horsemen rumble and clatter into an enclosed courtyard, with a thunderous uproar among the contiguous rooms and chambers. i appeared to be the only guest of the spacious establishment, but may have had a few fellow-lodgers hidden in their separate parlors, and utterly eschewing that community of interests which is the characteristic feature of life in an american hotel. at any rate, i had the great, dull, dingy, and dreary coffee-room, with its heavy old mahogany chairs and tables, all to myself, and not a soul to exchange a word with, except the waiter, who, like most of his class in england, had evidently left his conversational abilities uncultivated. no former practice of solitary living, nor habits of reticence, nor well-tested self-dependence for occupation of mind and amusement, can quite avail, as i now proved, to dissipate the ponderous gloom of an english coffee-room under such circumstances as these, with no book at hand save the county-directory, nor any newspaper but a torn local journal of five days ago. so i buried myself, betimes, in a huge heap of ancient feathers (there is no other kind of bed in these old inns), let my head sink into an unsubstantial pillow, and slept a stifled sleep, infested with such a fragmentary confusion of dreams that i took them to be a medley, compounded of the night-troubles of all my predecessors in that same unrestful couch. and when i awoke, the musty odor of a bygone century was in my nostrils,--a faint, elusive smell, of which i never had any conception before crossing the atlantic. in the morning, after a mutton-chop and a cup of chiccory in the dusky coffee-room, i went forth and bewildered myself a little while among the crooked streets, in quest of one or two objects that had chiefly attracted me to the spot. the city is of very ancient date, and its name in the old saxon tongue has a dismal import that would apply well, in these days and forever henceforward, to many an unhappy locality in our native land. lichfield signifies "the field of the dead bodies,"--an epithet, however, which the town did not assume in remembrance of a battle, but which probably sprung up by a natural process, like a sprig of rue or other funereal weed, out of the graves of two princely brothers, sons of a pagan king of mercia, who were converted by st. chad, and afterwards martyred for their christian faith. nevertheless, i was but little interested in the legends of the remote antiquity of lichfield, being drawn thither partly to see its beautiful cathedral, and still more, i believe, because it was the birthplace of dr. johnson, with whose sturdy english character i became acquainted, at a very early period of my life, through the good offices of mr. boswell. in truth, he seems as familiar to my recollection, and almost as vivid in his personal aspect to my mind's eye, as the kindly figure of my own grandfather. it is only a solitary child,--left much to such wild modes of culture as he chooses for himself while yet ignorant what culture means, standing on tiptoe to pull down books from no very lofty shelf, and then shutting himself up, as it were, between the leaves, going astray through the volume at his own pleasure, and comprehending it rather by his sensibilities and affections than his intellect,--that child is the only student that ever gets the sort of intimacy which i am now thinking of, with a literary personage. i do not remember, indeed, ever caring much about any of the stalwart doctor's grandiloquent productions, except his two stern and masculine poems, "london," and "the vanity of human wishes"; it was as a man, a talker, and a humorist, that i knew and loved him, appreciating many of his qualities perhaps more thoroughly than i do now, though never seeking to put my instinctive perception of his character into language. beyond all question, i might have had a wiser friend than he. the atmosphere in which alone he breathed was dense; his awful dread of death showed how much muddy imperfection was to be cleansed out of him, before he could be capable of spiritual existence; he meddled only with the surface of life, and never cared to penetrate further than to ploughshare depth; his very sense and sagacity were but a one-eyed clear-sightedness. i laughed at him, sometimes, standing beside his knee. and yet, considering that my native propensities were towards fairy land, and also how much yeast is generally mixed up with the mental sustenance of a new-englander, it may not have been altogether amiss, in those childish and boyish days, to keep pace with this heavy-footed traveller and feed on the gross diet that he carried in his knapsack. it is wholesome food even now. and, then, how english! many of the latent sympathies that enabled me to enjoy the old country so well, and that so readily amalgamated themselves with the american ideas that seemed most adverse to them, may have been derived from, or fostered and kept alive by, the great english moralist. never was a descriptive epithet more nicely appropriate than that! dr. johnson's morality was as english an article as a beefsteak. the city of lichfield (only the cathedral-towns are called cities, in england) stands on an ascending site. it has not so many old gabled houses as coventry, for example, but still enough to gratify an american appetite for the antiquities of domestic architecture. the people, too, have an old-fashioned way with them, and stare at the passing visitor, as if the railway had not yet quite accustomed them to the novelty of strange faces moving along their ancient sidewalks. the old women whom i met, in several instances, dropt me a courtesy; and as they were of decent and comfortable exterior, and kept quietly on their way without pause or further greeting, it certainly was not allowable to interpret their little act of respect as a modest method of asking for sixpence; so that i had the pleasure of considering it a remnant of the reverential and hospitable manners of elder times, when the rare presence of a stranger might be deemed worth a general acknowledgment. positively, coming from such humble sources, i took it all the more as a welcome on behalf of the inhabitants, and would not have exchanged it for an invitation from the mayor and magistrates to a public dinner. yet i wish, merely for the experiment's sake, that i could have emboldened myself to hold out the aforesaid sixpence to at least one of the old ladies. in my wanderings about town, i came to an artificial piece of water, called the minster pool. it fills the immense cavity in a ledge of rock, whence the building-materials of the cathedral were quarried out a great many centuries ago. i should never have guessed the little lake to be of man's creation, so very pretty and quietly picturesque an object has it grown to be, with its green banks, and the old trees hanging over its glassy surface, in which you may see reflected some of the battlements of the majestic structure that once lay here in unshaped stone. some little children stood on the edge of the pool, angling with pin-hooks; and the scene reminded me (though really to be quite fair with the reader, the gist of the analogy has now escaped me) of that mysterious lake in the arabian nights, which had once been a palace and a city, and where a fisherman used to pull out the former inhabitants in the guise of enchanted fishes. there is no need of fanciful associations to make the spot interesting. it was in the porch of one of the houses, in the street that runs beside the minster pool, that lord brooke was slain, in the time of the parliamentary war, by a shot from the battlements of the cathedral, which was then held by the royalists as a fortress. the incident is commemorated by an inscription on a stone, inlaid into the wall of the house. i know not what rank the cathedral of lichfield holds among its sister edifices in england, as a piece of magnificent architecture. except that of chester (the grim and simple nave of which stands yet unrivalled in my memory), and one or two small ones in north wales, hardly worthy of the name of cathedrals, it was the first that i had seen. to my uninstructed vision, it seemed the object best worth gazing at in the whole world; and now, after beholding a great many more, i remember it with less prodigal admiration only because others are as magnificent as itself. the traces remaining in my memory represent it as airy rather than massive. a multitude of beautiful shapes appeared to be comprehended within its single outline; it was a kind of kaleidoscopic mystery, so rich a variety of aspects did it assume from each altered point of view, through the presentation of a different face, and the rearrangement of its peaks and pinnacles and the three battlemented towers, with the spires that shot heavenward from all three, but one loftier than its fellows. thus it impressed you, at every change, as a newly created structure of the passing moment, in which yet you lovingly recognized the half-vanished structure of the instant before, and felt, moreover, a joyful faith in the indestructible existence of all this cloudlike vicissitude. a gothic cathedral is surely the most wonderful work which mortal man has yet achieved, so vast, so intricate, and so profoundly simple, with such strange, delightful recesses in its grand figure, so difficult to comprehend within one idea, and yet all so consonant that it ultimately draws the beholder and his universe into its harmony. it is the only thing in the world that is vast enough and rich enough. not that i felt, or was worthy to feel, an unmingled enjoyment in gazing at this wonder. i could not elevate myself to its spiritual height, any more than i could have climbed from the ground to the summit of one of its pinnacles. ascending but a little way, i continually fell back and lay in a kind of despair, conscious that a flood of uncomprehended beauty was pouring down upon me, of which i could appropriate only the minutest portion. after a hundred years, incalculably as my higher sympathies might be invigorated by so divine an employment, i should still be a gazer from below and at an awful distance, as yet remotely excluded from the interior mystery. but it was something gained, even to have that painful sense of my own limitations, and that half-smothered yearning to soar beyond them. the cathedral showed me how earthly i was, but yet whispered deeply of immortality. after all, this was probably the best lesson that it could bestow, and, taking it as thoroughly as possible home to my heart, i was fain to be content. if the truth must be told, my ill-trained enthusiasm soon flagged, and i began to lose the vision of a spiritual or ideal edifice behind the time-worn and weather-stained front of the actual structure. whenever that is the case, it is most reverential to look another way; but the mood disposes one to minute investigation, and i took advantage of it to examine the intricate and multitudinous adornment that was lavished on the exterior wall of this great church. everywhere, there were empty niches where statues had been thrown down, and here and there a statue still lingered in its niche; and over the chief entrance, and extending across the whole breadth of the building, was a row of angels, sainted personages, martyrs, and kings, sculptured in reddish stone. being much corroded by the moist english atmosphere, during four or five hundred winters that they had stood there, these benign and majestic figures perversely put me in mind of the appearance of a sugar image, after a child has been holding it in his mouth. the venerable infant time has evidently found them sweet morsels. inside of the minster there is a long and lofty nave, transepts of the same height, and side-aisles and chapels, dim nooks of holiness, where in catholic times the lamps were continually burning before the richly decorated shrines of saints. in the audacity of my ignorance, as i humbly acknowledge it to have been, i criticised this great interior as too much broken into compartments, and shorn of half its rightful impressiveness by the interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. it did not spread itself in breadth, but ascended to the roof in lofty narrowness. one large body of worshippers might have knelt down in the nave, others in each of the transepts, and smaller ones in the side-aisles, besides an indefinite number of esoteric enthusiasts in the mysterious sanctities beyond the screen. thus it seemed to typify the exclusiveness of sects rather than the worldwide hospitality of genuine religion. i had imagined a cathedral with a scope more vast. these gothic aisles, with their groined arches overhead, supported by clustered pillars in long vistas up and down, were venerable and magnificent, but included too much of the twilight of that monkish gloom out of which they grew. it is no matter whether i ever came to a more satisfactory appreciation of this kind of architecture; the only value of my strictures being to show the folly of looking at noble objects in the wrong mood, and the absurdity of a new visitant pretending to hold any opinion whatever on such subjects, instead of surrendering himself to the old builder's influence with childlike simplicity. a great deal of white marble decorates the old stonework of the aisles, in the shape of altars, obelisks, sarcophagi, and busts. most of these memorials are commemorative of people locally distinguished, especially the deans and canons of the cathedral, with their relatives and families; and i found but two monuments of personages whom i had ever heard of,-- one being gilbert wahnesley and the other lady mary wortley montagu, a literary acquaintance of my boyhood. it was really pleasant to meet her there; for after a friend has lain in the grave far into the second century, she would be unreasonable to require any melancholy emotions in a chance interview at her tombstone. it adds a rich charm to sacred edifices, this time-honored custom of burial in churches, after a few years, at least, when the mortal remains have turned to dust beneath the pavement, and the quaint devices and inscriptions still speak to you above. the statues, that stood or reclined in several recesses of the cathedral, had a kind of life, and i regarded them with an odd sort of deference, as if they were privileged denizens of the precinct. it was singular, too, how the memorial of the latest buried person, the man whose features went familiar in the streets of lichfield only yesterday, seemed precisely as much at home here as his mediaeval predecessors. henceforward he belonged in the cathedral like one of its original pillars. methought this impression in my fancy might be the shadow of a spiritual fact. the dying melt into the great multitude of the departed as quietly as a drop of water into the ocean, and, it may be are conscious of no unfamiliarity with their new circumstances, but immediately become aware of an insufferable strangeness in the world which they have quitted. death has not taken them away, but brought them home. the vicissitudes and mischances of sublunary affairs, however, have not ceased to attend upon these marble inhabitants; for i saw the upper fragment of a sculptured lady, in a very old-fashioned garb, the lower half of whom had doubtless been demolished by cromwell's soldiers when they took the minster by storm. and there lies the remnant of this devout lady on her slab, ever since the outrage, as for centuries before, with a countenance of divine serenity and her hands clasped in prayer, symbolizing a depth of religious faith which no earthly turmoil or calamity could disturb. another piece of sculpture (apparently a favorite subject in the middle ages, for i have seen several like it in other cathedrals) was a reclining skeleton, as faithfully representing an open-work of bones as could well be expected in a solid block of marble, and at a period, moreover, when the mysteries of the human frame were rather to be guessed at than revealed. whatever the anatomical defects of his production, the old sculptor had succeeded in making it ghastly beyond measure. how much mischief has been wrought upon us by this invariable gloom of the gothic imagination; flinging itself like a death-scented pall over our conceptions of the future state, smothering our hopes, hiding our sky, and inducing dismal efforts to raise the harvest of immortality out of what is most opposite to it,--the grave! the cathedral service is performed twice every day at ten o'clock and at four. when i first entered, the choristers (young and old, but mostly, i think, boys, with voices inexpressibly sweet and clear, and as fresh as bird-notes) were just winding up their harmonious labors, and soon came thronging through a side-door from the chancel into the nave. they were all dressed in long white robes, and looked like a peculiar order of beings, created on purpose to hover between the roof and pavement of that dim, consecrated edifice, and illuminate it with divine melodies, reposing themselves, meanwhile, on the heavy grandeur of the organ-tones like cherubs on a golden cloud. all at once, however, one of the cherubic multitude pulled off his white gown, thus transforming himself before my very eyes into a commonplace youth of the day, in modern frock-coat and trousers of a decidedly provincial cut. this absurd little incident, i verily believe, had a sinister effect in putting me at odds with the proper influences of the cathedral, nor could i quite recover a suitable frame of mind during my stay there. but, emerging into the open air, i began to be sensible that i had left a magnificent interior behind me, and i have never quite lost the perception and enjoyment of it in these intervening years. a large space in the immediate neighborhood of the cathedral is called the close, and comprises beautifully kept lawns and a shadowy walk bordered by the dwellings of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the diocese. all this row of episcopal, canonical, and clerical residences has an air of the deepest quiet, repose, and well-protected though not inaccessible seclusion. they seemed capable of including everything that a saint could desire, and a great many more things than most of us sinners generally succeed in acquiring. their most marked feature is a dignified comfort, looking as if no disturbance or vulgar intrusiveness could ever cross their thresholds, encroach upon their ornamented lawns, or straggle into the beautiful gardens that surround them with flower-beds and rich clumps of shrubbery. the episcopal palace is a stately mansion of stone, built somewhat in the italian style, and bearing on its front the figures , as the date of its erection. a large edifice of brick, which, if i remember, stood next to the palace, i took to be the residence of the second dignitary of the cathedral; and, in that case, it must have been the youthful home of addison, whose father was dean of lichfield. i tried to fancy his figure on the delightful walk that extends in front of those priestly abodes, from which and the interior lawns it is separated by an open-work iron fence, lined with rich old shrubbery, and overarched by a minster-aisle of venerable trees. this path is haunted by the shades of famous personages who have formerly trodden it. johnson must have been familiar with it, both as a boy, and in his subsequent visits to lichfield, an illustrious old man. miss seward, connected with so many literary reminiscences, lived in one of the adjacent houses. tradition says that it was a favorite spot of major andre, who used to pace to and fro under these trees waiting, perhaps, to catch a last angel-glimpse of honoria sueyd, before he crossed the ocean to encounter his dismal doom from an american court-martial. david garrick, no doubt, scampered along the path in his boyish days, and, if he was an early student of the drama, must often have thought of those two airy characters of the "beaux' stratagem," archer and aimwell, who, on this very ground, after attending service at the cathedral, contrive to make acquaintance with the ladies of the comedy. these creatures of mere fiction have as positive a substance now as the sturdy old figure of johnson himself. they live, while realities have died. the shadowy walk still glistens with their gold-embroidered memories. seeking for johnson's birthplace, i found it in st. mary's square, which is not so much a square as the mere widening of a street. the house is tall and thin, of three stories, with a square front and a roof rising steep and high. on a side-view, the building looks as if it had been cut in two in the midst, there being no slope of the roof on that side. a ladder slanted against the wall, and a painter was giving a livelier line to the plaster. in a corner-room of the basement, where old michael johnson may be supposed to have sold books, is now what we should call a dry-goods store, or, according to the english phrase, a mercer's and haberdasher's shop. the house has a private entrance on a cross-street, the door being accessible by several much-worn stone steps, which are bordered by an iron balustrade. i set my foot on the steps and laid my hand on the balustrade, where johnson's hand and foot must many a time have been, and ascending to the door, i knocked once, and again, and again, and got no admittance. going round to the shop-entrance, i tried to open it, but found it as fast bolted as the gate of paradise. it is mortifying to be so balked in one's little enthusiasms; but looking round in quest of somebody to make inquiries of, i was a good deal consoled by the sight of dr. johnson himself, who happened, just at that moment, to be sitting at his case nearly in the middle of st. mary's square, with his face turned towards his father's house. of course, it being almost fourscore years since the doctor laid aside his weary bulk of flesh, together with the ponderous melancholy that had so long weighed him down, the intelligent reader will at once comprehend that he was marble in his substance, and seated in a marble chair, on an elevated stone pedestal. in short, it was a statue, sculptured by lucas, and placed here in , at the expense of dr. law, the reverend chancellor of the diocese. the figure is colossal (though perhaps not much more so than the mountainous doctor himself) and looks down upon the spectator from its pedestal of ten or twelve feet high, with a broad and heavy benignity of aspect, very like in feature to sir joshua reynolds's portrait of johnson, but calmer and sweeter in expression. several big books are piled up beneath his chair, and, if i mistake not, he holds a volume in his hand, thus blinking forth at the world out of his learned abstraction, owllike, yet benevolent at heart. the statue is immensely massive, a vast ponderosity of stone, not finely spiritualized, nor, indeed, fully humanized, but rather resembling a great stone-bowlder than a man. you must look with the eyes of faith and sympathy, or, possibly, you might lose the human being altogether, and find only a big stone within your mental grasp. on the pedestal are three bas-reliefs. in the first, johnson is represented as hardly more than a baby, bestriding an old man's shoulders, resting his chin on the bald head which he embraces with his little arms, and listening earnestly to the high-church eloquence of dr. sacheverell. in the second tablet, he is seen riding to school on the shoulders of two of his comrades, while another boy supports him in the rear. the third bas-relief possesses, to my mind, a great deal of pathos, to which my appreciative faculty is probably the more alive, because i have always been profoundly impressed by the incident here commemorated, and long ago tried to tell it for the behoof of childish readers. it shows johnson in the market-place of uttoxeter, doing penance for an act of disobedience to his father, committed fifty years before. he stands bareheaded, a venerable figure, and a countenance extremely sad and woebegone, with the wind and rain driving hard against him, and thus helping to suggest to the spectator the gloom of his inward state. some market-people and children gaze awe-stricken into his face, and an aged man and woman, with clasped and uplifted hands, seem to be praying for him. these latter personages (whose introduction by the artist is none the less effective, because, in queer proximity, there are some commodities of market-day in the shape of living ducks and dead poultry) i interpreted to represent the spirits of johnson's father and mother, lending what aid they could to lighten his half-century's burden of remorse. i had never heard of the above-described piece of sculpture before; it appears to have no reputation as a work of art, nor am i at all positive that it deserves any. for me, however, it did as much as sculpture could, under the circumstances, even if the artist of the libyan sibyl had wrought it, by reviving my interest in the sturdy old englishman, and particularly by freshening my perception of a wonderful beauty and pathetic tenderness in the incident of the penance. so, the next day, i left lichfield for uttoxeter, on one of the few purely sentimental pilgrimages that i ever undertook, to see the very spot where johnson had stood. boswell, i think, speaks of the town (its name is pronounced yuteoxeter) as being about nine miles off from lichfield, but the county-map would indicate a greater distance; and by rail, passing from one line to another, it is as much as eighteen miles. i have always had an idea of old michael johnson sending his literary merchandise by carrier's wagon, journeying to uttoxeter afoot on market-day morning, selling books through the busy hours, and returning to lichfield at night. this could not possibly have been the case. arriving at the uttoxeter station, the first objects that i saw, with a green field or two between them and me, were the tower and gray steeple of a church, rising among red-tiled roofs and a few scattered trees. a very short walk takes you from the station up into the town. it had been my previous impression that the market-place of uttoxeter lay immediately roundabout the church; and, if i remember the narrative aright, johnson, or boswell in his behalf, describes his father's book-stall as standing in the market-place, close beside the sacred edifice. it is impossible for me to say what changes may have occurred in the topography of the town, during almost a century and a half since michael johnson retired from business, and ninety years, at least, since his son's penance was performed. but the church has now merely a street of ordinary width passing around it, while the market-place, though near at hand, neither forms a part of it nor is really contiguous, nor would its throng and bustle be apt to overflow their boundaries and surge against the churchyard and the old gray tower. nevertheless, a walk of a minute or two brings a person from the centre of the market-place to the church-door; and michael johnson might very conveniently have located his stall and laid out his literary ware in the corner at the tower's base; better there, indeed, than in the busy centre of an agricultural market. but the picturesque arrangement and full impressiveness of the story absolutely require that johnson shall not have done his penance in a corner, ever so little retired, but shall have been the very nucleus of the crowd,--the midmost man of the market-place,--a central image of memory and remorse, contrasting with and overpowering the petty materialism around him. he himself, having the force to throw vitality and truth into what persons differently constituted might reckon a mere external ceremony, and an absurd one, could not have failed to see this necessity. i am resolved, therefore, that the true site of dr. johnson's penance was in the middle of the market-place. that important portion of the town is a rather spacious and irregularly shaped vacuity, surrounded by houses and shops, some of them old, with red-tiled roofs, others wearing a pretence of newness, but probably as old in their inner substance as the rest. the people of uttoxeter seemed very idle in the warm summer-day, and were scattered in little groups along the sidewalks, leisurely chatting with one another, and often turning about to take a deliberate stare at my humble self; insomuch that i felt as if my genuine sympathy for the illustrious penitent, and my many reflections about him, must have imbued me with some of his own singularity of mien. if their great-grandfathers were such redoubtable starers in the doctor's day, his penance was no light one. this curiosity indicates a paucity of visitors to the little town, except for market purposes, and i question if uttoxeter ever saw an american before. the only other thing that greatly impressed me was the abundance of public-houses, one at every step or two red lions, white harts, bulls' heads, mitres, cross keys, and i know not what besides. these are probably for the accommodation of the farmers and peasantry of the neighborhood on market-day, and content themselves with a very meagre business on other days of the week. at any rate, i was the only guest in uttoxeter at the period of my visit, and had but an infinitesimal portion of patronage to distribute among such a multitude of inns. the reader, however, will possibly be scandalized to learn what was the first, and, indeed, the only important affair that i attended to, after coming so far to indulge a solemn and high emotion, and standing now on the very spot where my pious errand should have been consummated. i stepped into one of the rustic hostelries and got my dinner,--bacon and greens, some mutton-chops, juicier and more delectable than all america could serve up at the president's table, and a gooseberry pudding; a sufficient meal for six yeomen, and good enough for a prince, besides a pitcher of foaming ale, the whole at the pitiful small charge of eighteen-pence! dr. johnson would have forgiven me, for nobody had a heartier faith in beef and mutton than himself. and as regards my lack of sentiment in eating my dinner,--it was the wisest thing i had done that day. a sensible man had better not let himself be betrayed into these attempts to realize the things which he has dreamed about, and which, when they cease to be purely ideal in his mind, will have lost the truest of their truth, the loftiest and profoundest part of their power over his sympathies. facts, as we really find them, whatever poetry they may involve, are covered with a stony excrescence of prose, resembling the crust on a beautiful sea-shell, and they never show their most delicate and divinest colors until we shall have dissolved away their grosser actualities by steeping them long in a powerful menstruum of thought. and seeking to actualize them again, we do but renew the crust. if this were otherwise,--if the moral sublimity of a great fact depended in any degree on its garb of external circumstances, things which change and decay,--it could not itself be immortal and ubiquitous, and only a brief point of time and a little neighborhood would be spiritually nourished by its grandeur and beauty. such were a few of the reflections which i mingled with my ale, as i remember to have seen an old quaffer of that excellent liquor stir up his cup with a sprig of some bitter and fragrant herb. meanwhile i found myself still haunted by a desire to get a definite result out of my visit to uttoxeter. the hospitable inn was called the nag's head, and standing beside the market-place, was as likely as any other to have entertained old michael johnson in the days when he used to come hither to sell books. he, perhaps, had dined on bacon and greens, and drunk his ale, and smoked his pipe, in the very room where i now sat, which was a low, ancient room, certainly much older than queen anne's time, with a red-brick floor, and a white-washed ceiling, traversed by bare, rough beams, the whole in the rudest fashion, but extremely neat. neither did it lack ornament, the walls being hung with colored engravings of prize oxen and other pretty prints, and the mantel-piece adorned with earthen-ware figures of shepherdesses in the arcadian taste of long ago. michael johnson's eyes might have rested on that selfsame earthen image, to examine which more closely i had just crossed the brick pavement of the room. and, sitting down again, still as i sipped my ale, i glanced through the open window into the sunny market-place, and wished that i could honestly fix on one spot rather than another, as likely to have been the holy site where johnson stood to do his penance. how strange and stupid it is that tradition should not have marked and kept in mind the very place! how shameful (nothing less than that) that there should be no local memorial of this incident, as beautiful and touching a passage as can be cited out of any human life! no inscription of it, almost as sacred as a verse of scripture on the wall of the church! no statue of the venerable and illustrious penitent in the market-place to throw a wholesome awe over its earthliness, its frauds and petty wrongs of which the benumbed fingers of conscience can make no record, its selfish competition of each man with his brother or his neighbor, its traffic of soul-substance for a little worldly gain! such a statue, if the piety of the people did not raise it, might almost have been expected to grow up out of the pavement of its own accord on the spot that had been watered by the rain that dripped from johnson's garments, mingled with his remorseful tears. long after my visit to uttoxeter, i was told that there were individuals in the town who could have shown me the exact, indubitable spot where johnson performed his penance. i was assured, moreover, that sufficient interest was felt in the subject to have induced certain local discussions as to the expediency of erecting a memorial. with all deference to my polite informant, i surmise that there is a mistake, and decline, without further and precise evidence, giving credit to either of the above statements. the inhabitants know nothing, as a matter of general interest, about the penance, and care nothing for the scene of it. if the clergyman of the parish, for example, had ever heard of it, would he not have used the theme, time and again, wherewith to work tenderly and profoundly on the souls committed to his charge? if parents were familiar with it, would they not teach it to their young ones at the fireside, both to insure reverence to their own gray hairs, and to protect the children from such unavailing regrets as johnson bore upon his heart for fifty years? if the site were ascertained, would not the pavement thereabouts be worn with reverential footsteps? would not every town-born child be able to direct the pilgrim thither? while waiting at the station, before my departure, i asked a boy who stood near me,--an intelligent and gentlemanly lad, twelve or thirteen years old, whom i should take to be a clergyman's son,--i asked him if he had ever heard the story of dr. johnson, how he stood an hour doing penance near that church, the spire of which rose before us. the boy stared and answered,-- "no!' "were you born in uttoxeter?" "yes." i inquired if no circumstance such as i had mentioned was known or talked about among the inhabitants. "no," said the boy; "not that i ever heard of." just think of the absurd little town, knowing nothing of the only memorable incident which ever happened within its boundaries since the old britons built it, this sad and lovely story, which consecrates the spot (for i found it holy to my contemplation, again, as soon as it lay behind me) in the heart of a stranger from three thousand miles over the sea! it but confirms what i have been saying, that sublime and beautiful facts are best understood when etherealized by distance. pilgrimage to old boston. we set out at a little past eleven, and made our first stage to manchester. we were by this time sufficiently anglicized to reckon the morning a bright and sunny one; although the may sunshine was mingled with water, as it were, and distempered with a very bitter east-wind. lancashire is a dreary county (all, at least, except its hilly portions), and i have never passed through it without wishing myself anywhere but in that particular spot where i then happened to be. a few places along our route were historically interesting; as, for example, bolton, which was the scene of many remarkable events in the parliamentary war, and in the market-square of which one of the earls of derby was beheaded. we saw, along the wayside, the never-failing green fields, hedges, and other monotonous features of an ordinary english landscape. there were little factory villages, too, or larger towns, with their tall chimneys, and their pennons of black smoke, their ugliness of brick-work, and their heaps of refuse matter from the furnace, which seems to be the only kind of stuff which nature cannot take back to herself and resolve into the elements, when man has thrown it aside. these hillocks of waste and effete mineral always disfigure the neighborhood of iron-mongering towns, and, even after a considerable antiquity, are hardly made decent with a little grass. at a quarter to two we left manchester by the sheffield and lincoln railway. the scenery grew rather better than that through which we had hitherto passed, though still by no means very striking; for (except in the show-districts, such as the lake country, or derbyshire) english scenery is not particularly well worth looking at, considered as a spectacle or a picture. it has a real, homely charm of its own, no doubt; and the rich verdure, and the thorough finish added by human art, are perhaps as attractive to an american eye as any stronger feature could be. our journey, however, between manchester and sheffield was not through a rich tract of country, but along a valley walled in by bleak, ridgy hills extending straight as a rampart, and across black moorlands with here and there a plantation of trees. sometimes there were long and gradual ascents, bleak, windy, and desolate, conveying the very impression which the reader gets from many passages of miss bronte's novels, and still more from those of her two sisters. old stone or brick farm-houses, and, once in a while, an old church-tower, were visible; but these are almost too common objects to be noticed in an english landscape. on a railway, i suspect, what little we do see of the country is seen quite amiss, because it was never intended to be looked at from any point of view in that straight line; so that it is like looking at the wrong side of a piece of tapestry. the old highways and foot-paths were as natural as brooks and rivulets, and adapted themselves by an inevitable impulse to the physiognomy of the country; and, furthermore, every object within view of them had some subtile reference to their curves and undulations; but the line of a railway is perfectly artificial, and puts all precedent things at sixes-and-sevens. at any rate, be the cause what it may, there is seldom anything worth seeing within the scope of a railway traveller's eye; and if there were, it requires an alert marksman to take a flying shot at the picturesque. at one of the stations (it was near a village of ancient aspect, nestling round a church, on a wide yorkshire moor) i saw a tall old lady in black, who seemed to have just alighted from the train. she caught my attention by a singular movement of the head, not once only, but continually repeated, and at regular intervals, as if she were making a stern and solemn protest against some action that developed itself before her eyes, and were foreboding terrible disaster, if it should be persisted in. of course, it was nothing more than a paralytic or nervous affection; yet one might fancy that it had its origin in some unspeakable wrong, perpetrated half a lifetime ago in this old gentlewoman's presence, either against herself or somebody whom she loved still better. her features had a wonderful sternness, which, i presume, was caused by her habitual effort to compose and keep them quiet, and thereby counteract the tendency to paralytic movement. the slow, regular, and inexorable character of the motion--her look of force and self-control, which had the appearance of rendering it voluntary, while yet it was so fateful-- have stamped this poor lady's face and gesture into my memory; so that, some dark day or other, i am afraid she will reproduce herself in a dismal romance. the train stopped a minute or two, to allow the tickets to be taken, just before entering the sheffield station, and thence i had a glimpse of the famous town of razors and penknives, enveloped in a cloud of its own diffusing. my impressions of it are extremely vague and misty,--or, rather, smoky: for sheffield seems to me smokier than manchester. liverpool, or birmingham,--smokier than all england besides, unless newcastle be the exception. it might have been pluto's own metropolis, shrouded in sulphurous vapor; and, indeed, our approach to it had been by the valley of the shadow of death, through a tunnel three miles in length, quite traversing the breadth and depth of a mountainous hill. after passing sheffield, the scenery became softer, gentler, yet more picturesque. at one point we saw what i believe to be the utmost northern verge of sherwood forest,--not consisting, however, of thousand-year oaks, extant from robin hood's days, but of young and thriving plantations, which will require a century or two of slow english growth to give them much breadth of shade. earl fitzwilliam's property lies in this neighborhood, and probably his castle was hidden among some soft depth of foliage not far off. farther onward the country grew quite level around us, whereby i judged that we must now be in lincolnshire; and shortly after six o'clock we caught the first glimpse of the cathedral towers, though they loomed scarcely huge enough for our preconceived idea of them. but, as we drew nearer, the great edifice began to assert itself, making us acknowledge it to be larger than our receptivity could take in. at the railway-station we found no cab (it being an unknown vehicle in lincoln), but only an omnibus belonging to the saracen's head, which the driver recommended as the best hotel in the city, and took us thither accordingly. it received us hospitably, and looked comfortable enough; though, like the hotels of most old english towns, it had a musty fragrance of antiquity, such as i have smelt in a seldom-opened london church where the broad-aisle is paved with tombstones. the house was of an ancient fashion, the entrance into its interior court-yard being through an arch, in the side of which is the door of the hotel. there are long corridors, an intricate arrangement of passages, and an up-and-down meandering of staircases, amid which it would be no marvel to encounter some forgotten guest who had gone astray a hundred years ago, and was still seeking for his bedroom while the rest of his generation were in their graves. there is no exaggerating the confusion of mind that seizes upon a stranger in the bewildering geography of a great old-fashioned english inn. this hotel stands in the principal street of lincoln, and within a very short distance of one of the ancient city-gates, which is arched across the public way, with a smaller arch for foot-passengers on either side; the whole, a gray, time-gnawn, ponderous, shadowy structure, through the dark vista of which you look into the middle ages. the street is narrow, and retains many antique peculiarities; though, unquestionably, english domestic architecture has lost its most impressive features, in the course of the last century. in this respect, there are finer old towns than lincoln: chester, for instance, and shrewsbury,--which last is unusually rich in those quaint and stately edifices where the gentry of the shire used to make their winter abodes, in a provincial metropolis. almost everywhere, nowadays, there is a monotony of modern brick or stuccoed fronts, hiding houses that are older than ever, but obliterating the picturesque antiquity of the street. between seven and eight o'clock (it being still broad daylight in these long english days) we set out to pay a preliminary visit to the exterior of the cathedral. passing through the stone bow, as the city-gate close by is called, we ascended a street which grew steeper and narrower as we advanced, till at last it got to be the steepest street i ever climbed,-- so steep that any carriage, if left to itself, would rattle downward much faster than it could possibly be drawn up. being almost the only hill in lincolnshire, the inhabitants seem disposed to make the most of it. the houses on each side had no very remarkable aspect, except one with a stone portal and carved ornaments, which is now a dwelling-place for poverty-stricken people, but may have been an aristocratic abode in the days of the norman kings, to whom its style of architecture dates back. this is called the jewess's house, having been inhabited by a woman of that faith who was hanged six hundred years ago. and still the street grew steeper and steeper. certainly, the bishop and clergy of lincoln ought not to be fat men, but of very spiritual, saint-like, almost angelic habit, if it be a frequent part of their ecclesiastical duty to climb this hill; for it is a real penance, and was probably performed as such, and groaned over accordingly, in monkish times. formerly, on the day of his installation, the bishop used to ascend the hill barefoot, and was doubtless cheered and invigorated by looking upward to the grandeur that was to console him for the humility of his approach. we, likewise, were beckoned onward by glimpses of the cathedral towers, and, finally, attaining an open square on the summit, we saw an old gothic gateway to the left hand, and another to the right. the latter had apparently been a part of the exterior defences of the cathedral, at a time when the edifice was fortified. the west front rose behind. we passed through one of the side-arches of the gothic portal, and found ourselves in the cathedral close, a wide, level space, where the great old minster has fair room to sit, looking down on the ancient structures that surround it, all of which, in former days, were the habitations of its dignitaries and officers. some of them are still occupied as such, though others are in too neglected and dilapidated a state to seem worthy of so splendid an establishment. unless it be salisbury close, however (which is incomparably rich as regards the old residences that belong to it), i remember no more comfortably picturesque precincts round any other cathedral. but, in truth, almost every cathedral close, in turn, has seemed to me the loveliest, cosiest, safest, least wind-shaken, most decorous, and most enjoyable shelter that ever the thrift and selfishness of mortal man contrived for himself. how delightful, to combine all this with the service of the temple! lincoln cathedral is built of a yellowish brown-stone, which appears either to have been largely restored, or else does not assume the hoary, crumbly surface that gives such a venerable aspect to most of the ancient churches and castles in england. in many parts, the recent restorations are quite evident; but other, and much the larger portions, can scarcely have been touched for centuries: for there are still the gargoyles, perfect, or with broken noses, as the case may be, but showing that variety and fertility of grotesque extravagance which no modern imitation can effect. there are innumerable niches, too, up the whole height of the towers, above and around the entrance, and all over the walls: most of them empty, but a few containing the lamentable remnants of headless saints and angels. it is singular what a native animosity lives in the human heart against carved images, insomuch that, whether they represent christian saint or pagan deity, all unsophisticated men seize the first safe opportunity to knock off their heads! in spite of all dilapidations, however, the effect of the west front of the cathedral is still exceedingly rich, being covered from massive base to airy summit with the minutest details of sculpture and carving: at least, it was so once; and even now the spiritual impression of its beauty remains so strong, that we have to look twice to see that much of it has been obliterated. i have seen a cherry-stone carved all over by a monk, so minutely that it must have cost him half a lifetime of labor; and this cathedral-front seems to have been elaborated in a monkish spirit, like that cherry-stone. not that the result is in the least petty, but miraculously grand, and all the more so for the faithful beauty of the smallest details. an elderly maid, seeing us looking up at the west front, came to the door of an adjacent house, and called to inquire if we wished to go into the cathedral; but as there would have been a dusky twilight beneath its roof, like the antiquity that has sheltered itself within, we declined for the present. so we merely walked round the exterior, and thought it more beautiful than that of york; though, on recollection, i hardly deem it so majestic and mighty as that. it is vain to attempt a description, or seek even to record the feeling which the edifice inspires. it does not impress the beholder as an inanimate object, but as something that has a vast, quiet, long-enduring life of its own,--a creation which man did not build, though in some way or other it is connected with him, and kindred to human nature. in short, i fall straightway to talking nonsense, when i try to express my inner sense of this and other cathedrals. while we stood in the close, at the eastern end of the minster, the clock chimed the quarters; and then great tom, who hangs in the rood tower, told us it was eight o'clock, in far the sweetest and mightiest accents that i ever heard from any bell,--slow, and solemn, and allowing the profound reverberations of each stroke to die away before the next one fell. it was still broad daylight in that upper region of the town, and would be so for some time longer; but the evening atmosphere was getting sharp and cool. we therefore descended the steep street,--our younger companion running before us, and gathering such headway that i fully expected him to break his head against some projecting wall. in the morning we took a fly (an english term for an exceedingly sluggish vehicle), and drove up to the minster by a road rather less steep and abrupt than the one we had previously climbed. we alighted before the west front, and sent our charioteer in quest of the verger; but, as he was not immediately to be found, a young girl let us into the nave. we found it very grand, it is needless to say, but not so grand, methought, as the vast nave of york cathedral, especially beneath the great central tower of the latter. unless a writer intends a professedly architectural description, there is but one set of phrases in which to talk of all the cathedrals in england and elsewhere. they are alike in their great features: an acre or two of stone flags for a pavement; rows of vast columns supporting a vaulted roof at a dusky height; great windows, sometimes richly bedimmed with ancient or modern stained glass; and an elaborately carved screen between the nave and chancel, breaking the vista that might else be of such glorious length, and which is further choked up by a massive organ.--in spite of which obstructions, you catch the broad, variegated glimmer of the painted east window, where a hundred saints wear their robes of transfiguration. behind the screen are the carved oaken stalls of the chapter and prebendaries, the bishop's throne, the pulpit, the altar, and whatever else may furnish out the holy of holies. nor must we forget the range of chapels (once dedicated to catholic saints, but which have now lost their individual consecration), nor the old monuments of kings, warriors, and prelates, in the side-aisles of the chancel. in close contiguity to the main body of the cathedral is the chapter-house, which, here at lincoln, as at salisbury, is supported by one central pillar rising from the floor, and putting forth branches like a tree, to hold up the roof. adjacent to the chapter-house are the cloisters, extending round a quadrangle, and paved with lettered tombstones, the more antique of which have had their inscriptions half obliterated by the feet of monks taking their noontide exercise in these sheltered walks, five hundred years ago. some of these old burial-stones, although with ancient crosses engraved upon them, have been made to serve as memorials to dead people of very recent date. in the chancel, among the tombs of forgotten bishops and knights, we saw an immense slab of stone purporting to be the monument of catherine swynford, wife of john of gaunt; also, here was the shrine of the little saint hugh, that christian child who was fabled to have been crucified by the jews of lincoln. the cathedral is not particularly rich in monuments; for it suffered grievous outrage and dilapidation, both at the reformation and in cromwell's time. this latter iconoclast is in especially bad odor with the sextons and vergers of most of the old churches which i have visited. his soldiers stabled their steeds in the nave of lincoln cathedral, and hacked and hewed the monkish sculptures, and the ancestral memorials of great families, quite at their wicked and plebeian pleasure. nevertheless, there are some most exquisite and marvellous specimens of flowers, foliage, and grapevines, and miracles of stone-work twined about arches, as if the material had been as soft as wax in the cunning sculptor's hands,--the leaves being represented with all their veins, so that you would almost think it petrified nature, for which he sought to steal the praise of art. here, too, were those grotesque faces which always grin at you from the projections of monkish architecture, as if the builders had gone mad with their own deep solemnity, or dreaded such a catastrophe, unless permitted to throw in something ineffably absurd. originally, it is supposed, all the pillars of this great edifice, and all these magic sculptures, were polished to the utmost degree of lustre; nor is it unreasonable to think that the artists would have taken these further pains, when they had already bestowed so much labor in working out their conceptions to the extremest point. but, at present, the whole interior of the cathedral is smeared over with a yellowish wash, the very meanest hue imaginable, and for which somebody's soul has a bitter reckoning to undergo. in the centre of the grassy quadrangle about which the cloisters perambulate is a small, mean brick building, with a locked door. our guide,--i forgot to say that we had been captured by a verger, in black, and with a white tie, but of a lusty and jolly aspect,--our guide unlocked this door, and disclosed a flight of steps. at the bottom appeared what i should have taken to be a large square of dim, worn, and faded oil-carpeting, which might originally have been painted of a rather gaudy pattern. this was a roman tessellated pavement, made of small colored bricks, or pieces of burnt clay. it was accidentally discovered here, and has not been meddled with, further than by removing the superincumbent earth and rubbish. nothing else occurs to me, just now, to be recorded about the interior of the cathedral, except that we saw a place where the stone pavement had been worn away by the feet of ancient pilgrims scraping upon it, as they knelt down before a shrine of the virgin. leaving the minster, we now went along a street of more venerable appearance than we had heretofore seen, bordered with houses, the high peaked roofs of which were covered with red earthen tiles. it led us to a roman arch, which was once the gateway of a fortification, and has been striding across the english street ever since the latter was a faint village-path, and for centuries before. the arch is about four hundred yards from the cathedral; and it is to be noticed that there are roman remains in all this neighborhood, some above ground, and doubtless innumerable more beneath it; for, as in ancient rome itself, an inundation of accumulated soil seems to have swept over what was the surface of that earlier day. the gateway which i am speaking about is probably buried to a third of its height, and perhaps has as perfect a roman pavement (if sought for at the original depth) as that which runs beneath the arch of titus. it is a rude and massive structure, and seems as stalwart now as it could have been two thousand years ago; and though time has gnawed it externally, he has made what amends he could by crowning its rough and broken summit with grass and weeds, and planting tufts of yellow flowers on the projections up and down the sides. there are the ruins of a norman castle, built by the conqueror, in pretty close proximity to the cathedral; but the old gateway is obstructed by a modern door of wood, and we were denied admittance because some part of the precincts are used as a prison. we now rambled about on the broad back of the hill, which, besides the minster and ruined castle, is the site of some stately and queer old houses, and of many mean little hovels. i suspect that all or most of the life of the present day has subsided into the lower town, and that only priests, poor people, and prisoners dwell in these upper regions. in the wide, dry moat, at the base of the castle-wall, are clustered whole colonies of small houses, some of brick, but the larger portion built of old stones which once made part of the norman keep, or of roman structures that existed before the conqueror's castle was ever dreamed about. they are like toadstools that spring up from the mould of a decaying tree. ugly as they are, they add wonderfully to the picturesqueness of the scene, being quite as valuable, in that respect, as the great, broad, ponderous ruin of the castle-keep, which rose high above our heads, heaving its huge gray mass out of a bank of green foliage and ornamental shrubbery, such as lilacs and other flowering plants, in which its foundations were completely hidden. after walking quite round the castle, i made an excursion through the roman gateway, along a pleasant and level road bordered with dwellings of various character. one or two were houses of gentility, with delightful and shadowy lawns before them; many had those high, red-tiled roofs, ascending into acutely pointed gables, which seem to belong to the same epoch as some of the edifices in our own earlier towns; and there were pleasant-looking cottages, very sylvan and rural, with hedges so dense and high, fencing them in, as almost to hide them up to the eaves of their thatched roofs. in front of one of these i saw various images, crosses, and relics of antiquity, among which were fragments of old catholic tombstones, disposed by way of ornament. we now went home to the saracen's head; and as the weather was very unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, i would gladly have felt myself released from further thraldom to the cathedral. but it had taken possession of me, and would not let me be at rest; so at length i found myself compelled to climb the hill again, between daylight and dusk. a mist was now hovering about the upper height of the great central tower, so as to dim and half obliterate its battlements and pinnacles, even while i stood in the close beneath it. it was the most impressive view that i had had. the whole lower part of the structure was seen with perfect distinctness; but at the very summit the mist was so dense as to form an actual cloud, as well defined as ever i saw resting on a mountain-top. really and literally, here was a "cloud-capt tower." the entire cathedral, too, transfigured itself into a richer beauty and more imposing majesty than ever. the longer i looked, the better i loved it. its exterior is certainly far more beautiful than that of york minster; and its finer effect is due, i think, to the many peaks in which the structure ascends, and to the pinnacles which, as it were, repeat and re-echo them into the sky. york cathedral is comparatively square and angular in its general effect; but in this at lincoln there is a continual mystery of variety, so that at every glance you are aware of a change, and a disclosure of something new, yet working an harmonious development of what you have heretofore seen. the west front is unspeakably grand, and may be read over and over again forever, and still show undetected meanings, like a great, broad page of marvellous writing in black-letter,--so many sculptured ornaments there are, blossoming out before your eyes, and gray statues that have grown there since you looked last, and empty niches, and a hundred airy canopies beneath which carved images used to be, and where they will show themselves again, if you gaze long enough.--but i will not say another word about the cathedral. we spent the rest of the day within the sombre precincts of the saracen's head, reading yesterday's "times," "the guide-book of lincoln," and "the directory of the eastern counties." dismal as the weather was, the street beneath our window was enlivened with a great bustle and turmoil of people all the evening, because it was saturday night, and they had accomplished their week's toil, received their wages, and were making their small purchases against sunday, and enjoying themselves as well as they knew how. a band of music passed to and fro several times, with the rain-drops falling into the mouth of the brazen trumpet and pattering on the bass-drum; a spirit-shop, opposite the hotel, had a vast run of custom; and a coffee-dealer, in the open air, found occasional vent for his commodity, in spite of the cold water that dripped into the cups. the whole breadth of the street, between the stone bow and the bridge across the witham, was thronged to overflowing, and humming with human life. observing in the guide-book that a steamer runs on the river witham between lincoln and boston, i inquired of the waiter, and learned that she was to start on monday at ten o'clock. thinking it might be an interesting trip, and a pleasant variation of our customary mode of travel, we determined to make the voyage. the witham flows through lincoln, crossing the main street under an arched bridge of gothic construction, a little below the saracen's head. it has more the appearance of a canal than of a river, in its passage through the town,-- being bordered with hewn-stone mason-work on each side, and provided with one or two locks. the steamer proved to be small, dirty, and altogether inconvenient. the early morning had been bright; but the sky now lowered upon us with a sulky english temper, and we had not long put off before we felt an ugly wind from the german ocean blowing right in our teeth. there were a number of passengers on board, country-people, such as travel by third-class on the railway; for, i suppose, nobody but ourselves ever dreamt of voyaging by the steamer for the sake of what he might happen upon in the way of river-scenery. we bothered a good while about getting through a preliminary lock; nor, when fairly under way, did we ever accomplish, i think, six miles an hour. constant delays were caused, moreover, by stopping to take up passengers and freight,--not at regular landing-places, but anywhere along the green banks. the scenery was identical with that of the railway, because the latter runs along by the river-side through the whole distance, or nowhere departs from it except to make a short cut across some sinuosity; so that our only advantage lay in the drawling, snail-like slothfulness of our progress, which allowed us time enough and to spare for the objects along the shore. unfortunately, there was nothing, or next to nothing, to be seen,--the country being one unvaried level over the whole thirty miles of our voyage,--not a hill in sight, either near or far, except that solitary one on the summit of which we had left lincoln cathedral. and the cathedral was our landmark for four hours or more, and at last rather faded out than was hidden by any intervening object. it would have been a pleasantly lazy day enough, if the rough and bitter wind had not blown directly in our faces, and chilled us through, in spite of the sunshine that soon succeeded a sprinkle or two of rain. these english east-winds, which prevail from february till june, are greater nuisances than the east-wind of our own atlantic coast, although they do not bring mist and storm, as with us, but some of the sunniest weather that england sees. under their influence, the sky smiles and is villanous. the landscape was tame to the last degree, but had an english character that was abundantly worth our looking at. a green luxuriance of early grass; old, high-roofed farm-houses, surrounded by their stone barns and ricks of hay and grain; ancient villages, with the square, gray tower of a church seen afar over the level country, amid the cluster of red roofs; here and there a shadowy grove of venerable trees, surrounding what was perhaps an elizabethan hall, though it looked more like the abode of some rich yeoman. once, too, we saw the tower of a mediaeval castle, that of tattershall, built, by a cromwell, but whether of the protector's family i cannot tell. but the gentry do not appear to have settled multitudinously in this tract of country; nor is it to be wondered at, since a lover of the picturesque would as soon think of settling in holland. the river retains its canal-like aspect all along; and only in the latter part of its course does it become more than wide enough for the little steamer to turn itself round,--at broadest, not more than twice that width. the only memorable incident of our voyage happened when a mother-duck was leading her little fleet of five ducklings across the river, just as our steamer went swaggering by, stirring the quiet stream into great waves that lashed the banks on either side. i saw the imminence of the catastrophe, and hurried to the stern of the boat to witness its consummation, since i could not possibly avert it. the poor ducklings had uttered their baby-quacks, and striven with all their tiny might to escape; four of them, i believe, were washed aside and thrown off unhurt from the steamer's prow; but the fifth must have gone under the whole length of the keel, and never could have come up alive. at last, in mid-afternoon, we beheld the tall tower of saint botolph's church (three hundred feet high, the same elevation as the tallest tower of lincoln cathedral) looming in the distance. at about half past four we reached boston (which name has been shortened, in the course of ages, by the quick and slovenly english pronunciation, from botolph's town), and were taken by a cab to the peacock, in the market-place. it was the best hotel in town, though a poor one enough; and we were shown into a small, stifled parlor, dingy, musty, and scented with stale tobacco-smoke,--tobacco-smoke two days old, for the waiter assured us that the room had not more recently been fumigated. an exceedingly grim waiter he was, apparently a genuine descendant of the old puritans of this english boston, and quite as sour as those who people the daughter-city in new england. our parlor had the one recommendation of looking into the market-place, and affording a sidelong glimpse of the tall spire and noble old church. in my first ramble about the town, chance led me to the river-side, at that quarter where the port is situated. here were long buildings of an old-fashioned aspect, seemingly warehouses, with windows in the high, steep roofs. the custom-house found ample accommodation within an ordinary dwelling-house. two or three large schooners were moored along the river's brink, which had here a stone margin; another large and handsome schooner was evidently just finished, rigged and equipped for her first voyage; the rudiments of another were on the stocks, in a shipyard bordering on the river. still another, while i was looking on, came up the stream, and lowered her mainsail, from a foreign voyage. an old man on the bank hailed her and inquired about her cargo; but the lincolnshire people have such a queer way of talking english that i could not understand the reply. farther down the river, i saw a brig, approaching rapidly under sail. the whole scene made an odd impression of bustle, and sluggishness, and decay, and a remnant of wholesome life; and i could not but contrast it with the mighty and populous activity of our own boston, which was once the feeble infant of this old english town;--the latter, perhaps, almost stationary ever since that day, as if the birth of such an offspring had taken away its own principle of growth. i thought of long wharf, and faneuil hall, and washington street, and the great elm, and the state house, and exulted lustily,--but yet began to feel at home in this good old town, for its very name's sake, as i never had before felt, in england. the next morning we came out in the early sunshine (the sun must have been shining nearly four hours, however, for it was after eight o'clock), and strolled about the streets, like people who had a right to be there. the market-place of boston is an irregular square, into one end of which the chancel of the church slightly projects. the gates of the churchyard were open and free to all passengers, and the common footway of the townspeople seems to lie to and fro across it. it is paved, according to english custom, with flat tombstones; and there are also raised or altar tombs, some of which have armorial hearings on them. one clergyman has caused himself and his wife to be buried right in the middle of the stone-bordered path that traverses the churchyard; so that not an individual of the thousands who pass along this public way can help trampling over him or her. the scene, nevertheless, was very cheerful in the morning sun: people going about their business in the day's primal freshness, which was just as fresh here as in younger villages; children with milk-pails, loitering over the burial-stones; school-boys playing leap-frog with the altar-tombs; the simple old town preparing itself for the day, which would be like myriads of other days that had passed over it, but yet would be worth living through. and down on the churchyard, where were buried many generations whom it remembered in their time, looked the stately tower of saint botolph; and it was good to see and think of such an age-long giant, intermarrying the present epoch with a distant past, and getting quite imbued with human nature by being so immemorially connected with men's familiar knowledge and homely interests. it is a noble tower; and the jackdaws evidently have pleasant homes in their hereditary nests among its topmost windows, and live delightful lives, flitting and cawing about its pinnacles and flying buttresses. i should almost like to be a jackdaw myself, for the sake of living up there. in front of the church, not more than twenty yards off, and with a low brick wall between, flows the river witham. on the hither bank a fisherman was washing his boat; and another skiff, with her sail lazily half twisted, lay on the opposite strand. the stream at this point is about of such width, that, if the tall tower were to tumble over flat on its face, its top-stone might perhaps reach to the middle of the channel. on the farther shore there is a line of antique-looking houses, with roofs of red tile, and windows opening out of them,--some of these dwellings being so ancient, that the reverend mr. cotton, subsequently our first boston minister, must have seen them with his own bodily eyes, when he used to issue from the front-portal after service. indeed, there must be very many houses here, and even some streets, that bear much the aspect that they did when the puritan divine paced solemnly among them. in our rambles about town, we went into a bookseller's shop to inquire if he had any description of boston for sale. he offered me (or, rather, produced for inspection, not supposing that i would buy it) a quarto history of the town, published by subscription, nearly forty years ago. the bookseller showed himself a well-informed and affable man, and a local antiquary, to whom a party of inquisitive strangers were a godsend. he had met with several americans, who, at various times, had come on pilgrimages to this place, and he had been in correspondence with others. happening to have heard the name of one member of our party, he showed us great courtesy and kindness, and invited us into his inner domicile, where, as he modestly intimated, he kept a few articles which it might interest us to see. so we went with him through the shop, up stairs, into the private part of his establishment; and, really, it was one of the rarest adventures i ever met with, to stumble upon this treasure of a man, with his treasury of antiquities and curiosities, veiled behind the unostentatious front of a bookseller's shop, in a very moderate line of village business. the two up-stair rooms into which he introduced us were so crowded with inestimable articles, that we were almost afraid to stir for fear of breaking some fragile thing that had been accumulating value for unknown centuries. the apartment was hung round with pictures and old engravings, many of which were extremely rare. premising that he was going to show us something very curious, mr. porter went into the next room and returned with a counterpane of fine linen, elaborately embroidered with silk, which so profusely covered the linen that the general effect was as if the main texture were silken. it was stained and seemed very old, and had an ancient fragrance. it was wrought all over with birds and flowers in a most delicate style of needlework, and among other devices, more than once repeated, was the cipher, m. s.,--being the initials of one of the most unhappy names that ever a woman bore. this quilt was embroidered by the hands of mary queen of scots, during her imprisonment at fotheringay castle; and having evidently been a work of years, she had doubtless shed many tears over it, and wrought many doleful thoughts and abortive schemes into its texture, along with the birds and flowers. as a counterpart to this most precious relic, our friend produced some of the handiwork of a former queen of otaheite, presented by her to captain cook; it was a bag, cunningly made of some delicate vegetable stuff, and ornamented with feathers. next, he brought out a green silk waistcoat of very antique fashion, trimmed about the edges and pocket-holes with a rich and delicate embroidery of gold and silver. this (as the possessor of the treasure proved, by tracing its pedigree till it came into his hands) was once the vestment of queen elizabeth's lord burleigh; but that great statesman must have been a person of very moderate girth in the chest and waist; for the garment was hardly more than a comfortable fit for a boy of eleven, the smallest american of our party, who tried on the gorgeous waistcoat. then, mr. porter produced some curiously engraved drinking-glasses, with a view of saint botolph's steeple on one of them, and other boston edifices, public or domestic, on the remaining two, very admirably done. these crystal goblets had been a present, long ago, to an old master of the free school from his pupils; and it is very rarely, i imagine, that a retired schoolmaster can exhibit such trophies of gratitude and affection, won from the victims of his birch rod. our kind friend kept bringing out one unexpected and wholly unexpectable thing after another, as if he were a magician, and had only to fling a private signal into the air, and some attendant imp would hand forth any strange relic we might choose to ask for. he was especially rich in drawings by the old masters, producing two or three, of exquisite delicacy, by raphael, one by salvator, a head by rembrandt, and others, in chalk or pen-and-ink, by giordano, benvenuto cellini, and hands almost as famous; and besides what were shown us, there seemed to be an endless supply of these art-treasures in reserve. on the wall hung a crayon-portrait of sterne, never engraved, representing him as a rather young man, blooming, and not uncomely; it was the worldly face of a man fond of pleasure, but without that ugly, keen, sarcastic, odd expression that we see in his only engraved portrait. the picture is an original, and must needs be very valuable; and we wish it might be prefixed to some new and worthier biography of a writer whose character the world has always treated with singular harshness, considering how much it owes him. there was likewise a crayon-portrait of sterne's wife, looking so haughty and unamiable, that the wonder is, not that he ultimately left her, but how he ever contrived to live a week with such an awful woman. after looking at these, and a great many more things than i can remember, above stairs, we went down to a parlor, where this wonderful bookseller opened an old cabinet, containing numberless drawers, and looking just fit to be the repository of such knick-knacks as were stored up in it. he appeared to possess more treasures than he himself knew off, or knew where to find; but, rummaging here and there, he brought forth things new and old: rose-nobles, victoria crowns, gold angels, double sovereigns of george iv., two-guinea pieces of george ii.; a marriage-medal of the first napoleon, only forty-five of which were ever struck off, and of which even the british museum does not contain a specimen like this, in gold; a brass medal, three or four inches in diameter, of a roman emperor; together with buckles, bracelets, amulets, and i know not what besides. there was a green silk tassel from the fringe of queen mary's bed at holyrood palace. there were illuminated missals, antique latin bibles, and (what may seem of especial interest to the historian) a secret-book of queen elizabeth, in manuscript, written, for aught i know, by her own hand. on examination, however, it proved to contain, not secrets of state, but recipes for dishes, drinks, medicines, washes, and all such matters of housewifery, the toilet, and domestic quackery, among which we were horrified by the title of one of the nostrums, "how to kill a fellow quickly"! we never doubted that bloody queen bess might often have had occasion for such a recipe, but wondered at her frankness, and at her attending to these anomalous necessities in such a methodical way. the truth is, we had read amiss, and the queen had spelt amiss: the word was "fellon,"--a sort of whitlow,--not "fellow." our hospitable friend now made us drink a glass of wine, as old and genuine as the curiosities of his cabinet; and while sipping it, we ungratefully tried to excite his envy, by telling of various things, interesting to an antiquary and virtuoso, which we had seen in the course of our travels about england. we spoke, for instance, of a missal bound in solid gold and set around with jewels, but of such intrinsic value as no setting could enhance, for it was exquisitely illuminated, throughout, by the hand of raphael himself. we mentioned a little silver case which once contained a portion of the heart of louis xiv. nicely done up in spices, but, to the owner's horror and astonishment, dean buckland popped the kingly morsel into his mouth, and swallowed it. we told about the black-letter prayer-book of king charles the martyr, used by him upon the scaffold, taking which into our hands, it opened of itself at the communion service; and there, on the left-hand page, appeared a spot about as large as a sixpence, of a yellowish or brownish hue: a drop of the king's blood had fallen there. mr. porter now accompanied us to the church, but first leading us to a vacant spot of ground where old john cotton's vicarage had stood till a very short time since. according to our friend's description, it was a humble habitation, of the cottage order, built of brick, with a thatched roof. the site is now rudely fenced in, and cultivated as a vegetable garden. in the right-hand aisle of the church there is an ancient chapel, which, at the time of our visit, was in process of restoration, and was to be dedicated to mr. cotton, whom these english people consider as the founder of our american boston. it would contain a painted memorial-window, in honor of the old puritan minister. a festival in commemoration of the event was to take place in the ensuing july, to which i had myself received an invitation, but i knew too well the pains and penalties incurred by an invited guest at public festivals in england to accept it. it ought to be recorded (and it seems to have made a very kindly impression on our kinsfolk here) that five hundred pounds had been contributed by persons in the united states, principally in boston, towards the cost of the memorial-window, and the repair and restoration of the chapel. after we emerged from the chapel, mr. porter approached us with the vicar, to whom he kindly introduced us, and then took his leave. may a stranger's benediction rest upon him! he is a most pleasant man; rather, i imagine, a virtuoso than an antiquary; for he seemed to value the queen of otaheite's bag as highly as queen mary's embroidered quilt, and to have an omnivorous appetite for everything strange and rare. would that we could fill up his shelves and drawers (if there are any vacant spaces left) with the choicest trifles that have dropped out of time's carpet-bag, or give him the carpet-bag itself, to take out what he will! the vicar looked about thirty years old, a gentleman, evidently assured of his position (as clergymen of the established church invariably are), comfortable and well-to-do, a scholar and a christian, and fit to be a bishop, knowing how to make the most of life without prejudice to the life to come. i was glad to see such a model english priest so suitably accommodated with an old english church. he kindly and courteously did the honors, showing us quite round the interior, giving us all the information that we required, and then leaving us to the quiet enjoyment of what we came to see. the interior of saint botolph's is very fine and satisfactory, as stately, almost, as a cathedral, and has been repaired--so far as repairs were necessary--in a chaste and noble style. the great eastern window is of modern painted glass, but is the richest, mellowest, and tenderest modern window that i have ever seen: the art of painting these glowing transparencies in pristine perfection being one that the world has lost. the vast, clear space of the interior church delighted me. there was no screen,--nothing between the vestibule and the altar to break the long vista; even the organ stood aside,--though it by and by made us aware of its presence by a melodious roar. around the walls there were old engraved brasses, and a stone coffin, and an alabaster knight of saint john, and an alabaster lady, each recumbent at full length, as large as life, and in perfect preservation, except for a slight modern touch at the tips of their noses. in the chancel we saw a great deal of oaken work, quaintly and admirably carved, especially about the seats formerly appropriated to the monks, which were so contrived as to tumble down with a tremendous crash, if the occupant happened to fall asleep. we now essayed to climb into the upper regions. up we went, winding and still winding round the circular stairs, till we came to the gallery beneath the stone roof of the tower, whence we could look down and see the raised font, and my talma lying on one of the steps, and looking about as big as a pocket-handkerchief. then up again, up, up, up, through a yet smaller staircase, till we emerged into another stone gallery, above the jackdaws, and far above the roof beneath which we had before made a halt. then up another flight, which led us into a pinnacle of the temple, but not the highest; so, retracing our steps, we took the right turret this time, and emerged into the loftiest lantern, where we saw level lincolnshire, far and near, though with a haze on the distant horizon. there were dusty roads, a river, and canals, converging towards boston, which--a congregation of red-tiled roofs--lay beneath our feet, with pygmy people creeping about its narrow streets. we were three hundred feet aloft, and the pinnacle on which we stood is a landmark forty miles at sea. content, and weary of our elevation, we descended the corkscrew stairs and left the church; the last object that we noticed in the interior being a bird, which appeared to be at home there, and responded with its cheerful notes to the swell of the organ. pausing on the church-steps, we observed that there were formerly two statues, one on each side of the doorway; the canopies still remaining and the pedestals being about a yard from the ground. some of mr. cotton's puritan parishioners are probably responsible for the disappearance of these stone saints. this doorway at the base of the tower is now much dilapidated, but must once have been very rich and of a peculiar fashion. it opens its arch through a great square tablet of stone, reared against the front of the tower. on most of the projections, whether on the tower or about the body of the church, there are gargoyles of genuine gothic grotesqueness,--fiends, beasts, angels, and combinations of all three; and where portions of the edifice are restored, the modern sculptors have tried to imitate these wild fantasies, but with very poor success. extravagance and absurdity have still their law, and should pay as rigid obedience to it as the primmest things on earth. in our further rambles about boston, we crossed the river by a bridge, and observed that the larger part of the town seems to be on that side of its navigable stream. the crooked streets and narrow lanes reminded me much of hanover street, ann street, and other portions of the north end of our american boston, as i remember that picturesque region in my boyish days. it is not unreasonable to suppose that the local habits and recollections of the first settlers may have had some influence on the physical character of the streets and houses in the new england metropolis; at any rate, here is a similar intricacy of bewildering lanes, and numbers of old peaked and projecting-storied dwellings, such as i used to see there. it is singular what a home-feeling and sense of kindred i derived from this hereditary connection and fancied physiognomical resemblance between the old town and its well-grown daughter, and how reluctant i was, after chill years of banishment, to leave this hospitable place, on that account. moreover, it recalled some of the features of another american town, my own dear native place, when i saw the seafaring people leaning against posts, and sitting on planks, under the lee of warehouses,--or lolling on long-boats, drawn up high and dry, as sailors and old wharf-rats are accustomed to do, in seaports of little business. in other respects, the english town is more village-like than either of the american ones. the women and budding girls chat together at their doors, and exchange merry greetings with young men; children chase one another in the summer twilight; school-boys sail little boats on the river, or play at marbles across the flat tombstones in the churchyard; and ancient men, in breeches and long waistcoats, wander slowly about the streets, with a certain familiarity of deportment, as if each one were everybody's grandfather. i have frequently observed, in old english towns, that old age comes forth more cheerfully and genially into the sunshine than among ourselves, where the rush, stir, bustle, and irreverent energy of youth are so preponderant, that the poor, forlorn grandsires begin to doubt whether they have a right to breathe in such a world any longer, and so hide their silvery heads in solitude. speaking of old men, i am reminded of the scholars of the boston charity school, who walk about in antique, long-skirted blue coats, and knee-breeches, and with bands at their necks,--perfect and grotesque pictures of the costume of three centuries ago. on the morning of our departure, i looked from the parlor-window of the peacock into the market-place, and beheld its irregular square already well covered with booths, and more in progress of being put up, by stretching tattered sail-cloth on poles. it was market-day. the dealers were arranging their commodities, consisting chiefly of vegetables, the great bulk of which seemed to be cabbages. later in the forenoon there was a much greater variety of merchandise: basket-work, both for fancy and use; twig-brooms, beehives, oranges, rustic attire; all sorts of things, in short, that are commonly sold at a rural fair. i heard the lowing of cattle, too, and the bleating of sheep, and found that there was a market for cows, oxen, and pigs, in another part of the town. a crowd of towns-people and lincolnshire yeomen elbowed one another in the square; mr. punch was squeaking in one corner, and a vagabond juggler tried to find space for his exhibition in another: so that my final glimpse of boston was calculated to leave a livelier impression than my former ones. meanwhile the tower of saint botolph's looked benignantly down; and i fancied it was bidding me farewell, as it did mr. cotton, two or three hundred years ago, and telling me to describe its venerable height, and the town beneath it, to the people of the american city, who are partly akin, if not to the living inhabitants of old boston, yet to some of the dust that lies in its churchyard. one thing more. they have a bunker hill in the vicinity of their town; and (what could hardly be expected of an english community) seem proud to think that their neighborhood has given name to our first and most widely celebrated and best remembered battle-field. near oxford. on a fine morning in september we set out on an excursion to blenheim,-- the sculptor and myself being seated on the box of our four-horse carriage, two more of the party in the dicky, and the others less agreeably accommodated inside. we had no coachman, but two postilions in short scarlet jackets and leather breeches with top-boots, each astride of a horse; so that, all the way along, when not otherwise attracted, we had the interesting spectacle of their up-and-down bobbing in the saddle. it was a sunny and beautiful day, a specimen of the perfect english weather, just warm enough for comfort,--indeed, a little too warm, perhaps, in the noontide sun,--yet retaining a mere spice or suspicion of austerity, which made it all the more enjoyable. the country between oxford and blenheim is not particularly interesting, being almost level, or undulating very slightly; nor is oxfordshire, agriculturally, a rich part of england. we saw one or two hamlets, and i especially remember a picturesque old gabled house at a turnpike-gate, and, altogether, the wayside scenery had an aspect of old-fashioned english life; but there was nothing very memorable till we reached woodstock, and stopped to water our horses at the black bear. this neighborhood is called new woodstock, but has by no means the brand-new appearance of an american town, being a large village of stone houses, most of them pretty well time-worn and weather-stained. the black bear is an ancient inn, large and respectable, with balustraded staircases, and intricate passages and corridors, and queer old pictures and engravings hanging in the entries and apartments. we ordered a lunch (the most delightful of english institutions, next to dinner) to be ready against our return, and then resumed our drive to blenheim. the park-gate of blenheim stands close to the end of the village street of woodstock. immediately on passing through its portals we saw the stately palace in the distance, but made a wide circuit of the park before approaching it. this noble park contains three thousand acres of land, and is fourteen miles in circumference. having been, in part, a royal domain before it was granted to the marlborough family, it contains many trees of unsurpassed antiquity, and has doubtless been the haunt of game and deer for centuries. we saw pheasants in abundance, feeding in the open lawns and glades; and the stags tossed their antlers and bounded away, not affrighted, but only shy and gamesome, as we drove by. it is a magnificent pleasure-ground, not too tamely kept, nor rigidly subjected within rule, but vast enough to have lapsed back into nature again, after all the pains that the landscape-gardeners of queen anne's time bestowed on it, when the domain of blenheim was scientifically laid out. the great, knotted, slanting trunks of the old oaks do not now look as if man had much intermeddled with their growth and postures. the trees of later date, that were set out in the great duke's time, are arranged on the plan of the order of battle in which the illustrious commander ranked his troops at blenheim; but the ground covered is so extensive, and the trees now so luxuriant, that the spectator is not disagreeably conscious of their standing in military array, as if orpheus had summoned them together by beat of drum. the effect must have been very formal a hundred and fifty years ago, but has ceased to be so,--although the trees, i presume, have kept their ranks with even more fidelity than marlborough's veterans did. one of the park-keepers, on horseback, rode beside our carriage, pointing out the choice views, and glimpses at the palace, as we drove through the domain. there is a very large artificial lake (to say the truth, it seemed to me fully worthy of being compared with the welsh lakes, at least, if not with those of westmoreland), which was created by capability brown, and fills the basin that he scooped for it, just as if nature had poured these broad waters into one of her own valleys. it is a most beautiful object at a distance, and not less so on its immediate banks; for the water is very pure, being supplied by a small river, of the choicest transparency, which was turned thitherward for the purpose. and blenheim owes not merely this water-scenery, but almost all its other beauties, to the contrivance of man. its natural features are not striking; but art has effected such wonderful things that the uninstructed visitor would never guess that nearly the whole scene was but the embodied thought of a human mind. a skilful painter hardly does more for his blank sheet of canvas than the landscape-gardener, the planter, the arranger of trees, has done for the monotonous surface of blenheim,--making the most of every undulation,--flinging down a hillock, a big lump of earth out of a giant's hand, wherever it was needed,-- putting in beauty as often as there was a niche for it,--opening vistas to every point that deserved to be seen, and throwing a veil of impenetrable foliage around what ought to be hidden;--and then, to be sure, the lapse of a century has softened the harsh outline of man's labors, and has given the place back to nature again with the addition of what consummate science could achieve. after driving a good way, we came to a battlemented tower and adjoining house, which used to be the residence of the ranger of woodstock park, who held charge of the property for the king before the duke of marlborough possessed it. the keeper opened the door for us, and in the entrance-hall we found various things that had to do with the chase and woodland sports. we mounted the staircase, through several stories, up to the top of the tower, whence there was a view of the spires of oxford, and of points much farther off,--very indistinctly seen, however, as is usually the case with the misty distances of england. returning to the ground-floor, we were ushered into the room in which died wilmot, the wicked earl of rochester, who was ranger of the park in charles ii.'s time. it is a low and bare little room, with a window in front, and a smaller one behind; and in the contiguous entrance-room there are the remains of an old bedstead, beneath the canopy of which, perhaps, rochester may have made the penitent end that bishop burnet attributes to him. i hardly know what it is, in this poor fellow's character, which affects us with greater tenderness on his behalf than for all the other profligates of his day, who seem to have been neither better nor worse than himself. i rather suspect that he had a human heart which never quite died out of him, and the warmth of which is still faintly perceptible amid the dissolute trash which he left behind. methinks, if such good fortune ever befell a bookish man, i should choose this lodge for my own residence, with the topmost room of the tower for a study, and all the seclusion of cultivated wildness beneath to ramble in. there being no such possibility, we drove on, catching glimpses of the palace in new points of view, and by and by came to rosamond's well. the particular tradition that connects fair rosamond with it is not now in my memory; but if rosamond ever lived and loved, and ever had her abode in the maze of woodstock, it may well be believed that she and henry sometimes sat beside this spring. it gushes out from a bank, through some old stone-work, and dashes its little cascade (about as abundant as one might turn out of a large pitcher) into a pool, whence it steals away towards the lake, which is not far removed. the water is exceedingly cold, and as pure as the legendary rosamond was not, and is fancied to possess medicinal virtues, like springs at which saints have quenched their thirst. there were two or three old women and some children in attendance with tumblers, which they present to visitors, full of the consecrated water; but most of us filled the tumblers for ourselves, and drank. thence we drove to the triumphal pillar which was erected in honor of the great duke, and on the summit of which he stands, in a roman garb, holding a winged figure of victory in his hand, as an ordinary man might hold a bird. the column is i know not how many feet high, but lofty enough, at any rate, to elevate marlborough far above the rest of the world, and to be visible a long way off; and it is so placed in reference to other objects, that, wherever the hero wandered about his grounds, and especially as he issued from his mansion, he must inevitably have been reminded of his glory. in truth, until i came to blenheim, i never had so positive and material an idea of what fame really is--of what the admiration of his country can do for a successful warrior--as i carry away with me and shall always retain. unless he had the moral force of a thousand men together, his egotism (beholding himself everywhere, imbuing the entire soil, growing in the woods, rippling and gleaming in the water, and pervading the very air with his greatness) must have been swollen within him like the liver of a strasburg goose. on the huge tablets inlaid into the pedestal of the column, the entire act of parliament, bestowing blenheim on the duke of marlborough and his posterity, is engraved in deep letters, painted black on the marble ground. the pillar stands exactly a mile from the principal front of the palace, in a straight line with the precise centre of its entrance-hall; so that, as already said, it was the duke's principal object of contemplation. we now proceeded to the palace-gate, which is a great pillared archway, of wonderful loftiness and state, giving admittance into a spacious quadrangle. a stout, elderly, and rather surly footman in livery appeared at the entrance, and took possession of whatever canes, umbrellas, and parasols he could get hold of, in order to claim sixpence on our departure. this had a somewhat ludicrous effect. there is much public outcry against the meanness of the present duke in his arrangements for the admission of visitors (chiefly, of course, his native countrymen) to view the magnificent palace which their forefathers bestowed upon his own. in many cases, it seems hard that a private abode should be exposed to the intrusion of the public merely because the proprietor has inherited or created a splendor which attracts general curiosity; insomuch that his home loses its sanctity and seclusion for the very reason that it is better than other men's houses. but in the case of blenheim, the public have certainly an equitable claim to admission, both because the fame of its first inhabitant is a national possession, and because the mansion was a national gift, one of the purposes of which was to be a token of gratitude and glory to the english people themselves. if a man chooses to be illustrious, he is very likely to incur some little inconveniences himself, and entail them on his posterity. nevertheless, his present grace of marlborough absolutely ignores the public claim above suggested, and (with a thrift of which even the hero of blenheim himself did not set the example) sells tickets admitting six persons at ten shillings; if only one person enters the gate, he must pay for six; and if there are seven in company, two tickets are required to admit them. the attendants, who meet you everywhere in the park and palace, expect fees on their own private account,--their noble master pocketing the ten shillings. but, to be sure, the visitor gets his money's worth, since it buys him the right to speak just as freely of the duke of marlborough as if he were the keeper of the cremorne gardens. [the above was written two or three years ago, or more; and the duke of that day has since transmitted his coronet to his successor, who, we understand, has adopted much more liberal arrangements. there is seldom anything to criticise or complain of, as regards the facility of obtaining admission to interesting private houses in england.] passing through a gateway on the opposite side of the quadrangle, we had before us the noble classic front of the palace, with its two projecting wings. we ascended the lofty steps of the portal, and were admitted into the entrance-hall, the height of which, from floor to ceiling, is not much less than seventy feet, being the entire elevation of the edifice. the hall is lighted by windows in the upper story, and, it being a clear, bright day, was very radiant with lofty sunshine, amid which a swallow was flitting to and fro. the ceiling was painted by sir james thornhill in some allegorical design (doubtless commemorative of marlborough's victories), the purport of which i did not take the trouble to make out, --contenting myself with the general effect, which was most splendidly and effectively ornamental. we were guided through the show-rooms by a very civil person, who allowed us to take pretty much our own time in looking at the pictures. the collection is exceedingly valuable,--many of these works of art having been presented to the great duke by the crowned heads of england or the continent. one room was all aglow with pictures by rubens; and there were works of raphael, and many other famous painters, any one of which would be sufficient to illustrate the meanest house that might contain it. i remember none of then, however (not being in a picture-seeing mood), so well as vandyck's large and familiar picture of charles i. on horseback, with a figure and face of melancholy dignity such as never by any other hand was put on canvas. yet, on considering this face of charles (which i find often repeated in half-lengths) and translating it from the ideal into literalism, i doubt whether the unfortunate king was really a handsome or impressive-looking man: a high, thin-ridged nose, a meagre, hatchet face, and reddish hair and beard,--these are the literal facts. it is the painter's art that has thrown such pensive and shadowy grace around him. on our passage through this beautiful suite of apartments, we saw, through the vista of open doorways, a boy of ten or twelve years old coming towards us from the farther rooms. he had on a straw hat, a linen sack that had certainly been washed and re-washed for a summer or two, and gray trousers a good deal worn,--a dress, in short, which an american mother in middle station would have thought too shabby for her darling school-boy's ordinary wear. this urchin's face was rather pale (as those of english children are apt to be, quite as often as our own), but he had pleasant eyes, an intelligent look, and an agreeable, boyish manner. it was lord sunderland, grandson of the present duke, and heir--though not, i think, in the direct line--of the blood of the great marlborough, and of the title and estate. after passing through the first suite of rooms, we were conducted through a corresponding suite on the opposite side of the entrance-hall. these latter apartments are most richly adorned with tapestries, wrought and presented to the first duke by a sisterhood of flemish nuns; they look like great, glowing pictures, and completely cover the walls of the rooms. the designs purport to represent the duke's battles and sieges; and everywhere we see the hero himself, as large as life, and as gorgeous in scarlet and gold as the holy sisters could make him, with a three-cornered hat and flowing wig, reining in his horse, and extending his leading-staff in the attitude of command. next to marlborough, prince eugene is the most prominent figure. in the way of upholstery, there can never have been anything more magnificent than these tapestries; and, considered as works of art, they have quite as much merit as nine pictures out of ten. one whole wing of the palace is occupied by the library, a most noble room, with a vast perspective length from end to end. its atmosphere is brighter and more cheerful than that of most libraries: a wonderful contrast to the old college-libraries of oxford, and perhaps less sombre and suggestive of thoughtfulness than any large library ought to be, inasmuch as so many studious brains as have left their deposit on the shelves cannot have conspired without producing a very serious and ponderous result. both walls and ceiling are white, and there are elaborate doorways and fireplaces of white marble. the floor is of oak, so highly polished that our feet slipped upon it as if it had been new england ice. at one end of the room stands a statue of queen anne in her royal robes, which are so admirably designed and exquisitely wrought that the spectator certainly gets a strong conception of her royal dignity; while the face of the statue, fleshy and feeble, doubtless conveys a suitable idea of her personal character. the marble of this work, long as it has stood there, is as white as snow just fallen, and must have required most faithful and religious care to keep it so. as for the volumes of the library, they are wired within the cases and turn their gilded backs upon the visitor, keeping their treasures of wit and wisdom just as intangible as if still in the unwrought mines of human thought. i remember nothing else in the palace, except the chapel, to which we were conducted last, and where we saw a splendid monument to the first duke and duchess, sculptured by rysbrack, at the cost, it is said, of forty thousand pounds. the design includes the statues of the deceased dignitaries, and various allegorical flourishes, fantasies, and confusions; and beneath sleep the great duke and his proud wife, their veritable bones and dust, and probably all the marlboroughs that have since died. it is not quite a comfortable idea, that these mouldy ancestors still inhabit, after their fashion, the house where their successors spend the passing day; but the adulation lavished upon the hero of blenheim could not have been consummated, unless the palace of his lifetime had become likewise a stately mausoleum over his remains,-- and such we felt it all to be, after gazing at his tomb. the next business was to see the private gardens. an old scotch under-gardener admitted us and led the way, and seemed to have a fair prospect of earning the fee all by himself; but by and by another respectable scotchman made his appearance and took us in charge, proving to be the head-gardener in person. he was extremely intelligent and agreeable, talking both scientifically and lovingly about trees and plants, of which there is every variety capable of english cultivation. positively, the garden of eden cannot have been more beautiful than this private garden of blenheim. it contains three hundred acres, and by the artful circumlocution of the paths, and the undulations, and the skilfully interposed clumps of trees, is made to appear limitless. the sylvan delights of a whole country are compressed into this space, as whole fields of persian roses go to the concoction of an ounce of precious attar. the world within that garden-fence is not the same weary and dusty world with which we outside mortals are conversant; it is a finer, lovelier, more harmonious nature; and the great mother lends herself kindly to the gardener's will, knowing that he will make evident the half-obliterated traits of her pristine and ideal beauty, and allow her to take all the credit and praise to herself. i doubt whether there is ever any winter within that precinct,--any clouds, except the fleecy ones of summer. the sunshine that i saw there rests upon my recollection of it as if it were eternal. the lawns and glades are like the memory of places where one has wandered when first in love. what a good and happy life might be spent in a paradise like this! and yet, at that very moment, the besotted duke (ah! i have let out a secret which i meant to keep to myself; but the ten shillings must pay for all) was in that very garden (for the guide told us so, and cautioned our young people not to be too uproarious), and, if in a condition for arithmetic, was thinking of nothing nobler than how many ten-shilling tickets had that day been sold. republican as i am, i should still love to think that noblemen lead noble lives, and that all this stately and beautiful environment may serve to elevate them a little way above the rest of us. if it fail to do so, the disgrace falls equally upon the whole race of mortals as on themselves; because it proves that no more favorable conditions of existence would eradicate our vices and weaknesses. how sad, if this be so! even a herd of swine, eating the acorns under those magnificent oaks of blenheim, would be cleanlier and of better habits than ordinary swine. well, all that i have written is pitifully meagre, as a description of blenheim; and i bate to leave it without some more adequate expression of the noble edifice, with its rich domain, all as i saw them in that beautiful sunshine; for, if a day had been chosen out of a hundred years, it could not have been a finer one. but i must give up the attempt; only further remarking that the finest trees here were cedars, of which i saw one--and there may have been many such--immense in girth, and not less than three centuries old. i likewise saw a vast heap of laurel, two hundred feet in circumference, all growing from one root; and the gardener offered to show us another growth of twice that stupendous size. if the great duke himself had been buried in that spot, his heroic heart could not have been the seed of a more plentiful crop of laurels. we now went back to the black bear, and sat down to a cold collation, of which we ate abundantly, and drank (in the good old english fashion) a due proportion of various delightful liquors. a stranger in england, in his rambles to various quarters of the country, may learn little in regard to wines (for the ordinary english taste is simple, though sound, in that particular), but he makes acquaintance with more varieties of hop and malt liquor than he previously supposed to exist. i remember a sort of foaming stuff, called hop-champagne, which is very vivacious, and appears to be a hybrid between ale and bottled cider. another excellent tipple for warm weather is concocted by mixing brown-stout or bitter ale with ginger-beer, the foam of which stirs up the heavier liquor from its depths, forming a compound of singular vivacity and sufficient body. but of all things ever brewed from malt (unless it be the trinity ale of cambridge, which i drank long afterwards, and which barry cornwall has celebrated in immortal verse), commend me to the archdeacon, as the oxford scholars call it, in honor of the jovial dignitary who first taught these erudite worthies how to brew their favorite nectar. john barleycorn has given his very heart to this admirable liquor; it is a superior kind of ale, the prince of ales, with a richer flavor and a mightier spirit than you can find elsewhere in this weary world. much have we been strengthened and encouraged by the potent blood of the archdeacon! a few days after our excursion to blenheim, the same party set forth, in two flies, on a tour to some other places of interest in the neighborhood of oxford. it was again a delightful day; and, in truth, every day, of late, had been so pleasant that it seemed as if each must be the very last of such perfect weather; and yet the long succession had given us confidence in as many more to come. the climate of england has been shamefully maligned, its sulkiness and asperities are not nearly so offensive as englishmen tell us (their climate being the only attribute of their country which they never overvalue); and the really good summer-weather is the very kindest and sweetest that the world knows. we first drove to the village of cumnor, about six miles from oxford, and alighted at the entrance of the church. here, while waiting for the keys, we looked at an old wall of the churchyard, piled up of loose gray stones which are said to have once formed a portion of cumnor hall, celebrated in mickle's ballad and scott's romance. the hall must have been in very close vicinity to the church,--not more than twenty yards off; and i waded through the long, dewy grass of the churchyard, and tried to peep over the wall, in hopes to discover some tangible and traceable remains of the edifice. but the wall was just too high to be overlooked, and difficult to clamber over without tumbling down some of the stones; so i took the word of one of our party, who had been here before, that there is nothing interesting on the other side. the churchyard is in rather a neglected state, and seems not to have been mown for the benefit of the parson's cow; it contains a good many gravestones, of which i remember only some upright memorials of slate to individuals of the name of tabbs. soon a woman arrived with the key of the church-door, and we entered the simple old edifice, which has the pavement of lettered tombstones, the sturdy pillars and low arches and other ordinary characteristics of an english country church. one or two pews, probably those of the gentlefolk of the neighborhood, were better furnished than the rest, but all in a modest style. near the high altar, in the holiest place, there is an oblong, angular, ponderous tomb of blue marble, built against the wall, and surmounted by a carved canopy of the same material; and over the tomb, and beneath the canopy, are two monumental brasses, such as we oftener see inlaid into a church pavement. on these brasses are engraved the figures of a gentleman in armor and a lady in an antique garb, each about a foot high, devoutly kneeling in prayer; and there is a long latin inscription likewise cut into the enduring brass, bestowing the highest eulogies on the character of anthony forster, who, with his virtuous dame, lies buried beneath this tombstone. his is the knightly figure that kneels above; and if sir walter scott ever saw this tomb, he must have had an even greater than common disbelief in laudatory epitaphs, to venture on depicting anthony forster in such lines as blacken him in the romance. for my part, i read the inscription in full faith, and believe the poor deceased gentleman to be a much-wronged individual, with good grounds for bringing an action of slander in the courts above. but the circumstance, lightly as we treat it, has its serious moral. what nonsense it is, this anxiety, which so worries us, about our good fame, or our bad fame, after death! if it were of the slightest real moment, our reputations would have been placed by providence more in our own power, and less in other people's, than we now find them to be. if poor anthony forster happens to have met sir walter in the other world, i doubt whether he has ever thought it worth while to complain of the latter's misrepresentations. we did not remain long in the church, as it contains nothing else of interest; and driving through the village, we passed a pretty large and rather antique-looking inn, bearing the sign of the bear and ragged staff. it could not be so old, however, by at least a hundred years, as giles gosling's time; nor is there any other object to remind the visitor of the elizabethan age, unless it be a few ancient cottages, that are perhaps of still earlier date. cumnor is not nearly so large a village, nor a place of such mark, as one anticipates from its romantic and legendary fame; but, being still inaccessible by railway, it has retained more of a sylvan character than we often find in english country towns. in this retired neighborhood the road is narrow and bordered with grass, and sometimes interrupted by gates; the hedges grow in unpruned luxuriance; there is not that close-shaven neatness and trimness that characterize the ordinary english landscape. the whole scene conveys the idea of seclusion and remoteness. we met no travellers, whether on foot or otherwise. i cannot very distinctly trace out this day's peregrinations; but, after leaving cumnor a few miles behind us, i think we came to a ferry over the thames, where an old woman served as ferryman, and pulled a boat across by means of a rope stretching from shore to shore. our two vehicles being thus placed on the other side, we resumed our drive,--first glancing, however, at the old woman's antique cottage, with its stone floor, and the circular settle round the kitchen fireplace, which was quite in the mediaeval english style. we next stopped at stanton harcourt, where we were received at the parsonage with a hospitality which we should take delight in describing, if it were allowable to make public acknowledgment of the private and personal kindnesses which we never failed to find ready for our needs. an american in an english house will soon adopt the opinion that the english are the very kindest people on earth, and will retain that idea as long, at least, as he remains on the inner side of the threshold. their magnetism is of a kind that repels strongly while you keep beyond a certain limit, but attracts as forcibly if you get within the magic line. it was at this place, if i remember right, that i heard a gentleman ask a friend of mine whether he was the author of "the red letter a"; and, after some consideration (for he did not seem to recognize his own book, at first, under this improved title), our countryman responded, doubtfully, that he believed so. the gentleman proceeded to inquire whether our friend had spent much time in america,--evidently thinking that he must have been caught young, and have had a tincture of english breeding, at least, if not birth, to speak the language so tolerably, and appear so much like other people. this insular narrowness is exceedingly queer, and of very frequent occurrence, and is quite as much a characteristic of men of education and culture as of clowns. stanton harcourt is a very curious old place. it was formerly the seat of the ancient family of harcourt, which now has its principal abode at nuneham courtney, a few miles off. the parsonage is a relic of the family mansion, or castle, other portions of which are close at hand; for, across the garden, rise two gray towers, both of them picturesquely venerable, and interesting for more than their antiquity. one of these towers, in its entire capacity, from height to depth, constituted the kitchen of the ancient castle, and is still used for domestic purposes, although it has not, nor ever had, a chimney; or we might rather say, it is itself one vast chimney, with a hearth of thirty feet square, and a flue and aperture of the same size. there are two huge fireplaces within, and the interior walls of the tower are blackened with the smoke that for centuries used to gush forth from them, and climb upward, seeking an exit through some wide air-holes in the comical roof, full seventy feet above. these lofty openings were capable of being so arranged, with reference to the wind, that the cooks are said to have been seldom troubled by the smoke; and here, no doubt, they were accustomed to roast oxen whole, with as little fuss and ado as a modern cook would roast a fowl. the inside of the tower is very dim and sombre (being nothing but rough stone walls, lighted only from the apertures above mentioned), and has still a pungent odor of smoke and soot, the reminiscence of the fires and feasts of generations that have passed away. methinks the extremest range of domestic economy lies between an american cooking-stove and the ancient kitchen, seventy dizzy feet in height and all one fireplace, of stanton harcourt. now--the place being without a parallel in england, and therefore necessarily beyond the experience of an american--it is somewhat remarkable, that, while we stood gazing at this kitchen, i was haunted and perplexed by an idea that somewhere or other i had seen just this strange spectacle before.--the height, the blackness, the dismal void, before my eyes, seemed as familiar as the decorous neatness of my grandmother's kitchen; only my unaccountable memory of the scene was lighted up with an image of lurid fires blazing all round the dim interior circuit of the tower. i had never before had so pertinacious an attack, as i could not but suppose it, of that odd state of mind wherein we fitfully and teasingly remember some previous scene or incident, of which the one now passing appears to be but the echo and reduplication. though the explanation of the mystery did not for some time occur to me, i may as well conclude the matter here. in a letter of pope's, addressed to the duke of buckingham, there is an account of stanton harcourt (as i now find, although the name is not mentioned), where he resided while translating a part of the "iliad." it is one of the most admirable pieces of description in the language,--playful and picturesque, with fine touches of humorous pathos,--and conveys as perfect a picture as ever was drawn of a decayed english country-house; and among other rooms, most of which have since crumbled down and disappeared, he dashes off the grim aspect of this kitchen,--which, moreover, he peoples with witches, engaging satan himself as headcook, who stirs the infernal caldrons that seethe and bubble over the fires. this letter, and others relative to his abode here, were very familiar to my earlier reading, and, remaining still fresh at the bottom of my memory, caused the weird and ghostly sensation that came over one on beholding the real spectacle that had formerly been made so vivid to my imagination. our next visit was to the church which stands close by, and is quite as ancient as the remnants of the castle. in a chapel or side-aisle, dedicated to the harcourts, are found some very interesting family monuments,--and among them, recumbent on a tombstone, the figure of an armed knight of the lancastrian party, who was slain in the wars of the roses. his features, dress, and armor are painted in colors, still wonderfully fresh, and there still blushes the symbol of the red rose, denoting the faction for which he fought and died. his head rests on a marble or alabaster helmet; and on the tomb lies the veritable helmet, it is to be presumed, which he wore in battle,--a ponderous iron ease, with the visor complete, and remnants of the gilding that once covered it. the crest is a large peacock, not of metal, but of wood. very possibly, this helmet was but an heraldic adornment of his tomb; and, indeed, it seems strange that it has not been stolen before now, especially in cromwell's time, when knightly tombs were little respected, and when armor was in request. however, it is needless to dispute with the dead knight about the identity of his iron pot, and we may as well allow it to be the very same that so often gave him the headache in his lifetime. leaning against the wall, at the foot of the tomb, is the shaft of a spear, with a wofully tattered and utterly faded banner appended to it,--the knightly banner beneath which he marshalled his followers in the field. as it was absolutely falling to pieces, i tore off one little bit, no bigger than a finger-nail, and put it into my waistcoat-pocket; but seeking it subsequently, it was not to be found. on the opposite side of the little chapel, two or three yards from this tomb, is another monument, on which lie, side by side, one of the same knightly race of harcourts, and his lady. the tradition of the family is, that this knight was the standard-bearer of henry of richmond in the battle of bosworth field; and a banner, supposed to be the same that he carried, now droops over his effigy. it is just such a colorless silk rag as the one already described. the knight has the order of the garter on his knee, and the lady wears it on her left arm, an odd place enough for a garter; but, if worn in its proper locality, it could not be decorously visible. the complete preservation and good condition of these statues, even to the minutest adornment of the sculpture, and their very noses,--the most vulnerable part of a marble man, as of a living one,--are miraculous. except in westminster abbey, among the chapels of the kings, i have seen none so well preserved. perhaps they owe it to the loyalty of oxfordshire, diffused throughout its neighborhood by the influence of the university, during the great civil war and the rule of the parliament. it speaks well, too, for the upright and kindly character of this old family, that the peasantry, among whom they had lived for ages, did not desecrate their tombs, when it might have been done with impunity. there are other and more recent memorials of the harcourts, one of which is the tomb of the last lord, who died about a hundred years ago. his figure, like those of his ancestors, lies on the top of his tomb, clad, not in armor, but in his robes as a peer. the title is now extinct, but the family survives in a younger branch, and still holds this patrimonial estate, though they have long since quitted it as a residence. we next went to see the ancient fish-ponds appertaining to the mansion, and which used to be of vast dietary importance to the family in catholic times, and when fish was not otherwise attainable. there are two or three, or more, of these reservoirs, one of which is of very respectable size,--large enough, indeed, to be really a picturesque object, with its grass-green borders, and the trees drooping over it, and the towers of the castle and the church reflected within the weed-grown depths of its smooth mirror. a sweet fragrance, as it were, of ancient time and present quiet and seclusion was breathing all around; the sunshine of to-day had a mellow charm of antiquity in its brightness. these ponds are said still to breed abundance of such fish as love deep and quiet waters; but i saw only some minnows, and one or two snakes, which were lying among the weeds on the top of the water, sunning and bathing themselves at once. i mentioned that there were two towers remaining of the old castle: the one containing the kitchen we have already visited; the other, still more interesting, is next to be described. it is some seventy feet high, gray and reverend, but in excellent repair, though i could not perceive that anything had been done to renovate it. the basement story was once the family chapel, and is, of course, still a consecrated spot. at one corner of the tower is a circular turret, within which a narrow staircase, with worn steps of stone, winds round and round as it climbs upward, giving access to a chamber on each floor, and finally emerging on the battlemented roof. ascending this turret-stair, and arriving at the third story, we entered a chamber, not large, though occupying the whole area of the tower, and lighted by a window on each side. it was wainscoted from floor to ceiling with dark oak, and had a little fireplace in one of the corners. the window-panes were small and set in lead. the curiosity of this room is, that it was once the residence of pope, and that he here wrote a considerable part of the translation of isomer, and likewise, no doubt, the admirable letters to which i have referred above. the room once contained a record by himself, scratched with a diamond on one of the window-panes (since removed for safe-keeping to nuneham courtney, where it was shown me), purporting that he had here finished the fifth book of the "iliad" on such a day. a poet has a fragrance about him, such as no other human being is gifted withal; it is indestructible, and clings forevermore to everything that he has touched. i was not impressed, at blenheim, with any sense that the mighty duke still haunted the palace that was created for him; but here, after a century and a half, we are still conscious of the presence of that decrepit little figure of queen anne's time, although he was merely a casual guest in the old tower, during one or two summer months. however brief the time and slight the connection, his spirit cannot be exorcised so long as the tower stands. in my mind, moreover, pope, or any other person with an available claim, is right in adhering to the spot, dead or alive; for i never saw a chamber that i should like better to inhabit,--so comfortably small, in such a safe and inaccessible seclusion, and with a varied landscape from each window. one of them looks upon the church, close at hand, and down into the green churchyard, extending almost to the foot of the tower; the others have views wide and far, over a gently undulating tract of country. if desirous of a loftier elevation, about a dozen more steps of the turret-stair will bring the occupant to the summit of the tower,--where pope used to come, no doubt, in the summer evenings, and peep--poor little shrimp that he was!-- through the embrasures of the battlement. from stanton harcourt we drove--i forget how far--to a point where a boat was waiting for us upon the thames, or some other stream; for i am ashamed to confess my ignorance of the precise geographical whereabout. we were, at any rate, some miles above oxford, and, i should imagine, pretty near one of the sources of england's mighty river. it was little more than wide enough for the boat, with extended oars, to pass, shallow, too, and bordered with bulrushes and water-weeds, which, in some places, quite overgrew the surface of the river from bank to bank. the shores were flat and meadow-like, and sometimes, the boatman told us, are overflowed by the rise of the stream. the water looked clean and pure, but not particularly transparent, though enough so to show us that the bottom is very much weedgrown; and i was told that the weed is an american production, brought to england with importations of timber, and now threatening to choke up the thames and other english rivers. i wonder it does not try its obstructive powers upon the merrimack, the connecticut, or the hudson,--not to speak of the st. lawrence or the mississippi! it was an open boat, with cushioned seats astern, comfortably accommodating our party; the day continued sunny and warm, and perfectly still; the boatman, well trained to his business, managed the oars skilfully and vigorously; and we went down the stream quite as swiftly as it was desirable to go, the scene being so pleasant, and the passing hours so thoroughly agreeable. the river grew a little wider and deeper, perhaps, as we glided on, but was still an inconsiderable stream: for it had a good deal more than a hundred miles to meander through before it should bear fleets on its bosom, and reflect palaces and towers and parliament houses and dingy and sordid piles of various structure, as it rolled two and fro with the tide, dividing london asunder. not, in truth, that i ever saw any edifice whatever reflected in its turbid breast, when the sylvan stream, as we beheld it now, is swollen into the thames at london. once, on our voyage, we had to land, while the boatman and some other persons drew our skiff round some rapids, which we could not otherwise have passed; another time, the boat went through a lock. we, meanwhile, stepped ashore to examine the ruins of the old nunnery of godstowe, where fair rosamond secluded herself, after being separated from her royal lover. there is a long line of ruinous wall, and a shattered tower at one of the angles; the whole much ivy-grown,--brimming over, indeed, with clustering ivy, which is rooted inside of the walls. the nunnery is now, i believe, held in lease by the city of oxford, which has converted its precincts into a barn-yard. the gate was under lock and key, so that we could merely look at the outside, and soon resumed our places in the boat. at three o'clock or thereabouts (or sooner or later,--for i took little heed of time, and only wished that these delightful wanderings might last forever) we reached folly bridge, at oxford. here we took possession of a spacious barge, with a house in it, and a comfortable dining-room or drawing-room within the house, and a level roof, on which we could sit at ease, or dance if so inclined. these barges are common at oxford,--some very splendid ones being owned by the students of the different colleges, or by clubs. they are drawn by horses, like canal-boats; and a horse being attached to our own barge, he trotted off at a reasonable pace, and we slipped through the water behind him, with a gentle and pleasant motion, which, save for the constant vicissitude of cultivated scenery, was like no motion at all. it was life without the trouble of living; nothing was ever more quietly agreeable. in this happy state of mind and body we gazed at christ church meadows, as we passed, and at the receding spires and towers of oxford, and on a good deal of pleasant variety along the banks: young men rowing or fishing; troops of naked boys bathing, as if this were arcadia, in the simplicity of the golden age; country-houses, cottages, water-side inns, all with something fresh about them, as not being sprinkled with the dust of the highway. we were a large party now; for a number of additional guests had joined us at folly bridge, and we comprised poets, novelists, scholars, sculptors, painters, architects, men and women of renown, dear friends, genial, outspoken, open-hearted englishmen,--all voyaging onward together, like the wise ones of gotham in a bowl. i remember not a single annoyance, except, indeed, that a swarm of wasps came aboard of us and alighted on the head of one of our young gentlemen, attracted by the scent of the pomatum which he had been rubbing into his hair. he was the only victim, and his small trouble the one little flaw in our day's felicity, to put us in mind that we were mortal. meanwhile a table had been laid in the interior of our barge, and spread with cold ham, cold fowl, cold pigeon-pie, cold beef, and other substantial cheer, such as the english love, and yankees too,--besides tarts, and cakes, and pears, and plums,--not forgetting, of course, a goodly provision of port, sherry, and champagne, and bitter ale, which is like mother's milk to an englishman, and soon grows equally acceptable to his american cousin. by the time these matters had been properly attended to, we had arrived at that part of the thames which passes by nuneham courtney, a fine estate belonging to the harcourts, and the present residence of the family. here we landed, and, climbing a steep slope from the river-side, paused a moment or two to look at an architectural object, called the carfax, the purport of which i do not well understand. thence we proceeded onward, through the loveliest park and woodland scenery i ever saw, and under as beautiful a declining sunshine as heaven ever shed over earth, to the stately mansion-house. as we here cross a private threshold, it is not allowable to pursue my feeble narrative of this delightful day with the same freedom as heretofore; so, perhaps, i may as well bring it to a close. i may mention, however, that i saw the library, a fine, large apartment, hung round with portraits of eminent literary men, principally of the last century, most of whom were familiar guests of the harcourts. the house itself is about eighty years old, and is built in the classic style, as if the family had been anxious to diverge as far as possible from the gothic picturesqueness of their old abode at stanton harcourt. the grounds were laid out in part by capability brown, and seemed to me even more beautiful than those of blenheim. mason the poet, a friend of the house, gave the design of a portion of the garden. of the whole place i will not be niggardly of my rude transatlantic praise, but be bold to say that it appeared to me as perfect as anything earthly can he,--utterly and entirely finished, as if the years and generations had done all that the hearts and minds of the successive owners could contrive for a spot they dearly loved. such homes as nuneham courtney are among the splendid results of long hereditary possession; and we republicans, whose households melt away like new-fallen snow in a spring morning, must content ourselves with our many counterbalancing advantages, for this one, so apparently desirable to the far-projecting selfishness of our nature, we are certain never to attain. it must not be supposed, nevertheless, that nuneham courtney is one of the great show-places of england. it is merely a fair specimen of the better class of country-seats, and has a hundred rivals, and many superiors, in the features of beauty, and expansive, manifold, redundant comfort, which most impressed me. a moderate man might be content with such a home,--that is all. and now i take leave of oxford without even an attempt to describe it,-- there being no literary faculty, attainable or conceivable by me, which can avail to put it adequately, or even tolerably, upon paper. it must remain its own sole expression; and those whose sad fortune it may be never to behold it have no better resource than to dream about gray, weather-stained, ivy-grown edifices, wrought with quaint gothic ornament, and standing around grassy quadrangles, where cloistered walks have echoed to the quiet footsteps of twenty generations,--lawns and gardens of luxurious repose, shadowed with canopies of foliage, and lit up with sunny glimpses through archways of great boughs,--spires, towers, and turrets, each with its history and legend,--dimly magnificent chapels, with painted windows of rare beauty and brilliantly diversified hues, creating an atmosphere of richest gloom,--vast college-halls, high-windowed, oaken-panelled, and hung round with portraits of the men, in every age, whom the university has nurtured to be illustrious,--long vistas of alcoved libraries, where the wisdom and learned folly of all time is shelved,--kitchens (we throw in this feature by way of ballast, and because it would not be english oxford without its beef and beer), with huge fireplaces, capable of roasting a hundred joints at once,--and cavernous cellars, where rows of piled-up hogsheads seethe and fume with that mighty malt-liquor which is the true milk of alma mater; make all these things vivid in your dream, and you will never know nor believe how inadequate is the result to represent even the merest outside of oxford. we feel a genuine reluctance to conclude this article without making our grateful acknowledgments, by name, to a gentleman whose overflowing kindness was the main condition of all our sight-seeings and enjoyments. delightful as will always be our recollection of oxford and its neighborhood, we partly suspect that it owes much of its happy coloring to the genial medium through which the objects were presented to us,--to the kindly magic of a hospitality unsurpassed, within our experience, in the quality of making the guest contented with his host, with himself, and everything about him. he has inseparably mingled his image with our remembrance of the spires of oxford. some of the haunts of burns. we left carlisle at a little past eleven, and within the half-hour were at gretna green. thence we rushed onward into scotland through a flat and dreary tract of country, consisting mainly of desert and bog, where probably the moss-troopers were accustomed to take refuge after their raids into england. anon, however, the hills hove themselves up to view, occasionally attaining a height which might almost be called mountainous. in about two hours we reached dumfries, and alighted at the station there. chill as the scottish summer is reputed to be, we found it an awfully hot day, not a whit less so than the day before; but we sturdily adventured through the burning sunshine up into the town, inquiring our way to the residence of burns. the street leading from the station is called shakespeare street; and at its farther extremity we read "burns street" on a corner-house, the avenue thus designated having been formerly known as "mill-hole brae." it is a vile lane, paved with small, hard stones from side to side, and bordered by cottages or mean houses of whitewashed stone, joining one to another along the whole length of the street. with not a tree, of course, or a blade of grass between the paving-stones, the narrow lane was as hot as topbet, and reeked with a genuine scotch odor, being infested with unwashed children, and altogether in a state of chronic filth; although some women seemed to be hopelessly scrubbing the thresholds of their wretched dwellings. i never saw an outskirt of a town less fit for a poet's residence, or in which it would be more miserable for any man of cleanly predilections to spend his days. we asked for burns's dwelling; and a woman pointed across the street to a two-story house, built of stone, and whitewashed, like its neighbors, but perhaps of a little more respectable aspect than most of them, though i hesitate in saying so. it was not a separate structure, but under the same continuous roof with the next. there was an inscription on the door, hearing no reference to burns, but indicating that the house was now occupied by a ragged or industrial school. on knocking, we were instantly admitted by a servant-girl, who smiled intelligently when we told our errand, and showed us into a low and very plain parlor, not more than twelve or fifteen feet square. a young woman, who seemed to be a teacher in the school, soon appeared, and told us that this had been burns's usual sitting-room, and that he had written many of his songs here. she then led us up a narrow staircase into a little bedchamber over the parlor. connecting with it, there is a very small room, or windowed closet, which burns used as a study; and the bedchamber itself was the one where he slept in his later lifetime, and in which he died at last. altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,--even more unsatisfactory than shakespeare's house, which has a certain homely picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness of the abode before us. the narrow lane, the paving-stones, and the contiguity of wretched hovels are depressing to remember; and the steam of them (such is our human weakness) might almost make the poet's memory less fragrant. as already observed, it was an intolerably hot day. after leaving the house, we found our way into the principal street of the town, which, it may be fair to say, is of very different aspect from the wretched outskirt above described. entering a hotel (in which, as a dumfries guide-book assured us, prince charles edward had once spent a night), we rested and refreshed ourselves, and then set forth in quest of the mausoleum of burns. coming to st. michael's church, we saw a man digging a grave, and, scrambling out of the hole, he let us into the churchyard, which was crowded full of monuments. their general shape and construction are peculiar to scotland, being a perpendicular tablet of marble or other stone, within a framework of the same material, somewhat resembling the frame of a looking-glass; and, all over the churchyard, those sepulchral memorials rise to the height of ten, fifteen, or twenty feet, forming quite an imposing collection of monuments, but inscribed with names of small general significance. it was easy, indeed, to ascertain the rank of those who slept below; for in scotland it is the custom to put the occupation of the buried personage (as "skinner," "shoemaker," "flesher") on his tombstone. as another peculiarity, wives are buried under their maiden names, instead of those of their husbands; thus giving a disagreeable impression that the married pair have bidden each other an eternal farewell on the edge of the grave. there was a foot-path through this crowded churchyard, sufficiently well worn to guide us to the grave of burns; but a woman followed behind us, who, it appeared, kept the key of the mausoleum, and was privileged to show it to strangers. the monument is a sort of grecian temple, with pilasters and a dome, covering a space of about twenty feet square. it was formerly open to all the inclemencies of the scotch atmosphere, but is now protected and shut in by large squares of rough glass, each pane being of the size of one whole side of the structure. the woman unlocked the door, and admitted us into the interior. inlaid into the floor of the mausoleum is the gravestone of burns,--the very same that was laid over his grave by jean armour, before this monument was built. displayed against the surrounding wall is a marble statue of burns at the plough, with the genius of caledonia summoning the ploughman to turn poet. methought it was not a very successful piece of work; for the plough was better sculptured than the man, and the man, though heavy and cloddish, was more effective than the goddess. our guide informed us that an old man of ninety, who knew burns, certifies this statue to be very like the original. the bones of the poet, and of jean armour, and of some of their children, lie in the vault over which we stood. our guide (who was intelligent, in her own plain way, and very agreeable to talk withal) said that the vault was opened about three weeks ago, on occasion of the burial of the eldest son of burns. the poet's bones were disturbed, and the dry skull, once so brimming over with powerful thought and bright and tender fantasies, was taken away, and kept for several days by a dumfries doctor. it has since been deposited in a new leaden coffin, and restored to the vault. we learned that there is a surviving daughter of burns's eldest son, and daughters likewise of the two younger sons,--and, besides these, an illegitimate posterity by the eldest son, who appears to have been of disreputable life in his younger days. he inherited his father's failings, with some faint shadow, i have also understood, of the great qualities which have made the world tender of his father's vices and weaknesses. we listened readily enough to this paltry gossip, but found that it robbed the poet's memory of some of the reverence that was its due. indeed, this talk over his grave had very much the same tendency and effect as the home-scene of his life, which we had been visiting just previously. beholding his poor, mean dwelling and its surroundings, and picturing his outward life and earthly manifestations from these, one does not so much wonder that the people of that day should have failed to recognize all that was admirable and immortal in a disreputable, drunken, shabbily clothed, and shabbily housed man, consorting with associates of damaged character, and, as his only ostensible occupation, gauging the whiskey, which he too often tasted. siding with burns, as we needs must, in his plea against the world, let us try to do the world a little justice too. it is far easier to know and honor a poet when his fame has taken shape in the spotlessness of marble than when the actual man comes staggering before you, besmeared with the sordid stains of his daily life. for my part, i chiefly wonder that his recognition dawned so brightly while he was still living. there must have been something very grand in his immediate presence, some strangely impressive characteristic in his natural behavior, to have caused him to seem like a demigod so soon. as we went back through the churchyard, we saw a spot where nearly four hundred inhabitants of dumfries were buried during the cholera year; and also some curious old monuments, with raised letters, the inscriptions on which were not sufficiently legible to induce us to puzzle them out; but, i believe, they mark the resting-places of old covenanters, some of whom were killed by claverhouse and his fellow-ruffians. st. michael's church is of red freestone, and was built about a hundred years ago, on an old catholic foundation. our guide admitted us into it, and showed us, in the porch, a very pretty little marble figure of a child asleep, with a drapery over the lower part, from beneath which appeared its two baby feet. it was truly a sweet little statue; and the woman told us that it represented a child of the sculptor, and that the baby (here still in its marble infancy) had died more than twenty-six years ago. "many ladies," she said, "especially such as had ever lost a child, had shed tears over it." it was very pleasant to think of the sculptor bestowing the best of his genius and art to re-create his tender child in stone, and to make the representation as soft and sweet as the original; but the conclusion of the story has something that jars with our awakened sensibilities. a gentleman from london had seen the statue, and was so much delighted with it that he bought it of the father-artist, after it had lain above a quarter of a century in the church-porch. so this was not the real, tender image that came out of the father's heart; he had sold that truest one for a hundred guineas, and sculptured this mere copy to replace it. the first figure was entirely naked in its earthly and spiritual innocence. the copy, as i have said above, has a drapery over the lower limbs. but, after all, if we come to the truth of the matter, the sleeping baby may be as fully reposited in the drawing-room of a connoisseur as in a cold and dreary church-porch. we went into the church, and found it very plain and naked, without altar-decorations, and having its floor quite covered with unsightly wooden pews. the woman led us to a pew cornering on one of the side-aisles, and, telling us that it used to be burns's family-pew, showed us his seat, which is in the corner by the aisle. it is so situated, that a sturdy pillar hid him from the pulpit, and from the minister's eye; "for robin was no great friends with the ministers," said she. this touch--his seat behind the pillar, and burns himself nodding in sermon-time, or keenly observant of profane things--brought him before us to the life. in the corner-seat of the next pew, right before burns, and not more than two feet off, sat the young lady on whom the poet saw that unmentionable parasite which he has immortalized in song. we were ungenerous enough to ask the lady's name, but the good woman could not tell it. this was the last thing which we saw in dumfries worthy of record; and it ought to be noted that our guide refused some money which my companion offered her, because i had already paid her what she deemed sufficient. at the railway-station we spent more than a weary hour, waiting for the train, which at last came up, and took us to mauchline. we got into an omnibus, the only conveyance to be had, and drove about a mile to the village, where we established ourselves at the loudoun hotel, one of the veriest country inns which we have found in great britain. the town of mauchline, a place more redolent of burns than almost any other, consists of a street or two of contiguous cottages, mostly whitewashed, and with thatched roofs. it has nothing sylvan or rural in the immediate village, and is as ugly a place as mortal man could contrive to make, or to render uglier through a succession of untidy generations. the fashion of paving the village street, and patching one shabby house on the gable-end of another, quite shuts out all verdure and pleasantness; but, i presume, we are not likely to see a more genuine old scotch village, such as they used to be in burns's time, and long before, than this of mauchline. the church stands about midway up the street, and is built of red freestone, very simple in its architecture, with a square tower and pinnacles. in this sacred edifice, and its churchyard, was the scene of one of burns's most characteristic productions, "the holy fair." almost directly opposite its gate, across the village street, stands posie nansie's inn, where the "jolly beggars" congregated. the latter is a two-story, red-stone, thatched house, looking old, but by no means venerable, like a drunken patriarch. it has small, old-fashioned windows, and may well have stood for centuries,--though, seventy or eighty years ago, when burns was conversant with it, i should fancy it might have been something better than a beggars' alehouse. the whole town of mauchline looks rusty and time-worn,--even the newer houses, of which there are several, being shadowed and darkened by the general aspect of the place. when we arrived, all the wretched little dwellings seemed to have belched forth their inhabitants into the warm summer evening; everybody was chatting with everybody, on the most familiar terms; the bare-legged children gambolled or quarrelled uproariously, and came freely, moreover, and looked into the window of our parlor. when we ventured out, we were followed by the gaze of the old town: people standing in their doorways, old women popping their heads from the chamber-windows, and stalwart men idle on saturday at e'en, after their week's hard labor--clustering at the street-corners, merely to stare at our unpretending selves. except in some remote little town of italy (where, besides, the inhabitants had the intelligible stimulus of beggary), i have never been honored with nearly such an amount of public notice. the next forenoon my companion put me to shame by attending church, after vainly exhorting me to do the like; and, it being sacrament sunday, and my poor friend being wedged into the farther end of a closely filled pew, he was forced to stay through the preaching of four several sermons, and came back perfectly exhausted and desperate. he was somewhat consoled, however, on finding that he had witnessed a spectacle of scotch manners identical with that of burns's "holy fair," on the very spot where the poet located that immortal description. by way of further conformance to the customs of the country, we ordered a sheep's head and the broth, and did penance accordingly; and at five o'clock we took a fly, and set out for burns's farm of moss giel. moss giel is not more than a mile from mauchline, and the road extends over a high ridge of land, with a view of far hills and green slopes on either side. just before we reached the farm, the driver stopped to point out a hawthorn, growing by the wayside, which he said was burns's "lousie thorn"; and i devoutly plucked a branch, although i have really forgotten where or how this illustrious shrub has been celebrated. we then turned into a rude gateway, and almost immediately came to the farm-house of moss giel, standing some fifty yards removed from the high-road, behind a tall hedge of hawthorn, and considerably overshadowed by trees. the house is a whitewashed stone cottage, like thousands of others in england and scotland, with a thatched roof, on which grass and weeds have intruded a picturesque, though alien growth. there is a door and one window in front, besides another little window that peeps out among the thatch. close by the cottage, and extending back at right angles from it, so as to enclose the farm-yard, are two other buildings of the same size, shape, and general appearance as the house: any one of the three looks just as fit for a human habitation as the two others, and all three look still more suitable for donkey-stables and pigsties. as we drove into the farm-yard, bounded on three sides by these three hovels, a large dog began to bark at us; and some women and children made their appearance, but seemed to demur about admitting us, because the master and mistress were very religious people, and had not yet come back from the sacrament at mauchline. however, it would not do to be turned back from the very threshold of robert burns; and as the women seemed to be merely straggling visitors, and nobody, at all events, had a right to send us away, we went into the back door, and, turning to the right, entered a kitchen. it showed a deplorable lack of housewifely neatness, and in it there were three or four children, one of whom, a girl eight or nine years old, held a baby in her arms. she proved to be the daughter of the people of the house, and gave us what leave she could to look about us. thence we stepped across the narrow mid-passage of the cottage into the only other apartment below stairs, a sitting-room, where we found a young man eating broad and cheese. he informed us that he did not live there, and had only called in to refresh himself on his way home from church. this room, like the kitchen, was a noticeably poor one, and, besides being all that the cottage had to show for a parlor, it was a sleeping-apartment, having two beds, which might be curtained off, on occasion. the young man allowed us liberty (so far as in him lay) to go up stairs. up we crept, accordingly; and a few steps brought us to the top of the staircase, over the kitchen, where we found the wretchedest little sleeping-chamber in the world, with a sloping roof under the thatch, and two beds spread upon the bare floor. this, most probably, was burns's chamber; or, perhaps, it may have been that of his mother's servant-maid; and, in either case, this rude floor, at one time or another, must have creaked beneath the poet's midnight tread. on the opposite side of the passage was the door of another attic-chamber, opening which, i saw a considerable number of cheeses on the floor. the whole house was pervaded with a frowzy smell, and also a dunghill odor; and it is not easy to understand how the atmosphere of such a dwelling can be any more agreeable or salubrious morally than it appeared to be physically. no virgin, surely, could keep a holy awe about her while stowed higgledy-piggledy with coarse-natured rustics into this narrowness and filth. such a habitation is calculated to make beasts of men and women; and it indicates a degree of barbarism which i did not imagine to exist in scotland, that a tiller of broad fields, like the farmer of mauchline, should have his abode in a pigsty. it is sad to think of anybody--not to say a poet, but any human being--sleeping, eating, thinking, praying, and spending all his home-life in this miserable hovel; but, methinks, i never in the least knew how to estimate the miracle of burns's genius, nor his heroic merit for being no worse man, until i thus learned the squalid hindrances amid which he developed himself. space, a free atmosphere, and cleanliness have a vast deal to do with the possibilities of human virtue. the biographers talk of the farm of moss giel as being damp and unwholesome; but, i do not see why, outside of the cottage-walls, it should possess so evil a reputation. it occupies a high, broad ridge, enjoying, surely, whatever benefit can come of a breezy site, and sloping far downward before any marshy soil is reached. the high hedge, and the trees that stand beside the cottage, give it a pleasant aspect enough to one who does not know the grimy secrets of the interior; and the summer afternoon was now so bright that i shall remember the scene with a great deal of sunshine over it. leaving the cottage, we drove through a field, which the driver told us was that in which burns turned up the mouse's nest. it is the enclosure nearest to the cottage, and seems now to be a pasture, and a rather remarkably unfertile one. a little farther on, the ground was whitened with an immense number of daisies,--daisies, daisies everywhere; and in answer to my inquiry, the driver said that this was the field where burns ran his ploughshare over the daisy. if so, the soil seems to have been consecrated to daisies by the song which he bestowed on that first immortal one. i alighted, and plucked a whole handful of these "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers," which will be precious to many friends in our own country as coming from burns's farm, and being of the same race and lineage as that daisy which he turned into an amaranthine flower while seeming to destroy it. from moss giel we drove through a variety of pleasant scenes, some of which were familiar to us by their connection with burns. we skirted, too, along a portion of the estate of auchinleck, which still belongs to the boswell family,--the present possessor being sir james boswell [sir james boswell is now dead], a grandson of johnson's friend, and son of the sir alexander who was killed in a duel. our driver spoke of sir james as a kind, free-hearted man, but addicted to horse-races and similar pastimes, and a little too familiar with the wine-cup; so that poor bozzy's booziness would appear to have become hereditary in his ancient line. there is no male heir to the estate of auchinleck. the portion of the lands which we saw is covered with wood and much undermined with rabbit-warrens; nor, though the territory extends over a large number of acres, is the income very considerable. by and by we came to the spot where burns saw miss alexander, the lass of ballochmyle. it was on a bridge, which (or, more probably, a bridge that has succeeded to the old one, and is made of iron) crosses from bank to bank, high in air, over a deep gorge of the road; so that the young lady may have appeared to burns like a creature between earth and sky, and compounded chiefly of celestial elements. but, in honest truth, the great charm of a woman, in burns's eyes, was always her womanhood, and not the angelic mixture which other poets find in her. our driver pointed out the course taken by the lass of ballochmyle, through the shrubbery, to a rock on the banks of the lugar, where it seems to be the tradition that burns accosted her. the song implies no such interview. lovers, of whatever condition, high or low, could desire no lovelier scene in which to breathe their vows: the river flowing over its pebbly bed, sometimes gleaming into the sunshine, sometimes hidden deep in verdure, and here and there eddying at the foot of high and precipitous cliffs. this beautiful estate of ballochmyle is still held by the family of alexanders, to whom burns's song has given renown on cheaper terms than any other set of people ever attained it. how slight the tenure seems! a young lady happened to walk out, one summer afternoon, and crossed the path of a neighboring farmer, who celebrated the little incident in four or five warm, rude, at least, not refined, though rather ambitious,--and somewhat ploughman-like verses. burns has written hundreds of better things; but henceforth, for centuries, that maiden has free admittance into the dream-land of beautiful women, and she and all her race are famous. i should like to know the present head of the family, and ascertain what value, if any, the members of it put upon the celebrity thus won. we passed through catrine, known hereabouts as "the clean village of scotland." certainly, as regards the point indicated, it has greatly the advantage of mauchline, whither we now returned without seeing anything else worth writing about. there was a rain-storm during the night, and, in the morning, the rusty, old, sloping street of mauchline was glistening with wet, while frequent showers came spattering down. the intense heat of many days past was exchanged for a chilly atmosphere, much more suitable to a stranger's idea of what scotch temperature ought to be. we found, after breakfast, that the first train northward had already gone by, and that we must wait till nearly two o'clock for the next. i merely ventured out once, during the forenoon, and took a brief walk through the village, in which i have left little to describe. its chief business appears to be the manufacture of snuff-boxes. there are perhaps five or six shops, or more, including those licensed to sell only tea and tobacco; the best of them have the characteristics of village stores in the united states, dealing in a small way with an extensive variety of articles. i peeped into the open gateway of the churchyard, and saw that the ground was absolutely stuffed with dead people, and the surface crowded with gravestones, both perpendicular and horizontal. all burns's old mauchline acquaintance are doubtless there, and the armours among them, except bonny jean, who sleeps by her poet's side. the family of armour is now extinct in mauchline. arriving at the railway-station, we found a tall, elderly, comely gentleman walking to and fro and waiting for the train. he proved to be a mr. alexander,--it may fairly be presumed the alexander of ballochmyle, a blood relation of the lovely lass. wonderful efficacy of a poet's verse, that could shed a glory from long ago on this old gentleman's white hair! these alexanders, by the by, are not an old family on the ballochmyle estate; the father of the lass having made a fortune in trade, and established himself as the first landed proprietor of his name in these parts. the original family was named whitefoord. our ride to ayr presented nothing very remarkable; and, indeed, a cloudy and rainy day takes the varnish off the scenery and causes a woful diminution in the beauty and impressiveness of everything we see. much of our way lay along a flat, sandy level, in a southerly direction. we reached ayr in the midst of hopeless rain, and drove to the king's arms hotel. in the intervals of showers i took peeps at the town, which appeared to have many modern or modern-fronted edifices; although there are likewise tall, gray, gabled, and quaint-looking houses in the by-streets, here and there, betokening an ancient place. the town lies on both sides of the ayr, which is here broad and stately, and bordered with dwellings that look from their windows directly down into the passing tide. i crossed the river by a modern and handsome stone bridge, and recrossed it, at no great distance, by a venerable structure of four gray arches, which must have bestridden the stream ever since the early days of scottish history. these are the "two briggs of ayr," whose midnight conversation was overheard by burns, while other auditors were aware only of the rush and rumble of the wintry stream among the arches. the ancient bridge is steep and narrow, and paved like a street, and defended by a parapet of red freestone, except at the two ends, where some mean old shops allow scanty room for the pathway to creep between. nothing else impressed me hereabouts, unless i mention, that, during the rain, the women and girls went about the streets of ayr barefooted to save their shoes. the next morning wore a lowering aspect, as if it felt itself destined to be one of many consecutive days of storm. after a good scotch breakfast, however, of fresh herrings and eggs, we took a fly, and started at a little past ten for the banks of the doon. on our way, at about two miles from ayr, we drew up at a roadside cottage, on which was an inscription to the effect that robert burns was born within its walls. it is now a public-house; and, of course, we alighted and entered its little sitting-room, which, as we at present see it, is a neat apartment, with the modern improvement of a ceiling. the walls are much overscribbled with names of visitors, and the wooden door of a cupboard in the wainscot, as well as all the other wood-work of the room, is cut and carved with initial letters. so, likewise, are two tables, which, having received a coat of varnish over the inscriptions, form really curious and interesting articles of furniture. i have seldom (though i do not, personally adopt this mode of illustrating my bumble name) felt inclined to ridicule the natural impulse of most people thus to record themselves at the shrines of poets and heroes. on a panel, let into the wall in a corner of the room, is a portrait of burns, copied from the original picture by nasmyth. the floor of this apartment is of boards, which are probably a recent substitute for the ordinary flag-stones of a peasant's cottage. there is but one other room pertaining to the genuine birthplace of robert burns: it is the kitchen, into which we now went. it has a floor of flag-stones, even ruder than those of shakespeare's house,--though, perhaps, not so strangely cracked and broken as the latter, over which the hoof of satan himself might seem to have been trampling. a new window has been opened through the wall, towards the road; but on the opposite side is the little original window, of only four small panes, through which came the first daylight that shone upon the scottish poet. at the side of the room, opposite the fireplace, is a recess, containing a bed, which can be hidden by curtains. in that humble nook, of all places in the world, providence was pleased to deposit the germ of the richest, human life which mankind then had within its circumference. these two rooms, as i have said, make up the whole sum and substance of burns's birthplace: for there were no chambers, nor even attics; and the thatched roof formed the only ceiling of kitchen and sitting-room, the height of which was that of the whole house. the cottage, however, is attached to another edifice of the same size and description, as these little habitations often are; and, moreover, a splendid addition has been made to it, since the poet's renown began to draw visitors to the wayside alehouse. the old woman of the house led us through an entry, and showed a vaulted hall, of no vast dimensions, to be sure, but marvellously large and splendid as compared with what might be anticipated from the outward aspect of the cottage. it contained a bust of burns, and was hung round with pictures and engravings, principally illustrative of his life and poems. in this part of the house, too, there is a parlor, fragrant with tobacco-smoke; and, no doubt, many a noggin of whiskey is here quaffed to the memory of the bard, who professed to draw so much inspiration from that potent liquor. we bought some engravings of kirk alloway, the bridge of doon, and the monument, and gave the old woman a fee besides, and took our leave. a very short drive farther brought us within sight of the monument, and to the hotel, situated close by the entrance of the ornamental grounds within which the former is enclosed. we rang the bell at the gate of the enclosure, but were forced to wait a considerable time; because the old man, the regular superintendent of the spot, had gone to assist at the laying of the corner-stone of a new kirk. he appeared anon, and admitted us, but immediately hurried away to be present at the concluding ceremonies, leaving us locked up with burns. the enclosure around the monument is beautifully laid out as an ornamental garden, and abundantly provided with rare flowers and shrubbery, all tended with loving care. the monument stands on an elevated site, and consists of a massive basement-story, three-sided, above which rises a light and elegant grecian temple,--a mere dome, supported on corinthian pillars, and open to all the winds. the edifice is beautiful in itself; though i know not what peculiar appropriateness it may have, as the memorial of a scottish rural poet. the door of the basement-story stood open; and, entering, we saw a bust of burns in a niche, looking keener, more refined, but not so warm and whole-souled as his pictures usually do. i think the likeness cannot be good. in the centre of the room stood a glass case, in which were reposited the two volumes of the little pocket bible that burns gave to highland mary, when they pledged their troth to one another. it is poorly printed, on coarse paper. a verse of scripture, referring to the solemnity and awfulness of vows, is written within the cover of each volume, in the poet's own hand; and fastened to one of the covers is a lock of highland mary's golden hair. this bible had been carried to america--by one of her relatives, but was sent back to be fitly treasured here. there is a staircase within the monument, by which we ascended to the top, and had a view of both briggs of doon; the scene of tam o'shanter's misadventure being close at hand. descending, we wandered through the enclosed garden, and came to a little building in a corner, on entering which, we found the two statues of tam and sutor wat,--ponderous stone-work enough, yet permeated in a remarkable degree with living warmth and jovial hilarity. from this part of the garden, too, we again beheld the old brigg of doon, over which tam galloped in such imminent and awful peril. it is a beautiful object in the landscape, with one high, graceful arch, ivy-grown, and shadowed all over and around with foliage. when we had waited a good while, the old gardener came, telling us that he had heard an excellent prayer at laying the corner-stone of the new kirk. he now gave us some roses and sweetbrier, and let us out from his pleasant garden. we immediately hastened to kirk alloway, which is within two or three minutes' walk of the monument. a few steps ascend from the roadside, through a gate, into the old graveyard, in the midst of which stands the kirk. the edifice is wholly roofless, but the side-walls and gable-ends are quite entire, though portions of them are evidently modern restorations. never was there a plainer little church, or one with smaller architectural pretension; no new england meeting-house has more simplicity in its very self, though poetry and fun have clambered and clustered so wildly over kirk alloway that it is difficult to see it as it actually exists. by the by, i do not understand why satan and an assembly of witches should hold their revels within a consecrated precinct; but the weird scene has so established itself in the world's imaginative faith that it must be accepted as an authentic incident, in spite of rule and reason to the contrary. possibly, some carnal minister, some priest of pious aspect and hidden infidelity, had dispelled the consecration of the holy edifice by his pretence of prayer, and thus made it the resort of unhappy ghosts and sorcerers and devils. the interior of the kirk, even now, is applied to quite as impertinent a purpose as when satan and the witches used it as a dancing-hall; for it is divided in the midst by a wall of stone-masonry, and each compartment has been converted into a family burial-place. the name on one of the monuments is crawfurd; the other bore no inscription. it is impossible not to feel that these good people, whoever they may be, had no business to thrust their prosaic bones into a spot that belongs to the world, and where their presence jars with the emotions, be they sad or gay, which the pilgrim brings thither. they slant us out from our own precincts, too,--from that inalienable possession which burns bestowed in free gift upon mankind, by taking it from the actual earth and annexing it to the domain of imagination. and here these wretched squatters have lain down to their long sleep, after barring each of the two doorways of the kirk with an iron grate! may their rest be troubled, till they rise and let us in! kirk alloway is inconceivably small, considering how large a space it fills in our imagination before we see it. i paced its length, outside of the wall, and found it only seventeen of my paces, and not more than ten of them in breadth. there seem to have been but very few windows, all of which, if i rightly remember, are now blocked up with mason-work of stone. one mullioned window, tall and narrow, in the eastern gable, might have been seen by tam o'shanter, blazing with devilish light, as he approached along the road from ayr; and there is a small and square one, on the side nearest the road, into which he might have peered, as he sat on horseback. indeed, i could easily have looked through it, standing on the ground, had not the opening been walled up. there is an odd kind of belfry at the peak of one of the gables, with the small bell still hanging in it. and this is all that i remember of kirk alloway, except that the stones of its material are gray and irregular. the road from ayr passes alloway kirk, and crosses the doon by a modern bridge, without swerving much from a straight line. to reach the old bridge, it appears to have made a bend, shortly after passing the kirk, and then to have turned sharply towards the river. the new bridge is within a minute's walk of the monument; and we went thither, and leaned over its parapet to admire the beautiful doon, flowing wildly and sweetly between its deep and wooded banks. i never saw a lovelier scene; although this might have been even lovelier, if a kindly sun had shone upon it. the ivy-grown, ancient bridge, with its high arch, through which we had a picture of the river and the green banks beyond, was absolutely the most picturesque object, in a quiet and gentle way, that ever blessed my eyes. bonny doon, with its wooded banks, and the boughs dipping into the water! the memory of them, at this moment, affects me like the song of birds, and burns crooning some verses, simple and wild, in accordance with their native melody. it was impossible to depart without crossing the very bridge of tam's adventure; so we went thither, over a now disused portion of the road, and, standing on the centre of the arch, gathered some ivy-leaves from that sacred spot. this done, we returned as speedily as might be to ayr, whence, taking the rail, we soon beheld ailsa craig rising like a pyramid out of the sea. drawing nearer to glasgow, bell lomond hove in sight, with a dome-like summit, supported by a shoulder on each side. but a man is better than a mountain; and we had been holding intercourse, if not with the reality, at least with the stalwart ghost of one of earth's memorable sons, amid the scenes where he lived and sung. we shall appreciate him better as a poet, hereafter; for there is no writer whose life, as a man, has so much to do with his fame, and throws such a necessary light, upon whatever he has produced. henceforth, there will be a personal warmth for us in everything that he wrote; and, like his countrymen, we shall know him in a kind of personal way, as if we had shaken hands with him, and felt the thrill of his actual voice. a london suburb. one of our english summers looks, in the retrospect, as if it had been patched with more frequent sunshine than the sky of england ordinarily affords; but i believe that it may be only a moral effect,--a "light that never was on sea nor land," caused by our having found a particularly delightful abode in the neighborhood of london. in order to enjoy it, however, i was compelled to solve the problem of living in two places at once,--an impossibility which i so far accomplished as to vanish, at frequent intervals, out of men's sight and knowledge on one side of england, and take my place in a circle of familiar faces on the other, so quietly that i seemed to have been there all along. it was the easier to get accustomed to our new residence, because it was not only rich in all the material properties of a home, but had also the home-like atmosphere, the household element, which is of too intangible a character to be let even with the most thoroughly furnished lodging-house. a friend had given us his suburban residence, with all its conveniences, elegances, and snuggeries,--its drawing-rooms and library, still warm and bright with the recollection of the genial presences that we had known there,-- its closets, chambers, kitchen, and even its wine-cellar, if we could have availed ourselves of so dear and delicate a trust,--its lawn and cosey garden-nooks, and whatever else makes up the multitudinous idea of an english home,--he had transferred it all to us, pilgrims and dusty wayfarers, that we might rest and take our ease during his summer's absence on the continent. we had long been dwelling in tents, as it were, and morally shivering by hearths which, heap the bituminous coal upon them as we might, no blaze could render cheerful. i remember, to this day, the dreary feeling with which i sat by our first english fireside, and watched the chill and rainy twilight of an autumn day darkening down upon the garden; while the portrait of the preceding occupant of the house (evidently a most unamiable personage in his lifetime) scowled inhospitably from above the mantel-piece, as if indignant that an american should try to make himself at home there. possibly it may appease his sulky shade to know that i quitted his abode as much a stranger as i entered it. but mow, at last, we were in a genuine british home, where refined and warm-hearted people had just been living their daily life, and had left us a summer's inheritance of slowly ripened days, such as a stranger's hasty opportunities so seldom permit him to enjoy. within so trifling a distance of the central spot of all the world (which, as americans have at present no centre of their own, we may allow to be somewhere in the vicinity, we will say, of st. paul's cathedral), it might have seemed natural that i should be tossed about by the turbulence of the vast london whirlpool. but i had drifted into a still eddy, where conflicting movements made a repose, and, wearied with a good deal of uncongenial activity, i found the quiet of my temporary haven more attractive than anything that the great town could offer. i already knew london well; that is to say, i had long ago satisfied (so far as it was capable of satisfaction) that mysterious yearning--the magnetism of millions of hearts operating upon one--which impels every man's individuality to mingle itself with the immensest mass of human life within his scope. day alter day, at an earlier period, i had trodden the thronged thoroughfares, the broad, lonely squares, the lanes, alleys, and strange labyrinthine courts, the parks, the gardens and enclosures of ancient studious societies, so retired and silent amid the city uproar, the markets, the foggy streets along the river-side, the bridges,--i had sought all parts of the metropolis, in short, with an unweariable and indiscriminating curiosity; until few of the native inhabitants, i fancy, had turned so many of its corners as myself. these aimless wanderings (in which my prime purpose and achievement were to lose my way, and so to find it the more surely) had brought one, at one time or another, to the sight and actual presence of almost all the objects and renowned localities that i had read about, and which had made london the dream-city of my youth. i had found it better than my dream; for there is nothing else in life comparable (in that species of enjoyment, i mean) to the thick, heavy, oppressive, sombre delight which an american is sensible of, hardly knowing whether to call it a pleasure or a pain, in the atmosphere of london. the result was, that i acquired a home-feeling there, as nowhere else in the world,--though afterwards i came to have a somewhat similar sentiment in regard to rome; and as long as either of those two great cities shall exist, the cities of the past and of the present, a man's native soil may crumble beneath his feet without leaving him altogether homeless upon earth. thus, having once fully yielded to its influence, i was in a manner free of the city, and could approach or keep away from it as i pleased. hence it happened, that, living within a quarter of an hour's rush of the london bridge terminus, i was oftener tempted to spend a whole summer-day in our garden than to seek anything new or old, wonderful or commonplace, beyond its precincts. it was a delightful garden, of no great extent, but comprising a good many facilities for repose and enjoyment, such as arbors and garden-seats, shrubbery, flower-beds, rose-bushes in a profusion of bloom, pinks, poppies, geraniums, sweet-peas, and a variety of other scarlet, yellow, blue, and purple blossoms, which i did not trouble myself to recognize individually, yet had always a vague sense of their beauty about me. the dim sky of england has a most happy effect on the coloring of flowers, blending richness with delicacy in the same texture; but in this garden, as everywhere else, the exuberance of english verdure had a greater charm than any tropical splendor or diversity of hue. the hunger for natural beauty might be satisfied with grass and green leaves forever. conscious of the triumph of england in this respect, and loyally anxious for the credit of my own country, it gratified me to observe what trouble and pains the english gardeners are fain to throw away in producing a few sour plums and abortive pears and apples,--as, for example, in this very garden, where a row of unhappy trees were spread out perfectly flat against a brick wall, looking as if impaled alive, or crucified, with a cruel and unattainable purpose of compelling them to produce rich fruit by torture. for my part, i never ate an english fruit, raised in the open air, that could compare in flavor with a yankee turnip. the garden included that prime feature of english domestic scenery, a lawn. it had been levelled, carefully shorn, and converted into a bowling-green, on which we sometimes essayed to practise the time-honored game of bowls, most unskilfully, yet not without a perception that it involves a very pleasant mixture of exercise and ease, as is the case with most of the old english pastimes. our little domain was shut in by the house on one side, and in other directions by a hedge-fence and a brick wall, which last was concealed or softened by shrubbery and the impaled fruit-trees already mentioned. over all the outer region, beyond our immediate precincts, there was an abundance of foliage, tossed aloft from the near or distant trees with which that agreeable suburb is adorned. the effect was wonderfully sylvan and rural, insomuch that we might have fancied ourselves in the depths of a wooded seclusion; only that, at brief intervals, we could hear the galloping sweep of a railway-train passing within a quarter of a mile, and its discordant screech, moderated by a little farther distance, as it reached the blackheath station. that harsh, rough sound, seeking me out so inevitably, was the voice of the great world summoning me forth. i know not whether i was the more pained or pleased to be thus constantly put in mind of the neighborhood of london; for, on the one hand, my conscience stung me a little for reading a book, or playing with children in the grass, when there were so many better things for an enlightened traveller to do,--while, at the same time, it gave a deeper delight to my luxurious idleness, to contrast it with the turmoil which i escaped. on the whole, however, i do not repent of a single wasted hour, and only wish that i could have spent twice as many in the same way; for the impression on my memory is, that i was as happy in that hospitable garden as the english summer-day was long. one chief condition of my enjoyment was the weather. italy has nothing like it, nor america. there never was such weather except in england, where, in requital of a vast amount of horrible east-wind between february and june, and a brown october and black november, and a wet, chill, sunless winter, there are a few weeks of incomparable summer, scattered through july and august, and the earlier portion of september, small in quantity, but exquisite enough to atone for the whole year's atmospherical delinquencies. after all, the prevalent sombreness may have brought out those sunny intervals in such high relief, that i see them, in my recollection, brighter than they really were: a little light makes a glory for people who live habitually in a gray gloom. the english, however, do not seem to know how enjoyable the momentary gleams of their summer are; they call it broiling weather, and hurry to the seaside with red, perspiring faces, in a state of combustion and deliquescence; and i have observed that even their cattle have similar susceptibilities, seeking the deepest shade, or standing midleg deep in pools and streams to cool themselves, at temperatures which our own cows would deem little more than barely comfortable. to myself, after the summer heats of my native land had somewhat effervesced out of my blood and memory, it was the weather of paradise itself. it might be a little too warm; but it was that modest and inestimable superabundance which constitutes a bounty of providence, instead of just a niggardly enough. during my first year in england, residing in perhaps the most ungenial part of the kingdom, i could never be quite comfortable without a fire on the hearth; in the second twelvemonth, beginning to get acclimatized, i became sensible of an austere friendliness, shy, but sometimes almost tender, in the veiled, shadowy, seldom smiling summer; and in the succeeding years,--whether that i had renewed my fibre with english beef and replenished my blood with english ale, or whatever were the cause,--i grew content with winter and especially in love with summer, desiring little more for happiness than merely to breathe and bask. at the midsummer which we are now speaking of, i must needs confess that the noontide sun came down more fervently than i found altogether tolerable; so that i was fain to shift my position with the shadow of the shrubbery, making myself the movable index of a sundial that reckoned up the hours of an almost interminable day. for each day seemed endless, though never wearisome. as far as your actual experience is concerned, the english summer-day has positively no beginning and no end. when you awake, at any reasonable hour, the sun is already shining through the curtains; you live through unnumbered hours of sabbath quietude, with a calm variety of incident softly etched upon their tranquil lapse; and at length you become conscious that it is bedtime again, while there is still enough daylight in the sky to make the pages of your book distinctly legible. night, if there be any such season, hangs down a transparent veil through which the bygone day beholds its successor; or, if not quite true of the latitude of london, it may be soberly affirmed of the more northern parts of the island, that to-morrow is born before its yesterday is dead. they exist together in the golden twilight, where the decrepit old day dimly discerns the face of the ominous infant; and you, though a more mortal, may simultaneously touch them both with one finger of recollection and another of prophecy. i cared not how long the day might be, nor how many of them. i had earned this repose by a long course of irksome toil and perturbation, and could have been content never to stray out of the limits of that suburban villa and its garden. if i lacked anything beyond, it would have satisfied me well enough to dream about it, instead of struggling for its actual possession. at least, this was the feeling of the moment; although the transitory, flitting, and irresponsible character of my life there was perhaps the most enjoyable element of all, as allowing me much of the comfort of house and home without any sense of their weight upon my back. the nomadic life has great advantages, if we can find tents ready pitched for us at every stage. so much for the interior of our abode,--a spot of deepest quiet, within reach of the intensest activity. but, even when we stopped beyond our own gate, we were not shocked with any immediate presence of the great world. we were dwelling in one of those oases that have grown up (in comparatively recent years, i believe) on the wide waste of blackheath, which otherwise offers a vast extent of unoccupied ground in singular proximity to the metropolis. as a general thing, the proprietorship of the soil seems to exist in everybody and nobody; but exclusive rights have been obtained, here and there, chiefly by men whose daily concerns link them with london, so that you find their villas or boxes standing along village streets which have often more of an american aspect than the elder english settlements. the scene is semi-rural. ornamental trees overshadow the sidewalks, and grassy margins border the wheel-tracks. the houses, to be sure, have certain points of difference from those of an american village, bearing tokens of architectural design, though seldom of individual taste; and, as far as possible, they stand aloof from the street, and separated each from its neighbor by hedge or fence, in accordance with the careful exclusiveness of the english character, which impels the occupant, moreover, to cover the front of his dwelling with as much concealment of shrubbery as his limits will allow. through the interstices, you catch glimpses of well-kept lawns, generally ornamented with flowers, and with what the english call rock-work, being heaps of ivy-grown stones and fossils, designed for romantic effect in a small way. two or three of such village streets as are here described take a collective name,--as, for instance, blackheath park,--and constitute a kind of community of residents, with gateways, kept by a policeman, and a semi-privacy, stepping beyond which, you find yourself on the breezy heath. on this great, bare, dreary common i often went astray, as i afterwards did on the campagna of rome, and drew the air (tainted with london smoke though it might be) into my lungs by deep inspirations, with a strange and unexpected sense of desert freedom. the misty atmosphere helps you to fancy a remoteness that perhaps does not quite exist. during the little time that it lasts, the solitude is as impressive as that of a western prairie or forest; but soon the railway shriek, a mile or two away, insists upon informing you of your whereabout; or you recognize in the distance some landmark that you may have known,--an insulated villa, perhaps, with its garden-wall around it, or the rudimental street of a new settlement which is sprouting on this otherwise barren soil. half a century ago, the most frequent token of man's beneficent contiguity might have been a gibbet, and the creak, like a tavern sign, of a murderer swinging to and fro in irons. blackheath, with its highwaymen and footpads, was dangerous in those days; and even now, for aught i know, the western prairie may still compare favorably with it as a safe region to go astray in. when i was acquainted with blackheath, the ingenious device of garroting had recently come into fashion; and i can remember, while crossing those waste places at midnight, and hearing footsteps behind me, to have been sensibly encouraged by also hearing, not far off, the clinking hoof-tramp of one of the horse-patrols who do regular duty there. about sunset, or a little later, was the time when the broad and somewhat desolate peculiarity of the heath seemed to me to put on its utmost impressiveness. at that hour, finding myself on elevated ground, i once had a view of immense london, four or five miles off, with the vast dome in the midst, and the towers of the two houses of parliament rising up into the smoky canopy, the thinner substance of which obscured a mass of things, and hovered about the objects that were most distinctly visible,--a glorious and sombre picture, dusky, awful, but irresistibly attractive, like a young man's dream of the great world, foretelling at that distance a grandeur never to be fully realized. while i lived in that neighborhood, the tents of two or three sets of cricket-players were constantly pitched on blackheath, and matches were going forward that seemed to involve the honor and credit of communities or counties, exciting an interest in everybody but myself, who cared not what part of england might glorify itself at the expense of another. it is necessary to be born an englishman, i believe, in order to enjoy this great national game; at any rate, as a spectacle for an outside observer, i found it lazy, lingering, tedious, and utterly devoid of pictorial effects. choice of other amusements was at hand. butts for archery were established, and bows and arrows were to be let, at so many shots for a penny,--there being abundance of space for a farther flight-shot than any modern archer can lend to his shaft. then there was an absurd game of throwing a stick at crockery-ware, which i have witnessed a hundred times, and personally engaged in once or twice, without ever having the satisfaction to see a bit of broken crockery. in other spots you found donkeys for children to ride, and ponies of a very meek and patient spirit, on which the cockney pleasure-seekers of both sexes rode races and made wonderful displays of horsemanship. by way of refreshment there was gingerbread (but, as a true patriot, i must pronounce it greatly interior to our native dainty), and ginger-beer, and probably stauncher liquor among the booth-keeper's hidden stores. the frequent railway-trains, as well as the numerous steamers to greenwich, have made the vacant portions of blackheath a play-ground and breathing-place for the londoners, readily and very cheaply accessible; so that, in view of this broader use and enjoyment, i a little grudged the tracts that have been filched away, so to speak, and individualized by thriving citizens. one sort of visitors especially interested me: they were schools of little boys or girls, under the guardianship of their instructors,-- charity schools, as i often surmised from their aspect, collected among dark alleys and squalid courts; and hither they were brought to spend a summer afternoon, these pale little progeny of the sunless nooks of london, who had never known that the sky was any broader than that narrow and vapory strip above their native lane. i fancied that they took but a doubtful pleasure, being half affrighted at the wide, empty space overhead and round about them, finding the air too little medicated with smoke, soot, and graveyard exhalations, to be breathed with comfort, and feeling shelterless and lost because grimy london, their slatternly and disreputable mother, had suffered them to stray out of her arms. passing among these holiday people, we come to one of the gateways of greenwich park, opening through an old brick wall. it admits us from the bare heath into a scene of antique cultivation and woodland ornament, traversed in all directions by avenues of trees, many of which bear tokens of a venerable age. these broad and well-kept pathways rise and decline over the elevations and along the bases of gentle hills which diversify the whole surface of the park. the loftiest, and most abrupt of them (though but of very moderate height) is one of the earth's noted summits, and may hold up its head with mont blanc and chimborazo, as being the site of greenwich observatory, where, if all nations will consent to say so, the longitude of our great globe begins. i used to regulate my watch by the broad dial-plate against the observatory wall, and felt it pleasant to be standing at the very centre of time and space. there are lovelier parks than this in the neighborhood of london, richer scenes of greensward and cultivated trees; and kensington, especially, in a summer afternoon, has seemed to me as delightful as any place can or ought to be, in a world which, some time or other, we must quit. but greenwich, too, is beautiful,--a spot where the art of man has conspired with nature, as if he and the great mother had taken counsel together how to make a pleasant scene, and the longest liver of the two had faithfully carried out their mutual design. it has, likewise, an additional charm of its own, because, to all appearance, it is the people's property and play-ground in a much more genuine way than the aristocratic resorts in closer vicinity to the metropolis. it affords one of the instances in which the monarch's property is actually the people's, and shows how much more natural is their relation to the sovereign than to the nobility, which pretends to hold the intervening space between the two: for a nobleman makes a paradise only for himself, and fills it with his own pomp and pride; whereas the people are sooner or later the legitimate inheritors of whatever beauty kings and queens create, as now of greenwich park. on sundays, when the sun shone, and even on those grim and sombre days when, if it do not actually rain, the english persist in calling it fine weather, it was too good to see how sturdily the plebeians trod under their own oaks, and what fulness of simple enjoyment they evidently found there. they were the people,--not the populace,-- specimens of a class whose sunday clothes are a distinct kind of garb from their week-day ones; and this, in england, implies wholesome habits of life, daily thrift, and a rank above the lowest. i longed to be acquainted with them, in order to investigate what manner of folks they were, what sort of households they kept, their politics, their religion, their tastes, and whether they were as narrow-minded as their betters. there can be very little doubt of it: an englishman is english, in whatever rank of life, though no more intensely so, i should imagine, as an artisan or petty shopkeeper, than as a member of parliament. the english character, as i conceive it, is by no means a very lofty one; they seem to have a great deal of earth and grimy dust clinging about them, as was probably the case with the stalwart and quarrelsome people who sprouted up out of the soil, after cadmus had sown the dragon's teeth. and yet, though the individual englishman is sometimes preternaturally disagreeable, an observer standing aloof has a sense of natural kindness towards them in the lump. they adhere closer to the original simplicity in which mankind was created than we ourselves do; they love, quarrel, laugh, cry, and turn their actual selves inside out, with greater freedom than any class of americans would consider decorous. it was often so with these holiday folks in greenwich park; and, ridiculous as it may sound, i fancy myself to have caught very satisfactory glimpses of arcadian life among the cockneys there, hardly beyond the scope of bow-bells, picnicking in the grass, uncouthly gambolling on the broad slopes, or straying in motley groups or by single pairs of love-making youths and maidens, along the sun-streaked avenues. even the omnipresent policemen or park-keepers could not disturb the beatific impression on my mind. one feature, at all events, of the golden age was to be seen in the herds of deer that encountered you in the somewhat remoter recesses of the park, and were readily prevailed upon to nibble a bit of bread out of your hand. but, though no wrong had ever been done them, and no horn had sounded nor hound bayed at the heels of themselves or their antlered progenitors for centuries past, there was still an apprehensiveness lingering in their hearts; so that a slight movement of the hand or a step too near would send a whole squadron of them scampering away, just as a breath scatters the winged seeds of a dandelion. the aspect of greenwich park, with all those festal people wandering through it, resembled that of the borghese gardens under the walls of rome, on a sunday or saint's day; but, i am not ashamed to say, it a little disturbed whatever grim ghost of puritanic strictness might be lingering in the sombre depths of a new england heart, among severe and sunless remembrances of the sabbaths of childhood, and pangs of remorse for ill-gotten lessons in the catechism, and for erratic fantasies or hardly suppressed laughter in the middle of long sermons. occasionally, i tried to take the long-hoarded sting out of these compunctious smarts by attending divine service in the open air. on a cart outside of the park-wall (and, if i mistake not, at two or three corners and secluded spots within the park itself) a methodist preacher uplifts his voice and speedily gathers a congregation, his zeal for whose religious welfare impels the good man to such earnest vociferation and toilsome gesture that his perspiring face is quickly in a stew. his inward flame conspires with the too fervid sun and makes a positive martyr of him, even in the very exercise of his pious labor; insomuch that he purchases every atom of spiritual increment to his hearers by loss of his own corporeal solidity, and, should his discourse last long enough, must finally exhale before their eyes. if i smile at him, be it understood, it is not in scorn; he performs his sacred office more acceptably than many a prelate. these wayside services attract numbers who would not otherwise listen to prayer, sermon, or hymn, from one year's end to another, and who, for that very reason, are the auditors most likely to be moved by the preacher's eloquence. yonder greenwich pensioner, too,-- in his costume of three-cornered hat, and old-fashioned, brass-buttoned blue coat with ample skirts, which makes him look like a contemporary of admiral benbow,--that tough old mariner may hear a word or two which will go nearer his heart than anything that the chaplain of the hospital can be expected to deliver. i always noticed, moreover, that a considerable proportion of the audience were soldiers, who came hither with a day's leave from woolwich,--hardy veterans in aspect, some of whom wore as many as four or five medals, crimean or east indian, on the breasts of their scarlet coats. the miscellaneous congregation listen with every appearance of heartfelt interest; and, for my own part, i must frankly acknowledge that i never found it possible to give five minutes' attention to any other english preaching: so cold and commonplace are the homilies that pass for such, under the aged roofs of churches. and as for cathedrals, the sermon is an exceedingly diminutive and unimportant part of the religious services,--if, indeed, it be considered a part,-- among the pompous ceremonies, the intonations, and the resounding and lofty-voiced strains of the choristers. the magnificence of the setting quite dazzles out what we puritans look upon as the jewel of the whole affair; for i presume that it was our forefathers, the dissenters in england and america, who gave the sermon its present prominence in the sabbath exercises. the methodists are probably the first and only englishmen who have worshipped in the open air since the ancient britons listened to the preaching of the druids; and it reminded me of that old priesthood, to see certain memorials of their dusky epoch--not religious, however, but warlike--in the neighborhood of the spot where the methodist was holding forth. these were some ancient barrows, beneath or within which are supposed to be buried the slain of a forgotten or doubtfully remembered battle, fought on the site of greenwich park as long ago as two or three centuries after the birth of christ. whatever may once have been their height and magnitude, they have now scarcely more prominence in the actual scene than the battle of which they are the sole monuments retains in history,--being only a few mounds side by side, elevated a little above the surface of the ground, ten or twelve feet in diameter, with a shallow depression in their summits. when one of them was opened, not long since, no bones, nor armor, nor weapons were discovered, nothing but some small jewels, and a tuft of hair,--perhaps from the head of a valiant general, who, dying on the field of his victory, bequeathed this lock, together with his indestructible fame, to after ages. the hair and jewels are probably in the british museum, where the potsherds and rubbish of innumerable generations make the visitor wish that each passing century could carry off all its fragments and relics along with it, instead of adding them to the continually accumulating burden which human knowledge is compelled to lug upon its back. as for the fame, i know not what has become of it. after traversing the park, we come into the neighborhood of greenwich hospital, and will pass through one of its spacious gateways for the sake of glancing at an establishment which does more honor to the heart of england than anything else that i am acquainted with, of a public nature. it is very seldom that we can be sensible of anything like kindliness in the acts or relations of such an artificial thing as a national government. our own government, i should conceive, is too much an abstraction ever to feel any sympathy for its maimed sailors and soldiers, though it will doubtless do then a severe kind of justice, as chilling as the touch of steel. but it seemed to me that the greenwich pensioners are the petted children of the nation, and that the government is their dry-nurse, and that the old men themselves have a childlike consciousness of their position. very likely, a better sort of life might have been arranged, and a wiser care bestowed on them; but, such as it is, it enables them to spend a sluggish, careless, comfortable old age, grumbling, growling, gruff, as if all the foul weather of their past years were pent up within them, yet not much more discontented than such weather-beaten and battle-battered fragments of human kind must inevitably be. their home, in its outward form, is on a very magnificent plan. its germ was a royal palace, the full expansion of which has resulted in a series of edifices externally more beautiful than any english palace that i have seen, consisting of several quadrangles of stately architecture, united by colonnades and gravel-walks, and enclosing grassy squares, with statues in the centre, the whole extending along the thames. it is built of marble, or very light-colored stone, in the classic style, with pillars and porticos, which (to my own taste, and, i fancy, to that of the old sailors) produce but a cold and shivery effect in the english climate. had i been the architect, i would have studied the characters, habits, and predilections of nautical people in wapping, hotherhithe, and the neighborhood of the tower (places which i visited in affectionate remembrance of captain lemuel gulliver, and other actual or mythological navigators), and would have built the hospital in a kind of ethereal similitude to the narrow, dark, ugly, and inconvenient, but snug and cosey homeliness of the sailor boarding-houses there. there can be no question that all the above attributes, or enough of then to satisfy an old sailor's heart, might be reconciled with architectural beauty and the wholesome contrivances of modern dwellings, and thus a novel and genuine style of building be given to the world. but their countrymen meant kindly by the old fellows in assigning them the ancient royal site where elizabeth held her court and charles ii. began to build his palace. so far as the locality went, it was treating them like so many kings; and, with a discreet abundance of grog, beer, and tobacco, there was perhaps little more to be accomplished in behalf of men whose whole previous lives have tended to unfit them for old age. their chief discomfort is probably for lack of something to do or think about. but, judging by the few whom i saw, a listless habit seems to have crept over them, a dim dreaminess of mood, in which they sit between asleep and awake, and find the long day wearing towards bedtime without its having made any distinct record of itself upon their consciousness. sitting on stone benches in the sunshine, they subside into slumber, or nearly so, and start at the approach of footsteps echoing under the colonnades, ashamed to be caught napping, and rousing themselves in a hurry, as formerly on the midnight watch at sea. in their brightest moments, they gather in groups and bore one another with endless sea-yarns about their voyages under famous admirals, and about gale and calm, battle and chase, and all that class of incident that has its sphere on the deck and in the hollow interior of a ship, where their world has exclusively been. for other pastime, they quarrel among themselves, comrade with comrade, and perhaps shake paralytic fists in furrowed faces. if inclined for a little exercise, they can bestir their wooden legs on the long esplanade that borders by the thames, criticising the rig of passing ships, and firing off volleys of malediction at the steamers, which have made the sea another element than that they used to be acquainted with. all this is but cold comfort for the evening of life, yet may compare rather favorably with the preceding portions of it, comprising little save imprisonment on shipboard, in the course of which they have been tossed all about the world and caught hardly a glimpse of it, forgetting what grass and trees are, and never finding out what woman is, though they may have encountered a painted spectre which they took for her. a country owes much to human beings whose bodies she has worn out and whose immortal part she has left undeveloped or debased, as we tied them here; and having wasted an idle paragraph upon them, let me now suggest that old men have a kind of susceptibility to moral impressions, and even (up to an advanced period) a receptivity of truth, which often appears to come to them after the active time of life is past. the greenwich pensioners might prove better subjects for true education now than in their school-boy days; but then where is the normal school that could educate instructors for such a class? there is a beautiful chapel for the pensioners, in the classic style, over the altar of which hangs a picture by west. i never could look at it long enough to make out its design; for this artist (though it pains me to say it of so respectable a countryman) had a gift of frigidity, a knack of grinding ice into his paint, a power of stupefying the spectator's perceptions and quelling his sympathy, beyond any other limner that ever handled a brush. in spite of many pangs of conscience, i seize this opportunity to wreak a lifelong abhorrence upon the poor, blameless man, for the sake of that dreary picture of lear, an explosion of frosty fury, that used to be a bugbear to me in the athenaeum exhibition. would fire burn it, i wonder? the principal thing that they have to show you, at greenwich hospital, is the painted hall. it is a splendid and spacious room, at least a hundred feet long and half as high, with a ceiling painted in fresco by sir james thornhill. as a work of art, i presume, this frescoed canopy has little merit, though it produces an exceedingly rich effect by its brilliant coloring and as a specimen of magnificent upholstery. the walls of the grand apartment are entirely covered with pictures, many of them representing battles and other naval incidents that were once fresher in the world's memory than now, but chiefly portraits of old admirals, comprising the whole line of heroes who have trod the quarter-decks of british ships for more than two hundred years back. next to a tomb in westminster abbey, which was nelson's most elevated object of ambition, it would seem to be the highest need of a naval warrior to have his portrait hung up in the painted hall; but, by dint of victory upon victory, these illustrious personages have grown to be a mob, and by no means a very interesting one, so far as regards the character of the faces here depicted. they are generally commonplace, and often singularly stolid; and i have observed (both in the painted hall and elsewhere, and not only in portraits, but in the actual presence of such renowned people as i have caught glimpses of) that the countenances of heroes are not nearly so impressive as those of statesmen,--except, of course, in the rare instances where warlike ability has been but the one-sided manifestation of a profound genius for managing the world's affairs. nine tenths of these distinguished admirals, for instance, if their faces tell truth, must needs have been blockheads, and might have served better, one would imagine, as wooden figure-heads for their own ships than to direct any difficult and intricate scheme of action from the quarter-deck. it is doubtful whether the same kind of men will hereafter meet with a similar degree of success; for they were victorious chiefly through the old english hardihood, exercised in a field of which modern science had not yet got possession. rough valor has lost something of its value, since their days, and must continue to sink lower and lower in the comparative estimate of warlike qualities. in the next naval war, as between england and france, i would bet, methinks, upon the frenchman's head. it is remarkable, however, that the great naval hero of england--the greatest, therefore, in the world, and of all time--had none of the stolid characteristics that belong to his class, and cannot fairly be accepted as their representative man. foremost in the roughest of professions, he was as delicately organized as a woman, and as painfully sensitive as a poet. more than any other englishman he won the love and admiration of his country, but won them through the efficacy of qualities that are not english, or, at all events, were intensified in his case and made poignant and powerful by something morbid in the man, which put him otherwise at cross-purposes with life. he was a man of genius; and genius in an englishman (not to cite the good old simile of a pearl in the oyster) is usually a symptom of a lack of balance in the general making-up of the character; as we may satisfy ourselves by running over the list of their poets, for example, and observing how many of them have been sickly or deformed, and how often their lives have been darkened by insanity. an ordinary englishman is the healthiest and wholesomest of human beings; an extraordinary one is almost always, in one way or another, a sick man. it was so with lord nelson. the wonderful contrast or relation between his personal qualities, the position which he held, and the life that he lived, makes him as interesting a personage as all history has to show; and it is a pity that southey's biography--so good in its superficial way, and yet so inadequate as regards any real delineation of the man--should have taken the subject out of the hands of some writer endowed with more delicate appreciation and deeper insight than that genuine englishman possessed. but southey accomplished his own purpose, which, apparently, was to present his hero as a pattern for england's young midshipmen. but the english capacity for hero-worship is full to the brim with what they are able to comprehend of lord nelson's character. adjoining the painted hall is a smaller room, the walls of which are completely and exclusively adorned with pictures of the great admiral's exploits. we see the frail, ardent man in all the most noted events of his career, from his encounter with a polar bear to his death at trafalgar, quivering here and there about the room like a blue, lambent flame. no briton ever enters that apartment without feeling the beef and ale of his composition stirred to its depths, and finding himself changed into a hero for the notice, however stolid his brain, however tough his heart, however unexcitable his ordinary mood. to confess the truth, i myself, though belonging to another parish, have been deeply sensible to the sublime recollections there aroused, acknowledging that nelson expressed his life in a kind of symbolic poetry which i had as much right to understand as these burly islanders. cool and critical observer as i sought to be, i enjoyed their burst of honest indignation when a visitor (not an american, i am glad to say) thrust his walking-stick almost into nelson's face, in one of the pictures, by way of pointing a remark; and the bystanders immediately glowed like so many hot coals, and would probably have consumed the offender in their wrath, had he not effected his retreat. but the most sacred objects of all are two of nelson's coats, under separate glass cases. one is that which he wore at the battle of the nile, and it is now sadly injured by moths, which will quite destroy it in a few years, unless its guardians preserve it as we do washington's military suit, by occasionally baking it in an oven. the other is the coat in which he received his death-wound at trafalgar. on its breast are sewed three or four stars and orders of knighthood, now much dimmed by time and damp, but which glittered brightly enough on the battle-day to draw the fatal aim of a french marksman. the bullet-hole is visible on the shoulder, as well as a part of the golden tassels of an epaulet, the rest of which was shot away. over the coat is laid a white waistcoat with a great blood-stain on it, out of which all the redness has utterly faded, leaving it of a dingy yellow line, in the threescore years since that blood gushed out. yet it was once the reddest blood in england,-- nelson's blood! the hospital stands close adjacent to the town of greenwich, which will always retain a kind of festal aspect in my memory, in consequence of my having first become acquainted with it on easter monday. till a few years ago, the first three days of easter were a carnival season in this old town, during which the idle and disreputable part of london poured itself into the streets like an inundation of the thames, as unclean as that turbid mixture of the offscourings of the vast city, and overflowing with its grimy pollution whatever rural innocence, if any, might be found in the suburban neighborhood. this festivity was called greenwich fair, the final one of which, in an immemorial succession, it was my fortune to behold. if i had bethought myself of going through the fair with a note-book and pencil, jotting down all the prominent objects, i doubt not that the result might have been a sketch of english life quite as characteristic and worthy of historical preservation as an account of the roman carnival. having neglected to do so, i remember little more than a confusion of unwashed and shabbily dressed people, intermixed with some smarter figures, but, on the whole, presenting a mobbish appearance such as we never see in our own country. it taught me to understand why shakespeare, in speaking of a crowd, so often alludes to its attribute of evil odor. the common people of england, i am afraid, have no daily familiarity with even so necessary a thing as a wash-bowl, not to mention a bathing-tub. and furthermore, it is one mighty difference between them and us, that every man and woman on our side of the water has a working-day suit and a holiday suit, and is occasionally as fresh as a rose, whereas, in the good old country, the griminess of his labor or squalid habits clings forever to the individual, and gets to be a part of his personal substance. these are broad facts, involving great corollaries and dependencies. there are really, if you stop to think about it, few sadder spectacles in the world than a ragged coat, or a soiled and shabby gown, at a festival. this unfragrant crowd was exceedingly dense, being welded together, as it were, in the street through which we strove to make our way. on either side were oyster-stands, stalls of oranges (a very prevalent fruit in england, where they give the withered ones a guise of freshness by boiling them), and booths covered with old sail-cloth, in which the commodity that most attracted the eye was gilt gingerbread. it was so completely enveloped in dutch gilding that i did not at first recognize an old acquaintance, but wondered what those golden crowns and images could be. there were likewise drums and other toys for small children, and a variety of showy and worthless articles for children of a larger growth; though it perplexed me to imagine who, in such a mob, could have the innocent taste to desire playthings, or the money to pay for them. not that i have a right to license the mob, on my own knowledge, of being any less innocent than a set of cleaner and better dressed people might have been; for, though one of them stole my pocket-handkerchief, i could not but consider it fair game, under the circumstances, and was grateful to the thief for sparing me my purse. they were quiet, civil, and remarkably good-humored, making due allowance for the national gruffness; there was no riot, no tumultuous swaying to and fro of the mass, such as i have often noted in an american crowd, no noise of voices, except frequent bursts of laughter, hoarse or shrill, and a widely diffused, inarticulate murmur, resembling nothing so much as the rumbling of the tide among the arches of london bridge. what immensely perplexed me was a sharp, angry sort of rattle, in all quarters, far off and close at hand, and sometimes right at my own back, where it sounded as if the stout fabric of my english surtout had been ruthlessly rent in twain; and everybody's clothes, all over the fair, were evidently being torn asunder in the same way. by and by, i discovered that this strange noise was produced by a little instrument called "the fun of the fair,"--a sort of rattle, consisting of a wooden wheel, the cogs of which turn against a thin slip of wood, and so produce a rasping sound when drawn smartly against a person's back. the ladies draw their rattles against the backs of their male friends (and everybody passes for a friend at greenwich fair), and the young men return the compliment on the broad british backs of the ladies; and all are bound by immemorial custom to take it in good part and be merry at the joke. as it was one of my prescribed official duties to give an account of such mechanical contrivances as might be unknown in my own country, i have thought it right to be thus particular in describing the fun of the fair. but this was far from being the sole amusement. there were theatrical booths, in front of which were pictorial representations of the scenes to be enacted within; and anon a drummer emerged from one of them, thumping on a terribly lax drum, and followed by the entire dramatis personae, who ranged themselves on a wooden platform in front of the theatre. they were dressed in character, but wofully shabby, with very dingy and wrinkled white tights, threadbare cotton-velvets, crumpled silks, and crushed muslin, and all the gloss and glory gone out of their aspect and attire, seen thus in the broad daylight and after a long series of performances. they sang a song together, and withdrew into the theatre, whither the public were invited to follow them at the inconsiderable cost of a penny a ticket. before another booth stood a pair of brawny fighting-men, displaying their muscle, and soliciting patronage for an exhibition of the noble british art of pugilism. there were pictures of giants, monsters, and outlandish beasts, most prodigious, to be sure, and worthy of all admiration, unless the artist had gone incomparably beyond his subject. jugglers proclaimed aloud the miracles which they were prepared to work; and posture-makers dislocated every joint of their bodies and tied their limbs into inextricable knots, wherever they could find space to spread a little square of carpet on the ground. in the midst of the confusion, while everybody was treading on his neighbor's toes, some little boys were very solicitous to brush your boots. these lads, i believe, are a product of modern society,--at least, no older than the time of gay, who celebrates their origin in his "trivia"; but in most other respects the scene reminded me of bunyan's description of vanity fair,--nor is it at all improbable that the pilgrim may have been a merry-maker here, in his wild youth. it seemed very singular--though, of course, i immediately classified it as an english characteristic--to see a great many portable weighing-machines, the owners of which cried out, continually and amain, "come, know your weight! come, come, know your weight to-day! come, know your weight!" and a multitude of people, mostly large in the girth, were moved by this vociferation to sit down in the machines. i know not whether they valued themselves on their beef, and estimated their standing as members of society at so much a pound; but i shall set it down as a national peculiarity, and a symbol of the prevalence of the earthly over the spiritual element, that englishmen are wonderfully bent on knowing how solid and physically ponderous they are. on the whole, having an appetite for the brown bread and the tripe and sausages of life, as well as for its nicer cates and dainties, i enjoyed the scene, and was amused at the sight of a gruff old greenwich pensioner, who, forgetful of the sailor-frolics of his young days, stood looking with grim disapproval at all these vanities. thus we squeezed our way through the mob-jammed town, and emerged into the park, where, likewise, we met a great many merry-makers, but with freer space for their gambols than in the streets. we soon found ourselves the targets for a cannonade with oranges (most of them in a decayed condition), which went humming past our ears from the vantage-ground of neighboring hillocks, sometimes hitting our sacred persons with an inelastic thump. this was one of the privileged freedoms of the time, and was nowise to be resented, except by returning the salute. many persons were running races, hand in hand, down the declivities, especially that steepest one on the summit of which stands the world-central observatory, and (as in the race of life) the partners were usually male and female, and often caught a tumble together before reaching the bottom of the hill. hereabouts we were pestered and haunted by two young girls, the eldest not more than thirteen, teasing us to buy matches; and finding no market for their commodity, the taller one suddenly turned a somerset before our faces, and rolled heels over head from top to bottom of the hill on which we stood. then, scrambling up the acclivity, the topsy-turvy trollop offered us her matches again, as demurely as if she had never flung aside her equilibrium; so that, dreading a repetition of the feat, we gave her sixpence and an admonition, and enjoined her never to do so any more. the most curious amusement that we witnessed here--or anywhere else, indeed--was an ancient and hereditary pastime called "kissing in the ring." i shall describe the sport exactly as i saw it, although an english friend assures me that there are certain ceremonies with a handkerchief, which make it much more decorous and graceful. a handkerchief, indeed! there was no such thing in the crowd, except it were the one which they had just filched out of my pocket. it is one of the simplest kinds of games, needing little or no practice to make the player altogether perfect; and the manner of it is this. a ring is formed (in the present case, it was of large circumference and thickly gemmed around with faces, mostly on the broad grin), into the centre of which steps an adventurous youth, and, looking round the circle, selects whatever maiden may most delight his eye. he presents his hand (which she is bound to accept), leads her into the centre, salutes her on the lips, and retires, taking his stand in the expectant circle. the girl, in her turn, throws a favorable regard on some fortunate young man, offers her hand to lead him forth, makes him happy with a maidenly kiss, and withdraws to hide her blushes, if any there be, among the simpering faces in the ring; while the favored swain loses no time in transferring her salute to the prettiest and plumpest among the many mouths that are primming themselves in anticipation. and thus the thing goes on, till all the festive throng are inwreathed and intertwined into an endless and inextricable chain of kisses; though, indeed, it smote me with compassion to reflect that some forlorn pair of lips might be left out, and never know the triumph of a salute, after throwing aside so many delicate reserves for the sake of winning it. if the young men had any chivalry, there was a fair chance to display it by kissing the homeliest damsel in the circle. to be frank, however, at the first glance, and to my american eye, they looked all homely alike, and the chivalry that i suggest is more than i could have been capable of, at any period of my life. they seemed to be country-lasses, of sturdy and wholesome aspect, with coarse-grained, cabbage-rosy cheeks, and, i am willing to suppose, a stout texture of moral principle, such as would bear a good deal of rough usage without suffering much detriment. but how unlike the trim little damsels of my native land! i desire above all things to be courteous; but, since the plain truth must be told, the soil and climate of england produce feminine beauty as rarely as they do delicate fruit, and though admirable specimens of both are to be met with, they are the hot-house ameliorations of refined society, and apt, moreover, to relapse into the coarseness of the original stock. the men are manlike, but the women are not beautiful, though the female bull be well enough adapted to the male. to return to the lasses of greenwich fair, their charms were few, and their behavior, perhaps, not altogether commendable; and yet it was impossible not to feel a degree of faith in their innocent intentions, with such a half-bashful zest and entire simplicity did they keep up their part of the game. it put the spectator in good-humor to look at them, because there was still something of the old arcadian life, the secure freedom of the antique age, in their way of surrendering their lips to strangers, as if there were no evil or impurity in the world. as for the young men, they were chiefly specimens of the vulgar sediment of london life, often shabbily genteel, rowdyish, pale, wearing the unbrushed coat, unshifted linen, and unwashed faces of yesterday, as well as the haggardness of last night's jollity in a gin-shop. gathering their character from these tokens, i wondered whether there were any reasonable prospect of their fair partners returning to their rustic homes with as much innocence (whatever were its amount or quality) as they brought, to greenwich fair, in spite of the perilous familiarity established by kissing in the ring. the manifold disorders resulting from the fair, at which a vast city was brought into intimate relations with a comparatively rural district, have at length led to its suppression; this was the very last celebration of it, and brought to a close the broad-mouthed merriment of many hundred years. thus my poor sketch, faint as its colors are, may acquire some little value in the reader's eyes from the consideration that no observer of the coming time will ever have an opportunity to give a better. i should find it difficult to believe, however, that the queer pastime just described, or any moral mischief to which that and other customs might pave the way, can have led to the overthrow of greenwich fair; for it has often seemed to me that englishmen of station and respectability, unless of a peculiarly philanthropic turn, have neither any faith in the feminine purity of the lower orders of their countrywomen, nor the slightest value for it, allowing its possible existence. the distinction of ranks is so marked, that the english cottage damsel holds a position somewhat analogous to that of the negro girl in our southern states. hence cones inevitable detriment to the moral condition of those men themselves, who forget that the humblest woman has a right and a duty to hold herself in the same sanctity as the highest. the subject cannot well be discussed in these pages; but i offer it as a serious conviction, from what i have been able to observe, that the england of to-day is the unscrupulous old england of tom jones and joseph andrews, humphrey clinker and roderick random; and in our refined era, just the same as at that more free-spoken epoch, this singular people has a certain contempt for any fine-strained purity, any special squeamishness, as they consider it, on the part of an ingenuous youth. they appear to look upon it as a suspicious phenomenon in the masculine character. nevertheless, i by no means take upon me to affirm that english morality, as regards the phase here alluded to, is really at a lower point than our own. assuredly, i hope so, because, making a higher pretension, or, at all events, more carefully hiding whatever may be amiss, we are either better than they, or necessarily a great deal worse. it impressed me that their open avowal and recognition of immoralities served to throw the disease to the surface, where it might be more effectually dealt with, and leave a sacred interior not utterly profaned, instead of turning its poison back among the inner vitalities of the character, at the imminent risk of corrupting them all. be that as it may, these englishmen are certainly a franker and simpler people than ourselves, from peer to peasant; but if we can take it as compensatory on our part (which i leave to be considered) that they owe those noble and manly qualities to a coarser grain in their nature, and that, with a finer one in ours, we shall ultimately acquire a marble polish of which they are unsusceptible, i believe that this may be the truth. up the thames. the upper portion of greenwich (where my last article left me loitering) is a cheerful, comely, old-fashioned town, the peculiarities of which, if there be any, have passed out of my remembrance. as you descend towards the thames, the streets get meaner, and the shabby and sunken houses, elbowing one another for frontage, bear the sign-boards of beer-shops and eating-rooms, with especial promises of whitebait and other delicacies in the fishing line. you observe, also, a frequent announcement of "the gardens" in the rear; although, estimating the capacity of the premises by their external compass, the entire sylvan charm and shadowy seclusion of such blissful resorts must be limited within a small back-yard. these places of cheap sustenance and recreation depend for support upon the innumerable pleasure-parties who come from london bridge by steamer, at a fare of a few pence, and who get as enjoyable a meal for a shilling a head as the ship hotel would afford a gentleman for a guinea. the steamers, which are constantly smoking their pipes up and down the thames, offer much the most agreeable mode of getting to london. at least, it might be exceedingly agreeable, except for the myriad floating particles of soot from the stove-pipe, and the heavy heat of midsummer sunshine on the unsheltered deck, or the chill, misty air draught of a cloudy day, and the spiteful little showers of rain that may spatter down upon you at any moment, whatever the promise of the sky; besides which there is some slight inconvenience from the inexhaustible throng of passengers, who scarcely allow you standing-room, nor so much as a breath of unappropriated air, and never a chance to sit down. if these difficulties, added to the possibility of getting your pocket picked, weigh little with you, the panorama along the shores of the memorable river, and the incidents and shows of passing life upon its bosom, render the trip far preferable to the brief yet tiresome shoot along the railway track. on one such voyage, a regatta of wherries raced past us, and at once involved every soul on board our steamer in the tremendous excitement of the struggle. the spectacle was but a moment within our view, and presented nothing more than a few light skiffs, in each of which sat a single rower, bare-armed, and with little apparel, save a shirt and drawers, pale, anxious, with every muscle on the stretch, and plying his oars in such fashion that the boat skimmed along with the aerial celerity of a swallow. i wondered at myself for so immediately catching an interest in the affair, which seemed to contain no very exalted rivalship of manhood; but, whatever the kind of battle or the prize of victory, it stirs one's sympathy immensely, and is even awful, to behold the rare sight of a man thoroughly in earnest, doing his best, putting forth all there is in him, and staking his very soul (as these rowers appeared willing to do) on the issue of the contest. it was the seventy-fourth annual regatta of the free watermen of greenwich, and announced itself as under the patronage of the lord mayor and other distinguished individuals, at whose expense, i suppose, a prize-boat was offered to the conqueror, and some small amounts of money to the inferior competitors. the aspect of london along the thanes, below bridge, as it is called, is by no means so impressive as it ought to be, considering what peculiar advantages are offered for the display of grand and stately architecture by the passage of a river through the midst of a great city. it seems, indeed, as if the heart of london had been cleft open for the mere purpose of showing how rotten and drearily mean it had become. the shore is lined with the shabbiest, blackest, and ugliest buildings that can be imagined, decayed warehouses with blind windows, and wharves that look ruinous; insomuch that, had i known nothing more of the world's metropolis, i might have fancied that it had already experienced the downfall which i have heard commercial and financial prophets predict for it, within the century. and the muddy tide of the thames, reflecting nothing, and hiding a million of unclean secrets within its breast,--a sort of guilty conscience, as it were, unwholesome with the rivulets of sin that constantly flow into it,--is just the dismal stream to glide by such a city. the surface, to be sure, displays no lack of activity, being fretted by the passage of a hundred steamers and covered with a good deal of shipping, but mostly of a clumsier build than i had been accustomed to see in the mersey: a fact which i complacently attributed to the smaller number of american clippers in the thames, and the less prevalent influence of american example in refining away the broad-bottomed capacity of the old dutch or english models. about midway between greenwich and london bridge, at a rude landing-place on the left bank of the river, the steamer rings its bell and makes a momentary pause in front of a large circular structure, where it may be worth our while to scramble ashore. it indicates the locality of one of those prodigious practical blunders that would supply john bull with a topic of inexhaustible ridicule, if his cousin jonathan had committed them, but of which he himself perpetrates ten to our one in the mere wantonness of wealth that lacks better employment. the circular building covers the entrance to the thames tunnel, and is surmounted by a dome of glass, so as to throw daylight down into the great depth at which the passage of the river commences. descending a wearisome succession of staircases, we at last find ourselves, still in the broad noon, standing before a closed door, on opening which we behold the vista of an arched corridor that extends into everlasting midnight. in these days, when glass has been applied to so many new purposes, it is a pity that the architect had not thought of arching portions of his abortive tunnel with immense blocks of the lucid substance, over which the dusky thames would have flowed like a cloud, making the sub-fluvial avenue only a little gloomier than a street of upper london. at present, it is illuminated at regular intervals by jets of gas, not very brilliantly, yet with lustre enough to show the damp plaster of the ceiling and walls, and the massive stone pavement, the crevices of which are oozy with moisture, not from the incumbent river, but from hidden springs in the earth's deeper heart. there are two parallel corridors, with a wall between, for the separate accommodation of the double throng of foot-passengers, equestrians, and vehicles of all kinds, which was expected to roll and reverberate continually through the tunnel. only one of them has ever been opened, and its echoes are but feebly awakened by infrequent footfalls. yet there seem to be people who spend their lives here, and who probably blink like owls, when, once or twice a year, perhaps, they happen to climb into the sunshine. all along the corridor, which i believe to be a mile in extent, we see stalls or shops in little alcoves, kept principally by women; they were of a ripe age, i was glad to observe, and certainly robbed england of none of its very moderate supply of feminine loveliness by their deeper than tomb-like interment. as you approach (and they are so accustomed to the dusky gaslight that they read all your characteristics afar off), they assail you with hungry entreaties to buy some of their merchandise, holding forth views of the tunnel put up in cases of derbyshire spar, with a magnifying-glass at one end to make the vista more effective. they offer you, besides, cheap jewelry, sunny topazes and resplendent emeralds for sixpence, and diamonds as big as the kohi-i-noor at a not much heavier cost, together with a multifarious trumpery which has died out of the upper world to reappear in this tartarean bazaar. that you may fancy yourself still in the realms of the living, they urge you to partake of cakes, candy, ginger-beer, and such small refreshment, more suitable, however, for the shadowy appetite of ghosts than for the sturdy stomachs of englishmen. the most capacious of the shops contains a dioramic exhibition of cities and scenes in the daylight world, with a dreary glimmer of gas among them all; so that they serve well enough to represent the dim, unsatisfactory remembrances that dead people might be supposed to retain from their past lives, mixing them up with the ghastliness of their unsubstantial state. i dwell the more upon these trifles, and do my best to give them a mockery of importance, because, if these are nothing, then all this elaborate contrivance and mighty piece of work has been wrought in vain. the englishman has burrowed under the bed of his great river, and set ships of two or three thousand tons a-rolling over his head, only to provide new sites for a few old women to sell cakes and ginger-beer! yet the conception was a grand one; and though it has proved an absolute failure, swallowing an immensity of toil and money, with annual returns hardly sufficient to keep the pavement free from the ooze of subterranean springs, yet it needs, i presume, only an expenditure three or four (or, for aught i know, twenty) times as large, to make the enterprise brilliantly successful. the descent is so great from the bank of the river to its surface, and the tunnel dips so profoundly under the river's bed, that the approaches on either side must commence a long way off, in order to render the entrance accessible to horsemen or vehicles; so that the larger part of the cost of the whole affair should have been expended on its margins. it has turned out a sublime piece of folly; and when the new-zealander of distant ages shall have moralized sufficiently among the ruins of london bridge, he will bethink himself that somewhere thereabout was the marvellous tunnel, the very existence of which will seem to him as incredible as that of the hanging gardens of babylon. but the thames will long ago have broken through the massive arch, and choked up the corridors with mud and sand and with the large stones of the structure itself, intermixed with skeletons of drowned people, the rusty ironwork of sunken vessels, and the great many such precious and curious things as a river always contrives to hide in its bosom; the entrance will have been obliterated, and its very site forgotten beyond the memory of twenty generations of men, and the whole neighborhood be held a dangerous spot on account of the malaria; insomuch that the traveller will make but a brief and careless inquisition for the traces of the old wonder, and will stake his credit before the public, in some pacific monthly of that day, that the story of it is but a myth, though enriched with a spiritual profundity which he will proceed to unfold. yet it is impossible (for a yankee, at least) to see so much magnificent ingenuity thrown away, without trying to endow the unfortunate result with some kind of use, fulness, though perhaps widely different from the purpose of its original conception. in former ages, the mile-long corridors, with their numerous alcoves, might have been utilized as a series of dungeons, the fittest of all possible receptacles for prisoners of state. dethroned monarchs and fallen statesmen would not have needed to remonstrate against a domicile so spacious, so deeply secluded from the world's scorn, and so admirably in accordance with their thenceforward sunless fortunes. an alcove here might have suited sir walter raleigh better than that darksome hiding-place communicating with the great chamber in the tower, pacing from end to end of which he meditated upon his "history of the world." his track would here have been straight and narrow, indeed, and would therefore have lacked somewhat of the freedom that his intellect demanded; and yet the length to which his footsteps might have travelled forth and retraced themselves would partly have harmonized his physical movement with the grand curves and planetary returns of his thought, through cycles of majestic periods. having it in his mind to compose the world's history, methinks he could have asked no better retirement than such a cloister as this, insulated from all the seductions of mankind and womankind, deep beneath their mysteries and motives, down into the heart of things, full of personal reminiscences in order to the comprehensive measurement and verification of historic records, seeing into the secrets of human nature,--secrets that daylight never yet revealed to mortal,--but detecting their whole scope and purport with the infallible eyes of unbroken solitude and night. and then the shades of the old mighty men might have risen from their still profounder abodes and joined him in the dim corridor, treading beside him with an antique stateliness of mien, telling him in melancholy tones, grand, but always melancholy, of the greater ideas and purposes which their most renowned performances so imperfectly carried out, that, magnificent successes in the view of all posterity, they were but failures to those who planned them. as raleigh was a navigator, noah would have explained to him the peculiarities of construction that made the ark so seaworthy; as raleigh was a statesman, moses would have discussed with him the principles of laws and government; as raleigh was a soldier, caesar and hannibal would have held debate in his presence, with this martial student for their umpire; as raleigh was a poet, david, or whatever most illustrious bard he might call up, would have touched his harp, and made manifest all the true significance of the past by means of song and the subtle intelligences of music. meanwhile, i had forgotten that sir walter raleigh's century knew nothing of gaslight, and that it would require a prodigious and wasteful expenditure of tallow-candles to illuminate the tunnel sufficiently to discern even a ghost. on this account, however, it would be all the more suitable place of confinement for a metaphysician, to keep him from bewildering mankind with his shadowy speculations; and, being shut off from external converse, the dark corridor would help him to make rich discoveries in those cavernous regions and mysterious by-paths of the intellect, which he had so long accustomed himself to explore. but how would every successive age rejoice in so secure a habitation for its reformers, and especially for each best and wisest man that happened to be then alive! he seeks to burn up our whole system of society, under pretence of purifying it from its abuses! away with him into the tunnel, and let him begin by setting the thames on fire, if he is able! if not precisely these, yet akin to these were some of the fantasies that haunted me as i passed under the river: for the place is suggestive of such idle and irresponsible stuff by its own abortive character, its lack of whereabout on upper earth, or any solid foundation of realities. could i have looked forward a few years, i might have regretted that american enterprise had not provided a similar tunnel, under the hudson or the potomac, for the convenience of our national government in times hardly yet gone by. it would be delightful to clap up all the enemies of our peace and union in the dark together, and there let them abide, listening to the monotonous roll of the river above their heads, or perhaps in a state of miraculously suspended animation, until,--be it after months, years, or centuries,--when the turmoil shall be all over, the wrong washed away in blood (since that must needs be the cleansing fluid), and the right firmly rooted in the soil which that blood will have enriched, they might crawl forth again and catch a single glimpse at their redeemed country, and feel it to be a better land than they deserve, and die! i was not sorry when the daylight reached me after a much briefer abode in the nether regions than, i fear, would await the troublesome personages just hinted at. emerging on the surrey side of the thames, i found myself in rotherhithe, a neighborhood not unfamiliar to the readers of old books of maritime adventure. there being a ferry hard by the mouth of the tunnel, i recrossed the river in the primitive fashion of an open boat, which the conflict of wind and tide, together with the swash and swell of the passing steamers, tossed high and low rather tumultuously. this inquietude of our frail skiff (which, indeed, bobbed up and down like a cork) so much alarmed an old lady, the only other passenger, that the boatmen essayed to comfort her. "never fear, mother!" grumbled one of them, "we'll make the river as smooth as we can for you. we'll get a plane, and plane down the waves!" the joke may not read very brilliantly; but i make bold to record it as the only specimen that reached my ears of the old, rough water-wit for which the thames used to be so celebrated. passing directly along the line of the sunken tunnel, we landed in wapping, which i should have presupposed to be the most tarry and pitchy spot on earth, swarming with old salts, and full of warm, bustling, coarse, homely, and cheerful life. nevertheless, it turned out to be a cold and torpid neighborhood, mean, shabby, and unpicturesque, both as to its buildings and inhabitants: the latter comprising (so far as was visible to me) not a single unmistakable sailor, though plenty of land-sharks, who get a half-dishonest livelihood by business connected with the sea. ale and spirit vaults (as petty drinking-establishments are styled in england, pretending to contain vast cellars full of liquor within the compass of ten feet square above ground) were particularly abundant, together with apples, oranges, and oysters, the stalls of fishmongers and butchers, and slop-shops, where blue jackets and duck trousers swung and capered before the doors. everything was on the poorest scale, and the place bore an aspect of unredeemable decay. from this remote point of london, i strolled leisurely towards the heart of the city; while the streets, at first but thinly occupied by man or vehicle, got more and more thronged with foot-passengers, carts, drays, cabs, and the all-pervading and all-accommodating omnibus. but i lack courage, and feel that i should lack perseverance, as the gentlest reader would lack patience, to undertake a descriptive stroll through london streets; more especially as there would be a volume ready for the printer before we could reach a midway resting-place at charing cross. it will be the easier course to step aboard another passing steamer, and continue our trip up the thames. the next notable group of objects is an assemblage of ancient walls, battlements, and turrets, out of the midst of which rises prominently one great square tower, of a grayish line, bordered with white stone, and having a small turret at each corner of the roof. this central structure is the white tower, and the whole circuit of ramparts and enclosed edifices constitutes what is known in english history, and still more widely and impressively in english poetry, as the tower. a crowd of rivercraft are generally moored in front of it; but, if we look sharply at the right moment under the base of the rampart, we may catch a glimpse of an arched water-entrance, half submerged, past which the thames glides as indifferently as if it were the mouth of a city-kennel. nevertheless, it is the traitor's gate, a dreary kind of triumphal passageway (now supposed to be shut up and barred forever), through which a multitude of noble and illustrious personages have entered the tower and found it a brief resting-place on their way to heaven. passing it many times, i never observed that anybody glanced at this shadowy and ominous trap-door, save myself. it is well that america exists, if it were only that her vagrant children may be impressed and affected by the historical monuments of england in a degree of which the native inhabitants are evidently incapable. these matters are too familiar, too real, and too hopelessly built in amongst and mixed up with the common objects and affairs of life, to be easily susceptible of imaginative coloring in their minds; and even their poets and romancers feel it a toil, and almost a delusion, to extract poetic material out of what seems embodied poetry itself to an american. an englishman cares nothing about the tower, which to us is a haunted castle in dreamland. that honest and excellent gentleman, the late mr. g. p. r. james (whose mechanical ability, one might have supposed, would nourish itself by devouring every old stone of such a structure), once assured me that he had never in his life set eyes upon the tower, though for years an historic novelist in london. not to spend a whole summer's day upon the voyage, we will suppose ourselves to have reached london bridge, and thence to have taken another steamer for a farther passage up the river. but here the memorable objects succeed each other so rapidly that i can spare but a single sentence even for the great dome, through i deem it more picturesque, in that dusky atmosphere, than st. peter's in its clear blue sky. i must mention, however (since everything connected with royalty is especially interesting to my dear countrymen), that i once saw a large and beautiful barge, splendidly gilded and ornamented, and overspread with a rich covering, lying at the pier nearest to st. paul's cathedral; it had the royal banner of great britain displayed, besides being decorated with a number of other flags; and many footmen (who are universally the grandest and gaudiest objects to be seen in england at this day, and these were regal ones, in a bright scarlet livery bedizened with gold-lace, and white silk stockings) were in attendance. i know not what festive or ceremonial occasion may have drawn out this pageant; after all, it might have been merely a city-spectacle, appertaining to the lord mayor; but the sight had its value in bringing vividly before me the grand old times when the sovereign and nobles were accustomed to use the thames as the high street of the metropolis, and join in pompous processions upon it; whereas, the desuetude of such customs, nowadays, has caused the whole show of river-life to consist in a multitude of smoke-begrimed steamers. an analogous change has taken place in the streets, where cabs and the omnibus have crowded out a rich variety of vehicles; and thus life gets more monotonous in hue from age to age, and appears to seize every opportunity to strip off a bit of its gold-lace among the wealthier classes, and to make itself decent in the lower ones. yonder is whitefriars, the old rowdy alsatia, now wearing as decorous a face as any other portion of london; and, adjoining it, the avenues and brick squares of the temple, with that historic garden, close upon the river-side, and still rich in shrubbery and flowers, where the partisans of york and lancaster plucked the fatal roses, and scattered their pale and bloody petals over so many english battle-fields. hard by, we see tine long white front or rear of somerset house, and, farther on, rise the two new houses of parliament, with a huge unfinished tower already hiding its imperfect summit in the smoky canopy,--the whole vast and cumbrous edifice a specimen of the best that modern architecture can effect, elaborately imitating the masterpieces of those simple ages when men "builded better than they knew." close by it, we have a glimpse of the roof and upper towers of the holy abbey; while that gray, ancestral pile on the opposite side of the river is lambeth palace, a venerable group of halls and turrets, chiefly built of brick, but with at least one large tower of stone. in our course, we have passed beneath half a dozen bridges, and, emerging out of the black heart of london, shall soon reach a cleanly suburb, where old father thames, if i remember, begins to put on an aspect of unpolluted innocence. and now we look back upon the mass of innumerable roofs, out of which rise steeples, towers, columns, and the great crowning dome,--look back, in short, upon that mystery of the world's proudest city, amid which a man so longs and loves to be; not, perhaps, because it contains much that is positively admirable and enjoyable, but because, at all events, the world has nothing better. the cream of external life is there; and whatever merely intellectual or material good we fail to find perfect in london, we may as well content ourselves to seek that unattainable thing no farther on this earth. the steamer terminates its trip at chelsea, an old town endowed with a prodigious number of pothouses, and some famous gardens, called the cremorne, for public amusement. the most noticeable thing, however, is chelsea hospital, which, like that of greenwich, was founded, i believe, by charles ii. (whose bronze statue, in the guise of an old roman, stands in the centre of the quadrangle,) and appropriated as a home for aged and infirm soldiers of the british army. the edifices are of three stories with windows in the high roofs, and are built of dark, sombre brick, with stone edgings and facings. the effect is by no means that of grandeur (which is somewhat disagreeably an attribute of greenwich hospital), but a quiet and venerable neatness. at each extremity of the street-front there is a spacious and hospitably open gateway, lounging about which i saw some gray veterans in long scarlet coats of an antique fashion, and the cocked hats of a century ago, or occasionally a modern foraging-cap. almost all of them moved with a rheumatic gait, two or three stumped on wooden legs, and here and there an arm was missing. inquiring of one of these fragmentary heroes whether a stranger could be admitted to see the establishment, he replied most cordially, "o yes, sir,--anywhere! walk in and go where you please,--up stairs, or anywhere!" so i entered, and, passing along the inner side of the quadrangle, came to the door of the chapel, which forms a part of the contiguity of edifices next the street. here another pensioner, an old warrior of exceedingly peaceable and christian demeanor, touched his three-cornered hat and asked if i wished to see the interior; to which i assenting, he unlocked the door, and we went in. the chapel consists of a great hall with a vaulted roof, and over the altar is a large painting in fresco, the subject of which i did not trouble myself to make out. more appropriate adornments of the place, dedicated as well to martial reminiscences as religious worship, are the long ranges of dusty and tattered banners that hang from their staves all round the ceiling of the chapel. they are trophies of battles fought and won in every quarter of the world, comprising the captured flags of all the nations with whom the british lion has waged war since james ii.'s time,--french, dutch, east indian, prussian, russian, chinese, and american,--collected together in this consecrated spot, not to symbolize that there shall be no more discord upon earth, but drooping over the aisle in sullen, though peaceable humiliation. yes, i said "american" among the rest; for the good old pensioner mistook me for an englishman, and failed not to point out (and, methought, with an especial emphasis of triumph) some flags that had been taken at bladensburg and washington. i fancied, indeed, that they hung a little higher and drooped a little lower than any of their companions in disgrace. it is a comfort, however, that their proud devices are already indistinguishable, or nearly so, owing to dust and tatters and the kind offices of the moths, and that they will soon rot from the banner-staves and be swept out in unrecognized fragments from the chapel-door. it is a good method of teaching a man how imperfectly cosmopolitan he is, to show him his country's flag occupying a position of dishonor in a foreign land. but, in truth, the whole system of a people crowing over its military triumphs had far better he dispensed with, both on account of the ill-blood that it helps to keep fermenting among the nations, and because it operates as an accumulative inducement to future generations to aim at a kind of glory, the gain of which has generally proved more ruinous than its loss. i heartily wish that every trophy of victory might crumble away, and that every reminiscence or tradition of a hero, from the beginning of the world to this day, could pass out of all men's memories at once and forever. i might feel very differently, to be sure, if we northerners had anything especially valuable to lose by the fading of those illuminated names. i gave the pensioner (but i am afraid there may have been a little affectation in it) a magnificent guerdon of all the silver i had in my pocket, to requite him for having unintentionally stirred up my patriotic susceptibilities. he was a meek-looking, kindly old man, with a humble freedom and affability of manner that made it pleasant to converse with him. old soldiers, i know not why, seem to be more accostable than old sailors. one is apt to hear a growl beneath the smoothest courtesy of the latter. the mild veteran, with his peaceful voice, and gentle reverend aspect, told me that he had fought at a cannon all through the battle of waterloo, and escaped unhurt; he had now been in the hospital four or five years, and was married, but necessarily underwent a separation from his wife, who lived outside of the gates. to my inquiry whether his fellow-pensioners were comfortable and happy, he answered, with great alacrity, "o yes, sir!" qualifying his evidence, after a moment's consideration, by saying in an undertone, "there are some people, your honor knows, who could not be comfortable anywhere." i did know it, and fear that the system of chelsea hospital allows too little of that wholesome care and regulation of their own occupations and interests which might assuage the sting of life to those naturally uncomfortable individuals by giving them something external to think about. but my old friend here was happy in the hospital, and by this time, very likely, is happy in heaven, in spite of the bloodshed that he may have caused by touching off a cannon at waterloo. crossing battersea bridge, in the neighborhood of chelsea, i remember seeing a distant gleam of the crystal palace, glimmering afar in the afternoon sunshine like an imaginary structure,--an air-castle by chance descended upon earth, and resting there one instant before it vanished, as we sometimes see a soap-bubble touch unharmed on the carpet,--a thing of only momentary visibility and no substance, destined to be overburdened and crushed down by the first cloud-shadow that might fall upon that spot. even as i looked, it disappeared. shall i attempt a picture of this exhalation of modern ingenuity, or what else shall i try to paint? everything in london and its vicinity has been depicted innumerable times, but never once translated into intelligible images; it is an "old, old story," never yet told, nor to be told. while writing these reminiscences, i am continually impressed with the futility of the effort to give any creative truth to ink sketch, so that it might produce such pictures in the reader's mind as would cause the original scenes to appear familiar when afterwards beheld. nor have other writers often been more successful in representing definite objects prophetically to my own mind. in truth, i believe that the chief delight and advantage of this kind of literature is not for any real information that it supplies to untravelled people, but for reviving the recollections and reawakening the emotions of persons already acquainted with the scenes described. thus i found an exquisite pleasure, the other day, in reading mr. tuckerman's "month in england," fine example of the way in which a refined and cultivated american looks at the old country, the things that he naturally seeks there, and the modes of feeling and reflection which they excite. correct outlines avail little or nothing, though truth of coloring may be somewhat more efficacious. impressions, however, states of mind produced by interesting and remarkable objects, these, if truthfully and vividly recorded, may work a genuine effect, and, though lint the result, of what we see, go further towards representing the actual scene than any direct effort to paint it. give the emotions that cluster about it, and, without being able to analyze the spell by which it is summoned up, you get something like a simulacre of the object in the midst of them. from some of the above reflections i draw the comfortable inference, that, the longer and better known a thing may be, so much the more eligible is it as the subject of a descriptive sketch. on a sunday afternoon, i passed through a side-entrance in the time-blackened wall of a place of worship, and found myself among a congregation assembled in one of the transepts and the immediately contiguous portion of the nave. it was a vast old edifice, spacious enough, within the extent covered by its pillared roof and overspread by its stone pavement, to accommodate the whole of church-going london, and with a far wider and loftier concave than any human power of lungs could fill with audible prayer. oaken benches were arranged in the transept, on one of which i seated myself, and joined, as well as i knew how, in the sacred business that was going forward. but when it came to the sermon, the voice of the preacher was puny, and so were his thoughts, and both seemed impertinent at such a time and place, where he and all of us were bodily included within a sublime act of religion, which could be seen above and around us and felt beneath our feet. the structure itself was the worship of the devout men of long ago, miraculously preserved in stone without losing an atom of its fragrance and fervor; it was a kind of anthem-strain that they had sung and poured out of the organ in centuries gone by; and being so grand and sweet, the divine benevolence had willed it to be prolonged for the behoof of auditors unborn. i therefore came to the conclusion, that, in my individual case, it would be better and more reverent to let my eyes wander about the edifice than to fasten them and my thoughts on the evidently uninspired mortal who was venturing--and felt it no venture at all--to speak here above his breath. the interior of westminster abbey (for the reader recognized it, no doubt, the moment we entered) is built of rich brown stone; and the whole of it--the lofty roof, the tall, clustered pillars, and the pointed arches--appears to be in consummate repair. at all points where decay has laid its finger, the structure is clamped with iron or otherwise carefully protected; and being thus watched over,--whether as a place of ancient sanctity, a noble specimen of gothic art, or an object of national interest and pride,--it may reasonably be expected to survive for as many ages as have passed over it already. it was sweet to feel its venerable quietude, its long-enduring peace, and yet to observe how kindly and even cheerfully it received the sunshine of to-day, which fell from the great windows into the fretted aisles and arches that laid aside somewhat of their aged gloom to welcome it. sunshine always seems friendly to old abbeys, churches, and castles, kissing them, as it were, with a more affectionate, though still reverential familiarity, than it accords to edifices of later date. a square of golden light lay on the sombre pavement of the nave, afar off, falling through the grand western entrance, the folding leaves of which were wide open, and afforded glimpses of people passing to and fro in the outer world, while we sat dimly enveloped in the solemnity of antique devotion. in the south transept, separated from us by the full breadth of the minster, there were painted glass windows of which the uppermost appeared to be a great orb of many-colored radiance, being, indeed, a cluster of saints and angels whose glorified bodies formed the rays of an aureole emanating from a cross in the midst. these windows are modern, but combine softness with wonderful brilliancy of effect. through the pillars and arches, i saw that the walls in that distant region of the edifice were almost wholly incrusted with marble, now grown yellow with time, no blank, unlettered slabs, but memorials of such men as their respective generations deemed wisest and bravest. some of them were commemorated merely by inscriptions on mural tablets, others by sculptured bas-reliefs, others (once famous, but now forgotten generals or admirals, these) by ponderous tombs that aspired towards the roof of the aisle, or partly curtained the immense arch of a window. these mountains of marble were peopled with the sisterhood of allegory, winged trumpeters, and classic figures in full-bottomed wigs; but it was strange to observe how the old abbey melted all such absurdities into the breadth of its own grandeur, even magnifying itself by what would elsewhere have been ridiculous. methinks it is the test of gothic sublimity to overpower the ridiculous without deigning to hide it; and these grotesque monuments of the last century answer a similar purpose with the grinning faces which, the old architects scattered among their most solemn conceptions. from these distant wanderings (it was my first visit to westminster abbey, and i would gladly have taken it all in at a glance) my eyes came back and began to investigate what was immediately about me in the transept. close at my elbow was the pedestal of canning's statue. next beyond it was a massive tomb, on the spacious tablet of which reposed the full-length figures of a marble lord and lady, whom an inscription announced to be the duke and duchess of newcastle,--the historic duke of charles i.'s time, and the fantastic duchess, traditionally remembered by her poems and plays. she was of a family, as the record on her tomb proudly informed us, of which all the brothers had been valiant and all the sisters virtuous. a recent statue of sir john malcolm, the new marble as white as snow, held the next place; and near by was a mural monument and bust of sir peter warren. the round visage of this old british admiral has a certain interest for a new-englander, because it was by no merit of his own (though he took care to assume it as such), but by the valor and warlike enterprise of our colonial forefathers, especially the stout men of massachusetts, that he won rank and renown, and a tomb in westminster abbey. lord mansfield, a huge mass of marble done into the guise of a judicial gown and wig, with a stern face in the midst of the latter, sat on the other side of the transept; and on the pedestal beside him was a figure of justice, holding forth, instead of the customary grocer's scales, an actual pair of brass steelyards. it is an ancient and classic instrument, undoubtedly; but i had supposed that portia (when shylock's pound of flesh was to be weighed) was the only judge that ever really called for it in a court of justice. pitt and fox were in the same distinguished company; and john kemble, in roman costume, stood not far off, but strangely shorn of the dignity that is said to have enveloped him like a mantle in his lifetime. perhaps the evanescent majesty of the stage is incompatible with the long endurance of marble and the solemn reality of the tomb; though, on the other hand, almost every illustrious personage here represented has been invested with more or less of stage-trickery by his sculptor. in truth, the artist (unless there be a divine efficacy in his touch, making evident a heretofore hidden dignity in the actual form) feels it--an imperious law to remove his subject as far from the aspect of ordinary life as may be possible without sacrificing every trace of resemblance. the absurd effect of the contrary course is very remarkable in the statue of mr. wilberforce, whose actual self, save for the lack of color, i seemed to behold, seated just across the aisle. this excellent man appears to have sunk into himself in a sitting posture, with a thin leg crossed over his knee, a book in one hand, and a finger of the other under his chin, i believe, or applied to the side of his nose, or to some equally familiar purpose; while his exceedingly homely and wrinkled face, held a little on one side, twinkles at you with the shrewdest complacency, as if he were looking right into your eyes, and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal from him. he keeps this look so pertinaciously that you feel it to be insufferably impertinent, and bethink yourself what common ground there may be between yourself and a stone image, enabling you to resent it. i have no doubt that the statue is as like mr. wilberforce as one pea to another, and you might fancy, that, at some ordinary moment, when he least expected it, and before he had time to smooth away his knowing complication of wrinkles, he had seen the gorgon's head, and whitened into marble,--not only his personal self, but his coat and small-clothes, down to a button and the minutest crease of the cloth. the ludicrous result marks the impropriety of bestowing the age-long duration of marble upon small, characteristic individualities, such as might come within the province of waxen imagery. the sculptor should give permanence to the figure of a great man in his mood of broad and grand composure, which would obliterate all mean peculiarities; for, if the original were unaccustomed to such a mood, or if his features were incapable of assuming the guise, it seems questionable whether he could really have been entitled to a marble immortality. in point of fact, however, the english face and form are seldom statuesque, however illustrious the individual. it ill becomes me, perhaps, to have lapsed into this mood of half-jocose criticism in describing my first visit to westminster abbey, a spot which i had dreamed about more reverentially, from my childhood upward, than any other in the world, and which i then beheld, and now look back upon, with profound gratitude to the men who built it, and a kindly interest, i may add, in the humblest personage that has contributed his little all to its impressiveness, by depositing his dust or his memory there. but it is a characteristic of this grand edifice that it permits you to smile as freely under the roof of its central nave as if you stood beneath the yet grander canopy of heaven. break into laughter, if you feel inclined, provided the vergers do not hear it echoing among the arches. in an ordinary church you would keep your countenance for fear of disturbing the sanctities or proprieties of the place; but you need leave no honest and decorous portion of your human nature outside of these benign and truly hospitable walls. their mild awfulness will take care of itself. thus it does no harm to the general impression, when you come to be sensible that many of the monuments are ridiculous, and commemorate a mob of people who are mostly forgotten in their graves, and few of whom ever deserved any better boon from posterity. you acknowledge the force of sir godfrey kneller's objection to being buried in westminster abbey, because "they do bury fools there!" nevertheless, these grotesque carvings of marble, that break out in dingy-white blotches on the old freestone of the interior walls, have come there by as natural a process as might cause mosses and ivy to cluster about the external edifice; for they are the historical and biographical record of each successive age, written with its own hand, and all the truer for the inevitable mistakes, and none the less solemn for the occasional absurdity. though you entered the abbey expecting to see the tombs only of the illustrious, you are content at last to read many names, both in literature and history, that have now lost the reverence of mankind, if indeed they ever really possessed it. let these men rest in peace. even if you miss a name or two that you hoped to find there, they may well be spared. it matters little a few more or less, or whether westminster abbey contains or lacks any one man's grave, so long as the centuries, each with the crowd of personages that it deemed memorable, have chosen it as their place of honored sepulture, and laid themselves down under its pavement. the inscriptions and devices on the walls are rich with evidences of the fluctuating tastes, fashions, manners, opinions, prejudices, follies, wisdoms of the past, and thus they combine into a more truthful memorial of their dead times than any individual epitaph-maker ever meant to write. when the services were over, many of the audience seemed inclined to linger in the nave or wander away among the mysterious aisles; for there is nothing in this world so fascinating as a gothic minster, which always invites you deeper and deeper into its heart both by vast revelations and shadowy concealments. through the open-work screen that divides the nave from the chancel and choir, we could discern the gleam of a marvellous window, but were debarred from entrance into that more sacred precinct of the abbey by the vergers. these vigilant officials (doing their duty all the more strenuously because no fees could be exacted from sunday visitors) flourished their staves, and drove us towards the grand entrance like a flock of sheep. lingering through one of the aisles, i happened to look down, and found my foot upon a stone inscribed with this familiar exclamation, "o rare ben jonson!" and remembered the story of stout old ben's burial in that spot, standing upright,--not, i presume, on account of any unseemly reluctance on his part to lie down in the dust, like other men, but because standing-room was all that could reasonably be demanded for a poet among the slumberous notabilities of his age. it made me weary to think of it!--such a prodigious length of time to keep one's feet!--apart from the honor of the thing, it would certainly have been better for ben to stretch himself at ease in some country churchyard. to this day, however, i fancy that there is a contemptuous alloy mixed up with the admiration which the higher classes of english society profess for their literary men. another day--in truth, many other days--i sought out poets' corner, and found a sign-board and pointed finger, directing the visitor to it, on the corner house of a little lane leading towards the rear of the abbey. the entrance is at the southeastern end of the south transept, and it is used, on ordinary occasions, as the only free mode of access to the building. it is no spacious arch, but a small, lowly door, passing through which, and pushing aside an inner screen that partly keeps out an exceedingly chill wind, you find yourself in a dim nook of the abbey, with the busts of poets gazing at you from the otherwise bare stone-work of the walls. great poets, too; for ben jenson is right behind the door, and spenser's tablet is next, and butler's on the same side of the transept, and milton's (whose bust you know at once by its resemblance to one of his portraits, though older, more wrinkled, and sadder than that) is close by, and a profile-medallion of gray beneath it. a window high aloft sheds down a dusky daylight on these and many other sculptured marbles, now as yellow as old parchment, that cover the three walls of the nook up to an elevation of about twenty feet above the pavement. it seemed to me that i had always been familiar with the spot. enjoying a humble intimacy--and how much of my life had else been a dreary solitude!--with many of its inhabitants, i could not feel myself a stranger there. it was delightful to be among them. there was a genial awe, mingled with a sense of kind and friendly presences about me; and i was glad, moreover, at finding so many of them there together, in fit companionship, mutually recognized and duly honored, all reconciled now, whatever distant generations, whatever personal hostility or other miserable impediment, had divided them far asunder while they lived. i have never felt a similar interest in any other tombstones, nor have i ever been deeply moved by the imaginary presence of other famous dead people. a poet's ghost is the only one that survives for his fellow-mortals, after his bones are in the dust,--and be not ghostly, but cherishing many hearts with his own warmth in the chillest atmosphere of life. what other fame is worth aspiring for? or, let me speak it more boldly, what other long-enduring fame can exist? we neither remember nor care anything for the past, except as the poet has made it intelligibly noble and sublime to our comprehension. the shades of the mighty have no substance; they flit ineffectually about the darkened stage where they performed their momentary parts, save when the poet has thrown his own creative soul into them, and imparted a more vivid life than ever they were able to manifest to mankind while they dwelt in the body. and therefore--though he cunningly disguises himself in their armor, their robes of state, or kingly purple--it is not the statesman, the warrior, or the monarch that survives, but the despised poet, whom they may have fed with their crumbs, and to whom they owe all that they now are or have,--a name! in the foregoing paragraph i seem to have been betrayed into a flight above or beyond the customary level that best agrees with me; but it represents fairly enough the emotions with which i passed from poets' corner into the chapels, which contain the sepulchres of kings and great people. they are magnificent even now, and must have been inconceivably so when the marble slabs and pillars wore their new polish, and the statues retained the brilliant colors with which they were originally painted, and the shrines their rich gilding, of which the sunlight still shows a glimmer or a streak, though the sunbeam itself looks tarnished with antique dust. yet this recondite portion of the abbey presents few memorials of personages whom we care to remember. the shrine of edward the confessor has a certain interest, because it was so long held in religious reverence, and because the very dust that settled upon it was formerly worth gold. the helmet and war-saddle of henry v., worn at agincourt, and now suspended above his tomb, are memorable objects, but more for shakespeare's sake than the victor's own. rank has been the general passport to admission here. noble and regal dust is as cheap as dirt under the pavement. i am glad to recollect, indeed (and it is too characteristic of the right english spirit not to be mentioned), one or two gigantic statues of great mechanicians, who contributed largely to the material welfare of england, sitting familiarly in their marble chairs among forgotten kings and queens. otherwise, the quaintness of the earlier monuments, and the antique beauty of some of them, are what chiefly gives them value. nevertheless, addison is buried among the men of rank; not on the plea of his literary fame, however, but because he was connected with nobility by marriage, and had been a secretary of state. his gravestone is inscribed with a resounding verse from tickell's lines to his memory, the only lines by which tickell himself is now remembered, and which (as i discovered a little while ago) he mainly filched from an obscure versifier of somewhat earlier date. returning to poets' corner, i looked again at the walls, and wondered how the requisite hospitality can be shown to poets of our own and the succeeding ages. there is hardly a foot of space left, although room has lately been found for a bust of southey and a full-length statue of campbell. at best, only a little portion of the abbey is dedicated to poets, literary men, musical composers, and others of the gentle artist breed, and even into that small nook of sanctity men of other pursuits have thought it decent to intrude themselves. methinks the tuneful throng, being at home here, should recollect how they were treated in their lifetime, and turn the cold shoulder, looking askance at nobles and official personages, however worthy of honorable intercourse elsewhere. yet it shows aptly and truly enough what portion of the world's regard and honor has heretofore been awarded to literary eminence in comparison with other modes of greatness,--this dimly lighted corner (nor even that quietly to themselves) in the vast minster, the walls of which are sheathed and hidden under marble that has been wasted upon the illustrious obscure. nevertheless, it may not be worth while to quarrel with the world on this account; for, to confess the very truth, their own little nook contains more than one poet whose memory is kept alive by his monument, instead of imbuing the senseless stone with a spiritual immortality,--men of whom you do not ask, "where is he?" but, "why is he here?" i estimate that all the literary people who really make an essential part of one's inner life, including the period since english literature first existed, might have ample elbow-room to sit down and quaff their draughts of castaly round chaucer's broad, horizontal tombstone. these divinest poets consecrate the spot, and throw a reflected glory over the humblest of their companions. and as for the latter, it is to be hoped that they may have long outgrown the characteristic jealousies and morbid sensibilities of their craft, and have found out the little value (probably not amounting to sixpence in immortal currency) of the posthumous renown which they once aspired to win. it would be a poor compliment to a dead poet to fancy him leaning out of the sky and snuffing up the impure breath of earthly praise. yet we cannot easily rid ourselves of the notion that those who have bequeathed us the inheritance of an undying song would fain be conscious of its endless reverberations in the hearts of mankind, and would delight, among sublimer enjoyments, to see their names emblazoned in such a treasure-place of great memories as westminster abbey. there are some men, at all events,--true and tender poets, moreover, and fully deserving of the honor,--whose spirits, i feel certain, would linger a little while about poets' corner for the sake of witnessing their own apotheosis among their kindred. they have had a strong natural yearning, not so much for applause as sympathy, which the cold fortune of their lifetime did but scantily supply; so that this unsatisfied appetite may make itself felt upon sensibilities at once so delicate and retentive, even a step or two beyond the grave. leigh hunt, for example, would be pleased, even now, if he could learn that his bust had been reposited in the midst of the old poets whom he admired and loved; though there is hardly a man among the authors of to-day and yesterday whom the judgment of englishmen would be less likely to place there. he deserves it, however, if not for his verse (the value of which i do not estimate, never having been able to read it), yet for his delightful prose, his unmeasured poetry, the inscrutable happiness of his touch, working soft miracles by a life-process like the growth of grass and flowers. as with all such gentle writers, his page sometimes betrayed a vestige of affectation, but, the next moment, a rich, natural luxuriance overgrew and buried it out of sight. i knew him a little, and (since, heaven be praised, few english celebrities whom i chanced to meet have enfranchised my pen by their decease, and as i assume no liberties with living men) i will conclude this rambling article by sketching my first interview with leigh hunt. he was then at hammersmith, occupying a very plain and shabby little house, in a contiguous range of others like it, with no prospect but that of an ugly village street, and certainly nothing to gratify his craving for a tasteful environment, inside or out. a slatternly maid-servant opened the door for us, and he himself stood in the entry, a beautiful and venerable old man, buttoned to the chin in a black dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive all over, and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. he ushered us into his little study, or parlor, or both,--a very forlorn room, with poor paper-hangings and carpet, few books, no pictures that i remember, and an awful lack of upholstery. i touch distinctly upon these external blemishes and this nudity of adornment, not that they would be worth mentioning in a sketch of other remarkable persons, but because leigh hunt was born with such a faculty of enjoying all beautiful things that it seemed as if fortune, did him as much wrong in not supplying them as in withholding a sufficiency of vital breath from ordinary men. all kinds of mild magnificence, tempered by his taste, would have become him well; but he had not the grim dignity that assumes nakedness as the better robe. i have said that he was a beautiful old man. in truth, i never saw a finer countenance, either as to the mould of features or the expression, nor any that showed the play of feeling so perfectly without the slightest theatrical emphasis. it was like a child's face in this respect. at my first glimpse of him, when he met us in the entry, i discerned that he was old, his long hair being white and his wrinkles many; it was an aged visage, in short, such as i had not at all expected to see, in spite of dates, because his books talk to the reader with the tender vivacity of youth. but when he began to speak, and as he grew more earnest in conversation, i ceased to be sensible of his age; sometimes, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which his sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash of youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. i never witnessed such a wonderfully illusive transformation, before or since; and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, i should find it difficult to decide which was his genuine and stable predicament,--youth or age. i have met no englishman whose manners seemed to me so agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the nicest observer could not detect the application of it. his eyes were dark and very fine, and his delightful voice accompanied their visible language like music. he appeared to be exceedingly appreciative of whatever was passing among those who surrounded him, and especially of the vicissitudes in the consciousness of the person to whom he happened to be addressing himself at the moment. i felt that no effect upon my mind of what he uttered, no emotion, however transitory, in myself, escaped his notice, though not from any positive vigilance on his part, but because his faculty of observation was so penetrative and delicate; and to say the truth, it a little confused me to discern always a ripple on his mobile face, responsive to any slightest breeze that passed over the inner reservoir of my sentiments, and seemed thence to extend to a similar reservoir within himself. on matters of feeling, and within a certain depth, you might spare yourself the trouble of utterance, because he already knew what you wanted to say, and perhaps a little more than you would have spoken. his figure was full of gentle movement, though, somehow, without disturbing its quietude; and as he talked, he kept folding his hands nervously, and betokened in many ways a fine and immediate sensibility, quick to feel pleasure or pain, though scarcely capable, i should imagine, of a passionate experience in either direction. there was not am english trait in him from head to foot, morally, intellectually, or physically. beef, ale, or stout, brandy or port-wine, entered not at all into his composition. in his earlier life, he appears to have given evidences of courage and sturdy principle, and of a tendency to fling himself into the rough struggle of humanity on the liberal side. it would be taking too much upon myself to affirm that this was merely a projection of his fancy world into the actual, and that he never could have hit a downright blow, and was altogether an unsuitable person to receive one. i beheld him not in his armor, but in his peacefulest robes. nevertheless, drawing my conclusion merely from what i saw, it would have occurred to me that his main deficiency was a lack of grit. though anything but a timid man, the combative and defensive elements were not prominently developed in his character, and could have been made available only when he put an unnatural force upon his instincts. it was on this account, and also because of the fineness of his nature generally, that the english appreciated him no better, and left this sweet and delicate poet poor, and with scanty laurels in his declining age. it was not, i think, from his american blood that leigh hunt derived either his amiability or his peaceful inclinations; at least, i do not see how we can reasonably claim the former quality as a national characteristic, though the latter might have been fairly inherited from his ancestors on the mother's side, who were pennsylvania quakers. but the kind of excellence that distinguished him--his fineness, subtilty, and grace--was that which the richest cultivation has heretofore tended to develop in the happier examples of american genius, and which (though i say it a little reluctantly) is perhaps what our future intellectual advancement may make general among us. his person, at all events, was thoroughly american, and of the best type, as were likewise his manners; for we are the best as well as the worst mannered people in the world. leigh hunt loved dearly to be praised. that is to say, he desired sympathy as a flower seeks sunshine, and perhaps profited by it as much in the richer depth of coloring that it imparted to his ideas. in response to all that we ventured to express about his writings (and, for my part, i went quite to the extent of my conscience, which was a long way, and there left the matter to a lady and a young girl, who happily were with me), his face shone, and he manifested great delight, with a perfect, and yet delicate, frankness for which i loved him. he could not tell us, he said, the happiness that such appreciation gave him; it always took him by surprise, he remarked, for--perhaps because he cleaned his own boots, and performed other little ordinary offices for himself-- he never had been conscious of anything wonderful in his own person. and then he smiled, making himself and all the poor little parlor about him beautiful thereby. it is usually the hardest thing in the world to praise a man to his face; but leigh hunt received the incense with such gracious satisfaction (feeling it to be sympathy, not vulgar praise), that the only difficulty was to keep the enthusiasm of the moment within the limit of permanent opinion. a storm had suddenly come up while we were talking; the rain poured, the lightning flashed, and the thunder broke; but i hope, and have great pleasure in believing, that it was a sunny hour for leigh hunt. nevertheless, it was not to my voice that he most favorably inclined his ear, but to those of my companions. women are the fit ministers at such a shrine. he must have suffered keenly in his lifetime, and enjoyed keenly, keeping his emotions so much upon the surface as he seemed to do, and convenient for everybody to play upon. being of a cheerful temperament, happiness had probably the upper hand. his was a light, mildly joyous nature, gentle, graceful, yet seldom attaining to that deepest grace which results from power; for beauty, like woman, its human representative, dallies with the gentle, but yields its consummate favor only to the strong. i imagine that leigh bunt may have been more beautiful when i met him, both in person and character, than in his earlier days. as a young man, i could conceive of his being finical in certain moods, but not now, when the gravity of age shed a venerable grace about him. i rejoiced to hear him say that he was favored with most confident and cheering anticipations in respect to a future life; and there were abundant proofs, throughout our interview, of an unrepining spirit, resignation, quiet, relinquishment of the worldly benefits that were denied him, thankful enjoyment of whatever he had to enjoy, and piety, and hope shining onward into the dusk,--all of which gave a reverential cast to the feeling with which we parted from him. i wish that he could have had one full draught of prosperity before he died. as a matter of artistic propriety, it would have been delightful to see him inhabiting a beautiful house of his own, in an italian climate, with all sorts of elaborate upholstery and minute elegances about him, and a succession of tender and lovely women to praise his sweet poetry from morning to night. i hardly know whether it is my fault, or the effect of a weakness in leigh haunt's character, that i should be sensible of a regret of this nature, when, at the same time, i sincerely believe that he has found an infinity of better things in the world whither he has gone. at our leave-taking he grasped me warmly by both hands, and seemed as much interested in our whole party as if he had known us for years. all this was genuine feeling, a quick, luxuriant growth out of his heart, which was a soil for flower-seeds of rich and rare varieties, not acorns, but a true heart, nevertheless. several years afterwards i met him for the last time at a london dinner-party, looking sadly broken down by infirmities; and my final recollection of the beautiful old man presents him arm in arm with, nay, if i mistake not, partly embraced and supported by, another beloved and honored poet, whose minstrel-name, since he has a week-day one for his personal occasions, i will venture to speak. it was barry cornwall, whose kind introduction had first made me known to leigh hunt. outside glimpses of english poverty. becoming an inhabitant of a great english town, i often turned aside from the prosperous thoroughfares (where the edifices, the shops, and the bustling crowd differed not so much from scenes with which i was familiar in my own country), and went designedly astray among precincts that reminded me of some of dickens's grimiest pages. there i caught glimpses of a people and a mode of life that were comparatively new to my observation, a sort of sombre phantasmagoric spectacle, exceedingly undelightful to behold, yet involving a singular interest and even fascination in its ugliness. dirt, one would fancy, is plenty enough all over the world, being the symbolic accompaniment of the foul incrustation which began to settle over and bedim all earthly things as soon as eve had bitten the apple; ever since which hapless epoch, her daughters have chiefly been engaged in a desperate and unavailing struggle to get rid of it. but the dirt of a poverty-stricken english street is a monstrosity unknown on our side of the atlantic. it reigns supreme within its own limits, and is inconceivable everywhere beyond them. we enjoy the great advantage, that the brightness and dryness of our atmosphere keep everything clean that the sun shines upon, converting the larger portion of our impurities into transitory dust which the next wind can sweep away, in contrast with the damp, adhesive grime that incorporates itself with all surfaces (unless continually and painfully cleansed) in the chill moisture of the english air. then the all-pervading smoke of the city, abundantly intermingled with the sable snow-flakes of bituminous coal, hovering overhead, descending, and alighting on pavements and rich architectural fronts, on the snowy muslin of the ladies, and the gentlemen's starched collars and shirt-bosoms, invests even the better streets in a half-mourning garb. it is beyond the resources of wealth to keep the smut away from its premises or its own fingers' ends; and as for poverty, it surrenders itself to the dark influence without a struggle. along with disastrous circumstances, pinching need, adversity so lengthened out as to constitute the rule of life, there comes a certain chill depression of the spirits which seems especially to shudder at cold water. in view of so wretched a state of things, we accept the ancient deluge not merely as an insulated phenomenon, but as a periodical necessity, and acknowledge that nothing less than such a general washing-day could suffice to cleanse the slovenly old world of its moral and material dirt. gin-shops, or what the english call spirit-vaults, are numerous in the vicinity of these poor streets, and are set off with the magnificence of gilded door-posts, tarnished by contact with the unclean customers who haunt there. ragged children come thither with old shaving-mugs, or broken-nosed teapots, or ally such makeshift receptacle, to get a little poison or madness for their parents, who deserve no better requital at their hands for having engendered them. inconceivably sluttish women enter at noonday and stand at the counter among boon-companions of both sexes, stirring up misery and jollity in a bumper together, and quaffing off the mixture with a relish. as for the men, they lounge there continually, drinking till they are drunken,--drinking as long as they have a half-penny left, and then, as it seemed to me, waiting for a sixpenny miracle to be wrought in their pockets so as to enable them to be drunken again. most of these establishments have a significant advertisement of "beds," doubtless for the accommodation of their customers in the interval between one intoxication and the next. i never could find it in my heart, however, utterly to condemn these sad revellers, and should certainly wait till i had some better consolation to offer before depriving them of their dram of gin, though death itself were in the glass; for methought their poor souls needed such fiery stimulant to lift them a little way out of the smothering squalor of both their outward and interior life, giving them glimpses and suggestions, even if bewildering ones, of a spiritual existence that limited their present misery. the temperance-reformers unquestionably derive their commission from the divine beneficence, but have never been taken fully into its counsels. all may not be lost, though those good men fail. pawnbrokers' establishments, distinguished by the mystic symbol of the three golden balls, were conveniently accessible; though what personal property these wretched people could possess, capable of being estimated in silver or copper, so as to afford a basis for a loan, was a problem that still perplexes me. old clothesmen, likewise, dwelt hard by, and hung out ancient garments to dangle in the wind. there were butchers' shops, too, of a class adapted to the neighborhood, presenting no such generously fattened carcasses as englishmen love to gaze at in the market, no stupendous halves of mighty beeves, no dead hogs or muttons ornamented with carved bas-reliefs of fat on their ribs and shoulders, in a peculiarly british style of art,--not these, but bits and gobbets of lean meat, selvages snipt off from steaks, tough and stringy morsels, bare bones smitten away from joints by the cleaver, tripe, liver, bullocks' feet, or whatever else was cheapest and divisible into the smallest lots. i am afraid that even such delicacies came to many of their tables hardly oftener than christmas. in the windows of other little shops you saw half a dozen wizened herrings, some eggs in a basket, looking so dingily antique that your imagination smelt them, fly-speckled biscuits, segments of a hungry cheese, pipes and papers of tobacco. now and then a sturdy milk-woman passed by with a wooden yoke over her shoulders, supporting a pail on either side, filled with a whitish fluid, the composition of which was water and chalk and the milk of a sickly cow, who gave the best she had, poor thing! but could scarcely make it rich or wholesome, spending her life in some close city-nook and pasturing on strange food. i have seen, once or twice, a donkey coming into one of these streets with panniers full of vegetables, and departing with a return cargo of what looked like rubbish and street-sweepings. no other commerce seemed to exist, except, possibly, a girl might offer you a pair of stockings or a worked collar, or a man whisper something mysterious about wonderfully cheap cigars. and yet i remember seeing female hucksters in those regions, with their wares on the edge of the sidewalk and their own seats right in the carriage-way, pretending to sell half-decayed oranges and apples, toffy, ormskirk cakes, combs, and cheap jewelry, the coarsest kind of crockery, and little plates of oysters,--knitting patiently all day long, and removing their undiminished stock in trade at nightfall. all indispensable importations from other quarters of the town were on a remarkably diminutive scale: for example, the wealthier inhabitants purchased their coal by the wheelbarrow-load, and the poorer ones by the peck-measure. it was a curious and melancholy spectacle, when an overladen coal-cart happened to pass through the street and drop a handful or two of its burden in the mud, to see half a dozen women and children scrambling for the treasure-trove, like a flock of hens and chickens gobbling up some spilt corn. in this connection i may as well mention a commodity of boiled snails (for such they appeared to me, though probably a marine production) which used to be peddled from door to door, piping hot, as an article of cheap nutriment. the population of these dismal abodes appeared to consider the sidewalks and middle of the street as their common hall. in a drama of low life, the unity of place might be arranged rigidly according to the classic rule, and the street be the one locality in which every scene and incident should occur. courtship, quarrels, plot and counterplot, conspiracies for robbery and murder, family difficulties or agreements,-- all such matters, i doubt not, are constantly discussed or transacted in this sky-roofed saloon, so regally hung with its sombre canopy of coal-smoke. whatever the disadvantages of the english climate, the only comfortable or wholesome part of life, for the city poor, must be spent in the open air. the stifled and squalid rooms where they lie down at night, whole families and neighborhoods together, or sulkily elbow one another in the daytime, when a settled rain drives them within doors, are worse horrors than it is worth while (without a practical object in view) to admit into one's imagination. no wonder that they creep forth from the foul mystery of their interiors, stumble down from their garrets, or scramble up out of their cellars, on the upper step of which you may see the grimy housewife, before the shower is ended, letting the raindrops gutter down her visage; while her children (an impish progeny of cavernous recesses below the common sphere of humanity) swarm into the daylight and attain all that they know of personal purification in the nearest mud-puddle. it might almost make a man doubt the existence of his own soul, to observe how nature has flung these little wretches into the street and left them there, so evidently regarding them as nothing worth, and how all mankind acquiesce in the great mother's estimate of her offspring. for, if they are to have no immortality, what superior claim can i assert for mine? and how difficult to believe that anything so precious as a germ of immortal growth can have been buried under this dirt-heap, plunged into this cesspool of misery and vice! as often as i beheld the scene, it affected me with surprise and loathsome interest, much resembling, though in a far intenser degree, the feeling with which, when a boy, i used to turn over a plank or an old log that had long lain on the damp ground, and found a vivacious multitude of unclean and devilish-looking insects scampering to and fro beneath it. without an infinite faith, there seemed as much prospect of a blessed futurity for those hideous hugs and many-footed worms as for these brethren of our humanity and co-heirs of all our heavenly inheritance. ah, what a mystery! slowly, slowly, as after groping at the bottom of a deep, noisome, stagnant pool, my hope struggles upward to the surface, bearing the half-drowned body of a child along with it, and heaving it aloft for its life, and my own life, and all our lives. unless these slime-clogged nostrils can be made capable of inhaling celestial air, i know not how the purest and most intellectual of us can reasonably expect ever to taste a breath of it. the whole question of eternity is staked there. if a single one of those helpless little ones be lost, the world is lost! the women and children greatly preponderate in such places; the men probably wandering abroad in quest of that daily miracle, a dinner and a drink, or perhaps slumbering in the daylight that they may the better follow out their cat-like rambles through the dark. here are women with young figures, but old, wrinkled, yellow faces, fanned and blear-eyed with the smoke which they cannot spare from their scanty fires,--it being too precious for its warmth to be swallowed by the chimney. some of them sit on the doorsteps, nursing their unwashed babies at bosoms which we will glance aside from, for the sake of our mothers and all womanhood, because the fairest spectacle is here the foulest. yet motherhood, in these dark abodes, is strangely identical with what we have all known it to be in the happiest homes. nothing, as i remember, smote me with more grief and pity (all the more poignant because perplexingly entangled with an inclination to smile) than to hear a gaunt and ragged mother priding herself on the pretty ways of her ragged and skinny infant, just as a young matron might, when she invites her lady friends to admire her plump, white-robed darling in the nursery. indeed, no womanly characteristic seemed to have altogether perished out of these poor souls. it was the very same creature whose tender torments make the rapture of our young days, whom we love, cherish, and protect, and rely upon in life and death, and whom we delight to see beautify her beauty with rich robes and set it off with jewels, though now fantastically masquerading in a garb of tatters, wholly unfit for her to handle. i recognized her, over and over again, in the groups round a doorstep or in the descent of a cellar, chatting with prodigious earnestness about intangible trifles, laughing for a little jest, sympathizing at almost the same instant with one neighbor's sunshine and another's shadow, wise, simple, sly, and patient, yet easily perturbed, and breaking into small feminine ebullitions of spite, wrath, and jealousy, tornadoes of a moment, such as vary the social atmosphere of her silken-skirted sisters, though smothered into propriety by dint of a well-bred habit. not that there was an absolute deficiency of good-breeding, even here. it often surprised me to witness a courtesy and deference among these ragged folks, which, having seen it, i did not thoroughly believe in, wondering whence it should have come. i am persuaded, however, that there were laws of intercourse which they never violated,--a code of the cellar, the garret, the common staircase, the doorstep, and the pavement, which perhaps had as deep a foundation in natural fitness as the code of the drawing-room. yet again i doubt whether i may not have been uttering folly in the last two sentences, when i reflect how rude and rough these specimens of feminine character generally were. they had a readiness with their hands that reminded me of molly seagrim and other heroines in fielding's novels. for example, i have seen a woman meet a man in the street, and, for no reason perceptible to me, suddenly clutch him by the hair and cuff his ears,--an infliction which he bore with exemplary patience, only snatching the very earliest opportunity to take to his heels. where a sharp tongue will not serve the purpose, they trust to the sharpness of their finger-nails, or incarnate a whole vocabulary of vituperative words in a resounding slap, or the downright blow of a doubled fist. all english people, i imagine, are influenced in a far greater degree than ourselves by this simple and honest tendency, in cases of disagreement, to batter one another's persons; and whoever has seen a crowd of english ladies (for instance, at the door of the sistine chapel, in holy week) will be satisfied that their belligerent propensities are kept in abeyance only by a merciless rigor on the part of society. it requires a vast deal of refinement to spiritualize their large physical endowments. such being the case with the delicate ornaments of the drawing-room, it is the less to be wondered at that women who live mostly in the open air, amid the coarsest kind of companionship and occupation, should carry on the intercourse of life with a freedom unknown to any class of american females, though still, i am resolved to think, compatible with a generous breadth of natural propriety. it shocked me, at first, to see them (of all ages, even elderly, as well as infants that could just toddle across the street alone) going about in the mud and mire, or through the dusky snow and slosh of a severe week in winter, with petticoats high uplifted above bare, red feet and legs; but i was comforted by observing that both shoes and stockings generally reappeared with better weather, having been thriftily kept out of the damp for the convenience of dry feet within doors. their hardihood was wonderful, and their strength greater than could have been expected from such spare diet as they probably lived upon. i have seen them carrying on their heads great burdens under which they walked as freely as if they were fashionable bonnets; or sometimes the burden was huge enough almost to cover the whole person, looked at from behind,--as in tuscan villages you may see the girls coming in from the country with great bundles of green twigs upon their backs, so that they resemble locomotive masses of verdure and fragrance. but these poor english women seemed to be laden with rubbish, incongruous and indescribable, such as bones and rags, the sweepings of the house and of the street, a merchandise gathered up from what poverty itself had thrown away, a heap of filthy stuff analogous to christian's bundle of sin. sometimes, though very seldom, i detected a certain gracefulness among the younger women that was altogether new to my observation. it was a charm proper to the lowest class. one girl i particularly remember, in a garb none of the cleanest and nowise smart, and herself exceedingly coarse in all respects, but yet endowed with a sort of witchery, a native charm, a robe of simple beauty and suitable behavior that she was born in and had never been tempted to throw off, because she had really nothing else to put on. eve herself could not have been more natural. nothing was affected, nothing imitated; no proper grace was vulgarized by an effort to assume the manners or adornments of another sphere. this kind of beauty, arrayed in a fitness of its own, is probably vanishing out of the world, and will certainly never be found in america, where all the girls, whether daughters of the upper-tendon, the mediocrity, the cottage, or the kennel, aim at one standard of dress and deportment, seldom accomplishing a perfectly triumphant hit or an utterly absurd failure. those words, "genteel" and "ladylike," are terrible ones and do us infinite mischief, but it is because (at least, i hope so) we are in a transition state, and shall emerge into a higher mode of simplicity than has ever been known to past ages. in such disastrous circumstances as i have been attempting to describe, it was beautiful to observe what a mysterious efficacy still asserted itself in character. a woman, evidently poor as the poorest of her neighbors, would be knitting or sewing on the doorstep, just as fifty other women were; but round about her skirts (though wofully patched) you would be sensible of a certain sphere of decency, which, it seemed to me, could not have been kept more impregnable in the cosiest little sitting-room, where the tea-kettle on the hob was humming its good old song of domestic peace. maidenhood had a similar power. the evil habit that grows upon us in this harsh world makes me faithless to my own better perceptions; and yet i have seen girls in these wretched streets, on whose virgin purity, judging merely from their impression on my instincts as they passed by, i should have deemed it safe, at the moment, to stake my life. the next moment, however, as the surrounding flood of moral uncleanness surged over their footsteps, i would not have staked a spike of thistle-down on the same wager. yet the miracle was within the scope of providence, which is equally wise and equally beneficent (even to those poor girls, though i acknowledge the fact without the remotest comprehension of the mode of it), whether they were pure or what we fellow-sinners call vile. unless your faith be deep-rooted and of most vigorous growth, it is the safer way not to turn aside into this region so suggestive of miserable doubt. it was a place "with dreadful faces thronged," wrinkled and grim with vice and wretchedness; and, thinking over the line of milton here quoted, i come to the conclusion that those ugly lineaments which startled adam and eve, as they looked backward to the closed gate of paradise, were no fiends from the pit, but the more terrible foreshadowings of what so many of their descendants were to be. god help them, and us likewise, their brethren and sisters! let me add, that, forlorn, ragged, careworn, hopeless, dirty, haggard, hungry, as they were, the most pitiful thing of all was to see the sort of patience with which they accepted their lot, as if they had been born into the world for that and nothing else. even the little children had this characteristic in as perfect development as their grandmothers. the children, in truth, were the ill-omened blossoms from which another harvest of precisely such dark fruitage as i saw ripened around me was to be produced. of course you would imagine these to be lumps of crude iniquity, tiny vessels as full as they could hold of naughtiness; nor can i say a great deal to the contrary. small proof of parental discipline could i discern, save when a mother (drunken, i sincerely hope) snatched her own imp out of a group of pale, half-naked, humor-eaten abortions that were playing and squabbling together in the mud, turned up its tatters, brought down her heavy hand on its poor little tenderest part, and let it go again with a shake. if the child knew what the punishment was for, it was wiser than i pretend to be. it yelled, and went back to its playmates in the mud. yet let me bear testimony to what was beautiful, and more touching than anything that i ever witnessed in the intercourse of happier children. i allude to the superintendence which some of these small people (too small, one would think, to be sent into the street alone, had there been any other nursery for them) exercised over still smaller ones. whence they derived such a sense of duty, unless immediately from god, i cannot tell; but it was wonderful to observe the expression of responsibility in their deportment, the anxious fidelity with which they discharged their unfit office, the tender patience with which they linked their less pliable impulses to the wayward footsteps of an infant, and let it guide them whithersoever it liked. in the hollow-cheeked, large-eyed girl of ten, whom i saw giving a cheerless oversight to her baby-brother, i did not so much marvel at it. she had merely come a little earlier than usual to the perception of what was to be her business in life. but i admired the sickly-looking little boy, who did violence to his boyish nature by making himself the servant of his little sister,--she too small to walk, and he too small to take her in his arms,--and therefore working a kind of miracle to transport her from one dirt-heap to another. beholding such works of love and duty, i took heart again, and deemed it not so impossible, after all, for these neglected children to find a path through the squalor and evil of their circumstances up to the gate of heaven. perhaps there was this latent good in all of them, though generally they looked brutish, and dull even in their sports; there was little mirth among them, nor even a fully awakened spirit of blackguardism. yet sometimes, again, i saw, with surprise and a sense as if i had been asleep and dreaming, the bright, intelligent, merry face of a child whose dark eyes gleamed with vivacious expression through the dirt that incrusted its skin, like sunshine struggling through a very dusty window-pane. in these streets the belted and blue-coated policeman appears seldom in comparison with the frequency of his occurrence in more reputable thoroughfares. i used to think that the inhabitants would have ample time to murder one another, or any stranger, like myself, who might violate the filthy sanctities of the place; before the law could bring up its lumbering assistance. nevertheless, there is a supervision; nor does the watchfulness of authority permit the populace to be tempted to any outbreak. once, in a time of dearth i noticed a ballad-singer going through the street hoarsely chanting some discordant strain in a provincial dialect, of which i could only make out that it addressed the sensibilities of the auditors on the score of starvation; but by his side stalked the policeman, offering no interference, but watchful to hear what this rough minstrel said or sang, and silence him, if his effusion threatened to prove too soul-stirring. in my judgment, however, there is little or no danger of that kind: they starve patiently, sicken patiently, die patiently, not through resignation, but a diseased flaccidity of hope. if ever they should do mischief to those above them, it will probably be by the communication of some destructive pestilence; for, so the medical men affirm, they suffer all the ordinary diseases with a degree of virulence elsewhere unknown, and keep among themselves traditionary plagues that have long ceased to afflict more fortunate societies. charity herself gathers her robe about her to avoid their contact. it would be a dire revenge, indeed, if they were to prove their claims to be reckoned of one blood and nature with the noblest and wealthiest by compelling them to inhale death through the diffusion of their own poverty-poisoned atmosphere. a true englishman is a kind man at heart, but has an unconquerable dislike to poverty and beggary. beggars have heretofore been so strange to an american that he is apt to become their prey, being recognized through his national peculiarities, and beset by them in the streets. the english smile at him, and say that there are ample public arrangements for every pauper's possible need, that street-charity promotes idleness and vice, and that yonder personification of misery on the pavement will lay up a good day's profit, besides supping more luxuriously than the dupe who gives him a shilling. by and by the stranger adopts their theory and begins to practise upon it, much to his own temporary freedom from annoyance, but not entirely without moral detriment or sometimes a too late contrition. years afterwards, it may be, his memory is still haunted by some vindictive wretch whose cheeks were pale and hunger-pinched, whose rags fluttered in the east-wind, whose right arm was paralyzed and his left leg shrivelled into a mere nerveless stick, but whom he passed by remorselessly because an englishman chose to say that the fellow's misery looked too perfect, was too artistically got up, to be genuine. even allowing this to be true (as, a hundred chances to one, it was), it would still have been a clear case of economy to buy him off with a little loose silver, so that his lamentable figure should not limp at the heels of your conscience all over the world. to own the truth, i provided myself with several such imaginary persecutors in england, and recruited their number with at least one sickly-looking wretch whose acquaintance i first made at assisi, in italy, and, taking a dislike to something sinister in his aspect, permitted him to beg early and late, and all day long, without getting a single baiocco. at my latest glimpse of him, the villain avenged himself, not by a volley of horrible curses, as any other italian beggar would, but by taking an expression so grief-stricken, want-wrung, hopeless, and withal resigned, that i could paint his lifelike portrait at this moment. were i to go over the same ground again, i would listen to no man's theories, but buy the little luxury of beneficence at a cheap rate, instead of doing myself a moral mischief by exuding a stony incrustation over whatever natural sensibility i might possess. on the other hand, there were some mendicants whose utmost efforts i even now felicitate myself on having withstood. such was a phenomenon abridged of his lower half, who beset me for two or three years together, and, in spite of his deficiency of locomotive members, had some supernatural method of transporting himself (simultaneously, i believe) to all quarters of the city. he wore a sailor's jacket (possibly, because skirts would have been a superfluity to his figure), and had a remarkably broad-shouldered and muscular frame, surmounted by a large, fresh-colored face, which was full of power and intelligence. his dress and linen were the perfection of neatness. once a day, at least, wherever i went, i suddenly became aware of this trunk of a man on the path before me, resting on his base, and looking as if he had just sprouted out of the pavement, and would sink into it again and reappear at some other spot the instant you left him behind. the expression of his eye was perfectly respectful, but terribly fixed, holding your own as by fascination, never once winking, never wavering from its point-blank gaze right into your face, till you were completely beyond the range of his battery of one immense rifled cannon. this was his mode of soliciting alms; and he reminded me of the old beggar who appealed so touchingly to the charitable sympathies of gil blas, taking aim at him from the roadside with a long-barrelled musket. the intentness and directness of his silent appeal, his close and unrelenting attack upon your individuality, respectful as it seemed, was the very flower of insolence; or, if you give it a possibly truer interpretation, it was the tyrannical effort of a man endowed with great natural force of character to constrain your reluctant will to his purpose. apparently, he had staked his salvation upon the ultimate success of a daily struggle between himself and me, the triumph of which would compel me to become a tributary to the hat that lay on the pavement beside him. man or fiend, however, there was a stubbornness in his intended victim which this massive fragment of a mighty personality had not altogether reckoned upon, and by its aid i was enabled to pass him at my customary pace hundreds of times over, quietly meeting his terribly respectful eye, and allowing him the fair chance which i felt to be his due, to subjugate me, if he really had the strength for it. he never succeeded, but, on the other hand, never gave up the contest; and should i ever walk those streets again, i am certain that the truncated tyrant will sprout up through the pavement and look me fixedly in the eye, and perhaps get the victory. i should think all the more highly of myself, if i had shown equal heroism in resisting another class of beggarly depredators, who assailed me on my weaker side and won an easy spoil. such was the sanctimonious clergyman, with his white cravat, who visited me with a subscription-paper, which he himself had drawn up, in a case of heart-rending distress;--the respectable and ruined tradesman, going from door to door, shy and silent in his own person, but accompanied by a sympathizing friend, who bore testimony to his integrity, and stated the unavoidable misfortunes that had crushed him down;--or the delicate and prettily dressed lady, who had been bred in affluence, but was suddenly thrown upon the perilous charities of the world by the death of an indulgent, but secretly insolvent father, or the commercial catastrophe and simultaneous suicide of the best of husbands; or the gifted, but unsuccessful author, appealing to my fraternal sympathies, generously rejoicing in some small prosperities which he was kind enough to term my own triumphs in the field of letters, and claiming to have largely contributed to them by his unbought notices in the public journals. england is full of such people, and a hundred other varieties of peripatetic tricksters, higher than these, and lower, who act their parts tolerably well, but seldom with an absolutely illusive effect. i knew at once, raw yankee as i was, that they were humbugs, almost without an exception,--rats that nibble at the honest bread and cheese of the community, and grow fat by their petty pilferings, yet often gave them what they asked, and privately owned myself a simpleton. there is a decorum which restrains you (unless you happen to be a police-constable) from breaking through a crust of plausible respectability, even when you are certain that there is a knave beneath it. after making myself as familiar as i decently could with the poor streets, i became curious to see what kind of a home was provided for the inhabitants at the public expense, fearing that it must needs be a most comfortless one, or else their choice (if choice it were) of so miserable a life outside was truly difficult to account for. accordingly, i visited a great almshouse, and was glad to observe how unexceptionably all the parts of the establishment were carried on, and what an orderly life, full-fed, sufficiently reposeful, and undisturbed by the arbitrary exercise of authority, seemed to be led there. possibly, indeed, it was that very orderliness, and the cruel necessity of being neat and clean, and even the comfort resulting from these and other christian-like restraints and regulations, that constituted the principal grievance on the part of the poor, shiftless inmates, accustomed to a lifelong luxury of dirt and harum-scarumness. the wild life of the streets has perhaps as unforgetable a charm, to those who have once thoroughly imbibed it, as the life of the forest or the prairie. but i conceive rather that there must be insuperable difficulties, for the majority of the poor, in the way of getting admittance to the almshouse, than that a merely aesthetic preference for the street would incline the pauper-class to fare scantily and precariously, and expose their raggedness to the rain and snow, when such a hospitable door stood wide open for their entrance. it might be that the roughest and darkest side of the matter was not shown me, there being persons of eminent station and of both sexes in the party which i accompanied; and, of course, a properly trained public functionary would have deemed it a monstrous rudeness, as well as a great shame, to exhibit anything to people of rank that might too painfully shock their sensibilities. the women's ward was the portion of the establishment which we especially examined. it could not be questioned that they were treated with kindness as well as care. no doubt, as has been already suggested, some of them felt the irksomeness of submission to general rules of orderly behavior, after being accustomed to that perfect freedom from the minor proprieties, at least, which is one of the compensations of absolutely hopeless poverty, or of any circumstances that set us fairly below the decencies of life. i asked the governor of the house whether he met with any difficulty in keeping peace and order among his inmates; and he informed me that his troubles among the women were incomparably greater than with the men. they were freakish, and apt to be quarrelsome, inclined to plague and pester one another in ways that it was impossible to lay hold of, and to thwart his own authority by the like intangible methods. he said this with the utmost good-nature, and quite won my regard by so placidly resigning himself to the inevitable necessity of letting the women throw dust into his eyes. they certainly looked peaceable and sisterly enough, as i saw them, though still it might be faintly perceptible that some of them were consciously playing their parts before the governor and his distinguished visitors. this governor seemed to me a man thoroughly fit for his position. an american, in an office of similar responsibility, would doubtless be a much superior person, better educated, possessing a far wider range of thought, more naturally acute, with a quicker tact of external observation and a readier faculty of dealing with difficult cases. the women would not succeed in throwing half so much dust into his eyes. moreover, his black coat, and thin, sallow visage, would make him look like a scholar, and his manners would indefinitely approximate to those of a gentleman. but i cannot help questioning, whether, on the whole, these higher endowments would produce decidedly better results. the englishman was thoroughly plebeian both in aspect and behavior, a bluff, ruddy-faced, hearty, kindly, yeoman-like personage, with no refinement whatever, nor any superfluous sensibility, but gifted with a native wholesomeness of character which must have been a very beneficial element in the atmosphere of the almshouse. he spoke to his pauper family in loud, good-humored, cheerful tones, and treated them with a healthy freedom that probably caused the forlorn wretches to feel as if they were free and healthy likewise. if he had understood them a little better, he would not have treated them half so wisely. we are apt to make sickly people more morbid, and unfortunate people more miserable, by endeavoring to adapt our deportment to their especial and individual needs. they eagerly accept our well-meant efforts; but it is like returning their own sick breath back upon themselves, to be breathed over and over again, intensifying the inward mischief at every repetition. the sympathy that would really do them good is of a kind that recognizes their sound and healthy parts, and ignores the part affected by disease, which will thrive under the eye of a too close observer like a poisonous weed in the sunshine. my good friend the governor had no tendencies in the latter direction, and abundance of them in the former, and was consequently as wholesome and invigorating as the west-wind with a little spice of the north in it, brightening the dreary visages that encountered us as if he had carried a sunbeam in his hand. he expressed himself by his whole being and personality, and by works more than words, and had the not unusual english merit of knowing what to do much better than how to talk about it. the women, i imagine, must have felt one imperfection in their state, however comfortable otherwise. they were forbidden, or, at all events, lacked the means, to follow out their natural instinct of adorning themselves; all were dressed in one homely uniform of blue-checked gowns, with such caps upon their heads as english servants wear. generally, too, they had one dowdy english aspect, and a vulgar type of features so nearly alike that they seemed literally to constitute a sisterhood. we have few of these absolutely unilluminated faces among our native american population, individuals of whom must be singularly unfortunate, if, mixing as we do, no drop of gentle blood has contributed to refine the turbid element, no gleam of hereditary intelligence has lighted up the stolid eyes, which their forefathers brought, from the old country. even in this english almshouse, however, there was at least one person who claimed to be intimately connected with rank and wealth. the governor, after suggesting that this person would probably be gratified by our visit, ushered us into a small parlor, which was furnished a little more like a room in a private dwelling than others that we entered, and had a row of religious books and fashionable novels on the mantel-piece. an old lady sat at a bright coal-fire, reading a romance, and rose to receive us with a certain pomp of manner and elaborate display of ceremonious courtesy, which, in spite of myself, made me inwardly question the genuineness of her aristocratic pretensions. but, at any rate, she looked like a respectable old soul, and was evidently gladdened to the very core of her frost-bitten heart by the awful punctiliousness with which she responded to her gracious and hospitable, though unfamiliar welcome. after a little polite conversation, we retired; and the governor, with a lowered voice and an air of deference, told us that she had been a lady of quality, and had ridden in her own equipage, not many years before, and now lived in continual expectation that some of her rich relatives would drive up in their carriages to take her away. meanwhile, he added, she was treated with great respect by her fellow-paupers. i could not help thinking, from a few criticisable peculiarities in her talk and manner, that there might have been a mistake on the governor's part, and perhaps a venial exaggeration on the old lady's, concerning her former position in society; but what struck me was the forcible instance of that most prevalent of english vanities, the pretension to aristocratic connection, on one side, and the submission and reverence with which it was accepted by the governor and his household, on the other. among ourselves, i think, when wealth and eminent position have taken their departure, they seldom leave a pallid ghost behind them,--or, if it sometimes stalks abroad, few recognize it. we went into several other rooms, at the doors of which, pausing on the outside, we could hear the volubility, and sometimes the wrangling, of the female inhabitants within, but invariably found silence and peace, when we stepped over the threshold. the women were grouped together in their sitting-rooms, sometimes three or four, sometimes a larger number, classified by their spontaneous affinities, i suppose, and all busied, so far as i can remember, with the one occupation of knitting coarse yarn stockings. hardly any of them, i am sorry to say, had a brisk or cheerful air, though it often stirred them up to a momentary vivacity to be accosted by the governor, and they seemed to like being noticed, however slightly, by the visitors. the happiest person whom i saw there (and, running hastily through my experiences, i hardly recollect to have seen a happier one in my life, if you take a careless flow of spirits as happiness) was an old woman that lay in bed among ten or twelve heavy-looking females, who plied their knitting-work round about her. she laughed, when we entered, and immediately began to talk to us, in a thin, little, spirited quaver, claiming to be more than a century old; and the governor (in whatever way he happened to be cognizant of the fact) confirmed her age to be a hundred and four. her jauntiness and cackling merriment were really wonderful. it was as if she had got through with all her actual business in life two or three generations ago, and now, freed from every responsibility for herself or others, had only to keep up a mirthful state of mind till the short time, or long time (and, happy as she was, she appeared not to care whether it were long or short), before death, who had misplaced her name in his list, might remember to take her away. she had gone quite round the circle of human existence, and come back to the play-ground again. and so she had grown to be a kind of miraculous old pet, the plaything of people seventy or eighty years younger than herself, who talked and laughed with her as if she were a child, finding great delight in her wayward and strangely playful responses, into some of which she cunningly conveyed a gibe that caused their ears to tingle a little. she had done getting out of bed in this world, and lay there to be waited upon like a queen or a baby. in the same room sat a pauper who had once been an actress of considerable repute, but was compelled to give up her profession by a softening of the brain. the disease seemed to have stolen the continuity out of her life, and disturbed an healthy relationship between the thoughts within her and the world without. on our first entrance, she looked cheerfully at us, and showed herself ready to engage in conversation; but suddenly, while we were talking with the century-old crone, the poor actress began to weep, contorting her face with extravagant stage-grimaces, and wringing her hands for some inscrutable sorrow. it might have been a reminiscence of actual calamity in her past life, or, quite as probably, it was but a dramatic woe, beneath which she had staggered and shrieked and wrung her hands with hundreds of repetitions in the sight of crowded theatres, and been as often comforted by thunders of applause. but my idea of the mystery was, that she had a sense of wrong in seeing the aged woman (whose empty vivacity was like the rattling of dry peas in a bladder) chosen as the central object of interest to the visitors, while she herself, who had agitated thousands of hearts with a breath, sat starving for the admiration that was her natural food. i appeal to the whole society of artists of the beautiful and the imaginative,--poets, romancers, painters, sculptors, actors,-- whether or no this is a grief that may be felt even amid the torpor of a dissolving brain! we looked into a good many sleeping-chambers, where were rows of beds, mostly calculated for two occupants, and provided with sheets and pillow-cases that resembled sackcloth. it appeared to me that the sense of beauty was insufficiently regarded in all the arrangements of the almshouse; a little cheap luxury for the eye, at least, might do the poor folks a substantial good. but, at all events, there was the beauty of perfect neatness and orderliness, which, being heretofore known to few of them, was perhaps as much as they could well digest in the remnant of their lives. we were invited into the laundry, where a great washing and drying were in process, the whole atmosphere being hot and vaporous with the steam of wet garments and bedclothes. this atmosphere was the pauper-life of the past week or fortnight resolved into a gaseous state, and breathing it, however fastidiously, we were forced to inhale the strange element into our inmost being. had the queen been there, i know not how she could have escaped the necessity. what an intimate brotherhood is this in which we dwell, do what we may to put an artificial remoteness between the high creature and the low one! a poor man's breath, borne on the vehicle of tobacco-smoke, floats into a palace-window and reaches the nostrils of a monarch. it is but an example, obvious to the sense, of the innumerable and secret channels by which, at every moment of our lives, the flow and reflux of a common humanity pervade us all. how superficial are the niceties of such as pretend to keep aloof! let the whole world be cleansed, or not a man or woman of us all can be clean. by and by we came to the ward where the children were kept, on entering which, we saw, in the first place, several unlovely and unwholesome little people lazily playing together in a court-yard. and here a singular incommodity befell one member of our party. among the children was a wretched, pale, half-torpid little thing (about six years old, perhaps,--but i know not whether a girl or a boy), with a humor in its eyes and face, which the governor said was the scurvy, and which appeared to bedim its powers of vision, so that it toddled about gropingly, as if in quest of it did not precisely know what. this child--this sickly, wretched, humor-eaten infant, the offspring of unspeakable sin and sorrow, whom it must have required several generations of guilty progenitors to render so pitiable an object as we beheld it--immediately took an unaccountable fancy to the gentleman just hinted at. it prowled about him like a pet kitten, rubbing against his legs, following everywhere at his heels, pulling at his coat-tails, and, at last, exerting all the speed that its poor limbs were capable of, got directly before him and held forth its arms, mutely insisting on being taken up. it said not a word, being perhaps under-witted and incapable of prattle. but it smiled up in his face,--a sort of woful gleam was that smile, through the sickly blotches that covered its features,--and found means to express such a perfect confidence that it was going to be fondled and made much of, that there was no possibility in a human heart of balking its expectation. it was as if god had promised the poor child this favor on behalf of that individual, and he was bound to fulfil the contract, or else no longer call himself a man among men. nevertheless, it could be no easy thing for him to do, he being a person burdened with more than an englishman's customary reserve, shy of actual contact with human beings, afflicted with a peculiar distaste for whatever was ugly, and, furthermore, accustomed to that habit of observation from an insulated stand-point which is said (but, i hope, erroneously) to have the tendency of putting ice into the blood. so i watched the struggle in his mind with a good deal of interest, and am seriously of opinion that he did an heroic act, and effected more than he dreamed of towards his final salvation, when he took up the loathsome child and caressed it as tenderly as if he had been its father. to be sure, we all smiled at him, at the time, but doubtless would have acted pretty much the same in a similar stress of circumstances. the child, at any rate, appeared to be satisfied with his behavior; for when he had held it a considerable time, and set it down, it still favored him with its company, keeping fast hold of his forefinger till we reached the confines of the place. and on our return through the court-yard, after visiting another part of the establishment, here again was this same little wretchedness waiting for its victim, with a smile of joyful, and yet dull recognition about its scabby mouth and in its rheumy eyes. no doubt, the child's mission in reference to our friend was to remind him that he was responsible, in his degree, for all the sufferings and misdemeanors of the world in which he lived, and was not entitled to look upon a particle of its dark calamity as if it were none of his concern: the offspring of a brother's iniquity being his own blood-relation, and the guilt, likewise, a burden on him, unless he expiated it by better deeds. all the children in this ward seemed to be invalids, and, going up stairs, we found more of them in the same or a worse condition than the little creature just described, with their mothers (or more probably other women, for the infants were mostly foundlings) in attendance as nurses. the matron of the ward, a middle-aged woman, remarkably kind and motherly in aspect, was walking to and fro across the chamber--on that weary journey in which careful mothers and nurses travel so continually and so far, and gain never a step of progress--with an unquiet baby in her arms. she assured us that she enjoyed her occupation, being exceedingly fond of children; and, in fact, the absence of timidity in all the little people was a sufficient proof that they could have had no experience of harsh treatment, though, on the other hand, none of them appeared to be attracted to one individual more than another. in this point they differed widely from the poor child below stairs. they seemed to recognize a universal motherhood in womankind, and cared not which individual might be the mother of the moment. i found their tameness as shocking as did alexander selkirk that of the brute subjects of his else solitary kingdom. it was a sort of tame familiarity, a perfect indifference to the approach of strangers, such as i never noticed in other children. i accounted for it partly by their nerveless, unstrung state of body, incapable of the quick thrills of delight and fear which play upon the lively harp-strings of a healthy child's nature, and partly by their woful lack of acquaintance with a private home, and their being therefore destitute of the sweet home-bred shyness, which is like the sanctity of heaven about a mother-petted child. their condition was like that of chickens hatched in an oven, and growing up without the especial guardianship of a matron hen: both the chicken and the child, methinks, must needs want something that is essential to their respective characters. in this chamber (which was spacious, containing a large number of beds) there was a clear fire burning on the hearth, as in all the other occupied rooms; and directly in front of the blaze sat a woman holding a baby, which, beyond all reach of comparison, was the most horrible object that ever afflicted my sight. days afterwards--nay, even now, when i bring it up vividly before my mind's eye--it seemed to lie upon the floor of my heart, polluting my moral being with the sense of something grievously amiss in the entire conditions of humanity. the holiest man could not be otherwise than full of wickedness, the chastest virgin seemed impure, in a world where such a babe was possible. the governor whispered me, apart, that, like nearly all the rest of them, it was the child of unhealthy parents. ah, yes! there was the mischief. this spectral infant, a hideous mockery of the visible link which love creates between man and woman, was born of disease and sin. diseased sin was its father, and sinful disease its mother, and their offspring lay in the woman's arms like a nursing pestilence, which, could it live and grow up, would make the world a more accursed abode than ever heretofore. thank heaven, it could not live! this baby, if we must give it that sweet name, seemed to be three or four months old, but, being such an unthrifty changeling, might have been considerably older. it was all covered with blotches, and preternaturally dark and discolored; it was withered away, quite shrunken and fleshless; it breathed only amid pantings and gaspings, and moaned painfully at every gasp. the only comfort in reference to it was the evident impossibility of its surviving to draw many more of those miserable, moaning breaths; and it would have been infinitely less heart-depressing to see it die, right before my eyes, than to depart and carry it alive in my remembrance, still suffering the incalculable torture of its little life. i can by no means express how horrible this infant was, neither ought i to attempt it. and yet i must add one final touch. young as the poor little creature was, its pain and misery had endowed it with a premature intelligence, insomuch that its eyes seemed to stare at the bystanders out of their sunken sockets knowingly and appealingly, as if summoning us one and all to witness the deadly wrong of its existence. at least, i so interpreted its look, when it positively met and responded to my own awe-stricken gaze, and therefore i lay the case, as far as i am able, before mankind, on whom god has imposed the necessity to suffer in soul and body till this dark and dreadful wrong be righted. thence we went to the school-rooms, which were underneath the chapel. the pupils, like the children whom we had just seen, were, in large proportion, foundlings. almost without exception, they looked sickly, with marks of eruptive trouble in their doltish faces, and a general tendency to diseases of the eye. moreover, the poor little wretches appeared to be uneasy within their skins, and screwed themselves about on the benches in a disagreeably suggestive way, as if they had inherited the evil habits of their parents as an innermost garment of the same texture and material as the shirt of nessus, and must wear it with unspeakable discomfort as long as they lived. i saw only a single child that looked healthy; and on my pointing him out, the governor informed me that this little boy, the sole exception to the miserable aspect of his school-fellows, was not a foundling, nor properly a work-house child, being born of respectable parentage, and his father one of the officers of the institution. as for the remainder,--the hundred pale abortions to be counted against one rosy-cheeked boy,--what shall we say or do? depressed by the sight of so much misery, and uninventive of remedies for the evils that force themselves on my perception, i can do little more than recur to the idea already hinted at in the early part of this article, regarding the speedy necessity of a new deluge. so far as these children are concerned, at any rate, it would be a blessing to the human race, which they will contribute to enervate and corrupt,--a greater blessing to themselves, who inherit no patrimony but disease and vice, and in whose souls, if there be a spark of god's life, this seems the only possible mode of keeping it aglow,--if every one of them could be drowned to-night, by their best friends, instead of being put tenderly to bed. this heroic method of treating human maladies, moral and material, is certainly beyond the scope of man's discretionary rights, and probably will not be adopted by divine providence until the opportunity of milder reformation shall have been offered us again and again, through a series of future ages. it may be fair to acknowledge that the humane and excellent governor, as well as other persons better acquainted with the subject than myself, took a less gloomy view of it, though still so dark a one as to involve scanty consolation. they remarked that individuals of the male sex, picked up in the streets and nurtured in the workhouse, sometimes succeed tolerably well in life, because they are taught trades before being turned into the world, and, by dint of immaculate behavior and good luck, are not, unlikely to get employment and earn a livelihood. the case is different with the girls. they can only go to service, and are invariably rejected by families of respectability on account of their origin, and for the better reason of their unfitness to fill satisfactorily even the meanest situations in a well-ordered english household. their resource is to take service with people only a step or two above the poorest class, with whom they fare scantily, endure harsh treatment, lead shifting and precarious lives, and finally drop into the slough of evil, through which, in their best estate, they do but pick their slimy way on stepping-stones. from the schools we went to the bake-house, and the brew-house (for such cruelty is not harbored in the heart of a true englishman as to deny a pauper his daily allowance of beer), and through the kitchens, where we beheld an immense pot over the fire, surging and walloping with some kind of a savory stew that filled it up to its brim. we also visited a tailor's shop, and a shoemaker's shop, in both of which a number of mien, and pale, diminutive apprentices, were at work, diligently enough, though seemingly with small heart in the business. finally, the governor ushered us into a shed, inside of which was piled up an immense quantity of new coffins. they were of the plainest description, made of pine boards, probably of american growth, not very nicely smoothed by the plane, neither painted nor stained with black, but provided with a loop of rope at either end for the convenience of lifting the rude box and its inmate into the cart that shall carry them to the burial-ground. there, in holes ten feet deep, the paupers are buried one above another, mingling their relics indistinguishably. in another world may they resume their individuality, and find it a happier one than here! as we departed, a character came under our notice which i have met with in all almshouses, whether of the city or village, or in england or america. it was the familiar simpleton, who shuffled across the court-yard, clattering his wooden-soled shoes, to greet us with a howl or a laugh, i hardly know which, holding out his hand for a penny, and chuckling grossly when it was given him. all under-witted persons, so far as my experience goes, have this craving for copper coin, and appear to estimate its value by a miraculous instinct, which is one of the earliest gleams of human intelligence while the nobler faculties are yet in abeyance. there may come a time, even in this world, when we shall all understand that our tendency to the individual appropriation of gold and broad acres, fine houses, and such good and beautiful things as are equally enjoyable by a multitude, is but a trait of imperfectly developed intelligence, like the simpleton's cupidity of a penny. when that day dawns,--and probably not till then,--i imagine that there will be no more poor streets nor need of almshouses. i was once present at the wedding of some poor english people, and was deeply impressed by the spectacle, though by no means with such proud and delightful emotions as seem to have affected all england on the recent occasion of the marriage of its prince. it was in the cathedral at manchester, a particularly black and grim old structure, into which i had stepped to examine some ancient and curious wood-carvings within the choir. the woman in attendance greeted me with a smile (which always glimmers forth on the feminine visage, i know not why, when a wedding is in question), and asked me to take a seat in the nave till some poor parties were married, it being the easter holidays, and a good time for them to marry, because no fees would be demanded by the clergyman. i sat down accordingly, and soon the parson and his clerk appeared at the altar, and a considerable crowd of people made their entrance at a side-door, and ranged themselves in a long, huddled line across the chancel. they were my acquaintances of the poor streets, or persons in a precisely similar condition of life, and were now come to their marriage-ceremony in just such garbs as i had always seen them wear: the men in their loafers' coats, out at elbows, or their laborers' jackets, defaced with grimy toil; the women drawing their shabby shawls tighter about their shoulders, to hide the raggedness beneath; all of them unbrushed, unshaven, unwashed, uncombed, and wrinkled with penury and care; nothing virgin-like in the brides, nor hopeful or energetic in the bridegrooms;--they were, in short, the mere rags and tatters of the human race, whom some east-wind of evil omen, howling along the streets, had chanced to sweep together into an unfragrant heap. each and all of them, conscious of his or her individual misery, had blundered into the strange miscalculation of supposing that they could lessen the sum of it by multiplying it into the misery of another person. all the couples (and it was difficult, in such a confused crowd, to compute exactly their number) stood up at once, and had execution done upon them in the lump, the clergyman addressing only small parts of the service to each individual pair, but so managing the larger portion as to include the whole company without the trouble of repetition. by this compendious contrivance, one would apprehend, he came dangerously near making every man and woman the husband or wife of every other; nor, perhaps, would he have perpetrated much additional mischief by the mistake; but, after receiving a benediction in common, they assorted themselves in their own fashion, as they only knew how, and departed to the garrets, or the cellars, or the unsheltered street-corners, where their honeymoon and subsequent lives were to be spent. the parson smiled decorously, the clerk and the sexton grinned broadly, the female attendant tittered almost aloud, and even the married parties seemed to see something exceedingly funny in the affair; but for my part, though generally apt enough to be tickled by a joke, i laid it away in my memory as one of the saddest sights i ever looked upon. not very long afterwards, i happened to be passing the same venerable cathedral, and heard a clang of joyful bells, and beheld a bridal party coming down the steps towards a carriage and four horses, with a portly coachman and two postilions, that waited at the gate. one parson and one service had amalgamated the wretchedness of a score of paupers; a bishop and three or four clergymen had combined their spiritual might to forge the golden links of this other marriage-bond. the bridegroom's mien had a sort of careless and kindly english pride; the bride floated along in her white drapery, a creature, so nice and delicate that it was a luxury to see her, and a pity that her silk slippers should touch anything so grimy as the old stones of the churchyard avenue. the crowd of ragged people, who always cluster to witness what they may of an aristocratic wedding, broke into audible admiration of the bride's beauty and the bridegroom's manliness, and uttered prayers and ejaculations (possibly paid for in alms) for the happiness of both. if the most favorable of earthly conditions could make them happy, they had every prospect of it. they were going to live on their abundance in one of those stately and delightful english homes, such as no other people ever created or inherited, a hall set far and safe within its own private grounds, and surrounded with venerable trees, shaven lawns, rich shrubbery, and trimmest pathways, the whole so artfully contrived and tended that summer rendered it a paradise, and even winter would hardly disrobe it of its beauty; and all this fair property seemed more exclusively and inalienably their own, because of its descent through many forefathers, each of whom had added an improvement or a charm, and thus transmitted it with a stronger stamp of rightful possession to his heir. and is it possible, after all, that there may be a flaw in the title-deeds? is, or is not, the system wrong that gives one married pair so immense a superfluity of luxurious home, and shuts out a million others from any home whatever? one day or another, safe as they deem themselves, and safe as the hereditary temper of the people really tends to make them, the gentlemen of england will be compelled to face this question. civic banquets. it has often perplexed one to imagine how an englishman will be able to reconcile himself to any future state of existence from which the earthly institution of dinner shall be excluded. even if he fail to take his appetite along with him (which it seems to me hardly possible to believe, since this endowment is so essential to his composition), the immortal day must still admit an interim of two or three hours during which he will be conscious of a slight distaste, at all events, if not an absolute repugnance, to merely spiritual nutriment. the idea of dinner has so imbedded itself among his highest and deepest characteristics, so illuminated itself with intellect and softened itself with the kindest emotions of his heart, so linked itself with church and state, and grown so majestic with long hereditary customs and ceremonies, that, by taking it utterly away, death, instead of putting the final touch to his perfection, would leave him infinitely less complete than we have already known him. he could not be roundly happy. paradise, among all its enjoyments, would lack one daily felicity which his sombre little island possessed. perhaps it is not irreverent to conjecture that a provision may have been made, in this particular, for the englishman's exceptional necessities. it strikes me that milton was of the opinion here suggested, and may have intended to throw out a delightful and consolatory hope for his countrymen, when he represents the genial archangel as playing his part with such excellent appetite at adam's dinner-table, and confining himself to fruit and vegetables only because, in those early days of her housekeeping, eve had no more acceptable viands to set before him. milton, indeed, had a true english taste for the pleasures of the table, though refined by the lofty and poetic discipline to which he had subjected himself. it is delicately implied in the refection in paradise, and more substantially, though still elegantly, betrayed in the sonnet proposing to "laurence, of virtuous father virtuous son," a series of nice little dinners in midwinter and it blazes fully out in that untasted banquet which, elaborate as it was, satan tossed up in a trice from the kitchen-ranges of tartarus. among this people, indeed, so wise in their generation, dinner has a kind of sanctity quite independent of the dishes that may be set upon the table; so that, if it be only a mutton-chop, they treat it with due reverence, and are rewarded with a degree of enjoyment which such reckless devourers as ourselves do not often find in our richest abundance. it is good to see how staunch they are after fifty or sixty years of heroic eating, still relying upon their digestive powers and indulging a vigorous appetite; whereas an american has generally lost the one and learned to distrust the other long before reaching the earliest decline of life; and thenceforward he makes little account of his dinner, and dines at his peril, if at all. i know not whether my countrymen will allow me to tell them, though i think it scarcely too much to affirm, that on this side of the water, people never dine. at any rate, abundantly as nature has provided us with most of the material requisites, the highest possible dinner has never yet been eaten in america. it is the consummate flower of civilization and refinement; and our inability to produce it, or to appreciate its admirable beauty, if a happy inspiration should bring it into bloom, marks fatally the limit of culture which we have attained. it is not to be supposed, however, that the mob of cultivated englishmen know how to dine in this elevated sense. the unpolishable ruggedness of the national character is still an impediment to them, even in that particular line where they are best qualified to excel. though often present at good men's feasts, i remember only a single dinner, which, while lamentably conscious that many of its higher excellences were thrown away upon me, i yet could feel to be a perfect work of art. it could not, without unpardonable coarseness, be styled a matter of animal enjoyment, because, out of the very perfection of that lower bliss, there had arisen a dream-like development of spiritual happiness. as in the masterpieces of painting and poetry, there was a something intangible, a final deliciousness that only fluttered about your comprehension, vanishing whenever you tried to detain it, and compelling you to recognize it by faith rather than sense. it seemed as if a diviner set of senses were requisite, and had been partly supplied, for the special fruition of this banquet, and that the guests around the table (only eight in number) were becoming so educated, polished, and softened, by the delicate influences of what they ate and drunk, as to be now a little more than mortal for the nonce. and there was that gentle, delicious sadness, too, which we find in the very summit of our most exquisite enjoyments, and feel it a charm beyond all the gayety through which it keeps breathing its undertone. in the present case, it was worth a heavier sigh, to reflect that such a festal achievement,--the production of so much art, skill, fancy, invention, and perfect taste,--the growth of all the ages, which appeared to have been ripening for this hour, since man first began to eat and to moisten his food with wine,--must lavish its happiness upon so brief a moment, when other beautiful things can be made a joy forever. yet a dinner like this is no better than we can get, any day, at the rejuvenescent cornhill coffee-house, unless the whole man, with soul, intellect, and stomach, is ready to appreciate it, and unless, moreover, there is such a harmony in all the circumstances and accompaniments, and especially such a pitch of well-according minds, that nothing shall jar rudely against the guest's thoroughly awakened sensibilities. the world, and especially our part of it, being the rough, ill-assorted, and tumultuous place we find it, a beefsteak is about as good as any other dinner. the foregoing reminiscence, however, has drawn me aside from the main object of my sketch, in which i purposed to give a slight idea of those public, or partially public banquets, the custom of which so thoroughly prevails among the english people, that nothing is ever decided upon, in matters of peace and war, until they have chewed upon it in the shape of roast-beef, and talked it fully over in their cups. nor are these festivities merely occasional, but of stated recurrence in all considerable municipalities and associated bodies. the most ancient times appear to have been as familiar with them as the englishmen of to-day. in many of the old english towns, you find some stately gothic hall or chamber in which the mayor and other authorities of the place have long held their sessions; and always, in convenient contiguity, there is a dusky kitchen, with an immense fireplace where an ox might be roasting at his ease, though the less gigantic scale of modern cookery may now have permitted the cobwebs to gather in its chimney. st. mary's hall, in coventry, is so good a specimen of an ancient banqueting-room, that perhaps i may profitably devote a page or two to the description of it. in a narrow street, opposite to st. michael's church, one of the three famous spires of coventry, you behold a mediaeval edifice, in the basement of which is such a venerable and now deserted kitchen as i have above alluded to, and, on the same level, a cellar, with low stone pillars and intersecting arches, like the crypt of a cathedral. passing up a well-worn staircase, the oaken balustrade of which is as black as ebony, you enter the fine old hall, some sixty feet in length, and broad and lofty in proportion. it is lighted by six windows of modern stained glass, on one side, and by the immense and magnificent arch of another window at the farther end of the room, its rich and ancient panes constituting a genuine historical piece, in which are represented some of the kingly personages of old times, with their heraldic blazonries. notwithstanding the colored light thus thrown into the hall, and though it was noonday when i last saw it, the panelling of black-oak, and some faded tapestry that hung round the walls, together with the cloudy vault of the roof above, made a gloom, which the richness only illuminated into more appreciable effect. the tapestry is wrought with figures in the dress of henry vi.'s time (which is the date of the hall), and is regarded by antiquaries as authentic evidence both for the costume of that epoch, and, i believe, for the actual portraiture of men known in history. they are as colorless as ghosts, however, and vanish drearily into the old stitch-work of their substance when you try to make them out. coats-of-arms were formerly emblazoned all round the hall, but have been almost rubbed out by people hanging their overcoats against them or by women with dishclouts and scrubbing-brushes, obliterating hereditary glories in their blind hostility to dust and spiders' webs. full-length portraits of several english kings, charles ii. being the earliest, hang on the walls; and on the dais, or elevated part of the floor, stands an antique chair of state, which several royal characters are traditionally said to have occupied while feasting here with their loyal subjects of coventry. it is roomy enough for a person of kingly bulk, or even two such, but angular and uncomfortable, reminding me of the oaken settles which used to be seen in old-fashioned new england kitchens. overhead, supported by a self-sustaining power, without the aid of a single pillar, is the original ceiling of oak, precisely similar in shape to the roof of a barn, with all the beams and rafters plainly to be seen. at the remote height of sixty feet, you hardly discern that they are carved with figures of angels and doubtless many other devices, of which the admirable gothic art is wasted in the duskiness that has so long been brooding there. over the entrance of the hall, opposite the great arched window, the party-colored radiance of which glimmers faintly through the interval, is a gallery for minstrels; and a row of ancient suits of armor is suspended from its balustrade. it impresses me, too (for, having gone so far, i would fain leave nothing untouched upon), that i remember, somewhere about these venerable precincts, a picture of the countess godiva on horseback, in which the artist has been so niggardly of that illustrious lady's hair, that, if she had no ampler garniture, there was certainly much need for the good people of coventry to shut their eyes. after all my pains, i fear that i have made but a poor hand at the description, as regards a transference of the scene from my own mind to the reader's. it gave me a most vivid idea of antiquity that had been very little tampered with; insomuch that, if a group of steel-clad knights had come clanking through the doorway, and a bearded and beruffed old figure had handed in a stately dame, rustling in gorgeous robes of a long-forgotten fashion, unveiling a face of beauty somewhat tarnished in the mouldy tomb, yet stepping majestically to the trill of harp and viol from the minstrels' gallery, while the rusty armor responded with a hollow ringing sound beneath,--why, i should have felt that these shadows, once so familiar with the spot, had a better right in st. mary's hall than i, a stranger from a far country which has no past. but the moral of the foregoing description is to show how tenaciously this love of pompous dinners, this reverence for dinner as a sacred institution, has caught hold of the english character; since, from the earliest recognizable period, we find them building their civic banqueting-halls as magnificently as their palaces or cathedrals. i know not whether the hall just described is now used for festive purposes, but others of similar antiquity and splendor still are. for example, there is barber-surgeons' hall, in london, a very fine old room, adorned with admirably carved wood-work on the ceiling and walls. it is also enriched with holbein's masterpiece, representing a grave assemblage of barbers and surgeons, all portraits (with such extensive beards that methinks one half of the company might have been profitably occupied in trimming the other), kneeling before king henry viii. sir robert peel is said to have offered a thousand pounds for the liberty of cutting out one of the heads from this picture, he conditioning to have a perfect facsimile painted in. the room has many other pictures of distinguished members of the company in long-past times, and of some of the monarchs and statesmen of england, all darkened with age, but darkened into such ripe magnificence as only age could bestow. it is not my design to inflict any more specimens of ancient hall-painting on the reader; but it may be worth while to touch upon other modes of stateliness that still survive in these time-honored civic feasts, where there appears to be a singular assumption of dignity and solemn pomp by respectable citizens who would never dream of claiming any privilege of rank outside of their own sphere. thus, i saw two caps of state for the warden and junior warden of the company, caps of silver (real coronets or crowns, indeed, for these city-grandees) wrought in open-work and lined with crimson velvet. in a strong-closet, opening from the hall, there was a great deal of rich plate to furnish forth the banquet-table, comprising hundreds of forks and spoons, a vast silver punch-bowl, the gift of some jolly king or other, and, besides a multitude of less noticeable vessels, two loving-cups, very elaborately wrought in silver gilt, one presented by henry viii., the other by charles ii. these cups, including the covers and pedestals, are very large and weighty, although the bowl-part would hardly contain more than half a pint of wine, which, when the custom was first established, each guest was probably expected to drink off at a draught. in passing them from hand to hand adown a long table of compotators, there is a peculiar ceremony which i may hereafter have occasion to describe. meanwhile, if i might assume such a liberty, i should be glad to invite the reader to the official dinner-table of his worship, the mayor, at a large english seaport where i spent several years. the mayor's dinner-parties occur as often as once a fortnight, and, inviting his guests by fifty or sixty at a time, his worship probably assembles at his board most of the eminent citizens and distinguished personages of the town and neighborhood more than once during his year's incumbency, and very much, no doubt, to the promotion of good feeling among individuals of opposite parties and diverse pursuits in life. a miscellaneous party of englishmen can always find more comfortable ground to meet upon than as many americans, their differences of opinion being incomparably less radical than ours, and it being the sincerest wish of all their hearts, whether they call themselves liberals or what not, that nothing in this world shall ever be greatly altered from what it has been and is. thus there is seldom such a virulence of political hostility that it may not be dissolved in a glass or two of wine, without making the good liquor any more dry or bitter than accords with english taste. the first dinner of this kind at which i had the honor to be present took place during assize-time, and included among the guests the judges and the prominent members of the bar. reaching the town hall at seven o'clock, i communicated my name to one of several splendidly dressed footmen, and he repeated it to another on the first staircase, by whom it was passed to a third, and thence to a fourth at the door of the reception-room, losing all resemblance to the original sound in the course of these transmissions; so that i had the advantage of making my entrance in the character of a stranger, not only to the whole company, but to myself as well. his worship, however, kindly recognized me, and put me on speaking-terms with two or three gentlemen, whom i found very affable, and all the more hospitably attentive on the score of my nationality. it is very singular how kind an englishman will almost invariably be to an individual american, without ever bating a jot of his prejudice against the american character in the lump. my new acquaintances took evident pains to put me at my ease; and, in requital of their good-nature, i soon began to look round at the general company in a critical spirit, making my crude observations apart, and drawing silent inferences, of the correctness of which i should not have been half so well satisfied a year afterwards as at that moment. there were two judges present, a good many lawyers, and a few officers of the army in uniform. the other guests seemed to be principally of the mercantile class, and among them was a ship-owner from nova scotia, with whom i coalesced a little, inasmuch as we were born with the same sky over our heads, and an unbroken continuity of soil between his abode and mine. there was one old gentleman, whose character i never made out, with powdered hair, clad in black breeches and silk stockings, and wearing a rapier at his side; otherwise, with the exception of the military uniforms, there was little or no pretence of official costume. it being the first considerable assemblage of englishmen that i had seen, my honest impression about then was, that they were a heavy and homely set of people, with a remarkable roughness of aspect and behavior, not repulsive, but beneath which it required more familiarity with the national character than i then possessed always to detect the good breeding of a gentleman. being generally middle-aged, or still further advanced, they were by no means graceful in figure; for the comeliness of the youthful englishman rapidly diminishes with years, his body appearing to grow longer, his legs to abbreviate themselves, and his stomach to assume the dignified prominence which justly belongs to that metropolis of his system. his face (what with the acridity of the atmosphere, ale at lunch, wine at dinner, and a well-digested abundance of succulent food) gets red and mottled, and develops at least one additional chin, with a promise of more; so that, finally, a stranger recognizes his animal part at the most superficial glance, but must take time and a little pains to discover the intellectual. comparing him with an american, i really thought that our national paleness and lean habit of flesh gave us greatly the advantage in an aesthetic point of view. it seemed to me, moreover, that the english tailor had not done so much as he might and ought for these heavy figures, but had gone on wilfully exaggerating their uncouthness by the roominess of their garments; he had evidently no idea of accuracy of fit, and smartness was entirely out of his line. but, to be quite open with the reader, i afterwards learned to think that this aforesaid tailor has a deeper art than his brethren among ourselves, knowing how to dress his customers with such individual propriety that they look as if they were born in their clothes, the fit being to the character rather than the form. if you make an englishman smart (unless he be a very exceptional one, of whom i have seen a few), you make him a monster; his best aspect is that of ponderous respectability. to make an end of these first impressions, i fancied that not merely the suffolk bar, but the bar of any inland county in new england, might show a set of thin-visaged men, looking wretchedly worn, sallow, deeply wrinkled across the forehead, and grimly furrowed about the mouth, with whom these heavy-checked english lawyers, slow-paced and fat-witted as they must needs be, would stand very little chance in a professional contest. how that matter might turn out, i am unqualified to decide. but i state these results of my earliest glimpses at englishmen, not for what they are worth, but because i ultimately gave them up as worth little or nothing. in course of time, i came to the conclusion that englishmen of all ages are a rather good-looking people, dress in admirable taste from their own point of view, and, under a surface never silken to the touch, have a refinement of manners too thorough and genuine to be thought of as a separate endowment,--that is to say, if the individual himself be a man of station, and has had gentlemen for his father and grandfather. the sturdy anglo-saxon nature does not refine itself short of the third generation. the tradesmen, too, and all other classes, have their own proprieties. the only value of my criticisms, therefore, lay in their exemplifying the proneness of a traveller to measure one people by the distinctive characteristics of another,--as english writers invariably measure us, and take upon themselves to be disgusted accordingly, instead of trying to find out some principle of beauty with which we may be in conformity. in due time we were summoned to the table, and went thither in no solemn procession, but with a good deal of jostling, thrusting behind, and scrambling for places when we reached our destination. the legal gentlemen, i suspect, were responsible for this indecorous zeal, which i never afterwards remarked in a similar party. the dining-hall was of noble size, and, like the other rooms of the suite, was gorgeously painted and gilded and brilliantly illuminated. there was a splendid table-service, and a noble array of footmen, some of them in plain clothes, and others wearing the town-livery, richly decorated with gold-lace, and themselves excellent specimens of the blooming young manhood of britain. when we were fairly seated, it was certainly an agreeable spectacle to look up and down the long vista of earnest faces, and behold them so resolute, so conscious that there was an important business in hand, and so determined to be equal to the occasion. indeed, englishman or not, i hardly know what can be prettier than a snow-white table-cloth, a huge heap of flowers as a central decoration, bright silver, rich china, crystal glasses, decanters of sherry at due intervals, a french roll and an artistically folded napkin at each plate, all that airy portion of a banquet, in short, that comes before the first mouthful, the whole illuminated by a blaze of artificial light, without which a dinner of made-dishes looks spectral, and the simplest viands are the best. printed bills-of-fare were distributed, representing an abundant feast, no part of which appeared on the table until called for in separate plates. i have entirely forgotten what it was, but deem it no great matter, inasmuch as there is a pervading commonplace and identicalness in the composition of extensive dinners, on account of the impossibility of supplying a hundred guests with anything particularly delicate or rare. it was suggested to me that certain juicy old gentlemen had a private understanding what to call for, and that it would be good policy in a stranger to follow in their footsteps through the feast. i did not care to do so, however, because, like sancho panza's dip out of camacho's caldron, any sort of pot-luck at such a table would be sure to suit my purpose; so i chose a dish or two on my own judgment, and, getting through my labors betimes, had great pleasure in seeing the englishmen toil onward to the end. they drank rather copiously, too, though wisely; for i observed that they seldom took hock, and let the champagne bubble slowly away out of the goblet, solacing themselves with sherry, but tasting it warily before bestowing their final confidence. their taste in wines, however, did not seem so exquisite, and certainly was not so various, as that to which many americans pretend. this foppery of an intimate acquaintance with rare vintages does not suit a sensible englishman, as he is very much in earnest about his wines, and adopts one or two as his lifelong friends, seldom exchanging them for any delilahs of a moment, and reaping the reward of his constancy in an unimpaired stomach, and only so much gout as he deems wholesome and desirable. knowing well the measure of his powers, he is not apt to fill his glass too often. society, indeed, would hardly tolerate habitual imprudences of that kind, though, in my opinion, the englishmen now upon the stage could carry off their three bottles, at need, with as steady a gait as any of their forefathers. it is not so very long since the three-bottle heroes sank finally under the table. it may be (at least, i should be glad if it were true) that there was an occult sympathy between our temperance reform, now somewhat in abeyance, and the almost simultaneous disappearance of hard-drinking among the respectable classes in england. i remember a middle-aged gentleman telling me (in illustration of the very slight importance attached to breaches of temperance within the memory of men not yet old) that he had seen a certain magistrate, sir john linkwater, or drinkwater,--but i think the jolly old knight could hardly have staggered under so perverse a misnomer as this last,--while sitting on the magisterial bench, pull out a crown-piece and hand it to the clerk. "mr. clerk," said sir john, as if it were the most indifferent fact in the world, "i was drunk last night. there are my five shillings." during the dinner, i had a good deal of pleasant conversation with the gentlemen on either side of me. one of them, a lawyer, expatiated with great unction on the social standing of the judges. representing the dignity and authority of the crown, they take precedence, during assize-time, of the highest military men in the kingdom, of the lord-lieutenant of the county, of the archbishops, of the royal dukes, and even of the prince of wales. for the nonce, they are the greatest men in england. with a glow of professional complacency that amounted to enthusiasm, my friend assured me, that, in case of a royal dinner, a judge, if actually holding an assize, would be expected to offer his arm and take the queen herself to the table. happening to be in company with some of these elevated personages, on subsequent occasions, it appeared to me that the judges are fully conscious of their paramount claims to respect, and take rather more pains to impress them on their ceremonial inferiors than men of high hereditary rank are apt to do. bishops, if it be not irreverent to say so, are sometimes marked by a similar characteristic. dignified position is so sweet to an englishman, that he needs to be born in it, and to feel it thoroughly incorporated with his nature from its original germ, in order to keep him from flaunting it obtrusively in the faces of innocent bystanders. my companion on the other side was a thick-set, middle-aged man, uncouth in manners, and ugly where none were handsome, with a dark, roughly hewn visage, that looked grim in repose, and secured to hold within itself the machinery of a very terrific frown. he ate with resolute appetite, and let slip few opportunities of imbibing whatever liquids happened to be passing by. i was meditating in what way this grisly featured table-fellow might most safely be accosted, when he turned to me with a surly sort of kindness, and invited me to take a glass of wine. we then began a conversation that abounded, on his part, with sturdy sense, and, somehow or other, brought me closer to him than i had yet stood to an englishman. i should hardly have taken him to be an educated man, certainly not a scholar of accurate training; and yet he seemed to have all the resources of education and trained intellectual power at command. my fresh americanism, and watchful observation of english characteristics, appeared either to interest or amuse him, or perhaps both. under the mollifying influences of abundance of meat and drink, he grew very gracious (not that i ought to use such a phrase to describe his evidently genuine good-will), and by and by expressed a wish for further acquaintance, asking me to call at his rooms in london and inquire for sergeant wilkins,--throwing out the name forcibly, as if he had no occasion to be ashamed of it. i remembered dean swift's retort to sergeant bettesworth on a similar announcement,--"of what regiment, pray, sir?"--and fancied that the same question might not have been quite amiss, if applied to the rugged individual at my side. but i heard of him subsequently as one of the prominent men at the english bar, a rough customer, and a terribly strong champion in criminal cases; and it caused me more regret than might have been expected, on so slight an acquaintanceship, when, not long afterwards, i saw his death announced in the newspapers. not rich in attractive qualities, he possessed, i think, the most attractive one of all,--thorough manhood. after the cloth was removed, a goodly group of decanters were set before the mayor, who sent them forth on their outward voyage, full freighted with port, sherry, madeira, and claret, of which excellent liquors, methought, the latter found least acceptance among the guests. when every man had filled his glass, his worship stood up and proposed a toast. it was, of course, "our gracious sovereign," or words to that effect; and immediately a band of musicians, whose preliminary footings and thrummings i had already heard behind me, struck up "god save the queen," and the whole company rose with one impulse to assist in singing that famous national anthem. it was the first time in my life that i had ever seen a body of men, or even a single man, under the active influence of the sentiment of loyalty; for, though we call ourselves loyal to our country and institutions, and prove it by our readiness to shed blood and sacrifice life in their behalf, still the principle is as cold and hard, in an american bosom, as the steel spring that puts in motion a powerful machinery. in the englishman's system, a force similar to that of our steel spring is generated by the warm throbbings of human hearts. he clothes our bare abstraction in flesh and blood,--at present, in the flesh and blood of a woman,--and manages to combine love, awe, and intellectual reverence, all in one emotion, and to embody his mother, his wife, his children, the whole idea of kindred, in a single person, and make her the representative of his country and its laws. we americans smile superior, as i did at the mayor's table; and yet, i fancy, we lose some very agreeable titillations of the heart in consequence of our proud prerogative of caring no more about our president than for a man of straw, or a stuffed scarecrow straddling in a cornfield. but, to say the truth, the spectacle struck me rather ludicrously, to see this party of stout middle-aged and elderly gentlemen, in the fulness of meat and drink, their ample and ruddy faces glistening with wine, perspiration, and enthusiasm, rumbling out those strange old stanzas from the very bottom of their hearts and stomachs, which two organs, in the english interior arrangement, lie closer together than in ours. the song seemed to me the rudest old ditty in the world; but i could not wonder at its universal acceptance and indestructible popularity, considering how inimitably it expresses the national faith and feeling as regards the inevitable righteousness of england, the almighty's consequent respect and partiality for that redoubtable little island, and his presumed readiness to strengthen its defence against the contumacious wickedness and knavery of all other principalities or republics. tennyson himself, though evidently english to the very last prejudice, could not write half so good a song for the purpose. finding that the entire dinner-table struck in, with voices of every pitch between rolling thunder and the squeak of a cart-wheel, and that the strain was not of such delicacy as to be much hurt by the harshest of them, i determined to lend my own assistance in swelling the triumphant roar. it seemed but a proper courtesy to the first lady in the land, whose guest, in the largest sense, i might consider myself. accordingly, my first tuneful efforts (and probably my last, for i purpose not to sing any more, unless it he "hail columbia" on the restoration of the union) were poured freely forth in honor of queen victoria. the sergeant smiled like the carved head of a swiss nutcracker, and the other gentlemen in my neighborhood, by nods and gestures, evinced grave approbation of so suitable a tribute to english superiority; and we finished our stave and sat down in an extremely happy frame of mind. other toasts followed in honor of the great institutions and interests of the country, and speeches in response to each were made by individuals whom the mayor designated or the company called for. none of them impressed me with a very high idea of english postprandial oratory. it is inconceivable, indeed, what ragged and shapeless utterances most englishmen are satisfied to give vent to, without attempting anything like artistic shape, but clapping on a patch here and another there, and ultimately getting out what they want to say, and generally with a result of sufficiently good sense, but in some such disorganized mass as if they had thrown it up rather than spoken it. it seemed to me that this was almost as much by choice as necessity. an englishman, ambitious of public favor, should not be too smooth. if an orator is glib, his countrymen distrust him. they dislike smartness. the stronger and heavier his thoughts, the better, provided there be an element of commonplace running through them; and any rough, yet never vulgar force of expression, such as would knock an opponent down, if it hit him, only it must not be too personal, is altogether to their taste; but a studied neatness of language, or other such superficial graces, they cannot abide. they do not often permit a man to make himself a fine orator of malice aforethought, that is, unless he be a nobleman (as, for example, lord stanley, of the derby family), who, as an hereditary legislator and necessarily a public speaker, is bound to remedy a poor natural delivery in the best way he can. on the whole, i partly agree with them, and, if i cared for any oratory whatever, should be as likely to applaud theirs as our own. when an english speaker sits down, you feel that you have been listening to a real man, and not to an actor; his sentiments have a wholesome earth-smell in them, though, very likely, this apparent naturalness is as much an art as what we expend in rounding a sentence or elaborating a peroration. it is one good effect of this inartificial style, that nobody in england seems to feel any shyness about shovelling the untrimmed and untrimmable ideas out of his mind for the benefit of an audience. at least, nobody did on the occasion now in hand, except a poor little major of artillery, who responded for the army in a thin, quavering voice, with a terribly hesitating trickle of fragmentary ideas, and, i question not, would rather have been bayoneted in front of his batteries than to have said a word. not his own mouth, but the cannon's, was this poor major's proper organ of utterance. while i was thus amiably occupied in criticising my fellow-guests, the mayor had got up to propose another toast; and listening rather inattentively to the first sentence or two, i soon became sensible of a drift in his worship's remarks that made me glance apprehensively towards sergeant wilkins. "yes," grumbled that gruff personage, shoving a decanter of port towards me, "it is your turn next"; and seeing in my face, i suppose, the consternation of a wholly unpractised orator, he kindly added, "it is nothing. a mere acknowledgment will answer the purpose. the less you say, the better they will like it." that being the case, i suggested that perhaps they would like it best if i said nothing at all. but the sergeant shook his head. now, on first receiving the mayor's invitation to dinner, it had occurred to me that i might possibly be brought into my present predicament; but i had dismissed the idea from my mind as too disagreeable to be entertained, and, moreover, as so alien from my disposition and character that fate surely could not keep such a misfortune in store for me. if nothing else prevented, an earthquake or the crack of doom would certainly interfere before i need rise to speak. yet here was the mayor getting on inexorably,--and, indeed, i heartily wished that he might get on and on forever, and of his wordy wanderings find no end. if the gentle reader, my kindest friend and closest confidant, deigns to desire it, i can impart to him my own experience as a public speaker quite as indifferently as if it concerned another person. indeed, it does concern another, or a mere spectral phenomenon, for it was not i, in my proper and natural self, that sat there at table or subsequently rose to speak. at the moment, then, if the choice had been offered me whether the mayor should let off a speech at my head or a pistol, i should unhesitatingly have taken the latter alternative. i had really nothing to say, not an idea in my head, nor, which was a great deal worse, any flowing words or embroidered sentences in which to dress out that empty nothing, and give it a cunning aspect of intelligence, such as might last the poor vacuity the little time it had to live. but time pressed; the mayor brought his remarks, affectionately eulogistic of the united states and highly complimentary to their distinguished representative at that table, to a close, amid a vast deal of cheering; and the band struck up "hail columbia," i believe, though it might have been "old hundred," or "god save the queen" over again, for anything that i should have known or cared. when the music ceased, there was an intensely disagreeable instant, during which i seemed to rend away and fling off the habit of a lifetime, and rose, still void of ideas, but with preternatural composure, to make a speech. the guests rattled on the table, and cried, "hear!" most vociferously, as if now, at length, in this foolish and idly garrulous world, had come the long-expected moment when one golden word was to be spoken; and in that imminent crisis, i caught a glimpse of a little bit of an effusion of international sentiment, which it might, and must, and should do to utter. well; it was nothing, as the sergeant had said. what surprised me most, was the sound of my own voice, which i had never before heard at a declamatory pitch, and which impressed me as belonging to some other person, who, and not myself, would be responsible for the speech: a prodigious consolation and encouragement under the circumstances! i went on without the slightest embarrassment, and sat down amid great applause, wholly undeserved by anything that i had spoken, but well won from englishmen, methought, by the new development of pluck that alone had enabled me to speak at all. "it was handsomely done!" quoth sergeant wilkins; and i felt like a recruit who had been for the first time under fire. i would gladly have ended my oratorical career then and there forever, but was often placed in a similar or worse position, and compelled to meet it as i best might; for this was one of the necessities of an office which i had voluntarily taken on my shoulders, and beneath which i might be crushed by no moral delinquency on my own part, but could not shirk without cowardice and shame. my subsequent fortune was various. once, though i felt it to be a kind of imposture, i got a speech by heart, and doubtless it might have been a very pretty one, only i forgot every syllable at the moment of need, and had to improvise another as well as i could. i found it a better method to prearrange a few points in my mind, and trust to the spur of the occasion, and the kind aid of providence, for enabling me to bring them to bear. the presence of any considerable proportion of personal friends generally dumbfounded me. i would rather have talked with an enemy in the gate. invariably, too, i was much embarrassed by a small audience, and succeeded better with a large one,-- the sympathy of a multitude possessing a buoyant effect, which lifts the speaker a little way out of his individuality and tosses him towards a perhaps better range of sentiment than his private one. again, if i rose carelessly and confidently, with an expectation of going through the business entirely at my ease, i often found that i had little or nothing to say; whereas, if i came to the charge in perfect despair, and at a crisis when failure would have been horrible, it once or twice happened that the frightful emergency concentrated my poor faculties, and enabled me to give definite and vigorous expression to sentiments which an instant before looked as vague and far off as the clouds in the atmosphere. on the whole, poor as my own success may have been, i apprehend that any intelligent man with a tongue possesses the chief requisite of oratorical power, and may develop many of the others, if he deems it worth while to bestow a great amount of labor and pains on an object which the most accomplished orators, i suspect, have not found altogether satisfactory to their highest impulses. at any rate, it must be a remarkably true man who can keep his own elevated conception of truth when the lower feeling of a multitude is assailing his natural sympathies, and who can speak out frankly the best that there is in him, when by adulterating it a little, or a good deal, he knows that he may make it ten times as acceptable to the audience. this slight article on the civic banquets of england would be too wretchedly imperfect, without an attempted description of a lord mayor's dinner at the mansion house in london. i should have preferred the annual feast at guildhall, but never had the good fortune to witness it. once, however, i was honored with an invitation to one of the regular dinners, and gladly accepted it,--taking the precaution, nevertheless, though it hardly seemed necessary, to inform the city-king, through a mutual friend, that i was no fit representative of american eloquence, and must humbly make it a condition that i should not be expected to open my mouth, except for the reception of his lordship's bountiful hospitality. the reply was gracious and acquiescent; so that i presented myself in the great entrance-hall of the mansion house, at half past six o'clock, in a state of most enjoyable freedom from the pusillanimous apprehensions that often tormented me at such times. the mansion house was built in queen anne's days, in the very heart of old london, and is a palace worthy of its inhabitant, were he really as great a man as his traditionary state and pomp would seem to indicate. times are changed, however, since the days of whittington, or even of hogarth's industrious apprentice, to whom the highest imaginable reward of lifelong integrity was a seat in the lord mayor's chair. people nowadays say that the real dignity and importance have perished out of the office, as they do, sooner or later, out of all earthly institutions, leaving only a painted and gilded shell like that of an easter egg, and that it is only second-rate and third-rate men who now condescend to be ambitious of the mayoralty. i felt a little grieved at this; for the original emigrants of new england had strong sympathies with the people of london, who were mostly puritans in religion and parliamentarians in politics, in the early days of our country; so that the lord mayor was a potentate of huge dimensions in the estimation of our forefathers, and held to be hardly second to the prime minister of the throne. the true great men of the city now appear to have aims beyond city greatness, connecting themselves with national politics, and seeking to be identified with the aristocracy of the country. in the entrance-hall i was received by a body of footmen dressed in a livery of blue coats and buff breeches, in which they looked wonderfully like american revolutionary generals, only bedizened with far more lace and embroidery than those simple and grand old heroes ever dreamed of wearing. there were likewise two very imposing figures, whom i should have taken to be military men of rank, being arrayed in scarlet coats and large silver epaulets; but they turned out to be officers of the lord mayor's household, and were now employed in assigning to the guests the places which they were respectively to occupy at the dinner-table. our names (for i had included myself in a little group of friends) were announced; and ascending the staircase, we met his lordship in the doorway of the first reception-room, where, also, we had the advantage of a presentation to the lady mayoress. as this distinguished couple retired into private life at the termination of their year of office, it is inadmissible to make any remarks, critical or laudatory, on the manners and bearing of two personages suddenly emerging from a position of respectable mediocrity into one of pre-eminent dignity within their own sphere. such individuals almost always seem to grow nearly or quite to the full size of their office. if it were desirable to write an essay on the latent aptitude of ordinary people for grandeur, we have an exemplification in our own country, and on a scale incomparably greater than that of the mayoralty, though invested with nothing like the outward magnificence that gilds and embroiders the latter. if i have been correctly informed, the lord mayor's salary is exactly double that of the president of the united states, and yet is found very inadequate to his necessary expenditure. there were two reception-rooms, thrown into one by the opening of wide folding-doors; and though in an old style, and not yet so old as to be venerable, they are remarkably handsome apartments, lofty as well as spacious, with carved ceilings and walls, and at either end a splendid fireplace of white marble, ornamented with sculptured wreaths of flowers and foliage. the company were about three hundred, many of them celebrities in politics, war, literature, and science, though i recollect none preeminently distinguished in either department. but it is certainly a pleasant mode of doing honor to men of literature, for example, who deserve well of the public, yet do not often meet it face to face, thus to bring them together under genial auspices, in connection with persons of note in other lines. i know not what may be the lord mayor's mode or principle of selecting his guests, nor whether, during his official term, he can proffer his hospitality to every man of noticeable talent in the wide world of london, nor, in fine, whether his lordship's invitation is much sought for or valued; but it seemed to me that this periodical feast is one of the many sagacious methods which the english have contrived for keeping up a good understanding among different sorts of people. like most other distinctions of society, however, i presume that the lord mayor's card does not often seek out modest merit, but comes at last when the recipient is conscious of the bore, and doubtful about the honor. one very pleasant characteristic, which i never met with at any other public or partially public dinner, was the presence of ladies. no doubt, they were principally the wives and daughters of city magnates; and if we may judge from the many sly allusions in old plays and satirical poems, the city of london has always been famous for the beauty of its women and the reciprocal attractions between them and the men of quality. be that as it might, while straying hither and thither through those crowded apartments, i saw much reason for modifying certain heterodox opinions which i had imbibed, in my transatlantic newness and rawness, as regarded the delicate character and frequent occurrence of english beauty. to state the entire truth (being, at this period, some years old in english life), my taste, i fear, had long since begun to be deteriorated by acquaintance with other models of feminine loveliness than it was my happiness to know in america. i often found, or seemed to find, if i may dare to confess it, in the persons of such of my dear countrywomen as i now occasionally met, a certain meagreness, (heaven forbid that i should call it scrawniness!) a deficiency of physical development, a scantiness, so to speak, in the pattern of their material make, a paleness of complexion, a thinness of voice,--all of which characteristics, nevertheless, only made me resolve so much the more sturdily to uphold these fair creatures as angels, because i was sometimes driven to a half-acknowledgment, that the english ladies, looked at from a lower point of view, were perhaps a little finer animals than they. the advantages of the latter, if any they could really be said to have, were all comprised in a few additional lumps of clay on their shoulders and other parts of their figures. it would be a pitiful bargain to give up the ethereal charm of american beauty in exchange for half a hundred-weight of human clay! at a given signal we all found our way into an immense room, called the egyptian hall, i know not why, except that the architecture was classic, and as different as possible from the ponderous style of memphis and the pyramids. a powerful band played inspiringly as we entered, and a brilliant profusion of light shone down on two long tables, extending the whole length of the hall, and a cross-table between them, occupying nearly its entire breadth. glass gleamed and silver glistened on an acre or two of snowy damask, over which were set out all the accompaniments of a stately feast. we found our places without much difficulty, and the lord mayor's chaplain implored a blessing on the food,--a ceremony which the english never omit, at a great dinner or a small one, yet consider, i fear, not so much a religious rite as a sort of preliminary relish before the soup. the soup, of course, on this occasion, was turtle, of which, in accordance with immemorial custom, each guest was allowed two platefuls, in spite of the otherwise immitigable law of table-decorum. indeed, judging from the proceedings of the gentlemen near me, i surmised that there was no practical limit, except the appetite of the guests and the capacity of the soup-tureens. not being fond of this civic dainty, i partook of it but once, and then only in accordance with the wise maxim, always to taste a fruit, a wine, or a celebrated dish, at its indigenous site; and the very fountain-head of turtle-soup, i suppose, is in the lord mayor's dinner-pot. it is one of those orthodox customs which people follow for half a century without knowing why, to drink a sip of rum-punch, in a very small tumbler, after the soup. it was excellently well-brewed, and it seemed to me almost worth while to sup the soup for the sake of sipping the punch. the rest of the dinner was catalogued in a bill-of-fare printed on delicate white paper within an arabesque border of green and gold. it looked very good, not only in the english and french names of the numerous dishes, but also in the positive reality of the dishes themselves, which were all set on the table to be carved and distributed by the guests. this ancient and honest method is attended with a good deal of trouble, and a lavish effusion of gravy, yet by no means bestowed or dispensed in vain, because you have thereby the absolute assurance of a banquet actually before your eyes, instead of a shadowy promise in the bill-of-fare, and such meagre fulfilment as a single guest can contrive to get upon his individual plate. i wonder that englishmen, who are fond of looking at prize-oxen in the shape of butcher's-meat, do not generally better estimate the aesthetic gormandism of devouring the whole dinner with their eyesight, before proceeding to nibble the comparatively few morsels which, after all, the most heroic appetite and widest stomachic capacity of mere mortals can enable even an alderman really to eat. there fell to my lot three delectable things enough, which i take pains to remember, that the reader may not go away wholly unsatisfied from the barmecide feast to which i have bidden him,-- a red mullet, a plate of mushrooms, exquisitely stewed, and part of a ptarmigan, a bird of the same family as the grouse, but feeding high up towards the summit of the scotch mountains, whence it gets a wild delicacy of flavor very superior to that of the artificially nurtured english game-fowl. all the other dainties have vanished from my memory as completely as those of prospero's banquet after ariel had clapped his wings over it. the band played at intervals inspiriting us to new efforts, as did likewise the sparkling wines which the footmen supplied from an inexhaustible cellar, and which the guests quaffed with little apparent reference to the disagreeable fact that there comes a to-morrow morning after every feast. as long as that shall be the case, a prudent man can never have full enjoyment of his dinner. nearly opposite to me, on the other side of the table, sat a young lady in white, whom i am sorely tempted to describe, but dare not, because not only the supereminence of her beauty, but its peculiar character, would cause the sketch to be recognized, however rudely it might be drawn. i hardly thought that there existed such a woman outside of a picture-frame, or the covers of a romance: not that i had ever met with her resemblance even there, but, being so distinct and singular an apparition; she seemed likelier to find her sisterhood in poetry and picture than in real life. let us turn away from her, lest a touch too apt should compel her stately and cold and soft and womanly grace to gleam out upon my page with a strange repulsion and unattainableness in the very spell that made her beautiful. at her side, and familiarly attentive to her, sat a gentleman of whom i remember only a hard outline of the nose and forehead, and such a monstrous portent of a beard that you could discover no symptom of a mouth, except, when he opened it to speak, or to put in a morsel of food. then, indeed, you suddenly became aware of a cave hidden behind the impervious and darksome shrubbery. there could be no doubt who this gentleman and lady were. any child would have recognized them at a glance. it was bluebeard and a new wife (the loveliest of the series, but with already a mysterious gloom overshadowing her fair young brow) travelling in their honeymoon, and dining, among other distinguished strangers, at the lord mayor's table. after an hour or two of valiant achievement with knife and fork came the dessert; and at the point of the festival where finger-glasses are usually introduced, a large silver basin was carried round to the guests, containing rose-water, into which we dipped the ends of our napkins and were conscious of a delightful fragrance, instead of that heavy and weary odor, the hateful ghost of a defunct dinner. this seems to be an ancient custom of the city, not confined to the lord mayor's table, but never met with westward of temple bar. during all the feast, in accordance with another ancient custom, the origin or purport of which i do not remember to have heard, there stood a man in armor, with a helmet on his head, behind his lordship's chair. when the after-dinner wine was placed on the table, still another official personage appeared behind the chair, and proceeded to make a solemn and sonorous proclamation (in which he enumerated the principal guests, comprising three or four noblemen, several baronets, and plenty of generals, members of parliament, aldermen, and other names of the illustrious, one of which sounded strangely familiar to my ears), ending in some such style as this: "and other gentlemen and ladies, here present, the lord mayor drinks to you all in a loving-cup,"--giving a sort, of sentimental twang to the two words,--"and sends it round among you!" and forthwith the loving-cup--several of them, indeed, on each side of the tables--came slowly down with all the antique ceremony. the fashion of it is thus. the lord mayor, standing up and taking the covered cup in both hands, presents it to the guest at his elbow, who likewise rises, and removes the cover for his lordship to drink, which being successfully accomplished, the guest replaces the cover and receives the cup into his own hands. he then presents it to his next neighbor, that the cover may be again removed for himself to take a draught, after which the third person goes through a similar manoeuvre with a fourth, and he with a fifth, until the whole company find themselves inextricably intertwisted and entangled in one complicated chain of love. when the cup came to my hands, i examined it critically, both inside and out, and perceived it to be an antique and richly ornamented silver goblet, capable of holding about a quart of wine. considering how much trouble we all expended in getting the cup to our lips, the guests appeared to content themselves with wonderfully moderate potations. in truth, nearly or quite the original quart of wine being still in the goblet, it seemed doubtful whether any of the company had more than barely touched the silver rim before passing it to their neighbors,--a degree of abstinence that might be accounted for by a fastidious repugnance to so many compotators in one cup, or possibly by a disapprobation of the liquor. being curious to know all about these important matters, with a view of recommending to my countrymen whatever they might usefully adopt, i drank an honest sip from the loving-cup, and had no occasion for another,--ascertaining it to be claret of a poor original quality, largely mingled with water, and spiced and sweetened. it was good enough, however, for a merely spectral or ceremonial drink, and could never have been intended for any better purpose. the toasts now began in the customary order, attended with speeches neither more nor less witty and ingenious than the specimens of table-eloquence which had heretofore delighted me. as preparatory to each new display, the herald, or whatever he was, behind the chair of state, gave awful notice that the right honorable the lord mayor was about to propose a toast. his lordship being happily delivered thereof, together with some accompanying remarks, the band played an appropriate tune, and the herald again issued proclamation to the effect that such or such a nobleman, or gentleman, general, dignified clergyman, or what not, was going to respond to the right honorable the lord mayor's toast; then, if i mistake not, there was another prodigious flourish of trumpets and twanging of stringed instruments; and finally the doomed individual, waiting all this while to be decapitated, got up and proceeded to make a fool of himself. a bashful young earl tried his maiden oratory on the good citizens of london, and having evidently got every word by heart (even including, however he managed it, the most seemingly casual improvisations of the moment), he really spoke like a book, and made incomparably the smoothest speech i ever heard in england. the weight and gravity of the speakers, not only on this occasion, but all similar ones, was what impressed me as most extraordinary, not to say absurd. why should people eat a good dinner, and put their spirits into festive trim with champagne, and afterwards mellow themselves into a most enjoyable state of quietude with copious libations of sherry and old port, and then disturb the whole excellent result by listening to speeches as heavy as an after-dinner nap, and in no degree so refreshing? if the champagne had thrown its sparkle over the surface of these effusions, or if the generous port had shone through their substance with a ruddy glow of the old english humor, i might have seen a reason for honest gentlemen prattling in their cups, and should undoubtedly have been glad to be a listener. but there was no attempt nor impulse of the kind on the part of the orators, nor apparent expectation of such a phenomenon on that of the audience. in fact, i imagine that the latter were best pleased when the speaker embodied his ideas in the figurative language of arithmetic, or struck upon any hard matter of business or statistics, as a heavy-laden bark bumps upon a rock in mid-ocean. the sad severity, the too earnest utilitarianism, of modern life, have wrought a radical and lamentable change, i am afraid, in this ancient and goodly institution of civic banquets. people used to come to them, a few hundred years ago, for the sake of being jolly; they come now with an odd notion of pouring sober wisdom into their wine by way of wormwood-bitters, and thus make such a mess of it that the wine and wisdom reciprocally spoil one another. possibly, the foregoing sentiments have taken a spice of acridity from a circumstance that happened about this stage of the feast, and very much interrupted my own further enjoyment of it. up to this time, my condition had been exceedingly felicitous, both on account of the brilliancy of the scene, and because i was in close proximity with three very pleasant english friends. one of them was a lady, whose honored name my readers would recognize as a household word, if i dared write it; another, a gentleman, likewise well known to them, whose fine taste, kind heart, and genial cultivation are qualities seldom mixed in such happy proportion as in him. the third was the man to whom i owed most in england, the warm benignity of whose nature was never weary of doing me good, who led me to many scenes of life, in town, camp, and country, which i never could have found out for myself, who knew precisely the kind of help a stranger needs, and gave it as freely as if he had not had a thousand more important things to live for. thus i never felt safer or cosier at anybody's fireside, even my own, than at the dinner-table of the lord mayor. out of this serene sky came a thunderbolt. his lordship got up and proceeded to make some very eulogistic remarks upon "the literary and commercial"--i question whether those two adjectives were ever before married by a copulative conjunction, and they certainly would not live together in illicit intercourse, of their own accord--"the literary and commercial attainments of an eminent gentleman there present," and then went on to speak of the relations of blood and interest between great britain and the aforesaid eminent gentleman's native country. those bonds were more intimate than had ever before existed between two great nations, throughout all history, and his lordship felt assured that that whole honorable company would join him in the expression of a fervent wish that they might be held inviolably sacred, on both sides of the atlantic, now and forever. then came the same wearisome old toast, dry and hard to chew upon as a musty sea-biscuit, which had been the text of nearly all the oratory of my public career. the herald sonorously announced that mr. so-and-so would now respond to his right honorable lordship's toast and speech, the trumpets sounded the customary flourish for the onset, there was a thunderous rumble of anticipatory applause, and finally a deep silence sank upon the festive hall. all this was a horrid piece of treachery on the lord mayor's part, after beguiling me within his lines on a pledge of safe-conduct; and it seemed very strange that he could not let an unobtrusive individual eat his dinner in peace, drink a small sample of the mansion house wine, and go away grateful at heart for the old english hospitality. if his lordship had sent me an infusion of ratsbane in the loving-cup, i should have taken it much more kindly at his hands. but i suppose the secret of the matter to have been somewhat as follows. all england, just then, was in one of those singular fits of panic excitement (not fear, though as sensitive and tremulous as that emotion), which, in consequence of the homogeneous character of the people, their intense patriotism, and their dependence for their ideas in public affairs on other sources than their own examination and individual thought, are more sudden, pervasive, and unreasoning than any similar mood of our own public. in truth, i have never seen the american public in a state at all similar, and believe that we are incapable of it. our excitements are not impulsive, like theirs, but, right or wrong, are moral and intellectual. for example, the grand rising of the north, at the commencement of this war, bore the aspect of impulse and passion only because it was so universal, and necessarily done in a moment, just as the quiet and simultaneous getting-up of a thousand people out of their chairs would cause a tumult that might be mistaken for a storm. we were cool then, and have been cool ever since, and shall remain cool to the end, which we shall take coolly, whatever it may be. there is nothing which the english find it so difficult to understand in us as this characteristic. they imagine us, in our collective capacity, a kind of wild beast, whose normal condition is savage fury, and are always looking for the moment when we shall break through the slender barriers of international law and comity, and compel the reasonable part of the world, with themselves at the head, to combine for the purpose of putting us into a stronger cage. at times this apprehension becomes so powerful (and when one man feels it, a million do), that it resembles the passage of the wind over a broad field of grain, where you see the whole crop bending and swaying beneath one impulse, and each separate stalk tossing with the selfsame disturbance as its myriad companions. at such periods all englishmen talk with a terrible identity of sentiment and expression. you have the whole country in each man; and not one of them all, if you put him strictly to the question, can give a reasonable ground for his alarm. there are but two nations in the world--our own country and france--that can put england into this singular state. it is the united sensitiveness of a people extremely well-to-do, careful of their country's honor, most anxious for the preservation of the cumbrous and moss-grown prosperity which they have been so long in consolidating, and incompetent (owing to the national half-sightedness, and their habit of trusting to a few leading minds for their public opinion) to judge when that prosperity is really threatened. if the english were accustomed to look at the foreign side of any international dispute, they might easily have satisfied themselves that there was very little danger of a war at that particular crisis, from the simple circumstance that their own government had positively not an inch of honest ground to stand upon, and could not fail to be aware of the fact. neither could they have met parliament with any show of a justification for incurring war. it was no such perilous juncture as exists now, when law and right are really controverted on sustainable or plausible grounds, and a naval commander may at any moment fire off the first cannon of a terrible contest. if i remember it correctly, it was a mere diplomatic squabble, in which the british ministers, with the politic generosity which they are in the habit of showing towards their official subordinates, had tried to browbeat us for the purpose of sustaining an ambassador in an indefensible proceeding; and the american government (for god had not denied us an administration of statesmen then) had retaliated with stanch courage and exquisite skill, putting inevitably a cruel mortification upon their opponents, but indulging them with no pretence whatever for active resentment. now the lord mayor, like any other englishman, probably fancied that war was on the western gale, and was glad to lay hold of even so insignificant an american as myself, who might be made to harp on the rusty old strings of national sympathies, identity of blood and interest, and community of language and literature, and whisper peace where there was no peace, in however weak an utterance. and possibly his lordship thought, in his wisdom, that the good feeling which was sure to be expressed by a company of well-bred englishmen, at his august and far-famed dinner-table, might have an appreciable influence on the grand result. thus, when the lord mayor invited me to his feast, it was a piece of strategy. he wanted to induce me to fling myself, like a lesser curtius, with a larger object of self-sacrifice, into the chasm of discord between england and america, and, on my ignominious demur, had resolved to shove me in with his own right-honorable hands, in the hope of closing up the horrible pit forever. on the whole, i forgive his lordship. he meant well by all parties,--himself, who would share the glory, and me, who ought to have desired nothing better than such an heroic opportunity,--his own country, which would continue to get cotton and breadstuffs, and mine, which would get everything that men work with and wear. as soon as the lord mayor began to speak, i rapped upon my mind, and it gave forth a hollow sound, being absolutely empty of appropriate ideas. i never thought of listening to the speech, because i knew it all beforehand in twenty repetitions from other lips, and was aware that it would not offer a single suggestive point. in this dilemma, i turned to one of my three friends, a gentleman whom i knew to possess an enviable flow of silver speech, and obtested him, by whatever he deemed holiest, to give me at least an available thought or two to start with, and, once afloat, i would trust to my guardian-angel for enabling me to flounder ashore again. he advised me to begin with some remarks complimentary to the lord mayor, and expressive of the hereditary reverence in which his office was held,--at least, my friend thought that there would be no harm in giving his lordship this little sugar-plum, whether quite the fact or no,--was held by the descendants of the puritan forefathers. thence, if i liked, getting flexible with the oil of my own eloquence, i might easily slide off into the momentous subject of the relations between england and america, to which his lordship had made such weighty allusion. seizing this handful of straw with a death-grip, and bidding my three friends bury me honorably, i got upon my legs to save both countries, or perish in the attempt. the tables roared and thundered at me, and suddenly were silent again. but, as i have never happened to stand in a position of greater dignity and peril, i deem it a stratagem of sage policy here to close these sketches, leaving myself still erect in so heroic an attitude. the end the dolliver romance fanshawe, and septimius felton with an appendix containing the ancestral footstep by nathaniel hawthorne * * * * * the ancestral footstep: outlines of an english romance. introductory note. "septimius felton" was the outgrowth of a project, formed by hawthorne during his residence in england, of writing a romance, the scene of which should be laid in that country; but this project was afterwards abandoned, giving place to a new conception in which the visionary search for means to secure an earthly immortality was to form the principal interest. the new conception took shape in the uncompleted "dolliver romance." the two themes, of course, were distinct, but, by a curious process of thought, one grew directly out of the other: the whole history constitutes, in fact, a chapter in what may be called the genealogy of a romance. there remained, after "septimius felton" had been published, certain manuscripts connected with the scheme of an english story. one of these manuscripts was written in the form of a journalized narrative; the author merely noting the date of what he wrote, as he went along. the other was a more extended sketch, of much greater bulk, and without date, but probably produced several years later. it was not originally intended by those who at the time had charge of hawthorne's papers that either of these incomplete writings should be laid before the public; because they manifestly had not been left by him in a form which he would have considered as warranting such a course. but since the second and larger manuscript has been published under the title of "dr. grimshawe's secret," it has been thought best to issue the present sketch, so that the two documents may be examined together. their appearance places in the hands of readers the entire process of development leading to the "septimius" and "the dolliver romance." they speak for themselves much more efficiently than any commentator can expect to do; and little, therefore, remains to be said beyond a few words of explanation in regard to the following pages. the note-books show that the plan of an english romance, turning upon the fact that an emigrant to america had carried away a family secret which should give his descendant the power to ruin the family in the mother country, had occurred to hawthorne as early as april, . in august of the same year he visited smithell's hall, in bolton le moors, concerning which he had already heard its legend of "the bloody footstep," and from that time on, the idea of this footprint on the threshold-stone of the ancestral mansion seems to have associated itself inextricably with the dreamy substance of his yet unshaped romance. indeed, it leaves its mark broadly upon sibyl dacy's wild legend in "septimius felton," and reappears in the last paragraph of that story. but, so far as we can know at this day, nothing definite was done until after his departure for italy. it was then, while staying in rome, that he began to put upon paper that plot which had first occupied his thoughts three years before, in the scant leisure allowed him by his duties at the liverpool consulate. of leisure there was not a great deal at rome, either; for, as the "french and italian note-books" show, sight-seeing and social intercourse took up a good deal of his time, and the daily record in his journal likewise had to be kept up. but he set to work resolutely to embody, so far as he might, his stray imaginings upon the haunting english theme, and to give them connected form. april , , he began; and then nearly two weeks passed before he found an opportunity to resume; april th being the date of the next passage. by may he gets fully into swing, so that day after day, with but slight breaks, he carries on the story, always increasing in interest for us who read as for him who improvised. thus it continues until may th, by which time he has made a tolerably complete outline, filled in with a good deal of detail here and there. although the sketch is cast in the form of a regular narrative, one or two gaps occur, indicating that the author had thought out certain points which he then took for granted without making note of them. brief scenes, passages of conversation and of narration, follow one another after the manner of a finished story, alternating with synopses of the plot, and queries concerning particulars that needed further study; confidences of the romancer to himself which form certainly a valuable contribution to literary history. the manuscript closes with a rapid sketch of the conclusion, and the way in which it is to be executed. succinctly, what we have here is a romance in embryo; one, moreover, that never attained to a viable stature and constitution. during his lifetime it naturally would not have been put forward as demanding public attention; and, in consideration of that fact, it has since been withheld from the press by the decision of his daughter, in whom the title to it vests. students of literary art, however, and many more general readers will, i think, be likely to discover in it a charm all the greater for its being in parts only indicated; since, as it stands, it presents the precise condition of a work of fiction in its first stage. the unfinished "grimshawe" was another development of the same theme, and the "septimius" a later sketch, with a new element introduced. but the present experimental fragment, to which it has been decided to give the title of "the ancestral footstep," possesses a freshness and spontaneity recalling the peculiar fascination of those chalk or pencil outlines with which great masters in the graphic art have been wont to arrest their fleeting glimpses of a composition still unwrought. it would not be safe to conclude, from the large amount of preliminary writing done with a view to that romance, that hawthorne always adopted this laborious mode of making several drafts of a book. on the contrary, it is understood that his habit was to mature a design so thoroughly in his mind before attempting to give it actual existence on paper that but little rewriting was needed. the circumstance that he was obliged to write so much that did not satisfy him in this case may account partly for his relinquishing the theme, as one which for him had lost its seductiveness through too much recasting. it need be added only that the original manuscript, from which the following pages are printed through the medium of an exact copy, is singularly clear and fluent. not a single correction occurs throughout; but here and there a word is omitted, obviously by mere accident, and these omissions have been supplied. the correction in each case is marked by brackets, in this printed reproduction. the sketch begins abruptly; but there is no reason to suppose that anything preceded it except the unrecorded musings in the author's mind, and one or two memoranda in the "english note-books." we must therefore imagine the central figure, middleton, who is the american descendant of an old english family, as having been properly introduced, and then pass at once to the opening sentences. the rest will explain itself. g. p. l. * * * * * the ancestral footstep. outlines of an english romance. i. april , . _thursday_.--he had now been travelling long in those rich portions of england where he would most have wished to find the object of his pursuit; and many had been the scenes which he would willingly have identified with that mentioned in the ancient, time-yellowed record which he bore about with him. it is to be observed that, undertaken at first half as the amusement, the unreal object, of a grown man's play-day, it had become more and more real to him with every step of the way that he followed it up; along those green english lanes it seemed as if everything would bring him close to the mansion that he sought; every morning he went on with renewed hopes, nor did the evening, though it brought with it no success, bring with it the gloom and heaviness of a real disappointment. in all his life, including its earliest and happiest days, he had never known such a spring and zest as now filled his veins, and gave lightsomeness to his limbs; this spirit gave to the beautiful country which he trod a still richer beauty than it had ever borne, and he sought his ancient home as if he had found his way into paradise and were there endeavoring to trace out the sight [site] of eve's bridal bower, the birthplace of the human race and its glorious possibilities of happiness and high performance. in these sweet and delightful moods of mind, varying from one dream to another, he loved indeed the solitude of his way; but likewise he loved the facility which his pursuit afforded him, of coming in contact with many varieties of men, and he took advantage of this facility to an extent which it was not usually his impulse to do. but now he came forth from all reserves, and offered himself to whomever the chances of the way offered to him, with a ready sensibility that made its way through every barrier that even english exclusiveness, in whatever rank of life, could set up. the plastic character of middleton was perhaps a variety of american nature only presenting itself under an individual form; he could throw off the man of our day, and put on a ruder nature, but then it was with a certain fineness, that made this only [a] distinction between it and the central truth. he found less variety of form in the english character than he had been accustomed to see at home; but perhaps this was in consequence of the external nature of his acquaintance with it; for the view of one well accustomed to a people, and of a stranger to them, differs in this--that the latter sees the homogeneity, the one universal character, the groundwork of the whole, while the former sees a thousand little differences, which distinguish the individual men apart, to such a degree that they seem hardly to have any resemblance among themselves. but just at the period of his journey when we take him up, middleton had been for two or three days the companion of an old man who interested him more than most of his wayside companions; the more especially as he seemed to be wandering without an object, or with such a dreamy object as that which led middleton's own steps onward. he was a plain old man enough, but with a pale, strong-featured face and white hair, a certain picturesqueness and venerableness, which middleton fancied might have befitted a richer garb than he now wore. in much of their conversation, too, he was sensible that, though the stranger betrayed no acquaintance with literature, nor seemed to have conversed with cultivated minds, yet the results of such acquaintance and converse were here. middleton was inclined to think him, however, an old man, one of those itinerants, such as wordsworth represented in the "excursion," who smooth themselves by the attrition of the world and gain a knowledge equivalent to or better than that of books from the actual intellect of man awake and active around them. often, during the short period since their companionship originated, middleton had felt impelled to disclose to the old man the object of his journey, and the wild tale by which, after two hundred years, he had been blown as it were across the ocean, and drawn onward to commence this search. the old man's ordinary conversation was of a nature to draw forth such a confidence as this; frequently turning on the traditions of the wayside; the reminiscences that lingered on the battle-fields of the roses, or of the parliament, like flowers nurtured by the blood of the slain, and prolonging their race through the centuries for the wayfarer to pluck them; or the family histories of the castles, manor-houses, and seats which, of various epochs, had their park-gates along the roadside and would be seen with dark gray towers or ancient gables, or more modern forms of architecture, rising up among clouds of ancient oaks. middleton watched earnestly to see if, in any of these tales, there were circumstances resembling those striking and singular ones which he had borne so long in his memory, and on which he was now acting in so strange a manner; but [though] there was a good deal of variety of incident in them, there never was any combination of incidents having the peculiarity of this. "i suppose," said he to the old man, "the settlers in my country may have carried away with them traditions long since forgotten in this country, but which might have an interest and connection, and might even piece out the broken relics of family history, which have remained perhaps a mystery for hundreds of years. i can conceive, even, that this might be of importance in settling the heirships of estates; but which now, only the two insulated parts of the story being known, remain a riddle, although the solution of it is actually in the world, if only these two parts could be united across the sea, like the wires of an electric telegraph." "it is an impressive idea," said the old man. "do you know any such tradition as you have hinted at?" _april th_.--middleton could not but wonder at the singular chance that had established him in such a place, and in such society, so strangely adapted to the purposes with which he had been wandering through england. he had come hither, hoping as it were to find the past still alive and in action; and here it was so in this one only spot, and these few persons into the midst of whom he had suddenly been cast. with these reflections he looked forth from his window into the old-fashioned garden, and at the stone sundial, which had numbered all the hours--all the daylight and serene ones, at least--since his mysterious ancestor left the country. and [is] this, then, he thought to himself, the establishment of which some rumor had been preserved? was it here that the secret had its hiding-place in the old coffer, in the cupboard, in the secret chamber, or whatever was indicated by the apparently idle words of the document which he had preserved? he still smiled at the idea, but it was with a pleasant, mysterious sense that his life had at last got out of the dusty real, and that strangeness had mixed itself up with his daily experience. with such feelings he prepared himself to go down to dinner with his host. he found him alone at table, which was placed in a dark old room modernized with every english comfort and the pleasant spectacle of a table set with the whitest of napery and the brightest of glass and china. the friendly old gentleman, as he had found him from the first, became doubly and trebly so in that position which brings out whatever warmth of heart an englishman has, and gives it to him if he has none. the impressionable and sympathetic character of middleton answered to the kindness of his host; and by the time the meal was concluded, the two were conversing with almost as much zest and friendship as if they were similar in age, even fellow-countrymen, and had known one another all their life-time. middleton's secret, it may be supposed, came often to the tip of his tongue; but still he kept it within, from a natural repugnance to bring out the one romance of his life. the talk, however, necessarily ran much upon topics among which this one would have come in without any extra attempt to introduce it. "this decay of old families," said the master, "is much greater than would appear on the surface of things. we have such a reluctance to part with them, that we are content to see them continued by any fiction, through any indirections, rather than to dispense with old names. in your country, i suppose, there is no such reluctance; you are willing that one generation should blot out all that preceded it, and be itself the newest and only age of the world." "not quite so," answered middleton; "at any rate, if there be such a feeling in the people at large, i doubt whether, even in england, those who fancy themselves possessed of claims to birth, cherish them more as a treasure than we do. it is, of course, a thousand times more difficult for us to keep alive a name amid a thousand difficulties sedulously thrown around it by our institutions, than for you to do, where your institutions are anxiously calculated to promote the contrary purpose. it has occasionally struck me, however, that the ancient lineage might often be found in america, for a family which has been compelled to prolong itself here through the female line, and through alien stocks." "indeed, my young friend," said the master, "if that be the case, i should like to [speak?] further with you upon it; for, i can assure you, there are sometimes vicissitudes in old families that make me grieve to think that a man cannot be made for the occasion." all this while, the young lady at table had remained almost silent; and middleton had only occasionally been reminded of her by the necessity of performing some of those offices which put people at table under a christian necessity of recognizing one another. he was, to say the truth, somewhat interested in her, yet not strongly attracted by the neutral tint of her dress, and the neutral character of her manners. she did not seem to be handsome, although, with her face full before him, he had not quite made up his mind on this point. _april th_.--so here was middleton, now at length seeing indistinctly a thread, to which the thread that he had so long held in his hand--the hereditary thread that ancestor after ancestor had handed down--might seem ready to join on. he felt as if they were the two points of an electric chain, which being joined, an instantaneous effect must follow. earnestly, as he would have looked forward to this moment (had he in sober reason ever put any real weight on the fantasy in pursuit of which he had wandered so far) he now, that it actually appeared to be realizing itself, paused with a vague sensation of alarm. the mystery was evidently one of sorrow, if not of crime, and he felt as if that sorrow and crime might not have been annihilated even by being buried out of human sight and remembrance so long. he remembered to have heard or read, how that once an old pit had been dug open, in which were found the remains of persons that, as the shuddering by-standers traditionally remembered, had died of an ancient pestilence; and out of that old grave had come a new plague, that slew the far-off progeny of those who had first died by it. might not some fatal treasure like this, in a moral view, be brought to light by the secret into which he had so strangely been drawn? such were the fantasies with which he awaited the return of alice, whose light footsteps sounded afar along the passages of the old mansion; and then all was silent. at length he heard the sound, a great way off, as he concluded, of her returning footstep, approaching from chamber to chamber, and along the staircases, closing the doors behind her. at first, he paid no great attention to the character of these sounds, but as they drew nearer, he became aware that the footstep was unlike those of alice; indeed, as unlike as could be, very regular, slow, yet not firm, so that it seemed to be that of an aged person, sauntering listlessly through the rooms. we have often alluded to middleton's sensitiveness, and the quick vibrations of his sympathies; and there was something in this slow approach that produced a strange feeling within him; so that he stood breathlessly, looking towards the door by which these slow footsteps were to enter. at last, there appeared in the doorway a venerable figure, clad in a rich, faded dressing-gown, and standing on the threshold looked fixedly at middleton, at the same time holding up a light in his left hand. in his right was some object that middleton did not distinctly see. but he knew the figure, and recognized the face. it was the old man, his long since companion on the journey hitherward. "so," said the old man, smiling gravely, "you have thought fit, at last, to accept the hospitality which i offered you so long ago. it might have been better for both of us--for all parties--if you had accepted it then!" "you here!" exclaimed middleton. "and what can be your connection with all the error and trouble, and involuntary wrong, through which i have wandered since our last meeting? and is it possible that you even then held the clue which i was seeking?" "no,--no," replied rothermel. "i was not conscious, at least, of so doing. and yet had we two sat down there by the wayside, or on that english stile, which attracted your attention so much; had we sat down there and thrown forth each his own dream, each his own knowledge, it would have saved much that we must now forever regret. are you even now ready to confide wholly in me?" "alas," said middleton, with a darkening brow, "there are many reasons, at this moment, which did not exist then, to incline me to hold my peace. and why has not alice returned?--and what is your connection with her?" "let her answer for herself," said rothermel; and he called her, shouting through the silent house as if she were at the furthest chamber, and he were in instant need: "alice!--alice!--alice!--here is one who would know what is the link between a maiden and her father!" amid the strange uproar which he made alice came flying back, not in alarm but only in haste, and put her hand within his own. "hush, father," said she. "it is not time." here is an abstract of the plot of this story. the middleton who emigrated to america, more than two hundred years ago, had been a dark and moody man; he came with a beautiful though not young woman for his wife, and left a family behind him. in this family a certain heirloom had been preserved, and with it a tradition that grew wilder and stranger with the passing generations. the tradition had lost, if it ever had, some of its connecting links; but it referred to a murder, to the expulsion of a brother from the hereditary house, in some strange way, and to a bloody footstep which he had left impressed into the threshold, as he turned about to make a last remonstrance. it was rumored, however, or vaguely understood, that the expelled brother was not altogether an innocent man; but that there had been wrong done, as well as crime committed, insomuch that his reasons were strong that led him, subsequently, to imbibe the most gloomy religious views, and to bury himself in the western wilderness. these reasons he had never fully imparted to his family; but had necessarily made allusions to them, which had been treasured up and doubtless enlarged upon. at last, one descendant of the family determines to go to england, with the purpose of searching out whatever ground there may be for these traditions, carrying with him certain ancient documents, and other relics; and goes about the country, half in earnest, and half in sport of fancy, in quest of the old family mansion. he makes singular discoveries, all of which bring the book to an end unexpected by everybody, and not satisfactory to the natural yearnings of novel readers. in the traditions that he brought over, there was a key to some family secrets that were still unsolved, and that controlled the descent of estates and titles. his influence upon these matters involves [him] in divers strange and perilous adventures; and at last it turns out that he himself is the rightful heir to the titles and estate, that had passed into another name within the last half-century. but he respects both, feeling that it is better to make a virgin soil than to try to make the old name grow in a soil that had been darkened with so much blood and misfortune as this. _april th. tuesday_.--it was with a delightful feeling of release from ordinary rules, that middleton found himself brought into this connection with alice; and he only hoped that this play-day of his life might last long enough to rest him from all that he had suffered. in the enjoyment of his position he almost forgot the pursuit that occupied him, nor might he have remembered for a long space if, one evening, alice herself had not alluded to it. "you are wasting precious days," she suddenly said. "why do not you renew your quest?" "to what do you allude?" said middleton, in surprise. "what object do you suppose me to have?" alice smiled; nay, laughed outright. "you suppose yourself to be a perfect mystery, no doubt," she replied. "but do not i know you--have not i known you long--as the holder of the talisman, the owner of the mysterious cabinet that contains the blood-stained secret?" "nay, alice, this is certainly a strange coincidence, that you should know even thus much of a foolish secret that makes me employ this little holiday time, which i have stolen out of a weary life, in a wild-goose chase. but, believe me, you allude to matters that are more a mystery to me than my affairs appear to be to you. will you explain what you would suggest by this badinage?" alice shook her head. "you have no claim to know what i know, even if it would be any addition to your own knowledge. i shall not, and must not enlighten you. you must burrow for the secret with your own tools, in your own manner, and in a place of your own choosing. i am bound not to assist you." "alice, this is wilful, wayward, unjust," cried middleton, with a flushed cheek. "i have not told you--yet you know well--the deep and real importance which this subject has for me. we have been together as friends, yet, the instant when there comes up an occasion when the slightest friendly feeling would induce you to do me a good office, you assume this altered tone." "my tone is not in the least altered in respect to you," said alice. "all along, as you know, i have reserved myself on this very point; it being, i candidly tell you, impossible for me to act in your interest in the matter alluded to. if you choose to consider this unfriendly, as being less than the terms on which you conceive us to have stood give you a right to demand of me--you must resent it as you please. i shall not the less retain for you the regard due to one who has certainly befriended me in very untoward circumstances." this conversation confirmed the previous idea of middleton, that some mystery of a peculiarly dark and evil character was connected with the family secret with which he was himself entangled; but it perplexed him to imagine in what way this, after the lapse of so many years, should continue to be a matter of real importance at the present day. all the actors in the original guilt--if guilt it were--must have been long ago in their graves; some in the churchyard of the village, with those moss-grown letters embossing their names; some in the church itself, with mural tablets recording their names over the family-pew, and one, it might be, far over the sea, where his grave was first made under the forest leaves, though now a city had grown up around it. yet here was he, the remote descendant of that family, setting his foot at last in the country, and as secretly as might be; and all at once his mere presence seemed to revive the buried secret, almost to awake the dead who partook of that secret and had acted it. there was a vibration from the other world, continued and prolonged into this, the instant that he stepped upon the mysterious and haunted ground. he knew not in what way to proceed. he could not but feel that there was something not exactly within the limits of propriety in being here, disguised--at least, not known in his true character--prying into the secrets of a proud and secluded englishman. but then, as he said to himself on his own side of the question, the secret belonged to himself by exactly as ancient a tenure and by precisely as strong a claim, as to the englishman. his rights here were just as powerful and well-founded as those of his ancestor had been, nearly three centuries ago; and here the same feeling came over him that he was that very personage, returned after all these ages, to see if his foot would fit this bloody footstep left of old upon the threshold. the result of all his cogitation was, as the reader will have foreseen, that he decided to continue his researches, and, his proceedings being pretty defensible, let the result take care of itself. for this purpose he went next day to the hospital, and ringing at the master's door, was ushered into the old-fashioned, comfortable library, where he had spent that well-remembered evening which threw the first ray of light on the pursuit that now seemed developing into such strange and unexpected consequences. being admitted, he was desired by the domestic to wait, as his reverence was at that moment engaged with a gentleman on business. glancing through the ivy that mantled over the window, middleton saw that this interview was taking place in the garden, where the master and his visitor were walking to and fro in the avenue of box, discussing some matter, as it seemed to him, with considerable earnestness on both sides. he observed, too, that there was warmth, passion, a disturbed feeling on the stranger's part; while, on that of the master, it was a calm, serious, earnest representation of whatever view he was endeavoring to impress on the other. at last, the interview appeared to come toward a climax, the master addressing some words to his guest, still with undisturbed calmness, to which the latter replied by a violent and even fierce gesture, as it should seem of menace, not towards the master, but some unknown party; and then hastily turning, he left the garden and was soon heard riding away. the master looked after him awhile, and then, shaking his white head, returned into the house and soon entered the parlor. he looked somewhat surprised, and, as it struck middleton, a little startled, at finding him there; yet he welcomed him with all his former cordiality--indeed, with a friendship that thoroughly warmed middleton's heart even to its coldest corner. "this is strange!" said the old gentleman. "do you remember our conversation on that evening when i first had the unlooked-for pleasure of receiving you as a guest into my house? at that time i spoke to you of a strange family story, of which there was no denouement, such as a novel-writer would desire, and which had remained in that unfinished posture for more than two hundred years! well; perhaps it will gratify you to know that there seems a prospect of that wanting termination being supplied!" "indeed!" said middleton. "yes," replied the master. "a gentleman has just parted with me who was indeed the representative of the family concerned in the story. he is the descendant of a younger son of that family, to whom the estate devolved about a century ago, although at that time there was search for the heirs of the elder son, who had disappeared after the bloody incident which i related to you. now, singular as it may appear, at this late day, a person claiming to be the descendant and heir of that eldest son has appeared, and if i may credit my friend's account, is disposed not only to claim the estate, but the dormant title which eldredge himself has been so long preparing to claim for himself. singularly enough, too, the heir is an american." _may d, sunday._--"i believe," said middleton, "that many english secrets might find their solution in america, if the two threads of a story could be brought together, disjoined as they have been by time and the ocean. but are you at liberty to tell me the nature of the incidents to which you allude?" "i do not see any reason to the contrary," answered the master; "for the story has already come in an imperfect way before the public, and the full and authentic particulars are likely soon to follow. it seems that the younger brother was ejected from the house on account of a love affair; the elder having married a young woman with whom the younger was in love, and, it is said, the wife disappeared on the bridal night, and was never heard of more. the elder brother remained single during the rest of his life; and dying childless, and there being still no news of the second brother, the inheritance and representation of the family devolved upon the third brother and his posterity. this branch of the family has ever since remained in possession; and latterly the representation has become of more importance, on account of a claim to an old title, which, by the failure of another branch of this ancient family, has devolved upon the branch here settled. now, just at this juncture, comes another heir from america, pretending that he is the descendant of a marriage between the second son, supposed to have been murdered on the threshold of the manor-house, and the missing bride! is it not a singular story?" "it would seem to require very strong evidence to prove it," said middleton. "and methinks a republican should care little for the title, however he might value the estate." "both--both," said the master, smiling, "would be equally attractive to your countryman. but there are further curious particulars in connection with this claim. you must know, they are a family of singular characteristics, humorists, sometimes developing their queer traits into something like insanity; though oftener, i must say, spending stupid hereditary lives here on their estates, rusting out and dying without leaving any biography whatever about them. and yet there has always been one very queer thing about this generally very commonplace family. it is that each father, on his death-bed, has had an interview with his son, at which he has imparted some secret that has evidently had an influence on the character and after life of the son, making him ever after a discontented man, aspiring for something he has never been able to find. now the american, i am told, pretends that he has the clue which has always been needed to make the secret available; the key whereby the lock may be opened; the something that the lost son of the family carried away with him, and by which through these centuries he has impeded the progress of the race. and, wild as the story seems, he does certainly seem to bring something that looks very like the proof of what he says." "and what are those proofs?" inquired middleton, wonder-stricken at the strange reduplication of his own position and pursuits. "in the first place," said the master, "the english marriage-certificate by a clergyman of that day in london, after publication of the banns, with a reference to the register of the parish church where the marriage is recorded. then, a certified genealogy of the family in new england, where such matters can be ascertained from town and church records, with at least as much certainty, it would appear, as in this country. he has likewise a manuscript in his ancestor's autograph, containing a brief account of the events which banished him from his own country; the circumstances which favored the idea that he had been slain, and which he himself was willing should be received as a belief; the fortune that led him to america, where he wished to found a new race wholly disconnected with the past; and this manuscript he sealed up, with directions that it should not be opened till two hundred years after his death, by which time, as it was probable to conjecture, it would matter little to any mortal whether the story was told or not. a whole generation has passed since the time when the paper was at last unsealed and read, so long it had no operation; yet now, at last, here comes the american, to disturb the succession of an ancient family!" "there is something very strange in all this," said middleton. and indeed there was something stranger in his view of the matter than he had yet communicated to the master. for, taking into consideration the relation in which he found himself with the present recognized representative of the family, the thought struck him that his coming hither had dug up, as it were, a buried secret that immediately assumed life and activity the moment that it was above ground again. for seven generations the family had vegetated in the quietude of english country gentility, doing nothing to make itself known, passing from the cradle to the tomb amid the same old woods that had waved over it before his ancestor had impressed the bloody footstep; and yet the instant that he came back, an influence seemed to be at work that was likely to renew the old history of the family. he questioned with himself whether it were not better to leave all as it was; to withdraw himself into the secrecy from which he had but half emerged, and leave the family to keep on, to the end of time perhaps, in its rusty innocence, rather than to interfere with his wild american character to disturb it. the smell of that dark crime--that brotherly hatred and attempted murder--seemed to breathe out of the ground as he dug it up. was it not better that it should remain forever buried, for what to him was this old english title--what this estate, so far from his own native land, located amidst feelings and manners which would never be his own? it was late, to be sure--yet not too late for him to turn back: the vibration, the fear, which his footsteps had caused, would subside into peace! meditating in this way, he took a hasty leave of the kind old master, promising to see him again at an early opportunity. by chance, or however it was, his footsteps turned to the woods of ---- chace, and there he wandered through its glades, deep in thought, yet always with a strange sense that he was treading on the soil where his ancestors had trodden, and where he himself had best right of all men to be. it was just in this state of feeling that he found his course arrested by a hand upon his shoulder. "what business have you here?" was the question sounded in his ear; and, starting, he found himself in the grasp, as his blood tingled to know, of a gentleman in a shooting-dress, who looked at him with a wrathful brow. "are you a poacher, or what?" be the case what it might, middleton's blood boiled at the grasp of that hand, as it never before had done in the course of his impulsive life. he shook himself free, and stood fiercely before his antagonist, confronting him with his uplifted stick, while the other, likewise, appeared to be shaken by a strange wrath. "fellow," muttered he--"yankee blackguard!--impostor--take yourself oil these grounds. quick, or it will be the worse for you!" middleton restrained himself. "mr. eldredge," said he, "for i believe i speak to the man who calls himself owner of this land on which we stand,--mr. eldredge, you are acting under a strange misapprehension of my character. i have come hither with no sinister purpose, and am entitled, at the hands of a gentleman, to the consideration of an honorable antagonist, even if you deem me one at all. and perhaps, if you think upon the blue chamber and the ebony cabinet, and the secret connected with it,"-- "villain, no more!" said eldredge; and utterly mad with rage, he presented his gun at middleton; but even at the moment of doing so, he partly restrained himself, so far as, instead of shooting him, to raise the butt of his gun, and strike a blow at him. it came down heavily on middleton's shoulder, though aimed at his head; and the blow was terribly avenged, even by itself, for the jar caused the hammer to come down; the gun went off, sending the bullet downwards through the heart of the unfortunate man, who fell dead upon the ground. eldredge[ ] stood stupefied, looking at the catastrophe which had so suddenly occurred. [ ] evidently a slip of the pen; middleton being intended. _may d, monday._--so here was the secret suddenly made safe in this so terrible way; its keepers reduced from two parties to one interest; the other who alone knew of this age-long mystery and trouble now carrying it into eternity, where a long line of those who partook of the knowledge, in each successive generation, might now be waiting to inquire of him how he had held his trust. he had kept it well, there was no doubt of it; for there he lay dead upon the ground, having betrayed it to no one, though by a method which none could have foreseen, the whole had come into the possession of him who had brought hither but half of it. middleton looked down in horror upon the form that had just been so full of life and wrathful vigor--and now lay so quietly. being wholly unconscious of any purpose to bring about the catastrophe, it had not at first struck him that his own position was in any manner affected by the violent death, under such circumstances, of the unfortunate man. but now it suddenly occurred to him, that there had been a train of incidents all calculated to make him the object of suspicion; and he felt that he could not, under the english administration of law, be suffered to go at large without rendering a strict account of himself and his relations with the deceased. he might, indeed, fly; he might still remain in the vicinity, and possibly escape notice. but was not the risk too great? was it just even to be aware of this event, and not relate fully the manner of it, lest a suspicion of blood-guiltiness should rest upon some innocent head? but while he was thus cogitating, he heard footsteps approaching along the wood-path; and half-impulsively, half on purpose, he stept aside into the shrubbery, but still where he could see the dead body, and what passed near it. the footsteps came on, and at the turning of the path, just where middleton had met eldredge, the new-comer appeared in sight. it was hoper, in his usual dress of velveteen, looking now seedy, poverty-stricken, and altogether in ill-case, trudging moodily along, with his hat pulled over his brows, so that he did not see the ghastly object before him till his foot absolutely trod upon the dead man's hand. being thus made aware of the proximity of the corpse, he started back a little, yet evincing such small emotion as did credit to his english reserve; then uttering a low exclamation,--cautiously low, indeed,--he stood looking at the corpse a moment or two, apparently in deep meditation. he then drew near, bent down, and without evincing any horror at the touch of death in this horrid shape, he opened the dead man's vest, inspected the wound, satisfied himself that life was extinct, and then nodded his head and smiled gravely. he next proceeded to examine seriatim the dead man's pockets, turning each of them inside out and taking the contents, where they appeared adapted to his needs: for instance, a silken purse, through the interstices of which some gold was visible; a watch, which however had been injured by the explosion, and had stopt just at the moment--twenty-one minutes past five--when the catastrophe took place. hoper ascertained, by putting the watch to his ear, that this was the case; then pocketing it, he continued his researches. he likewise secured a note-book, on examining which he found several bank-notes, and some other papers. and having done this, the thief stood considering what to do next; nothing better occurring to him, he thrust the pockets back, gave the corpse as nearly as he could the same appearance that it had worn before he found it, and hastened away, leaving the horror there on the wood-path. he had been gone only a few minutes when another step, a light woman's step, [was heard] coming along the pathway, and alice appeared, having on her usual white mantle, straying along with that fearlessness which characterized her so strangely, and made her seem like one of the denizens of nature. she was singing in a low tone some one of those airs which have become so popular in england, as negro melodies; when suddenly, looking before her, she saw the blood-stained body on the grass, the face looking ghastly upward. alice pressed her hand upon her heart; it was not her habit to scream, not the habit of that strong, wild, self-dependent nature; and the exclamation which broke from her was not for help, but the voice of her heart crying out to herself. for an instant she hesitated, as [if] not knowing what to do; then approached, and with her white, maiden hand felt the brow of the dead man, tremblingly, but yet firm, and satisfied herself that life had wholly departed. she pressed her hand, that had just touched the dead man's, on her forehead, and gave a moment to thought. what her decision might have been, we cannot say, for while she stood in this attitude, middleton stept from his seclusion, and at the noise of his approach she turned suddenly round, looking more frightened and agitated than at the moment when she had first seen the dead body. she faced middleton, however, and looked him quietly in the eye. "you see this!" said she, gazing fixedly at him. "it is not at this moment that you first discover it." "no," said middleton, frankly. "it is not. i was present at the catastrophe. in one sense, indeed, i was the cause of it; but, alice, i need not tell you that i am no murderer." "a murderer?--no," said alice, still looking at him with the same fixed gaze. "but you and this man were at deadly variance. he would have rejoiced at any chance that would have laid you cold and bloody on the earth, as he is now; nay, he would most eagerly have seized on any fair-looking pretext that would have given him a chance to stretch you there. the world will scarcely believe, when it knows all about your relations with him, that his blood is not on your hand. indeed," said she, with a strange smile, "i see some of it there now!" and, in very truth, so there was; a broad blood-stain that had dried on middleton's hand. he shuddered at it, but essayed vainly to rub it off. "you see," said she. "it was foreordained that you should shed this man's blood; foreordained that, by digging into that old pit of pestilence, you should set the contagion loose again. you should have left it buried forever. but now what do you mean to do?" "to proclaim this catastrophe," replied middleton. "it is the only honest and manly way. what else can i do?" "you can and ought to leave him on the wood-path, where he has fallen," said alice, "and go yourself to take advantage of the state of things which providence has brought about. enter the old house, the hereditary house, where--now, at least--you alone have a right to tread. now is the hour. all is within your grasp. let the wrong of three hundred years be righted, and come back thus to your own, to these hereditary fields, this quiet, long-descended home; to title, to honor." yet as the wild maiden spoke thus, there was a sort of mockery in her eyes; on her brow; gleaming through all her face, as if she scorned what she thus pressed upon him, the spoils of the dead man who lay at their feet. middleton, with his susceptibility, could not [but] be sensible of a wild and strange charm, as well as horror, in the situation; it seemed such a wonder that here, in formal, orderly, well-governed england, so wild a scene as this should have occurred; that they too [two?] should stand here, deciding on the descent of an estate, and the inheritance of a title, holding a court of their own. "come, then," said he, at length. "let us leave this poor fallen antagonist in his blood, and go whither you will lead me. i will judge for myself. at all events, i will not leave my hereditary home without knowing what my power is." "come," responded alice; and she turned back; but then returned and threw a handkerchief over the dead man's face, which while they spoke had assumed that quiet, ecstatic expression of joy which often is observed to overspread the faces of those who die of gunshot wounds, however fierce the passion in which the spirits took their flight. with this strange, grand, awful joy did the dead man gaze upward into the very eyes and hearts, as it were, of the two that now bent over him. they looked at one another. "whence comes this expression?" said middleton, thoughtfully. "alice, methinks he is reconciled to us now; and that we are members of one reconciled family, all of whom are in heaven but me." _tuesday, may th._--"how strange is this whole situation between you and me," said middleton, as they went up the winding pathway that led towards the house. "shall i ever understand it? do you mean ever to explain it to me? that i should find you here with that old man,[ ] so mysterious, apparently so poor, yet so powerful! what [is] his relation to you?" [ ] the allusion here is apparently to the old man who proclaims himself alice's father, in the portion dated april th. he figures hereafter as the old hospitaller, hammond. the reader must not take this present passage as referring to the death of eldredge, which has just taken place in the preceding section. the author is now beginning to elaborate the relation of middleton and alice. as will be seen, farther on, the death of eldredge is ignored and abandoned; eldredge is revived, and the story proceeds in another way.--g. p. l. "a close one," replied alice sadly. "he was my father!" "your father!" repeated middleton, starting back. "it does but heighten the wonder! your father! and yet, by all the tokens that birth and breeding, and habits of thought and native character can show, you are my countrywoman. that wild, free spirit was never born in the breast of an englishwoman; that slight frame, that slender beauty, that frail envelopment of a quick, piercing, yet stubborn and patient spirit,--are those the properties of an english maiden?" "perhaps not," replied alice quietly. "i am your countrywoman. my father was an american, and one of whom you have heard--and no good, alas!--for many a year." "and who then was he?" asked middleton. "i know not whether you will hate me for telling you," replied alice, looking him sadly though firmly in the face. "there was a man--long years since, in your childhood--whose plotting brain proved the ruin of himself and many another; a man whose great designs made him a sort of potentate, whose schemes became of national importance, and produced results even upon the history of the country in which he acted. that man was my father; a man who sought to do great things, and, like many who have had similar aims, disregarded many small rights, strode over them, on his way to effect a gigantic purpose. among other men, your father was trampled under foot, ruined, done to death, even, by the effects of his ambition." "how is it possible!" exclaimed middleton. "was it wentworth?" "even so," said alice, still with the same sad calmness and not withdrawing her steady eyes from his face. "after his ruin; after the catastrophe that overwhelmed him and hundreds more, he took to flight; guilty, perhaps, but guilty as a fallen conqueror is; guilty to such an extent that he ceased to be a cheat, as a conqueror ceases to be a murderer. he came to england. my father had an original nobility of nature; and his life had not been such as to debase it, but rather such as to cherish and heighten that self-esteem which at least keeps the possessor of it from many meaner vices. he took nothing with him; nothing beyond the bare means of flight, with the world before him, although thousands of gold would not have been missed out of the scattered fragments of ruin that lay around him. he found his way hither, led, as you were, by a desire to reconnect himself with the place whence his family had originated; for he, too, was of a race which had something to do with the ancient story which has now been brought to a close. arrived here, there were circumstances that chanced to make his talents and habits of business available to this mr. eldredge, a man ignorant and indolent, unknowing how to make the best of the property that was in his hands. by degrees, he took the estate into his management, acquiring necessarily a preponderating influence over such a man." "and you," said middleton. "have you been all along in england? for you must have been little more than an infant at the time." "a mere infant," said alice, "and i remained in our own country under the care of a relative who left me much to my own keeping; much to the influences of that wild culture which the freedom of our country gives to its youth. it is only two years that i have been in england." "this, then," said middleton thoughtfully, "accounts for much that has seemed so strange in the events through which we have passed; for the knowledge of my identity and my half-defined purpose which has always glided before me, and thrown so many strange shapes of difficulty in my path. but whence,--whence came that malevolence which your father's conduct has so unmistakably shown? i had done him no injury, though i had suffered much." "i have often thought," replied alice, "that my father, though retaining a preternatural strength and acuteness of intellect, was really not altogether sane. and, besides, he had made it his business to keep this estate, and all the complicated advantages of the representation of this old family, secure to the person who was deemed to have inherited them. a succession of ages and generations might be supposed to have blotted out your claims from existence; for it is not just that there should be no term of time which can make security for lack of fact and a few formalities. at all events, he had satisfied himself that his duty was to act as he has done." "be it so! i do not seek to throw blame on him," said middleton. "besides, alice, he was your father!" "yes," said she, sadly smiling; "let him [have] what protection that thought may give him, even though i lose what he may gain. and now here we are at the house. at last, come in! it is your own; there is none that can longer forbid you!" they entered the door of the old mansion, now a farmhouse, and there were its old hall, its old chambers, all before them. they ascended the staircase, and stood on the landing-place above; while middleton had again that feeling that had so often made him dizzy,--that sense of being in one dream and recognizing the scenery and events of a former dream. so overpowering was this feeling, that he laid his hand on the slender arm of alice, to steady himself; and she comprehended the emotion that agitated him, and looked into his eyes with a tender sympathy, which she had never before permitted to be visible,--perhaps never before felt. he steadied himself and followed her till they had entered an ancient chamber, but one that was finished with all the comfortable luxury customary to be seen in english homes. "whither have you led me now?" inquired middleton. "look round," said alice. "is there nothing here that you ought to recognize?--nothing that you kept the memory of, long ago?" he looked round the room again and again, and at last, in a somewhat shadowy corner, he espied an old cabinet made of ebony and inlaid with pearl; one of those tall, stately, and elaborate pieces of furniture that are rather articles of architecture than upholstery; and on which a higher skill, feeling, and genius than now is ever employed on such things, was expended. alice drew near the stately cabinet and threw wide the doors, which, like the portals of a palace, stood between two pillars; it all seemed to be unlocked, showing within some beautiful old pictures in the panel of the doors, and a mirror, that opened a long succession of mimic halls, reflection upon reflection, extending to an interminable nowhere. "and what is this?" said middleton,--"a cabinet? why do you draw my attention so strongly to it?" "look at it well," said she. "do you recognize nothing there? have you forgotten your description? the stately palace with its architecture, each pillar with its architecture, those pilasters, that frieze; you ought to know them all. somewhat less than you imagined in size, perhaps; a fairy reality, inches for yards; that is the only difference. and you have the key?" and there then was that palace, to which tradition, so false at once and true, had given such magnitude and magnificence in the traditions of the middleton family, around their shifting fireside in america. looming afar through the mists of time, the little fact had become a gigantic vision. yes, here it was in miniature, all that he had dreamed of; a palace of four feet high! "you have the key of this palace," said alice; "it has waited--that is, its secret and precious chamber has, for you to open it, these three hundred years. do you know how to find that secret chamber?" middleton, still in that dreamy mood, threw open an inner door of the cabinet, and applying the old-fashioned key at his watch-chain to a hole in the mimic pavement within, pressed one of the mosaics, and immediately the whole floor of the apartment sank, and revealed a receptacle within. alice had come forward eagerly, and they both looked into the hiding-place, expecting what should be there. it was empty! they looked into each other's faces with blank astonishment. everything had been so strangely true, and so strangely false, up to this moment, that they could not comprehend this failure at the last moment. it was the strangest, saddest jest! it brought middleton up with such a sudden revulsion that he grew dizzy, and the room swam round him and the cabinet dazzled before his eyes. it had been magnified to a palace; it had dwindled down to liliputian size; and yet, up till now, it had seemed to contain in its diminutiveness all the riches which he had attributed to its magnitude. this last moment had utterly subverted it; the whole great structure seemed to vanish. "see; here are the dust and ashes of it," observed alice, taking something that was indeed only a pinch of dust out of the secret compartment. "there is nothing else." ii. _may th, wednesday_.--the father of these two sons, an aged man at the time, took much to heart their enmity; and after the catastrophe, he never held up his head again. he was not told that his son had perished, though such was the belief of the family; but imbibed the opinion that he had left his home and native land to become a wanderer on the face of the earth, and that some time or other he might return. in this idea he spent the remainder of his days; in this idea he died. it may be that the influence of this idea might be traced in the way in which he spent some of the latter years of his life, and a portion of the wealth which had become of little value in his eyes, since it had caused dissension and bloodshed between the sons of one household. it was a common mode of charity in those days--a common thing for rich men to do--to found an almshouse or a hospital, and endow it, for the support of a certain number of old and destitute men or women, generally such as had some claim of blood upon the founder, or at least were natives of the parish, the district, the county, where he dwelt. the eldredge hospital was founded for the benefit of twelve old men, who should have been wanderers upon the face of the earth; men, they should be, of some education, but defeated and hopeless, cast off by the world for misfortune, but not for crime. and this charity had subsisted, on terms varying little or nothing from the original ones, from that day to this; and, at this very time, twelve old men were not wanting, of various countries, of various fortunes, but all ending finally in ruin, who had centred here, to live on the poor pittance that had been assigned to them, three hundred years ago. what a series of chronicles it would have been if each of the beneficiaries of this charity, since its foundation, had left a record of the events which finally led him hither. middleton often, as he talked with these old men, regretted that he himself had no turn for authorship, so rich a volume might he have compiled from the experience, sometimes sunny and triumphant, though always ending in shadow, which he gathered here. they were glad to talk to him, and would have been glad and grateful for any auditor, as they sat on one or another of the stone benches, in the sunshine of the garden; or at evening, around the great fireside, or within the chimney-corner, with their pipes and ale. there was one old man who attracted much of his attention, by the venerableness of his aspect; by something dignified, almost haughty and commanding, in his air. whatever might have been the intentions and expectations of the founder, it certainly had happened in these latter days that there was a difficulty in finding persons of education, of good manners, of evident respectability, to put into the places made vacant by deaths of members; whether that the paths of life are surer now than they used to be, and that men so arrange their lives as not to be left, in any event, quite without resources as they draw near its close; at any rate, there was a little tincture of the vagabond running through these twelve quasi gentlemen,--through several of them, at least. but this old man could not well be mistaken; in his manners, in his tones, in all his natural language and deportment, there was evidence that he had been more than respectable; and, viewing him, middleton could not help wondering what statesman had suddenly vanished out of public life and taken refuge here, for his head was of the statesman-class, and his demeanor that of one who had exercised influence over large numbers of men. he sometimes endeavored to set on foot a familiar relation with this old man, but there was even a sternness in the manner in which he repelled these advances, that gave little encouragement for their renewal. nor did it seem that his companions of the hospital were more in his confidence than middleton himself. they regarded him with a kind of awe, a shyness, and in most cases with a certain dislike, which denoted an imperfect understanding of him. to say the truth, there was not generally much love lost between any of the members of this family; they had met with too much disappointment in the world to take kindly, now, to one another or to anything or anybody. i rather suspect that they really had more pleasure in burying one another, when the time came, than in any other office of mutual kindness and brotherly love which it was their part to do; not out of hardness of heart, but merely from soured temper, and because, when people have met disappointment and have settled down into final unhappiness, with no more gush and spring of good spirits, there is nothing any more to create amiability out of. so the old people were unamiable and cross to one another, and unamiable and cross to old hammond, yet always with a certain respect; and the result seemed to be such as treated the old man well enough. and thus he moved about among them, a mystery; the histories of the others, in the general outline, were well enough known, and perhaps not very uncommon; this old man's history was known to none, except, of course, to the trustees of the charity, and to the master of the hospital, to whom it had necessarily been revealed, before the beneficiary could be admitted as an inmate. it was judged, by the deportment of the master, that the old man had once held some eminent position in society; for, though bound to treat them all as gentlemen, he was thought to show an especial and solemn courtesy to hammond. yet by the attraction which two strong and cultivated minds inevitably have for one another, there did spring up an acquaintanceship, an intercourse, between middleton and this old man, which was followed up in many a conversation which they held together on all subjects that were supplied by the news of the day, or the history of the past. middleton used to make the newspaper the opening for much discussion; and it seemed to him that the talk of his companion had much of the character of that of a retired statesman, on matters which, perhaps, he would look at all the more wisely, because it was impossible he could ever more have a personal agency in them. their discussions sometimes turned upon the affairs of his own country, and its relations with the rest of the world, especially with england; and middleton could not help being struck with the accuracy of the old man's knowledge respecting that country, which so few englishmen know anything about; his shrewd appreciation of the american character,--shrewd and caustic, yet not without a good degree of justice; the sagacity of his remarks on the past, and prophecies of what was likely to happen,--prophecies which, in one instance, were singularly verified, in regard to a complexity which was then arresting the attention of both countries. "you must have been in the united states," said he, one day. "certainly; my remarks imply personal knowledge," was the reply. "but it was before the days of steam." "and not, i should imagine, for a brief visit," said middleton. "i only wish the administration of this government had the benefit to-day of your knowledge of my countrymen. it might be better for both of these kindred nations." "not a whit," said the old man. "england will never understand america; for england never does understand a foreign country; and whatever you may say about kindred, america is as much a foreign country as france itself. these two hundred years of a different climate and circumstances--of life on a broad continent instead of in an island, to say nothing of the endless intermixture of nationalities in every part of the united states, except new england--have created a new and decidedly original type of national character. it is as well for both parties that they should not aim at any very intimate connection. it will never do." "i should be sorry to think so," said middleton; "they are at all events two noble breeds of men, and ought to appreciate one another. and america has the breadth of idea to do this for england, whether reciprocated or not." _thursday, may th._--thus middleton was established in a singular way among these old men, in one of the surroundings most unlike anything in his own country. so old it was that it seemed to him the freshest and newest thing that he had ever met with. the residence was made infinitely the more interesting to him by the sense that he was near the place--as all the indications warned him--which he sought, whither his dreams had tended from his childhood; that he could wander each day round the park within which were the old gables of what he believed was his hereditary home. he had never known anything like the dreamy enjoyment of these days; so quiet, such a contrast to the turbulent life from which he had escaped across the sea. and here he set himself, still with that sense of shadowiness in what he saw and in what he did, in making all the researches possible to him, about the neighborhood; visiting every little church that raised its square battlemented norman tower of gray stone, for several miles round about; making himself acquainted with each little village and hamlet that surrounded these churches, clustering about the graves of those who had dwelt in the same cottages aforetime. he visited all the towns within a dozen miles; and probably there were few of the inhabitants who had so good an acquaintance with the neighborhood as this native american attained within a few weeks after his coming thither. in course of these excursions he had several times met with a young woman,--a young lady, one might term her, but in fact he was in some doubt what rank she might hold, in england,--who happened to be wandering about the country with a singular freedom. she was always alone, always on foot; he would see her sketching some picturesque old church, some ivied ruin, some fine drooping elm. she was a slight figure, much more so than english women generally are; and, though healthy of aspect, had not the ruddy complexion, which he was irreverently inclined to call the coarse tint, that is believed the great charm of english beauty. there was a freedom in her step and whole little womanhood, an elasticity, an irregularity, so to speak, that made her memorable from first sight; and when he had encountered her three or four times, he felt in a certain way acquainted with her. she was very simply dressed, and quite as simple in her deportment; there had been one or two occasions, when they had both smiled at the same thing; soon afterwards a little conversation had taken place between them; and thus, without any introduction, and in a way that somewhat puzzled middleton himself, they had become acquainted. it was so unusual that a young english girl should be wandering about the country entirely alone--so much less usual that she should speak to a stranger--that middleton scarcely knew how to account for it, but meanwhile accepted the fact readily and willingly, for in truth he found this mysterious personage a very likely and entertaining companion. there was a strange quality of boldness in her remarks, almost of brusqueness, that he might have expected to find in a young countrywoman of his own, if bred up among the strong-minded, but was astonished to find in a young englishwoman. somehow or other she made him think more of home than any other person or thing he met with; and he could not but feel that she was in strange contrast with everything about her. she was no beauty; very piquant; very pleasing; in some points of view and at some moments pretty; always good-humored, but somewhat too self-possessed for middleton's taste. it struck him that she had talked with him as if she had some knowledge of him and of the purposes with which he was there; not that this was expressed, but only implied by the fact that, on looking back to what had passed, he found many strange coincidences in what she had said with what he was thinking about. he perplexed himself much with thinking whence this young woman had come, where she belonged, and what might be her history; when, the next day, he again saw her, not this time rambling on foot, but seated in an open barouche with a young lady. middleton lifted his hat to her, and she nodded and smiled to him; and it appeared to middleton that a conversation ensued about him with the young lady, her companion. now, what still more interested him was the fact that, on the panel of the barouche were the arms of the family now in possession of the estate of smithell's; so that the young lady, his new acquaintance, or the young lady, her seeming friend, one or the other, was the sister of the present owner of that estate. he was inclined to think that his acquaintance could not be the miss eldredge, of whose beauty he had heard many tales among the people of the neighborhood. the other young lady, a tall, reserved, fair-haired maiden, answered the description considerably better. he concluded, therefore, that his acquaintance must be a visitor, perhaps a dependent and companion; though the freedom of her thought, action, and way of life seemed hardly consistent with this idea. however, this slight incident served to give him a sort of connection with the family, and he could but hope that some further chance would introduce him within what he fondly called his hereditary walls. he had come to think of this as a dreamland; and it seemed even more a dreamland now than before it rendered itself into actual substance, an old house of stone and timber standing within its park, shaded about with its ancestral trees. but thus, at all events, he was getting himself a little wrought into the net-work of human life around him, secluded as his position had at first seemed to be, in the farmhouse where he had taken up his lodgings. for, there was the hospital and its old inhabitants, in whose monotonous existence he soon came to pass for something, with his liveliness of mind, his experience, his good sense, his patience as a listener, his comparative youth even--his power of adapting himself to these stiff and crusty characters, a power learned among other things in his political life, where he had acquired something of the faculty (good or bad as might be) of making himself all things to all men. but though he amused himself with them all, there was in truth but one man among them in whom he really felt much interest; and that one, we need hardly say, was hammond. it was not often that he found the old gentleman in a conversible mood; always courteous, indeed, but generally cool and reserved; often engaged in his one room, to which middleton had never yet been admitted, though he had more than once sent in his name, when hammond was not apparent upon the bench which, by common consent of the hospital, was appropriated to him. one day, however, notwithstanding that the old gentleman was confined to his room by indisposition, he ventured to inquire at the door, and, considerably to his surprise, was admitted. he found hammond in his easy-chair, at a table, with writing-materials before him; and as middleton entered, the old gentleman looked at him with a stern, fixed regard, which, however, did not seem to imply any particular displeasure towards this visitor, but rather a severe way of regarding mankind in general. middleton looked curiously around the small apartment, to see what modification the character of the man had had upon the customary furniture of the hospital, and how much of individuality he had given to that general type. there was a shelf of books, and a row of them on the mantel-piece; works of political economy, they appeared to be, statistics and things of that sort; very dry reading, with which, however, middleton's experience as a politician had made him acquainted. besides these there were a few works on local antiquities, a county-history borrowed from the master's library, in which hammond appeared to have been lately reading. "they are delightful reading," observed middleton, "these old county-histories, with their great folio volumes and their minute account of the affairs of families and the genealogies, and descents of estates, bestowing as much blessed space on a few hundred acres as other historians give to a principality. i fear that in my own country we shall never have anything of this kind. our space is so vast that we shall never come to know and love it, inch by inch, as the english antiquarians do the tracts of country with which they deal; and besides, our land is always likely to lack the interest that belongs to english estates; for where land changes its ownership every few years, it does not become imbued with the personalities of the people who live on it. it is but so much grass; so much dirt, where a succession of people have dwelt too little to make it really their own. but i have found a pleasure that i had no conception of before, in reading some of the english local histories." "it is not a usual course of reading for a transitory visitor," said hammond. "what could induce you to undertake it?" "simply the wish, so common and natural with americans," said middleton--"the wish to find out something about my kindred--the local origin of my own family." "you do not show your wisdom in this," said his visitor. "america had better recognize the fact that it has nothing to do with england, and look upon itself as other nations and people do, as existing on its own hook. i never heard of any people looking hack to the country of their remote origin in the way the anglo-americans do. for instance, england is made up of many alien races, german, danish. norman, and what not: it has received large accessions of population at a later date than the settlement of the united states. yet these families melt into the great homogeneous mass of englishmen, and look hack no more to any other country. there are in this vicinity many descendants of the french huguenots; but they care no more for france than for timbuctoo, reckoning themselves only englishmen, as if they were descendants of the aboriginal britons. let it be so with you." "so it might be," replied middleton, "only that our relations with england remain far more numerous than our disconnections, through the bonds of history, of literature, of all that makes up the memories, and much that makes up the present interests of a people. and therefore i must still continue to pore over these old folios, and hunt around these precincts, spending thus the little idle time i am likely to have in a busy life. possibly finding little to my purpose; but that is quite a secondary consideration." "if you choose to tell me precisely what your aims are," said hammond, "it is possible i might give you some little assistance." _may th, friday_.--middleton was in fact more than half ashamed of the dreams which he had cherished before coming to england, and which since, at times, had been very potent with him, assuming as strong a tinge of reality as those [scenes?] into which he had strayed. he could not prevail with himself to disclose fully to this severe, and, as he thought, cynical old man how strong within him was the sentiment that impelled him to connect himself with the old life of england, to join on the broken thread of ancestry and descent, and feel every link well established. but it seemed to him that he ought not to lose this fair opportunity of gaining some light on the abstruse field of his researches; and he therefore explained to hammond that he had reason, from old family traditions, to believe that he brought with him a fragment of a history that, if followed out, might lead to curious results. he told him, in a tone half serious, what he had heard respecting the quarrel of the two brothers, and the bloody footstep, the impress of which was said to remain, as a lasting memorial of the tragic termination of that enmity. at this point, hammond interrupted him. he had indeed, at various points of the narrative, nodded and smiled mysteriously, as if looking into his mind and seeing something there analogous to what he was listening to. he now spoke. "this is curious," said he. "did you know that there is a manor-house in this neighborhood, the family of which prides itself on having such a blood-stained threshold as you have now described?" "no, indeed!" exclaimed middleton, greatly interested. "where?" "it is the old manor-house of smithell's," replied hammond, "one of those old wood and timber [plaster?] mansions, which are among the most ancient specimens of domestic architecture in england. the house has now passed into the female line, and by marriage has been for two or three generations in possession of another family. but the blood of the old inheritors is still in the family. the house itself, or portions of it, are thought to date back quite as far as the conquest." "smithell's?" said middleton. "why, i have seen that old house from a distance, and have felt no little interest in its antique aspect. and it has a bloody footstep! would it be possible for a stranger to get an opportunity to inspect it?" "unquestionably," said hammond; "nothing easier. it is but a moderate distance from here, and if you can moderate your young footsteps, and your american quick walk, to an old man's pace, i would go there with you some day. in this languor and ennui of my life, i spend some time in local antiquarianism, and perhaps i might assist you in tracing out how far these traditions of yours may have any connection with reality. it would be curious, would it not, if you had come, after two hundred years, to piece out a story which may have been as much a mystery in england as there in america?" an engagement was made for a walk to smithell's the ensuing day; and meanwhile middleton entered more fully into what he had received from family traditions and what he had thought out for himself on the matter in question. "are you aware," asked hammond, "that there was formerly a title in this family, now in abeyance, and which the heirs have at various times claimed, and are at this moment claiming? do you know, too,--but you can scarcely know it,--that it has been surmised by some that there is an insecurity in the title to the estate, and has always been; so that the possessors have lived in some apprehension, from time immemorial, that another heir would appear and take from them the fair inheritance? it is a singular coincidence." "very strange," exclaimed middleton. "no; i was not aware of it; and, to say the truth, i should not altogether like to come forward in the light of a claimant. but this is a dream, surely!" "i assure you, sir," continued the old man, "that you come here in a very critical moment; and singularly enough there is a perplexity, a difficulty, that has endured for as long a time as when your ancestors emigrated, that is still rampant within the bowels, as i may say, of the family. of course, it is too like a romance that you should be able to establish any such claim as would have a valid influence on this matter; but still, being here on the spot, it may be worth while, if merely as a matter of amusement, to make some researches into this matter." "surely i will," said middleton, with a smile, which concealed more earnestness than he liked to show; "as to the title, a republican cannot be supposed to think twice about such a bagatelle. the estate!--that might be a more serious consideration." they continued to talk on the subject; and middleton learned that the present possessor of the estates was a gentleman nowise distinguished from hundreds of other english gentlemen; a country squire modified in accordance with the type of to-day, a frank, free, friendly sort of a person enough, who had travelled on the continent, who employed himself much in field-sports, who was unmarried, and had a sister who was reckoned among the beauties of the county. while the conversation was thus going on, to middleton's astonishment there came a knock at the door of the room, and, without waiting for a response, it was opened, and there appeared at it the same young woman whom he had already met. she came in with perfect freedom and familiarity, and was received quietly by the old gentleman; who, however, by his manner towards middleton, indicated that he was now to take his leave. he did so, after settling the hour at which the excursion of the next day was to take place. this arranged, he departed, with much to think of, and a light glimmering through the confused labyrinth of thoughts which had been unilluminated hitherto. to say the truth, he questioned within himself whether it were not better to get as quickly as he could out of the vicinity; and, at any rate, not to put anything of earnest in what had hitherto been nothing more than a romance to him. there was something very dark and sinister in the events of family history, which now assumed a reality that they had never before worn; so much tragedy, so much hatred, had been thrown into that deep pit, and buried under the accumulated debris, the fallen leaves, the rust and dust of more than two centuries, that it seemed not worth while to dig it up; for perhaps the deadly influences, which it had taken so much time to hide, might still be lurking there, and become potent if he now uncovered them. there was something that startled him, in the strange, wild light, which gleamed from the old man's eyes, as he threw out the suggestions which had opened this prospect to him. what right had he--an american, republican, disconnected with this country so long, alien from its habits of thought and life, reverencing none of the things which englishmen reverenced--what right had he to come with these musty claims from the dim past, to disturb them in the life that belonged to them? there was a higher and a deeper law than any connected with ancestral claims which he could assert; and he had an idea that the law bade him keep to the country which his ancestor had chosen and to its institutions, and not meddle nor make with england. the roots of his family tree could not reach under the ocean; he was at most but a seedling from the parent tree. while thus meditating he found that his footsteps had brought him unawares within sight of the old manor-house of smithell's; and that he was wandering in a path which, if he followed it further, would bring him to an entrance in one of the wings of the mansion. with a sort of shame upon him, he went forward, and, leaning against a tree, looked at what he considered the home of his ancestors. _may th, sunday_.--at the time appointed, the two companions set out on their little expedition, the old man in his hospital uniform, the long black mantle, with the bear and ragged staff engraved in silver on the breast, and middleton in the plain costume which he had adopted in these wanderings about the country. on their way, hammond was not very communicative, occasionally dropping some shrewd remark with a good deal of acidity in it; now and then, too, favoring his companion with some reminiscence of local antiquity; but oftenest silent. thus they went on, and entered the park of pemberton manor by a by-path, over a stile and one of those footways, which are always so well worth threading out in england, leading the pedestrian into picturesque and characteristic scenes, when the highroad would show him nothing except what was commonplace and uninteresting. now the gables of the old manor-house appeared before them, rising amidst the hereditary woods, which doubtless dated from a time beyond the days which middleton fondly recalled, when his ancestors had walked beneath their shade. on each side of them were thickets and copses of fern, amidst which they saw the hares peeping out to gaze upon them, occasionally running across the path, and comporting themselves like creatures that felt themselves under some sort of protection from the outrages of man, though they knew too much of his destructive character to trust him too far. pheasants, too, rose close beside them, and winged but a little way before they alighted; they likewise knew, or seemed to know, that their hour was not yet come. on all sides in these woods, these wastes, these beasts and birds, there was a character that was neither wild nor tame. man had laid his grasp on them all, and done enough to redeem them from barbarism, but had stopped short of domesticating them; although nature, in the wildest thing there, acknowledged the powerful and pervading influence of cultivation. arriving at a side door of the mansion, hammond rang the bell, and a servant soon appeared. he seemed to know the old man, and immediately acceded to his request to be permitted to show his companion the house; although it was not precisely a show-house, nor was this the hour when strangers were usually admitted. they entered; and the servant did not give himself the trouble to act as a cicerone to the two visitants, but carelessly said to the old gentleman that he knew the rooms, and that he would leave him to discourse to his friend about them. accordingly, they went into the old hall, a dark oaken-panelled room, of no great height, with many doors opening into it. there was a fire burning on the hearth; indeed, it was the custom of the house to keep it up from morning to night; and in the damp, chill climate of england, there is seldom a day in some part of which a fire is not pleasant to feel. hammond here pointed out a stuffed fox, to which some story of a famous chase was attached; a pair of antlers of enormous size; and some old family pictures, so blackened with time and neglect that middleton could not well distinguish their features, though curious to do so, as hoping to see there the lineaments of some with whom he might claim kindred. it was a venerable apartment, and gave a good foretaste of what they might hope to find in the rest of the mansion. but when they had inspected it pretty thoroughly, and were ready to proceed, an elderly gentleman entered the hall, and, seeing hammond, addressed him in a kindly, familiar way; not indeed as an equal friend, but with a pleasant and not irksome conversation. "i am glad to see you here again," said he. "what? i have an hour of leisure; for, to say the truth, the day hangs rather heavy till the shooting season begins. come; as you have a friend with you, i will be your cicerone myself about the house, and show you whatever mouldy objects of interest it contains." he then graciously noticed the old man's companion, but without asking or seeming to expect an introduction; for, after a careless glance at him, he had evidently set him down as a person without social claims, a young man in the rank of life fitted to associate with an inmate of pemberton's hospital. and it must be noticed that his treatment of middleton was not on that account the less kind, though far from being so elaborately courteous as if he had met him as an equal. "you have had something of a walk," said he, "and it is a rather hot day. the beer of pemberton manor has been reckoned good these hundred years; will you taste it?" hammond accepted the offer, and the beer was brought in a foaming tankard; but middleton declined it, for in truth there was a singular emotion in his breast, as if the old enmity, the ancient injuries, were not yet atoned for, and as if he must not accept the hospitality of one who represented his hereditary foe. he felt, too, as if there were something unworthy, a certain want of fairness, in entering clandestinely the house, and talking with its occupant under a veil, as it were; and had he seen clearly how to do it, he would perhaps at that moment have fairly told mr. eldredge that he brought with him the character of kinsman, and must be received on that grade or none. but it was not easy to do this; and after all, there was no clear reason why he should do it; so he let the matter pass, merely declining to take the refreshment, and keeping himself quiet and retired. squire eldredge seemed to be a good, ordinary sort of gentleman, reasonably well educated, and with few ideas beyond his estate and neighborhood, though he had once held a seat in parliament for part of a term. middleton could not but contrast him, with an inward smile, with the shrewd, alert politicians, their faculties all sharpened to the utmost, whom he had known and consorted with in the american congress. hammond had slightly informed him that his companion was an american; and mr. eldredge immediately gave proof of the extent of his knowledge of that country, by inquiring whether he came from the state of new england, and whether mr. webster was still president of the united states; questions to which middleton returned answers that led to no further conversation. these little preliminaries over, they continued their ramble through the house, going through tortuous passages, up and down little flights of steps, and entering chambers that had all the charm of discoveries of hidden regions; loitering about, in short, in a labyrinth calculated to put the head into a delightful confusion. some of these rooms contained their time-honored furniture, all in the best possible repair, heavy, dark, polished; beds that had been marriage beds and dying beds over and over again; chairs with carved backs; and all manner of old world curiosities; family pictures, and samplers, and embroidery; fragments of tapestry; an inlaid floor; everything having a story to it, though, to say the truth, the possessor of these curiosities made but a bungling piece of work in telling the legends connected with them. in one or two instances hammond corrected him. by and by they came to what had once been the principal bed-room of the house; though its gloom, and some circumstances of family misfortune that had happened long ago, had caused it to fall into disrepute in latter times; and it was now called the haunted chamber, or the ghost's chamber. the furniture of this room, however, was particularly rich in its antique magnificence; and one of the principal objects was a great black cabinet of ebony and ivory, such as may often be seen in old english houses, and perhaps often in the palaces of italy, in which country they perhaps originated. this present cabinet was known to have been in the house as long ago as the reign of queen elizabeth, and how much longer neither tradition nor record told. hammond particularly directed middleton's attention to it. "there is nothing in this house," said he, "better worth your attention than that cabinet.' consider its plan; it represents a stately mansion, with pillars, an entrance, with a lofty flight of steps, windows, and everything perfect. examine it well." there was such an emphasis in the old man's way of speaking that middleton turned suddenly round from all that he had been looking at, and fixed his whole attention on the cabinet; and strangely enough, it seemed to be the representative, in small, of something that he had seen in a dream. to say the truth, if some cunning workman had been employed to copy his idea of the old family mansion, on a scale of half an inch to a yard, and in ebony and ivory instead of stone, he could not have produced a closer imitation. everything was there. "this is miraculous!" exclaimed he. "i do not understand it." "your friend seems to be curious in these matters," said mr. eldredge graciously. "perhaps he is of some trade that makes this sort of manufacture particularly interesting to him. you are quite at liberty, my friend, to open the cabinet and inspect it as minutely as you wish. it is an article that has a good deal to do with an obscure portion of our family history. look, here is the key, and the mode of opening the outer door of the palace, as we may well call it." so saying, he threw open the outer door, and disclosed within the mimic likeness of a stately entrance hall, with a floor chequered of ebony and ivory. there were other doors that seemed to open into apartments in the interior of the palace; but when mr. eldredge threw them likewise wide, they proved to be drawers and secret receptacles, where papers, jewels, money, anything that it was desirable to store away secretly, might be kept. "you said, sir," said middleton, thoughtfully, "that your family history contained matter of interest in reference to this cabinet. might i inquire what those legends are?" "why, yes," said mr. eldredge, musing a little. "i see no reason why i should have any idle concealment about the matter, especially to a foreigner and a man whom i am never likely to see again. you must know, then, my friend, that there was once a time when this cabinet was known to contain the fate of the estate and its possessors; and if it had held all that it was supposed to hold, i should not now be the lord of pemberton manor, nor the claimant of an ancient title. but my father, and his father before him, and his father besides, have held the estate and prospered on it; and i think we may fairly conclude now that the cabinet contains nothing except what we see." and he rapidly again threw open one after another all the numerous drawers and receptacles of the cabinet. "it is an interesting object," said middleton, after looking very closely and with great attention at it, being pressed thereto, indeed, by the owner's good natured satisfaction in possessing this rare article of vertu. "it is admirable work," repeated he, drawing back. "that mosaic floor, especially, is done with an art and skill that i never saw equalled." there was something strange and altered in middleton's tones, that attracted the notice of mr. eldredge. looking at him, he saw that he had grown pale, and had a rather bewildered air. "is your friend ill?" said he. "he has not our english ruggedness of look. he would have done better to take a sip of the cool tankard, and a slice of the cold beef. he finds no such food and drink as that in his own country, i warrant." "his color has come back," responded hammond, briefly. "he does not need any refreshment, i think, except, perhaps, the open air." in fact, middleton, recovering himself, apologized to mr. hammond [eldredge?]; and as they had now seen nearly the whole of the house, the two visitants took their leave, with many kindly offers on mr. eldredge's part to permit the young man to view the cabinet whenever he wished. as they went out of the house (it was by another door than that which gave them entrance), hammond laid his hand on middleton's shoulder and pointed to a stone on the threshold, on which he was about to set his foot. "take care!" said he. "it is the bloody footstep." middleton looked down and saw something, indeed, very like the shape of a footprint, with a hue very like that of blood. it was a twilight sort of a place, beneath a porch, which was much overshadowed by trees and shrubbery. it might have been blood; but he rather thought, in his wicked skepticism, that it was a natural, reddish stain in the stone. he measured his own foot, however, in the bloody footstep, and went on. _may th, monday_.--this is the present aspect of the story: middleton is the descendant of a family long settled in the united states; his ancestor having emigrated to new england with the pilgrims; or, perhaps, at a still earlier date, to virginia with raleigh's colonists. there had been a family dissension,--a bitter hostility between two brothers in england; on account, probably, of a love affair, the two both being attached to the same lady. by the influence of the family on both sides, the young lady had formed an engagement with the elder brother, although her affections had settled on the younger. the marriage was about to take place when the younger brother and the bride both disappeared, and were never heard of with any certainty afterwards; but it was believed at the time that he had been killed, and in proof of it a bloody footstep remained on the threshold of the ancestral mansion. there were rumors, afterwards, traditionally continued to the present day, that the younger brother and the bride were seen, and together, in england; and that some voyager across the sea had found them living together, husband and wife, on the other side of the atlantic. but the elder brother became a moody and reserved man, never married, and left the inheritance to the children of a third brother, who then became the representative of the family in england; and the better authenticated story was that the second brother had really been slain, and that the young lady (for all the parties may have been catholic) had gone to the continent and taken the veil there. such was the family history as known or surmised in england, and in the neighborhood of the manor-house, where the bloody footstep still remained on the threshold; and the posterity of the third brother still held the estate, and perhaps were claimants of an ancient baronage, long in abeyance. now, on the other side of the atlantic, the second brother and the young lady had really been married, and became the parents of a posterity, still extant, of which the middleton of the romance is the surviving male. perhaps he had changed his name, being so much tortured with the evil and wrong that had sprung up in his family, so remorseful, so outraged, that he wished to disconnect himself with all the past, and begin life quite anew in a new world. but both he and his wife, though happy in one another, had been remorsefully and sadly so; and, with such feelings, they had never again communicated with their respective families, nor had given their children the means of doing so. there must, i think, have been something nearly approaching to guilt on the second brother's part, and the bride should have broken a solemnly plighted troth to the elder brother, breaking away from him when almost his wife. the elder brother had been known to have been wounded at the time of the second brother's disappearance; and it had been the surmise that he had received this hurt in the personal conflict in which the latter was slain. but in truth the second brother had stabbed him in the emergency of being discovered in the act of escaping with the bride; and this was what weighed upon his conscience throughout life in america. the american family had prolonged itself through various fortunes, and all the ups and downs incident to our institutions, until the present day. they had some old family documents, which had been rather carelessly kept; but the present representative, being an educated man, had looked over them, and found one which interested him strongly. it was--what was it?--perhaps a copy of a letter written by his ancestor on his death-bed, telling his real name, and relating the above incidents. these incidents had come down in a vague, wild way, traditionally, in the american family, forming a wondrous and incredible legend, which middleton had often laughed at, yet been greatly interested in; and the discovery of this document seemed to give a certain aspect of veracity and reality to the tradition. perhaps, however, the document only related to the change of name, and made reference to certain evidences by which, if any descendant of the family should deem it expedient, he might prove his hereditary identity. the legend must be accounted for by having been gathered from the talk of the first ancestor and his wife. there must be in existence, in the early records of the colony, an authenticated statement of this change of name, and satisfactory proofs that the american family, long known as middleton, were really a branch of the english family of eldredge, or whatever. and in the legend, though not in the written document, there must be an account of a certain magnificent, almost palatial residence, which middleton shall presume to be the ancestral home; and in this palace there shall be said to be a certain secret chamber, or receptacle, where is reposited a document that shall complete the evidence of the genealogical descent. middleton is still a young man, but already a distinguished one in his own country; he has entered early into politics, been sent to congress, but having met with some disappointments in his ambitious hopes, and being disgusted with the fierceness of political contests in our country, he has come abroad for recreation and rest. his imagination has dwelt much, in his boyhood, on the legendary story of his family; and the discovery of the document has revived these dreams. he determines to search out the family mansion; and thus he arrives, bringing half of a story, being the only part known in america, to join it on to the other half, which is the only part known in england. in an introduction i must do the best i can to state his side of the matter to the reader, he having communicated it to me in a friendly way, at the consulate; as many people have communicated quite as wild pretensions to english genealogies. he comes to the midland counties of england, where he conceives his claims to lie, and seeks for his ancestral home; but there are difficulties in the way of finding it, the estates having passed into the female line, though still remaining in the blood. by and by, however, he comes to an old town where there is one of the charitable institutions bearing the name of his family, by whose beneficence it had indeed been founded, in queen elizabeth's time. he of course becomes interested in this hospital; he finds it still going on, precisely as it did in the old days; and all the character and life of the establishment must be picturesquely described. here he gets acquainted with an old man, an inmate of the hospital, who (if the uncontrollable fatality of the story will permit) must have an active influence on the ensuing events. i suppose him to have been an american, but to have fled his country and taken refuge in england; he shall have been a man of the nicholas biddle stamp, a mighty speculator, the ruin of whose schemes had crushed hundreds of people, and middleton's father among the rest. here he had quitted the activity of his mind, as well as he could, becoming a local antiquary, etc., and he has made himself acquainted with the family history of the eldredges, knowing more about it than the members of the family themselves do. he had known in america (from middleton's father, who was his friend) the legends preserved in this branch of the family, and perhaps had been struck by the way in which they fit into the english legends; at any rate, this strikes him when middleton tells him his story and shows him the document respecting the change of name. after various conversations together (in which, however, the old man keeps the secret of his own identity, and indeed acts as mysteriously as possible), they go together to visit the ancestral mansion. perhaps it should not be in their first visit that the cabinet, representing the stately mansion, shall be seen. but the bloody footstep may; which shall interest middleton much, both because hammond has told him the english tradition respecting it, and because too the legends of the american family made some obscure allusions to his ancestor having left blood--a bloody footstep--on the ancestral threshold. this is the point to which the story has now been sketched out. middleton finds a commonplace old english country gentleman in possession of the estate, where his forefathers have lived in peace for many generations; but there must be circumstances contrived which shall cause middleton's conduct to be attended by no end of turmoil and trouble. the old hospitaller, i suppose, must be the malicious agent in this; and his malice must be motived in some satisfactory way. the more serious question, what shall be the nature of this tragic trouble, and how can it be brought about? _may th, tuesday_.--how much better would it have been if this secret, which seemed so golden, had remained in the obscurity in which two hundred years had buried it! that deep, old, grass-grown grave being opened, out from it streamed into the sunshine the old fatalities, the old crimes, the old misfortunes, the sorrows, that seemed to have departed from the family forever. but it was too late now to close it up; he must follow out the thread that led him on,--the thread of fate, if you choose to call it so; but rather the impulse of an evil will, a stubborn self-interest, a desire for certain objects of ambition which were preferred to what yet were recognized as real goods. thus reasoned, thus raved, eldredge, as he considered the things that he had done, and still intended to do; nor did these perceptions make the slightest difference in his plans, nor in the activity with which he set about their performance. for this purpose he sent for his lawyer, and consulted him on the feasibility of the design which he had already communicated to him respecting middleton. but the man of law shook his head, and, though deferentially, declined to have any active concern with the matter that threatened to lead him beyond the bounds which he allowed himself, into a seductive but perilous region. "my dear sir," said he, with some earnestness, "you had much better content yourself with such assistance as i can professionally and consistently give you. believe [me], i am willing to do a lawyer's utmost, and to do more would be as unsafe for the client as for the legal adviser." thus left without an agent and an instrument, this unfortunate man had to meditate on what means he would use to gain his ends through his own unassisted efforts. in the struggle with himself through which he had passed, he had exhausted pretty much all the feelings that he had to bestow on this matter; and now he was ready to take hold of almost any temptation that might present itself, so long as it showed a good prospect of success and a plausible chance of impunity. while he was thus musing, he heard a female voice chanting some song, like a bird's among the pleasant foliage of the trees, and soon he saw at the end of a wood-walk alice, with her basket on her arm, passing on toward the village. she looked towards him as she passed, but made no pause nor yet hastened her steps, not seeming to think it worth her while to be influenced by him. he hurried forward and overtook her. so there was this poor old gentleman, his comfort utterly overthrown, decking his white hair and wrinkled brow with the semblance of a coronet, and only hoping that the reality might crown and bless him before he was laid in the ancestral tomb. it was a real calamity; though by no means the greatest that had been fished up out of the pit of domestic discord that had been opened anew by the advent of the american; and by the use which had been made of it by the cantankerous old man of the hospital. middleton, as he looked at these evil consequences, sometimes regretted that he had not listened to those forebodings which had warned him back on the eve of his enterprise; yet such was the strange entanglement and interest which had wound about him, that often he rejoiced that for once he was engaged in something that absorbed him fully, and the zeal for the development of which made him careless for the result in respect to its good or evil, but only desirous that it show itself. as for alice, she seemed to skim lightly through all these matters, whether as a spirit of good or ill he could not satisfactorily judge. he could not think her wicked; yet her actions seemed unaccountable on the plea that she was otherwise. it was another characteristic thread in the wild web of madness that had spun itself about all the prominent characters of our story. and when middleton thought of these things, he felt as if it might be his duty (supposing he had the power) to shovel the earth again into the pit that he had been the means of opening; but also felt that, whether duty or not, he would never perform it. for, you see, on the american's arrival he had found the estate in the hands of one of the descendants; but some disclosures consequent on his arrival had thrown it into the hands of another; or, at all events, had seemed to make it apparent that justice required that it should be so disposed of. no sooner was the discovery made than the possessor put on a coronet; the new heir had commenced legal proceedings; the sons of the respective branches had come to blows and blood; and the devil knows what other devilish consequences had ensued. besides this, there was much falling in love at cross-purposes, and a general animosity of everybody against everybody else, in proportion to the closeness of the natural ties and their obligation to love one another. the moral, if any moral were to be gathered from these petty and wretched circumstances, was, "let the past alone: do not seek to renew it; press on to higher and better things,--at all events, to other things; and be assured that the right way can never be that which leads you back to the identical shapes that you long ago left behind. onward, onward, onward!" "what have you to do here?" said alice. "your lot is in another land. you have seen the birthplace of your forefathers, and have gratified your natural yearning for it; now return, and cast in your lot with your own people, let it be what it will. i fully believe that it is such a lot as the world has never yet seen, and that the faults, the weaknesses, the errors, of your countrymen will vanish away like morning mists before the rising sun. you can do nothing better than to go back." "this is strange advice, alice," said middleton, gazing at her and smiling. "go back, with such a fair prospect before me; that were strange indeed! it is enough to keep me here, that here only i shall see you,--enough to make me rejoice to have come, that i have found you here." "do not speak in this foolish way," cried alice, panting. "i am giving you the best advice, and speaking in the wisest way i am capable of,--speaking on good grounds too,--and you turn me aside with a silly compliment. i tell you that this is no comedy in which we are performers, but a deep, sad tragedy; and that it depends most upon you whether or no it shall be pressed to a catastrophe. think well of it." "i have thought, alice," responded the young man, "and i must let things take their course; if, indeed, it depends at all upon me, which i see no present reason to suppose. yet i wish you would explain to me what you mean." to take up the story from the point where we left it: by the aid of the american's revelations, some light is thrown upon points of family history, which induce the english possessor of the estate to suppose that the time has come for asserting his claim to a title which has long been in abeyance. he therefore sets about it, and engages in great expenses, besides contracting the enmity of many persons, with whose interests he interferes. a further complication is brought about by the secret interference of the old hospitaller, and alice goes singing and dancing through the whole, in a way that makes her seem like a beautiful devil, though finally it will be recognized that she is an angel of light. middleton, half bewildered, can scarcely tell how much of this is due to his own agency; how much is independent of him and would have happened had he stayed on his own side of the water. by and by a further and unexpected development presents the singular fact that he himself is the heir to whatever claims there are, whether of property or rank,--all centring in him as the representative of the eldest brother. on this discovery there ensues a tragedy in the death of the present possessor of the estate, who has staked everything upon the issue; and middleton, standing amid the ruin and desolation of which he has been the innocent cause, resigns all the claims which he might now assert, and retires, arm in arm with alice, who has encouraged him to take this course, and to act up to his character. the estate takes a passage into the female line, and the old name becomes extinct, nor does middleton seek to continue it by resuming it in place of the one long ago assumed by his ancestor. thus he and his wife become the adam and eve of a new epoch, and the fitting missionaries of a new social faith, of which there must be continual hints through the book. a knot of characters may be introduced as gathering around middleton, comprising expatriated americans of all sorts: the wandering printer who came to me so often at the consulate, who said he was a native of philadelphia, and could not go home in the thirty years that he had been trying to do so, for lack of the money to pay his passage; the large banker; the consul of leeds; the woman asserting her claims to half liverpool; the gifted literary lady, maddened by shakespeare, &c., &c. the yankee who had been driven insane by the queen's notice, slight as it was, of the photographs of his two children which he had sent her. i have not yet struck the true key-note of this romance, and until i do, and unless i do, i shall write nothing but tediousness and nonsense. i do not wish it to be a picture of life, but a romance, grim, grotesque, quaint, of which the hospital might be the fitting scene. it might have so much of the hues of life that the reader should sometimes think it was intended for a picture, yet the atmosphere should be such as to excuse all wildness. in the introduction, i might disclaim all intention to draw a real picture, but say that the continual meetings i had with americans bent on such errands had suggested this wild story. the descriptions of scenery, &c., and of the hospital, might be correct, but there should be a tinge of the grotesque given to all the characters and events. the tragic and the gentler pathetic need not be excluded by the tone and treatment. if i could but write one central scene in this vein, all the rest of the romance would readily arrange itself around that nucleus. the begging-girl would be another american character; the actress too; the caravan people. it must be humorous work, or nothing. iii. _may th, wednesday_.--middleton found his abode here becoming daily more interesting; and he sometimes thought that it was the sympathies with the place and people, buried under the supergrowth of so many ages, but now coming forth with the life and vigor of a fountain, that, long hidden beneath earth and ruins, gushes out singing into the sunshine, as soon as these are removed. he wandered about the neighborhood with insatiable interest; sometimes, and often, lying on a hill-side and gazing at the gray tower of the church; sometimes coming into the village clustered round that same church, and looking at the old timber and plaster houses, the same, except that the thatch had probably been often renewed, that they used to be in his ancestor's days. in those old cottages still dwelt the families, the ----s, the prices, the hopnorts, the copleys, that had dwelt there when america was a scattered progeny of infant colonies; and in the churchyard were the graves of all the generations since--including the dust of those who had seen his ancestor's face before his departure. the graves, outside the church walls indeed, bore no marks of this antiquity; for it seems not to have been an early practice in england to put stones over such graves; and where it has been done, the climate causes the inscriptions soon to become obliterated and unintelligible. but, within the church, there were rich words of the personages and times with whom middleton's musings held so much converse. but one of his greatest employments and pastimes was to ramble through the grounds of smithell's, making himself as well acquainted with its wood paths, its glens, its woods, its venerable trees, as if he had been bred up there from infancy. some of those old oaks his ancestor might have been acquainted with, while they were already sturdy and well-grown trees; might have climbed them in boyhood; might have mused beneath them as a lover; might have flung himself at full length on the turf beneath them, in the bitter anguish that must have preceded his departure forever from the home of his forefathers. in order to secure an uninterrupted enjoyment of his rambles here, middleton had secured the good-will of the game-keepers and other underlings whom he was likely to meet about the grounds, by giving them a shilling or a half-crown; and he was now free to wander where he would, with only the advice rather than the caution, to keep out of the way of their old master,--for there might be trouble, if he should meet a stranger on the grounds, in any of his tantrums. but, in fact, mr. eldredge was not much in the habit of walking about the grounds; and there were hours of every day, during which it was altogether improbable that he would have emerged from his own apartments in the manor-house. these were the hours, therefore, when middleton most frequented the estate; although, to say the truth, he would gladly have so timed his visits as to meet and form an acquaintance with the lonely lord of this beautiful property, his own kinsman, though with so many ages of dark oblivion between. for middleton had not that feeling of infinite distance in the relationship, which he would have had if his branch of the family had continued in england, and had not intermarried with the other branch, through such a long waste of years; he rather felt as if he were the original emigrant who, long resident on a foreign shore, had now returned, with a heart brimful of tenderness, to revisit the scenes of his youth, and renew his tender relations with those who shared his own blood. there was not, however, much in what he heard of the character of the present possessor of the estate--or indeed in the strong family characteristic that had become hereditary--to encourage him to attempt any advances. it is very probable that the religion of mr. eldredge, as a catholic, may have excited a prejudice against him, as it certainly had insulated the family, in a great degree, from the sympathies of the neighborhood. mr. eldredge, moreover, had resided long on the continent; long in italy; and had come back with habits that little accorded with those of the gentry of the neighborhood; so that, in fact, he was almost as much of a stranger, and perhaps quite as little of a real englishman, as middleton himself. be that as it might, middleton, when he sought to learn something about him, heard the strangest stories of his habits of life, of his temper, and of his employments, from the people with whom he conversed. the old legend, turning upon the monomania of the family, was revived in full force in reference to this poor gentleman; and many a time middleton's interlocutors shook their wise heads, saying with a knowing look and under their breath that the old gentleman was looking for the track of the bloody footstep. they fabled--or said, for it might not have been a false story--that every descendant of this house had a certain portion of his life, during which he sought the track of that footstep which was left on the threshold of the mansion; that he sought it far and wide, over every foot of the estate; not only on the estate, but throughout the neighborhood; not only in the neighborhood but all over england; not only throughout england but all about the world. it was the belief of the neighborhood--at least of some old men and women in it--that the long period of mr. eldredge's absence from england had been spent in the search for some trace of those departing footsteps that had never returned. it is very possible--probable, indeed--that there may have been some ground for this remarkable legend; not that it is to be credited that the family of eldredge, being reckoned among sane men, would seriously have sought, years and generations after the fact, for the first track of those bloody footsteps which the first rain of drippy england must have washed away; to say nothing of the leaves that had fallen and the growth and decay of so many seasons, that covered all traces of them since. but nothing is more probable than that the continual recurrence to the family genealogy, which had been necessitated by the matter of the dormant peerage, had caused the eldredges, from father to son, to keep alive an interest in that ancestor who had disappeared, and who had been supposed to carry some of the most important family papers with him. but yet it gave middleton a strange thrill of pleasure, that had something fearful in it, to think that all through these ages he had been waited for, sought for, anxiously expected, as it were; it seemed as if the very ghosts of his kindred, a long shadowy line, held forth their dim arms to welcome him; a line stretching back to the ghosts of those who had flourished in the old, old times; the doubletted and beruffled knightly shades of queen elizabeth's time; a long line, stretching from the mediaeval ages, and their duskiness, downward, downward, with only one vacant space, that of him who had left the bloody footstep. there was an inexpressible pleasure (airy and evanescent, gone in a moment if he dwelt upon it too thoughtfully, but very sweet) to middleton's imagination, in this idea. when he reflected, however, that his revelations, if they had any effect at all, might serve only to quench the hopes of these long expectants, it of course made him hesitate to declare himself. one afternoon, when he was in the midst of musings such as this, he saw at a distance through the park, in the direction of the manor-house, a person who seemed to be walking slowly and seeking for something upon the ground. he was a long way off when middleton first perceived him; and there were two clumps of trees and underbrush, with interspersed tracts of sunny lawn, between them. the person, whoever he was, kept on, and plunged into the first clump of shrubbery, still keeping his eyes on the ground, as if intensely searching for something. when he emerged from the concealment of the first clump of shrubbery, middleton saw that he was a tall, thin person, in a dark dress; and this was the chief observation that the distance enabled him to make, as the figure kept slowly onward, in a somewhat wavering line, and plunged into the second clump of shrubbery. from that, too, he emerged; and soon appeared to be a thin elderly figure, of a dark man with gray hair, bent, as it seemed to middleton, with infirmity, for his figure still stooped even in the intervals when he did not appear to be tracking the ground. but middleton could not but be surprised at the singular appearance the figure had of setting its foot, at every step, just where a previous footstep had been made, as if he wanted to measure his whole pathway in the track of somebody who had recently gone over the ground in advance of him. middleton was sitting at the foot of an oak; and he began to feel some awkwardness in the consideration of what he would do if mr. eldredge--for he could not doubt that it was he--were to be led just to this spot, in pursuit of his singular occupation. and even so it proved. middleton could not feel it manly to fly and hide himself, like a guilty thing; and indeed the hospitality of the english country gentleman in many cases gives the neighborhood and the stranger a certain degree of freedom in the use of the broad expanse of ground in which they and their forefathers have loved to sequester their residences. the figure kept on, showing more and more distinctly the tall, meagre, not unvenerable features of a gentleman in the decline of life, apparently in ill-health; with a dark face, that might once have been full of energy, but now seemed enfeebled by time, passion, and perhaps sorrow. but it was strange to see the earnestness with which he looked on the ground, and the accuracy with which he at last set his foot, apparently adjusting it exactly to some footprint before him; and middleton doubted not that, having studied and re-studied the family records and the judicial examinations which described exactly the track that was seen the day after the memorable disappearance of his ancestor, mr. eldredge was now, in some freak, or for some purpose best known to himself, practically following it out. and follow it out he did, until at last he lifted up his eyes, muttering to himself: "at this point the footsteps wholly disappear." lifting his eyes, as we have said, while thus regretfully and despairingly muttering these words, he saw middleton against the oak, within three paces of him. _may th, thursday_.--mr. eldredge (for it was he) first kept his eyes fixed full on middleton's face, with an expression as if he saw him not; but gradually--slowly, at first--he seemed to become aware of his presence; then, with a sudden flush, he took in the idea that he was encountered by a stranger in his secret mood. a flush of anger or shame, perhaps both, reddened over his face; his eyes gleamed; and he spoke hastily and roughly. "who are you?" he said. "how come you here? i allow no intruders in my park. begone, fellow!" "really, sir, i did not mean to intrude upon you," said middleton blandly. "i am aware that i owe you an apology; but the beauties of your park must plead my excuse; and the constant kindness of [the] english gentleman, which admits a stranger to the privilege of enjoying so much of the beauty in which he himself dwells as the stranger's taste permits him to enjoy." "an artist, perhaps," said mr. eldredge, somewhat less uncourteously. "i am told that they love to come here and sketch those old oaks and their vistas, and the old mansion yonder. but you are an intrusive set, you artists, and think that a pencil and a sheet of paper may be your passport anywhere. you are mistaken, sir. my park is not open to strangers." "i am sorry, then, to have intruded upon you," said middleton, still in good humor; for in truth he felt a sort of kindness, a sentiment, ridiculous as it may appear, of kindred towards the old gentleman, and besides was not unwilling in any way to prolong a conversation in which he found a singular interest. "i am sorry, especially as i have not even the excuse you kindly suggest for me. i am not an artist, only an american, who have strayed hither to enjoy this gentle, cultivated, tamed nature which i find in english parks, so contrasting with the wild, rugged nature of my native land. i beg your pardon, and will retire." "an american," repeated mr. eldredge, looking curiously at him. "ah, you are wild men in that country, i suppose, and cannot conceive that an english gentleman encloses his grounds--or that his ancestors have done so before him--for his own pleasure and convenience, and does not calculate on having it infringed upon by everybody, like your own forests, as you say. it is a curious country, that of yours; and in italy i have seen curious people from it." "true, sir," said middleton, smiling. "we send queer specimens abroad; but englishmen should consider that we spring from them, and that we present after all only a picture of their own characteristics, a little varied by climate and in situation." mr. eldredge looked at him with a certain kind of interest, and it seemed to middleton that he was not unwilling to continue the conversation, if a fair way to do so could only be offered to him. a secluded man often grasps at any opportunity of communicating with his kind, when it is casually offered to him, and for the nonce is surprisingly familiar, running out towards his chance-companion with the gush of a dammed-up torrent, suddenly unlocked. as middleton made a motion to retire, he put out his hand with an air of authority to restrain him. "stay," said he. "now that you are here, the mischief is done, and you cannot repair it by hastening away. you have interrupted me in my mood of thought, and must pay the penalty by suggesting other thoughts. i am a lonely man here, having spent most of my life abroad, and am separated from my neighbors by various circumstances. you seem to be an intelligent man. i should like to ask you a few questions about your country." he looked at middleton as he spoke, and seemed to be considering in what rank of life he should place him; his dress being such as suited a humble rank. he seemed not to have come to any very certain decision on this point. "i remember," said he, "you have no distinctions of rank in your country; a convenient thing enough, in some respects. when there are no gentlemen, all are gentlemen. so let it be. you speak of being englishmen; and it has often occurred to me that englishmen have left this country and been much missed and sought after, who might perhaps be sought there successfully." "it is certainly so, mr. eldredge," said middleton, lifting his eyes to his face as he spoke, and then turning them aside. "many footsteps, the track of which is lost in england, might be found reappearing on the other side of the atlantic; ay, though it be hundreds of years since the track was lost here." middleton, though he had refrained from looking full at mr. eldredge as he spoke, was conscious that he gave a great start; and he remained silent for a moment or two, and when he spoke there was the tremor in his voice of a nerve that had been struck and still vibrated. "that is a singular idea of yours," he at length said; "not singular in itself, but strangely coincident with something that happened to be occupying my mind. have you ever heard any such instances as you speak of?" "yes," replied middleton. "i have had pointed out to me the rightful heir to a scottish earldom, in the person of an american farmer, in his shirt-sleeves. there are many americans who believe themselves to hold similar claims. and i have known one family, at least, who had in their possession, and had had for two centuries, a secret that might have been worth wealth and honors if known in england. indeed, being kindred as we are, it cannot but be the case." mr. eldredge appeared to be much struck by these last words, and gazed wistfully, almost wildly, at middleton, as if debating with himself whether to say more. he made a step or two aside; then returned abruptly, and spoke. "can you tell me the name of the family in which this secret was kept?" said he; "and the nature of the secret?" "the nature of the secret," said middleton, smiling, "was not likely to be extended to any one out of the family. the name borne by the family was middleton. there is no member of it, so far as i am aware, at this moment remaining in america." "and has the secret died with them?" asked mr. eldredge. "they communicated it to none," said middleton. "it is a pity! it was a villainous wrong," said mr. eldredge. "and so, it may be, some ancient line, in the old country, is defrauded of its rights for want of what might have been obtained from this yankee, whose democracy has demoralized them to the perception of what is due to the antiquity of descent, and of the bounden duty that there is, in all ranks, to keep up the honor of a family that has had potence enough to preserve itself in distinction for a thousand years." "yes," said middleton, quietly, "we have sympathy with what is strong and vivacious to-day; none with what was so yesterday." the remark seemed not to please mr. eldredge; he frowned, and muttered something to himself; but recovering himself, addressed middleton with more courtesy than at the commencement of their interview; and, with this graciousness, his face and manner grew very agreeable, almost fascinating: he [was] still haughty, however. "well, sir," said he, "i am not sorry to have met you. i am a solitary man, as i have said, and a little communication with a stranger is a refreshment, which i enjoy seldom enough to be sensible of it. pray, are you staying hereabouts?" middleton signified to him that he might probably spend some little time in the village. "then, during your stay," said mr. eldredge, "make free use of the walks in these grounds; and though it is not probable that you will meet me in them again, you need apprehend no second questioning of your right to be here. my house has many points of curiosity that may be of interest to a stranger from a new country. perhaps you have heard of some of them." "i have heard some wild legend about a bloody footstep," answered middleton; "indeed, i think i remember hearing something about it in my own country; and having a fanciful sort of interest in such things, i took advantage of the hospitable custom which opens the doors of curious old houses to strangers, to go to see it. it seemed to me, i confess, only a natural stain in the old stone that forms the doorstep." "there, sir," said mr. eldredge, "let me say that you came to a very foolish conclusion; and so, good-by, sir." and without further ceremony, he cast an angry glance at middleton, who perceived that the old gentleman reckoned the bloody footstep among his ancestral honors, and would probably have parted with his claim to the peerage almost as soon as have given up the legend. present aspect of the story: middleton on his arrival becomes acquainted with the old hospitaller, and is familiarized at the hospital. he pays a visit in his company to the manor-house, but merely glimpses at its remarkable things, at this visit, among others at the old cabinet, which does not, at first view, strike him very strongly. but, on musing about his visit afterwards, he finds the recollection of the cabinet strangely identifying itself with his previous imaginary picture of the palatial mansion; so that at last he begins to conceive the mistake he has made. at this first [visit], he does not have a personal interview with the possessor of the estate; but, as the hospitaller and himself go from room to room, he finds that the owner is preceding them, shyly flitting like a ghost, so as to avoid them. then there is a chapter about the character of the eldredge of the day, a catholic, a morbid, shy man, representing all the peculiarities of an old family, and generally thought to be insane. and then comes the interview between him and middleton, where the latter excites such an interest that he dwells upon the old man's mind, and the latter probably takes pains to obtain further intercourse with him, and perhaps invites him to dinner, and [to] spend a night in his house. if so, this second meeting must lead to the examination of the cabinet, and the discovery of some family documents in it. perhaps the cabinet may be in middleton's sleeping-chamber, and he examines it by himself, before going to bed; and finds out a secret which will perplex him how to deal with it. _may th, friday_.--we have spoken several times already of a young girl, who was seen at this period about the little antiquated village of smithells; a girl in manners and in aspect unlike those of the cottages amid which she dwelt. middleton had now so often met her, and in solitary places, that an acquaintance had inevitably established itself between them. he had ascertained that she had lodgings at a farm-house near by, and that she was connected in some way with the old hospitaller, whose acquaintance had proved of such interest to him; but more than this he could not learn either from her or others. but he was greatly attracted and interested by the free spirit and fearlessness of this young woman; nor could he conceive where, in staid and formal england, she had grown up to be such as she was, so without manner, so without art, yet so capable of doing and thinking for herself. she had no reserve, apparently, yet never seemed to sin against decorum; it never appeared to restrain her that anything she might wish to do was contrary to custom; she had nothing of what could be called shyness in her intercourse with him; and yet he was conscious of an unapproachableness in alice. often, in the old man's presence, she mingled in the conversation that went on between him and middleton, and with an acuteness that betokened a sphere of thought much beyond what could be customary with young english maidens; and middleton was often reminded of the theories of those in our own country, who believe that the amelioration of society depends greatly on the part that women shall hereafter take, according to their individual capacity, in all the various pursuits of life. these deeper thoughts, these higher qualities, surprised him as they showed themselves, whenever occasion called them forth, under the light, gay, and frivolous exterior which she had at first seemed to present. middleton often amused himself with surmises in what rank of life alice could have been bred, being so free of all conventional rule, yet so nice and delicate in her perception of the true proprieties that she never shocked him. one morning, when they had met in one of middleton's rambles about the neighborhood, they began to talk of america; and middleton described to alice the stir that was being made in behalf of women's rights; and he said that whatever cause was generous and disinterested always, in that country, derived much of its power from the sympathy of women, and that the advocates of every such cause were in favor of yielding the whole field of human effort to be shared with women. "i have been surprised," said he, "in the little i have seen and heard of english women, to discover what a difference there is between them and my own countrywomen." "i have heard," said alice, with a smile, "that your countrywomen are a far more delicate and fragile race than englishwomen; pale, feeble hot-house plants, unfit for the wear and tear of life, without energy of character, or any slightest degree of physical strength to base it upon. if, now, you had these large-framed englishwomen, you might, i should imagine, with better hopes, set about changing the system of society, so as to allow them to struggle in the strife of politics, or any other strife, hand to hand, or side by side with men." "if any countryman of mine has said this of our women," exclaimed middleton, indignantly, "he is a slanderous villain, unworthy to have been borne by an american mother; if an englishman has said it--as i know many of them have and do--let it pass as one of the many prejudices only half believed, with which they strive to console themselves for the inevitable sense that the american race is destined to higher purposes than their own. but pardon me; i forgot that i was speaking to an englishwoman, for indeed you do not remind me of them. but, i assure you, the world has not seen such women as make up, i had almost said the mass of womanhood in my own country; slight in aspect, slender in frame, as you suggest, but yet capable of bringing forth stalwart men; they themselves being of inexhaustible courage, patience, energy; soft and tender, deep of heart, but high of purpose. gentle, refined, but bold in every good cause." "oh, yea have said quite enough," replied alice, who had seemed ready to laugh outright, during this encomium. "i think i see one of these paragons now, in a bloomer, i think you call it, swaggering along with a bowie knife at her girdle, smoking a cigar, no doubt, and tippling sherry-cobblers and mint-juleps. it must be a pleasant life." "i should think you, at least, might form a more just idea of what women become," said middleton, considerably piqued, "in a country where the rules of conventionalism are somewhat relaxed; where woman, whatever you may think, is far more profoundly educated than in england, where a few ill-taught accomplishments, a little geography, a catechism of science, make up the sum, under the superintendence of a governess; the mind being kept entirely inert as to any capacity for thought. they are cowards, except within certain rules and forms; they spend a life of old proprieties, and die, and if their souls do not die with them, it is heaven's mercy." alice did not appear in the least moved to anger, though considerably to mirth, by this description of the character of english females. she laughed as she replied, "i see there is little danger of your leaving your heart in england." she added more seriously, "and permit me to say, i trust, mr. middleton, that you remain as much american in other respects as in your preference of your own race of women. the american who comes hither and persuades himself that he is one with englishmen, it seems to me, makes a great mistake; at least, if he is correct in such an idea he is not worthy of his own country, and the high development that awaits it. there is much that is seductive in our life, but i think it is not upon the higher impulses of our nature that such seductions act. i should think ill of the american who, for any causes of ambition,--any hope of wealth or rank,--or even for the sake of any of those old, delightful ideas of the past, the associations of ancestry, the loveliness of an age-long home,--the old poetry and romance that haunt these ancient villages and estates of england,--would give up the chance of acting upon the unmoulded future of america." "and you, an englishwoman, speak thus!" exclaimed middleton. "you perhaps speak truly; and it may be that your words go to a point where they are especially applicable at this moment. but where have you learned these ideas? and how is it that you know how to awake these sympathies, that have slept perhaps too long?" "think only if what i have said be truth," replied alice. "it is no matter who or what i am that speak it." "do you speak," asked middleton, from a sudden impulse, "with any secret knowledge affecting a matter now in my mind?" alice shook her head, as she turned away; but middleton could not determine whether the gesture was meant as a negative to his question, or merely as declining to answer it. she left him; and he found himself strangely disturbed with thoughts of his own country, of the life that he ought to be leading there, the struggles in which he ought to be taking part; and, with these motives in his impressible mind, the motives that had hitherto kept him in england seemed unworthy to influence him. _may th, saturday_.--it was not long after middleton's meeting with mr. eldredge in the park of smithells, that he received--what it is precisely the most common thing to receive--an invitation to dine at the manor-house and spend the night. the note was written with much appearance of cordiality, as well as in a respectful style; and middleton could not but perceive that mr. eldredge must have been making some inquiries as to his social status, in order to feel him justified in putting him on this footing of equality. he had no hesitation in accepting the invitation, and on the appointed day was received in the old house of his forefathers as a guest. the owner met him, not quite on the frank and friendly footing expressed in his note, but still with a perfect and polished courtesy, which however could not hide from the sensitive middleton a certain coldness, a something that seemed to him italian rather than english; a symbol of a condition of things between them, undecided, suspicious, doubtful very likely. middleton's own manner corresponded to that of his host, and they made few advances towards more intimate acquaintance. middleton was however recompensed for his host's unapproachableness by the society of his daughter, a young lady born indeed in italy, but who had been educated in a catholic family in england; so that here was another relation--the first female one--to whom he had been introduced. she was a quiet, shy, undemonstrative young woman, with a fine bloom and other charms which she kept as much in the background as possible, with maiden reserve. (there is a catholic priest at table.) mr. eldredge talked chiefly, during dinner, of art, with which his long residence in italy had made him thoroughly acquainted, and for which he seemed to have a genuine taste and enjoyment. it was a subject on which middleton knew little; but he felt the interest in it which appears to be not uncharacteristic of americans, among the earliest of their developments of cultivation; nor had he failed to use such few opportunities as the english public or private galleries offered him to acquire the rudiments of a taste. he was surprised at the depth of some of mr. eldredge's remarks on the topics thus brought up, and at the sensibility which appeared to be disclosed by his delicate appreciation of some of the excellences of those great masters who wrote their epics, their tender sonnets, or their simple ballads, upon canvas; and middleton conceived a respect for him which he had not hitherto felt, and which possibly mr. eldredge did not quite deserve. taste seems to be a department of moral sense; and yet it is so little identical with it, and so little implies conscience, that some of the worst men in the world have been the most refined. after miss eldredge had retired, the host appeared to desire to make the dinner a little more social than it had hitherto been; he called for a peculiar species of wine from southern italy, which he said was the most delicious production of the grape, and had very seldom, if ever before been imported pure into england. a delicious perfume came from the cradled bottle, and bore an ethereal, evanescent testimony to the truth of what he said: and the taste, though too delicate for wine quaffed in england, was nevertheless delicious, when minutely dwelt upon. "it gives me pleasure to drink your health, mr. middleton," said the host. "we might well meet as friends in england, for i am hardly more an englishman than yourself; bred up, as i have been, in italy, and coming back hither at my age, unaccustomed to the manners of the country, with few friends, and insulated from society by a faith which makes most people regard me as an enemy. i seldom welcome people here, mr. middleton; but you are welcome." "i thank you, mr. eldredge, and may fairly say that the circumstances to which you allude make me accept your hospitality with a warmer feeling than i otherwise might. strangers, meeting in a strange land, have a sort of tie in their foreignness to those around them, though there be no positive relation between themselves." "we are friends, then?" said mr. eldredge, looking keenly at middleton, as if to discover exactly how much was meant by the compact. he continued, "you know, i suppose, mr. middleton, the situation in which i find myself on returning to my hereditary estate, which has devolved to me somewhat unexpectedly by the death of a younger man than myself. there is an old flaw here, as perhaps you have been told, which keeps me out of a property long kept in the guardianship of the crown, and of a barony, one of the oldest in england. there is an idea--a tradition--a legend, founded, however, on evidence of some weight, that there is still in existence the possibility of finding the proof which we need, to confirm our cause." "i am most happy to hear it, mr. eldredge," said middleton. "but," continued his host, "i am bound to remember and to consider that for several generations there seems to have been the same idea, and the same expectation; whereas nothing has ever come of it. now, among other suppositions--perhaps wild ones--it has occurred to me that this testimony, the desirable proof, may exist on your side of the atlantic; for it has long enough been sought here in vain." "as i said in our meeting in your park, mr. eldredge," replied middleton, "such a suggestion may very possibly be true; yet let me point out that the long lapse of years, and the continual melting and dissolving of family institutions--the consequent scattering of family documents, and the annihilation of traditions from memory, all conspire against its probability." "and yet, mr. middleton," said his host, "when we talked together at our first singular interview, you made use of an expression--of one remarkable phrase--which dwelt upon my memory and now recurs to it." "and what was that, mr. eldredge?" asked middleton. "you spoke," replied his host, "of the bloody footstep reappearing on the threshold of the old palace of s------. now where, let me ask you, did you ever hear this strange name, which you then spoke, and which i have since spoken?" "from my father's lips, when a child, in america," responded middleton. "it is very strange," said mr. eldredge, in a hasty, dissatisfied tone. "i do not see my way through this." _may , sunday._--middleton had been put into a chamber in the oldest part of the house, the furniture of which was of antique splendor, well befitting to have come down for ages, well befitting the hospitality shown to noble and even royal guests. it was the same room in which, at his first visit to the house, middleton's attention had been drawn to the cabinet, which he had subsequently remembered as the palatial residence in which he had harbored so many dreams. it still stood in the chamber, making the principal object in it, indeed; and when middleton was left alone, he contemplated it not without a certain awe, which at the same time he felt to be ridiculous. he advanced towards it, and stood contemplating the mimic façade, wondering at the singular fact of this piece of furniture having been preserved in traditionary history, when so much had been forgotten,--when even the features and architectural characteristics of the mansion in which it was merely a piece of furniture had been forgotten. and, as he gazed at it, he half thought himself an actor in a fairy portal [tale?]; and would not have been surprised--at least, he would have taken it with the composure of a dream--if the mimic portal had unclosed, and a form of pigmy majesty had appeared within, beckoning him to enter and find the revelation of what had so long perplexed him. the key of the cabinet was in the lock, and knowing that it was not now the receptacle of anything in the shape of family papers, he threw it open; and there appeared the mosaic floor, the representation of a stately, pillared hall, with the doors on either side, opening, as would seem, into various apartments. and here should have stood the visionary figures of his ancestry, waiting to welcome the descendant of their race, who had so long delayed his coming. after looking and musing a considerable time,--even till the old clock from the turret of the house told twelve, he turned away with a sigh, and went to bed. the wind moaned through the ancestral trees; the old house creaked as with ghostly footsteps; the curtains of his bed seemed to waver. he was now at home; yes, he had found his home, and was sheltered at last under the ancestral roof after all those long, long wanderings,--after the little log-built hut of the early settlement, after the straight roof of the american house, after all the many roofs of two hundred years, here he was at last under the one which he had left, on that fatal night, when the bloody footstep was so mysteriously impressed on the threshold. as he drew nearer and nearer towards sleep, it seemed more and more to him as if he were the very individual--the self-same one throughout the whole--who had done, seen, suffered, all these long toils and vicissitudes, and were now come back to rest, and found his weariness so great that there could be no rest. nevertheless, he did sleep; and it may be that his dreams went on, and grew vivid, and perhaps became truer in proportion to their vividness. when he awoke he had a perception, an intuition, that he had been dreaming about the cabinet, which, in his sleeping imagination, had again assumed the magnitude and proportions of a stately mansion, even as he had seen it afar from the other side of the atlantic. some dim associations remained lingering behind, the dying shadows of very vivid ones which had just filled his mind; but as he looked at the cabinet, there was some idea that still seemed to come so near his consciousness that, every moment, he felt on the point of grasping it. during the process of dressing, he still kept his eyes turned involuntarily towards the cabinet, and at last he approached it, and looked within the mimic portal, still endeavoring to recollect what it was that he had heard or dreamed about it,--what half obliterated remembrance from childhood, what fragmentary last night's dream it was, that thus haunted him. it must have been some association of one or the other nature that led him to press his finger on one particular square of the mosaic pavement; and as he did so, the thin plate of polished marble slipt aside. it disclosed, indeed, no hollow receptacle, but only another leaf of marble, in the midst of which appeared to be a key-hole: to this middleton applied the little antique key to which we have several times alluded, and found it fit precisely. the instant it was turned, the whole mimic floor of the hall rose, by the action of a secret spring, and discovered a shallow recess beneath. middleton looked eagerly in, and saw that it contained documents, with antique seals of wax appended; he took but one glance at them, and closed the receptacle as it was before. why did he do so? he felt that there would be a meanness and wrong in inspecting these family papers, coming to the knowledge of them, as he had, through the opportunities offered by the hospitality of the owner of the estate; nor, on the other hand, did he feel such confidence in his host, as to make him willing to trust these papers in his hands, with any certainty that they would be put to an honorable use. the case was one demanding consideration, and he put a strong curb upon his impatient curiosity, conscious that, at all events, his first impulsive feeling was that he ought not to examine these papers without the presence of his host or some other authorized witness. had he exercised any casuistry about the point, however, he might have argued that these papers, according to all appearance, dated from a period to which his own hereditary claims ascended, and to circumstances in which his own rightful interest was as strong as that of mr. eldredge. but he had acted on his first impulse, closed the secret receptacle, and hastening his toilet descended from his room; and, it being still too early for breakfast, resolved to ramble about the immediate vicinity of the house. as he passed the little chapel, he heard within the voice of the priest performing mass, and felt how strange was this sign of mediaeval religion and foreign manners in homely england. as the story looks now: eldredge, bred, and perhaps born, in italy, and a catholic, with views to the church before he inherited the estate, has not the english moral sense and simple honor; can scarcely be called an englishman at all. dark suspicions of past crime, and of the possibility of future crime, may be thrown around him; an atmosphere of doubt shall envelop him, though, as regards manners, he may be highly refined. middleton shall find in the house a priest; and at his first visit he shall have seen a small chapel, adorned with the richness, as to marbles, pictures, and frescoes, of those that we see in the churches at rome; and here the catholic forms of worship shall be kept up. eldredge shall have had an italian mother, and shall have the personal characteristics of an italian. there shall be something sinister about him, the more apparent when middleton's visit draws to a conclusion; and the latter shall feel convinced that they part in enmity, so far as eldredge is concerned. he shall not speak of his discovery in the cabinet. _may th, monday_.--unquestionably, the appointment of middleton as minister to one of the minor continental courts must take place in the interval between eldredge's meeting him in the park, and his inviting him to his house. after middleton's appointment, the two encounter each other at the mayor's dinner in st. mary's hall, and eldredge, startled at meeting the vagrant, as he deemed him, under such a character, remembers the hints of some secret knowledge of the family history, which middleton had thrown out. he endeavors, both in person and by the priest, to make out what middleton really is, and what he knows, and what he intends; but middleton is on his guard, yet cannot help arousing eldredge's suspicions that he has views upon the estate and title. it is possible, too, that middleton may have come to the knowledge--may have had some knowledge--of some shameful or criminal fact connected with mr. eldredge's life on the continent; the old hospitaller, possibly, may have told him this, from some secret malignity hereafter to be accounted for. supposing eldredge to attempt his murder, by poison for instance, bringing back into modern life his old hereditary italian plots; and into english life a sort of crime which does not belong to it,--which did not, at least, although at this very period there have been fresh and numerous instances of it. there might be a scene in which middleton and eldredge come to a fierce and bitter explanation; for in eldredge's character there must be the english surly boldness as well as the italian subtlety; and here, middleton shall tell him what he knows of his past character and life, and also what he knows of his own hereditary claims. eldredge might have committed a murder in italy; might have been a patriot, and betrayed his friends to death for a bribe, bearing another name than his own in italy; indeed, he might have joined them only as an informer. all this he had tried to sink, when he came to england in the character of a gentleman of ancient name and large estate. but this infamy of his previous character must be foreboded from the first by the manner in which eldredge is introduced; and it must make his evil designs on middleton appear natural and probable. it may be, that middleton has learned eldredge's previous character, through some italian patriot who had taken refuge in america, and there become intimate with him; and it should be a piece of secret history, not known to the world in general, so that middleton might seem to eldredge the sole depositary of the secret then in england. he feels a necessity of getting rid of him; and thenceforth middleton's path lies always among pitfalls; indeed, the first attempt should follow promptly and immediately on his rupture with eldredge. the utmost pains must be taken with this incident to give it an air of reality; or else it must be quite removed out of the sphere of reality by an intensified atmosphere of romance. i think the old hospitaller must interfere to prevent the success of this attempt, perhaps through the means of alice. the result of eldredge's criminal and treacherous designs is, somehow or other, that he comes to his death; and middleton and alice are left to administer on the remains of the story; perhaps, the mayor being his friend, he may be brought into play here. the foreign ecclesiastic shall likewise come forward, and he shall prove to be a man of subtile policy perhaps, yet a man of religion and honor; with a jesuit's principles, but a jesuit's devotion and self-sacrifice. the old hospitaller must die in his bed, or some other how; or perhaps not--we shall see. he may just as well be left in the hospital. eldredge's attempt on middleton must be in some way peculiar to italy, and which he shall have learned there; and, by the way, at his dinner-table there shall be a venice glass, one of the kind that were supposed to be shattered when poison was put into them. when eldredge produces his rare wine, he shall pour it into this, with a jesting allusion to the legend. perhaps the mode of eldredge's attempt on middleton's life shall be a reproduction of the attempt made two hundred years before; and middleton's knowledge of that incident shall be the means of his salvation. that would be a good idea; in fact, i think it must be done so and no otherwise. it is not to be forgotten that there is a taint of insanity in eldredge's blood, accounting for much that is wild and absurd, at the same time that it must be subtile, in his conduct; one of those perplexing mad people, whose lunacy you are continually mistaking for wickedness or _vice versa_. this shall be the priest's explanation and apology for him, after his death. i wish i could get hold of the newgate calendar, the older volumes, or any other book of murders--the causes celébrès, for instance. the legendary murder, or attempt at it, will bring its own imaginative probability with it, when repeated by eldredge; and at the same time it will have a dreamlike effect; so that middleton shall hardly know whether he is awake or not. this incident is very essential towards bringing together the past time and the present, and the two ends of the story. _may th, tuesday._--all down through the ages since edward had disappeared from home, leaving that bloody footstep on the threshold, there had been legends and strange stories of the murder and the manner of it. these legends differed very much among themselves. according to some, his brother had awaited him there, and stabbed him on the threshold. according to others, he had been murdered in his chamber, and dragged out. a third story told, that he was escaping with his lady love, when they were overtaken on the threshold, and the young man slain. it was impossible at this distance of time to ascertain which of these legends was the true one, or whether either of them had any portion of truth, further than that the young man had actually disappeared from that night, and that it never was certainly known to the public that any intelligence had ever afterwards been received from him. now, middleton may have communicated to eldredge the truth in regard to the matter; as, for instance, that he had stabbed him with a certain dagger that was still kept among the curiosities of the manor-house. of course, that will not do. it must be some very ingenious and artificially natural thing, an artistic affair in its way, that should strike the fancy of such a man as eldredge, and appear to him altogether fit, mutatis mutandis, to be applied to his own requirements and purposes. i do not at present see in the least how this is to be wrought out. there shall be everything to make eldredge look with the utmost horror and alarm at any chance that he may be superseded and ousted from his possession of the estate; for he shall only recently have established his claim to it, tracing out his pedigree, when the family was supposed to be extinct. and he is come to these comfortable quarters after a life of poverty, uncertainty, difficulty, hanging loose on society; and therefore he shall be willing to risk soul and body both, rather than return to his former state. perhaps his daughter shall be introduced as a young italian girl, to whom middleton shall decide to leave the estate. on the failure of his design, eldredge may commit suicide, and be found dead in the wood; at any rate, some suitable end shall be contrived, adapted to his wants. this character must not be so represented as to shut him out completely from the reader's sympathies; he shall have taste, sentiment, even a capacity for affection, nor, i think, ought he to have any hatred or bitter feeling against the man whom he resolves to murder. in the closing scenes, when he thinks the fate of middleton approaching, there might even be a certain tenderness towards him, a desire to make the last drops of life delightful; if well done, this would produce a certain sort of horror, that i do not remember to have seen effected in literature. possibly the ancient emigrant might be supposed to have fallen into an ancient mine, down a precipice, into some pitfall; no, not so. into a river; into a moat. as middleton's pretensions to birth are not publicly known, there will be no reason why, at his sudden death, suspicion should fix on eldredge as the murderer; and it shall be his object so to contrive his death as that it shall appear the result of accident. having failed in effecting middleton's death by this excellent way, he shall perhaps think that he cannot do better than to make his own exit in precisely the same manner. it might be easy, and as delightful as any death could be; no ugliness in it, no blood; for the bloody footstep of old times might be the result of the failure of the old plot, not of its success. poison seems to be the only elegant method; but poison is vulgar, and in many respects unfit for my purpose. it won't do. whatever it may be, it must not come upon the reader as a sudden and new thing, but as one that might have been foreseen from afar, though he shall not actually have foreseen it until it is about to happen. it must be prevented through the agency of alice. alice may have been an artist in rome, and there have known eldredge and his daughter, and thus she may have become their guest in england; or he may be patronizing her now--at all events she shall be the friend of the daughter, and shall have a just appreciation of the father's character. it shall be partly due to her high counsel that middleton foregoes his claim to the estate, and prefers the life of an american, with its lofty possibilities for himself and his race, to the position of an englishman of property and title; and she, for her part, shall choose the condition and prospects of woman in america, to the emptiness of the life of a woman of rank in england. so they shall depart, lofty and poor, out of the home which might be their own, if they would stoop to make it so. possibly the daughter of eldredge may be a girl not yet in her teens, for whom alice has the affection of an elder sister. it should be a very carefully and highly wrought scene, occurring just before eldredge's actual attempt on middleton's life, in which all the brilliancy of his character--which shall before have gleamed upon the reader--shall come out, with pathos, with wit, with insight, with knowledge of life. middleton shall be inspired by this, and shall vie with him in exhilaration of spirits; but the ecclesiastic shall look on with singular attention, and some appearance of alarm; and the suspicion of alice shall likewise be aroused. the old hospitaller may have gained his situation partly by proving himself a man of the neighborhood, by right of descent; so that he, too, shall have a hereditary claim to be in the romance. eldredge's own position as a foreigner in the midst of english home life, insulated and dreary, shall represent to middleton, in some degree, what his own would be, were he to accept the estate. but middleton shall not come to the decision to resign it, without having to repress a deep yearning for that sense of long, long rest in an age-consecrated home, which he had felt so deeply to be the happy lot of englishmen. but this ought to be rejected, as not belonging to his country, nor to the age, nor any longer possible. _may th, wednesday_.--the connection of the old hospitaller with the story is not at all clear. he is an american by birth, but deriving his english origin from the neighborhood of the hospital, where he has finally established himself. some one of his ancestors may have been somehow connected with the ancient portion of the story. he has been a friend of middleton's father, who reposed entire confidence in him, trusting him with all his fortune, which the hospitaller risked in his enormous speculations, and lost it all. his fame had been great in the financial world. there were circumstances that made it dangerous for his whereabouts to be known, and so he had come hither and found refuge in this institution, where middleton finds him, but does not know who he is. in the vacancy of a mind formerly so active, he has taken to the study of local antiquities; and from his former intimacy with middleton's father, he has a knowledge of the american part of the story, which he connects with the english portion, disclosed by his researches here; so that he is quite aware that middleton has claims to the estate, which might be urged successfully against the present possessor. he is kindly disposed towards the son of his friend, whom he had so greatly injured; but he is now very old, and----. middleton has been directed to this old man by a friend in america, as one likely to afford him all possible assistance in his researches; and so he seeks him out and forms an acquaintance with him, which the old man encourages to a certain extent, taking an evident interest in him, but does not disclose himself; nor does middleton suspect him to be an american. the characteristic life of the hospital is brought out, and the individual character of this old man, vegetating here after an active career, melancholy and miserable; sometimes torpid with the slow approach of utmost age; sometimes feeble, peevish, wavering; sometimes shining out with a wisdom resulting from originally bright faculties, ripened by experience. the character must not be allowed to get vague, but, with gleams of romance, must yet be kept homely and natural by little touches of his daily life. as for alice, i see no necessity for her being anywise related to or connected with the old hospitaller. as originally conceived, i think she may be an artist--a sculptress--whom eldredge had known in rome. no; she might be a granddaughter of the old hospitaller, born and bred in america, but who had resided two or three years in rome in the study of her art, and have there acquired a knowledge of the eldredges and have become fond of the little italian girl his daughter. she has lodgings in the village, and of course is often at the hospital, and often at the hall; she makes busts and little statues, and is free, wild, tender, proud, domestic, strange, natural, artistic; and has at bottom the characteristics of the american woman, with the principles of the strong-minded sect; and middleton shall be continually puzzled at meeting such a phenomenon in england. by and by, the internal influence [evidence?] of her sentiments (though there shall be nothing to confirm it in her manner) shall lead him to charge her with being an american. now, as to the arrangement of the romance;--it begins as an integral and essential part, with my introduction, giving a pleasant and familiar summary of my life in the consulate at liverpool; the strange species of americans, with strange purposes, in england, whom i used to meet there; and, especially, how my countrymen used to be put out of their senses by the idea of inheritances of english property. then i shall particularly instance one gentleman who called on me on first coming over; a description of him must be given, with touches that shall puzzle the reader to decide whether it is not an actual portrait. and then this romance shall be offered, half seriously, as the account of the fortunes that he met with in his search for his hereditary home. enough of his ancestral story may be given to explain what is to follow in the romance; or perhaps this may be left to the scenes of his intercourse with the old hospitaller. the romance proper opens with middleton's arrival at what he has reason to think is the neighborhood of his ancestral home, and here he makes application to the old hospitaller. middleton shall be described as approaching the hospital, which shall be pretty literally copied after leicester's, although the surrounding village must be on a much smaller scale of course. much elaborateness may be given to this portion of the book. middleton shall have assumed a plain dress, and shall seek to make no acquaintances except that of the old hospitaller; the acquaintance of alice naturally following. the old hospitaller and he go together to the old hall, where, as they pass through the rooms, they find that the proprietor is flitting like a ghost before them from chamber to chamber; they catch his reflection in a glass, &c., &c. when these have been wrought up sufficiently, shall come the scene in the wood, where eldredge is seen yielding to the superstition that he has inherited, respecting the old secret of the family, on the discovery of which depends the enforcement of his claim to a title. all this while, middleton has appeared in the character of a man of no note; and now, through some political change, not necessarily told, he receives a packet addressed to him as an ambassador, and containing a notice of his appointment to that dignity. a paragraph in the "times" confirms the fact, and makes it known in the neighborhood. middleton immediately becomes an object of attention; the gentry call upon him; the mayor of the neighboring county-town invites him to dinner, which shall be described with all its antique formalities. here he meets eldredge, who is surprised, remembering the encounter in the wood; but passes it all off, like a man of the world, makes his acquaintance, and invites him to the hall. perhaps he may make a visit of some time here, and become intimate, to a certain degree, with all parties; and here things shall ripen themselves for eldredge's attempt upon his life. proofreading team. twice-told tales. by nathaniel hawthorne. philadelphia: david mckay, publisher, south ninth street. . contents. page the gray champion sunday at home the wedding-knell the minister's black veil the maypole of merry mount the gentle boy mr. higginbotham's catastrophe little annie's ramble wakefield a rill from the town pump the great carbuncle the prophetic pictures david swan sights from a steeple the hollow of the three hills the toll-gatherer's day the vision of the fountain fancy's show-box dr. heidegger's experiment legends of the province house: i.--howe's masquerade ii.--edward randolph's portrait iii.--lady eleanore's mantle iv.--old esther dudley the haunted mind the village uncle the ambitious guest the sister-years snowflakes the seven vagabonds the white old maid peter goldthwaite's treasure chippings with a chisel the shaker bridal night-sketches endicott and the red cross the lily's quest footprints on the seashore edward fane's rosebud the threefold destiny twice-told tales. the gray champion. there was once a time when new england groaned under the actual pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on the revolution. james ii., the bigoted successor of charles the voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our liberties and endanger our religion. the administration of sir edmund andros lacked scarcely a single characteristic of tyranny--a governor and council holding office from the king and wholly independent of the country; laws made and taxes levied without concurrence of the people, immediate or by their representatives; the rights of private citizens violated and the titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint stifled by restrictions on the press; and finally, disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil. for two years our ancestors were kept in sullen submission by that filial love which had invariably secured their allegiance to the mother-country, whether its head chanced to be a parliament, protector or popish monarch. till these evil times, however, such allegiance had been merely nominal, and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying far more freedom than is even yet the privilege of the native subjects of great britain. at length a rumor reached our shores that the prince of orange had ventured on an enterprise the success of which would be the triumph of civil and religious rights and the salvation of new england. it was but a doubtful whisper; it might be false or the attempt might fail, and in either case the man that stirred against king james would lose his head. still, the intelligence produced a marked effect. the people smiled mysteriously in the streets and threw bold glances at their oppressors, while far and wide there was a subdued and silent agitation, as if the slightest signal would rouse the whole land from its sluggish despondency. aware of their danger, the rulers resolved to avert it by an imposing display of strength, and perhaps to confirm their despotism by yet harsher measures. one afternoon in april, , sir edmund andros and his favorite councillors, being warm with wine, assembled the red-coats of the governor's guard and made their appearance in the streets of boston. the sun was near setting when the march commenced. the roll of the drum at that unquiet crisis seemed to go through the streets less as the martial music of the soldiers than as a muster-call to the inhabitants themselves. a multitude by various avenues assembled in king street, which was destined to be the scene, nearly a century afterward, of another encounter between the troops of britain and a people struggling against her tyranny. though more than sixty years had elapsed since the pilgrims came, this crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and sombre features of their character perhaps more strikingly in such a stern emergency than on happier occasions. there was the sober garb, the general severity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed expression, the scriptural forms of speech and the confidence in heaven's blessing on a righteous cause which would have marked a band of the original puritans when threatened by some peril of the wilderness. indeed, it was not yet time for the old spirit to be extinct, since there were men in the street that day who had worshipped there beneath the trees before a house was reared to the god for whom they had become exiles. old soldiers of the parliament were here, too, smiling grimly at the thought that their aged arms might strike another blow against the house of stuart. here, also, were the veterans of king philip's war, who had burned villages and slaughtered young and old with pious fierceness while the godly souls throughout the land were helping them with prayer. several ministers were scattered among the crowd, which, unlike all other mobs, regarded them with such reverence as if there were sanctity in their very garments. these holy men exerted their influence to quiet the people, but not to disperse them. meantime, the purpose of the governor in disturbing the peace of the town at a period when the slightest commotion might throw the country into a ferment was almost the universal subject of inquiry, and variously explained. "satan will strike his master-stroke presently," cried some, "because he knoweth that his time is short. all our godly pastors are to be dragged to prison. we shall see them at a smithfield fire in king street." hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their minister, who looked calmly upward and assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his profession--a crown of martyrdom. it was actually fancied at that period that new england might have a john rogers of her own to take the place of that worthy in the _primer_. "the pope of rome has given orders for a new st. bartholomew," cried others. "we are to be massacred, man and male-child." neither was this rumor wholly discredited; although the wiser class believed the governor's object somewhat less atrocious. his predecessor under the old charter, bradstreet, a venerable companion of the first settlers, was known to be in town. there were grounds for conjecturing that sir edmund andros intended at once to strike terror by a parade of military force and to confound the opposite faction by possessing himself of their chief. "stand firm for the old charter-governor!" shouted the crowd, seizing upon the idea--"the good old governor bradstreet!" while this cry was at the loudest the people were surprised by the well-known figure of governor bradstreet himself, a patriarch of nearly ninety, who appeared on the elevated steps of a door and with characteristic mildness besought them to submit to the constituted authorities. "my children," concluded this venerable person, "do nothing rashly. cry not aloud, but pray for the welfare of new england and expect patiently what the lord will do in this matter." the event was soon to be decided. all this time the roll of the drum had been approaching through cornhill, louder and deeper, till with reverberations from house to house and the regular tramp of martial footsteps it burst into the street. a double rank of soldiers made their appearance, occupying the whole breadth of the passage, with shouldered matchlocks and matches burning, so as to present a row of fires in the dusk. their steady march was like the progress of a machine that would roll irresistibly over everything in its way. next, moving slowly, with a confused clatter of hoofs on the pavement, rode a party of mounted gentlemen, the central figure being sir edmund andros, elderly, but erect and soldier-like. those around him were his favorite councillors and the bitterest foes of new england. at his right hand rode edward randolph, our arch-enemy, that "blasted wretch," as cotton mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient government and was followed with a sensible curse-through life and to his grave. on the other side was bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along. dudley came behind with a downcast look, dreading, as well he might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him, their only countryman by birth, among the oppressors of his native land. the captain of a frigate in the harbor and two or three civil officers under the crown were also there. but the figure which most attracted the public eye and stirred up the deepest feeling was the episcopal clergyman of king's chapel riding haughtily among the magistrates in his priestly vestments, the fitting representative of prelacy and persecution, the union of church and state, and all those abominations which had driven the puritans to the wilderness. another guard of soldiers, in double rank, brought up the rear. the whole scene was a picture of the condition of new england, and its moral, the deformity of any government that does not grow out of the nature of things and the character of the people--on one side the religious multitude with their sad visages and dark attire, and on the other the group of despotic rulers with the high churchman in the midst and here and there a crucifix at their bosoms, all magnificently clad, flushed with wine, proud of unjust authority and scoffing at the universal groan. and the mercenary soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street with blood, showed the only means by which obedience could be secured. "o lord of hosts," cried a voice among the crowd, "provide a champion for thy people!" this ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald's cry to introduce a remarkable personage. the crowd had rolled back, and were now huddled together nearly at the extremity of the street, while the soldiers had advanced no more than a third of its length. the intervening space was empty--a paved solitude between lofty edifices which threw almost a twilight shadow over it. suddenly there was seen the figure of an ancient man who seemed to have emerged from among the people and was walking by himself along the centre of the street to confront the armed band. he wore the old puritan dress--a dark cloak and a steeple-crowned hat in the fashion of at least fifty years before, with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist the tremulous gait of age. when at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned slowly round, displaying a face of antique majesty rendered doubly venerable by the hoary beard that descended on his breast. he made a gesture at once of encouragement and warning, then turned again and resumed his way. "who is this gray patriarch?" asked the young men of their sires. "who is this venerable brother?" asked the old men among themselves. but none could make reply. the fathers of the people, those of fourscore years and upward, were disturbed, deeming it strange that they should forget one of such evident authority whom they must have known in their early days, the associate of winthrop and all the old councillors, giving laws and making prayers and leading them against the savage. the elderly men ought to have remembered him, too, with locks as gray in their youth as their own were now. and the young! how could he have passed so utterly from their memories--that hoary sire, the relic of long-departed times, whose awful benediction had surely been bestowed on their uncovered heads in childhood? "whence did he come? what is his purpose? who can this old man be?" whispered the wondering crowd. meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing his solitary walk along the centre of the street. as he drew near the advancing soldiers, and as the roll of their drum came full upon his ear, the old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the decrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders, leaving him in gray but unbroken dignity. now he marched onward with a warrior's step, keeping time to the military music. thus the aged form advanced on one side and the whole parade of soldiers and magistrates on the other, till, when scarcely twenty yards remained between, the old man grasped his staff by the middle and held it before him like a leader's truncheon. "stand!" cried he. the eye, the face and attitude of command, the solemn yet warlike peal of that voice--fit either to rule a host in the battle-field or be raised to god in prayer--were irresistible. at the old man's word and outstretched arm the roll of the drum was hushed at once and the advancing line stood still. a tremulous enthusiasm seized upon the multitude. that stately form, combining the leader and the saint, so gray, so dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could only belong to some old champion of the righteous cause whom the oppressor's drum had summoned from his grave. they raised a shout of awe and exultation, and looked for the deliverance of new england. the governor and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the hoary apparition. he, however, blenched not a step, but, glancing his severe eye round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on sir edmund andros. one would have thought that the dark old man was chief ruler there, and that the governor and council with soldiers at their back, representing the whole power and authority of the crown, had no alternative but obedience. "what does this old fellow here?" cried edward randolph, fiercely.--"on, sir edmund! bid the soldiers forward, and give the dotard the same choice that you give all his countrymen--to stand aside or be trampled on." "nay, nay! let us show respect to the good grandsire," said bullivant, laughing. "see you not he is some old round-headed dignitary who hath lain asleep these thirty years and knows nothing of the change of times? doubtless he thinks to put us down with a proclamation in old noll's name." "are you mad, old man?" demanded sir edmund andros, in loud and harsh tones. "how dare you stay the march of king james's governor?" "i have stayed the march of a king himself ere now," replied the gray figure, with stern composure. "i am here, sir governor, because the cry of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place, and, beseeching this favor earnestly of the lord, it was vouchsafed me to appear once again on earth in the good old cause of his saints. and what speak ye of james? there is no longer a popish tyrant on the throne of england, and by to-morrow noon his name shall be a by-word in this very street, where ye would make it a word of terror. back, thou that wast a governor, back! with this night thy power is ended. to-morrow, the prison! back, lest i foretell the scaffold!" the people had been drawing nearer and nearer and drinking in the words of their champion, who spoke in accents long disused, like one unaccustomed to converse except with the dead of many years ago. but his voice stirred their souls. they confronted the soldiers, not wholly without arms and ready to convert the very stones of the street into deadly weapons. sir edmund andros looked at the old man; then he cast his hard and cruel eye over the multitude and beheld them burning with that lurid wrath so difficult to kindle or to quench, and again he fixed his gaze on the aged form which stood obscurely in an open space where neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. what were his thoughts he uttered no word which might discover, but, whether the oppressor were overawed by the gray champion's look or perceived his peril in the threatening attitude of the people, it is certain that he gave back and ordered his soldiers to commence a slow and guarded retreat. before another sunset the governor and all that rode so proudly with him were prisoners, and long ere it was known that james had abdicated king william was proclaimed throughout new england. but where was the gray champion? some reported that when the troops had gone from king street and the people were thronging tumultuously in their rear, bradstreet, the aged governor, was seen to embrace a form more aged than his own. others soberly affirmed that while they marvelled at the venerable grandeur of his aspect the old man had faded from their eyes, melting slowly into the hues of twilight, till where he stood there was an empty space. but all agreed that the hoary shape was gone. the men of that generation watched for his reappearance in sunshine and in twilight, but never saw him more, nor knew when his funeral passed nor where his gravestone was. and who was the gray champion? perhaps his name might be found in the records of that stern court of justice which passed a sentence too mighty for the age, but glorious in all after-times for its humbling lesson to the monarch and its high example to the subject. i have heard that whenever the descendants of the puritans are to show the spirit of their sires the old man appears again. when eighty years had passed, he walked once more in king street. five years later, in the twilight of an april morning, he stood on the green beside the meeting-house at lexington where now the obelisk of granite with a slab of slate inlaid commemorates the first-fallen of the revolution. and when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on bunker's hill, all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds. long, long may it be ere he comes again! his hour is one of darkness and adversity and peril. but should domestic tyranny oppress us or the invader's step pollute our soil, still may the gray champion come! for he is the type of new england's hereditary spirit, and his shadowy march on the eve of danger must ever be the pledge that new england's sons will vindicate their ancestry. sunday at home. every sabbath morning in the summer-time i thrust back the curtain to watch the sunrise stealing down a steeple which stands opposite my chamber window. first the weathercock begins to flash; then a fainter lustre gives the spire an airy aspect; next it encroaches on the tower and causes the index of the dial to glisten like gold as it points to the gilded figure of the hour. now the loftiest window gleams, and now the lower. the carved framework of the portal is marked strongly out. at length the morning glory in its descent from heaven comes down the stone steps one by one, and there stands the steeple glowing with fresh radiance, while the shades of twilight still hide themselves among the nooks of the adjacent buildings. methinks though the same sun brightens it every fair morning, yet the steeple has a peculiar robe of brightness for the sabbath. by dwelling near a church a person soon contracts an attachment for the edifice. we naturally personify it, and conceive its massy walls and its dim emptiness to be instinct with a calm and meditative and somewhat melancholy spirit. but the steeple stands foremost in our thoughts, as well as locally. it impresses us as a giant with a mind comprehensive and discriminating enough to care for the great and small concerns of all the town. hourly, while it speaks a moral to the few that think, it reminds thousands of busy individuals of their separate and most secret affairs. it is the steeple, too, that flings abroad the hurried and irregular accents of general alarm; neither have gladness and festivity found a better utterance than by its tongue; and when the dead are slowly passing to their home, the steeple has a melancholy voice to bid them welcome. yet, in spite of this connection with human interests, what a moral loneliness on week-days broods round about its stately height! it has no kindred with the houses above which it towers; it looks down into the narrow thoroughfare--the lonelier because the crowd are elbowing their passage at its base. a glance at the body of the church deepens this impression. within, by the light of distant windows, amid refracted shadows we discern the vacant pews and empty galleries, the silent organ, the voiceless pulpit and the clock which tells to solitude how time is passing. time--where man lives not--what is it but eternity? and in the church, we might suppose, are garnered up throughout the week all thoughts and feelings that have reference to eternity, until the holy day comes round again to let them forth. might not, then, its more appropriate site be in the outskirts of the town, with space for old trees to wave around it and throw their solemn shadows over a quiet green? we will say more of this hereafter. but on the sabbath i watch the earliest sunshine and fancy that a holier brightness marks the day when there shall be no buzz of voices on the exchange nor traffic in the shops, nor crowd nor business anywhere but at church. many have fancied so. for my own part, whether i see it scattered down among tangled woods, or beaming broad across the fields, or hemmed in between brick buildings, or tracing out the figure of the casement on my chamber floor, still i recognize the sabbath sunshine. and ever let me recognize it! some illusions--and this among them--are the shadows of great truths. doubts may flit around me or seem to close their evil wings and settle down, but so long as i imagine that the earth is hallowed and the light of heaven retains its sanctity on the sabbath--while that blessed sunshine lives within me--never can my soul have lost the instinct of its faith. if it have gone astray, it will return again. i love to spend such pleasant sabbaths from morning till night behind the curtain of my open window. are they spent amiss? every spot so near the church as to be visited by the circling shadow of the steeple should be deemed consecrated ground to-day. with stronger truth be it said that a devout heart may consecrate a den of thieves, as an evil one may convert a temple to the same. my heart, perhaps, has no such holy, nor, i would fain trust, such impious, potency. it must suffice that, though my form be absent, my inner man goes constantly to church, while many whose bodily presence fills the accustomed seats have left their souls at home. but i am there even before my friend the sexton. at length he comes--a man of kindly but sombre aspect, in dark gray clothes, and hair of the same mixture. he comes and applies his key to the wide portal. now my thoughts may go in among the dusty pews or ascend the pulpit without sacrilege, but soon come forth again to enjoy the music of the bell. how glad, yet solemn too! all the steeples in town are talking together aloft in the sunny air and rejoicing among themselves while their spires point heavenward. meantime, here are the children assembling to the sabbath-school, which is kept somewhere within the church. often, while looking at the arched portal, i have been gladdened by the sight of a score of these little girls and boys in pink, blue, yellow and crimson frocks bursting suddenly forth into the sunshine like a swarm of gay butterflies that had been shut up in the solemn gloom. or i might compare them to cherubs haunting that holy place. about a quarter of an hour before the second ringing of the bell individuals of the congregation begin to appear. the earliest is invariably an old woman in black whose bent frame and rounded shoulders are evidently laden with some heavy affliction which she is eager to rest upon the altar. would that the sabbath came twice as often, for the sake of that sorrowful old soul! there is an elderly man, also, who arrives in good season and leans against the corner of the tower, just within the line of its shadow, looking downward with a darksome brow. i sometimes fancy that the old woman is the happier of the two. after these, others drop in singly and by twos and threes, either disappearing through the doorway or taking their stand in its vicinity. at last, and always with an unexpected sensation, the bell turns in the steeple overhead and throws out an irregular clangor, jarring the tower to its foundation. as if there were magic in the sound, the sidewalks of the street, both up and down along, are immediately thronged with two long lines of people, all converging hitherward and streaming into the church. perhaps the far-off roar of a coach draws nearer--a deeper thunder by its contrast with the surrounding stillness--until it sets down the wealthy worshippers at the portal among their humblest brethren. beyond that entrance--in theory, at least--there are no distinctions of earthly rank; nor, indeed, by the goodly apparel which is flaunting in the sun would there seem to be such on the hither side. those pretty girls! why will they disturb my pious meditations? of all days in the week, they should strive to look least fascinating on the sabbath, instead of heightening their mortal loveliness, as if to rival the blessed angels and keep our thoughts from heaven. were i the minister himself, i must needs look. one girl is white muslin from the waist upward and black silk downward to her slippers; a second blushes from top-knot to shoe-tie, one universal scarlet; another shines of a pervading yellow, as if she had made a garment of the sunshine. the greater part, however, have adopted a milder cheerfulness of hue. their veils, especially when the wind raises them, give a lightness to the general effect and make them appear like airy phantoms as they flit up the steps and vanish into the sombre doorway. nearly all--though it is very strange that i should know it--wear white stockings, white as snow, and neat slippers laced crosswise with black ribbon pretty high above the ankles. a white stocking is infinitely more effective than a black one. here comes the clergyman, slow and solemn, in severe simplicity, needing no black silk gown to denote his office. his aspect claims my reverence, but cannot win my love. were i to picture saint peter keeping fast the gate of heaven and frowning, more stern than pitiful, on the wretched applicants, that face should be my study. by middle age, or sooner, the creed has generally wrought upon the heart or been attempered by it. as the minister passes into the church the bell holds its iron tongue and all the low murmur of the congregation dies away. the gray sexton looks up and down the street and then at my window-curtain, where through the small peephole i half fancy that he has caught my eye. now every loiterer has gone in and the street lies asleep in the quiet sun, while a feeling of loneliness comes over me, and brings also an uneasy sense of neglected privileges and duties. oh, i ought to have gone to church! the bustle of the rising congregation reaches my ears. they are standing up to pray. could i bring my heart into unison with those who are praying in yonder church and lift it heavenward with a fervor of supplication, but no distinct request, would not that be the safest kind of prayer?--"lord, look down upon me in mercy!" with that sentiment gushing from my soul, might i not leave all the rest to him? hark! the hymn! this, at least, is a portion of the service which i can enjoy better than if i sat within the walls, where the full choir and the massive melody of the organ would fall with a weight upon me. at this distance it thrills through my frame and plays upon my heart-strings with a pleasure both of the sense and spirit. heaven be praised! i know nothing of music as a science, and the most elaborate harmonies, if they please me, please as simply as a nurse's lullaby. the strain has ceased, but prolongs itself in my mind with fanciful echoes till i start from my reverie and find that the sermon has commenced. it is my misfortune seldom to fructify in a regular way by any but printed sermons. the first strong idea which the preacher utters gives birth to a train of thought and leads me onward step by step quite out of hearing of the good man's voice unless he be indeed a son of thunder. at my open window, catching now and then a sentence of the "parson's saw," i am as well situated as at the foot of the pulpit stairs. the broken and scattered fragments of this one discourse will be the texts of many sermons preached by those colleague pastors--colleagues, but often disputants--my mind and heart. the former pretends to be a scholar and perplexes me with doctrinal points; the latter takes me on the score of feeling; and both, like several other preachers, spend their strength to very little purpose. i, their sole auditor, cannot always understand them. suppose that a few hours have passed, and behold me still behind my curtain just before the close of the afternoon service. the hour-hand on the dial has passed beyond four o'clock. the declining sun is hidden behind the steeple and throws its shadow straight across the street; so that my chamber is darkened as with a cloud. around the church door all is solitude, and an impenetrable obscurity beyond the threshold. a commotion is heard. the seats are slammed down and the pew doors thrown back; a multitude of feet are trampling along the unseen aisles, and the congregation bursts suddenly through the portal. foremost scampers a rabble of boys, behind whom moves a dense and dark phalanx of grown men, and lastly a crowd of females with young children and a few scattered husbands. this instantaneous outbreak of life into loneliness is one of the pleasantest scenes of the day. some of the good people are rubbing their eyes, thereby intimating that they have been wrapped, as it were, in a sort of holy trance by the fervor of their devotion. there is a young man, a third-rate coxcomb, whose first care is always to flourish a white handkerchief and brush the seat of a tight pair of black silk pantaloons which shine as if varnished. they must have been made of the stuff called "everlasting," or perhaps of the same piece as christian's garments in the _pilgrim's progress_, for he put them on two summers ago and has not yet worn the gloss off. i have taken a great liking to those black silk pantaloons. but now, with nods and greetings among friends, each matron takes her husband's arm and paces gravely homeward, while the girls also flutter away after arranging sunset walks with their favored bachelors. the sabbath eve is the eve of love. at length the whole congregation is dispersed. no; here, with faces as glossy as black satin, come two sable ladies and a sable gentleman, and close in their rear the minister, who softens his severe visage and bestows a kind word on each. poor souls! to them the most captivating picture of bliss in heaven is "there we shall be white!" all is solitude again. but hark! a broken warbling of voices, and now, attuning its grandeur to their sweetness, a stately peal of the organ. who are the choristers? let me dream that the angels who came down from heaven this blessed morn to blend themselves with the worship of the truly good are playing and singing their farewell to the earth. on the wings of that rich melody they were borne upward. this, gentle reader, is merely a flight of poetry. a few of the singing-men and singing-women had lingered behind their fellows and raised their voices fitfully and blew a careless note upon the organ. yet it lifted my soul higher than all their former strains. they are gone--the sons and daughters of music--and the gray sexton is just closing the portal. for six days more there will be no face of man in the pews and aisles and galleries, nor a voice in the pulpit, nor music in the choir. was it worth while to rear this massive edifice to be a desert in the heart of the town and populous only for a few hours of each seventh day? oh, but the church is a symbol of religion. may its site, which was consecrated on the day when the first tree was felled, be kept holy for ever, a spot of solitude and peace amid the trouble and vanity of our week-day world! there is a moral, and a religion too, even in the silent walls. and may the steeple still point heavenward and be decked with the hallowed sunshine of the sabbath morn! the wedding-knell. there is a certain church, in the city of new york which i have always regarded with peculiar interest on account of a marriage there solemnized under very singular circumstances in my grandmother's girlhood. that venerable lady chanced to be a spectator of the scene, and ever after made it her favorite narrative. whether the edifice now standing on the same site be the identical one to which she referred i am not antiquarian enough to know, nor would it be worth while to correct myself, perhaps, of an agreeable error by reading the date of its erection on the tablet over the door. it is a stately church surrounded by an enclosure of the loveliest green, within which appear urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms of monumental marble, the tributes of private affection or more splendid memorials of historic dust. with such a place, though the tumult of the city rolls beneath its tower, one would be willing to connect some legendary interest. the marriage might be considered as the result of an early engagement, though there had been two intermediate weddings on the lady's part and forty years of celibacy on that of the gentleman. at sixty-five mr. ellenwood was a shy but not quite a secluded man; selfish, like all men who brood over their own hearts, yet manifesting on rare occasions a vein of generous sentiment; a scholar throughout life, though always an indolent one, because his studies had no definite object either of public advantage or personal ambition; a gentleman, high-bred and fastidiously delicate, yet sometimes requiring a considerable relaxation in his behalf of the common rules of society. in truth, there were so many anomalies in his character, and, though shrinking with diseased sensibility from public notice, it had been his fatality so often to become the topic of the day by some wild eccentricity of conduct, that people searched his lineage for a hereditary taint of insanity. but there was no need of this. his caprices had their origin in a mind that lacked the support of an engrossing purpose, and in feelings that preyed upon themselves for want of other food. if he were mad, it was the consequence, and not the cause, of an aimless and abortive life. the widow was as complete a contrast to her third bridegroom in everything but age as can well be conceived. compelled to relinquish her first engagement, she had been united to a man of twice her own years, to whom she became an exemplary wife, and by whose death she was left in possession of a splendid fortune. a southern gentleman considerably younger than herself succeeded to her hand and carried her to charleston, where after many uncomfortable years she found herself again a widow. it would have been singular if any uncommon delicacy of feeling had survived through such a life as mrs. dabney's; it could not but be crushed and killed by her early disappointment, the cold duty of her first marriage, the dislocation of the heart's principles consequent on a second union, and the unkindness of her southern husband, which had inevitably driven her to connect the idea of his death with that of her comfort. to be brief, she was that wisest but unloveliest variety of woman, a philosopher, bearing troubles of the heart with equanimity, dispensing with all that should have been her happiness and making the best of what remained. sage in most matters, the widow was perhaps the more amiable for the one frailty that made her ridiculous. being childless, she could not remain beautiful by proxy in the person of a daughter; she therefore refused to grow old and ugly on any consideration; she struggled with time, and held fast her roses in spite of him, till the venerable thief appeared to have relinquished the spoil as not worth the trouble of acquiring it. the approaching marriage of this woman of the world with such an unworldly man as mr. ellenwood was announced soon after mrs. dabney's return to her native city. superficial observers, and deeper ones, seemed to concur in supposing that the lady must have borne no inactive part in arranging the affair; there were considerations of expediency which she would be far more likely to appreciate than mr. ellenwood, and there was just the specious phantom of sentiment and romance in this late union of two early lovers which sometimes makes a fool of a woman who has lost her true feelings among the accidents of life. all the wonder was how the gentleman, with his lack of worldly wisdom and agonizing consciousness of ridicule, could have been induced to take a measure at once so prudent and so laughable. but while people talked the wedding-day arrived. the ceremony was to be solemnized according to the episcopalian forms and in open church, with a degree of publicity that attracted many spectators, who occupied the front seats of the galleries and the pews near the altar and along the broad aisle. it had been arranged, or possibly it was the custom of the day, that the parties should proceed separately to church. by some accident the bridegroom was a little less punctual than the widow and her bridal attendants, with whose arrival, after this tedious but necessary preface, the action of our tale may be said to commence. the clumsy wheels of several old-fashioned coaches were heard, and the gentlemen and ladies composing the bridal-party came through the church door with the sudden and gladsome effect of a burst of sunshine. the whole group, except the principal figure, was made up of youth and gayety. as they streamed up the broad aisle, while the pews and pillars seemed to brighten on either side, their steps were as buoyant as if they mistook the church for a ball-room and were ready to dance hand in hand to the altar. so brilliant was the spectacle that few took notice of a singular phenomenon that had marked its entrance. at the moment when the bride's foot touched the threshold the bell swung heavily in the tower above her and sent forth its deepest knell. the vibrations died away, and returned with prolonged solemnity as she entered the body of the church. "good heavens! what an omen!" whispered a young lady to her lover. "on my honor," replied the gentleman, "i believe the bell has the good taste to toll of its own accord. what has she to do with weddings? if you, dearest julia, were approaching the altar, the bell would ring out its merriest peal. it has only a funeral-knell for her." the bride and most of her company had been too much occupied with the bustle of entrance to hear the first boding stroke of the bell--or, at least, to reflect on the singularity of such a welcome to the altar. they therefore continued to advance with undiminished gayety. the gorgeous dresses of the time--the crimson velvet coats, the gold-laced hats, the hoop-petticoats, the silk, satin, brocade and embroidery, the buckles, canes and swords, all displayed to the best advantage on persons suited to such finery--made the group appear more like a bright-colored picture than anything real. but by what perversity of taste had the artist represented his principal figure as so wrinkled and decayed, while yet he had decked her out in the brightest splendor of attire, as if the loveliest maiden had suddenly withered into age and become a moral to the beautiful around her? on they went, however, and had glittered along about a third of the aisle, when another stroke of the bell seemed to fill the church with a visible gloom, dimming and obscuring the bright-pageant till it shone forth again as from a mist. this time the party wavered, stopped and huddled closer together, while a slight scream was heard from some of the ladies and a confused whispering among the gentlemen. thus tossing to and fro, they might have been fancifully compared to a splendid bunch of flowers suddenly shaken by a puff of wind which threatened to scatter the leaves of an old brown, withered rose on the same stalk with two dewy buds, such being the emblem of the widow between her fair young bridemaids. but her heroism was admirable. she had started with an irrepressible shudder, as if the stroke of the bell had fallen directly on her heart; then, recovering herself, while her attendants were yet in dismay, she took the lead and paced calmly up the aisle. the bell continued to swing, strike and vibrate with the same doleful regularity as when a corpse is on its way to the tomb. "my young friends here have their nerves a little shaken," said the widow, with a smile, to the clergyman at the altar. "but so many weddings have been ushered in with the merriest peal of the bells, and yet turned out unhappily, that i shall hope for better fortune under such different auspices." "madam," answered the rector, in great perplexity, "this strange occurrence brings to my mind a marriage-sermon of the famous bishop taylor wherein he mingles so many thoughts of mortality and future woe that, to speak somewhat after his own rich style, he seems to hang the bridal-chamber in black and cut the wedding-garment out of a coffin-pall. and it has been the custom of divers nations to infuse something of sadness into their marriage ceremonies, so to keep death in mind while contracting that engagement which is life's chiefest business. thus we may draw a sad but profitable moral from this funeral-knell." but, though the clergyman might have given his moral even a keener point, he did not fail to despatch an attendant to inquire into the mystery and stop those sounds so dismally appropriate to such a marriage. a brief space elapsed, during which the silence was broken only by whispers and a few suppressed titterings among the wedding-party and the spectators, who after the first shock were disposed to draw an ill-natured merriment from the affair. the young have less charity for aged follies than the old for those of youth. the widow's glance was observed to wander for an instant toward a window of the church, as if searching for the time-worn marble that she had dedicated to her first husband; then her eyelids dropped over their faded orbs and her thoughts were drawn irresistibly to another grave. two buried men with a voice at her ear and a cry afar off were calling her to lie down beside them. perhaps, with momentary truth of feeling, she thought how much happier had been her fate if, after years of bliss, the bell were now tolling for her funeral and she were followed to the grave by the old affection of her earliest lover, long her husband. but why had she returned to him when their cold hearts shrank from each other's embrace? still the death-bell tolled so mournfully that the sunshine seemed to fade in the air. a whisper, communicated from those who stood nearest the windows, now spread through the church: a hearse with a train of several coaches was creeping along the street, conveying some dead man to the churchyard, while the bride awaited a living one at the altar. immediately after, the footsteps of the bridegroom and his friends were heard at the door. the widow looked down the aisle and clenched the arm of one of her bridemaids in her bony hand with such unconscious violence that the fair girl trembled. "you frighten me, my dear madam," cried she. "for heaven's sake, what is the matter?" "nothing, my dear--nothing," said the widow; then, whispering close to her ear, "there is a foolish fancy that i cannot get rid of. i am expecting my bridegroom to come into the church with my two first husbands for groomsmen." "look! look!" screamed the bridemaid. "what is here? the funeral!" as she spoke a dark procession paced into the church. first came an old man and woman, like chief mourners at a funeral, attired from head to foot in the deepest black, all but their pale features and hoary hair, he leaning on a staff and supporting her decrepit form with his nerveless arm. behind appeared another and another pair, as aged, as black and mournful as the first. as they drew near the widow recognized in every face some trait of former friends long forgotten, but now returning as if from their old graves to warn her to prepare a shroud, or, with purpose almost as unwelcome, to exhibit their wrinkles and infirmity and claim her as their companion by the tokens of her own decay. many a merry night had she danced with them in youth, and now in joyless age she felt that some withered partner should request her hand and all unite in a dance of death to the music of the funeral-bell. while these aged mourners were passing up the aisle it was observed that from pew to pew the spectators shuddered with irrepressible awe as some object hitherto concealed by the intervening figures came full in sight. many turned away their faces; others kept a fixed and rigid stare, and a young girl giggled hysterically and fainted with the laughter on her lips. when the spectral procession approached the altar, each couple separated and slowly diverged, till in the centre appeared a form that had been worthily ushered in with all this gloomy pomp, the death-knell and the funeral. it was the bridegroom in his shroud. no garb but that of the grave could have befitted such a death-like aspect. the eyes, indeed, had the wild gleam of a sepulchral lamp; all else was fixed in the stern calmness which old men wear in the coffin. the corpse stood motionless, but addressed the widow in accents that seemed to melt into the clang of the bell, which fell heavily on the air while he spoke. "come, my bride!" said those pale lips. "the hearse is ready; the sexton stands waiting for us at the door of the tomb. let us be married, and then to our coffins!" how shall the widow's horror be represented? it gave her the ghastliness of a dead man's bride. her youthful friends stood apart, shuddering at the mourners, the shrouded bridegroom and herself; the whole scene expressed by the strongest imagery the vain struggle of the gilded vanities of this world when opposed to age, infirmity, sorrow and death. the awestruck silence was first broken by the clergyman. "mr. ellenwood," said he, soothingly, yet with somewhat of authority, "you are not well. your mind has been agitated by the unusual circumstances in which you are placed. the ceremony must be deferred. as an old friend, let me entreat you to return home." "home--yes; but not without my bride," answered he, in the same hollow accents. "you deem this mockery--perhaps madness. had i bedizened my aged and broken frame with scarlet and embroidery, had i forced my withered lips to smile at my dead heart, that might have been mockery or madness; but now let young and old declare which of us has come hither without a wedding-garment--the bridegroom or the bride." he stepped forward at a ghostly pace and stood beside the widow, contrasting the awful simplicity of his shroud with the glare and glitter in which she had arrayed herself for this unhappy scene. none that beheld them could deny the terrible strength of the moral which his disordered intellect had contrived to draw. "cruel! cruel!" groaned the heartstricken bride. "cruel?" repeated he; then, losing his deathlike composure in a wild bitterness, "heaven judge which of us has been cruel to the other! in youth you deprived me of my happiness, my hopes, my aims; you took away all the substance of my life and made it a dream without reality enough even to grieve at--with only a pervading gloom, through which i walked wearily and cared not whither. but after forty years, when i have built my tomb and would not give up the thought of resting there--no, not for such a life as we once pictured--you call me to the altar. at your summons i am here. but other husbands have enjoyed your youth, your beauty, your warmth of heart and all that could be termed your life. what is there for me but your decay and death? and therefore i have bidden these funeral-friends, and bespoken the sexton's deepest knell, and am come in my shroud to wed you as with a burial-service, that we may join our hands at the door of the sepulchre and enter it together." it was not frenzy, it was not merely the drunkenness of strong emotion in a heart unused to it, that now wrought upon the bride. the stern lesson of the day had done its work; her worldliness was gone. she seized the bridegroom's hand. "yes!" cried she; "let us wed even at the door of the sepulchre. my life is gone in vanity and emptiness, but at its close there is one true feeling. it has made me what i was in youth: it makes me worthy of you. time is no more for both of us. let us wed for eternity." with a long and deep regard the bridegroom looked into her eyes, while a tear was gathering in his own. how strange that gush of human feeling from the frozen bosom of a corpse! he wiped away the tear, even with his shroud. "beloved of my youth," said he, "i have been wild. the despair of my whole lifetime had returned at once and maddened me. forgive and be forgiven. yes; it is evening with us now, and we have realized none of our morning dreams of happiness. but let us join our hands before the altar as lovers whom adverse circumstances have separated through life, yet who meet again as they are leaving it and find their earthly affection changed into something holy as religion. and what is time to the married of eternity?" amid the tears of many and a swell of exalted sentiment in those who felt aright was solemnized the union of two immortal souls. the train of withered mourners, the hoary bridegroom in his shroud, the pale features of the aged bride and the death-bell tolling through the whole till its deep voice overpowered the marriage-words,--all marked the funeral of earthly hopes. but as the ceremony proceeded, the organ, as if stirred by the sympathies of this impressive scene, poured forth an anthem, first mingling with the dismal knell, then rising to a loftier strain, till the soul looked down upon its woe. and when the awful rite was finished and with cold hand in cold hand the married of eternity withdrew, the organ's peal of solemn triumph drowned the wedding-knell. the minister's black veil. a parable.[ ] the sexton stood in the porch of milford meeting-house pulling lustily at the bell-rope. the old people of the village came stooping along the street. children with bright faces tripped merrily beside their parents or mimicked a graver gait in the conscious dignity of their sunday clothes. spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week-days. when the throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll the bell, keeping his eye on the reverend mr. hooper's door. the first glimpse of the clergyman's figure was the signal for the bell to cease its summons. [footnote : another clergyman in new england, mr. joseph moody, of york, maine, who died about eighty years since, made himself remarkable by the same eccentricity that is here related of the reverend mr. hooper. in his case, however, the symbol had a different import. in early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend, and from that day till the hour of his own death he hid his face from men.] "but what has good parson hooper got upon his face?" cried the sexton, in astonishment. all within hearing immediately turned about and beheld the semblance of mr. hooper pacing slowly his meditative way toward the meeting-house. with one accord they started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust the cushions of mr. hooper's pulpit. "are you sure it is our parson?" inquired goodman gray of the sexton. "of a certainty it is good mr. hooper," replied the sexton. "he was to have exchanged pulpits with parson shute of westbury, but parson shute sent to excuse himself yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon." the cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. mr. hooper, a gentlemanly person of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band and brushed the weekly dust from his sunday's garb. there was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. swathed about his forehead and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, mr. hooper had on a black veil. on a nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features except the mouth and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight further than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things. with this gloomy shade before him good mr. hooper walked onward at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat and looking on the ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited on the meeting-house steps. but so wonder-struck were they that his greeting hardly met with a return. "i can't really feel as if good mr. hooper's face was behind that piece of crape," said the sexton. "i don't like it," muttered an old woman as she hobbled into the meeting-house. "he has changed himself into something awful only by hiding his face." "our parson has gone mad!" cried goodman gray, following him across the threshold. a rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded mr. hooper into the meeting-house and set all the congregation astir. few could refrain from twisting their heads toward the door; many stood upright and turned directly about; while several little boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again with a terrible racket. there was a general bustle, a rustling of the women's gowns and shuffling of the men's feet, greatly at variance with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the minister. but mr. hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of his people. he entered with an almost noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired great-grandsire, who occupied an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle. it was strange to observe how slowly this venerable man became conscious of something singular in the appearance of his pastor. he seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder till mr. hooper had ascended the stairs and showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his congregation except for the black veil. that mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. it shook with his measured breath as he gave out the psalm, it threw its obscurity between him and the holy page as he read the scriptures, and while he prayed the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. did he seek to hide it from the dread being whom he was addressing? such was the effect of this simple piece of crape that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister as his black veil to them. mr. hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: he strove to win his people heavenward by mild, persuasive influences rather than to drive them thither by the thunders of the word. the sermon which he now delivered was marked by the same characteristics of style and manner as the general series of his pulpit oratory, but there was something either in the sentiment of the discourse itself or in the imagination of the auditors which made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had ever heard from their pastor's lips. it was tinged rather more darkly than usual with the gentle gloom of mr. hooper's temperament. the subject had reference to secret sin and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the omniscient can detect them. a subtle power was breathed into his words. each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them behind his awful veil and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought. many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. there was nothing terrible in what mr. hooper said--at least, no violence; and yet with every tremor of his melancholy voice the hearers quaked. an unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe. so sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister that they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil, almost believing that a stranger's visage would be discovered, though the form, gesture and voice were those of mr. hooper. at the close of the services the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil. some gathered in little circles, huddled closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the centre; some went homeward alone, wrapped in silent meditation; some talked loudly and profaned the sabbath-day with ostentatious laughter. a few shook their sagacious heads, intimating that they could penetrate the mystery, while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at all, but only that mr. hooper's eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp as to require a shade. after a brief interval forth came good mr. hooper also, in the rear of his flock. turning his veiled face from one group to another, he paid due reverence to the hoary heads, saluted the middle-aged with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the little children's heads to bless them. such was always his custom on the sabbath-day. strange and bewildered looks repaid him for his courtesy. none, as on former occasions, aspired to the honor of walking by their pastor's side. old squire saunders--doubtless by an accidental lapse of memory--neglected to invite mr. hooper to his table, where the good clergyman had been wont to bless the food almost every sunday since his settlement. he returned, therefore, to the parsonage, and at the moment of closing the door was observed to look back upon the people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister. a sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared. "how strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on mr. hooper's face!" "something must surely be amiss with mr. hooper's intellects," observed her husband, the physician of the village. "but the strangest part of the affair is the effect of this vagary even on a sober-minded man like myself. the black veil, though it covers only our pastor's face, throws its influence over his whole person and makes him ghost-like from head to foot. do you not feel it so?" "truly do i," replied the lady; "and i would not be alone with him for the world. i wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself." "men sometimes are so," said her husband. the afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances. at its conclusion the bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady. the relatives and friends were assembled in the house and the more distant acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of the good qualities of the deceased, when their talk was interrupted by the appearance of mr. hooper, still covered with his black veil. it was now an appropriate emblem. the clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent over the coffin to take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner. as he stooped the veil hung straight down from his forehead, so that, if her eye-lids had not been closed for ever, the dead maiden might have seen his face. could mr. hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so hastily caught back the black veil? a person who watched the interview between the dead and living scrupled not to affirm that at the instant when the clergyman's features were disclosed the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of death. a superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy. from the coffin mr. hooper passed into the chamber of the mourners, and thence to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral prayer. it was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with celestial hopes that the music of a heavenly harp swept by the fingers of the dead seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. the people trembled, though they but darkly understood him, when he prayed that they and himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces. the bearers went heavily forth and the mourners followed, saddening all the street, with the dead before them and mr. hooper in his black veil behind. "why do you look back?" said one in the procession to his partner. "i had a fancy," replied she, "that the minister and the maiden's spirit were walking hand in hand." "and so had i at the same moment," said the other. that night the handsomest couple in milford village were to be joined in wedlock. though reckoned a melancholy man, mr. hooper had a placid cheerfulness for such occasions which often excited a sympathetic smile where livelier merriment would have been thrown away. there was no quality of his disposition which made him more beloved than this. the company at the wedding awaited his arrival with impatience, trusting that the strange awe which had gathered over him throughout the day would now be dispelled. but such was not the result. when mr. hooper came, the first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil which had added deeper gloom to the funeral and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding. such was its immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath the black crape and dimmed the light of the candles. the bridal pair stood up before the minister, but the bride's cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and her death-like paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married. if ever another wedding were so dismal, it was that famous one where they tolled the wedding-knell. after performing the ceremony mr. hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the new-married couple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests like a cheerful gleam from the hearth. at that instant, catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others. his frame shuddered, his lips grew white, he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet and rushed forth into the darkness, for the earth too had on her black veil. the next day the whole village of milford talked of little else than parson hooper's black veil. that, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street and good women gossipping at their open windows. it was the first item of news that the tavernkeeper told to his guests. the children babbled of it on their way to school. one imitative little imp covered his face with an old black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized himself and he wellnigh lost his wits by his own waggery. it was remarkable that, of all the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question to mr. hooper wherefore he did this thing. hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had never lacked advisers nor shown himself averse to be guided by their judgment. if he erred at all, it was by so painful a degree of self-distrust that even the mildest censure would lead him to consider an indifferent action as a crime. yet, though so well acquainted with this amiable weakness, no individual among his parishioners chose to make the black veil a subject of friendly remonstrance. there was a feeling of dread, neither plainly confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the responsibility upon another, till at length it was found expedient to send a deputation of the church, in order to deal with mr. hooper about the mystery before it should grow into a scandal. never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties. the minister received them with friendly courtesy, but became silent after they were seated, leaving to his visitors the whole burden of introducing their important business. the topic, it might be supposed, was obvious enough. there was the black veil swathed round mr. hooper's forehead and concealing every feature above his placid mouth, on which, at times, they could perceive the glimmering of a melancholy smile. but that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them. were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not till then. thus they sat a considerable time, speechless, confused and shrinking uneasily from mr. hooper's eye, which they felt to be fixed upon them with an invisible glance. finally, the deputies returned abashed to their constituents, pronouncing the matter too weighty to be handled except by a council of the churches, if, indeed, it might not require a general synod. but there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe with which the black veil had impressed all besides herself. when the deputies returned without an explanation, or even venturing to demand one, she with the calm energy of her character determined to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be settling round mr. hooper every moment more darkly than before. as his plighted wife it should be her privilege to know what the black veil concealed. at the minister's first visit, therefore, she entered upon the subject with a direct simplicity which made the task easier both for him and her. after he had seated himself she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil, but could discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed the multitude; it was but a double fold of crape hanging down from his forehead to his mouth and slightly stirring with his breath. "no," said she, aloud, and smiling, "there is nothing terrible in this piece of crape, except that it hides a face which i am always glad to look upon. come, good sir; let the sun shine from behind the cloud. first lay aside your black veil, then tell me why you put it on." mr. hooper's smile glimmered faintly. "there is an hour to come," said he, "when all of us shall cast aside our veils. take it not amiss, beloved friend, if i wear this piece of crape till then." "your words are a mystery too," returned the young lady. "take away the veil from them, at least." "elizabeth, i will," said he, "so far as my vow may suffer me. know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and i am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. no mortal eye will see it withdrawn. this dismal shade must separate me from the world; even you, elizabeth, can never come behind it." "what grievous affliction hath befallen you," she earnestly inquired, "that you should thus darken your eyes for ever?" "if it be a sign of mourning," replied mr. hooper, "i, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil." "but what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow?" urged elizabeth. "beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. for the sake of your holy office do away this scandal." the color rose into her cheeks as she intimated the nature of the rumors that were already abroad in the village. but mr. hooper's mildness did not forsake him. he even smiled again--that same sad smile which always appeared like a faint glimmering of light proceeding from the obscurity beneath the veil. "if i hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough," he merely replied; "and if i cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?" and with this gentle but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties. at length elizabeth sat silent. for a few moments she appeared lost in thought, considering, probably, what new methods might be tried to withdraw her lover from so dark a fantasy, which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps a symptom of mental disease. though of a firmer character than his own, the tears rolled down her cheeks. but in an instant, as it were, a new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed insensibly on the black veil, when like a sudden twilight in the air its terrors fell around her. she arose and stood trembling before him. "and do you feel it, then, at last?" said he, mournfully. she made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand and turned to leave the room. he rushed forward and caught her arm. "have patience with me, elizabeth!" cried he, passionately. "do not desert me though this veil must be between us here on earth. be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls. it is but a mortal veil; it is not for eternity. oh, you know not how lonely i am, and how frightened to be alone behind my black veil! do not leave me in this miserable obscurity for ever." "lift the veil but once and look me in the face," said she. "never! it cannot be!" replied mr. hooper. "then farewell!" said elizabeth. she withdrew her arm from his grasp and slowly departed, pausing at the door to give one long, shuddering gaze that seemed almost to penetrate the mystery of the black veil. but even amid his grief mr. hooper smiled to think that only a material emblem had separated him from happiness, though the horrors which it shadowed forth must be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers. from that time no attempts were made to remove mr. hooper's black veil or by a direct appeal to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide. by persons who claimed a superiority to popular prejudice it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim, such as often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise rational and tinges them all with its own semblance of insanity. but with the multitude good mr. hooper was irreparably a bugbear. he could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way. the impertinence of the latter class compelled him to give up his customary walk at sunset to the burial-ground; for when he leaned pensively over the gate, there would always be faces behind the gravestones peeping at his black veil. a fable went the rounds that the stare of the dead people drove him thence. it grieved him to the very depth of his kind heart to observe how the children fled from his approach, breaking up their merriest sports while his melancholy figure was yet afar off. their instinctive dread caused him to feel more strongly than aught else that a preternatural horror was interwoven with the threads of the black crape. in truth, his own antipathy to the veil was known to be so great that he never willingly passed before a mirror nor stooped to drink at a still fountain lest in its peaceful bosom he should be affrighted by himself. this was what gave plausibility to the whispers that mr. hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. thus from beneath the black veil there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him. it was said that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. with self-shudderings and outward terrors he walked continually in its shadow, groping darkly within his own soul or gazing through a medium that saddened the whole world. even the lawless wind, it was believed, respected his dreadful secret and never blew aside the veil. but still good mr. hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the worldly throng as he passed by. among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. by the aid of his mysterious emblem--for there was no other apparent cause--he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. his converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that before he brought them to celestial light they had been with him behind the black veil. its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections. dying sinners cried aloud for mr. hooper and would not yield their breath till he appeared, though ever, as he stooped to whisper consolation, they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. such were the terrors of the black veil even when death had bared his visage. strangers came long distances to attend service at his church with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure because it was forbidden them to behold his face. but many were made to quake ere they departed. once, during governor belcher's administration, mr. hooper was appointed to preach the election sermon. covered with his black veil, he stood before the chief magistrate, the council and the representatives, and wrought so deep an impression that the legislative measures of that year were characterized by all the gloom and piety of our earliest ancestral sway. in this manner mr. hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved and dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid in mortal anguish. as years wore on, shedding their snows above his sable veil, he acquired a name throughout the new england churches, and they called him father hooper. nearly all his parishioners who were of mature age when he was settled had been borne away by many a funeral: he had one congregation in the church and a more crowded one in the churchyard; and, having wrought so late into the evening and done his work so well, it was now good father hooper's turn to rest. several persons were visible by the shaded candlelight in the death-chamber of the old clergyman. natural connections he had none. but there was the decorously grave though unmoved physician, seeking only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom he could not save. there were the deacons and other eminently pious members of his church. there, also, was the reverend mr. clark of westbury, a young and zealous divine who had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring minister. there was the nurse--no hired handmaiden of death, but one whose calm affection had endured thus long in secrecy, in solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish even at the dying-hour. who but elizabeth! and there lay the hoary head of good father hooper upon the death-pillow with the black veil still swathed about his brow and reaching down over his face, so that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath caused it to stir. all through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world; it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love and kept him in that saddest of all prisons his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber and shade him from the sunshine of eternity. for some time previous his mind had been confused, wavering doubtfully between the past and the present, and hovering forward, as it were, at intervals, into the indistinctness of the world to come. there had been feverish turns which tossed him from side to side and wore away what little strength he had. but in his most convulsive struggles and in the wildest vagaries of his intellect, when no other thought retained its sober influence, he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside. even if his bewildered soul could have forgotten, there was a faithful woman at his pillow who with averted eyes would have covered that aged face which she had last beheld in the comeliness of manhood. at length the death-stricken old man lay quietly in the torpor of mental and bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse and breath that grew fainter and fainter except when a long, deep and irregular inspiration seemed to prelude the flight of his spirit. the minister of westbury approached the bedside. "venerable father hooper," said he, "the moment of your release is at hand. are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from eternity?" father hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his head; then--apprehensive, perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful--he exerted himself to speak. "yea," said he, in faint accents; "my soul hath a patient weariness until that veil be lifted." "and is it fitting," resumed the reverend mr. clark, "that a man so given to prayer, of such a blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal judgment may pronounce,--is it fitting that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory that may seem to blacken a life so pure? i pray you, my venerable brother, let not this thing be! suffer us to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect as you go to your reward. before the veil of eternity be lifted let me cast aside this black veil from your face;" and, thus speaking, the reverend mr. clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of so many years. but, exerting a sudden energy that made all the beholders stand aghast, father hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes and pressed them strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle if the minister of westbury would contend with a dying man. "never!" cried the veiled clergyman. "on earth, never!" "dark old man," exclaimed the affrighted minister, "with what horrible crime upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?" father hooper's breath heaved: it rattled in his throat; but, with a mighty effort grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life and held it back till he should speak. he even raised himself in bed, and there he sat shivering with the arms of death around him, while the black veil hung down, awful at that last moment in the gathered terrors of a lifetime. and yet the faint, sad smile so often there now seemed to glimmer from its obscurity and linger on father hooper's lips. "why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. "tremble also at each other. have men avoided me and women shown no pity and children screamed and fled only for my black veil? what but the mystery which it obscurely typifies has made this piece of crape so awful? when the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend, the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin,--then deem me a monster for the symbol beneath which i have lived and die. i look around me, and, lo! on every visage a black veil!" while his auditors shrank from one another in mutual affright, father hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse with a faint smile lingering on the lips. still veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. the grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial-stone is moss-grown, and good mr. hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath the black veil. the maypole of merry mount. there is an admirable foundation for a philosophic romance in the curious history of the early settlement of mount wollaston, or merry mount. in the slight sketch here attempted the facts recorded on the grave pages of our new england annalists have wrought themselves almost spontaneously into a sort of allegory. the masques, mummeries and festive customs described in the text are in accordance with the manners of the age. authority on these points may be found in strutt's _book of english sports and pastimes_. bright were the days at merry mount when the maypole was the banner-staff of that gay colony. they who reared it, should their banner be triumphant, were to pour sunshine over new england's rugged hills and scatter flower-seeds throughout the soil. jollity and gloom were contending for an empire. midsummer eve had come, bringing deep verdure to the forest, and roses in her lap of a more vivid hue than the tender buds of spring. but may, or her mirthful spirit, dwelt all the year round at merry mount, sporting with the summer months and revelling with autumn and basking in the glow of winter's fireside. through a world of toil and care she flitted with a dream-like smile, and came hither to find a home among the lightsome hearts of merry mount. never had the maypole been so gayly decked as at sunset on midsummer eve. this venerated emblem was a pine tree which had preserved the slender grace of youth, while it equalled the loftiest height of the old wood-monarchs. from its top streamed a silken banner colored like the rainbow. down nearly to the ground the pole was dressed with birchen boughs, and others of the liveliest green, and some with silvery leaves fastened by ribbons that fluttered in fantastic knots of twenty different colors, but no sad ones. garden-flowers and blossoms of the wilderness laughed gladly forth amid the verdure, so fresh and dewy that they must have grown by magic on that happy pine tree. where this green and flowery splendor terminated the shaft of the maypole was stained with the seven brilliant hues of the banner at its top. on the lowest green bough hung an abundant wreath of roses--some that had been gathered in the sunniest spots of the forest, and others, of still richer blush, which the colonists had reared from english seed. o people of the golden age, the chief of your husbandry was to raise flowers! but what was the wild throng that stood hand in hand about the maypole? it could not be that the fauns and nymphs, when driven from their classic groves and homes of ancient fable, had sought refuge, as all the persecuted did, in the fresh woods of the west. these were gothic monsters, though perhaps of grecian ancestry. on the shoulders of a comely youth uprose the head and branching antlers of a stag; a second, human in all other points, had the grim visage of a wolf; a third, still with the trunk and limbs of a mortal man, showed the beard and horns of a venerable he-goat. there was the likeness of a bear erect, brute in all but his hind legs, which were adorned with pink silk stockings. and here, again, almost as wondrous, stood a real bear of the dark forest, lending each of his forepaws to the grasp of a human hand and as ready for the dance as any in that circle. his inferior nature rose halfway to meet his companions as they stooped. other faces wore the similitude of man or woman, but distorted or extravagant, with red noses pendulous before their mouths, which seemed of awful depth and stretched from ear to ear in an eternal fit of laughter. here might be seen the salvage man--well known in heraldry--hairy as a baboon and girdled with green leaves. by his side--a nobler figure, but still a counterfeit--appeared an indian hunter with feathery crest and wampum-belt. many of this strange company wore foolscaps and had little bells appended to their garments, tinkling with a silvery sound responsive to the inaudible music of their gleesome spirits. some youths and maidens were of soberer garb, yet well maintained their places in the irregular throng by the expression of wild revelry upon their features. such were the colonists of merry mount as they stood in the broad smile of sunset round their venerated maypole. had a wanderer bewildered in the melancholy forest heard their mirth and stolen a half-affrighted glance, he might have fancied them the crew of comus, some already transformed to brutes, some midway between man and beast, and the others rioting in the flow of tipsy jollity that foreran the change; but a band of puritans who watched the scene, invisible themselves, compared the masques to those devils and ruined souls with whom their superstition peopled the black wilderness. within the ring of monsters appeared the two airiest forms that had ever trodden on any more solid footing than a purple-and-golden cloud. one was a youth in glistening apparel with a scarf of the rainbow pattern crosswise on his breast. his right hand held a gilded staff--the ensign of high dignity among the revellers--and his left grasped the slender fingers of a fair maiden not less gayly decorated than himself. bright roses glowed in contrast with the dark and glossy curls of each, and were scattered round their feet or had sprung up spontaneously there. behind this lightsome couple, so close to the maypole that its boughs shaded his jovial face, stood the figure of an english priest, canonically dressed, yet decked with flowers, in heathen fashion, and wearing a chaplet of the native vine leaves. by the riot of his rolling eye and the pagan decorations of his holy garb, he seemed the wildest monster there, and the very comus of the crew. "votaries of the maypole," cried the flower-decked priest, "merrily all day long have the woods echoed to your mirth. but be this your merriest hour, my hearts! lo! here stand the lord and lady of the may, whom i, a clerk of oxford and high priest of merry mount, am presently to join in holy matrimony.--up with your nimble spirits, ye morrice-dancers, green men and glee-maidens, bears and wolves and horned gentlemen! come! a chorus now rich with the old mirth of merry england and the wilder glee of this fresh forest, and then a dance, to show the youthful pair what life is made of and how airily they should go through it!--all ye that love the maypole, lend your voices to the nuptial song of the lord and lady of the may!" this wedlock was more serious than most affairs of merry mount, where jest and delusion, trick and fantasy, kept up a continual carnival. the lord and lady of the may, though their titles must be laid down at sunset, were really and truly to be partners for the dance of life, beginning the measure that same bright eve. the wreath of roses that hung from the lowest green bough of the maypole had been twined for them, and would be thrown over both their heads in symbol of their flowery union. when the priest had spoken, therefore, a riotous uproar burst from the rout of monstrous figures. "begin you the stave, reverend sir," cried they all, "and never did the woods ring to such a merry peal as we of the maypole shall send up." immediately a prelude of pipe, cittern and viol, touched with practised minstrelsy, began to play from a neighboring thicket in such a mirthful cadence that the boughs of the maypole quivered to the sound. but the may-lord--he of the gilded staff--chancing to look into his lady's eyes, was wonder-struck at the almost pensive glance that met his own. "edith, sweet lady of the may," whispered he, reproachfully, "is yon wreath of roses a garland to hang above our graves that you look so sad? oh, edith, this is our golden time. tarnish it not by any pensive shadow of the mind, for it may be that nothing of futurity will be brighter than the mere remembrance of what is now passing." "that was the very thought that saddened me. how came it in your mind too?" said edith, in a still lower tone than he; for it was high treason to be sad at merry mount. "therefore do i sigh amid this festive music. and besides, dear edgar, i struggle as with a dream, and fancy that these shapes of our jovial friends are visionary and their mirth unreal, and that we are no true lord and lady of the may. what is the mystery in my heart?" just then, as if a spell had loosened them, down came a little shower of withering rose-leaves from the maypole. alas for the young lovers! no sooner had their hearts glowed with real passion than they were sensible of something vague and unsubstantial in their former pleasures, and felt a dreary presentiment of inevitable change. from the moment that they truly loved they had subjected themselves to earth's doom of care and sorrow and troubled joy, and had no more a home at merry mount. that was edith's mystery. now leave we the priest to marry them, and the masquers to sport round the maypole till the last sunbeam be withdrawn from its summit and the shadows of the forest mingle gloomily in the dance. meanwhile, we may discover who these gay people were. two hundred years ago, and more, the old world and its inhabitants became mutually weary of each other. men voyaged by thousands to the west--some to barter glass and such like jewels for the furs of the indian hunter, some to conquer virgin empires, and one stern band to pray. but none of these motives had much weight with the colonists of merry mount. their leaders were men who had sported so long with life, that when thought and wisdom came, even these unwelcome guests were led astray by the crowd of vanities which they should have put to flight. erring thought and perverted wisdom were made to put on masques, and play the fool. the men of whom we speak, after losing the heart's fresh gayety, imagined a wild philosophy of pleasure, and came hither to act out their latest day-dream. they gathered followers from all that giddy tribe whose whole life is like the festal days of soberer men. in their train were minstrels, not unknown in london streets; wandering players, whose theatres had been the halls of noblemen; mummers, rope-dancers, and mountebanks, who would long be missed at wakes, church ales, and fairs; in a word, mirth makers of every sort, such as abounded in that age, but now began to be discountenanced by the rapid growth of puritanism. light had their footsteps been on land, and as lightly they came across the sea. many had been maddened by their previous troubles into a gay despair; others were as madly gay in the flush of youth, like the may lord and his lady; but whatever might be the quality of their mirth, old and young were gay at merry mount. the young deemed themselves happy. the elder spirits, if they knew that mirth was but the counterfeit of happiness, yet followed the false shadow wilfully, because at least her garments glittered brightest. sworn triflers of a lifetime, they would not venture among the sober truths of life not even to be truly blest. all the hereditary pastimes of old england were transplanted hither. the king of christmas was duly crowned, and the lord of misrule bore potent sway. on the eve of st. john, they felled whole acres of the forest to make bonfires, and danced by the blaze all night, crowned with garlands, and throwing flowers into the flame. at harvest time, though their crop was of the smallest, they made an image with the sheaves of indian corn, and wreathed it with autumnal garlands, and bore it home triumphantly. but what chiefly characterized the colonists of merry mount was their veneration for the maypole. it has made their true history a poet's tale. spring decked the hallowed emblem with young blossoms and fresh green boughs; summer brought roses of the deepest blush, and the perfected foliage of the forest; autumn enriched it with that red and yellow gorgeousness which converts each wildwood leaf into a painted flower; and winter silvered it with sleet, and hung it round with icicles, till it flashed in the cold sunshine, itself a frozen sunbeam. thus each alternate season did homage to the maypole, and paid it a tribute of its own richest splendor. its votaries danced round it, once, at least, in every month; sometimes they called it their religion, or their altar; but always, it was the banner staff of merry mount. unfortunately, there were men in the new world of a sterner faith than those maypole worshippers. not far from merry mount was a settlement of puritans, most dismal wretches, who said their prayers before daylight, and then wrought in the forest or the cornfield till evening made it prayer time again. their weapons were always at hand to shoot down the straggling savage. when they met in conclave, it was never to keep up the old english mirth, but to hear sermons three hours long, or to proclaim bounties on the heads of wolves and the scalps of indians. their festivals were fast days, and their chief pastime the singing of psalms. woe to the youth or maiden who did but dream of a dance! the selectman nodded to the constable; and there sat the light-heeled reprobate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was round the whipping-post, which might be termed the puritan maypole. a party of these grim puritans, toiling through the difficult woods, each with a horseload of iron armor to burden his footsteps, would sometimes draw near the sunny precincts of merry mount. there were the silken colonists, sporting round their maypole; perhaps teaching a bear to dance, or striving to communicate their mirth to the grave indian, or masquerading in the skins of deer and wolves which they had hunted for that especial purpose. often the whole colony were playing at blindman's buff, magistrates and all with their eyes bandaged, except a single scapegoat, whom the blinded sinners pursued by the tinkling of the bells at his garments. once, it is said, they were seen following a flower-decked corpse with merriment and festive music to his grave. but did the dead man laugh? in their quietest times they sang ballads and told tales for the edification of their pious visitors, or perplexed them with juggling tricks, or grinned at them through horse-collars; and when sport itself grew wearisome, they made game of their own stupidity and began a yawning-match. at the very least of these enormities the men of iron shook their heads and frowned so darkly that the revellers looked up, imagining that a momentary cloud had overcast the sunshine which was to be perpetual there. on the other hand, the puritans affirmed that when a psalm was pealing from their place of worship the echo which the forest sent them back seemed often like the chorus of a jolly catch, closing with a roar of laughter. who but the fiend and his bond-slaves the crew of merry mount had thus disturbed them? in due time a feud arose, stern and bitter on one side, and as serious on the other as anything could be among such light spirits as had sworn allegiance to the maypole. the future complexion of new england was involved in this important quarrel. should the grisly saints establish their jurisdiction over the gay sinners, then would their spirits darken all the clime and make it a land of clouded visages, of hard toil, of sermon and psalm for ever; but should the banner-staff of merry mount be fortunate, sunshine would break upon the hills, and flowers would beautify the forest and late posterity do homage to the maypole. after these authentic passages from history we return to the nuptials of the lord and lady of the may. alas! we have delayed too long, and must darken our tale too suddenly. as we glance again at the maypole a solitary sunbeam is fading from the summit, and leaves only a faint golden tinge blended with the hues of the rainbow banner. even that dim light is now withdrawn, relinquishing the whole domain of merry mount to the evening gloom which has rushed so instantaneously from the black surrounding woods. but some of these black shadows have rushed forth in human shape. yes, with the setting sun the last day of mirth had passed from merry mount. the ring of gay masquers was disordered and broken; the stag lowered his antlers in dismay; the wolf grew weaker than a lamb; the bells of the morrice-dancers tinkled with tremulous affright. the puritans had played a characteristic part in the maypole mummeries. their darksome figures were intermixed with the wild shapes of their foes, and made the scene a picture of the moment when waking thoughts start up amid the scattered fantasies of a dream. the leader of the hostile party stood in the centre of the circle, while the rout of monsters cowered around him like evil spirits in the presence of a dread magician. no fantastic foolery could look him in the face. so stern was the energy of his aspect that the whole man, visage, frame and soul, seemed wrought of iron gifted with life and thought, yet all of one substance with his headpiece and breastplate. it was the puritan of puritans: it was endicott himself. "stand off, priest of baal!" said he, with a grim frown and laying no reverent hand upon the surplice. "i know thee, blackstone![ ] thou art the man who couldst not abide the rule even of thine own corrupted church, and hast come hither to preach iniquity and to give example of it in thy life. but now shall it be seen that the lord hath sanctified this wilderness for his peculiar people. woe unto them that would defile it! and first for this flower-decked abomination, the altar of thy worship!" [footnote : did governor endicott speak less positively, we should suspect a mistake here. the rev. mr. blackstone, though an eccentric, is not known to have been an immoral man. we rather doubt his identity with the priest of merry mount.] and with his keen sword endicott assaulted the hallowed maypole. nor long did it resist his arm. it groaned with a dismal sound, it showered leaves and rosebuds upon the remorseless enthusiast, and finally, with all its green boughs and ribbons and flowers, symbolic of departed pleasures, down fell the banner-staff of merry mount. as it sank, tradition says, the evening sky grew darker and the woods threw forth a more sombre shadow. "there!" cried endicott, looking triumphantly on his work; "there lies the only maypole in new england. the thought is strong within me that by its fall is shadowed forth the fate of light and idle mirthmakers amongst us and our posterity. amen, saith john endicott!" "amen!" echoed his followers. but the votaries of the maypole gave one groan for their idol. at the sound the puritan leader glanced at the crew of comus, each a figure of broad mirth, yet at this moment strangely expressive of sorrow and dismay. "valiant captain," quoth peter palfrey, the ancient of the band, "what order shall be taken with the prisoners?" "i thought not to repent me of cutting down a maypole," replied endicott, "yet now i could find in my heart to plant it again and give each of these bestial pagans one other dance round their idol. it would have served rarely for a whipping-post." "but there are pine trees enow," suggested the lieutenant. "true, good ancient," said the leader. "wherefore bind the heathen crew and bestow on them a small matter of stripes apiece as earnest of our future justice. set some of the rogues in the stocks to rest themselves so soon as providence shall bring us to one of our own well-ordered settlements where such accommodations may be found. further penalties, such as branding and cropping of ears, shall be thought of hereafter." "how many stripes for the priest?" inquired ancient palfrey. "none as yet," answered endicott, bending his iron frown upon the culprit. "it must be for the great and general court to determine whether stripes and long imprisonment, and other grievous penalty, may atone for his transgressions. let him look to himself. for such as violate our civil order it may be permitted us to show mercy, but woe to the wretch that troubleth our religion!" "and this dancing bear?" resumed the officer. "must he share the stripes of his fellows?" "shoot him through the head!" said the energetic puritan. "i suspect witchcraft in the beast." "here be a couple of shining ones," continued peter palfrey, pointing his weapon at the lord and lady of the may. "they seem to be of high station among these misdoers. methinks their dignity will not be fitted with less than a double share of stripes." endicott rested on his sword and closely surveyed the dress and aspect of the hapless pair. there they stood, pale, downcast and apprehensive, yet there was an air of mutual support and of pure affection seeking aid and giving it that showed them to be man and wife with the sanction of a priest upon their love. the youth in the peril of the moment, had dropped his gilded staff and thrown his arm about the lady of the may, who leaned against his breast too lightly to burden him, but with weight enough to express that their destinies were linked together for good or evil. they looked first at each other and then into the grim captain's face. there they stood in the first hour of wedlock, while the idle pleasures of which their companions were the emblems had given place to the sternest cares of life, personified by the dark puritans. but never had their youthful beauty seemed so pure and high as when its glow was chastened by adversity. "youth," said endicott, "ye stand in an evil case--thou and thy maiden-wife. make ready presently, for i am minded that ye shall both have a token to remember your wedding-day." "stern man," cried the may-lord, "how can i move thee? were the means at hand, i would resist to the death; being powerless, i entreat. do with me as thou wilt, but let edith go untouched." "not so," replied the immitigable zealot. "we are not wont to show an idle courtesy to that sex which requireth the stricter discipline.--what sayest thou, maid? shall thy silken bridegroom suffer thy share of the penalty besides his own?" "be it death," said edith, "and lay it all on me." truly, as endicott had said, the poor lovers stood in a woeful case. their foes were triumphant, their friends captive and abased, their home desolate, the benighted wilderness around them, and a rigorous destiny in the shape of the puritan leader their only guide. yet the deepening twilight could not altogether conceal that the iron man was softened. he smiled at the fair spectacle of early love; he almost sighed for the inevitable blight of early hopes. "the troubles of life have come hastily on this young couple," observed endicott. "we will see how they comport themselves under their present trials ere we burden them with greater. if among the spoil there be any garments of a more decent fashion, let them be put upon this may-lord and his lady instead of their glistening vanities. look to it, some of you." "and shall not the youth's hair be cut?" asked peter palfrey, looking with abhorrence at the lovelock and long glossy curls of the young man. "crop it forthwith, and that in the true pumpkin-shell fashion," answered the captain. "then bring them along with us, but more gently than their fellows. there be qualities in the youth which may make him valiant to fight and sober to toil and pious to pray, and in the maiden that may fit her to become a mother in our israel, bringing up babes in better nurture than her own hath been.--nor think ye, young ones, that they are the happiest, even in our lifetime of a moment, who misspend it in dancing round a maypole." and endicott, the severest puritan of all who laid the rock-foundation of new england, lifted the wreath of roses from the ruin of the maypole and threw it with his own gauntleted hand over the heads of the lord and lady of the may. it was a deed of prophecy. as the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gayety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. they returned to it no more. but as their flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses that had grown there, so in the tie that united them were intertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. they went heavenward supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of merry mount. the gentle boy. in the course of the year several of the people called quakers--led, as they professed, by the inward movement of the spirit--made their appearance in new england. their reputation as holders of mystic and pernicious principles having spread before them, the puritans early endeavored to banish and to prevent the further intrusion of the rising sect. but the measures by which it was intended to purge the land of heresy, though more than sufficiently vigorous, were entirely unsuccessful. the quakers, esteeming persecution as a divine call to the post of danger, laid claim to a holy courage unknown to the puritans themselves, who had shunned the cross by providing for the peaceable exercise of their religion in a distant wilderness. though it was the singular fact that every nation of the earth rejected the wandering enthusiasts who practised peace toward all men, the place of greatest uneasiness and peril, and therefore in their eyes the most eligible, was the province of massachusetts bay. the fines, imprisonments and stripes liberally distributed by our pious forefathers, the popular antipathy, so strong that it endured nearly a hundred years after actual persecution had ceased, were attractions as powerful for the quakers as peace, honor and reward would have been for the worldly-minded. every european vessel brought new cargoes of the sect, eager to testify against the oppression which they hoped to share; and when shipmasters were restrained by heavy fines from affording them passage, they made long and circuitous journeys through the indian country, and appeared in the province as if conveyed by a supernatural power. their enthusiasm, heightened almost to madness by the treatment which they received, produced actions contrary to the rules of decency as well as of rational religion, and presented a singular contrast to the calm and staid deportment of their sectarian successors of the present day. the command of the spirit, inaudible except to the soul and not to be controverted on grounds of human wisdom, was made a plea for most indecorous exhibitions which, abstractedly considered, well deserved the moderate chastisement of the rod. these extravagances, and the persecution which was at once their cause and consequence, continued to increase, till in the year the government of massachusetts bay indulged two members of the quaker sect with the crown of martyrdom. an indelible stain of blood is upon the hands of all who consented to this act, but a large share of the awful responsibility must rest upon the person then at the head of the government. he was a man of narrow mind and imperfect education, and his uncompromising bigotry was made hot and mischievous by violent and hasty passions; he exerted his influence indecorously and unjustifiably to compass the death of the enthusiasts, and his whole conduct in respect to them was marked by brutal cruelty. the quakers, whose revengeful feelings were not less deep because they were inactive, remembered this man and his associates in after-times. the historian of the sect affirms that by the wrath of heaven a blight fell upon the land in the vicinity of the "bloody town" of boston, so that no wheat would grow there; and he takes his stand, as it were, among the graves of the ancient persecutors, and triumphantly recounts the judgments that overtook them in old age or at the parting-hour. he tells us that they died suddenly and violently and in madness, but nothing can exceed the bitter mockery with which he records the loathsome disease and "death by rottenness" of the fierce and cruel governor. * * * * * on the evening of the autumn day that had witnessed the martyrdom of two men of the quaker persuasion, a puritan settler was returning from the metropolis to the neighboring country-town in which he resided. the air was cool, the sky clear, and the lingering twilight was made brighter by the rays of a young moon which had now nearly reached the verge of the horizon. the traveller, a man of middle age, wrapped in a gray frieze cloak, quickened his pace when he had reached the outskirts of the town, for a gloomy extent of nearly four miles lay between him and his home. the low straw-thatched houses were scattered at considerable intervals along the road, and, the country having been settled but about thirty years, the tracts of original forest still bore no small proportion to the cultivated ground. the autumn wind wandered among the branches, whirling away the leaves from all except the pine trees and moaning as if it lamented the desolation of which it was the instrument. the road had penetrated the mass of woods that lay nearest to the town, and was just emerging into an open space, when the traveller's ears were saluted by a sound more mournful than even that of the wind. it was like the wailing of some one in distress, and it seemed to proceed from beneath a tall and lonely fir tree in the centre of a cleared but unenclosed and uncultivated field. the puritan could not but remember that this was the very spot which had been made accursed a few hours before by the execution of the quakers, whose bodies had been thrown together into one hasty grave beneath the tree on which they suffered. he struggled, however, against the superstitious fears which belonged to the age, and compelled himself to pause and listen. "the voice is most likely mortal, nor have i cause to tremble if it be otherwise," thought he, straining his eyes through the dim moonlight. "methinks it is like the wailing of a child--some infant, it may be, which has strayed from its mother and chanced upon this place of death. for the ease of mine own conscience i must search this matter out." he therefore left the path and walked somewhat fearfully across the field. though now so desolate, its soil was pressed down and trampled by the thousand footsteps of those who had witnessed the spectacle of that day, all of whom had now retired, leaving the dead to their loneliness. the traveller at length reached the fir tree, which from the middle upward was covered with living branches, although a scaffold had been erected beneath, and other preparations made for the work of death. under this unhappy tree--which in after-times was believed to drop poison with its dew--sat the one solitary mourner for innocent blood. it was a slender and light-clad little boy who leaned his face upon a hillock of fresh-turned and half-frozen earth and wailed bitterly, yet in a suppressed tone, as if his grief might receive the punishment of crime. the puritan, whose approach had been unperceived, laid his hand upon the child's shoulder and addressed him compassionately. "you have chosen a dreary lodging, my poor boy, and no wonder that you weep," said he. "but dry your eyes and tell me where your mother dwells; i promise you, if the journey be not too far, i will leave you in her arms tonight." the boy had hushed his wailing at once, and turned his face upward to the stranger. it was a pale, bright-eyed countenance, certainly not more than six years old, but sorrow, fear and want had destroyed much of its infantile expression. the puritan, seeing the boy's frightened gaze and feeling that he trembled under his hand, endeavored to reassure him: "nay, if i intended to do you harm, little lad, the readiest way were to leave you here. what! you do not fear to sit beneath the gallows on a new-made grave, and yet you tremble at a friend's touch? take heart, child, and tell me what is your name and where is your home." "friend," replied the little boy, in a sweet though faltering voice, "they call me ilbrahim, and my home is here." the pale, spiritual face, the eyes that seemed to mingle with the moonlight, the sweet, airy voice and the outlandish name almost made the puritan believe that the boy was in truth a being which had sprung up out of the grave on which he sat; but perceiving that the apparition stood the test of a short mental prayer, and remembering that the arm which he had touched was lifelike, he adopted a more rational supposition. "the poor child is stricken in his intellect," thought he, "but verily his words are fearful in a place like this." he then spoke soothingly, intending to humor the boy's fantasy: "your home will scarce be comfortable, ilbrahim, this cold autumn night, and i fear you are ill-provided with food. i am hastening to a warm supper and bed; and if you will go with me, you shall share them." "i thank thee, friend, but, though i be hungry and shivering with cold, thou wilt not give me food nor lodging," replied the boy, in the quiet tone which despair had taught him even so young. "my father was of the people whom all men hate; they have laid him under this heap of earth, and here is my home." the puritan, who had laid hold of little ilbrahim's hand, relinquished it as if he were touching a loathsome reptile. but he possessed a compassionate heart which not even religious prejudice could harden into stone. "god forbid that i should leave this child to perish, though he comes of the accursed sect," said he to himself. "do we not all spring from an evil root? are we not all in darkness till the light doth shine upon us? he shall not perish, neither in body nor, if prayer and instruction may avail for him, in soul." he then spoke aloud and kindly to ilbrahim, who had again hid his face in the cold earth of the grave: "was every door in the land shut against you, my child, that you have wandered to this unhallowed spot?" "they drove me forth from the prison when they took my father thence," said the boy, "and i stood afar off watching the crowd of people; and when they were gone, i came hither, and found only this grave. i knew that my father was sleeping here, and i said, 'this shall be my home.'" "no, child, no, not while i have a roof over my head or a morsel to share with you," exclaimed the puritan, whose sympathies were now fully excited. "rise up and come with me, and fear not any harm." the boy wept afresh, and clung to the heap of earth as if the cold heart beneath it were warmer to him than any in a living breast. the traveller, however, continued to entreat him tenderly, and, seeming to acquire some degree of confidence, he at length arose; but his slender limbs tottered with weakness, his little head grew dizzy, and he leaned against the tree of death for support. "my poor boy, are you so feeble?" said the puritan. "when did you taste food last?" "i ate of bread and water with my father in the prison," replied ilbrahim, "but they brought him none neither yesterday nor to-day, saying that he had eaten enough to bear him to his journey's end. trouble not thyself for my hunger, kind friend, for i have lacked food many times ere now." the traveller took the child in his arms and wrapped his cloak about him, while his heart stirred with shame and anger against the gratuitous cruelty of the instruments in this persecution. in the awakened warmth of his feelings he resolved that at whatever risk he would not forsake the poor little defenceless being whom heaven had confided to his care. with this determination he left the accursed field and resumed the homeward path from which the wailing of the boy had called him. the light and motionless burden scarcely impeded his progress, and he soon beheld the fire-rays from the windows of the cottage which he, a native of a distant clime, had built in the western wilderness. it was surrounded by a considerable extent of cultivated ground, and the dwelling was situated in the nook of a wood-covered hill, whither it seemed to have crept for protection. "look up, child," said the puritan to ilbrahim, whose faint head had sunk upon his shoulder; "there is our home." at the word "home" a thrill passed through the child's frame, but he continued silent. a few moments brought them to the cottage door, at which the owner knocked; for at that early period, when savages were wandering everywhere among the settlers, bolt and bar were indispensable to the security of a dwelling. the summons was answered by a bond-servant, a coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity, who, after ascertaining that his master was the applicant, undid the door and held a flaring pine-knot torch to light him in. farther back in the passageway the red blaze discovered a matronly woman, but no little crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their father's return. as the puritan entered he thrust aside his cloak and displayed ilbrahim's face to the female. "dorothy, here is a little outcast whom providence hath put into our hands," observed he. "be kind to him, even as if he were of those dear ones who have departed from us." "what pale and bright-eyed little boy is this, tobias?" she inquired. "is he one whom the wilderness-folk have ravished from some christian mother?" "no, dorothy; this poor child is no captive from the wilderness," he replied. "the heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty morsel and to drink of his birchen cup, but christian men, alas! had cast him out to die." then he told her how he had found him beneath the gallows, upon his father's grave, and how his heart had prompted him like the speaking of an inward voice to take the little outcast home and be kind unto him. he acknowledged his resolution to feed and clothe him as if he were his own child, and to afford him the instruction which should counteract the pernicious errors hitherto instilled into his infant mind. dorothy was gifted with even a quicker tenderness than her husband, and she approved of all his doings and intentions. "have you a mother, dear child?" she inquired. the tears burst forth from his full heart as he attempted to reply, but dorothy at length understood that he had a mother, who like the rest of her sect was a persecuted wanderer. she had been taken from the prison a short time before, carried into the uninhabited wilderness and left to perish there by hunger or wild beasts. this was no uncommon method of disposing of the quakers, and they were accustomed to boast that the inhabitants of the desert were more hospitable to them than civilized man. "fear not, little boy; you shall not need a mother, and a kind one," said dorothy, when she had gathered this information. "dry your tears, ilbrahim, and be my child, as i will be your mother." the good woman prepared the little bed from which her own children had successively been borne to another resting-place. before ilbrahim would consent to occupy it he knelt down, and as dorothy listed to his simple and affecting prayer she marvelled how the parents that had taught it to him could have been judged worthy of death. when the boy had fallen asleep, she bent over his pale and spiritual countenance, pressed a kiss upon his white brow, drew the bedclothes up about his neck, and went away with a pensive gladness in her heart. tobias pearson was not among the earliest emigrants from the old country. he had remained in england during the first years of the civil war, in which he had borne some share as a cornet of dragoons under cromwell. but when the ambitious designs of his leader began to develop themselves, he quitted the army of the parliament and sought a refuge from the strife which was no longer holy among the people of his persuasion in the colony of massachusetts. a more worldly consideration had perhaps an influence in drawing him thither, for new england offered advantages to men of unprosperous fortunes as well as to dissatisfied religionists, and pearson had hitherto found it difficult to provide for a wife and increasing family. to this supposed impurity of motive the more bigoted puritans were inclined to impute the removal by death of all the children for whose earthly good the father had been over-thoughtful. they had left their native country blooming like roses, and like roses they had perished in a foreign soil. those expounders of the ways of providence, who had thus judged their brother and attributed his domestic sorrows to his sin, were not more charitable when they saw him and dorothy endeavoring to fill up the void in their hearts by the adoption of an infant of the accursed sect. nor did they fail to communicate their disapprobation to tobias, but the latter in reply merely pointed at the little quiet, lovely boy, whose appearance and deportment were indeed as powerful arguments as could possibly have been adduced in his own favor. even his beauty, however, and his winning manners sometimes produced an effect ultimately unfavorable; for the bigots, when the outer surfaces of their iron hearts had been softened and again grew hard, affirmed that no merely natural cause could have so worked upon them. their antipathy to the poor infant was also increased by the ill-success of divers theological discussions in which it was attempted to convince him of the errors of his sect. ilbrahim, it is true, was not a skilful controversialist, but the feeling of his religion was strong as instinct in him, and he could neither be enticed nor driven from the faith which his father had died for. the odium of this stubbornness was shared in a great measure by the child's protectors, insomuch that tobias and dorothy very shortly began to experience a most bitter species of persecution in the cold regards of many a friend whom they had valued. the common people manifested their opinions more openly. pearson was a man of some consideration, being a representative to the general court and an approved lieutenant in the train-bands, yet within a week after his adoption of ilbrahim he had been both hissed and hooted. once, also, when walking through a solitary piece of woods, he heard a loud voice from some invisible speaker, and it cried, "what shall be done to the backslider? lo! the scourge is knotted for him, even the whip of nine cords, and every cord three knots." these insults irritated pearson's temper for the moment; they entered also into his heart, and became imperceptible but powerful workers toward an end which his most secret thought had not yet whispered. * * * * * on the second sabbath after ilbrahim became a member of their family, pearson and his wife deemed it proper that he should appear with them at public worship. they had anticipated some opposition to this measure from the boy, but he prepared himself in silence, and at the appointed hour was clad in the new mourning-suit which dorothy had wrought for him. as the parish was then, and during many subsequent years, unprovided with a bell, the signal for the commencement of religious exercises was the beat of a drum. at the first sound of that martial call to the place of holy and quiet thoughts tobias and dorothy set forth, each holding a hand of little ilbrahim, like two parents linked together by the infant of their love. on their path through the leafless woods they were overtaken by many persons of their acquaintance, all of whom avoided them and passed by on the other side; but a severer trial awaited their constancy when they had descended the hill and drew near the pine-built and undecorated house of prayer. around the door, from which the drummer still sent forth his thundering summons, was drawn up a formidable phalanx, including several of the oldest members of the congregation, many of the middle-aged and nearly all the younger males. pearson found it difficult to sustain their united and disapproving gaze, but dorothy, whose mind was differently circumstanced, merely drew the boy closer to her and faltered not in her approach. as they entered the door they overheard the muttered sentiments of the assemblage; and when the reviling voices of the little children smote ilbrahim's ear, he wept. the interior aspect of the meeting-house was rude. the low ceiling, the unplastered walls, the naked woodwork and the undraperied pulpit offered nothing to excite the devotion which without such external aids often remains latent in the heart. the floor of the building was occupied by rows of long cushionless benches, supplying the place of pews, and the broad aisle formed a sexual division impassable except by children beneath a certain age. pearson and dorothy separated at the door of the meeting-house, and ilbrahim, being within the years of infancy, was retained under the care of the latter. the wrinkled beldams involved themselves in their rusty cloaks as he passed by; even the mild-featured maidens seemed to dread contamination; and many a stern old man arose and turned his repulsive and unheavenly countenance upon the gentle boy, as if the sanctuary were polluted by his presence. he was a sweet infant of the skies that had strayed away from his home, and all the inhabitants of this miserable world closed up their impure hearts against him, drew back their earth-soiled garments from his touch and said, "we are holier than thou." ilbrahim, seated by the side of his adopted mother and retaining fast hold of her hand, assumed a grave and decorous demeanor such as might befit a person of matured taste and understanding who should find himself in a temple dedicated to some worship which he did not recognize, but felt himself bound to respect. the exercises had not yet commenced, however, when the boy's attention was arrested by an event apparently of trifling interest. a woman having her face muffled in a hood and a cloak drawn completely about her form advanced slowly up the broad aisle and took place upon the foremost bench. ilbrahim's faint color varied, his nerves fluttered; he was unable to turn his eyes from the muffled female. when the preliminary prayer and hymn were over, the minister arose, and, having turned the hour-glass which stood by the great bible, commenced his discourse. he was now well stricken in years, a man of pale, thin countenance, and his gray hairs were closely covered by a black velvet skull-cap. in his younger days he had practically learned the meaning of persecution from archbishop laud, and he was not now disposed to forget the lesson against which he had murmured then. introducing the often-discussed subject of the quakers, he gave a history of that sect and a description of their tenets in which error predominated and prejudice distorted the aspect of what was true. he adverted to the recent measures in the province, and cautioned his hearers of weaker parts against calling in question the just severity which god-fearing magistrates had at length been compelled to exercise. he spoke of the danger of pity--in some cases a commendable and christian virtue, but inapplicable to this pernicious sect. he observed that such was their devilish obstinacy in error that even the little children, the sucking babes, were hardened and desperate heretics. he affirmed that no man without heaven's especial warrant should attempt their conversion lest while he lent his hand to draw them from the slough he should himself be precipitated into its lowest depths. the sands of the second hour were principally in the lower half of the glass when the sermon concluded. an approving murmur followed, and the clergyman, having given out a hymn, took his seat with much self-congratulation, and endeavored to read the effect of his eloquence in the visages of the people. but while voices from all parts of the house were tuning themselves to sing a scene occurred which, though not very unusual at that period in the province, happened to be without precedent in this parish. the muffled female, who had hitherto sat motionless in the front rank of the audience, now arose and with slow, stately and unwavering step ascended the pulpit stairs. the quaverings of incipient harmony were hushed and the divine sat in speechless and almost terrified astonishment while she undid the door and stood up in the sacred desk from which his maledictions had just been thundered. she then divested herself of the cloak and hood, and appeared in a most singular array. a shapeless robe of sackcloth was girded about her waist with a knotted cord; her raven hair fell down upon her shoulders, and its blackness was defiled by pale streaks of ashes, which she had strewn upon her head. her eyebrows, dark and strongly defined, added to the deathly whiteness of a countenance which, emaciated with want and wild with enthusiasm and strange sorrows, retained no trace of earlier beauty. this figure stood gazing earnestly on the audience, and there was no sound nor any movement except a faint shuddering which every man observed in his neighbor, but was scarcely conscious of in himself. at length, when her fit of inspiration came, she spoke for the first few moments in a low voice and not invariably distinct utterance. her discourse gave evidence of an imagination hopelessly entangled with her reason; it was a vague and incomprehensible rhapsody, which, however, seemed to spread its own atmosphere round the hearer's soul, and to move his feelings by some influence unconnected with the words. as she proceeded beautiful but shadowy images would sometimes be seen like bright things moving in a turbid river, or a strong and singularly shaped idea leapt forth and seized at once on the understanding or the heart. but the course of her unearthly eloquence soon led her to the persecutions of her sect, and from thence the step was short to her own peculiar sorrows. she was naturally a woman of mighty passions, and hatred and revenge now wrapped themselves in the garb of piety. the character of her speech was changed; her images became distinct though wild, and her denunciations had an almost hellish bitterness. "the governor and his mighty men," she said, "have gathered together, taking counsel among themselves and saying, 'what shall we do unto this people--even unto the people that have come into this land to put our iniquity to the blush?' and, lo! the devil entereth into the council-chamber like a lame man of low stature and gravely apparelled, with a dark and twisted countenance and a bright, downcast eye. and he standeth up among the rulers; yea, he goeth to and fro, whispering to each; and every man lends his ear, for his word is 'slay! slay!' but i say unto ye, woe to them that slay! woe to them that shed the blood of saints! woe to them that have slain the husband and cast forth the child, the tender infant, to wander homeless and hungry and cold till he die, and have saved the mother alive in the cruelty of their tender mercies! woe to them in their lifetime! cursed are they in the delight and pleasure of their hearts! woe to them in their death-hour, whether it come swiftly with blood and violence or after long and lingering pain! woe in the dark house, in the rottenness of the grave, when the children's children shall revile the ashes of the fathers! woe, woe, woe, at the judgment, when all the persecuted and all the slain in this bloody land, and the father, the mother and the child, shall await them in a day that they cannot escape! seed of the faith, seed of the faith, ye whose hearts are moving with a power that ye know not, arise, wash your hands of this innocent blood! lift your voices, chosen ones, cry aloud, and call down a woe and a judgment with me!" having thus given vent to the flood of malignity which she mistook for inspiration, the speaker was silent. her voice was succeeded by the hysteric shrieks of several women, but the feelings of the audience generally had not been drawn onward in the current with her own. they remained stupefied, stranded, as it were, in the midst of a torrent which deafened them by its roaring, but might not move them by its violence. the clergyman, who could not hitherto have ejected the usurper of his pulpit otherwise than by bodily force, now addressed her in the tone of just indignation and legitimate authority. "get you down, woman, from the holy place which you profane," he said, "is it to the lord's house that you come to pour forth the foulness of your heart and the inspiration of the devil? get you down, and remember that the sentence of death is on you--yea, and shall be executed, were it but for this day's work." "i go, friend, i go, for the voice hath had its utterance," replied she, in a depressed, and even mild, tone. "i have done my mission unto thee and to thy people; reward me with stripes, imprisonment or death, as ye shall be permitted." the weakness of exhausted passion caused her steps to totter as she descended the pulpit stairs. the people, in the mean while, were stirring to and fro on the floor of the house, whispering among themselves and glancing toward the intruder. many of them now recognized her as the woman who had assaulted the governor with frightful language as he passed by the window of her prison; they knew, also, that she was adjudged to suffer death, and had been preserved only by an involuntary banishment into the wilderness. the new outrage by which she had provoked her fate seemed to render further lenity impossible, and a gentleman in military dress, with a stout man of inferior rank, drew toward the door of the meetinghouse and awaited her approach. scarcely did her feet press the floor, however, when an unexpected scene occurred. in that moment of her peril, when every eye frowned with death, a little timid boy threw his arms round his mother. "i am here, mother; it is i, and i will go with thee to prison," he exclaimed. she gazed at him with a doubtful and almost frightened expression, for she knew that the boy had been cast out to perish, and she had not hoped to see his face again. she feared, perhaps, that it was but one of the happy visions with which her excited fancy had often deceived her in the solitude of the desert or in prison; but when she felt his hand warm within her own and heard his little eloquence of childish love, she began to know that she was yet a mother. "blessed art thou, my son!" she sobbed. "my heart was withered--yea, dead with thee and with thy father--and now it leaps as in the first moment when i pressed thee to my bosom." she knelt down and embraced him again and again, while the joy that could find no words expressed itself in broken accents, like the bubbles gushing up to vanish at the surface of a deep fountain. the sorrows of past years and the darker peril that was nigh cast not a shadow on the brightness of that fleeting moment. soon, however, the spectators saw a change upon her face as the consciousness of her sad estate returned, and grief supplied the fount of tears which joy had opened. by the words she uttered it would seem that the indulgence of natural love had given her mind a momentary sense of its errors, and made her know how far she had strayed from duty in following the dictates of a wild fanaticism. "in a doleful hour art thou returned to me, poor boy," she said, "for thy mother's path has gone darkening onward, till now the end is death. son, son, i have borne thee in my arms when my limbs were tottering, and i have fed thee with the food that i was fainting for; yet i have ill-performed a mother's part by thee in life, and now i leave thee no inheritance but woe and shame. thou wilt go seeking through the world, and find all hearts closed against thee and their sweet affections turned to bitterness for my sake. my child, my child, how many a pang awaits thy gentle spirit, and i the cause of all!" she hid her face on ilbrahim's head, and her long raven hair, discolored with the ashes of her mourning, fell down about him like a veil. a low and interrupted moan was the voice of her heart's anguish, and it did not fail to move the sympathies of many who mistook their involuntary virtue for a sin. sobs were audible in the female section of the house, and every man who was a father drew his hand across his eyes. tobias pearson was agitated and uneasy, but a certain feeling like the consciousness of guilt oppressed him; so that he could not go forth and offer himself as the protector of the child. dorothy, however, had watched her husband's eye. her mind was free from the influence that had begun to work on his, and she drew near the quaker woman and addressed her in the hearing of all the congregation. "stranger, trust this boy to me, and i will be his mother," she said, taking ilbrahim's hand. "providence has signally marked out my husband to protect him, and he has fed at our table and lodged under our roof now many days, till our hearts have grown very strongly unto him. leave the tender child with us, and be at ease concerning his welfare." the quaker rose from the ground, but drew the boy closer to her, while she gazed earnestly in dorothy's face. her mild but saddened features and neat matronly attire harmonized together and were like a verse of fireside poetry. her very aspect proved that she was blameless, so far as mortal could be so, in respect to god and man, while the enthusiast, in her robe of sackcloth and girdle of knotted cord, had as evidently violated the duties of the present life and the future by fixing her attention wholly on the latter. the two females, as they held each a hand of ilbrahim, formed a practical allegory: it was rational piety and unbridled fanaticism contending for the empire of a young heart. "thou art not of our people," said the quaker, mournfully. "no, we are not of your people," replied dorothy, with mildness, "but we are christians looking upward to the same heaven with you. doubt not that your boy shall meet you there, if there be a blessing on our tender and prayerful guidance of him. thither, i trust, my own children have gone before me, for i also have been a mother. i am no longer so," she added, in a faltering tone, "and your son will have all my care." "but will ye lead him in the path which his parents have trodden?" demanded the quaker. "can ye teach him the enlightened faith which his father has died for, and for which i--even i--am soon to become an unworthy martyr? the boy has been baptized in blood; will ye keep the mark fresh and ruddy upon his forehead?" "i will not deceive you," answered dorothy. "if your child become our child, we must breed him up in the instruction which heaven has imparted to us; we must pray for him the prayers of our own faith; we must do toward him according to the dictates of our own consciences, and not of yours. were we to act otherwise, we should abuse your trust, even in complying with your wishes." the mother looked down upon her boy with a troubled countenance, and then turned her eyes upward to heaven. she seemed to pray internally, and the contention of her soul was evident. "friend," she said, at length, to dorothy, "i doubt not that my son shall receive all earthly tenderness at thy hands. nay, i will believe that even thy imperfect lights may guide him to a better world, for surely thou art on the path thither. but thou hast spoken of a husband. doth he stand here among this multitude of people? let him come forth, for i must know to whom i commit this most precious trust." she turned her face upon the male auditors, and after a momentary delay tobias pearson came forth from among them. the quaker saw the dress which marked his military rank, and shook her head; but then she noted the hesitating air, the eyes that struggled with her own and were vanquished, the color that went and came and could find no resting-place. as she gazed an unmirthful smile spread over her features, like sunshine that grows melancholy in some desolate spot. her lips moved inaudibly, but at length she spake: "i hear it, i hear it! the voice speaketh within me and saith, 'leave thy child, catharine, for his place is here, and go hence, for i have other work for thee. break the bonds of natural affection, martyr thy love, and know that in all these things eternal wisdom hath its ends.' i go, friends, i go. take ye my boy, my precious jewel. i go hence trusting that all shall be well, and that even for his infant hands there is a labor in the vineyard." she knelt down and whispered to ilbrahim, who at first struggled and clung to his mother with sobs and tears, but remained passive when she had kissed his cheek and arisen from the ground. having held her hands over his head in mental prayer, she was ready to depart. "farewell, friends in mine extremity," she said to pearson and his wife; "the good deed ye have done me is a treasure laid up in heaven, to be returned a thousandfold hereafter.--and farewell, ye mine enemies, to whom it is not permitted to harm so much as a hair of my head, nor to stay my footsteps even for a moment. the day is coming when ye shall call upon me to witness for ye to this one sin uncommitted, and i will rise up and answer." she turned her steps toward the door, and the men who had stationed themselves to guard it withdrew and suffered her to pass. a general sentiment of pity overcame the virulence of religious hatred. sanctified by her love and her affliction, she went forth, and all the people gazed after her till she had journeyed up the hill and was lost behind its brow. she went, the apostle of her own unquiet heart, to renew the wanderings of past years. for her voice had been already heard in many lands of christendom, and she had pined in the cells of a catholic inquisition before she felt the lash and lay in the dungeons of the puritans. her mission had extended also to the followers of the prophet, and from them she had received the courtesy and kindness which all the contending sects of our purer religion united to deny her. her husband and herself had resided many months in turkey, where even the sultan's countenance was gracious to them; in that pagan land, too, was ilbrahim's birthplace, and his oriental name was a mark of gratitude for the good deeds of an unbeliever. * * * * * when pearson and his wife had thus acquired all the rights over ilbrahim that could be delegated, their affection for him became, like the memory of their native land or their mild sorrow for the dead, a piece of the immovable furniture of their hearts. the boy, also, after a week or two of mental disquiet, began to gratify his protectors by many inadvertent proofs that he considered them as parents and their house as home. before the winter snows were melted the persecuted infant, the little wanderer from a remote and heathen country, seemed native in the new england cottage and inseparable from the warmth and security of its hearth. under the influence of kind treatment, and in the consciousness that he was loved, ilbrahim's demeanor lost a premature manliness which had resulted from his earlier situation; he became more childlike and his natural character displayed itself with freedom. it was in many respects a beautiful one, yet the disordered imaginations of both his father and mother had perhaps propagated a certain unhealthiness in the mind of the boy. in his general state ilbrahim would derive enjoyment from the most trifling events and from every object about him; he seemed to discover rich treasures of happiness by a faculty analogous to that of the witch-hazel, which points to hidden gold where all is barren to the eye. his airy gayety, coming to him from a thousand sources, communicated itself to the family, and ilbrahim was like a domesticated sunbeam, brightening moody countenances and chasing away the gloom from the dark corners of the cottage. on the other hand, as the susceptibility of pleasure is also that of pain, the exuberant cheerfulness of the boy's prevailing temper sometimes yielded to moments of deep depression. his sorrows could not always be followed up to their original source, but most frequently they appeared to flow--though ilbrahim was young to be sad for such a cause--from wounded love. the flightiness of his mirth rendered him often guilty of offences against the decorum of a puritan household, and on these occasions he did not invariably escape rebuke. but the slightest word of real bitterness, which he was infallible in distinguishing from pretended anger, seemed to sink into his heart and poison all his enjoyments till he became sensible that he was entirely forgiven. of the malice which generally accompanies a superfluity of sensitiveness ilbrahim was altogether destitute. when trodden upon, he would not turn; when wounded, he could but die. his mind was wanting in the stamina of self-support. it was a plant that would twine beautifully round something stronger than itself; but if repulsed or torn away, it had no choice but to wither on the ground. dorothy's acuteness taught her that severity would crush the spirit of the child, and she nurtured him with the gentle care of one who handles a butterfly. her husband manifested an equal affection, although it grew daily less productive of familiar caresses. the feelings of the neighboring people in regard to the quaker infant and his protectors had not undergone a favorable change, in spite of the momentary triumph which the desolate mother had obtained over their sympathies. the scorn and bitterness of which he was the object were very grievous to ilbrahim, especially when any circumstance made him sensible that the children his equals in age partook of the enmity of their parents. his tender and social nature had already overflowed in attachments to everything about him, and still there was a residue of unappropriated love which he yearned to bestow upon the little ones who were taught to hate him. as the warm days of spring came on ilbrahim was accustomed to remain for hours silent and inactive within hearing of the children's voices at their play, yet with his usual delicacy of feeling he avoided their notice, and would flee and hide himself from the smallest individual among them. chance, however, at length seemed to open a medium of communication between his heart and theirs; it was by means of a boy about two years older than ilbrahim, who was injured by a fall from a tree in the vicinity of pearson's habitation. as the sufferer's own home was at some distance, dorothy willingly received him under her roof and became his tender and careful nurse. ilbrahim was the unconscious possessor of much skill in physiognomy, and it would have deterred him in other circumstances from attempting to make a friend of this boy. the countenance of the latter immediately impressed a beholder disagreeably, but it required some examination to discover that the cause was a very slight distortion of the mouth and the irregular, broken line and near approach of the eyebrows. analogous, perhaps, to these trifling deformities was an almost imperceptible twist of every joint and the uneven prominence of the breast, forming a body regular in its general outline, but faulty in almost all its details. the disposition of the boy was sullen and reserved, and the village schoolmaster stigmatized him as obtuse in intellect, although at a later period of life he evinced ambition and very peculiar talents. but, whatever might be his personal or moral irregularities, ilbrahim's heart seized upon and clung to him from the moment that he was brought wounded into the cottage; the child of persecution seemed to compare his own fate with that of the sufferer, and to feel that even different modes of misfortune had created a sort of relationship between them. food, rest and the fresh air for which he languished were neglected; he nestled continually by the bedside of the little stranger and with a fond jealousy endeavored to be the medium of all the cares that were bestowed upon him. as the boy became convalescent ilbrahim contrived games suitable to his situation or amused him by a faculty which he had perhaps breathed in with the air of his barbaric birthplace. it was that of reciting imaginary adventures on the spur of the moment, and apparently in inexhaustible succession. his tales were, of course, monstrous, disjointed and without aim, but they were curious on account of a vein of human tenderness which ran through them all and was like a sweet familiar face encountered in the midst of wild and unearthly scenery. the auditor paid much attention to these romances and sometimes interrupted them by brief remarks upon the incidents, displaying shrewdness above his years, mingled with a moral obliquity which grated very harshly against ilbrahim's instinctive rectitude. nothing, however, could arrest the progress of the latter's affection, and there were many proofs that it met with a response from the dark and stubborn nature on which it was lavished. the boy's parents at length removed him to complete his cure under their own roof. ilbrahim did not visit his new friend after his departure, but he made anxious and continual inquiries respecting him and informed himself of the day when he was to reappear among his playmates. on a pleasant summer afternoon the children of the neighborhood had assembled in the little forest-crowned amphitheatre behind the meeting-house, and the recovering invalid was there, leaning on a staff. the glee of a score of untainted bosoms was heard in light and airy voices, which danced among the trees like sunshine become audible; the grown men of this weary world as they journeyed by the spot marvelled why life, beginning in such brightness, should proceed in gloom, and their hearts or their imaginations answered them and said that the bliss of childhood gushes from its innocence. but it happened that an unexpected addition was made to the heavenly little band. it was ilbrahim, who came toward the children with a look of sweet confidence on his fair and spiritual face, as if, having manifested his love to one of them, he had no longer to fear a repulse from their society. a hush came over their mirth the moment they beheld him, and they stood whispering to each other while he drew nigh; but all at once the devil of their fathers entered into the unbreeched fanatics, and, sending up a fierce, shrill cry, they rushed upon the poor quaker child. in an instant he was the centre of a brood of baby-fiends, who lifted sticks against him, pelted him with stones and displayed an instinct of destruction far more loathsome than the bloodthirstiness of manhood. the invalid, in the mean while, stood apart from the tumult, crying out with a loud voice, "fear not, ilbrahim; come hither and take my hand," and his unhappy friend endeavored to obey him. after watching the victim's struggling approach with a calm smile and unabashed eye, the foul-hearted little villain lifted his staff and struck ilbrahim on the mouth so forcibly that the blood issued in a stream. the poor child's arms had been raised to guard his head from the storm of blows, but now he dropped them at once. his persecutors beat him down, trampled upon him, dragged him by his long fair locks, and ilbrahim was on the point of becoming as veritable a martyr as ever entered bleeding into heaven. the uproar, however, attracted the notice of a few neighbors, who put themselves to the trouble of rescuing the little heretic, and of conveying him to pearson's door. ilbrahim's bodily harm was severe, but long and careful nursing accomplished his recovery; the injury done to his sensitive spirit was more serious, though not so visible. its signs were principally of a negative character, and to be discovered only by those who had previously known him. his gait was thenceforth slow, even and unvaried by the sudden bursts of sprightlier motion which had once corresponded to his overflowing gladness; his countenance was heavier, and its former play of expression--the dance of sunshine reflected from moving water--was destroyed by the cloud over his existence; his notice was attracted in a far less degree by passing events, and he appeared to find greater difficulty in comprehending what was new to him than at a happier period. a stranger founding his judgment upon these circumstances would have said that the dulness of the child's intellect widely contradicted the promise of his features, but the secret was in the direction of ilbrahim's thoughts, which were brooding within him when they should naturally have been wandering abroad. an attempt of dorothy to revive his former sportiveness was the single occasion on which his quiet demeanor yielded to a violent display of grief; he burst into passionate weeping and ran and hid himself, for his heart had become so miserably sore that even the hand of kindness tortured it like fire. sometimes at night, and probably in his dreams, he was heard to cry, "mother! mother!" as if her place, which a stranger had supplied while ilbrahim was happy, admitted of no substitute in his extreme affliction. perhaps among the many life-weary wretches then upon the earth there was not one who combined innocence and misery like this poor broken-hearted infant so soon the victim of his own heavenly nature. while this melancholy change had taken place in ilbrahim, one of an earlier origin and of different character had come to its perfection in his adopted father. the incident with which this tale commences found pearson in a state of religious dulness, yet mentally disquieted and longing for a more fervid faith than he possessed. the first effect of his kindness to ilbrahim was to produce a softened feeling, an incipient love for the child's whole sect, but joined to this, and resulting, perhaps, from self-suspicion, was a proud and ostentatious contempt of their tenets and practical extravagances. in the course of much thought, however--for the subject struggled irresistibly into his mind--the foolishness of the doctrine began to be less evident, and the points which had particularly offended his reason assumed another aspect or vanished entirely away. the work within him appeared to go on even while he slept, and that which had been a doubt when he laid down to rest would often hold the place of a truth confirmed by some forgotten demonstration when he recalled his thoughts in the morning. but, while he was thus becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts, his contempt, in nowise decreasing toward them, grew very fierce against himself; he imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance wore a sneer, and that every word addressed to him was a gibe. such was his state of mind at the period of ilbrahim's misfortune, and the emotions consequent upon that event completed the change of which the child had been the original instrument. in the mean time, neither the fierceness of the persecutors nor the infatuation of their victims had decreased. the dungeons were never empty; the streets of almost every village echoed daily with the lash; the life of a woman whose mild and christian spirit no cruelty could embitter had been sacrificed, and more innocent blood was yet to pollute the hands that were so often raised in prayer. early after the restoration the english quakers represented to charles ii. that a "vein of blood was open in his dominions," but, though the displeasure of the voluptuous king was roused, his interference was not prompt. and now the tale must stride forward over many months, leaving pearson to encounter ignominy and misfortune; his wife, to a firm endurance of a thousand sorrows; poor ilbrahim, to pine and droop like a cankered rose-bud; his mother, to wander on a mistaken errand, neglectful of the holiest trust which can be committed to a woman. * * * * * a winter evening, a night of storm, had darkened over pearson's habitation, and there were no cheerful faces to drive the gloom from his broad hearth. the fire, it is true, sent forth a glowing heat and a ruddy light, and large logs dripping with half-melted snow lay ready to cast upon the embers. but the apartment was saddened in its aspect by the absence of much of the homely wealth which had once adorned it, for the exaction of repeated fines and his own neglect of temporal affairs had greatly impoverished the owner. and with the furniture of peace the implements of war had likewise disappeared; the sword was broken, the helm and cuirass were cast away for ever: the soldier had done with battles, and might not lift so much as his naked hand to guard his head. but the holy book remained, and the table on which it rested was drawn before the fire, while two of the persecuted sect sought comfort from its pages. he who listened while the other read was the master of the house, now emaciated in form and altered as to the expression and healthiness of his countenance, for his mind had dwelt too long among visionary thoughts and his body had been worn by imprisonment and stripes. the hale and weatherbeaten old man who sat beside him had sustained less injury from a far longer course of the same mode of life. in person he was tall and dignified, and, which alone would have made him hateful to the puritans, his gray locks fell from beneath the broad-brimmed hat and rested on his shoulders. as the old man read the sacred page the snow drifted against the windows or eddied in at the crevices of the door, while a blast kept laughing in the chimney and the blaze leaped fiercely up to seek it. and sometimes, when the wind struck the hill at a certain angle and swept down by the cottage across the wintry plain, its voice was the most doleful that can be conceived; it came as if the past were speaking, as if the dead had contributed each a whisper, as if the desolation of ages were breathed in that one lamenting sound. the quaker at length closed the book, retaining, however, his hand between the pages which he had been reading, while he looked steadfastly at pearson. the attitude and features of the latter might have indicated the endurance of bodily pain; he leaned his forehead on his hands, his teeth were firmly closed and his frame was tremulous at intervals with a nervous agitation. "friend tobias," inquired the old man, compassionately, "hast thou found no comfort in these many blessed passages of scripture?" "thy voice has fallen on my ear like a sound afar off and indistinct," replied pearson, without lifting his eyes. "yea; and when i have hearkened carefully, the words seemed cold and lifeless and intended for another and a lesser grief than mine. remove the book," he added, in a tone of sullen bitterness; "i have no part in its consolations, and they do but fret my sorrow the more." "nay, feeble brother; be not as one who hath never known the light," said the elder quaker, earnestly, but with mildness. "art thou he that wouldst be content to give all and endure all for conscience' sake, desiring even peculiar trials that thy faith might be purified and thy heart weaned from worldly desires? and wilt thou sink beneath an affliction which happens alike to them that have their portion here below and to them that lay up treasure in heaven? faint not, for thy burden is yet light." "it is heavy! it is heavier than i can bear!" exclaimed pearson, with the impatience of a variable spirit. "from my youth upward i have been a man marked out for wrath, and year by year--yea, day after day--i have endured sorrows such as others know not in their lifetime. and now i speak not of the love that has been turned to hatred, the honor to ignominy, the ease and plentifulness of all things to danger, want and nakedness. all this i could have borne and counted myself blessed. but when my heart was desolate with many losses, i fixed it upon the child of a stranger, and he became dearer to me than all my buried ones; and now he too must die as if my love were poison. verily, i am an accursed man, and i will lay me down in the dust and lift up my head no more." "thou sinnest, brother, but it is not for me to rebuke thee, for i also have had my hours of darkness wherein i have murmured against the cross," said the old quaker. he continued, perhaps in the hope of distracting his companion's thoughts from his own sorrows: "even of late was the light obscured within me, when the men of blood had banished me on pain of death and the constables led me onward from village to village toward the wilderness. a strong and cruel hand was wielding the knotted cords; they sunk deep into the flesh, and thou mightst have tracked every reel and totter of my footsteps by the blood that followed. as we went on--" "have i not borne all this, and have i murmured?" interrupted pearson, impatiently. "nay, friend, but hear me," continued the other. "as we journeyed on night darkened on our path, so that no man could see the rage of the persecutors or the constancy of my endurance, though heaven forbid that i should glory therein. the lights began to glimmer in the cottage windows, and i could discern the inmates as they gathered in comfort and security, every man with his wife and children by their own evening hearth. at length we came to a tract of fertile land. in the dim light the forest was not visible around it, and, behold, there was a straw-thatched dwelling which bore the very aspect of my home far over the wild ocean--far in our own england. then came bitter thoughts upon me--yea, remembrances that were like death to my soul. the happiness of my early days was painted to me, the disquiet of my manhood, the altered faith of my declining years. i remembered how i had been moved to go forth a wanderer when my daughter, the youngest, the dearest of my flock, lay on her dying-bed, and--" "couldst thou obey the command at such a moment?" exclaimed pearson, shuddering. "yea! yea!" replied the old man, hurriedly. "i was kneeling by her bedside when the voice spoke loud within me, but immediately i rose and took my staff and gat me gone. oh that it were permitted me to forget her woeful look when i thus withdrew my arm and left her journeying through the dark valley alone! for her soul was faint and she had leaned upon my prayers. now in that night of horror i was assailed by the thought that i had been an erring christian and a cruel parent; yea, even my daughter with her pale dying features seemed to stand by me and whisper, 'father, you are deceived; go home and shelter your gray head.'--o thou to whom i have looked in my furthest wanderings," continued the quaker, raising his agitated eyes to heaven, "inflict not upon the bloodiest of our persecutors the unmitigated agony of my soul when i believed that all i had done and suffered for thee was at the instigation of a mocking fiend!--but i yielded not; i knelt down and wrestled with the tempter, while the scourge bit more fiercely into the flesh. my prayer was heard, and i went on in peace and joy toward the wilderness." the old man, though his fanaticism had generally all the calmness of reason, was deeply moved while reciting this tale, and his unwonted emotion seemed to rebuke and keep down that of his companion. they sat in silence, with their faces to the fire, imagining, perhaps, in its red embers new scenes of persecution yet to be encountered. the snow still drifted hard against the windows, and sometimes, as the blaze of the logs had gradually sunk, came down the spacious chimney and hissed upon the hearth. a cautious footstep might now and then be heard in a neighboring apartment, and the sound invariably drew the eyes of both quakers to the door which led thither. when a fierce and riotous gust of wind had led his thoughts by a natural association to homeless travellers on such a night, pearson resumed the conversation. "i have wellnigh sunk under my own share of this trial," observed he, sighing heavily; "yet i would that it might be doubled to me, if so the child's mother could be spared. her wounds have been deep and many, but this will be the sorest of all." "fear not for catharine," replied the old quaker, "for i know that valiant woman and have seen how she can bear the cross. a mother's heart, indeed, is strong in her, and may seem to contend mightily with her faith; but soon she will stand up and give thanks that her son has been thus early an accepted sacrifice. the boy hath done his work, and she will feel that he is taken hence in kindness both to him and her. blessed, blessed are they that with so little suffering can enter into peace!" the fitful rush of the wind was now disturbed by a portentous sound: it was a quick and heavy knocking at the outer door. pearson's wan countenance grew paler, for many a visit of persecution had taught him what to dread; the old man, on the other hand, stood up erect, and his glance was firm as that of the tried soldier who awaits his enemy. "the men of blood have come to seek me," he observed, with calmness. "they have heard how i was moved to return from banishment, and now am i to be led to prison, and thence to death. it is an end i have long looked for. i will open unto them lest they say, 'lo, he feareth!'" "nay; i will present myself before them," said pearson, with recovered fortitude. "it may be that they seek me alone and know not that thou abidest with me." "let us go boldly, both one and the other," rejoined his companion. "it is not fitting that thou or i should shrink." they therefore proceeded through the entry to the door, which they opened, bidding the applicant "come in, in god's name!" a furious blast of wind drove the storm into their faces and extinguished the lamp; they had barely time to discern a figure so white from head to foot with the drifted snow that it seemed like winter's self come in human shape to seek refuge from its own desolation. "enter, friend, and do thy errand, be it what it may," said pearson. "it must needs be pressing, since thou comest on such a bitter night." "peace be with this household!" said the stranger, when they stood on the floor of the inner apartment. pearson started; the elder quaker stirred the slumbering embers of the fire till they sent up a clear and lofty blaze. it was a female voice that had spoken; it was a female form that shone out, cold and wintry, in that comfortable light. "catharine, blessed woman," exclaimed the old man, "art thou come to this darkened land again? art thou come to bear a valiant testimony as in former years? the scourge hath not prevailed against thee, and from the dungeon hast thou come forth triumphant, but strengthen, strengthen now thy heart, catharine, for heaven will prove thee yet this once ere thou go to thy reward." "rejoice, friends!" she replied. "thou who hast long been of our people, and thou whom a little child hath led to us, rejoice! lo, i come, the messenger of glad tidings, for the day of persecution is over-past. the heart of the king, even charles, hath been moved in gentleness toward us, and he hath sent forth his letters to stay the hands of the men of blood. a ship's company of our friends hath arrived at yonder town, and i also sailed joyfully among them." as catharine spoke her eyes were roaming about the room in search of him for whose sake security was dear to her. pearson made a silent appeal to the old man, nor did the latter shrink from the painful task assigned him. "sister," he began, in a softened yet perfectly calm tone, "thou tellest us of his love manifested in temporal good, and now must we speak to thee of that selfsame love displayed in chastenings. hitherto, catharine, thou hast been as one journeying in a darksome and difficult path and leading an infant by the hand; fain wouldst thou have looked heavenward continually, but still the cares of that little child have drawn thine eyes and thy affections to the earth. sister, go on rejoicing, for his tottering footsteps shall impede thine own no more." but the unhappy mother was not thus to be consoled. she shook like a leaf; she turned white as the very snow that hung drifted into her hair. the firm old man extended his hand and held her up, keeping his eye upon hers as if to repress any outbreak of passion. "i am a woman--i am but a woman; will he try me above my strength?" said catharine, very quickly and almost in a whisper. "i have been wounded sore; i have suffered much--many things in the body, many in the mind; crucified in myself and in them that were dearest to me. surely," added she, with a long shudder, "he hath spared me in this one thing." she broke forth with sudden and irrepressible violence: "tell me, man of cold heart, what has god done to me? hath he cast me down never to rise again? hath he crushed my very heart in his hand?--and thou to whom i committed my child, how hast thou fulfilled thy trust? give me back the boy well, sound, alive--alive--or earth and heaven shall avenge me!" the agonized shriek of catharine was answered by the faint--the very faint--voice of a child. on this day it had become evident to pearson, to his aged guest and to dorothy that ilbrahim's brief and troubled pilgrimage drew near its close. the two former would willingly have remained by him to make use of the prayers and pious discourses which they deemed appropriate to the time, and which, if they be impotent as to the departing traveller's reception in the world whither he goes, may at least sustain him in bidding adieu to earth. but, though ilbrahim uttered no complaint, he was disturbed by the faces that looked upon him; so that dorothy's entreaties and their own conviction that the child's feet might tread heaven's pavement and not soil it had induced the two quakers to remove. ilbrahim then closed his eyes and grew calm, and, except for now and then a kind and low word to his nurse, might have been thought to slumber. as nightfall came on, however, and the storm began to rise, something seemed to trouble the repose of the boy's mind and to render his sense of hearing active and acute. if a passing wind lingered to shake the casement, he strove to turn his head toward it; if the door jarred to and fro upon its hinges, he looked long and anxiously thitherward; if the heavy voice of the old man as he read the scriptures rose but a little higher, the child almost held his dying-breath to listen; if a snowdrift swept by the cottage with a sound like the trailing of a garment, ilbrahim seemed to watch that some visitant should enter. but after a little time he relinquished whatever secret hope had agitated him and with one low complaining whisper turned his cheek upon the pillow. he then addressed dorothy with his usual sweetness and besought her to draw near him; she did so, and ilbrahim took her hand in both of his, grasping it with a gentle pressure, as if to assure himself that he retained it. at intervals, and without disturbing the repose of his countenance, a very faint trembling passed over him from head to foot, as if a mild but somewhat cool wind had breathed upon him and made him shiver. as the boy thus led her by the hand in his quiet progress over the borders of eternity, dorothy almost imagined that she could discern the near though dim delightfulness of the home he was about to reach; she would not have enticed the little wanderer back, though she bemoaned herself that she must leave him and return. but just when ilbrahim's feet were pressing on the soil of paradise he heard a voice behind him, and it recalled him a few, few paces of the weary path which he had travelled. as dorothy looked upon his features she perceived that their placid expression was again disturbed. her own thoughts had been so wrapped in him that all sounds of the storm and of human speech were lost to her; but when catharine's shriek pierced through the room, the boy strove to raise himself. "friend, she is come! open unto her!" cried he. in a moment his mother was kneeling by the bedside; she drew ilbrahim to her bosom, and he nestled there with no violence of joy, but contentedly as if he were hushing himself to sleep. he looked into her face, and, reading its agony, said with feeble earnestness, "mourn not, dearest mother. i am happy now;" and with these words the gentle boy was dead. * * * * * the king's mandate to stay the new england persecutors was effectual in preventing further martyrdoms, but the colonial authorities, trusting in the remoteness of their situation, and perhaps in the supposed instability of the royal government, shortly renewed their severities in all other respects. catharine's fanaticism had become wilder by the sundering of all human ties; and wherever a scourge was lifted, there was she to receive the blow; and whenever a dungeon was unbarred, thither she came to cast herself upon the floor. but in process of time a more christian spirit--a spirit of forbearance, though not of cordiality or approbation--began to pervade the land in regard to the persecuted sect. and then, when the rigid old pilgrims eyed her rather in pity than in wrath, when the matrons fed her with the fragments of their children's food and offered her a lodging on a hard and lowly bed, when no little crowd of schoolboys left their sports to cast stones after the roving enthusiast,--then did catharine return to pearson's dwelling, and made that her home. as if ilbrahim's sweetness yet lingered round his ashes, as if his gentle spirit came down from heaven to teach his parent a true religion, her fierce and vindictive nature was softened by the same griefs which had once irritated it. when the course of years had made the features of the unobtrusive mourner familiar in the settlement, she became a subject of not deep but general interest--a being on whom the otherwise superfluous sympathies of all might be bestowed. every one spoke of her with that degree of pity which it is pleasant to experience; every one was ready to do her the little kindnesses which are not costly, yet manifest good-will; and when at last she died, a long train of her once bitter persecutors followed her with decent sadness and tears that were not painful to her place by ilbrahim's green and sunken grave. mr. higginbotham's catastrophe. a young fellow, a tobacco-pedler by trade, was on his way from morristown, where he had dealt largely with the deacon of the shaker settlement, to the village of parker's falls, on salmon river. he had a neat little cart painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side-panel, and an indian chief holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk on the rear. the pedler drove a smart little mare and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the yankees, who, as i have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the connecticut, whose favor he used to court by presents of the best smoking-tobacco in his stock, knowing well that the country-lasses of new england are generally great performers on pipes. moreover, as will be seen in the course of my story, the pedler was inquisitive and something of a tattler, always itching to hear the news and anxious to tell it again. after an early breakfast at morristown the tobacco-pedler--whose name was dominicus pike--had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods without speaking a word to anybody but himself and his little gray mare. it being nearly seven o'clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip as a city shopkeeper to read the morning paper. an opportunity seemed at hand when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up and perceived a man coming over the brow of the hill at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart. dominicus watched him as he descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick and travelled with a weary yet determined pace. he did not look as if he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do the same all day. "good-morning, mister," said dominicus, when within speaking-distance. "you go a pretty good jog. what's the latest news at parker's falls?" the man pulled the broad brim of a gray hat over his eyes, and answered, rather sullenly, that he did not come from parker's falls, which, as being the limit of his own day's journey, the pedler had naturally mentioned in his inquiry. "well, then," rejoined dominicus pike, "let's have the latest news where you did come from. i'm not particular about parker's falls. any place will answer." being thus importuned, the traveller--who was as ill-looking a fellow as one would desire to meet in a solitary piece of woods--appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news or weighing the expediency of telling it. at last, mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud and no other mortal would have heard him. "i do remember one little trifle of news," said he. "old mr. higginbotham of kimballton was murdered in his orchard at eight o'clock last night by an irishman and a nigger. they strung him up to the branch of a st. michael's pear tree where nobody would find him till the morning." as soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated the stranger betook himself to his journey again with more speed than ever, not even turning his head when dominicus invited him to smoke a spanish cigar and relate all the particulars. the pedler whistled to his mare and went up the hill, pondering on the doleful fate of mr. higginbotham, whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long nines and a great deal of pig-tail, lady's twist and fig tobacco. he was rather astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread. kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant in a straight line; the murder had been perpetrated only at eight o'clock the preceding night, yet dominicus had heard of it at seven in the morning, when, in all probability, poor mr. higginbotham's own family had but just discovered his corpse hanging on the st. michael's pear tree. the stranger on foot must have worn seven-league boots, to travel at such a rate. "ill-news flies fast, they say," thought dominicus pike, "but this beats railroads. the fellow ought to be hired to go express with the president's message." the difficulty was solved by supposing that the narrator had made a mistake of one day in the date of the occurrence; so that our friend did not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and country-store along the road, expending a whole bunch of spanish wrappers among at least twenty horrified audiences. he found himself invariably the first bearer of the intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid filling up the outline till it became quite a respectable narrative. he met with one piece of corroborative evidence. mr. higginbotham was a trader, and a former clerk of his to whom dominicus related the facts testified that the old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orchard about nightfall with the money and valuable papers of the store in his pocket. the clerk manifested but little grief at mr. higginbotham's catastrophe, hinting--what the pedler had discovered in his own dealings with him--that he was a crusty old fellow as close as a vise. his property would descend to a pretty niece who was now keeping school in kimballton. what with telling the news for the public good and driving bargains for his own, dominicus was so much delayed on the road that he chose to put up at a tavern about five miles short of parker's falls. after supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated himself in the bar-room and went through the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half an hour to tell. there were as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. but the twentieth was an elderly farmer who had arrived on horseback a short time before and was now seated in a corner, smoking his pipe. when the story was concluded, he rose up very deliberately, brought his chair right in front of dominicus and stared him full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco-smoke the pedler had ever smelt. "will you make affidavit," demanded he, in the tone of a country-justice taking an examination, "that old squire higginbotham of kimballton was murdered in his orchard the night before last and found hanging on his great pear tree yesterday morning?" "i tell the story as i heard it, mister," answered dominicus, dropping his half-burnt cigar. "i don't say that i saw the thing done, so i can't take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way." "but i can take mine," said the farmer, "that if squire higginbotham was murdered night before last i drank a glass of bitters with his ghost this morning. being a neighbor of mine, he called me into his store as i was riding by, and treated me, and then asked me to do a little business for him on the road. he didn't seem to know any more about his own murder than i did." "why, then it can't be a fact!" exclaimed dominicus pike. "i guess he'd have mentioned, if it was," said the old farmer; and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving dominicus quite down in the mouth. here was a sad resurrection of old mr. higginbotham! the pedler had no heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself with a glass of gin and water and went to bed, where all night long he dreamed of hanging on the st. michael's pear tree. to avoid the old farmer (whom he so detested that his suspension would have pleased him better than mr. higginbotham's), dominicus rose in the gray of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart and trotted swiftly away toward parker's falls. the fresh breeze, the dewy road and the pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him to repeat the old story had there been anybody awake to bear it, but he met neither ox-team, light wagon, chaise, horseman nor foot-traveller till, just as he crossed salmon river, a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundle over his shoulder, on the end of a stick. "good-morning, mister," said the pedler, reining in his mare. "if you come from kimballton or that neighborhood, maybe you can tell me the real fact about this affair of old mr. higginbotham. was the old fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago by an irishman and a nigger?" dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe at first that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood. on hearing this sudden question the ethiopian appeared to change his skin, its yellow hue becoming a ghastly white, while, shaking and stammering, he thus replied: "no, no! there was no colored man. it was an irishman that hanged him last night at eight o'clock; i came away at seven. his folks can't have looked for him in the orchard yet." scarcely had the yellow man spoken, when he interrupted himself and, though he seemed weary enough before, continued his journey at a pace which would have kept the pedler's mare on a smart trot. dominicus stared after him in great perplexity. if the murder had not been committed till tuesday night, who was the prophet that had foretold it in all its circumstances on tuesday morning? if mr. higginbotham's corpse were not yet discovered by his own family, how came the mulatto, at above thirty miles' distance, to know that he was hanging in the orchard, especially as he had left kimballton before the unfortunate man was hanged at all? these ambiguous circumstances, with the stranger's surprise and terror, made dominicus think of raising a hue-and-cry after him as an accomplice in the murder, since a murder, it seemed, had really been perpetrated. "but let the poor devil go," thought the pedler. "i don't want his black blood on my head, and hanging the nigger wouldn't unhang mr. higginbotham. unhang the old gentleman? it's a sin, i know, but i should hate to have him come to life a second time and give me the lie." with these meditations dominicus pike drove into the street of parker's falls, which, as everybody knows, is as thriving a village as three cotton-factories and a slitting-mill can make it. the machinery was not in motion and but a few of the shop doors unbarred when he alighted in the stable-yard of the tavern and made it his first business to order the mare four quarts of oats. his second duty, of course, was to impart mr. higginbotham's catastrophe to the hostler. he deemed it advisable, however, not to be too positive as to the date of the direful fact, and also to be uncertain whether it were perpetrated by an irishman and a mulatto or by the son of erin alone. neither did he profess to relate it on his own authority or that of any one person, but mentioned it as a report generally diffused. the story ran through the town like fire among girdled trees, and became so much the universal talk that nobody could tell whence it had originated. mr. higginbotham was as well known at parker's falls as any citizen of the place, being part-owner of the slitting-mill and a considerable stockholder in the cotton-factories. the inhabitants felt their own prosperity interested in his fate. such was the excitement that the parker's falls _gazette_ anticipated its regular day of publication, and came out with half a form of blank paper and a column of double pica emphasized with capitals and headed "horrid murder of mr. higginbotham!" among other dreadful details, the printed account described the mark of the cord round the dead man's neck and stated the number of thousand dollars of which he had been robbed; there was much pathos, also, about the affliction of his niece, who had gone from one fainting-fit to another ever since her uncle was found hanging on the st. michael's pear tree with his pockets inside out. the village poet likewise commemorated the young lady's grief in seventeen stanzas of a ballad. the selectmen held a meeting, and in consideration of mr. higginbotham's claims on the town determined to issue handbills offering a reward of five hundred dollars for the apprehension of his murderers and the recovery of the stolen property. meanwhile, the whole population of parker's falls, consisting of shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory-girls, mill-men and schoolboys, rushed into the street and kept up such a terrible loquacity as more than compensated for the silence of the cotton-machines, which refrained from their usual din out of respect to the deceased. had mr. higginbotham cared about posthumous renown, his untimely ghost would have exulted in this tumult. our friend dominicus in his vanity of heart forgot his intended precautions, and, mounting on the town-pump, announced himself as the bearer of the authentic intelligence which had caused so wonderful a sensation. he immediately became the great man of the moment, and had just begun a new edition of the narrative with a voice like a field-preacher when the mail-stage drove into the village street. it had travelled all night, and must have shifted horses at kimballton at three in the morning. "now we shall hear all the particulars!" shouted the crowd. the coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern followed by a thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business till then, he now left it at sixes and sevens to hear the news. the pedler, foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of whom had been startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre of a mob. every man assailing them with separate questions, all propounded at once, the couple were struck speechless, though one was a lawyer and the other a young lady. "mr. higginbotham! mr. higginbotham! tell us the particulars about old mr. higginbotham!" bawled the mob. "what is the coroner's verdict? are the murderers apprehended? is mr. higginbotham's niece come out of her fainting-fits? mr. higginbotham! mr. higginbotham!" the coachman said not a word except to swear awfully at the hostler for not bringing him a fresh team of horses. the lawyer inside had generally his wits about him even when asleep; the first thing he did after learning the cause of the excitement was to produce a large red pocketbook. meantime, dominicus pike, being an extremely polite young man, and also suspecting that a female tongue would tell the story as glibly as a lawyer's, had handed the lady out of the coach. she was a fine, smart girl, now wide awake and bright as a button, and had such a sweet, pretty mouth that dominicus would almost as lief have heard a love-tale from it as a tale of murder. "gentlemen and ladies," said the lawyer to the shopkeepers, the mill-men and the factory-girls, "i can assure you that some unaccountable mistake--or, more probably, a wilful falsehood maliciously contrived to injure mr. higginbotham's credit--has excited this singular uproar. we passed through kimballton at three o'clock this morning, and most certainly should have been informed of the murder had any been perpetrated. but i have proof nearly as strong as mr. higginbotham's own oral testimony in the negative. here is a note relating to a suit of his in the connecticut courts which was delivered me from that gentleman himself. i find it dated at ten o'clock last evening." so saying, the lawyer, exhibited the date and signature of the note, which irrefragably proved either that this perverse mr. higginbotham was alive when he wrote it, or, as some deemed the more probable case of two doubtful ones, that he was so absorbed in worldly business as to continue to transact it even after his death. but unexpected evidence was forthcoming. the young lady, after listening to the pedler's explanation, merely seized a moment to smooth her gown and put her curls in order, and then appeared at the tavern door, making a modest signal to be heard. "good people," said she, "i am mr. higginbotham's niece." a wondering murmur passed through the crowd on beholding her so rosy and bright--that same unhappy niece whom they had supposed, on the authority of the parker's falls _gazette_, to be lying at death's door in a fainting-fit. but some shrewd fellows had doubted all along whether a young lady would be quite so desperate at the hanging of a rich old uncle. "you see," continued miss higginbotham, with a smile, "that this strange story is quite unfounded as to myself, and i believe i may affirm it to be equally so in regard to my dear uncle higginbotham. he has the kindness to give me a home in his house, though i contribute to my own support by teaching a school. i left kimballton this morning to spend the vacation of commencement-week with a friend about five miles from parker's falls. my generous uncle, when he heard me on the stairs, called me to his bedside and gave me two dollars and fifty cents to pay my stage-fare, and another dollar for my extra expenses. he then laid his pocketbook under his pillow, shook hands with me, and advised me to take some biscuit in my bag instead of breakfasting on the road. i feel confident, therefore, that i left my beloved relative alive, and trust that i shall find him so on my return." the young lady courtesied at the close of her speech, which was so sensible and well worded, and delivered with such grace and propriety, that everybody thought her fit to be preceptress of the best academy in the state. but a stranger would have supposed that mr. higginbotham was an object of abhorrence at parker's falls and that a thanksgiving had been proclaimed for his murder, so excessive was the wrath of the inhabitants on learning their mistake. the mill-men resolved to bestow public honors on dominicus pike, only hesitating whether to tar and feather him, ride him on a rail or refresh him with an ablution at the town-pump, on the top of which he had declared himself the bearer of the news. the selectmen, by advice of the lawyer, spoke of prosecuting him for a misdemeanor in circulating unfounded reports, to the great disturbance of the peace of the commonwealth. nothing saved dominicus either from mob-law or a court of justice but an eloquent appeal made by the young lady in his behalf. addressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude to his benefactress, he mounted the green cart and rode out of town under a discharge of artillery from the schoolboys, who found plenty of ammunition in the neighboring clay-pits and mud-holes. as he turned his head to exchange a farewell glance with mr. higginbotham's niece a ball of the consistence of hasty-pudding hit him slap in the mouth, giving him a most grim aspect. his whole person was so bespattered with the like filthy missiles that he had almost a mind to ride back and supplicate for the threatened ablution at the town-pump; for, though not meant in kindness, it would now have been a deed of charity. however, the sun shone bright on poor dominicus, and the mud--an emblem of all stains of undeserved opprobrium--was easily brushed off when dry. being a funny rogue, his heart soon cheered up; nor could he refrain from a hearty laugh at the uproar which his story had excited. the handbills of the selectmen would cause the commitment of all the vagabonds in the state, the paragraph in the parker's falls _gazette_ would be reprinted from maine to florida, and perhaps form an item in the london newspapers, and many a miser would tremble for his moneybags and life on learning the catastrophe of mr. higginbotham. the pedler meditated with much fervor on the charms of the young schoolmistress, and swore that daniel webster never spoke nor looked so like an angel as miss higginbotham while defending him from the wrathful populace at parker's falls. dominicus was now on the kimballton turnpike, having all along determined to visit that place, though business had drawn, him out of the most direct road from morristown. as he approached the scene of the supposed murder he continued to revolve the circumstances in his mind, and was astonished at the aspect which the whole case assumed. had nothing occurred to corroborate the story of the first traveller, it might now have been considered as a hoax; but the yellow man was evidently acquainted either with the report or the fact, and there was a mystery in his dismayed and guilty look on being abruptly questioned. when to this singular combination of incidents it was added that the rumor tallied exactly with mr. higginbotham's character and habits of life, and that he had an orchard and a st. michael's pear tree, near which he always passed at nightfall, the circumstantial evidence appeared so strong that dominicus doubted whether the autograph produced by the lawyer, or even the niece's direct testimony, ought to be equivalent. making cautious inquiries along the road, the pedler further learned that mr. higginbotham had in his service an irishman of doubtful character whom he had hired without a recommendation, on the score of economy. "may i be hanged myself," exclaimed dominicus pike, aloud, on reaching the top of a lonely hill, "if i'll believe old higginbotham is unhanged till i see him with my own eyes and hear it from his own mouth. and, as he's a real shaver, i'll have the minister, or some other responsible man, for an endorser." it was growing dusk when he reached the toll-house on kimballton turnpike, about a quarter of a mile from the village of this name. his little mare was fast bringing him up with a man on horseback who trotted through the gate a few rods in advance of him, nodded to the toll-gatherer and kept on towards the village. dominicus was acquainted with the toll-man, and while making change the usual remarks on the weather passed between them. "i suppose," said the pedler, throwing back his whiplash to bring it down like a feather on the mare's flank, "you have not seen anything of old mr. higginbotham within a day or two?" "yes," answered the toll-gatherer; "he passed the gate just before you drove up, and yonder he rides now, if you can see him through the dusk. he's been to woodfield this afternoon, attending a sheriff's sale there. the old man generally shakes hands and has a little chat with me, but to-night he nodded, as if to say, 'charge my toll,' and jogged on; for, wherever he goes, he must always be at home by eight o'clock." "so they tell me," said dominicus. "i never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does," continued the toll-gatherer. "says i to myself tonight, 'he's more like a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood.'" the pedler strained his eyes through the twilight, and could just discern the horseman now far ahead on the village road. he seemed to recognize the rear of mr. higginbotham, but through the evening shadows and amid the dust from the horse's feet the figure appeared dim and unsubstantial, as if the shape of the mysterious old man were faintly moulded of darkness and gray light. dominicus shivered. "mr. higginbotham has come back from the other world by way of the kimballton turnpike," thought he. he shook the reins and rode forward, keeping about the same distance in the rear of the gray old shadow till the latter was concealed by a bend of the road. on reaching this point the pedler no longer saw the man on horseback, but found himself at the head of the village street, not far from a number of stores and two taverns clustered round the meeting-house steeple. on his left was a stone wall and a gate, the boundary of a wood-lot beyond which lay an orchard, farther still a mowing-field, and last of all a house. these were the premises of mr. higginbotham, whose dwelling stood beside the old highway, but had been left in the background by the kimballton turnpike. dominicus knew the place, and the little mare stopped short by instinct, for he was not conscious of tightening the reins. "for the soul of me, i cannot get by this gate!" said he, trembling. "i never shall be my own man again till i see whether mr. higginbotham is hanging on the st. michael's pear tree." he leaped from the cart, gave the rein a turn round the gate-post, and ran along the green path of the wood-lot as if old nick were chasing behind. just then the village clock tolled eight, and as each deep stroke fell dominicus gave a fresh bound and flew faster than before, till, dim in the solitary centre of the orchard, he saw the fated pear tree. one great branch stretched from the old contorted trunk across the path and threw the darkest shadow on that one spot. but something seemed to struggle beneath the branch. the pedler had never pretended to more courage than befits a man of peaceable occupation, nor could he account for his valor on this awful emergency. certain it is, however, that he rushed forward, prostrated a sturdy irishman with the butt-end of his whip, and found--not, indeed, hanging on the st. michael's pear tree, but trembling beneath it with a halter round his neck--the old identical mr. higginbotham. "mr. higginbotham," said dominicus, tremulously, "you're an honest man, and i'll take your word for it. have you been hanged, or not?" if the riddle be not already guessed, a few words will explain the simple machinery by which this "coming event" was made to cast its "shadow before." three men had plotted the robbery and murder of mr. higginbotham; two of them successively lost courage and fled, each delaying the crime one night by their disappearance; the third was in the act of perpetration, when a champion, blindly obeying the call of fate, like the heroes of old romance, appeared in the person of dominicus pike. it only remains to say that mr. higginbotham took the pedler into high favor, sanctioned his addresses to the pretty schoolmistress and settled his whole property on their children, allowing themselves the interest. in due time the old gentleman capped the climax of his favors by dying a christian death in bed; since which melancholy event, dominicus pike has removed from kimballton and established a large tobacco-manufactory in my native village. little annie's ramble. ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! the town-crier has rung his bell at a distant corner, and little annie stands on her father's doorsteps trying to hear what the man with the loud voice is talking about. let me listen too. oh, he is telling the people that an elephant and a lion and a royal tiger and a horse with horns, and other strange beasts from foreign countries, have come to town and will receive all visitors who choose to wait upon them. perhaps little annie would like to go? yes, and i can see that the pretty child is weary of this wide and pleasant street with the green trees flinging their shade across the quiet sunshine and the pavements and the sidewalks all as clean as if the housemaid had just swept them with her broom. she feels that impulse to go strolling away--that longing after the mystery of the great world--which many children feel, and which i felt in my childhood. little annie shall take a ramble with me. see! i do but hold out my hand, and like some bright bird in the sunny air, with her blue silk frock fluttering upward from her white pantalets, she comes bounding on tiptoe across the street. smooth back your brown curls, annie, and let me tie on your bonnet, and we will set forth. what a strange couple to go on their rambles together! one walks in black attire, with a measured step and a heavy brow and his thoughtful eyes bent down, while the gay little girl trips lightly along as if she were forced to keep hold of my hand lest her feet should dance away from the earth. yet there is sympathy between us. if i pride myself on anything, it is because i have a smile that children love; and, on the other hand, there are few grown ladies that could entice me from the side of little annie, for i delight to let my mind go hand in hand with the mind of a sinless child. so come, annie; but if i moralize as we go, do not listen to me: only look about you and be merry. now we turn the corner. here are hacks with two horses and stage-coaches with four thundering to meet each other, and trucks and carts moving at a slower pace, being heavily laden with barrels from the wharves; and here are rattling gigs which perhaps will be smashed to pieces before our eyes. hitherward, also, comes a man trundling a wheelbarrow along the pavement. is not little annie afraid of such a tumult? no; she does not even shrink closer to my side, but passes on with fearless confidence, a happy child amidst a great throng of grown people who pay the same reverence to her infancy that they would to extreme old age. nobody jostles her: all turn aside to make way for little annie; and, what is most singular, she appears conscious of her claim to such respect. now her eyes brighten with pleasure. a street-musician has seated himself on the steps of yonder church and pours forth his strains to the busy town--a melody that has gone astray among the tramp of footsteps, the buzz of voices and the war of passing wheels. who heeds the poor organ-grinder? none but myself and little annie, whose feet begin to move in unison with the lively tune, as if she were loth that music should be wasted without a dance. but where would annie find a partner? some have the gout in their toes or the rheumatism in their joints; some are stiff with age, some feeble with disease; some are so lean that their bones would rattle, and others of such ponderous size that their agility would crack the flagstones; but many, many have leaden feet because their hearts are far heavier than lead. it is a sad thought that i have chanced upon. what a company of dancers should we be! for i too am a gentleman of sober footsteps, and therefore, little annie, let us walk sedately on. it is a question with me whether this giddy child or my sage self have most pleasure in looking at the shop-windows. we love the silks of sunny hue that glow within the darkened premises of the spruce dry-goods men; we are pleasantly dazzled by the burnished silver and the chased gold, the rings of wedlock and the costly love-ornaments, glistening at the window of the jeweller; but annie, more than i, seeks for a glimpse of her passing figure in the dusty looking-glasses at the hardware-stores. all that is bright and gay attracts us both. here is a shop to which the recollections of my boyhood as well as present partialities give a peculiar magic. how delightful to let the fancy revel on the dainties of a confectioner--those pies with such white and flaky paste, their contents being a mystery, whether rich mince with whole plums intermixed, or piquant apple delicately rose-flavored; those cakes, heart-shaped or round, piled in a lofty pyramid; those sweet little circlets sweetly named kisses; those dark majestic masses fit to be bridal-loaves at the wedding of an heiress, mountains in size, their summits deeply snow-covered with sugar! then the mighty treasures of sugarplums, white and crimson and yellow, in large glass vases, and candy of all varieties, and those little cockles--or whatever they are called--much prized by children for their sweetness, and more for the mottoes which they enclose, by love-sick maids and bachelors! oh, my mouth waters, little annie, and so doth yours, but we will not be tempted except to an imaginary feast; so let us hasten onward devouring the vision of a plum-cake. here are pleasures, as some people would say, of a more exalted kind, in the window of a bookseller. is annie a literary lady? yes; she is deeply read in peter parley's tomes and has an increasing love for fairy-tales, though seldom met with nowadays, and she will subscribe next year to the _juvenile miscellany_. but, truth to tell, she is apt to turn away from the printed page and keep gazing at the pretty pictures, such as the gay-colored ones which make this shop-window the continual loitering-place of children. what would annie think if, in the book which i mean to send her on new year's day, she should find her sweet little self bound up in silk or morocco with gilt edges, there to remain till she become a woman grown with children of her own to read about their mother's childhood? that would be very queer. little annie is weary of pictures and pulls me onward by the hand, till suddenly we pause at the most wondrous shop in all the town. oh, my stars! is this a toyshop, or is it fairy-land? for here are gilded chariots in which the king and queen of the fairies might ride side by side, while their courtiers on these small horses should gallop in triumphal procession before and behind the royal pair. here, too, are dishes of chinaware fit to be the dining-set of those same princely personages when they make a regal banquet in the stateliest hall of their palace--full five feet high--and behold their nobles feasting adown the long perspective of the table. betwixt the king and queen should sit my little annie, the prettiest fairy of them all. here stands a turbaned turk threatening us with his sabre, like an ugly heathen as he is, and next a chinese mandarin who nods his head at annie and myself. here we may review a whole army of horse and foot in red-and-blue uniforms, with drums, fifes, trumpets, and all kinds of noiseless music; they have halted on the shelf of this window after their weary march from liliput. but what cares annie for soldiers? no conquering queen is she--neither a semiramis nor a catharine; her whole heart is set upon that doll who gazes at us with such a fashionable stare. this is the little girl's true plaything. though made of wood, a doll is a visionary and ethereal personage endowed by childish fancy with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is a heroine of romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand shadowy scenes, the chief inhabitant of that wild world with which children ape the real one. little annie does not understand what i am saying, but looks wishfully at the proud lady in the window. we will invite her home with us as we return.--meantime, good-bye, dame doll! a toy yourself, you look forth from your window upon many ladies that are also toys, though they walk and speak, and upon a crowd in pursuit of toys, though they wear grave visages. oh, with your never-closing eyes, had you but an intellect to moralize on all that flits before them, what a wise doll would you be!--come, little annie, we shall find toys enough, go where we may. now we elbow our way among the throng again. it is curious in the most crowded part of a town to meet with living creatures that had their birthplace in some far solitude, but have acquired a second nature in the wilderness of men. look up, annie, at that canary-bird hanging out of the window in his cage. poor little fellow! his golden feathers are all tarnished in this smoky sunshine; he would have glistened twice as brightly among the summer islands, but still he has become a citizen in all his tastes and habits, and would not sing half so well without the uproar that drowns his music. what a pity that he does not know how miserable he is! there is a parrot, too, calling out, "pretty poll! pretty poll!" as we pass by. foolish bird, to be talking about her prettiness to strangers, especially as she is not a pretty poll, though gaudily dressed in green and yellow! if she had said "pretty annie!" there would have been some sense in it. see that gray squirrel at the door of the fruit-shop whirling round and round so merrily within his wire wheel! being condemned to the treadmill, he makes it an amusement. admirable philosophy! here comes a big, rough dog--a countryman's dog--in search of his master, smelling at everybody's heels and touching little annie's hand with his cold nose, but hurrying away, though she would fain have patted him.--success to your search, fidelity!--and there sits a great yellow cat upon a window-sill, a very corpulent and comfortable cat, gazing at this transitory world with owl's eyes, and making pithy comments, doubtless, or what appear such, to the silly beast.--oh, sage puss, make room for me beside you, and we will be a pair of philosophers. here we see something to remind us of the town-crier and his ding-dong-bell. look! look at that great cloth spread out in the air, pictured all over with wild beasts, as if they had met together to choose a king, according to their custom in the days of �sop. but they are choosing neither a king nor a president, else we should hear a most horrible snarling! they have come from the deep woods and the wild mountains and the desert sands and the polar snows only to do homage to my little annie. as we enter among them the great elephant makes us a bow in the best style of elephantine courtesy, bending lowly down his mountain bulk, with trunk abased and leg thrust out behind. annie returns the salute, much to the gratification of the elephant, who is certainly the best-bred monster in the caravan. the lion and the lioness are busy with two beef-bones. the royal tiger, the beautiful, the untamable, keeps pacing his narrow cage with a haughty step, unmindful of the spectators or recalling the fierce deeds of his former life, when he was wont to leap forth upon such inferior animals from the jungles of bengal. here we see the very same wolf--do not go near him, annie!--the selfsame wolf that devoured little red riding-hood and her grandmother. in the next cage a hyena from egypt who has doubtless howled around the pyramids and a black bear from our own forests are fellow-prisoners and most excellent friends. are there any two living creatures who have so few sympathies that they cannot possibly be friends? here sits a great white bear whom common observers would call a very stupid beast, though i perceive him to be only absorbed in contemplation; he is thinking of his voyages on an iceberg, and of his comfortable home in the vicinity of the north pole, and of the little cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows. in fact, he is a bear of sentiment. but oh those unsentimental monkeys! the ugly, grinning, aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous and queer little brutes! annie does not love the monkeys; their ugliness shocks her pure, instinctive delicacy of taste and makes her mind unquiet because it bears a wild and dark resemblance to humanity. but here is a little pony just big enough for annie to ride, and round and round he gallops in a circle, keeping time with his trampling hoofs to a band of music. and here, with a laced coat and a cocked hat, and a riding-whip in his hand--here comes a little gentleman small enough to be king of the fairies and ugly enough to be king of the gnomes, and takes a flying leap into the saddle. merrily, merrily plays the music, and merrily gallops the pony, and merrily rides the little old gentleman.--come, annie, into the street again; perchance we may see monkeys on horseback there. mercy on us! what a noisy world we quiet people live in! did annie ever read the cries of london city? with what lusty lungs doth yonder man proclaim that his wheelbarrow is full of lobsters! here comes another, mounted on a cart and blowing a hoarse and dreadful blast from a tin horn, as much as to say, "fresh fish!" and hark! a voice on high, like that of a muezzin from the summit of a mosque, announcing that some chimney-sweeper has emerged from smoke and soot and darksome caverns into the upper air. what cares the world for that? but, well-a-day, we hear a shrill voice of affliction--the scream of a little child, rising louder with every repetition of that smart, sharp, slapping sound produced by an open hand on tender flesh. annie sympathizes, though without experience of such direful woe. lo! the town-crier again, with some new secret for the public ear. will he tell us of an auction, or of a lost pocket-book or a show of beautiful wax figures, or of some monstrous beast more horrible than any in the caravan? i guess the latter. see how he uplifts the bell in his right hand and shakes it slowly at first, then with a hurried motion, till the clapper seems to strike both sides at once, and the sounds are scattered forth in quick succession far and near. ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! now he raises his clear loud voice above all the din of the town. it drowns the buzzing talk of many tongues and draws each man's mind from his own business; it rolls up and down the echoing street, and ascends to the hushed chamber of the sick, and penetrates downward to the cellar kitchen where the hot cook turns from the fire to listen. who of all that address the public ear, whether in church or court-house or hall of state, has such an attentive audience as the town-crier! what saith the people's orator? "strayed from her home, a little girl of five years old, in a blue silk frock and white pantalets, with brown curling hair and hazel eyes. whoever will bring her back to her afflicted mother--" stop, stop, town-crier! the lost is found.--oh, my pretty annie, we forgot to tell your mother of our ramble, and she is in despair and has sent the town-crier to bellow up and down the streets, affrighting old and young, for the loss of a little girl who has not once let go my hand? well, let us hasten homeward; and as we go forget not to thank heaven, my annie, that after wandering a little way into the world you may return at the first summons with an untainted and unwearied heart, and be a happy child again. but i have gone too far astray for the town-crier to call me back. sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit throughout my ramble with little annie. say not that it has been a waste of precious moments, an idle matter, a babble of childish talk and a reverie of childish imaginations about topics unworthy of a grown man's notice. has it been merely this? not so--not so. they are not truly wise who would affirm it. as the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men, so is our moral nature revived by their free and simple thoughts, their native feeling, their airy mirth for little cause or none, their grief soon roused and soon allayed. their influence on us is at least reciprocal with ours on them. when our infancy is almost forgotten and our boyhood long departed, though it seems but as yesterday, when life settles darkly down upon us and we doubt whether to call ourselves young any more,--then it is good to steal away from the society of bearded men, and even of gentler woman, and spend an hour or two with children. after drinking from those fountains of still fresh existence we shall return into the crowd, as i do now, to struggle onward and do our part in life--perhaps as fervently as ever, but for a time with a kinder and purer heart and a spirit more lightly wise. all this by thy sweet magic, dear little annie! wakefield. in some old magazine or newspaper i recollect a story, told as truth, of a man--let us call him wakefield--who absented himself for a long time from his wife. the fact, thus abstractedly stated, is not very uncommon, nor, without a proper distinction of circumstances, to be condemned either as naughty or nonsensical. howbeit, this, though far from the most aggravated, is perhaps the strangest instance on record of marital delinquency, and, moreover, as remarkable a freak as may be found in the whole list of human oddities. the wedded couple lived in london. the man, under pretence of going a journey, took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends and without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt upward of twenty years. during that period he beheld his home every day, and frequently the forlorn mrs. wakefield. and after so great a gap in his matrimonial felicity--when his death was reckoned certain, his estate settled, his name dismissed from memory and his wife long, long ago resigned to her autumnal widowhood--he entered the door one evening quietly as from a day's absence, and became a loving spouse till death. this outline is all that i remember. but the incident, though of the purest originality, unexampled, and probably never to be repeated, is one, i think, which appeals to the general sympathies of mankind. we know, each for himself, that none of us would perpetrate such a folly, yet feel as if some other might. to my own contemplations, at least, it has often recurred, always exciting wonder, but with a sense that the story must be true and a conception of its hero's character. whenever any subject so forcibly affects the mind, time is well spent in thinking of it. if the reader choose, let him do his own meditation; or if he prefer to ramble with me through the twenty years of wakefield's vagary, i bid him welcome, trusting that there will be a pervading spirit and a moral, even should we fail to find them, done up neatly and condensed into the final sentence. thought has always its efficacy and every striking incident its moral. what sort of a man was wakefield? we are free to shape out our own idea and call it by his name. he was now in the meridian of life; his matrimonial affections, never violent, were sobered into a calm, habitual sentiment; of all husbands, he was likely to be the most constant, because a certain sluggishness would keep his heart at rest wherever it might be placed. he was intellectual, but not actively so; his mind occupied itself in long and lazy musings that tended to no purpose or had not vigor to attain it; his thoughts were seldom so energetic as to seize hold of words. imagination, in the proper meaning of the term, made no part of wakefield's gifts. with a cold but not depraved nor wandering heart, and a mind never feverish with riotous thoughts nor perplexed with originality, who could have anticipated that our friend would entitle himself to a foremost place among the doers of eccentric deeds? had his acquaintances been asked who was the man in london the surest to perform nothing to-day which should be remembered on the morrow, they would have thought of wakefield. only the wife of his bosom might have hesitated. she, without having analyzed his character, was partly aware of a quiet selfishness that had rusted into his inactive mind; of a peculiar sort of vanity, the most uneasy attribute about him; of a disposition to craft which had seldom produced more positive effects than the keeping of petty secrets hardly worth revealing; and, lastly, of what she called a little strangeness sometimes in the good man. this latter quality is indefinable, and perhaps non-existent. let us now imagine wakefield bidding adieu to his wife. it is the dusk of an october evening. his equipment is a drab greatcoat, a hat covered with an oil-cloth, top-boots, an umbrella in one hand and a small portmanteau in the other. he has informed mrs. wakefield that he is to take the night-coach into the country. she would fain inquire the length of his journey, its object and the probable time of his return, but, indulgent to his harmless love of mystery, interrogates him only by a look. he tells her not to expect him positively by the return-coach nor to be alarmed should he tarry three or four days, but, at all events, to look for him at supper on friday evening. wakefield, himself, be it considered, has no suspicion of what is before him. he holds out his hand; she gives her own and meets his parting kiss in the matter-of-course way of a ten years' matrimony, and forth goes the middle-aged mr. wakefield, almost resolved to perplex his good lady by a whole week's absence. after the door has closed behind him, she perceives it thrust partly open and a vision of her husband's face through the aperture, smiling on her and gone in a moment. for the time this little incident is dismissed without a thought, but long afterward, when she has been more years a widow than a wife, that smile recurs and flickers across all her reminiscences of wakefield's visage. in her many musings she surrounds the original smile with a multitude of fantasies which make it strange and awful; as, for instance, if she imagines him in a coffin, that parting look is frozen on his pale features; or if she dreams of him in heaven, still his blessed spirit wears a quiet and crafty smile. yet for its sake, when all others have given him up for dead, she sometimes doubts whether she is a widow. but our business is with the husband. we must hurry after him along the street ere he lose his individuality and melt into the great mass of london life. it would be vain searching for him there. let us follow close at his heels, therefore, until, after several superfluous turns and doublings, we find him comfortably established by the fireside of a small apartment previously bespoken. he is in the next street to his own and at his journey's end. he can scarcely trust his good-fortune in having got thither unperceived, recollecting that at one time he was delayed by the throng in the very focus of a lighted lantern, and again there were footsteps that seemed to tread behind his own, distinct from the multitudinous tramp around him, and anon he heard a voice shouting afar and fancied that it called his name. doubtless a dozen busybodies had been watching him and told his wife the whole affair. poor wakefield! little knowest thou thine own insignificance in this great world. no mortal eye but mine has traced thee. go quietly to thy bed, foolish man, and on the morrow, if thou wilt be wise, get thee home to good mrs. wakefield and tell her the truth. remove not thyself even for a little week from thy place in her chaste bosom. were she for a single moment to deem thee dead or lost or lastingly divided from her, thou wouldst be woefully conscious of a change in thy true wife for ever after. it is perilous to make a chasm in human affections--not that they gape so long and wide, but so quickly close again. almost repenting of his frolic, or whatever it may be termed, wakefield lies down betimes, and, starting from his first nap, spreads forth his arms into the wide and solitary waste of the unaccustomed bed, "no," thinks he, gathering the bedclothes about him; "i will not sleep alone another night." in the morning he rises earlier than usual and sets himself to consider what he really means to do. such are his loose and rambling modes of thought that he has taken this very singular step with the consciousness of a purpose, indeed, but without being able to define it sufficiently for his own contemplation. the vagueness of the project and the convulsive effort with which he plunges into the execution of it are equally characteristic of a feeble-minded man. wakefield sifts his ideas, however, as minutely as he may, and finds himself curious to know the progress of matters at home--how his exemplary wife will endure her widowhood of a week, and, briefly, how the little sphere of creatures and circumstances in which he was a central object will be affected by his removal. a morbid vanity, therefore, lies nearest the bottom of the affair. but how is he to attain his ends? not, certainly, by keeping close in this comfortable lodging, where, though he slept and awoke in the next street to his home, he is as effectually abroad as if the stage-coach had been whirling him away all night. yet should he reappear, the whole project is knocked in the head. his poor brains being hopelessly puzzled with this dilemma, he at length ventures out, partly resolving to cross the head of the street and send one hasty glance toward his forsaken domicile. habit--for he is a man of habits--takes him by the hand and guides him, wholly unaware, to his own door, where, just at the critical moment, he is aroused by the scraping of his foot upon the step.--wakefield, whither are you going? at that instant his fate was turning on the pivot. little dreaming of the doom to which his first backward step devotes him, he hurries away, breathless with agitation hitherto unfelt, and hardly dares turn his head at the distant corner. can it be that nobody caught sight of him? will not the whole household--the decent mrs. wakefield, the smart maid-servant and the dirty little footboy--raise a hue-and-cry through london streets in pursuit of their fugitive lord and master? wonderful escape! he gathers courage to pause and look homeward, but is perplexed with a sense of change about the familiar edifice such as affects us all when, after a separation of months or years, we again see some hill or lake or work of art with which we were friends of old. in ordinary cases this indescribable impression is caused by the comparison and contrast between our imperfect reminiscences and the reality. in wakefield the magic of a single night has wrought a similar transformation, because in that brief period a great moral change has been effected. but this is a secret from himself. before leaving the spot he catches a far and momentary glimpse of his wife passing athwart the front window with her face turned toward the head of the street. the crafty nincompoop takes to his heels, scared with the idea that among a thousand such atoms of mortality her eye must have detected him. right glad is his heart, though his brain be somewhat dizzy, when he finds himself by the coal-fire of his lodgings. so much for the commencement of this long whim-wham. after the initial conception and the stirring up of the man's sluggish temperament to put it in practice, the whole matter evolves itself in a natural train. we may suppose him, as the result of deep deliberation, buying a new wig of reddish hair and selecting sundry garments, in a fashion unlike his customary suit of brown, from a jew's old-clothes bag. it is accomplished: wakefield is another man. the new system being now established, a retrograde movement to the old would be almost as difficult as the step that placed him in his unparalleled position. furthermore, he is rendered obstinate by a sulkiness occasionally incident to his temper and brought on at present by the inadequate sensation which he conceives to have been produced in the bosom of mrs. wakefield. he will not go back until she be frightened half to death. well, twice or thrice has she passed before his sight, each time with a heavier step, a paler cheek and more anxious brow, and in the third week of his non-appearance he detects a portent of evil entering the house in the guise of an apothecary. next day the knocker is muffled. toward nightfall comes the chariot of a physician and deposits its big-wigged and solemn burden at wakefield's door, whence after a quarter of an hour's visit he emerges, perchance the herald of a funeral. dear woman! will she die? by this time wakefield is excited to something like energy of feeling, but still lingers away from his wife's bedside, pleading with his conscience that she must not be disturbed at such a juncture. if aught else restrains him, he does not know it. in the course of a few weeks she gradually recovers. the crisis is over; her heart is sad, perhaps, but quiet, and, let him return soon or late, it will never be feverish for him again. such ideas glimmer through the mist of wakefield's mind and render him indistinctly conscious that an almost impassable gulf divides his hired apartment from his former home. "it is but in the next street," he sometimes says. fool! it is in another world. hitherto he has put off' his return from one particular day to another; henceforward he leaves the precise time undetermined--not to-morrow; probably next week; pretty soon. poor man! the dead have nearly as much chance of revisiting their earthly homes as the self-banished wakefield. would that i had a folio to write, instead of an article of a dozen pages! then might i exemplify how an influence beyond our control lays its strong hand on every deed which we do and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. wakefield is spellbound. we must leave him for ten years or so to haunt around his house without once crossing the threshold, and to be faithful to his wife with all the affection of which his heart is capable, while he is slowly fading out of hers. long since, it must be remarked, he has lost the perception of singularity in his conduct. now for a scene. amid the throng of a london street we distinguish a man, now waxing elderly, with few characteristics to attract careless observers, yet bearing in his whole aspect the handwriting of no common fate for such as have the skill to read it. he is meagre; his low and narrow forehead is deeply wrinkled; his eyes, small and lustreless, sometimes wander apprehensively about him, but oftener seem to look inward. he bends his head and moves with an indescribable obliquity of gait, as if unwilling to display his full front to the world. watch him long enough to see what we have described, and you will allow that circumstances--which often produce remarkable men from nature's ordinary handiwork--have produced one such here. next, leaving him to sidle along the footwalk, cast your eyes in the opposite direction, where a portly female considerably in the wane of life, with a prayer-book in her hand, is proceeding to yonder church. she has the placid mien of settled widowhood. her regrets have either died away or have become so essential to her heart that they would be poorly exchanged for joy. just as the lean man and well-conditioned woman are passing a slight obstruction occurs and brings these two figures directly in contact. their hands touch; the pressure of the crowd forces her bosom against his shoulder; they stand face to face, staring into each other's eyes. after a ten years' separation thus wakefield meets his wife. the throng eddies away and carries them asunder. the sober widow, resuming her former pace, proceeds to church, but pauses in the portal and throws a perplexed glance along the street. she passes in, however, opening her prayer-book as she goes. and the man? with so wild a face that busy and selfish london stands to gaze after him he hurries to his lodgings, bolts the door and throws himself upon the bed. the latent feelings of years break out; his feeble mind acquires a brief energy from their strength; all the miserable strangeness of his life is revealed to him at a glance, and he cries out passionately, "wakefield, wakefield! you are mad!" perhaps he was so. the singularity of his situation must have so moulded him to itself that, considered in regard to his fellow-creatures and the business of life, he could not be said to possess his right mind. he had contrived--or, rather, he had happened--to dissever himself from the world, to vanish, to give up his place and privileges with living men without being admitted among the dead. the life of a hermit is nowise parallel to his. he was in the bustle of the city as of old, but the crowd swept by and saw him not; he was, we may figuratively say, always beside his wife and at his hearth, yet must never feel the warmth of the one nor the affection of the other. it was wakefield's unprecedented fate to retain his original share of human sympathies and to be still involved in human interests, while he had lost his reciprocal influence on them. it would be a most curious speculation to trace out the effect of such circumstances on his heart and intellect separately and in unison. yet, changed as he was, he would seldom be conscious of it, but deem himself the same man as ever; glimpses of the truth, indeed, would come, but only for the moment, and still he would keep saying, "i shall soon go back," nor reflect that he had been saying so for twenty years. i conceive, also, that these twenty years would appear in the retrospect scarcely longer than the week to which wakefield had at first limited his absence. he would look on the affair as no more than an interlude in the main business of his life. when, after a little while more, he should deem it time to re-enter his parlor, his wife would clap her hands for joy on beholding the middle-aged mr. wakefield. alas, what a mistake! would time but await the close of our favorite follies, we should be young men--all of us--and till doomsday. one evening, in the twentieth year since he vanished, wakefield is taking his customary walk toward the dwelling which he still calls his own. it is a gusty night of autumn, with frequent showers that patter down upon the pavement and are gone before a man can put up his umbrella. pausing near the house, wakefield discerns through the parlor-windows of the second floor the red glow and the glimmer and fitful flash of a comfortable fire. on the ceiling appears a grotesque shadow of good mrs. wakefield. the cap, the nose and chin and the broad waist form an admirable caricature, which dances, moreover, with the up-flickering and down-sinking blaze almost too merrily for the shade of an elderly widow. at this instant a shower chances to fall, and is driven by the unmannerly gust full into wakefield's face and bosom. he is quite penetrated with its autumnal chill. shall he stand wet and shivering here, when his own hearth has a good fire to warm him and his own wife will run to fetch the gray coat and small-clothes which doubtless she has kept carefully in the closet of their bedchamber? no; wakefield is no such fool. he ascends the steps--heavily, for twenty years have stiffened his legs since he came down, but he knows it not.--stay, wakefield! would you go to the sole home that is left you? then step into your grave.--the door opens. as he passes in we have a parting glimpse of his visage, and recognize the crafty smile which was the precursor of the little joke that he has ever since been playing off at his wife's expense. how unmercifully has he quizzed the poor woman! well, a good night's rest to wakefield! this happy event--supposing it to be such--could only have occurred at an unpremeditated moment. we will not follow our friend across the threshold. he has left us much food for thought, a portion of which shall lend its wisdom to a moral and be shaped into a figure. amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that by stepping aside for a moment a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place for ever. like wakefield, he may become, as it were, the outcast of the universe. a rill from the town-pump. (scene, _the corner of two principal streets_,[ ] _the_ town-pump _talking through its nose_.) noon by the north clock! noon by the east! high noon, too, by these hot sunbeams, which full, scarcely aslope, upon my head and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. truly, we public characters have a tough time of it! and among all the town-officers chosen at march meeting, where is he that sustains for a single year the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the town-pump? the title of "town-treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. the overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since i provide bountifully for the pauper without expense to him that pays taxes. i am at the head of the fire department and one of the physicians to the board of health. as a keeper of the peace all water-drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. i perform some of the duties of the town-clerk by promulgating public notices when they are posted on my front. to speak within bounds, i am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother-officers by the cool, steady, upright, downright and impartial discharge of my business and the constancy with which i stand to my post. summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain, for all day long i am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike, and at night i hold a lantern over my head both to show where i am and keep people out of the gutters. at this sultry noontide i am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. like a dramseller on the mall at muster-day, i cry aloud to all and sundry in my plainest accents and at the very tiptop of my voice. [footnote : essex and washington streets, salem.] here it is, gentlemen! here is the good liquor! walk up, walk up, gentlemen! walk up, walk up! here is the superior stuff! here is the unadulterated ale of father adam--better than cognac, hollands, jamaica, strong beer or wine of any price; here it is by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay! walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves! it were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. here they come.--a hot day, gentlemen! quaff and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat.--you, my friend, will need another cupful to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. i see that you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and like a wise man have passed by the taverns and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. drink and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of mine.--welcome, most rubicund sir! you and i have been great strangers hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. mercy on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet and is converted quite to steam in the miniature tophet which you mistake for a stomach. fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. good-bye; and whenever you are thirsty, remember that i keep a constant supply at the old stand.--who next?--oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school and come hither to scrub your blooming face and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the town-pump? take it, pure as the current of your young life. take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! there, my dear child! put down the cup and yield your place to this elderly gentleman who treads so tenderly over the paving-stones that i suspect he is afraid of breaking them. what! he limps by without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine-cellars.--well, well, sir, no harm done, i hope? go draw the cork, tip the decanter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. if gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the town-pump. this thirsty dog with his red tongue lolling out does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs and laps eagerly out of the trough. see how lightly he capers away again!--jowler, did your worship ever have the gout? are you all satisfied? then wipe your mouths, my good friends, and while my spout has a moment's leisure i will delight the town with a few historical remniscences. in far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leaf-strewn earth in the very spot where you now behold me on the sunny pavement. the water was as bright and clear and deemed as precious as liquid diamonds. the indian sagamores drank of it from time immemorial till the fatal deluge of the firewater burst upon the red men and swept their whole race away from the cold fountains. endicott and his followers came next, and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. the richest goblet then was of birch-bark. governor winthrop, after a journey afoot from boston, drank here out of the hollow of his hand. the elder higginson here wet his palm and laid it on the brow of the first town-born child. for many years it was the watering-place, and, as it were, the washbowl, of the vicinity, whither all decent folks resorted to purify their visages and gaze at them afterward--at least, the pretty maidens did--in the mirror which it made. on sabbath-days, whenever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here and placed it on the communion-table of the humble meeting-house, which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. thus one generation after another was consecrated to heaven by its waters, and cast their waxing and waning shadows into its glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth, as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. finally the fountain vanished also. cellars were dug on all sides and cart-loads of gravel flung upon its source, whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle at the corner of two streets. in the hot months, when its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now their grave. but in the course of time a town-pump was sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place, and then another, and still another, till here stand i, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet. drink and be refreshed. the water is as pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red sagamore beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls but from the brick buildings. and be it the moral of my story that, as this wasted and long-lost fountain is now known and prized again, so shall the virtues of cold water--too little valued since your fathers' days--be recognized by all. your pardon, good people! i must interrupt my stream of eloquence and spout forth a stream of water to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from topsfield, or somewhere along that way. no part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. look! how rapidly they lower the water-mark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece and they can afford time to breathe it in with sighs of calm enjoyment. now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinking-vessel. an ox is your true toper. but i perceive, my dear auditors, that you are impatient for the remainder of my discourse. impute it, i beseech you, to no defect of modesty if i insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious merits. it is altogether for your good. the better you think of me, the better men and women you will find yourselves. i shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing-days, though on that account alone i might call myself the household god of a hundred families. far be it from me, also, to hint, my respectable friends, at the show of dirty faces which you would present without my pains to keep you clean. nor will i remind you how often, when the midnight bells make you tremble for your combustible town, you have fled to the town-pump and found me always at my post firm amid the confusion and ready to drain my vital current in your behalf. neither is it worth while to lay much stress on my claims to a medical diploma as the physician whose simple rule of practice is preferable to all the nauseous lore which has found men sick, or left them so, since the days of hippocrates. let us take a broader view of my beneficial influence on mankind. no; these are trifles, compared with the merits which wise men concede to me--if not in my single self, yet as the representative of a class--of being the grand reformer of the age. from my spout, and such spouts as mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of the vast portion of its crime and anguish which has gushed from the fiery fountains of the still. in this mighty enterprise the cow shall be my great confederate. milk and water--the town-pump and the cow! such is the glorious copartnership that shall tear down the distilleries and brewhouses, uproot the vineyards, shatter the cider-presses, ruin the tea and coffee trade, and finally monopolize the whole business of quenching thirst. blessed consummation! then poverty shall pass away from the land, finding no hovel so wretched where her squalid form may shelter herself. then disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw its own heart and die. then sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her strength. until now the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in the human blood, transmitted from sire to son and rekindled in every generation by fresh draughts of liquid flame. when that inward fire shall be extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but grow cool, and war--the drunkenness of nations--perhaps will cease. at least, there will be no war of households. the husband and wife, drinking deep of peaceful joy--a calm bliss of temperate affections--shall pass hand in hand through life and lie down not reluctantly at its protracted close. to them the past will be no turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an eternity of such moments as follow the delirium of the drunkard. their dead faces shall express what their spirits were and are to be by a lingering smile of memory and hope. ahem! dry work, this speechifying, especially to an unpractised orator. i never conceived till now what toil the temperance lecturers undergo for my sake; hereafter they shall have the business to themselves.--do, some kind christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet my whistle.--thank you, sir!--my dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated by my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor-casks into one great pile and make a bonfire in honor of the town-pump. and when i shall have decayed like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain richly sculptured take my place upon this spot. such monuments should be erected everywhere and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. now, listen, for something very important is to come next. there are two or three honest friends of mine--and true friends i know they are--who nevertheless by their fiery pugnacity in my behalf do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even a total overthrow upon the pavement and the loss of the treasure which i guard.--i pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance and take up the honorable cause of the town-pump in the style of a toper fighting for his brandy-bottle? or can the excellent qualities of cold water be no otherwise exemplified than by plunging slapdash into hot water and woefully scalding yourselves and other people? trust me, they may. in the moral warfare which you are to wage--and, indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives--you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust and sultry atmosphere, the turbulence and manifold disquietudes, of the world around me to reach that deep, calm well of purity which may be called my soul. and whenever i pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever or cleanse its stains. one o'clock! nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, i may as well hold my peace. here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. may she draw a husband while drawing her water, as rachel did of old!--hold out your vessel, my dear! there it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher as you go, and forget not in a glass of my own liquor to drink "success to the town-pump." the great carbuncle.[ ] a mystery of the white mountains. at nightfall once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one of the crystal hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing themselves after a toilsome and fruitless quest for the great carbuncle. they had come thither, not as friends nor partners in the enterprise, but each, save one youthful pair, impelled by his own selfish and solitary longing for this wondrous gem. their feeling of brotherhood, however, was strong enough to induce them to contribute a mutual aid in building a rude hut of branches and kindling a great fire of shattered pines that had drifted down the headlong current of the amonoosuck, on the lower bank of which they were to pass the night. there was but one of their number, perhaps, who had become so estranged from natural sympathies by the absorbing spell of the pursuit as to acknowledge no satisfaction at the sight of human faces in the remote and solitary region whither they had ascended. a vast extent of wilderness lay between them and the nearest settlement, while scant a mile above their heads was that bleak verge where the hills throw off their shaggy mantle of forest-trees and either robe themselves in clouds or tower naked into the sky. the roar of the amonoosuck would have been too awful for endurance if only a solitary man had listened while the mountain-stream talked with the wind. [footnote : the indian tradition on which this somewhat extravagant tale is founded is both too wild and too beautiful to be adequately wrought up in prose. sullivan, in his history of maine, written since the revolution, remarks that even then the existence of the great carbuncle was not entirely discredited.] the adventurers, therefore, exchanged hospitable greetings and welcomed one another to the hut where each man was the host and all were the guests of the whole company. they spread their individual supplies of food on the flat surface of a rock and partook of a general repast; at the close of which a sentiment of good-fellowship was perceptible among the party, though repressed by the idea that the renewed search for the great carbuncle must make them strangers again in the morning. seven men and one young woman, they warmed themselves together at the fire, which extended its bright wall along the whole front of their wigwam. as they observed the various and contrasted figures that made up the assemblage, each man looking like a caricature of himself in the unsteady light that flickered over him, they came mutually to the conclusion that an odder society had never met in city or wilderness, on mountain or plain. the eldest of the group--a tall, lean, weatherbeaten man some sixty years of age--was clad in the skins of wild animals whose fashion of dress he did well to imitate, since the deer, the wolf and the bear had long been his most intimate companions. he was one of those ill-fated mortals, such as the indians told of, whom in their early youth the great carbuncle smote with a peculiar madness and became the passionate dream of their existence. all who visited that region knew him as "the seeker," and by no other name. as none could remember when he first took up the search, there went a fable in the valley of the saco that for his inordinate lust after the great carbuncle he had been condemned to wander among the mountains till the end of time, still with the same feverish hopes at sunrise, the same despair at eve. near this miserable seeker sat a little elderly personage wearing a high-crowned hat shaped somewhat like a crucible. he was from beyond the sea--a doctor cacaphodel, who had wilted and dried himself into a mummy by continually stooping over charcoal-furnaces and inhaling unwholesome fumes during his researches in chemistry and alchemy. it was told of him--whether truly or not--that at the commencement of his studies he had drained his body of all its richest blood and wasted it, with other inestimable ingredients, in an unsuccessful experiment, and had never been a well man since. another of the adventurers was master ichabod pigsnort, a weighty merchant and selectman of boston, and an elder of the famous mr. norton's church. his enemies had a ridiculous story that master pigsnort was accustomed to spend a whole hour after prayer-time every morning and evening in wallowing naked among an immense quantity of pine-tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage of massachusetts. the fourth whom we shall notice had no name that his companions knew of, and was chiefly distinguished by a sneer that always contorted his thin visage, and by a prodigious pair of spectacles which were supposed to deform and discolor the whole face of nature to this gentleman's perception. the fifth adventurer likewise lacked a name, which was the greater pity, as he appeared to be a poet. he was a bright-eyed man, but woefully pined away, which was no more than natural if, as some people affirmed, his ordinary diet was fog, morning mist and a slice of the densest cloud within his reach, sauced with moonshine whenever he could get it. certain it is that the poetry which flowed from him had a smack of all these dainties. the sixth of the party was a young man of haughty mien and sat somewhat apart from the rest, wearing his plumed hat loftily among his elders, while the fire glittered on the rich embroidery of his dress and gleamed intensely on the jewelled pommel of his sword. this was the lord de vere, who when at home was said to spend much of his time in the burial-vault of his dead progenitors rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of all the earthly pride and vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust; so that, besides his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his whole line of ancestry. lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his side a blooming little person in whom a delicate shade of maiden reserve was just melting into the rich glow of a young wife's affection. her name was hannah, and her husband's matthew--two homely names, yet well enough adapted to the simple pair who seemed strangely out of place among the whimsical fraternity whose wits had been set agog by the great carbuncle. beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same fire, sat this varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a single object that of whatever else they began to speak their closing words were sure to be illuminated with the great carbuncle. several related the circumstances that brought them thither. one had listened to a traveller's tale of this marvellous stone in his own distant country, and had immediately been seized with such a thirst for beholding it as could only be quenched in its intensest lustre. another, so long ago as when the famous captain smith visited these coasts, had seen it blazing far at sea, and had felt no rest in all the intervening years till now that he took up the search. a third, being encamped on a hunting-expedition full forty miles south of the white mountains, awoke at midnight and beheld the great carbuncle gleaming like a meteor, so that the shadows of the trees fell backward from it. they spoke of the innumerable attempts which had been made to reach the spot, and of the singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from all adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source a light that overpowered the moon and almost matched the sun. it was observable that each smiled scornfully at the madness of every other in anticipating better fortune than the past, yet nourished a scarcely-hidden conviction that he would himself be the favored one. as if to allay their too sanguine hopes, they recurred to the indian traditions that a spirit kept watch about the gem and bewildered those who sought it either by removing it from peak to peak of the higher hills or by calling up a mist from the enchanted lake over which it hung. but these tales were deemed unworthy of credit, all professing to believe that the search had been baffled by want of sagacity or perseverance in the adventurers, or such other causes as might naturally obstruct the passage to any given point among the intricacies of forest, valley and mountain. in a pause of the conversation the wearer of the prodigious spectacles looked round upon the party, making each individual in turn the object of the sneer which invariably dwelt upon his countenance. "so, fellow-pilgrims," said he, "here we are, seven wise men and one fair damsel, who doubtless is as wise as any graybeard of the company. here we are, i say, all bound on the same goodly enterprise. methinks, now, it were not amiss that each of us declare what he proposes to do with the great carbuncle, provided he have the good hap to clutch it.--what says our friend in the bearskin? how mean you, good sir, to enjoy the prize which you have been seeking the lord knows how long among the crystal hills?" "how enjoy it!" exclaimed the aged seeker, bitterly. "i hope for no enjoyment from it: that folly has past long ago. i keep up the search for this accursed stone because the vain ambition of my youth has become a fate upon me in old age. the pursuit alone is my strength, the energy of my soul, the warmth of my blood and the pith and marrow of my bones. were i to turn my back upon it, i should fall down dead on the hither side of the notch which is the gateway of this mountain-region. yet not to have my wasted lifetime back again would i give up my hopes of is deemed little better than a traffic with the evil one. now, think ye that i would have done this grievous wrong to my soul, body, reputation and estate without a reasonable chance of profit?" at "yet...profit?" the seeker's dialogue is suddenly interpolated with that of master pigsnort, in the original story a few paragraphs later, making this exchange nonsensical. a good version of the story can be found here: http://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/tgc.html , as well as on the internet archive and in print editions. ideally, you would check this entire ebook with the other editions to make sure there are no more such textual errors. the above-quoted paragraph should be as follows, including the paragraphs missing from the text: "how enjoy it!" exclaimed the aged seeker, bitterly. "i hope for no enjoyment from it--that folly has past, long ago! i keep up the search for this accursed stone, because the vain ambition of my youth has become a fate upon me, in old age. the pursuit alone is my strength--the energy of my soul--the warmth of my blood, and the pith and marrow of my bones! were i to turn my back upon it, i should fall down dead, on the hither side of the notch, which is the gate-way of this mountain region. yet, not to have my wasted life time back again, would i give up my hopes of the great carbuncle! having found it, i shall bear it to a certain cavern that i wot of, and there, grasping it in my arms, lie down and die, and keep it buried with me for ever." "oh, wretch, regardless of the interests of science!" cried doctor cacaphodel, with philosophic indignation. "thou art not worthy to behold, even from afar off, the lustre of this most precious gem that ever was concocted in the laboratory of nature. mine is the sole purpose for which a wise man may desire the possession of the great carbuncle. immediately on obtaining it--for i have a presentiment, good people, that the prize is reserved to crown my scientific reputation--i shall return to europe, and employ my remaining years in reducing it to its first elements. a portion of the stone will i grind to impalpable powder; other parts shall be dissolved in acids, or whatever solvents will act upon so admirable a composition; and the remainder i design to melt in the crucible, or set on fire with the blow-pipe. by these various methods, i shall gain an accurate analysis, and finally bestow the result of my labours upon the world, in a folio volume." "excellent!" quoth the man with the spectacles. "nor need you hesitate, learned sir, on account of the necessary destruction of the gem; since the perusal of your folio may teach every mother's son of us to concoct a great carbuncle of his own." "but, verily," said master ichabod pigsnort, "for mine own part, i object to the making of these counterfeits, as being calculated to reduce the marketable value of the true gem. i tell ye frankly, sirs, i have an interest in keeping up the price. here have i quitted my regular traffic, leaving my warehouse in the care of my clerks, and putting my credit to great hazard, and furthermore, have put myself to peril of death or captivity by the accursed heathen savages--and all this without daring to ask the prayers of the congregation, because the quest for the great carbuncle is deemed little better than a traffic with the evil one. now think ye that i would have done this grievous wrong to my soul, body, reputation and estate, without a reasonable chance of profit?" "not i, pious master pigsnort," said the man with the spectacles. "i never laid such a great folly to thy charge." "truly, i hope not," said the merchant. "now, as touching this great carbuncle, i am free to own that i have never had a glimpse of it, but, be it only the hundredth part so bright as people tell, it will surely outvalue the great mogul's best diamond, which he holds at an incalculable sum; wherefore i am minded to put the great carbuncle on shipboard and voyage with it to england, france, spain, italy, or into heathendom if providence should send me thither, and, in a word, dispose of the gem to the best bidder among the potentates of the earth, that he may place it among his crown-jewels. if any of ye have a wiser plan, let him expound it." "that have i, thou sordid man!" exclaimed the poet. "dost thou desire nothing brighter than gold, that thou wouldst transmute all this ethereal lustre into such dross as thou wallowest in already? for myself, hiding the jewel under my cloak, i shall hie me back to my attic-chamber in one of the darksome alleys of london. there night and day will i gaze upon it. my soul shall drink its radiance; it shall be diffused throughout my intellectual powers and gleam brightly in every line of poesy that i indite. thus long ages after i am gone the splendor of the great carbuncle will blaze around my name." "well said, master poet!" cried he of the spectacles. "hide it under thy cloak, sayest thou? why, it will gleam through the holes and make thee look like a jack-o'-lantern!" "to think," ejaculated the lord de vere, rather to himself than his companions, the best of whom he held utterly unworthy of his intercourse--"to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should talk of conveying the great carbuncle to a garret in grubb street! have not i resolved within myself that the whole earth contains no fitter ornament for the great hall of my ancestral castle? there shall it flame for ages, making a noonday of midnight, glittering on the suits of armor, the banners and escutcheons, that hang around the wall, and keeping bright the memory of heroes. wherefore have all other adventurers sought the prize in vain but that i might win it and make it a symbol of the glories of our lofty line? and never on the diadem of the white mountains did the great carbuncle hold a place half so honored as is reserved for it in the hall of the de veres." "it is a noble thought," said the cynic, with an obsequious sneer. "yet, might i presume to say so, the gem would make a rare sepulchral lamp, and would display the glories of your lordship's progenitors more truly in the ancestral vault than in the castle-hall." "nay, forsooth," observed matthew, the young rustic, who sat hand in hand with his bride, "the gentleman has bethought himself of a profitable use for this bright stone. hannah here and i are seeking it for a like purpose." "how, fellow?" exclaimed his lordship, in surprise. "what castle-hall hast thou to hang it in?" "no castle," replied matthew, "but as neat a cottage as any within sight of the crystal hills. ye must know, friends, that hannah and i, being wedded the last week, have taken up the search of the great carbuncle because we shall need its light in the long winter evenings and it will be such a pretty thing to show the neighbors when they visit us! it will shine through the house, so that we may pick up a pin in any corner, and will set all the windows a-glowing as if there were a great fire of pine-knots in the chimney. and then how pleasant, when we awake in the night, to be able to see one another's faces!" there was a general smile among the adventurers at the simplicity of the young couple's project in regard to this wondrous and invaluable stone, with which the greatest monarch on earth might have been proud to adorn his palace. especially the man with spectacles, who had sneered at all the company in turn, now twisted his visage into such an expression of ill-natured mirth that matthew asked him rather peevishly what he himself meant to do with the great carbuncle. "the great carbuncle!" answered the cynic, with ineffable scorn. "why, you blockhead, there is no such thing in _rerum naturâ_. i have come three thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on every peak of these mountains and poke my head into every chasm for the sole purpose of demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man one whit less an ass than thyself that the great carbuncle is all a humbug." vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the adventurers to the crystal hills, but none so vain, so foolish, and so impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. he was one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are downward to the darkness instead of heavenward, and who, could they but extinguish the lights which god hath kindled for us, would count the midnight gloom their chiefest glory. as the cynic spoke several of the party were startled by a gleam of red splendor that showed the huge shapes of the surrounding mountains and the rock-bestrewn bed of the turbulent river, with an illumination unlike that of their fire, on the trunks and black boughs of the forest-trees. they listened for the roll of thunder, but heard nothing, and were glad that the tempest came not near them. the stars--those dial-points of heaven--now warned the adventurers to close their eyes on the blazing logs and open them in dreams to the glow of the great carbuncle. the young married couple had taken their lodgings in the farthest corner of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the party by a curtain of curiously-woven twigs such as might have hung in deep festoons around the bridal-bower of eve. the modest little wife had wrought this piece of tapestry while the other guests were talking. she and her husband fell asleep with hands tenderly clasped, and awoke from visions of unearthly radiance to meet the more blessed light of one another's eyes. they awoke at the same instant and with one happy smile beaming over their two faces, which grew brighter with their consciousness of the reality of life and love. but no sooner did she recollect where they were than the bride peeped through the interstices of the leafy curtain and saw that the outer room of the hut was deserted. "up, dear matthew!" cried she, in haste. "the strange folk are all gone. up this very minute, or we shall lose the great carbuncle!" in truth, so little did these poor young people deserve the mighty prize which had lured them thither that they had slept peacefully all night and till the summits of the hills were glittering with sunshine, while the other adventurers had tossed their limbs in feverish wakefulness or dreamed of climbing precipices, and set off to realize their dreams with the curliest peep of dawn. but matthew and hannah after their calm rest were as light as two young deer, and merely stopped to say their prayers and wash themselves in a cold pool of the amonoosuck, and then to taste a morsel of food ere they turned their faces to the mountain-side. it was a sweet emblem of conjugal affection as they toiled up the difficult ascent gathering strength from the mutual aid which they afforded. after several little accidents, such as a torn robe, a lost shoe and the entanglement of hannah's hair in a bough, they reached the upper verge of the forest and were now to pursue a more adventurous course. the innumerable trunks and heavy foliage of the trees had hitherto shut in their thoughts, which now shrank affrighted from the region of wind and cloud and naked rocks and desolate sunshine that rose immeasurably above them. they gazed back at the obscure wilderness which they had traversed, and longed to be buried again in its depths rather than trust themselves to so vast and visible a solitude. "shall we go on?" said matthew, throwing his arm round hannah's waist both to protect her and to comfort his heart by drawing her close to it. but the little bride, simple as she was, had a woman's love of jewels, and could not forego the hope of possessing the very brightest in the world, in spite of the perils with which it must be won. "let us climb a little higher," whispered she, yet tremulously, as she turned her face upward to the lonely sky. "come, then," said matthew, mustering his manly courage and drawing her along with him; for she became timid again the moment that he grew bold. and upward, accordingly, went the pilgrims of the great carbuncle, now treading upon the tops and thickly-interwoven branches of dwarf pines which by the growth of centuries, though mossy with age, had barely reached three feet in altitude. next they came to masses and fragments of naked rock heaped confusedly together like a cairn reared by giants in memory of a giant chief. in this bleak realm of upper air nothing breathed, nothing grew; there was no life but what was concentred in their two hearts; they had climbed so high that nature herself seemed no longer to keep them company. she lingered beneath them within the verge of the forest-trees, and sent a farewell glance after her children as they strayed where her own green footprints had never been. but soon they were to be hidden from her eye. densely and dark the mists began to gather below, casting black spots of shadow on the vast landscape and sailing heavily to one centre, as if the loftiest mountain-peak had summoned a council of its kindred clouds. finally the vapors welded themselves, as it were, into a mass, presenting the appearance of a pavement over which the wanderers might have trodden, but where they would vainly have sought an avenue to the blessed earth which they had lost. and the lovers yearned to behold that green earth again--more intensely, alas! than beneath a clouded sky they had ever desired a glimpse of heaven. they even felt it a relief to their desolation when the mists, creeping gradually up the mountain, concealed its lonely peak, and thus annihilated--at least, for them--the whole region of visible space. but they drew closer together with a fond and melancholy gaze, dreading lest the universal cloud should snatch them from each other's sight. still, perhaps, they would have been resolute to climb as far and as high between earth and heaven as they could find foothold if hannah's strength had not begun to fail, and with that her courage also. her breath grew short. she refused to burden her husband with her weight, but often tottered against his side, and recovered herself each time by a feebler effort. at last she sank down on one of the rocky steps of the acclivity. "we are lost, dear matthew," said she, mournfully; "we shall never find our way to the earth again. and oh how happy we might have been in our cottage!" "dear heart, we will yet be happy there," answered matthew. "look! in this direction the sunshine penetrates the dismal mist; by its aid i can direct our course to the passage of the notch. let us go back, love, and dream no more of the great carbuncle." "the sun cannot be yonder," said hannah, with despondence. "by this time it must be noon; if there could ever be any sunshine here, it would come from above our heads." "but look!" repeated matthew, in a somewhat altered tone. "it is brightening every moment. if not sunshine, what can it be?" nor could the young bride any longer deny that a radiance was breaking through the mist and changing its dim hue to a dusky red, which continually grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles were interfused with the gloom. now, also, the cloud began to roll away from the mountain, while, as it heavily withdrew, one object after another started out of its impenetrable obscurity into sight with precisely the effect of a new creation before the indistinctness of the old chaos had been completely swallowed up. as the process went on they saw the gleaming of water close at their feet, and found themselves on the very border of a mountain-lake, deep, bright, clear and calmly beautiful, spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had been scooped out of the solid rock. a ray of glory flashed across its surface. the pilgrims looked whence it should proceed, but closed their eyes, with a thrill of awful admiration, to exclude the fervid splendor that glowed from the brow of a cliff impending over the enchanted lake. for the simple pair had reached that lake of mystery and found the long-sought shrine of the great carbuncle. they threw their arms around each other and trembled at their own success, for as the legends of this wondrous gem rushed thick upon their memory they felt themselves marked out by fate, and the consciousness was fearful. often from childhood upward they had seen it shining like a distant star, and now that star was throwing its intensest lustre on their hearts. they seemed changed to one another's eyes in the red brilliancy that flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent the same fire to the lake, the rocks and sky, and to the mists which had rolled back before its power. but with their next glance they beheld an object that drew their attention even from the mighty stone. at the base of the cliff, directly beneath the great carbuncle, appeared the figure of a man with his arms extended in the act of climbing and his face turned upward as if to drink the full gush of splendor. but he stirred not, no more than if changed to marble. "it is the seeker," whispered hannah, convulsively grasping her husband's arm. "matthew, he is dead." "the joy of success has killed him," replied matthew, trembling violently. "or perhaps the very light of the great carbuncle was death." "'the great carbuncle'!" cried a peevish voice behind them. "the great humbug! if you have found it, prithee point it out to me." they turned their heads, and there was the cynic with his prodigious spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at the lake, now at the rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor, now right at the great carbuncle itself, yet seemingly as unconscious of its light as if all the scattered clouds were condensed about his person. though its radiance actually threw the shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet as he turned his back upon the glorious jewel, he would not be convinced that there was the least glimmer there. "where is your great humbug?" he repeated. "i challenge you to make me see it." "there!" said matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and turning the cynic round toward the illuminated cliff. "take off those abominable spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it." now, these colored spectacles probably darkened the cynic's sight in at least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which people gaze at an eclipse. with resolute bravado, however, he snatched them from his nose and fixed a bold stare full upon the ruddy blaze of the great carbuncle. but scarcely had he encountered it when, with a deep, shuddering groan, he dropped his head and pressed both hands across his miserable eyes. thenceforth there was in very truth no light of the great carbuncle, nor any other light on earth, nor light of heaven itself, for the poor cynic. so long accustomed to view all objects through a medium that deprived them of every glimpse of brightness, a single flash of so glorious a phenomenon, striking upon his naked vision, had blinded him for ever. "matthew," said hannah, clinging to him, "let us go hence." matthew saw that she was faint, and, kneeling down, supported her in his arms while he threw some of the thrillingly-cold water of the enchanted lake upon her face and bosom. it revived her, but could not renovate her courage. "yes, dearest," cried matthew, pressing her tremulous form to his breast; "we will go hence and return to our humble cottage. the blessed sunshine and the quiet moonlight shall come through our window. we will kindle the cheerful glow of our hearth at eventide and be happy in its light. but never again will we desire more light than all the world may share with us." "no," said his bride, "for how could we live by day or sleep by night in this awful blaze of the great carbuncle?" out of the hollow of their hands they drank each a draught from the lake, which presented them its waters uncontaminated by an earthly lip. then, lending their guidance to the blinded cynic, who uttered not a word, and even stifled his groans in his own most wretched heart, they began to descend the mountain. yet as they left the shore, till then untrodden, of the spirit's lake, they threw a farewell glance toward the cliff and beheld the vapors gathering in dense volumes, through which the gem burned duskily. as touching the other pilgrims of the great carbuncle, the legend goes on to tell that the worshipful master ichabod pigsnort soon gave up the quest as a desperate speculation, and wisely resolved to betake himself again to his warehouse, near the town-dock, in boston. but as he passed through the notch of the mountains a war-party of indians captured our unlucky merchant and carried him to montreal, there holding him in bondage till by the payment of a heavy ransom he had woefully subtracted from his hoard of pine-tree shillings. by his long absence, moreover, his affairs had become so disordered that for the rest of his life, instead of wallowing in silver, he had seldom a sixpence-worth of copper. doctor cacaphodel, the alchemist, returned to his laboratory with a prodigious fragment of granite, which he ground to powder, dissolved in acids, melted in the crucible and burnt with the blowpipe, and published the result of his experiments in one of the heaviest folios of the day. and for all these purposes the gem itself could not have answered better than the granite. the poet, by a somewhat similar mistake, made prize of a great piece of ice which he found in a sunless chasm of the mountains, and swore that it corresponded in all points with his idea of the great carbuncle. the critics say that, if his poetry lacked the splendor of the gem, it retained all the coldness of the ice. the lord de vere went back to his ancestral hall, where he contented himself with a wax-lighted chandelier, and filled in due course of time another coffin in the ancestral vault. as the funeral torches gleamed within that dark receptacle, there was no need of the great carbuncle to show the vanity of earthly pomp. the cynic, having cast aside his spectacles, wandered about the world a miserable object, and was punished with an agonizing desire of light for the wilful blindness of his former life. the whole night long he would lift his splendor-blasted orbs to the moon and stars; he turned his face eastward at sunrise as duly as a persian idolater; he made a pilgrimage to rome to witness the magnificent illumination of saint peter's church, and finally perished in the great fire of london, into the midst of which he had thrust himself with the desperate idea of catching one feeble ray from the blaze that was kindling earth and heaven. matthew and his bride spent many peaceful years and were fond of telling the legend of the great carbuncle. the tale, however, toward the close of their lengthened lives, did not meet with the full credence that had been accorded to it by those who remembered the ancient lustre of the gem. for it is affirmed that from the hour when two mortals had shown themselves so simply wise as to reject a jewel which would have dimmed all earthly things its splendor waned. when our pilgrims reached the cliff, they found only an opaque stone with particles of mica glittering on its surface. there is also a tradition that as the youthful pair departed the gem was loosened from the forehead of the cliff and fell into the enchanted lake, and that at noontide the seeker's form may still be seen to bend over its quenchless gleam. some few believe that this inestimable stone is blazing as of old, and say that they have caught its radiance, like a flash of summer lightning, far down the valley of the saco. and be it owned that many a mile from the crystal hills i saw a wondrous light around their summits, and was lured by the faith of poesy to be the latest pilgrim of the great carbuncle. the prophetic pictures.[ ] "but this painter!" cried walter ludlow, with animation. "he not only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in all other learning and science. he talks hebrew with dr. mather and gives lectures in anatomy to dr. boylston. in a word, he will meet the best-instructed man among us on his own ground. moreover, he is a polished gentleman, a citizen of the world--yes, a true cosmopolite; for he will speak like a native of each clime and country on the globe, except our own forests, whither he is now going. nor is all this what i most admire in him." [footnote : this story was suggested by an anecdote of stuart related in dunlap's _history of the arts of designs_--a most entertaining book to the general reader, and a deeply-interesting one, we should think, to the artist.] "indeed!" said elinor, who had listened with a women's interest to the description of such a man. "yet this is admirable enough." "surely it is," replied her lover, "but far less so than his natural gift of adapting himself to every variety of character, insomuch that all men--and all women too, elinor--shall find a mirror of themselves in this wonderful painter. but the greatest wonder is yet to be told." "nay, if he have more wonderful attributes than these," said elinor, laughing, "boston is a perilous abode for the poor gentleman. are you telling me of a painter, or a wizard?" "in truth," answered he, "that question might be asked much more seriously than you suppose. they say that he paints not merely a man's features, but his mind and heart. he catches the secret sentiments and passions and throws them upon the canvas like sunshine, or perhaps, in the portraits of dark-souled men, like a gleam of infernal fire. it is an awful gift," added walter, lowering his voice from its tone of enthusiasm. "i shall be almost afraid to sit to him." "walter, are you in earnest?" exclaimed elinor. "for heaven's sake, dearest elinor, do not let him paint the look which you now wear," said her lover, smiling, though rather perplexed. "there! it is passing away now; but when you spoke, you seemed frightened to death, and very sad besides. what were you thinking of?" "nothing, nothing!" answered elinor, hastily. "you paint my face with your own fantasies. well, come for me tomorrow, and we will visit this wonderful artist." but when the young man had departed, it cannot be denied that a remarkable expression was again visible on the fair and youthful face of his mistress. it was a sad and anxious look, little in accordance with what should have been the feelings of a maiden on the eve of wedlock. yet walter ludlow was the chosen of her heart. "a look!" said elinor to herself. "no wonder that it startled him if it expressed what i sometimes feel. i know by my own experience how frightful a look may be. but it was all fancy. i thought nothing of it at the time; i have seen nothing of it since; i did but dream it;" and she busied herself about the embroidery of a ruff in which she meant that her portrait should be taken. the painter of whom they had been speaking was not one of those native artists who at a later period than this borrowed their colors from the indians and manufactured their pencils of the furs of wild beasts. perhaps, if he could have revoked his life and prearranged his destiny, he might have chosen to belong to that school without a master in the hope of being at least original, since there were no works of art to imitate nor rules to follow. but he had been born and educated in europe. people said that he had studied the grandeur or beauty of conception and every touch of the master-hand in all the most famous pictures in cabinets and galleries and on the walls of churches till there was nothing more for his powerful mind to learn. art could add nothing to its lessons, but nature might. he had, therefore, visited a world whither none of his professional brethren had preceded him, to feast his eyes on visible images that were noble and picturesque, yet had never been transferred to canvas. america was too poor to afford other temptations to an artist of eminence, though many of the colonial gentry on the painter's arrival had expressed a wish to transmit their lineaments to posterity by moans of his skill. whenever such proposals were made, he fixed his piercing eyes on the applicant and seemed to look him through and through. if he beheld only a sleek and comfortable visage, though there were a gold-laced coat to adorn the picture and golden guineas to pay for it, he civilly rejected the task and the reward; but if the face were the index of anything uncommon in thought, sentiment or experience, or if he met a beggar in the street with a white beard and a furrowed brow, or if sometimes a child happened to look up and smile, he would exhaust all the art on them that he denied to wealth. pictorial skill being so rare in the colonies, the painter became an object of general curiosity. if few or none could appreciate the technical merit of his productions, yet there were points in regard to which the opinion of the crowd was as valuable as the refined judgment of the amateur. he watched the effect that each picture produced on such untutored beholders, and derived profit from their remarks, while they would as soon have thought of instructing nature herself as him who seemed to rival her. their admiration, it must be owned, was tinctured with the prejudices of the age and country. some deemed it an offence against the mosaic law, and even a presumptuous mockery of the creator, to bring into existence such lively images of his creatures. others, frightened at the art which could raise phantoms at will and keep the form of the dead among the living, were inclined to consider the painter as a magician, or perhaps the famous black man of old witch-times plotting mischief in a new guise. these foolish fancies were more than half believed among the mob. even in superior circles his character was invested with a vague awe, partly rising like smoke-wreaths from the popular superstitions, but chiefly caused by the varied knowledge and talents which he made subservient to his profession. being on the eve of marriage, walter ludlow and elinor were eager to obtain their portraits as the first of what, they doubtless hoped, would be a long series of family pictures. the day after the conversation above recorded they visited the painter's rooms. a servant ushered them into an apartment where, though the artist himself was not visible, there were personages whom they could hardly forbear greeting with reverence. they knew, indeed, that the whole assembly were but pictures, yet felt it impossible to separate the idea of life and intellect from such striking counterfeits. several of the portraits were known to them either as distinguished characters of the day or their private acquaintances. there was governor burnett, looking as if he had just received an undutiful communication from the house of representatives and were inditing a most sharp response. mr. cooke hung beside the ruler whom he opposed, sturdy and somewhat puritanical, as befitted a popular leader. the ancient lady of sir william phipps eyed them from the wall in ruff and farthingale, an imperious old dame not unsuspected of witchcraft. john winslow, then a very young man, wore the expression of warlike enterprise which long afterward made him a distinguished general. their personal friends were recognized at a glance. in most of the pictures the whole mind and character were brought out on the countenance and concentrated into a single look; so that, to speak paradoxically, the originals hardly resembled themselves so strikingly as the portraits did. among these modern worthies there were two old bearded saints who had almost vanished into the darkening canvas. there was also a pale but unfaded madonna who had perhaps been worshipped in rome, and now regarded the lovers with such a mild and holy look that they longed to worship too. "how singular a thought," observed walter ludlow, "that this beautiful face has been beautiful for above two hundred years! oh, if all beauty would endure so well! do you not envy her, elinor?" "if earth were heaven, i might," she replied. "but, where all things fade, how miserable to be the one that could not fade!" "this dark old st. peter has a fierce and ugly scowl, saint though he be," continued walter; "he troubles me. but the virgin looks kindly at us." "yes, but very sorrowfully, methinks," said elinor. the easel stood beneath these three old pictures, sustaining one that had been recently commenced. after a little inspection they began to recognize the features of their own minister, the rev. dr. colman, growing into shape and life, as it were, out of a cloud. "kind old man!" exclaimed elinor. "he gazes at me as if he were about to utter a word of paternal advice." "and at me," said walter, "as if he were about to shake his head and rebuke me for some suspected iniquity. but so does the original. i shall never feel quite comfortable under his eye till we stand before him to be married." they now heard a footstep on the floor, and, turning, beheld the painter, who had been some moments in the room and had listened to a few of their remarks. he was a middle-aged man with a countenance well worthy of his own pencil. indeed, by the picturesque though careless arrangement of his rich dress, and perhaps because his soul dwelt always among painted shapes, he looked somewhat like a portrait himself. his visitors were sensible of a kindred between the artist and his works, and felt as if one of the pictures had stepped from the canvas to salute them. walter ludlow, who was slightly known to the painter, explained the object of their visit. while he spoke a sunbeam was falling athwart his figure and elinor's with so happy an effect that they also seemed living pictures of youth and beauty gladdened by bright fortune. the artist was evidently struck. "my easel is occupied for several ensuing days, and my stay in boston must be brief," said he, thoughtfully; then, after an observant glance, he added, "but your wishes shall be gratified though i disappoint the chief-justice and madame oliver. i must not lose this opportunity for the sake of painting a few ells of broadcloth and brocade." the painter expressed a desire to introduce both their portraits into one picture and represent them engaged in some appropriate action. this plan would have delighted the lovers, but was necessarily rejected because so large a space of canvas would have been unfit for the room which it was intended to decorate. two half-length portraits were therefore fixed upon. after they had taken leave, walter ludlow asked elinor, with a smile, whether she knew what an influence over their fates the painter was about to acquire. "the old women of boston affirm," continued he, "that after he has once got possession of a person's face and figure he may paint him in any act or situation whatever, and the picture will be prophetic. do you believe it?" "not quite," said elinor, smiling. "yet if he has such magic, there is something so gentle in his manner that i am sure he will use it well." it was the painter's choice to proceed with both the portraits at the same time, assigning as a reason, in the mystical language which he sometimes used, that the faces threw light upon each other. accordingly, he gave now a touch to walter and now to elinor, and the features of one and the other began to start forth so vividly that it appeared as if his triumphant art would actually disengage them from the canvas. amid the rich light and deep shade they beheld their phantom selves, but, though the likeness promised to be perfect, they were not quite satisfied with the expression: it seemed more vague than in most of the painter's works. he, however, was satisfied with the prospect of success, and, being much interested in the lovers, employed his leisure moments, unknown to them, in making a crayon sketch of their two figures. during their sittings he engaged them in conversation and kindled up their faces with characteristic traits, which, though continually varying, it was his purpose to combine and fix. at length he announced that at their next visit both the portraits would be ready for delivery. "if my pencil will but be true to my conception in the few last touches which i meditate," observed he, "these two pictures will be my very best performances. seldom indeed has an artist such subjects." while speaking he still bent his penetrative eye upon them, nor withdrew it till they had reached the bottom of the stairs. nothing in the whole circle of human vanities takes stronger hold of the imagination than this affair of having a portrait painted. yet why should it be so? the looking-glass, the polished globes of the andirons, the mirror-like water, and all other reflecting surfaces, continually present us with portraits--or, rather, ghosts--of ourselves which we glance at and straightway forget them. but we forget them only because they vanish. it is the idea of duration--of earthly immortality--that gives such a mysterious interest to our own portraits. walter and elinor were not insensible to this feeling, and hastened to the painter's room punctually at the appointed hour to meet those pictured shapes which were to be their representatives with posterity. the sunshine flashed after them into the apartment, but left it somewhat gloomy as they closed the door. their eyes were immediately attracted to their portraits, which rested against the farthest wall of the room. at the first glance through the dim light and the distance, seeing themselves in precisely their natural attitudes and with all the air that they recognized so well, they uttered a simultaneous exclamation of delight. "there we stand," cried walter, enthusiastically, "fixed in sunshine for ever. no dark passions can gather on our faces." "no," said elinor, more calmly; "no dreary change can sadden us." this was said while they were approaching and had yet gained only an imperfect view of the pictures. the painter, after saluting them, busied himself at a table in completing a crayon sketch, leaving his visitors to form their own judgment as to his perfected labors. at intervals he sent a glance from beneath his deep eyebrows, watching their countenances in profile with his pencil suspended over the sketch. they had now stood some moments, each in front of the other's picture, contemplating it with entranced attention, but without uttering a word. at length walter stepped forward, then back, viewing elinor's portrait in various lights, and finally spoke. "is there not a change?" said he, in a doubtful and meditative tone. "yes; the perception of it grows more vivid the longer i look. it is certainly the same picture that i saw yesterday; the dress, the features, all are the same, and yet something is altered." "is, then, the picture less like than it was yesterday?" inquired the painter, now drawing near with irrepressible interest. "the features are perfect elinor," answered walter, "and at the first glance the expression seemed also hers; but i could fancy that the portrait has changed countenance while i have been looking at it. the eyes are fixed on mine with a strangely sad and anxious expression. nay, it is grief and terror. is this like elinor?" "compare the living face with the pictured one," said the painter. walter glanced sidelong at his mistress, and started. motionless and absorbed, fascinated, as it were, in contemplation of walter's portrait, elinor's face had assumed precisely the expression of which he had just been complaining. had she practised for whole hours before a mirror, she could not have caught the look so successfully. had the picture itself been a mirror, it could not have thrown back her present aspect with stronger and more melancholy truth. she appeared quite unconscious of the dialogue between the artist and her lover. "elinor," exclaimed walter, in amazement, "what change has come over you?" she did not hear him nor desist from her fixed gaze till he seized her hand, and thus attracted her notice; then with a sudden tremor she looked from the picture to the face of the original. "do you see no change in your portrait?" asked she. "in mine? none," replied walter, examining it. "but let me see. yes; there is a slight change--an improvement, i think, in the picture, though none in the likeness. it has a livelier expression than yesterday, as if some bright thought were flashing from the eyes and about to be uttered from the lips. now that i have caught the look, it becomes very decided." while he was intent on these observations elinor turned to the painter. she regarded him with grief and awe, and felt that he repaid her with sympathy and commiseration, though wherefore she could but vaguely guess. "that look!" whispered she, and shuddered. "how came it there?" "madam," said the painter, sadly, taking her hand and leading her apart, "in both these pictures i have painted what i saw. the artist--the true artist--must look beneath the exterior. it is his gift--his proudest, but often a melancholy one--to see the inmost soul, and by a power indefinable even to himself to make it glow or darken upon the canvas in glances that express the thought and sentiment of years. would that i might convince myself of error in the present instance!" they had now approached the table, on which were heads in chalk, hands almost as expressive as ordinary faces, ivied church-towers, thatched cottages, old thunder-stricken trees, oriental and antique costume, and all such picturesque vagaries of an artist's idle moments. turning them over with seeming carelessness, a crayon sketch of two figures was disclosed. "if i have failed," continued he--"if your heart does not see itself reflected in your own portrait, if you have no secret cause to trust my delineation of the other--it is not yet too late to alter them. i might change the action of these figures too. but would it influence the event?" he directed her notice to the sketch. a thrill ran through elinor's frame; a shriek was upon her lips, but she stifled it with the self-command that becomes habitual to all who hide thoughts of fear and anguish within their bosoms. turning from the table, she perceived that walter had advanced near enough to have seen the sketch, though she could not determine whether it had caught his eye. "we will not have the pictures altered," said she, hastily. "if mine is sad, i shall but look the gayer for the contrast." "be it so," answered the painter, bowing. "may your griefs be such fanciful ones that only your pictures may mourn for them! for your joys, may they be true and deep, and paint themselves upon this lovely face till it quite belie my art!" after the marriage of walter and elinor the pictures formed the two most splendid ornaments of their abode. they hung side by side, separated by a narrow panel, appearing to eye each other constantly, yet always returning the gaze of the spectator. travelled gentlemen who professed a knowledge of such subjects reckoned these among the most admirable specimens of modern portraiture, while common observers compared them with the originals, feature by feature, and were rapturous in praise of the likeness. but it was on a third class--neither travelled connoisseurs nor common observers, but people of natural sensibility--that the pictures wrought their strongest effect. such persons might gaze carelessly at first, but, becoming interested, would return day after day and study these painted faces like the pages of a mystic volume. walter ludlow's portrait attracted their earliest notice. in the absence of himself and his bride they sometimes disputed as to the expression which the painter had intended to throw upon the features, all agreeing that there was a look of earnest import, though no two explained it alike. there was less diversity of opinion in regard to elinor's picture. they differed, indeed, in their attempts to estimate the nature and depth of the gloom that dwelt upon her face, but agreed that it was gloom and alien from the natural temperament of their youthful friend. a certain fanciful person announced as the result of much scrutiny that both these pictures were parts of one design, and that the melancholy strength of feeling in elinor's countenance bore reference to the more vivid emotion--or, as he termed it, the wild passion--in that of walter. though unskilled in the art, he even began a sketch in which the action of the two figures was to correspond with their mutual expression. it was whispered among friends that day by day elinor's face was assuming a deeper shade of pensiveness which threatened soon to render her too true a counterpart of her melancholy picture. walter, on the other hand, instead of acquiring the vivid look which the painter had given him on the canvas, became reserved and downcast, with no outward flashes of emotion, however it might be smouldering within. in course of time elinor hung a gorgeous curtain of purple silk wrought with flowers and fringed with heavy golden tassels before the pictures, under pretence that the dust would tarnish their hues or the light dim them. it was enough. her visitors felt that the massive folds of the silk must never be withdrawn nor the portraits mentioned in her presence. time wore on, and the painter came again. he had been far enough to the north to see the silver cascade of the crystal hills, and to look over the vast round of cloud and forest from the summit of new england's loftiest mountain. but he did not profane that scene by the mockery of his art. he had also lain in a canoe on the bosom of lake george, making his soul the mirror of its loveliness and grandeur till not a picture in the vatican was more vivid than his recollection. he had gone with the indian hunters to niagara, and there, again, had flung his hopeless pencil down the precipice, feeling that he could as soon paint the roar as aught else that goes to make up the wondrous cataract. in truth, it was seldom his impulse to copy natural scenery except as a framework for the delineations of the human form and face, instinct with thought, passion or suffering. with store of such his adventurous ramble had enriched him. the stern dignity of indian chiefs, the dusky loveliness of indian girls, the domestic life of wigwams, the stealthy march, the battle beneath gloomy pine trees, the frontier fortress with its garrison, the anomaly of the old french partisan bred in courts, but grown gray in shaggy deserts,--such were the scenes and portraits that he had sketched. the glow of perilous moments, flashes of wild feeling, struggles of fierce power, love, hate, grief, frenzy--in a word, all the worn-out heart of the old earth--had been revealed to him under a new form. his portfolio was filled with graphic illustrations of the volume of his memory which genius would transmute into its own substance and imbue with immortality. he felt that the deep wisdom in his art which he had sought so far was found. but amid stern or lovely nature, in the perils of the forest or its overwhelming peacefulness, still there had been two phantoms, the companions of his way. like all other men around whom an engrossing purpose wreathes itself, he was insulated from the mass of humankind. he had no aim, no pleasure, no sympathies, but what were ultimately connected with his art. though gentle in manner and upright in intent and action, he did not possess kindly feelings; his heart was cold: no living creature could be brought near enough to keep him warm. for these two beings, however, he had felt in its greatest intensity the sort of interest which always allied him to the subjects of his pencil. he had pried into their souls with his keenest insight and pictured the result upon their features with his utmost skill, so as barely to fall short of that standard which no genius ever reached, his own severe conception. he had caught from the duskiness of the future--at least, so he fancied--a fearful secret, and had obscurely revealed it on the portraits. so much of himself--of his imagination and all other powers--had been lavished on the study of walter and elinor that he almost regarded them as creations of his own, like the thousands with which he had peopled the realms of picture. therefore did they flit through the twilight of the woods, hover on the mist of waterfalls, look forth from the mirror of the lake, nor melt away in the noontide sun. they haunted his pictorial fancy, not as mockeries of life nor pale goblins of the dead, but in the guise of portraits, each with an unalterable expression which his magic had evoked from the caverns of the soul. he could not recross the atlantic till he had again beheld the originals of those airy pictures. "o glorious art!" thus mused the enthusiastic painter as he trod the street. "thou art the image of the creator's own. the innumerable forms that wander in nothingness start into being at thy beck. the dead live again; thou recallest them to their old scenes and givest their gray shadows the lustre of a better life, at once earthly and immortal. thou snatchest back the fleeting moments of history. with thee there is no past, for at thy touch all that is great becomes for ever present, and illustrious men live through long ages in the visible performance of the very deeds which made them what they are. o potent art! as thou bringest the faintly-revealed past to stand in that narrow strip of sunlight which we call 'now,' canst thou summon the shrouded future to meet her there? have i not achieved it? am i not thy prophet?" thus with a proud yet melancholy fervor did he almost cry aloud as he passed through the toilsome street among people that knew not of his reveries nor could understand nor care for them. it is not good for man to cherish a solitary ambition. unless there be those around him by whose example he may regulate himself, his thoughts, desires and hopes will become extravagant and he the semblance--perhaps the reality--of a madman. reading other bosoms with an acuteness almost preternatural, the painter failed to see the disorder of his own. "and this should be the house," said he, looking up and down the front before he knocked. "heaven help my brains! that picture! methinks it will never vanish. whether i look at the windows or the door, there it is framed within them, painted strongly and glowing in the richest tints--the faces of the portraits, the figures and action of the sketch!" he knocked. "the portraits--are they within?" inquired he of the domestic; then, recollecting himself, "your master and mistress--are they at home?" "they are, sir," said the servant, adding, as he noticed that picturesque aspect of which the painter could never divest himself, "and the portraits too." the guest was admitted into a parlor communicating by a central door with an interior room of the same size. as the first apartment was empty, he passed to the entrance of the second, within which his eyes were greeted by those living personages, as well as their pictured representatives, who had long been the objects of so singular an interest. he involuntarily paused on the threshold. they had not perceived his approach. walter and elinor were standing before the portraits, whence the former had just flung back the rich and voluminous folds of the silken curtain, holding its golden tassel with one hand, while the other grasped that of his bride. the pictures, concealed for months, gleamed forth again in undiminished splendor, appearing to throw a sombre light across the room rather than to be disclosed by a borrowed radiance. that of elinor had been almost prophetic. a pensiveness, and next a gentle sorrow, had successively dwelt upon her countenance, deepening with the lapse of time into a quiet anguish. a mixture of affright would now have made it the very expression of the portrait. walter's face was moody and dull or animated only by fitful flashes which left a heavier darkness for their momentary illumination. he looked from elinor to her portrait, and thence to his own, in the contemplation of which he finally stood absorbed. the painter seemed to hear the step of destiny approaching behind him on its progress toward its victims. a strange thought darted into his mind. was not his own the form in which that destiny had embodied itself, and he a chief agent of the coming evil which he had foreshadowed? still, walter remained silent before the picture, communing with it as with his own heart and abandoning himself to the spell of evil influence that the painter had cast upon the features. gradually his eyes kindled, while as elinor watched the increasing wildness of his face her own assumed a look of terror; and when, at last, he turned upon her, the resemblance of both to their portraits was complete. "our fate is upon us!" howled walter. "die!" drawing a knife, he sustained her as she was sinking to the ground, and aimed it at her bosom. in the action and in the look and attitude of each the painter beheld the figures of his sketch. the picture, with all its tremendous coloring, was finished. "hold, madman!" cried he, sternly. he had advanced from the door and interposed himself between the wretched beings with the same sense of power to regulate their destiny as to alter a scene upon the canvas. he stood like a magician controlling the phantoms which he had evoked. "what!" muttered walter ludlow as he relapsed from fierce excitement into sullen gloom. "does fate impede its own decree?" "wretched lady," said the painter, "did i not warn you?" "you did," replied elinor, calmly, as her terror gave place to the quiet grief which it had disturbed. "but i loved him." is there not a deep moral in the tale? could the result of one or all our deeds be shadowed forth and set before us, some would call it fate and hurry onward, others be swept along by their passionate desires, and none be turned aside by the prophetic pictures. david swan. a fantasy. we can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life and our final destiny. there are innumerable other events, if such they may be called, which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results or even betraying their near approach by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. this idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of david swan. we have nothing to do with david until we find him, at the age of twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter. be it enough to say that he was a native of new hampshire, born of respectable parents, and had received an ordinary school education with a classic finish by a year at gilmanton academy. after journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer's day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined him to sit down in the first convenient shade and await the coming up of the stage-coach. as if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a little tuft of maples with a delightful recess in the midst, and such a fresh bubbling spring that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but david swan. virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirsty lips and then flung himself along the brink, pillowing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief. the sunbeams could not reach him; the dust did not yet rise from the road after the heavy rain of yesterday, and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a bed of down. the spring murmured drowsily beside him; the branches waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead, and a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depths, fell upon david swan. but we are to relate events which he did not dream of. while he lay sound asleep in the shade other people were wide awake, and passed to and fro, afoot, on horseback and in all sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road by his bedchamber. some looked neither to the right hand nor the left and knew not that he was there; some merely glanced that way without admitting the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly he slept, and several whose hearts were brimming full of scorn ejected their venomous superfluity on david swan. a middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a little way into the recess, and vowed that the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. a temperance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor david into the texture of his evening's discourse as an awful instance of dead drunkenness by the roadside. but censure, praise, merriment, scorn and indifference were all one--or, rather, all nothing--to david swan. he had slept only a few moments when a brown carriage drawn by a handsome pair of horses bowled easily along and was brought to a standstill nearly in front of david's resting-place. a linch-pin had fallen out and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. the damage was slight and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning to boston in the carriage. while the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple trees, and there espied the bubbling fountain and david swan asleep beside it. impressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout would allow, and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silk gown lest david should start up all of a sudden. "how soundly he sleeps!" whispered the old gentleman. "from what a depth he draws that easy breath! such sleep as that, brought on without an opiate, would be worth more to me than half my income, for it would suppose health and an untroubled mind." "and youth besides," said the lady. "healthy and quiet age does not sleep thus. our slumber is no more like his than our wakefulness." the longer they looked, the more did this elderly couple feel interested in the unknown youth to whom the wayside and the maple shade were as a secret chamber with the rich gloom of damask curtains brooding over him. perceiving that a stray sunbeam glimmered down upon his face, the lady contrived to twist a branch aside so as to intercept it, and, having done this little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother to him. "providence seems to have laid him here," whispered she to her husband, "and to have brought us hither to find him, after our disappointment in our cousin's son. methinks i can see a likeness to our departed henry. shall we waken him?" "to what purpose?" said the merchant, hesitating. "we know nothing of the youth's character." "that open countenance!" replied his wife, in the same hushed voice, yet earnestly. "this innocent sleep!" while these whispers were passing, the sleeper's heart did not throb, nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token of interest. yet fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a burden of gold. the old merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir to his wealth except a distant relative with whose conduct he was dissatisfied. in such cases people sometimes do stranger things than to act the magician and awaken a young man to splendor who fell asleep in poverty. "shall we not waken him?" repeated the lady, persuasively. "the coach is ready, sir," said the servant, behind. the old couple started, reddened and hurried away, mutually wondering that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous. the merchant threw himself back in the carriage and occupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business. meanwhile, david swan enjoyed his nap. the carriage could not have gone above a mile or two when a pretty young girl came along with a tripping pace which showed precisely how her little heart was dancing in her bosom. perhaps it was this merry kind of motion that caused--is there any harm in saying it?--her garter to slip its knot. conscious that the silken girth--if silk it were--was relaxing its hold, she turned aside into the shelter of the maple trees, and there found a young man asleep by the spring. blushing as red as any rose that she should have intruded into a gentleman's bedchamber, and for such a purpose too, she was about to make her escape on tiptoe. but there was peril near the sleeper. a monster of a bee had been wandering overhead--buzz, buzz, buzz--now among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of david swan. the sting of a bee is sometimes deadly. as free-hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly and drove him from beneath the maple shade. how sweet a picture! this good deed accomplished, with quickened breath and a deeper blush she stole a glance at the youthful stranger for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air. "he is handsome!" thought she, and blushed redder yet. how could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him that, shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder and allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms? why, at least, did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face? she was come, the maid whose soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had been severed from his own, and whom in all his vague but passionate desires he yearned to meet. her only could he love with a perfect love, him only could she receive into the depths of her heart, and now her image was faintly blushing in the fountain by his side; should it pass away, its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life again. "how sound he sleeps!" murmured the girl. she departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came. now, this girl's father was a thriving country merchant in the neighborhood, and happened at that identical time to be looking out for just such a young man as david swan. had david formed a wayside acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the father's clerk, and all else in natural succession. so here, again, had good fortune--the best of fortunes--stolen so near that her garments brushed against him, and he knew nothing of the matter. the girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned aside beneath the maple shade. both had dark faces set off by cloth caps, which were drawn down aslant over their brows. their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain smartness. these were a couple of rascals who got their living by whatever the devil sent them, and now, in the interim of other business, had staked the joint profits of their next piece of villainy on a game of cards which was to have been decided here under the trees. but, finding david asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his fellow: "hist! do you see that bundle under his head?" the other villain nodded, winked and leered. "i'll bet you a horn of brandy," said the first, "that the chap has either a pocketbook or a snug little hoard of small change stowed away amongst his shirts. and if not there, we will find it in his pantaloons pocket." "but how if he wakes?" said the other. his companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of a dirk and nodded. "so be it!" muttered the second villain. they approached the unconscious david, and, while one pointed the dagger toward his heart, the other began to search the bundle beneath his head. their two faces, grim, wrinkled and ghastly with guilt and fear, bent over their victim, looking horrible enough to be mistaken for fiends should he suddenly awake. nay, had the villains glanced aside into the spring, even they would hardly have known themselves as reflected there. but david swan had never worn a more tranquil aspect, even when asleep on his mother's breast. "i must take away the bundle," whispered one. "if he stirs, i'll strike," muttered the other. but at this moment a dog scenting along the ground came in beneath the maple trees and gazed alternately at each of these wicked men and then at the quiet sleeper. he then lapped out of the fountain. "pshaw!" said one villain. "we can do nothing now. the dog's master must be close behind." "let's take a drink and be off," said the other. the man with the dagger thrust back the weapon into his bosom and drew forth a pocket-pistol, but not of that kind which kills by a single discharge. it was a flask of liquor with a block-tin tumbler screwed upon the mouth. each drank a comfortable dram, and left the spot with so many jests and such laughter at their unaccomplished wickedness that they might be said to have gone on their way rejoicing. in a few hours they had forgotten the whole affair, nor once imagined that the recording angel had written down the crime of murder against their souls in letters as durable as eternity. as for david swan, he still slept quietly, neither conscious of the shadow of death when it hung over him nor of the glow of renewed life when that shadow was withdrawn. he slept, but no longer so quietly as at first. an hour's repose had snatched from his elastic frame the weariness with which many hours of toil had burdened it. now he stirred, now moved his lips without a sound, now talked in an inward tone to the noonday spectres of his dream. but a noise of wheels came rattling louder and louder along the road, until it dashed through the dispersing mist of david's slumber; and there was the stagecoach. he started up with all his ideas about him. "halloo, driver! take a passenger?" shouted he. "room on top!" answered the driver. up mounted david, and bowled away merrily toward boston without so much as a parting glance at that fountain of dreamlike vicissitude. he knew not that a phantom of wealth had thrown a golden hue upon its waters, nor that one of love had sighed softly to their murmur, nor that one of death had threatened to crimson them with his blood, all in the brief hour since he lay down to sleep. sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps of the strange things that almost happen. does it not argue a superintending providence that, while viewless and unexpected events thrust themselves continually athwart our path, there should still be regularity enough in mortal life to render foresight even partially available? sights from a steeple. so! i have climbed high, and my reward is small. here i stand with wearied knees--earth, indeed, at a dizzy depth below, but heaven far, far beyond me still. oh that i could soar up into the very zenith, where man never breathed nor eagle ever flew, and where the ethereal azure melts away from the eye and appears only a deepened shade of nothingness! and yet i shiver at that cold and solitary thought. what clouds are gathering in the golden west with direful intent against the brightness and the warmth of this summer afternoon? they are ponderous air-ships, black as death and freighted with the tempest, and at intervals their thunder--the signal-guns of that unearthly squadron--rolls distant along the deep of heaven. these nearer heaps of fleecy vapor--methinks i could roll and toss upon them the whole day long--seem scattered here and there for the repose of tired pilgrims through the sky. perhaps--for who can tell?--beautiful spirits are disporting themselves there, and will bless my mortal eye with the brief appearance of their curly locks of golden light and laughing faces fair and faint as the people of a rosy dream. or where the floating mass so imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament a slender foot and fairy limb resting too heavily upon the frail support may be thrust through and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain. yonder, again, is an airy archipelago where the sunbeams love to linger in their journeyings through space. every one of those little clouds has been dipped and steeped in radiance which the slightest pressure might disengage in silvery profusion like water wrung from a sea-maid's hair. bright they are as a young man's visions, and, like them, would be realized in dullness, obscurity and tears. i will look on them no more. in three parts of the visible circle whose centre is this spire i discern cultivated fields, villages, white country-seats, the waving lines of rivulets, little placid lakes, and here and there a rising ground that would fain be termed a hill. on the fourth side is the sea, stretching away toward a viewless boundary, blue and calm except where the passing anger of a shadow flits across its surface and is gone. hitherward a broad inlet penetrates far into the land; on the verge of the harbor formed by its extremity is a town, and over it am i, a watchman, all-heeding and unheeded. oh that the multitude of chimneys could speak, like those of madrid, and betray in smoky whispers the secrets of all who since their first foundation have assembled at the hearths within! oh that the limping devil of le sage would perch beside me here, extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover every chamber and make me familiar with their inhabitants! the most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized paul pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself. but none of these things are possible; and if i would know the interior of brick walls or the mystery of human bosoms, i can but guess. yonder is a fair street extending north and south. the stately mansions are placed each on its carpet of verdant grass, and a long flight of steps descends from every door to the pavement. ornamental trees--the broadleafed horse-chestnut, the elm so lofty and bending, the graceful but infrequent willow, and others whereof i know not the names--grow thrivingly among brick and stone. the oblique rays of the sun are intercepted by these green citizens and by the houses, so that one side of the street is a shaded and pleasant walk. on its whole extent there is now but a single passenger, advancing from the upper end, and he, unless distance and the medium of a pocket spyglass do him more than justice, is a fine young man of twenty. he saunters slowly forward, slapping his left hand with his folded gloves, bending his eyes upon the pavement, and sometimes raising them to throw a glance before him. certainly he has a pensive air. is he in doubt or in debt? is he--if the question be allowable--in love? does he strive to be melancholy and gentlemanlike, or is he merely overcome by the heat? but i bid him farewell for the present. the door of one of the houses--an aristocratic edifice with curtains of purple and gold waving from the windows--is now opened, and down the steps come two ladies swinging their parasols and lightly arrayed for a summer ramble. both are young, both are pretty; but methinks the left-hand lass is the fairer of the twain, and, though she be so serious at this moment, i could swear that there is a treasure of gentle fun within her. they stand talking a little while upon the steps, and finally proceed up the street. meantime, as their faces are now turned from me, i may look elsewhere. upon that wharf and down the corresponding street is a busy contrast to the quiet scene which i have just noticed. business evidently has its centre there, and many a man is wasting the summer afternoon in labor and anxiety, in losing riches or in gaining them, when he would be wiser to flee away to some pleasant country village or shaded lake in the forest or wild and cool sea-beach. i see vessels unlading at the wharf and precious merchandise strown upon the ground abundantly as at the bottom of the sea--that market whence no goods return, and where there is no captain nor supercargo to render an account of sales. here the clerks are diligent with their paper and pencils and sailors ply the block and tackle that hang over the hold, accompanying their toil with cries long-drawn and roughly melodious till the bales and puncheons ascend to upper air. at a little distance a group of gentlemen are assembled round the door of a warehouse. grave seniors be they, and i would wager--if it were safe, in these times, to be responsible for any one--that the least eminent among them might vie with old vincentio, that incomparable trafficker of pisa. i can even select the wealthiest of the company. it is the elderly personage in somewhat rusty black, with powdered hair the superfluous whiteness of which is visible upon the cape of his coat. his twenty ships are wafted on some of their many courses by every breeze that blows, and his name, i will venture to say, though i know it not, is a familiar sound among the far-separated merchants of europe and the indies. but i bestow too much of my attention in this quarter. on looking again to the long and shady walk i perceive that the two fair girls have encountered the young man. after a sort of shyness in the recognition, he turns back with them. moreover, he has sanctioned my taste in regard to his companions by placing himself on the inner side of the pavement, nearest the venus to whom i, enacting on a steeple-top the part of paris on the top of ida, adjudged the golden apple. in two streets converging at right angles toward my watch-tower i distinguish three different processions. one is a proud array of voluntary soldiers in bright uniform, resembling, from the height whence i look down, the painted veterans that garrison the windows of a toy-shop. and yet it stirs my heart. their regular advance, their nodding plumes, the sun-flash on their bayonets and musket-barrels, the roll of their drums ascending past me, and the fife ever and anon piercing through,--these things have wakened a warlike fire, peaceful though i be. close to their rear marches a battalion of schoolboys ranged in crooked and irregular platoons, shouldering sticks, thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin and ridiculously aping the intricate manoeuvres of the foremost band. nevertheless, as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church-spire, one might be tempted to ask, "which are the boys?" or, rather, "which the men?" but, leaving these, let us turn to the third procession, which, though sadder in outward show, may excite identical reflections in the thoughtful mind. it is a funeral--a hearse drawn by a black and bony steed and covered by a dusty pall, two or three coaches rumbling over the stones, their drivers half asleep, a dozen couple of careless mourners in their every-day attire. such was not the fashion of our fathers when they carried a friend to his grave. there is now no doleful clang of the bell to proclaim sorrow to the town. was the king of terrors more awful in those days than in our own, that wisdom and philosophy have been able to produce this change? not so. here is a proof that he retains his proper majesty. the military men and the military boys are wheeling round the corner, and meet the funeral full in the face. immediately the drum is silent, all but the tap that regulates each simultaneous footfall. the soldiers yield the path to the dusty hearse and unpretending train, and the children quit their ranks and cluster on the sidewalks with timorous and instinctive curiosity. the mourners enter the churchyard at the base of the steeple and pause by an open grave among the burial-stones; the lightning glimmers on them as they lower down the coffin, and the thunder rattles heavily while they throw the earth upon its lid. verily, the shower is near, and i tremble for the young man and the girls, who have now disappeared from the long and shady street. how various are the situations of the people covered by the roofs beneath me, and how diversified are the events at this moment befalling them! the new-born, the aged, the dying, the strong in life and the recent dead are in the chambers of these many mansions. the full of hope, the happy, the miserable and the desperate dwell together within the circle of my glance. in some of the houses over which my eyes roam so coldly guilt is entering into hearts that are still tenanted by a debased and trodden virtue; guilt is on the very edge of commission, and the impending deed might be averted; guilt is done, and the criminal wonders if it be irrevocable. there are broad thoughts struggling in my mind, and, were i able to give them distinctness, they would make their way in eloquence. lo! the raindrops are descending. the clouds within a little time have gathered over all the sky, hanging heavily, as if about to drop in one unbroken mass upon the earth. at intervals the lightning flashes from their brooding hearts, quivers, disappears, and then comes the thunder, travelling slowly after its twin-born flame. a strong wind has sprung up, howls through the darkened streets, and raises the dust in dense bodies to rebel against the approaching storm. the disbanded soldiers fly, the funeral has already vanished like its dead, and all people hurry homeward--all that have a home--while a few lounge by the corners or trudge on desperately at their leisure. in a narrow lane which communicates with the shady street i discern the rich old merchant putting himself to the top of his speed lest the rain should convert his hair-powder to a paste. unhappy gentleman! by the slow vehemence and painful moderation wherewith he journeys, it is but too evident that podagra has left its thrilling tenderness in his great toe. but yonder, at a far more rapid pace, come three other of my acquaintance, the two pretty girls and the young man unseasonably interrupted in their walk. their footsteps are supported by the risen dust, the wind lends them its velocity, they fly like three sea-birds driven landward by the tempestuous breeze. the ladies would not thus rival atalanta if they but knew that any one were at leisure to observe them. ah! as they hasten onward, laughing in the angry face of nature, a sudden catastrophe has chanced. at the corner where the narrow lane enters into the street they come plump against the old merchant, whose tortoise-motion has just brought him to that point. he likes not the sweet encounter; the darkness of the whole air gathers speedily upon his visage, and there is a pause on both sides. finally he thrusts aside the youth with little courtesy, seizes an arm of each of the two girls, and plods onward like a magician with a prize of captive fairies. all this is easy to be understood. how disconsolate the poor lover stands, regardless of the rain that threatens an exceeding damage to his well-fashioned habiliments, till he catches a backward glance of mirth from a bright eye, and turns away with whatever comfort it conveys! the old man and his daughters are safely housed, and now the storm lets loose its fury. in every dwelling i perceive the faces of the chambermaids as they shut down the windows, excluding the impetuous shower and shrinking away from the quick fiery glare. the large drops descend with force upon the slated roofs and rise again in smoke. there is a rush and roar as of a river through the air, and muddy streams bubble majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. thus did arethusa sink. i love not my station here aloft in the midst of the tumult which i am powerless to direct or quell, with the blue lightning wrinkling on my brow and the thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear. i will descend. yet let me give another glance to the sea, where the foam breaks out in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness or boils up in far-distant points like snowy mountain-tops in the eddies of a flood; and let me look once more at the green plain and little hills of the country, over which the giant of the storm is striding in robes of mist, and at the town whose obscured and desolate streets might beseem a city of the dead; and, turning a single moment to the sky, now gloomy as an author's prospects, i prepare to resume my station on lower earth. but stay! a little speck of azure has widened in the western heavens; the sunbeams find a passage and go rejoicing through the tempest, and on yonder darkest cloud, born like hallowed hopes of the glory of another world and the trouble and tears of this, brightens forth the rainbow. the hollow of the three hills. in those strange old times when fantastic dreams and madmen's reveries were realized among the actual circumstances of life, two persons met together at an appointed hour and place. one was a lady graceful in form and fair of feature, though pale and troubled and smitten with an untimely blight in what should have been the fullest bloom of her years; the other was an ancient and meanly-dressed woman of ill-favored aspect, and so withered, shrunken and decrepit that even the space since she began to decay must have exceeded the ordinary term of human existence. in the spot where they encountered no mortal could observe them. three little hills stood near each other, and down in the midst of them sunk a hollow basin almost mathematically circular, two or three hundred feet in breadth and of such depth that a stately cedar might but just be visible above the sides. dwarf pines were numerous upon the hills and partly fringed the outer verge of the intermediate hollow, within which there was nothing but the brown grass of october and here and there a tree-trunk that had fallen long ago and lay mouldering with no green successor from its roots. one of these masses of decaying wood, formerly a majestic oak, rested close beside a pool of green and sluggish water at the bottom of the basin. such scenes as this (so gray tradition tells) were once the resort of a power of evil and his plighted subjects, and here at midnight or on the dim verge of evening they were said to stand round the mantling pool disturbing its putrid waters in the performance of an impious baptismal rite. the chill beauty of an autumnal sunset was now gilding the three hill-tops, whence a paler tint stole down their sides into the hollow. "here is our pleasant meeting come to pass," said the aged crone, "according as thou hast desired. say quickly what thou wouldst have of me, for there is but a short hour that we may tarry here." as the old withered woman spoke a smile glimmered on her countenance like lamplight on the wall of a sepulchre. the lady trembled and cast her eyes upward to the verge of the basin, as if meditating to return with her purpose unaccomplished. but it was not so ordained. "i am stranger in this land, as you know," said she, at length. "whence i come it matters not, but i have left those behind me with whom my fate was intimately bound, and from whom i am cut off for ever. there is a weight in my bosom that i cannot away with, and i have come hither to inquire of their welfare." "and who is there by this green pool that can bring thee news from the ends of the earth?" cried the old woman, peering into the lady's face. "not from my lips mayst thou hear these tidings; yet be thou bold, and the daylight shall not pass away from yonder hilltop before thy wish be granted." "i will do your bidding though i die," replied the lady, desperately. the old woman seated herself on the trunk of the fallen tree, threw aside the hood that shrouded her gray locks and beckoned her companion to draw near. "kneel down," she said, "and lay your forehead on my knees." she hesitated a moment, but the anxiety that had long been kindling burned fiercely up within her. as she knelt down the border of her garment was dipped into the pool; she laid her forehead on the old woman's knees, and the latter drew a cloak about the lady's face, so that she was in darkness. then she heard the muttered words of prayer, in the midst of which she started and would have arisen. "let me flee! let me flee and hide myself, that they may not look upon me!" she cried. but, with returning recollection, she hushed herself and was still as death, for it seemed as if other voices, familiar in infancy and unforgotten through many wanderings and in all the vicissitudes of her heart and fortune, were mingling with the accents of the prayer. at first the words were faint and indistinct--not rendered so by distance, but rather resembling the dim pages of a book which we strive to read by an imperfect and gradually brightening light. in such a manner, as the prayer proceeded, did those voices strengthen upon the ear, till at length the petition ended, and the conversation of an aged man and of a woman broken and decayed like himself became distinctly audible to the lady as she knelt. but those strangers appeared not to stand in the hollow depth between the three hills. their voices were encompassed and re-echoed by the walls of a chamber the windows of which were rattling in the breeze; the regular vibration of a clock, the crackling of a fire and the tinkling of the embers as they fell among the ashes rendered the scene almost as vivid as if painted to the eye. by a melancholy hearth sat these two old people, the man calmly despondent, the woman querulous and tearful, and their words were all of sorrow. they spoke of a daughter, a wanderer they knew not where, bearing dishonor along with her and leaving shame and affliction to bring their gray heads to the grave. they alluded also to other and more recent woe, but in the midst of their talk their voices seemed to melt into the sound of the wind sweeping mournfully among the autumn leaves; and when the lady lifted her eyes, there was she kneeling in the hollow between three hills. "a weary and lonesome time yonder old couple have of it," remarked the old woman, smiling in the lady's face. "and did you also hear them?" exclaimed she, a sense of intolerable humiliation triumphing over her agony and fear. "yea, and we have yet more to hear," replied the old woman, "wherefore cover thy face quickly." again the withered hag poured forth the monotonous words of a prayer that was not meant to be acceptable in heaven, and soon in the pauses of her breath strange murmurings began to thicken, gradually increasing, so as to drown and overpower the charm by which they grew. shrieks pierced through the obscurity of sound and were succeeded by the singing of sweet female voices, which in their turn gave way to a wild roar of laughter broken suddenly by groanings and sobs, forming altogether a ghastly confusion of terror and mourning and mirth. chains were rattling, fierce and stern voices uttered threats and the scourge resounded at their command. all these noises deepened and became substantial to the listener's ear, till she could distinguish every soft and dreamy accent of the love-songs that died causelessly into funeral-hymns. she shuddered at the unprovoked wrath which blazed up like the spontaneous kindling of flume, and she grew faint at the fearful merriment raging miserably around her. in the midst of this wild scene, where unbound passions jostled each other in a drunken career, there was one solemn voice of a man, and a manly and melodious voice it might once have been. he went to and fro continually, and his feet sounded upon the floor. in each member of that frenzied company whose own burning thoughts had become their exclusive world he sought an auditor for the story of his individual wrong, and interpreted their laughter and tears as his reward of scorn or pity. he spoke of woman's perfidy, of a wife who had broken her holiest vows, of a home and heart made desolate. even as he went on, the shout, the laugh, the shriek, the sob, rose up in unison, till they changed into the hollow, fitful and uneven sound of the wind as it fought among the pine trees on those three lonely hills. the lady looked up, and there was the withered woman smiling in her face. "couldst thou have thought there were such merry times in a mad-house?" inquired the latter. "true, true!" said the lady to herself; "there is mirth within its walls, but misery, misery without." "wouldst thou hear more?" demanded the old woman. "there is one other voice i would fain listen to again," replied the lady, faintly. "then lay down thy head speedily upon my knees, that thou mayst get thee hence before the hour be past." the golden skirts of day were yet lingering upon the hills, but deep shades obscured the hollow and the pool, as if sombre night were rising thence to overspread the world. again that evil woman began to weave her spell. long did it proceed unanswered, till the knolling of a bell stole in among the intervals of her words like a clang that had travelled far over valley and rising ground and was just ready to die in the air. the lady shook upon her companion's knees as she heard that boding sound. stronger it grew, and sadder, and deepened into the tone of a death-bell, knolling dolefully from some ivy-mantled tower and bearing tidings of mortality and woe to the cottage, to the hall and to the solitary wayfarer, that all might weep for the doom appointed in turn to them. then came a measured tread, passing slowly, slowly on, as of mourners with a coffin, their garments trailing on the ground, so that the ear could measure the length of their melancholy array. before them went the priest, reading the burial-service, while the leaves of his book were rustling in the breeze. and though no voice but his was heard to speak aloud, still there were revilings and anathemas, whispered but distinct, from women and from men, breathed against the daughter who had wrung the aged hearts of her parents, the wife who had betrayed the trusting fondness of her husband, the mother who had sinned against natural affection and left her child to die. the sweeping sound of the funeral train faded away like a thin vapor, and the wind, that just before had seemed to shake the coffin-pall, moaned sadly round the verge of the hollow between three hills. but when the old woman stirred the kneeling lady, she lifted not her head. "here has been a sweet hour's sport!" said the withered crone, chuckling to herself. the toll-gatherer's day. a sketch of transitory life. methinks, for a person whose instinct bids him rather to pore over the current of life than to plunge into its tumultuous waves, no undesirable retreat were a toll-house beside some thronged thoroughfare of the land. in youth, perhaps, it is good for the observer to run about the earth, to leave the track of his footsteps far and wide, to mingle himself with the action of numberless vicissitudes, and, finally, in some calm solitude to feed a musing spirit on all that he has seen and felt. but there are natures too indolent or too sensitive to endure the dust, the sunshine or the rain, the turmoil of moral and physical elements, to which all the wayfarers of the world expose themselves. for such a man how pleasant a miracle could life be made to roll its variegated length by the threshold of his own hermitage, and the great globe, as it were, perform its revolutions and shift its thousand scenes before his eyes without whirling him onward in its course! if any mortal be favored with a lot analogous to this, it is the toll-gatherer. so, at least, have i often fancied while lounging on a bench at the door of a small square edifice which stands between shore and shore in the midst of a long bridge. beneath the timbers ebbs and flows an arm of the sea, while above, like the life-blood through a great artery, the travel of the north and east is continually throbbing. sitting on the aforesaid bench, i amuse myself with a conception, illustrated by numerous pencil-sketches in the air, of the toll-gatherer's day. in the morning--dim, gray, dewy summer's morn--the distant roll of ponderous wheels begins to mingle with my old friend's slumbers, creaking more and more harshly through the midst of his dream and gradually replacing it with realities. hardly conscious of the change from sleep to wakefulness, he finds himself partly clad and throwing wide the toll-gates for the passage of a fragrant load of hay. the timbers groan beneath the slow-revolving wheels; one sturdy yeoman stalks beside the oxen, and, peering from the summit of the hay, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished lantern over the toll-house is seen the drowsy visage of his comrade, who has enjoyed a nap some ten miles long. the toll is paid; creak, creak, again go the wheels, and the huge hay-mow vanishes into the morning mist. as yet nature is but half awake, and familiar objects appear visionary. but yonder, dashing from the shore with a rattling thunder of the wheels and a confused clatter of hoofs, comes the never-tiring mail, which has hurried onward at the same headlong, restless rate all through the quiet night. the bridge resounds in one continued peal as the coach rolls on without a pause, merely affording the toll-gatherer a glimpse at the sleepy passengers, who now bestir their torpid limbs and snuff a cordial in the briny air. the morn breathes upon them and blushes, and they forget how wearily the darkness toiled away. and behold now the fervid day in his bright chariot, glittering aslant over the waves, nor scorning to throw a tribute of his golden beams on the toll-gatherer's little hermitage. the old man looks eastward, and (for he is a moralizer) frames a simile of the stage-coach and the sun. while the world is rousing itself we may glance slightly at the scene of our sketch. it sits above the bosom of the broad flood--a spot not of earth, but in the midst of waters which rush with a murmuring sound among the massive beams beneath. over the door is a weatherbeaten board inscribed with the rates of toll in letters so nearly effaced that the gilding of the sunshine can hardly make them legible. beneath the window is a wooden bench on which a long succession of weary wayfarers have reposed themselves. peeping within-doors, we perceive the whitewashed walls bedecked with sundry lithographic prints and advertisements of various import and the immense show-bill of a wandering caravan. and there sits our good old toll-gatherer, glorified by the early sunbeams. he is a man, as his aspect may announce, of quiet soul and thoughtful, shrewd, yet simple mind, who of the wisdom which the passing world scatters along the wayside has gathered a reasonable store. now the sun smiles upon the landscape and earth smiles back again upon the sky. frequent now are the travellers. the toll-gatherer's practised ear can distinguish the weight of every vehicle, the number of its wheels and how many horses beat the resounding timbers with their iron tramp. here, in a substantial family chaise, setting forth betimes to take advantage of the dewy road, come a gentleman and his wife with their rosy-cheeked little girl sitting gladsomely between them. the bottom of the chaise is heaped with multifarious bandboxes and carpet-bags, and beneath the axle swings a leathern trunk dusty with yesterday's journey. next appears a four-wheeled carryall peopled with a round half dozen of pretty girls, all drawn by a single horse and driven by a single gentleman. luckless wight doomed through a whole summer day to be the butt of mirth and mischief among the frolicsome maidens! bolt upright in a sulky rides a thin, sour-visaged man who as he pays his toll hands the toll-gatherer a printed card to stick upon the wall. the vinegar-faced traveller proves to be a manufacturer of pickles. now paces slowly from timber to timber a horseman clad in black, with a meditative brow, as of one who, whithersoever his steed might bear him, would still journey through a mist of brooding thought. he is a country preacher going to labor at a protracted meeting. the next object passing townward is a butcher's cart canopied with its arch of snow-white cotton. behind comes a "sauceman" driving a wagon full of new potatoes, green ears of corn, beets, carrots, turnips and summer squashes, and next two wrinkled, withered witch-looking old gossips in an antediluvian chaise drawn by a horse of former generations and going to peddle out a lot of huckleberries. see, there, a man trundling a wheelbarrow-load of lobsters. and now a milk-cart rattles briskly onward, covered with green canvas and conveying the contributions of a whole herd of cows, in large tin canisters. but let all these pay their toll and pass. here comes a spectacle that causes the old toll-gatherer to smile benignantly, as if the travellers brought sunshine with them and lavished its gladsome influence all along the road. it is a barouche of the newest style, the varnished panels of which reflect the whole moving panorama of the landscape, and show a picture, likewise, of our friend with his visage broadened, so that his meditative smile is transformed to grotesque merriment. within sits a youth fresh as the summer morn, and beside him a young lady in white with white gloves upon her slender hands and a white veil flowing down over her face. but methinks her blushing cheek burns through the snowy veil. another white-robed virgin sits in front. and who are these on whom, and on all that appertains to them, the dust of earth seems never to have settled? two lovers whom the priest has blessed this blessed morn and sent them forth, with one of the bride-maids, on the matrimonial tour.--take my blessing too, ye happy ones! may the sky not frown upon you nor clouds bedew you with their chill and sullen rain! may the hot sun kindle no fever in your hearts! may your whole life's pilgrimage be as blissful as this first day's journey, and its close be gladdened with even brighter anticipations than those which hallow your bridal-night! they pass, and ere the reflection of their joy has faded from his face another spectacle throws a melancholy shadow over the spirit of the observing man. in a close carriage sits a fragile figure muffled carefully and shrinking even from the mild breath of summer. she leans against a manly form, and his arm enfolds her as if to guard his treasure from some enemy. let but a few weeks pass, and when he shall strive to embrace that loved one, he will press only desolation to his heart. and now has morning gathered up her dewy pearls and fled away. the sun rolls blazing through the sky, and cannot find a cloud to cool his face with. the horses toil sluggishly along the bridge, and heave their glistening sides in short quick pantings when the reins are tightened at the toll-house. glisten, too, the faces of the travellers. their garments are thickly bestrewn with dust; their whiskers and hair look hoary; their throats are choked with the dusty atmosphere which they have left behind them. no air is stirring on the road. nature dares draw no breath lest she should inhale a stifling cloud of dust. "a hot and dusty day!" cry the poor pilgrims as they wipe their begrimed foreheads and woo the doubtful breeze which the river bears along with it.--"awful hot! dreadful dusty!" answers the sympathetic toll-gatherer. they start again to pass through the fiery furnace, while he re-enters his cool hermitage and besprinkles it with a pail of briny water from the stream beneath. he thinks within himself that the sun is not so fierce here as elsewhere, and that the gentle air doth not forget him in these sultry days. yes, old friend, and a quiet heart will make a dog-day temperate. he hears a weary footstep, and perceives a traveller with pack and staff, who sits down upon the hospitable bench and removes the hat from his wet brow. the toll-gatherer administers a cup of cold water, and, discovering his guest to be a man of homely sense, he engages him in profitable talk, uttering the maxims of a philosophy which he has found in his own soul, but knows not how it came there. and as the wayfarer makes ready to resume his journey he tells him a sovereign remedy for blistered feet. now comes the noontide hour--of all the hours, nearest akin to midnight, for each has its own calmness and repose. soon, however, the world begins to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest epoch of the day, when an accident impedes the march of sublunary things. the draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner laden with wood from the eastern forests, she sticks immovably right athwart the bridge. meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume. here are two sailors in a gig with the top thrown back, both puffing cigars and swearing all sorts of forecastle oaths; there, in a smart chaise, a dashingly-dressed gentleman and lady, he from a tailor's shop-board and she from a milliner's back room--the aristocrats of a summer afternoon. and what are the haughtiest of us but the ephemeral aristocrats of a summer's day? here is a tin-pedler whose glittering ware bedazzles all beholders like a travelling meteor or opposition sun, and on the other side a seller of spruce beer, which brisk liquor is confined in several dozen of stone bottles. here conic a party of ladies on horseback, in green ridings habits, and gentlemen attendant, and there a flock of sheep for the market, pattering over the bridge with a multitude nous clatter of their little hoofs; here a frenchman with a hand-organ on his shoulder, and there an itinerant swiss jeweller. on this side, heralded by a blast of clarions and bugles, appears a train of wagons conveying all the wild beasts of a caravan; and on that a company of summer soldiers marching from village to village on a festival campaign, attended by the "brass band." now look at the scene, and it presents an emblem of the mysterious confusion, the apparently insolvable riddle, in which individuals, or the great world itself, seem often to be involved. what miracle shall set all things right again? but see! the schooner has thrust her bulky carcase through the chasm; the draw descends; horse and foot pass onward and leave the bridge vacant from end to end. "and thus," muses the toll-gatherer, "have i found it with all stoppages, even though the universe seemed to be at a stand." the sage old man! far westward now the reddening sun throws a broad sheet of splendor across the flood, and to the eyes of distant boatmen gleams brightly among the timbers of the bridge. strollers come from the town to quaff the freshening breeze. one or two let down long lines and haul up flapping flounders or cunners or small cod, or perhaps an eel. others, and fair girls among them, with the flush of the hot day still on their cheeks, bend over the railing and watch the heaps of seaweed floating upward with the flowing tide. the horses now tramp heavily along the bridge and wistfully bethink them of their stables.--rest, rest, thou weary world! for to-morrow's round of toil and pleasure will be as wearisome as to-day's has been, yet both shall bear thee onward a day's march of eternity.--now the old toll-gatherer looks seaward and discerns the lighthouse kindling on a far island, and the stars, too, kindling in the sky, as if but a little way beyond; and, mingling reveries of heaven with remembrances of earth, the whole procession of mortal travellers, all the dusty pilgrimage which he has witnessed, seems like a flitting show of phantoms for his thoughtful soul to muse upon. the vision of the fountain. at fifteen i became a resident in a country village more than a hundred miles from home. the morning after my arrival--a september morning, but warm and bright as any in july--i rambled into a wood of oaks with a few walnut trees intermixed, forming the closest shade above my head. the ground was rocky, uneven, overgrown with bushes and clumps of young saplings and traversed only by cattle-paths. the track which i chanced to follow led me to a crystal spring with a border of grass as freshly green as on may morning, and overshadowed by the limb of a great oak. one solitary sunbeam found its way down and played like a goldfish in the water. from my childhood i have loved to gaze into a spring. the water filled a circular basin, small but deep and set round with stones, some of which were covered with slimy moss, the others naked and of variegated hue--reddish, white and brown. the bottom was covered with coarse sand, which sparkled in the lonely sunbeam and seemed to illuminate the spring with an unborrowed light. in one spot the gush of the water violently agitated the sand, but without obscuring the fountain or breaking the glassiness of its surface. it appeared as if some living creature were about to emerge--the naiad of the spring, perhaps, in the shape of a beautiful young woman with a gown of filmy water-moss, a belt of rainbow-drops and a cold, pure, passionless countenance. how would the beholder shiver, pleasantly yet fearfully, to see her sitting on one of the stones, paddling her white feet in the ripples and throwing up water to sparkle in the sun! wherever she laid her hands on grass and flowers, they would immediately be moist, as with morning dew. then would she set about her labors, like a careful housewife, to clear the fountain of withered leaves, and bits of slimy wood, and old acorns from the oaks above, and grains of corn left by cattle in drinking, till the bright sand in the bright water were like a treasury of diamonds. but, should the intruder approach too near, he would find only the drops of a summer shower glistening about the spot where he had seen her. reclining on the border of grass where the dewy goddess should have been, i bent forward, and a pair of eyes met mine within the watery mirror. they were the reflection of my own. i looked again, and, lo! another face, deeper in the fountain than my own image, more distinct in all the features, yet faint as thought. the vision had the aspect of a fair young girl with locks of paly gold. a mirthful expression laughed in the eyes and dimpled over the whole shadowy countenance, till it seemed just what a fountain would be if, while dancing merrily into the sunshine, it should assume the shape of woman. through the dim rosiness of the cheeks i could see the brown leaves, the slimy twigs, the acorns and the sparkling sand. the solitary sunbeam was diffused among the golden hair, which melted into its faint brightness and became a glory round that head so beautiful. my description can give no idea how suddenly the fountain was thus tenanted and how soon it was left desolate. i breathed, and there was the face; i held my breath, and it was gone. had it passed away or faded into nothing? i doubted whether it had ever been. my sweet readers, what a dreamy and delicious hour did i spend where that vision found and left me! for a long time i sat perfectly still, waiting till it should reappear, and fearful that the slightest motion, or even the flutter of my breath, might frighten it away. thus have i often started from a pleasant dream, and then kept quiet in hopes to wile it back. deep were my musings as to the race and attributes of that ethereal being. had i created her? was she the daughter of my fancy, akin to those strange shapes which peep under the lids of children's eyes? and did her beauty gladden me for that one moment and then die? or was she a water-nymph within the fountain, or fairy or woodland goddess peeping over my shoulder, or the ghost of some forsaken maid who had drowned herself for love? or, in good truth, had a lovely girl with a warm heart and lips that would bear pressure stolen softly behind me and thrown her image into the spring? i watched and waited, but no vision came again. i departed, but with a spell upon me which drew me back that same afternoon to the haunted spring. there was the water gushing, the sand sparkling and the sunbeam glimmering. there the vision was not, but only a great frog, the hermit of that solitude, who immediately withdrew his speckled snout and made himself invisible--all except a pair of long legs--beneath a stone. methought he had a devilish look. i could have slain him as an enchanter who kept the mysterious beauty imprisoned in the fountain. sad and heavy, i was returning to the village. between me and the church-spire rose a little hill, and on its summit a group of trees insulated from all the rest of the wood, with their own share of radiance hovering on them from the west and their own solitary shadow falling to the east. the afternoon being far declined, the sunshine was almost pensive and the shade almost cheerful; glory and gloom were mingled in the placid light, as if the spirits of the day and evening had met in friendship under those trees and found themselves akin. i was admiring the picture when the shape of a young girl emerged from behind the clump of oaks. my heart knew her: it was the vision, but so distant and ethereal did she seem, so unmixed with earth, so imbued with the pensive glory of the spot where she was standing, that my spirit sunk within me, sadder than before. how could i ever reach her? while i gazed a sudden shower came pattering down upon the leaves. in a moment the air was full of brightness, each raindrop catching a portion of sunlight as it fell, and the whole gentle shower appearing like a mist, just substantial enough to bear the burden of radiance. a rainbow vivid as niagara's was painted in the air. its southern limb came down before the group of trees and enveloped the fair vision as if the hues of heaven were the only garment for her beauty. when the rainbow vanished, she who had seemed a part of it was no longer there. was her existence absorbed in nature's loveliest phenomenon, and did her pure frame dissolve away in the varied light? yet i would not despair of her return, for, robed in the rainbow, she was the emblem of hope. thus did the vision leave me, and many a doleful day succeeded to the parting moment. by the spring and in the wood and on the hill and through the village, at dewy sunrise, burning noon, and at that magic hour of sunset, when she had vanished from my sight, i sought her, but in vain. weeks came and went, months rolled away, and she appeared not in them. i imparted my mystery to none, but wandered to and fro or sat in solitude like one that had caught a glimpse of heaven and could take no more joy on earth. i withdrew into an inner world where my thoughts lived and breathed, and the vision in the midst of them. without intending it, i became at once the author and hero of a romance, conjuring up rivals, imagining events, the actions of others and my own, and experiencing every change of passion, till jealousy and despair had their end in bliss. oh, had i the burning fancy of my early youth with manhood's colder gift, the power of expression, your hearts, sweet ladies, should flutter at my tale. in the middle of january i was summoned home. the day before my departure, visiting the spots which had been hallowed by the vision, i found that the spring had a frozen bosom, and nothing but the snow and a glare of winter sunshine on the hill of the rainbow. "let me hope," thought i, "or my heart will be as icy as the fountain and the whole world as desolate as this snowy hill." most of the day was spent in preparing for the journey, which was to commence at four o'clock the next morning. about an hour after supper, when all was in readiness, i descended from my chamber to the sitting-room to take leave of the old clergyman and his family with whom i had been an inmate. a gust of wind blew out my lamp as i passed through the entry. according to their invariable custom--so pleasant a one when the fire blazes cheerfully--the family were sitting in the parlor with no other light than what came from the hearth. as the good clergyman's scanty stipend compelled him to use all sorts of economy, the foundation of his fires was always a large heap of tan, or ground bark, which would smoulder away from morning till night with a dull warmth and no flame. this evening the heap of tan was newly put on and surmounted with three sticks of red oak full of moisture, and a few pieces of dry pine that had not yet kindled. there was no light except the little that came sullenly from two half-burnt brands, without even glimmering on the andirons. but i knew the position of the old minister's arm-chair, and also where his wife sat with her knitting-work, and how to avoid his two daughters--one a stout country lass, and the other a consumptive girl. groping through the gloom, i found my own place next to that of the son, a learned collegian who had come home to keep school in the village during the winter vacation. i noticed that there was less room than usual to-night between the collegian's chair and mine. as people are always taciturn in the dark, not a word was said for some time after my entrance. nothing broke the stillness but the regular click of the matron's knitting-needles. at times the fire threw out a brief and dusky gleam which twinkled on the old man's glasses and hovered doubtfully round our circle, but was far too faint to portray the individuals who composed it. were we not like ghosts? dreamy as the scene was, might it not be a type of the mode in which departed people who had known and loved each other here would hold communion in eternity? we were aware of each other's presence, not by sight nor sound nor touch, but by an inward consciousness. would it not be so among the dead? the silence was interrupted by the consumptive daughter addressing a remark to some one in the circle whom she called rachel. her tremulous and decayed accents were answered by a single word, but in a voice that made me start and bend toward the spot whence it had proceeded. had i ever heard that sweet, low tone? if not, why did it rouse up so many old recollections, or mockeries of such, the shadows of things familiar yet unknown, and fill my mind with confused images of her features who had spoken, though buried in the gloom of the parlor? whom had my heart recognized, that it throbbed so? i listened to catch her gentle breathing, and strove by the intensity of my gaze to picture forth a shape where none was visible. suddenly the dry pine caught; the fire blazed up with a ruddy glow, and where the darkness had been, there was she--the vision of the fountain. a spirit of radiance only, she had vanished with the rainbow and appeared again in the firelight, perhaps to flicker with the blaze and be gone. yet her cheek was rosy and lifelike, and her features, in the bright warmth of the room, were even sweeter and tenderer than my recollection of them. she knew me. the mirthful expression that had laughed in her eyes and dimpled over her countenance when i beheld her faint beauty in the fountain was laughing and dimpling there now. one moment our glance mingled; the next, down rolled the heap of tan upon the kindled wood, and darkness snatched away that daughter of the light, and gave her back to me no more! fair ladies, there is nothing more to tell. must the simple mystery be revealed, then, that rachel was the daughter of the village squire and had left home for a boarding-school the morning after i arrived and returned the day before my departure? if i transformed her to an angel, it is what every youthful lover does for his mistress. therein consists the essence of my story. but slight the change, sweet maids, to make angels of yourselves. fancy's show-box. a morality. what is guilt? a stain upon the soul. and it is a point of vast interest whether the soul may contract such stains in all their depth and flagrancy from deeds which may have been plotted and resolved upon, but which physically have never had existence. must the fleshly hand and visible frame of man set its seal to the evil designs of the soul, in order to give them their entire validity against the sinner? or, while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly tribunal, will guilty thoughts--of which guilty deeds are no more than shadows,--will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence in the supreme court of eternity? in the solitude of a midnight chamber or in a desert afar from men or in a church while the body is kneeling the soul may pollute itself even with those crimes which we are accustomed to deem altogether carnal. if this be true, it is a fearful truth. let us illustrate the subject by an imaginary example. a venerable gentleman--one mr. smith--who had long been regarded as a pattern of moral excellence was warming his aged blood with a glass or two of generous wine. his children being gone forth about their worldly business and his grandchildren at school, he sat alone in a deep luxurious arm-chair with his feet beneath a richly-carved mahogany table. some old people have a dread of solitude, and when better company may not be had rejoice even to hear the quiet breathing of a babe asleep upon the carpet. but mr. smith, whose silver hair was the bright symbol of a life unstained except by such spots as are inseparable from human nature--he had no need of a babe to protect him by its purity, nor of a grown person to stand between him and his own soul. nevertheless, either manhood must converse with age, or womanhood must soothe him with gentle cares, or infancy must sport around his chair, or his thoughts will stray into the misty region of the past and the old man be chill and sad. wine will not always cheer him. such might have been the case with mr. smith, when, through the brilliant medium of his glass of old madeira, he beheld three figures entering the room. these were fancy, who had assumed the garb and aspect of an itinerant showman, with a box of pictures on her back; and memory, in the likeness of a clerk, with a pen behind her ear, an inkhorn at her buttonhole and a huge manuscript volume beneath her arm; and lastly, behind the other two, a person shrouded in a dusky mantle which concealed both face and form. but mr. smith had a shrewd idea that it was conscience. how kind of fancy, memory and conscience to visit the old gentleman just as he was beginning to imagine that the wine had neither so bright a sparkle nor so excellent a flavor as when himself and the liquor were less aged! through the dim length of the apartment, where crimson curtains muffled the glare of sunshine and created a rich obscurity, the three guests drew near the silver-haired old man. memory, with a finger between the leaves of her huge volume, placed herself at his right hand; conscience, with her face still hidden in the dusky mantle, took her station on the left, so as to be next his heart; while fancy set down her picture-box upon the table with the magnifying-glass convenient to his eye. we can sketch merely the outlines of two or three out of the many pictures which at the pulling of a string successively peopled the box with the semblances of living scenes. one was a moonlight picture, in the background a lowly dwelling, and in front, partly shadowed by a tree, yet besprinkled with flakes of radiance, two youthful figures, male and female. the young man stood with folded arms, a haughty smile upon his lip and a gleam of triumph in his eye as he glanced downward at the kneeling girl. she was almost prostrate at his feet, evidently sinking under a weight of shame and anguish which hardly allowed her to lift her clasped hands in supplication. her eyes she could not lift. but neither her agony, nor the lovely features on which it was depicted, nor the slender grace of the form which it convulsed, appeared to soften the obduracy of the young man. he was the personification of triumphant scorn. now, strange to say, as old mr. smith peeped through the magnifying-glass, which made the objects start out from the canvas with magical deception, he began to recognize the farmhouse, the tree and both the figures of the picture. the young man in times long past had often met his gaze within the looking-glass; the girl was the very image of his first love--his cottage-love, his martha burroughs. mr. smith was scandalized. "oh, vile and slanderous picture!" he exclaims. "when have i triumphed over ruined innocence? was not martha wedded in her teens to david tomkins, who won her girlish love and long enjoyed her affection as a wife? and ever since his death she has lived a reputable widow!" meantime, memory was turning over the leaves of her volume, rustling them to and fro with uncertain fingers, until among the earlier pages she found one which had reference to this picture. she reads it close to the old gentleman's ear: it is a record merely of sinful thought which never was embodied in an act, but, while memory is reading, conscience unveils her face and strikes a dagger to the heart of mr. smith. though not a death-blow, the torture was extreme. the exhibition proceeded. one after another fancy displayed her pictures, all of which appeared to have been painted by some malicious artist on purpose to vex mr. smith. not a shadow of proof could have been adduced in any earthly court that he was guilty of the slightest of those sins which were thus made to stare him in the face. in one scene there was a table set out, with several bottles and glasses half filled with wine, which threw back the dull ray of an expiring lamp. there had been mirth and revelry until the hand of the clock stood just at midnight, when murder stepped between the boon-companions. a young man had fallen on the floor, and lay stone dead with a ghastly wound crushed into his temple, while over him, with a delirium of mingled rage and horror in his countenance, stood the youthful likeness of mr. smith. the murdered youth wore the features of edward spencer. "what does this rascal of a painter mean?" cries mr. smith, provoked beyond all patience. "edward spencer was my earliest and dearest friend, true to me as i to him through more than half a century. neither i nor any other ever murdered him. was he not alive within five years, and did he not, in token of our long friendship, bequeath me his gold-headed cane and a mourning-ring?" again had memory been turning over her volume, and fixed at length upon so confused a page that she surely must have scribbled it when she was tipsy. the purport was, however, that while mr. smith and edward spencer were heating their young blood with wine a quarrel had flashed up between them, and mr. smith, in deadly wrath, had flung a bottle at spencer's head. true, it missed its aim and merely smashed a looking-glass; and the next morning, when the incident was imperfectly remembered, they had shaken hands with a hearty laugh. yet, again, while memory was reading, conscience unveiled her face, struck a dagger to the heart of mr. smith and quelled his remonstrance with her iron frown. the pain was quite excruciating. some of the pictures had been painted with so doubtful a touch, and in colors so faint and pale, that the subjects could barely be conjectured. a dull, semi-transparent mist had been thrown over the surface of the canvas, into which the figures seemed to vanish while the eye sought most earnestly to fix them. but in every scene, however dubiously portrayed, mr. smith was invariably haunted by his own lineaments at various ages as in a dusty mirror. after poring several minutes over one of these blurred and almost indistinguishable pictures, he began to see that the painter had intended to represent him, now in the decline of life, as stripping the clothes from the backs of three half-starved children. "really, this puzzles me!" quoth mr. smith, with the irony of conscious rectitude. "asking pardon of the painter, i pronounce him a fool as well as a scandalous knave. a man of my standing in the world to be robbing little children of their clothes! ridiculous!" but while he spoke memory had searched her fatal volume and found a page which with her sad calm voice she poured into his ear. it was not altogether inapplicable to the misty scene. it told how mr. smith had been grievously tempted by many devilish sophistries, on the ground of a legal quibble, to commence a lawsuit against three orphan-children, joint-heirs to a considerable estate. fortunately, before he was quite decided, his claims had turned out nearly as devoid of law as justice. as memory ceased to read conscience again thrust aside her mantle, and would have struck her victim with the envenomed dagger only that he struggled and clasped his hands before his heart. even then, however, he sustained an ugly gash. why should we follow fancy through the whole series of those awful pictures? painted by an artist of wondrous power and terrible acquaintance with the secret soul, they embodied the ghosts of all the never-perpetrated sins that had glided through the lifetime of mr. smith. and could such beings of cloudy fantasy, so near akin to nothingness, give valid evidence against him at the day of judgment? be that the case or not, there is reason to believe that one truly penitential tear would have washed away each hateful picture and left the canvas white as snow. but mr. smith, at a prick of conscience too keen to be endured, bellowed aloud with impatient agony, and suddenly discovered that his three guests were gone. there he sat alone, a silver-haired and highly-venerated old man, in the rich gloom of the crimsoned-curtained room, with no box of pictures on the table, but only a decanter of most excellent madeira. yet his heart still seemed to fester with the venom of the dagger. nevertheless, the unfortunate old gentleman might have argued the matter with conscience and alleged many reasons wherefore she should not smite him so pitilessly. were we to take up his cause, it should be somewhat in the following fashion. a scheme of guilt, till it be put in execution, greatly resembles a train of incidents in a projected tale. the latter, in order to produce a sense of reality in the reader's mind, must be conceived with such proportionate strength by the author as to seem in the glow of fancy more like truth, past, present or to come, than purely fiction. the prospective sinner, on the other hand, weaves his plot of crime, but seldom or never feels a perfect certainty that it will be executed. there is a dreaminess diffused about his thoughts; in a dream, as it were, he strikes the death-blow into his victim's heart and starts to find an indelible blood-stain on his hand. thus a novel-writer or a dramatist, in creating a villain of romance and fitting him with evil deeds, and the villain of actual life in projecting crimes that will be perpetrated, may almost meet each other halfway between reality and fancy. it is not until the crime is accomplished that guilt clenches its gripe upon the guilty heart and claims it for his own. then, and not before, sin is actually felt and acknowledged, and, if unaccompanied by repentance, grows a thousandfold more virulent by its self-consciousness. be it considered, also, that men often overestimate their capacity for evil. at a distance, while its attendant circumstances do not press upon their notice and its results are dimly seen, they can bear to contemplate it. they may take the steps which lead to crime, impelled by the same sort of mental action as in working out a mathematical problem, yet be powerless with compunction at the final moment. they knew not what deed it was that they deemed themselves resolved to do. in truth, there is no such thing in man's nature as a settled and full resolve, either for good or evil, except at the very moment of execution. let us hope, therefore, that all the dreadful consequences of sin will not be incurred unless the act have set its seal upon the thought. yet, with the slight fancy-work which we have framed, some sad and awful truths are interwoven. man must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity. he must feel that when he shall knock at the gate of heaven no semblance of an unspotted life can entitle him to entrance there. penitence must kneel and mercy come from the footstool of the throne, or that golden gate will never open. dr. heidegger's experiment. that very singular man old dr. heidegger once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. there were three white-bearded gentlemen--mr. medbourne, colonel killigrew and mr. gascoigne--and a withered gentlewoman whose name was the widow wycherly. they were all melancholy old creatures who had been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves. mr. medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic speculation, and was now little better than a mendicant. colonel killigrew had wasted his best years and his health and substance in the pursuit of sinful pleasures which had given birth to a brood of pains, such as the gout and divers other torments of soul and body. mr. gascoigne was a ruined politician, a man of evil fame--or, at least, had been so till time had buried him from the knowledge of the present generation and made him obscure instead of infamous. as for the widow wycherly, tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in her day, but for a long while past she had lived in deep seclusion on account of certain scandalous stories which had prejudiced the gentry of the town against her. it is a circumstance worth mentioning that each of these three old gentlemen--mr. medbourne, colonel killigrew and mr. gascoigne--were early lovers of the widow wycherly, and had once been on the point of cutting each other's throats for her sake. and before proceeding farther i will merely hint that dr. heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves, as is not infrequently the case with old people when worried either by present troubles or woeful recollections. "my dear old friends," said dr. heidegger, motioning them to be seated, "i am desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments with which i amuse myself here in my study." if all stories were true, dr. heidegger's study must have been a very curious place. it was a dim, old-fashioned chamber festooned with cobwebs and besprinkled with antique dust. around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos. over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities, dr. heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his practice. in the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet with its door ajar, within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton. between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame. among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that the spirits of all the doctor's deceased patients dwelt within its verge and would stare him in the face whenever he looked thitherward. the opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of a young lady arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk, satin and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. above half a century ago dr. heidegger had been on the point of marriage with this young lady, but, being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions and died on the bridal-evening. the greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned: it was a ponderous folio volume bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. there were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. but it was well known to be a book of magic, and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor and several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror, while the brazen head of hippocrates frowned and said, "forbear!" such was dr. heidegger's study. on the summer afternoon of our tale a small round table as black as ebony stood in the centre of the room, sustaining a cut-glass vase of beautiful form and elaborate workmanship. the sunshine came through the window between the heavy festoons of two faded damask curtains and fell directly across this vase, so that a mild splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five old people who sat around. four champagne-glasses were also on the table. "my dear old friends," repeated dr. heidegger, "may i reckon on your aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment?" now, dr. heidegger was a very strange old gentleman whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. some of these fables--to my shame be it spoken--might possibly be traced back to mine own veracious self; and if any passages of the present tale should startle the reader's faith, i must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction-monger. when the doctor's four guests heard him talk of his proposed experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of a mouse in an air-pump or the examination of a cobweb by the microscope, or some similar nonsense with which he was constantly in the habit of pestering his intimates. but without waiting for a reply dr. heidegger hobbled across the chamber and returned with the same ponderous folio bound in black leather which common report affirmed to be a book of magic. undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose, though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish hue and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to dust in the doctor's hands. "this rose," said dr. heidegger, with a sigh--"this same withered and crumbling flower--blossomed five and fifty years ago. it was given me by sylvia ward, whose portrait hangs yonder, and i meant to wear it in my bosom at our wedding. five and fifty years it has been treasured between the leaves of this old volume. now, would you deem it possible that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again?" "nonsense!" said the widow wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. "you might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ever bloom again." "see!" answered dr. heidegger. he uncovered the vase and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained. at first it lay lightly on the surface of the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its moisture. soon, however, a singular change began to be visible. the crushed and dried petals stirred and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if the flower were reviving from a deathlike slumber, the slender stalk and twigs of foliage became green, and there was the rose of half a century, looking as fresh as when sylvia ward had first given it to her lover. it was scarcely full-blown, for some of its delicate red leaves curled modestly around its moist bosom, within which two or three dewdrops were sparkling. "that is certainly a very pretty deception," said the doctor's friends--carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer's show. "pray, how was it effected?" "did you never hear of the fountain of youth?" asked dr. heidegger, "which ponce de leon, the spanish adventurer, went in search of two or three centuries ago?" "but did ponce de leon ever find it?" said the widow wycherly. "no," answered dr. heidegger, "for he never sought it in the right place. the famous fountain of youth, if i am rightly informed, is situated in the southern part of the floridian peninsula, not far from lake macaco. its source is overshadowed by several gigantic magnolias which, though numberless centuries old, have been kept as fresh as violets by the virtues of this wonderful water. an acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me what you see in the vase." "ahem!" said colonel killigrew, who believed not a word of the doctor's story; "and what may be the effect of this fluid on the human frame?" "you shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel," replied dr. heidegger.--"and all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to so much of this admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom of youth. for my own part, having had much trouble in growing old, i am in no hurry to grow young again. with your permission, therefore, i will merely watch the progress of the experiment." while he spoke dr. heidegger had been filling the four champagne-glasses with the water of the fountain of youth. it was apparently impregnated with an effervescent gas, for little bubbles were continually ascending from the depths of the glasses and bursting in silvery spray at the surface. as the liquor diffused a pleasant perfume, the old people doubted not that it possessed cordial and comfortable properties, and, though utter sceptics as to its rejuvenescent power, they were inclined to swallow it at once. but dr. heidegger besought them to stay a moment. "before you drink, my respectable old friends," said he, "it would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance in passing a second time through the perils of youth. think what a sin and shame it would be if, with your peculiar advantages, you should not become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the age!" the doctor's four venerable friends made him no answer except by a feeble and tremulous laugh, so very ridiculous was the idea that, knowing how closely repentance treads behind the steps of error, they should ever go astray again. "drink, then," said the doctor, bowing; "i rejoice that i have so well selected the subjects of my experiment." with palsied hands they raised the glasses to their lips. the liquor, if it really possessed such virtues as dr. heidegger imputed to it, could not have been bestowed on four human beings who needed it more woefully. they looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had been the offspring of nature's dotage, and always the gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures who now sat stooping round the doctor's table without life enough in their souls or bodies to be animated even by the prospect of growing young again. they drank off the water and replaced their glasses on the table. assuredly, there was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect of the party--not unlike what might have been produced by a glass of generous wine--together with a sudden glow of cheerful sunshine, brightening over all their visages at once. there was a healthful suffusion on their cheeks instead of the ashen hue that had made them look so corpse-like. they gazed at one another, and fancied that some magic power had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad inscriptions which father time had been so long engraving on their brows. the widow wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a woman again. "give us more of this wondrous water," cried they, eagerly. "we are younger, but we are still too old. quick! give us more!" "patience, patience!" quoth dr. heidegger, who sat, watching the experiment with philosophic coolness. "you have been a long time growing old; surely you might be content to grow young in half an hour. but the water is at your service." again he filled their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough of which still remained in the vase to turn half the old people in the city to the age of their own grandchildren. while the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim the doctor's four guests snatched their glasses from the table and swallowed the contents at a single gulp. was it delusion? even while the draught was passing down their throats it seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems. their eyes grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery locks: they sat around the table three gentlemen of middle age and a woman hardly beyond her buxom prime. "my dear widow, you are charming!" cried colonel killigrew, whose eyes had been fixed upon her face while the shadows of age were flitting from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak. the fair widow knew of old that colonel killigrew's compliments were not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran to the mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman would meet her gaze. meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such a manner as proved that the water of the fountain of youth possessed some intoxicating qualities--unless, indeed, their exhilaration of spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal of the weight of years. mr. gascoigne's mind seemed to run on political topics, but whether relating to the past, present or future could not easily be determined, since the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue these fifty years. now he rattled forth full-throated sentences about patriotism, national glory and the people's right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents and a deeply-deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his well-turned periods. colonel killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle-song and ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward the buxom figure of the widow wycherly. on the other side of the table, mr. medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents with which was strangely intermingled a project for supplying the east indies with ice by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs. as for the widow wycherly, she stood before the mirror courtesying and simpering to her own image and greeting it as the friend whom she loved better than all the world besides. she thrust her face close to the glass to see whether some long-remembered wrinkle or crow's-foot had indeed vanished; she examined whether the snow had so entirely melted from her hair that the venerable cap could be safely thrown aside. at last, turning briskly away, she came with a sort of dancing step to the table. "my dear old doctor," cried she, "pray favor me with another glass." "certainly, my dear madam--certainly," replied the complaisant doctor. "see! i have already filled the glasses." there, in fact, stood the four glasses brimful of this wonderful water, the delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from the surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds. it was now so nearly sunset that the chamber had grown duskier than ever, but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed from within the vase and rested alike on the four guests and on the doctor's venerable figure. he sat in a high-backed, elaborately-carved oaken arm-chair with a gray dignity of aspect that might have well befitted that very father time whose power had never been disputed save by this fortunate company. even while quaffing the third draught of the fountain of youth, they were almost awed by the expression of his mysterious visage. but the next moment the exhilarating gush of young life shot through their veins. they were now in the happy prime of youth. age, with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and diseases, was remembered only as the trouble of a dream from which they had joyously awoke. the fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost and without which the world's successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded pictures, again threw its enchantment over all their prospects. they felt like new-created beings in a new-created universe. "we are young! we are young!" they cried, exultingly. youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-marked characteristics of middle life and mutually assimilated them all. they were a group of merry youngsters almost maddened with the exuberant frolicsomeness of their years. the most singular effect of their gayety was an impulse to mock the infirmity and decrepitude of which they had so lately been the victims. they laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire--the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the young men and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. one limped across the floor like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles astride of his nose and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of the book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair and strove to imitate the venerable dignity of dr. heidegger. then all shouted mirthfully and leaped about the room. the widow wycherly--if so fresh a damsel could be called a widow--tripped up to the doctor's chair with a mischievous merriment in her rosy face. "doctor, you dear old soul," cried she, "get up and dance with me;" and then the four young people laughed louder than ever to think what a queer figure the poor old doctor would cut. "pray excuse me," answered the doctor, quietly. "i am old and rheumatic, and my dancing-days were over long ago. but either of these gay young gentlemen will be glad of so pretty a partner." "dance with me, clara," cried colonel killigrew. "no, no! i will be her partner," shouted mr. gascoigne. "she promised me her hand fifty years ago," exclaimed mr. medbourne. they all gathered round her. one caught both her hands in his passionate grasp, another threw his arm about her waist, the third buried his hand among the glossy curls that clustered beneath the widow's cap. blushing, panting, struggling, chiding, laughing, her warm breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove to disengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize. yet, by a strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the chamber and the antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to have reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered grand-sires ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled grandam. but they were young: their burning passions proved them so. inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals began to interchange threatening glances. still keeping hold of the fair prize, they grappled fiercely at one another's throats. as they struggled to and fro the table was overturned and the vase dashed into a thousand fragments. the precious water of youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor, moistening the wings of a butterfly which, grown old in the decline of summer, had alighted there to die. the insect fluttered lightly through the chamber and settled on the snowy head of dr. heidegger. "come, come, gentlemen! come, madam wycherly!" exclaimed the doctor. "i really must protest against this riot." they stood still and shivered, for it seemed as if gray time were calling them back from their sunny youth far down into the chill and darksome vale of years. they looked at old dr. heidegger, who sat in his carved armchair holding the rose of half a century, which he had rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase. at the motion of his hand the four rioters resumed their seats--the more readily because their violent exertions had wearied them, youthful though they were. "my poor sylvia's rose!" ejaculated dr. heidegger, holding it in the light of the sunset clouds. "it appears to be fading again." and so it was. even while the party were looking at it the flower continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the doctor had first thrown it into the vase. he shook off the few drops of moisture which clung to its petals. "i love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness," observed he, pressing the withered rose to his withered lips. while he spoke the butterfly fluttered down from the doctor's snowy head and fell upon the floor. his guests shivered again. a strange dullness--whether of the body or spirit they could not tell--was creeping gradually over them all. they gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting moment snatched away a charm and left a deepening furrow where none had been before. was it an illusion? had the changes of a lifetime been crowded into so brief a space, and were they now four aged people sitting with their old friend dr. heidegger? "are we grown old again so soon?" cried they, dolefully. in truth, they had. the water of youth possessed merely a virtue more transient than that of wine; the delirium which it created had effervesced away. yes, they were old again. with a shuddering impulse that showed her a woman still, the widow clasped her skinny hands before her face and wished that the coffin-lid were over it, since it could be no longer beautiful. "yes, friends, ye are old again," said dr. heidegger, "and, lo! the water of youth is all lavished on the ground. well, i bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, i would not stoop to bathe my lips in it--no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments. such is the lesson ye have taught me." but the doctor's four friends had taught no such lesson to themselves. they resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to florida and quaff at morning, noon and night from the fountain of youth. legends of the province-house. i.--howe's masquerade. ii.--edward randolph's portrait. iii.--lady eleanore's mantle. iv.--old esther dudley. i. howe's masquerade. one afternoon last summer, while walking along washington street, my eye was attracted by a sign-board protruding over a narrow archway nearly opposite the old south church. the sign represented the front of a stately edifice which was designated as the "old province house, kept by thomas waite." i was glad to be thus reminded of a purpose, long entertained, of visiting and rambling over the mansion of the old royal governors of massachusetts, and, entering the arched passage which penetrated through the middle of a brick row of shops, a few steps transported me from the busy heart of modern boston into a small and secluded court-yard. one side of this space was occupied by the square front of the province house, three stories high and surmounted by a cupola, on the top of which a gilded indian was discernible, with his bow bent and his arrow on the string, as if aiming at the weathercock on the spire of the old south. the figure has kept this attitude for seventy years or more, ever since good deacon drowne, a cunning carver of wood, first stationed him on his long sentinel's watch over the city. the province house is constructed of brick, which seems recently to have been overlaid with a coat of light-colored paint. a flight of red freestone steps fenced in by a balustrade of curiously wrought iron ascends from the court-yard to the spacious porch, over which is a balcony with an iron balustrade of similar pattern and workmanship to that beneath. these letters and figures--" p.s. "--are wrought into the ironwork of the balcony, and probably express the date of the edifice, with the initials of its founder's name. a wide door with double leaves admitted me into the hall or entry, on the right of which is the entrance to the bar-room. it was in this apartment, i presume, that the ancient governors held their levees with vice-regal pomp, surrounded by the military men, the counsellors, the judges, and other officers of the crown, while all the loyalty of the province thronged to do them honor. but the room in its present condition cannot boast even of faded magnificence. the panelled wainscot is covered with dingy paint and acquires a duskier hue from the deep shadow into which the province house is thrown by the brick block that shuts it in from washington street. a ray of sunshine never visits this apartment any more than the glare of the festal torches which have been extinguished from the era of the revolution. the most venerable and ornamental object is a chimney-piece set round with dutch tiles of blue-figured china, representing scenes from scripture, and, for aught i know, the lady of pownall or bernard may have sat beside this fireplace and told her children the story of each blue tile. a bar in modern style, well replenished with decanters, bottles, cigar-boxes and network bags of lemons, and provided with a beer-pump and a soda-fount, extends along one side of the room. at my entrance an elderly person was smacking his lips with a zest which satisfied me that the cellars of the province house still hold good liquor, though doubtless of other vintages than were quaffed by the old governors. after sipping a glass of port-sangaree prepared by the skilful hands of mr. thomas waite, i besought that worthy successor and representative of so many historic personages to conduct me over their time-honored mansion. he readily complied, but, to confess the truth, i was forced to draw strenuously upon my imagination in order to find aught that was interesting in a house which, without its historic associations, would have seemed merely such a tavern as is usually favored by the custom of decent city boarders and old-fashioned country gentlemen. the chambers, which were probably spacious in former times, are now cut up by partitions and subdivided into little nooks, each affording scanty room for the narrow bed and chair and dressing-table of a single lodger: the great staircase, however, may be termed, without much hyperbole, a feature of grandeur and magnificence. it winds through the midst of the house by flights of broad steps, each flight terminating in a square landing-place, whence the ascent is continued toward the cupola. a carved balustrade, freshly painted in the lower stories, but growing dingier as we ascend, borders the staircase with its quaintly twisted and intertwined pillars, from top to bottom. up these stairs the military boots, or perchance the gouty shoes, of many a governor have trodden as the wearers mounted to the cupola which afforded them so wide a view over their metropolis and the surrounding country. the cupola is an octagon with several windows, and a door opening upon the roof. from this station, as i pleased myself with imagining, gage may have beheld his disastrous victory on bunker hill (unless one of the tri-mountains intervened), and howe have marked the approaches of washington's besieging army, although the buildings since erected in the vicinity have shut out almost every object save the steeple of the old south, which seems almost within arm's length. descending from the cupola, i paused in the garret to observe the ponderous white-oak framework, so much more massive than the frames of modern houses, and thereby resembling an antique skeleton. the brick walls, the materials of which were imported from holland, and the timbers of the mansion, are still as sound as ever, but, the floors and other interior parts being greatly decayed, it is contemplated to gut the whole and build a new house within the ancient frame-and brickwork. among other inconveniences of the present edifice, mine host mentioned that any jar or motion was apt to shake down the dust of ages out of the ceiling of one chamber upon the floor of that beneath it. we stepped forth from the great front window into the balcony where in old times it was doubtless the custom of the king's representative to show himself to a loyal populace, requiting their huzzas and tossed-up hats with stately bendings of his dignified person. in those days the front of the province house looked upon the street, and the whole site now occupied by the brick range of stores, as well as the present court-yard, was laid out in grass-plats overshadowed by trees and bordered by a wrought-iron fence. now the old aristocratic edifice hides its time-worn visage behind an upstart modern building; at one of the back windows i observed some pretty tailoresses sewing and chatting and laughing, with now and then a careless glance toward the balcony. descending thence, we again entered the bar-room, where the elderly gentleman above mentioned--the smack of whose lips had spoken so favorably for mr. waite's good liquor--was still lounging in his chair. he seemed to be, if not a lodger, at least a familiar visitor of the house who might be supposed to have his regular score at the bar, his summer seat at the open window and his prescriptive corner at the winter's fireside. being of a sociable aspect, i ventured to address him with a remark calculated to draw forth his historical reminiscences, if any such were in his mind, and it gratified me to discover that, between memory and tradition, the old gentleman was really possessed of some very pleasant gossip about the province house. the portion of his talk which chiefly interested me was the outline of the following legend. he professed to have received it at one or two removes from an eye-witness, but this derivation, together with the lapse of time, must have afforded opportunities for many variations of the narrative; so that, despairing of literal and absolute truth, i have not scrupled to make such further changes as seemed conducive to the reader's profit and delight. * * * * * at one of the entertainments given at the province-house during the latter part of the siege of boston there passed a scene which has never yet been satisfactorily explained. the officers of the british army and the loyal gentry of the province, most of whom were collected within the beleaguered town, had been invited to a masqued ball, for it was the policy for sir william howe to hide the distress and danger of the period and the desperate aspect of the siege under an ostentation of festivity. the spectacle of this evening, if the oldest members of the provincial court circle might be believed, was the most gay and gorgeous affair that had occurred in the annals of the government. the brilliantly-lighted apartments were thronged with figures that seemed to have stepped from the dark canvas of historic portraits or to have flitted forth from the magic pages of romance, or at least to have flown hither from one of the london theatres without a change of garments. steeled knights of the conquest, bearded statesmen of queen elizabeth and high-ruffed ladies of her court were mingled with characters of comedy, such as a parti-colored merry andrew jingling his cap and bells, a falstaff almost as provocative of laughter as his prototype, and a don quixote with a bean-pole for a lance and a pot-lid for a shield. but the broadest merriment was excited by a group of figures ridiculously dressed in old regimentals which seemed to have been purchased at a military rag-fair or pilfered from some receptacle of the cast-off clothes of both the french and british armies. portions of their attire had probably been worn at the siege of louisburg, and the coats of most recent cut might have been rent and tattered by sword, ball or bayonet as long ago as wolfe's victory. one of these worthies--a tall, lank figure brandishing a rusty sword of immense longitude--purported to be no less a personage than general george washington, and the other principal officers of the american army, such as gates, lee, putnam, schuyler, ward and heath, were represented by similar scarecrows. an interview in the mock-heroic style between the rebel warriors and the british commander-in-chief was received with immense applause, which came loudest of all from the loyalists of the colony. there was one of the guests, however, who stood apart, eying these antics sternly and scornfully at once with a frown and a bitter smile. it was an old man formerly of high station and great repute in the province, and who had been a very famous soldier in his day. some surprise had been expressed that a person of colonel joliffe's known whig principles, though now too old to take an active part in the contest, should have remained in boston during the siege, and especially that he should consent to show himself in the mansion of sir william howe. but thither he had come with a fair granddaughter under his arm, and there, amid all the mirth and buffoonery, stood this stern old figure, the best-sustained character in the masquerade, because so well representing the antique spirit of his native land. the other guests affirmed that colonel joliffe's black puritanical scowl threw a shadow round about him, although, in spite of his sombre influence, their gayety continued to blaze higher, like--an ominous comparison--the flickering brilliancy of a lamp which has but a little while to burn. eleven strokes full half an hour ago had pealed from the clock of the old south, when a rumor was circulated among the company that some new spectacle or pageant was about to be exhibited which should put a fitting close to the splendid festivities of the night. "what new jest has your excellency in hand?" asked the reverend mather byles, whose presbyterian scruples had not kept him from the entertainment. "trust me, sir, i have already laughed more than beseems my cloth at your homeric confabulation with yonder ragamuffin general of the rebels. one other such fit of merriment, and i must throw off my clerical wig and band." "not so, good dr. byles," answered sir william howe; "if mirth were a crime, you had never gained your doctorate in divinity. as to this new foolery, i know no more about it than yourself--perhaps not so much. honestly, now, doctor, have you not stirred up the sober brains of some of your countrymen to enact a scene in our masquerade?" "perhaps," slyly remarked the granddaughter of colonel joliffe, whose high spirit had been stung by many taunts against new england--"perhaps we are to have a masque of allegorical figures--victory with trophies from lexington and bunker hill, plenty with her overflowing horn to typify the present abundance in this good town, and glory with a wreath for his excellency's brow." sir william howe smiled at words which he would have answered with one of his darkest frowns had they been uttered by lips that wore a beard. he was spared the necessity of a retort by a singular interruption. a sound of music was heard without the house, as if proceeding from a full band of military instruments stationed in the street, playing, not such a festal strain as was suited to the occasion, but a slow funeral-march. the drums appeared to be muffled, and the trumpets poured forth a wailing breath which at once hushed the merriment of the auditors, filling all with wonder and some with apprehension. the idea occurred to many that either the funeral procession of some great personage had halted in front of the province-house, or that a corpse in a velvet-covered and gorgeously-decorated coffin was about to be borne from the portal. after listening a moment, sir william howe called in a stern voice to the leader of the musicians, who had hitherto enlivened the entertainment with gay and lightsome melodies. the man was drum-major to one of the british regiments. "dighton," demanded the general, "what means this foolery? bid your band silence that dead march, or, by my word, they shall have sufficient cause for their lugubrious strains. silence it, sirrah!" "please, your honor," answered the drum-major, whose rubicund visage had lost all its color, "the fault is none of mine. i and my band are all here together, and i question whether there be a man of us that could play that march without book. i never heard it but once before, and that was at the funeral of his late majesty, king george ii." "well, well!" said sir william howe, recovering his composure; "it is the prelude to some masquerading antic. let it pass." a figure now presented itself, but among the many fantastic masks that were dispersed through the apartments none could tell precisely from whence it came. it was a man in an old-fashioned dress of black serge and having the aspect of a steward or principal domestic in the household of a nobleman or great english landholder. this figure advanced to the outer door of the mansion, and, throwing both its leaves wide open, withdrew a little to one side and looked back toward the grand staircase, as if expecting some person to descend. at the same time, the music in the street sounded a loud and doleful summons. the eyes of sir william howe and his guests being directed to the staircase, there appeared on the uppermost landing-place, that was discernible from the bottom, several personages descending toward the door. the foremost was a man of stern visage, wearing a steeple-crowned hat and a skull-cap beneath it, a dark cloak and huge wrinkled boots that came halfway up his legs. under his arm was a rolled-up banner which seemed to be the banner of england, but strangely rent and torn; he had a sword in his right hand and grasped a bible in his left. the next figure was of milder aspect, yet full of dignity, wearing a broad ruff, over which descended a beard, a gown of wrought velvet and a doublet and hose of black satin; he carried a roll of manuscript in his hand. close behind these two came a young man of very striking countenance and demeanor with deep thought and contemplation on his brow, and perhaps a flash of enthusiasm in his eye; his garb, like that of his predecessors, was of an antique fashion, and there was a stain of blood upon his ruff. in the same group with these were three or four others, all men of dignity and evident command, and bearing themselves like personages who were accustomed to the gaze of the multitude. it was the idea of the beholders that these figures went to join the mysterious funeral that had halted in front of the province-house, yet that supposition seemed to be contradicted by the air of triumph with which they waved their hands as they crossed the threshold and vanished through the portal. "in the devil's name, what is this?" muttered sir william howe to a gentleman beside him. "a procession of the regicide judges of king charles the martyr?" "these," said colonel joliffe, breaking silence almost for the first time that evening--"these, if i interpret them aright, are the puritan governors, the rulers of the old original democracy of massachusetts--endicott with the banner from which he had torn the symbol of subjection, and winthrop and sir henry vane and dudley, haynes, bellingham and leverett." "why had that young man a stain of blood upon his ruff?" asked miss joliffe. "because in after-years," answered her grandfather, "he laid down the wisest head in england upon the block for the principles of liberty." "will not your excellency order out the guard?" whispered lord percy, who, with other british officers, had now assembled round the general. "there may be a plot under this mummery." "tush! we have nothing to fear," carelessly replied sir william howe. "there can be no worse treason in the matter than a jest, and that somewhat of the dullest. even were it a sharp and bitter one, our best policy would be to laugh it off. see! here come more of these gentry." another group of characters had now partly descended the staircase. the first was a venerable and white-bearded patriarch who cautiously felt his way downward with a staff. treading hastily behind him, and stretching forth his gauntleted hand as if to grasp the old man's shoulder, came a tall soldier-like figure equipped with a plumed cap of steel, a bright breastplate and a long sword, which rattled against the stairs. next was seen a stout man dressed in rich and courtly attire, but not of courtly demeanor; his gait had the swinging motion of a seaman's walk, and, chancing to stumble on the staircase, he suddenly grew wrathful and was heard to mutter an oath. he was followed by a noble-looking personage in a curled wig such as are represented in the portraits of queen anne's time and earlier, and the breast of his coat was decorated with an embroidered star. while advancing to the door he bowed to the right hand and to the left in a very gracious and insinuating style, but as he crossed the threshold, unlike the early puritan governors, he seemed to wring his hands with sorrow. "prithee, play the part of a chorus, good dr. byles," said sir william howe. "what worthies are these?" "if it please your excellency, they lived somewhat before my day," answered the doctor; "but doubtless our friend the colonel has been hand and glove with them." "their living faces i never looked upon," said colonel joliffe, gravely; "although i have spoken face to face with many rulers of this land, and shall greet yet another with an old man's blessing ere i die. but we talk of these figures. i take the venerable patriarch to be bradstreet, the last of the puritans, who was governor at ninety or thereabouts. the next is sir edmund andros, a tyrant, as any new england schoolboy will tell you, and therefore the people cast him down from his high seat into a dungeon. then comes sir william phipps, shepherd, cooper, sea-captain and governor. may many of his countrymen rise as high from as low an origin! lastly, you saw the gracious earl of bellamont, who ruled us under king william." "but what is the meaning of it all?" asked lord percy. "now, were i a rebel," said miss joliffe, half aloud, "i might fancy that the ghosts of these ancient governors had been summoned to form the funeral procession of royal authority in new england." several other figures were now seen at the turn of the staircase. the one in advance had a thoughtful, anxious and somewhat crafty expression of face, and in spite of his loftiness of manner, which was evidently the result both of an ambitious spirit and of long continuance in high stations, he seemed not incapable of cringing to a greater than himself. a few steps behind came an officer in a scarlet and embroidered uniform cut in a fashion old enough to have been worn by the duke of marlborough. his nose had a rubicund tinge, which, together with the twinkle of his eye, might have marked him as a lover of the wine-cup and good-fellowship; notwithstanding which tokens, he appeared ill at ease, and often glanced around him as if apprehensive of some secret mischief. next came a portly gentleman wearing a coat of shaggy cloth lined with silken velvet; he had sense, shrewdness and humor in his face and a folio volume under his arm, but his aspect was that of a man vexed and tormented beyond all patience and harassed almost to death. he went hastily down, and was followed by a dignified person dressed in a purple velvet suit with very rich embroidery; his demeanor would have possessed much stateliness, only that a grievous fit of the gout compelled him to hobble from stair to stair with contortions of face and body. when dr. byles beheld this figure on the staircase, he shivered as with an ague, but continued to watch him steadfastly until the gouty gentleman had reached the threshold, made a gesture of anguish and despair and vanished into the outer gloom, whither the funeral music summoned him. "governor belcher--my old patron--in his very shape and dress!" gasped dr. byles. "this is an awful mockery." "a tedious foolery, rather," said sir william howe, with an air of indifference. "but who were the three that preceded him?" "governor dudley, a cunning politician; yet his craft once brought him to a prison," replied colonel joliffe. "governor shute, formerly a colonel under marlborough, and whom the people frightened out of the province, and learned governor burnett, whom the legislature tormented into a mortal fever." "methinks they were miserable men--these royal governors of massachusetts," observed miss joliffe. "heavens! how dim the light grows!" it was certainly a fact that the large lamp which illuminated the staircase now burned dim and duskily; so that several figures which passed hastily down the stairs and went forth from the porch appeared rather like shadows than persons of fleshly substance. sir william howe and his guests stood at the doors of the contiguous apartments watching the progress of this singular pageant with various emotions of anger, contempt or half-acknowledged fear, but still with an anxious curiosity. the shapes which now seemed hastening to join the mysterious procession were recognized rather by striking peculiarities of dress or broad characteristics of manner than by any perceptible resemblance of features to their prototypes. their faces, indeed, were invariably kept in deep shadow, but dr. byles and other gentlemen who had long been familiar with the successive rulers of the province were heard to whisper the names of shirley, of pownall, of sir francis bernard and of the well-remembered hutchinson, thereby confessing that the actors, whoever they might be, in this spectral march of governors had succeeded in putting on some distant portraiture of the real personages. as they vanished from the door, still did these shadows toss their arms into the gloom of night with a dread expression of woe. following the mimic representative of hutchinson came a military figure holding before his face the cocked hat which he had taken from his powdered head, but his epaulettes and other insignia of rank were those of a general officer, and something in his mien reminded the beholders of one who had recently been master of the province-house and chief of all the land. "the shape of gage, as true as in a looking-glass!" exclaimed lord percy, turning pale. "no, surely," cried miss joliffe, laughing hysterically; "it could not be gage, or sir william would have greeted his old comrade in arms. perhaps he will not suffer the next to pass unchallenged." "of that be assured, young lady," answered sir william howe, fixing his eyes with a very marked expression upon the immovable visage of her grandfather. "i have long enough delayed to pay the ceremonies of a host to these departing guests; the next that takes his leave shall receive due courtesy." a wild and dreary burst of music came through the open door. it seemed as it the procession, which had been gradually filling up its ranks, were now about to move, and that this loud peal of the wailing trumpets and roll of the muffled drums were a call to some loiterer to make haste. many eyes, by an irresistible impulse, were turned upon sir william howe, as if it were he whom the dreary music summoned to the funeral of departed power. "see! here comes the last," whispered miss joliffe, pointing her tremulous finger to the staircase. a figure had come into view as if descending the stairs, although so dusky was the region whence it emerged some of the spectators fancied that they had seen this human shape suddenly moulding itself amid the gloom. downward the figure came with a stately and martial tread, and, reaching the lowest stair, was observed to be a tall man booted and wrapped in a military cloak, which was drawn up around the face so as to meet the napped brim of a laced hat; the features, therefore, were completely hidden. but the british officers deemed that they had seen that military cloak before, and even recognized the frayed embroidery on the collar, as well as the gilded scabbard of a sword which protruded from the folds of the cloak and glittered in a vivid gleam of light. apart from these trifling particulars there were characteristics of gait and bearing which impelled the wondering guests to glance from the shrouded figure to sir william howe, as if to satisfy themselves that their host had not suddenly vanished from the midst of them. with a dark flush of wrath upon his brow, they saw the general draw his sword and advance to meet the figure in the cloak before the latter had stepped one pace upon the floor. "villain, unmuffle yourself!" cried he. "you pass no farther." the figure, without blenching a hair's-breadth from the sword which was pointed at his breast, made a solemn pause and lowered the cape of the cloak from about his face, yet not sufficiently for the spectators to catch a glimpse of it. but sir william howe had evidently seen enough. the sternness of his countenance gave place to a look of wild amazement, if not horror, while he recoiled several steps from the figure and let fall his sword upon the floor. the martial shape again drew the cloak about his features and passed on, but, reaching the threshold with his back toward the spectators, he was seen to stamp his foot and shake his clenched hands in the air. it was afterward affirmed that sir william howe had repeated that selfsame gesture of rage and sorrow when for the last time, and as the last royal governor, he passed through the portal of the province-house. "hark! the procession moves," said miss joliffe. the music was dying away along the street, and its dismal strains were mingled with the knell of midnight from the steeple of the old south and with the roar of artillery which announced that the beleaguered army of washington had intrenched itself upon a nearer height than before. as the deep boom of the cannon smote upon his ear colonel joliffe raised himself to the full height of his aged form and smiled sternly on the british general. "would your excellency inquire further into the mystery of the pageant?" said he. "take care of your gray head!" cried sir william howe, fiercely, though with a quivering lip. "it has stood too long on a traitor's shoulders." "you must make haste to chop it off, then," calmly replied the colonel, "for a few hours longer, and not all the power of sir william howe, nor of his master, shall cause one of these gray hairs to fall. the empire of britain in this ancient province is at its last gasp to-night; almost while i speak it is a dead corpse, and methinks the shadows of the old governors are fit mourners at its funeral." with these words colonel joliffe threw on his cloak, and, drawing his granddaughter's arm within his own, retired from the last festival that a british ruler ever held in the old province of massachusetts bay. it was supposed that the colonel and the young lady possessed some secret intelligence in regard to the mysterious pageant of that night. however this might be, such knowledge has never become general. the actors in the scene have vanished into deeper obscurity than even that wild indian hand who scattered the cargoes of the tea-ships on the waves and gained a place in history, yet left no names. but superstition, among other legends of this mansion, repeats the wondrous tale that on the anniversary night of britain's discomfiture the ghosts of the ancient governors of massachusetts still glide through the portal of the province house. and last of all comes a figure shrouded in a military cloak, tossing his clenched hands into the air and stamping his iron-shod boots upon the broad freestone steps with a semblance of feverish despair, but without the sound of a foot-tramp. * * * * * when the truth-telling accents of the elderly gentleman were hushed, i drew a long breath and looked round the room, striving with the best energy of my imagination to throw a tinge of romance and historic grandeur over the realities of the scene. but my nostrils snuffed up a scent of cigar-smoke, clouds of which the narrator had emitted by way of visible emblem, i suppose, of the nebulous obscurity of his tale. moreover, my gorgeous fantasies were woefully disturbed by the rattling of the spoon in a tumbler of whiskey-punch which mr. thomas waite was mingling for a customer. nor did it add to the picturesque appearance of the panelled walls that the slate of the brookline stage was suspended against them, instead of the armorial escutcheon of some far-descended governor. a stage-driver sat at one of the windows reading a penny paper of the day--the boston _times_--and presenting a figure which could nowise be brought into any picture of "times in boston" seventy or a hundred years ago. on the window-seat lay a bundle neatly done up in brown paper, the direction of which i had the idle curiosity to read: "miss susan huggins, at the province house." a pretty chambermaid, no doubt. in truth, it is desperately hard work when we attempt to throw the spell of hoar antiquity over localities with which the living world and the day that is passing over us have aught to do. yet, as i glanced at the stately staircase down which the procession of the old governors had descended, and as i emerged through the venerable portal whence their figures had preceded me, it gladdened me to be conscious of a thrill of awe. then, diving through the narrow archway, a few strides transported me into the densest throng of washington street. ii. edward randolph's portrait. the old legendary guest of the province house abode in my remembrance from midsummer till january. one idle evening last winter, confident that he would be found in the snuggest corner of the bar-room, i resolved to pay him another visit, hoping to deserve well of my country by snatching from oblivion some else unheard-of fact of history. the night was chill and raw, and rendered boisterous by almost a gale of wind which whistled along washington street, causing the gaslights to flare and flicker within the lamps. as i hurried onward my fancy was busy with a comparison between the present aspect of the street and that which it probably wore when the british governors inhabited the mansion whither i was now going. brick edifices in those times were few till a succession of destructive fires had swept, and swept again, the wooden dwellings and warehouses from the most populous quarters of the town. the buildings stood insulated and independent, not, as now, merging their separate existences into connected ranges with a front of tiresome identity, but each possessing features of its own, as if the owner's individual taste had shaped it, and the whole presenting a picturesque irregularity the absence of which is hardly compensated by any beauties of our modern architecture. such a scene, dimly vanishing from the eye by the ray of here and there a tallow candle glimmering through the small panes of scattered windows, would form a sombre contrast to the street as i beheld it with the gaslights blazing from corner to corner, flaming within the shops and throwing a noonday brightness through the huge plates of glass. but the black, lowering sky, as i turned my eyes upward, wore, doubtless, the same visage as when it frowned upon the ante-revolutionary new englanders. the wintry blast had the same shriek that was familiar to their ears. the old south church, too, still pointed its antique spire into the darkness and was lost between earth and heaven, and, as i passed, its clock, which had warned so many generations how transitory was their lifetime, spoke heavily and slow the same unregarded moral to myself. "only seven o'clock!" thought i. "my old friend's legends will scarcely kill the hours 'twixt this and bedtime." passing through the narrow arch, i crossed the courtyard, the confined precincts of which were made visible by a lantern over the portal of the province house. on entering the bar-room, i found, as i expected, the old tradition-monger seated by a special good fire of anthracite, compelling clouds of smoke from a corpulent cigar. he recognized me with evident pleasure, for my rare properties as a patient listener invariably make me a favorite with elderly gentlemen and ladies of narrative propensites. drawing a chair to the fire, i desired mine host to favor us with a glass apiece of whiskey-punch, which was speedily prepared, steaming hot, with a slice of lemon at the bottom, a dark-red stratum of port wine upon the surface and a sprinkling of nutmeg strewn over all. as we touched our glasses together, my legendary friend made himself known to me as mr. bela tiffany, and i rejoiced at the oddity of the name, because it gave his image and character a sort of individuality in my conception. the old gentleman's draught acted as a solvent upon his memory, so that it overflowed with tales, traditions, anecdotes of famous dead people and traits of ancient manners, some of which were childish as a nurse's lullaby, while others might have been worth the notice of the grave historian. nothing impressed me more than a story of a black mysterious picture which used to hang in one of the chambers of the province house, directly above the room where we were now sitting. the following is as correct a version of the fact as the reader would be likely to obtain from any other source, although, assuredly, it has a tinge of romance approaching to the marvellous. * * * * * in one of the apartments of the province-house there was long preserved an ancient picture the frame of which was as black as ebony, and the canvas itself so dark with age, damp and smoke that not a touch of the painter's art could be discerned. time had thrown an impenetrable veil over it and left to tradition and fable and conjecture to say what had once been there portrayed. during the rule of many successive governors it had hung, by prescriptive and undisputed right, over the mantel piece of the same chamber, and it still kept its place when lieutenant-governor hutchinson assumed the administration of the province on the departure of sir francis bernard. the lieutenant-governor sat one afternoon resting his head against the carved back of his stately arm-chair and gazing up thoughtfully at the void blackness of the picture. it was scarcely a time for such inactive musing, when affairs of the deepest moment required the ruler's decision; for within that very hour hutchinson had received intelligence of the arrival of a british fleet bringing three regiments from halifax to overawe the insubordination of the people. these troops awaited his permission to occupy the fortress of castle william and the town itself, yet, instead of affixing his signature to an official order, there sat the lieutenant-governor so carefully scrutinizing the black waste of canvas that his demeanor attracted the notice of two young persons who attended him. one, wearing a military dress of buff, was his kinsman, francis lincoln, the provincial captain of castle william; the other, who sat on a low stool beside his chair, was alice vane, his favorite niece. she was clad entirely in white--a pale, ethereal creature who, though a native of new england, had been educated abroad and seemed not merely a stranger from another clime, but almost a being from another world. for several years, until left an orphan, she had dwelt with her father in sunny italy, and there had acquired a taste and enthusiasm for sculpture and painting which she found few opportunities of gratifying in the undecorated dwellings of the colonial gentry. it was said that the early productions of her own pencil exhibited no inferior genius, though perhaps the rude atmosphere of new england had cramped her hand and dimmed the glowing colors of her fancy. but, observing her uncle's steadfast gaze, which appeared to search through the mist of years to discover the subject of the picture, her curiosity was excited. "is it known, my dear uncle," inquired she, "what this old picture once represented? possibly, could it be made visible, it might prove a masterpiece of some great artist; else why has it so long held such a conspicuous place?" as her uncle, contrary to his usual custom--for he was as attentive to all the humors and caprices of alice as if she had been his own best-beloved child--did not immediately reply, the young captain of castle william took that office upon himself. "this dark old square of canvas, my fair cousin," said he, "has been an heirloom in the province-house from time immemorial. as to the painter, i can tell you nothing; but if half the stories told of it be true, not one of the great italian masters has ever produced so marvellous a piece of work as that before you." captain lincoln proceeded to relate some of the strange fables and fantasies which, as it was impossible to refute them by ocular demonstration, had grown to be articles of popular belief in reference to this old picture. one of the wildest, and at the same time the best-accredited, accounts stated it to be an original and authentic portrait of the evil one, taken at a witch-meeting near salem, and that its strong and terrible resemblance had been confirmed by several of the confessing wizards and witches at their trial in open court. it was likewise affirmed that a familiar spirit or demon abode behind the blackness of the picture, and had shown himself at seasons of public calamity to more than one of the royal governors. shirley, for instance, had beheld this ominous apparition on the eve of general abercrombie's shameful and bloody defeat under the walls of ticonderoga. many of the servants of the province-house had caught glimpses of a visage frowning down upon them at morning or evening twilight, or in the depths of night while raking up the fire that glimmered on the hearth beneath, although, if any were, bold enough to hold a torch before the picture, it would appear as black and undistinguishable as ever. the oldest inhabitant of boston recollected that his father--in whose days the portrait had not wholly faded out of sight--had once looked upon it, but would never suffer himself to be questioned as to the face which was there represented. in connection with such stories, it was remarkable that over the top of the frame there were some ragged remnants of black silk, indicating that a veil had formerly hung down before the picture until the duskiness of time had so effectually concealed it. but, after all, it was the most singular part of the affair that so many of the pompous governors of massachusetts had allowed the obliterated picture to remain in the state-chamber of the province-house. "some of these fables are really awful," observed alice vane, who had occasionally shuddered as well as smiled while her cousin spoke. "it would be almost worth while to wipe away the black surface of the canvas, since the original picture can hardly be so formidable as those which fancy paints instead of it." "but would it be possible," inquired her cousin," to restore this dark picture to its pristine hues?" "such arts are known in italy," said alice. the lieutenant-governor had roused himself from his abstracted mood, and listened with a smile to the conversation of his young relatives. yet his voice had something peculiar in its tones when he undertook the explanation of the mystery. "i am sorry, alice, to destroy your faith in the legends of which you are so fond," remarked he, "but my antiquarian researches have long since made me acquainted with the subject of this picture--if picture it can be called--which is no more visible, nor ever will be, than the face of the long-buried man whom it once represented. it was the portrait of edward randolph, the founder of this house, a person famous in the history of new england." "of that edward randolph," exclaimed captain lincoln, "who obtained the repeal of the first provincial charter, under which our forefathers had enjoyed almost democratic privileges--he that was styled the arch-enemy of new england, and whose memory is still held in detestation as the destroyer of our liberties?" "it was the same randolph," answered hutchinson, moving uneasily in his chair. "it was his lot to taste the bitterness of popular odium." "our annals tell us," continued the captain of castle william, "that the curse of the people followed this randolph where he went and wrought evil in all the subsequent events of his life, and that its effect was seen, likewise, in the manner of his death. they say, too, that the inward misery of that curse worked itself outward and was visible on the wretched man's countenance, making it too horrible to be looked upon. if so, and if this picture truly represented his aspect, it was in mercy that the cloud of blackness has gathered over it." "these traditions are folly to one who has proved, as i have, how little of historic truth lies at the bottom," said the lieutenant-governor. "as regards the life and character of edward randolph, too implicit credence has been given to dr. cotton mather, who--i must say it, though some of his blood runs in my veins--has filled our early history with old women's tales as fanciful and extravagant as those of greece or rome." "and yet," whispered alice vane, "may not such fables have a moral? and methinks, if the visage of this portrait be so dreadful, it is not without a cause that it has hung so long in a chamber of the province-house. when the rulers feel themselves irresponsible, it were well that they should be reminded of the awful weight of a people's curse." the lieutenant-governor started and gazed for a moment at his niece, as if her girlish fantasies had struck upon some feeling in his own breast which all his policy or principles could not entirely subdue. he knew, indeed, that alice, in spite of her foreign education, retained the native sympathies of a new england girl. "peace, silly child!" cried he, at last, more harshly than he had ever before addressed the gentle alice. "the rebuke of a king; is more to be dreaded than the clamor of a wild, misguided multitude.--captain lincoln, it is decided: the fortress of castle william must be occupied by the royal troops. the two remaining regiments shall be billeted in the town or encamped upon the common. it is time, after years of tumult, and almost rebellion, that his majesty's government should have a wall of strength about it." "trust, sir--trust yet a while to the loyalty of the people," said captain lincoln, "nor teach them that they can ever be on other terms with british soldiers than those of brotherhood, as when they fought side by side through the french war. do not convert the streets of your native town into a camp. think twice before you give up old castle william, the key of the province, into other keeping than that of true-born new englanders." "young man, it is decided," repeated hutchinson, rising from his chair. "a british officer will be in attendance this evening to receive the necessary instructions for the disposal of the troops. your presence also will be required. till then, farewell." with these words the lieutenant-governor hastily left the room, while alice and her cousin more slowly followed, whispering together, and once pausing to glance back at the mysterious picture. the captain of castle william fancied that the girl's air and mien were such as might have belonged to one of those spirits of fable--fairies or creatures of a more antique mythology--who sometimes mingled their agency with mortal affairs, half in caprice, yet with a sensibility to human weal or woe. as he held the door for her to pass alice beckoned to the picture and smiled. "come forth, dark and evil shape!" cried she. "it is thine hour." in the evening lieutenant-governor hutchinson sat in the same chamber where the foregoing scene had occurred, surrounded by several persons whose various interests had summoned them together. there were the selectmen of boston--plain patriarchal fathers of the people, excellent representatives of the old puritanical founders whose sombre strength had stamped so deep an impress upon the new england character. contrasting with these were one or two members of council, richly dressed in the white wigs, the embroidered waistcoats and other magnificence of the time, and making a somewhat ostentatious display of courtier-like ceremonial. in attendance, likewise, was a major of the british army, awaiting the lieutenant-governor's orders for the landing of the troops, which still remained on board the transports. the captain of castle william stood beside hutchinson's chair, with folded arms, glancing rather haughtily at the british officer by whom he was soon to be superseded in his command. on a table in the centre of the chamber stood a branched silver candlestick, throwing down the glow of half a dozen waxlights upon a paper apparently ready for the lieutenant-governor's signature. partly shrouded in the voluminous folds of one of the window-curtains, which fell from the ceiling to the floor, was seen the white drapery of a lady's robe. it may appear strange that alice vane should have been there at such a time, but there was something so childlike, so wayward, in her singular character, so apart from ordinary rules, that her presence did not surprise the few who noticed it. meantime, the chairman of the selectmen was addressing to the lieutenant-governor a long and solemn protest against the reception of the british troops into the town. "and if your honor," concluded this excellent but somewhat prosy old gentleman, "shall see fit to persist in bringing these mercenary sworders and musketeers into our quiet streets, not on our heads be the responsibility. think, sir, while there is yet time, that if one drop of blood be shed, that blood shall be an eternal stain upon your honor's memory. you, sir, have written with an able pen the deeds of our forefathers; the more to be desired is it, therefore, that yourself should deserve honorable mention as a true patriot and upright ruler when your own doings shall be written down in history." "i am not insensible, my good sir, to the natural desire to stand well in the annals of my country," replied hutchinson, controlling his impatience into courtesy, "nor know i any better method of attaining that end than by withstanding the merely temporary spirit of mischief which, with your pardon, seems to have infected older men than myself. would you have me wait till the mob shall sack the province-house as they did my private mansion? trust me, sir, the time may come when you will be glad to flee for protection to the king's banner, the raising of which is now so distasteful to you." "yes," said the british major, who was impatiently expecting the lieutenant-governor's orders. "the demagogues of this province have raised the devil, and cannot lay him again. we will exorcise him in god's name and the king's." "if you meddle with the devil, take care of his claws," answered the captain of castle william, stirred by the taunt against his countrymen. "craving your pardon, young sir," said the venerable selectman, "let not an evil spirit enter into your words. we will strive against the oppressor with prayer and fasting, as our forefathers would have done. like them, moreover, we will submit to whatever lot a wise providence may send us--always after our own best exertions to amend it." "and there peep forth the devil's claws!" muttered hutchinson, who well understood the nature of puritan submission. "this matter shall be expedited forthwith. when there shall be a sentinel at every corner and a court of guard before the town-house, a loyal gentleman may venture to walk abroad. what to me is the outcry of a mob in this remote province of the realm? the king is my master, and england is my country; upheld by their armed strength, i set my foot upon the rabble and defy them." he snatched a pen and was about to affix his signature to the paper that lay on the table, when the captain of castle william placed his hand upon his shoulder. the freedom of the action, so contrary to the ceremonious respect which was then considered due to rank and dignity, awakened general surprise, and in none more than in the lieutenant-governor himself. looking angrily up, he perceived that his young relative was pointing his finger to the opposite wall. hutchinson's eye followed the signal, and he saw what had hitherto been unobserved--that a black silk curtain was suspended before the mysterious picture, so as completely to conceal it. his thoughts immediately recurred to the scene of the preceding afternoon, and in his surprise, confused by indistinct emotions, yet sensible that his niece must have had an agency in this phenomenon, he called loudly upon her: "alice! come hither, alice!" no sooner had he spoken than alice vane glided from her station, and, pressing one hand across her eyes, with the other snatched away the sable curtain that concealed the portrait. an exclamation of surprise burst from every beholder, but the lieutenant-governor's voice had a tone of horror. "by heaven!" said he, in a low inward murmur, speaking rather to himself than to those around him; "if the spirit of edward randolph were to appear among us from the place of torment, he could not wear more of the terrors of hell upon his face." "for some wise end," said the aged selectman, solemnly, "hath providence scattered away the mist of years that had so long hid this dreadful effigy. until this hour no living man hath seen what we behold." within the antique frame which so recently had enclosed a sable waste of canvas now appeared a visible picture-still dark, indeed, in its hues and shadings, but thrown forward in strong relief. it was a half-length figure of a gentleman in a rich but very old-fashioned dress of embroidered velvet, with a broad ruff and a beard, and wearing a hat the brim of which overshadowed his forehead. beneath this cloud the eyes had a peculiar glare which was almost lifelike. the whole portrait started so distinctly out of the background that it had the effect of a person looking down from the wall at the astonished and awe-stricken spectators. the expression of the face, if any words can convey an idea of it, was that of a wretch detected in some hideous guilt and exposed to the bitter hatred and laughter and withering scorn of a vast surrounding multitude. there was the struggle of defiance, beaten down and overwhelmed by the crushing weight of ignominy. the torture of the soul had come forth upon the countenance. it seemed as if the picture, while hidden behind the cloud of immemorial years, had been all the time acquiring an intenser depth and darkness of expression, till now it gloomed forth again and threw its evil omen over the present hour. such, if the wild legend may be credited, was the portrait of edward randolph as he appeared when a people's curse had wrought its influence upon his nature. "'twould drive me mad, that awful face," said hutchinson, who seemed fascinated by the contemplation of it. "be warned, then," whispered alice. "he trampled on a people's rights. behold his punishment, and avoid a crime like his." the lieutenant-governor actually trembled for an instant, but, exerting his energy--which was not, however, his most characteristic feature--he strove to shake off the spell of randolph's countenance. "girl," cried he, laughing bitterly, as he turned to alice, "have you brought hither your painter's art, your italian spirit of intrigue, your tricks of stage-effect, and think to influence the councils of rulers and the affairs of nations by such shallow contrivances? see here!" "stay yet a while," said the selectman as hutchinson again snatched the pen; "for if ever mortal man received a warning from a tormented soul, your honor is that man." "away!" answered hutchinson, fiercely. "though yonder senseless picture cried 'forbear!' it should not move me!" casting a scowl of defiance at the pictured face--which seemed at that moment to intensify the horror of its miserable and wicked look--he scrawled on the paper, in characters that betokened it a deed of desperation, the name of thomas hutchinson. then, it is said, he shuddered, as if that signature had granted away his salvation. "it is done," said he, and placed his hand upon his brow. "may heaven forgive the deed!" said the soft, sad accents of alice vane, like the voice of a good spirit flitting away. when morning came, there was a stifled whisper through the household, and spreading thence about the town, that the dark mysterious picture had started from the wall and spoken face to face with lieutenant-governor hutchinson. if such a miracle had been wrought, however, no traces of it remained behind; for within the antique frame nothing could be discerned save the impenetrable cloud which had covered the canvas since the memory of man. if the figure had, indeed, stepped forth, it had fled back, spirit-like, at the day-dawn, and hidden itself behind a century's obscurity. the truth probably was that alice vane's secret for restoring the hues of the picture had merely effected a temporary renovation. but those who in that brief interval had beheld the awful visage of edward randolph desired no second glance, and ever afterward trembled at the recollection of the scene, as if an evil spirit had appeared visibly among them. and, as for hutchinson, when, far over the ocean, his dying-hour drew on, he gasped for breath and complained that he was choking with the blood of the boston massacre, and francis lincoln, the former captain of castle william, who was standing at his bedside, perceived a likeness in his frenzied look to that of edward randolph. did his broken spirit feel at that dread hour the tremendous burden of a people's curse? * * * * * at the conclusion of this miraculous legend i inquired of mine host whether the picture still remained in the chamber over our heads, but mr. tiffany informed me that it had long since been removed, and was supposed to be hidden in some out-of-the-way corner of the new england museum. perchance some curious antiquary may light upon it there, and, with the assistance of mr. howorth, the picture-cleaner, may supply a not unnecessary proof of the authenticity of the facts here set down. during the progress of the story a storm had been gathering abroad and raging and rattling so loudly in the upper regions of the province house that it seemed as if all the old governors and great men were running riot above stairs while mr. bela tiffany babbled of them below. in the course of generations, when many people have lived and died in an ancient house, the whistling of the wind through its crannies and the creaking of its beams and rafters become strangely like the tones of the human voice, or thundering laughter, or heavy footsteps treading the deserted chambers. it is as if the echoes of half a century were revived. such were the ghostly sounds that roared and murmured in our ears when i took leave of the circle round the fireside of the province house and, plunging down the doorsteps, fought my way homeward against a drifting snow-storm. iii. lady eleanore's mantle. mine excellent friend the landlord of the province house was pleased the other evening to invite mr. tiffany and myself to an oyster-supper. this slight mark of respect and gratitude, as he handsomely observed, was far less than the ingenious tale-teller, and i, the humble note-taker of his narratives, had fairly earned by the public notice which our joint lucubrations had attracted to his establishment. many a cigar had been smoked within his premises, many a glass of wine or more potent _aqua vitæ_ had been quaffed, many a dinner had been eaten, by curious strangers who, save for the fortunate conjunction of mr. tiffany and me, would never have ventured through that darksome avenue which gives access to the historic precincts of the province house. in short, if any credit be due to the courteous assurances of mr. thomas waite, we had brought his forgotten mansion almost as effectually into public view as if we had thrown down the vulgar range of shoe-shops and dry-good stores which hides its aristocratic front from washington street. it may be unadvisable, however, to speak too loudly of the increased custom of the house, lest mr. waite should find it difficult to renew the lease on so favorable terms as heretofore. being thus welcomed as benefactors, neither mr. tiffany nor myself felt any scruple in doing full justice to the good things that were set before us. if the feast were less magnificent than those same panelled walls had witnessed in a bygone century; if mine host presided with somewhat less of state than might have befitted a successor of the royal governors; if the guests made a less imposing show than the bewigged and powdered and embroidered dignitaries who erst banqueted at the gubernatorial table and now sleep within their armorial tombs on copp's hill or round king's chapel,--yet never, i may boldly say, did a more comfortable little party assemble in the province-house from queen anne's days to the revolution. the occasion was rendered more interesting by the presence of a venerable personage whose own actual reminiscences went back to the epoch of gage and howe, and even supplied him with a doubtful anecdote or two of hutchinson. he was one of that small, and now all but extinguished, class whose attachment to royalty, and to the colonial institutions and customs that were connected with it, had never yielded to the democratic heresies of after-times. the young queen of britain has not a more loyal subject in her realm--perhaps not one who would kneel before her throne with such reverential love--as this old grandsire whose head has whitened beneath the mild sway of the republic which still in his mellower moments he terms a usurpation. yet prejudices so obstinate have not made him an ungentle or impracticable companion. if the truth must be told, the life of the aged loyalist has been of such a scrambling and unsettled character--he has had so little choice of friends and been so often destitute of any--that i doubt whether he would refuse a cup of kindness with either oliver cromwell or john hancock, to say nothing of any democrat now upon the stage. in another paper of this series i may perhaps give the reader a closer glimpse of his portrait. our host in due season uncorked a bottle of madeira of such exquisite perfume and admirable flavor that he surely must have discovered it in an ancient bin down deep beneath the deepest cellar where some jolly old butler stored away the governor's choicest wine and forgot to reveal the secret on his death-bed. peace to his red-nosed ghost and a libation to his memory! this precious liquor was imbibed by mr. tiffany with peculiar zest, and after sipping the third glass it was his pleasure to give us one of the oddest legends which he had yet raked from the storehouse where he keeps such matters. with some suitable adornments from my own fancy, it ran pretty much as follows. * * * * * not long after colonel shute had assumed the government of massachusetts bay--now nearly a hundred and twenty years ago--a young lady of rank and fortune arrived from england to claim his protection as her guardian. he was her distant relative, but the nearest who had survived the gradual extinction of her family; so that no more eligible shelter could be found for the rich and high-born lady eleanore rochcliffe than within the province-house of a transatlantic colony. the consort of governor shute, moreover, had been as a mother to her childhood, and was now anxious to receive her in the hope that a beautiful young woman would be exposed to infinitely less peril from the primitive society of new england than amid the artifices and corruptions of a court. if either the governor or his lady had especially consulted their own comfort, they would probably have sought to devolve the responsibility on other hands, since with some noble and splendid traits of character lady eleanore was remarkable for a harsh, unyielding pride, a haughty consciousness of her hereditary and personal advantages, which made her almost incapable of control. judging from many traditionary anecdotes, this peculiar temper was hardly less than a monomania; or if the acts which it inspired were those of a sane person, it seemed due from providence that pride so sinful should be followed by as severe a retribution. that tinge of the marvellous which is thrown over so many of these half-forgotten legends has probably imparted an additional wildness to the strange story of lady eleanore rochcliffe. the ship in which she came passenger had arrived at newport, whence lady eleanore was conveyed to boston in the governor's coach, attended by a small escort of gentlemen on horseback. the ponderous equipage, with its four black horses, attracted much notice as it rumbled through cornhill surrounded by the prancing steeds of half a dozen cavaliers with swords dangling to their stirrups and pistols at their holsters. through the large glass windows of the coach, as it rolled along, the people could discern the figure of lady eleanore, strangely combining an almost queenly stateliness with the grace and beauty of a maiden in her teens. a singular tale had gone abroad among the ladies of the province that their fair rival was indebted for much of the irresistible charm of her appearance to a certain article of dress--an embroidered mantle--which had been wrought by the most skilful artist in london, and possessed even magical properties of adornment. on the present occasion, however, she owed nothing to the witchery of dress, being clad in a riding-habit of velvet which would have appeared stiff and ungraceful on any other form. the coachman reined in his four black steeds, and the whole cavalcade came to a pause in front of the contorted iron balustrade that fenced the province-house from the public street. it was an awkward coincidence that the bell of the old south was just then tolling for a funeral; so that, instead of a gladsome peal with which it was customary to announce the arrival of distinguished strangers, lady eleanore rochcliffe was ushered by a doleful clang, as if calamity had come embodied in her beautiful person. "a very great disrespect!" exclaimed captain langford, an english officer who had recently brought despatches to governor shute. "the funeral should have been deferred lest lady eleanore's spirits be affected by such a dismal welcome." "with your pardon, sir," replied dr. clarke, a physician and a famous champion of the popular party, "whatever the heralds may pretend, a dead beggar must have precedence of a living queen. king death confers high privileges." these remarks-were interchanged while the speakers waited a passage through the crowd which had gathered on each side of the gateway, leaving an open avenue to the portal of the province-house. a black slave in livery now leaped from behind the coach and threw open the door, while at the same moment governor shute descended the flight of steps from his mansion to assist lady eleanore in alighting. but the governor's stately approach was anticipated in a manner that excited general astonishment. a pale young man with his black hair all in disorder rushed from the throng and prostrated himself beside the coach, thus offering his person as a footstool for lady eleanore rochcliffe to tread upon. she held back an instant, yet with an expression as if doubting whether the young man were worthy to bear the weight of her footstep rather than dissatisfied to receive such awful reverence from a fellow-mortal. "up, sir!" said the governor, sternly, at the same time lifting his cane over the intruder. "what means the bedlamite by this freak?" "nay," answered lady eleanore, playfully, but with more scorn than pity in her tone; "your excellency shall not strike him. when men seek only to be trampled upon, it were a pity to deny them a favor so easily granted--and so well deserved!" then, though as lightly as a sunbeam on a cloud, she placed her foot upon the cowering form and extended her hand to meet that of the governor. there was a brief interval during which lady eleanore retained this attitude, and never, surely, was there an apter emblem of aristocracy and hereditary pride trampling on human sympathies and the kindred of nature than these two figures presented at that moment. yet the spectators were so smitten with her beauty, and so essential did pride seem to the existence of such a creature, that they gave a simultaneous acclamation of applause. "who is this insolent young fellow?" inquired captain langford, who still remained beside dr. clarke. "if he be in his senses, his impertinence demands the bastinado; if mad, lady eleanore should be secured from further inconvenience by his confinement." "his name is jervase helwyse," answered the doctor--"a youth of no birth or fortune, or other advantages save the mind and soul that nature gave him; and, being secretary to our colonial agent in london, it was his misfortune to meet this lady eleanore rochcliffe. he loved her, and her scorn has driven him mad." "he was mad so to aspire," observed the english officer. "it may be so," said dr. clarke, frowning as he spoke; "but i tell you, sir, i could wellnigh doubt the justice of the heaven above us if no signal humiliation overtake this lady who now treads so haughtily into yonder mansion. she seeks to place herself above the sympathies of our common nature, which envelops all human souls; see if that nature do not assert its claim over her in some mode that shall bring her level with the lowest." "never!" cried captain langford, indignantly--"neither in life nor when they lay her with her ancestors." not many days afterward the governor gave a ball in honor of lady eleanore rochcliffe. the principal gentry of the colony received invitations, which were distributed to their residences far and near by messengers on horseback bearing missives sealed with all the formality of official despatches. in obedience to the summons, there was a general gathering of rank, wealth and beauty, and the wide door of the province-house had seldom given admittance to more numerous and honorable guests than on the evening of lady eleanore's ball. without much extravagance of eulogy, the spectacle might even be termed splendid, for, according to the fashion of the times, the ladies shone in rich silks and satins outspread over wide-projecting hoops, and the gentlemen glittered in gold embroidery laid unsparingly upon the purple or scarlet or sky-blue velvet which was the material of their coats and waistcoats. the latter article of dress was of great importance, since it enveloped the wearer's body nearly to the knees and was perhaps bedizened with the amount of his whole year's income in golden flowers and foliage. the altered taste of the present day--a taste symbolic of a deep change in the whole system of society--would look upon almost any of those gorgeous figures as ridiculous, although that evening the guests sought their reflections in the pier-glasses and rejoiced to catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd. what a pity that one of the stately mirrors has not preserved a picture of the scene which by the very traits that were so transitory might have taught us much that would be worth knowing and remembering! would, at least, that either painter or mirror could convey to us some faint idea of a garment already noticed in this legend--the lady eleanore's embroidered mantle, which the gossips whispered was invested with magic properties, so as to lend a new and untried grace to her figure each time that she put it on! idle fancy as it is, this mysterious mantle has thrown an awe around my image of her, partly from its fabled virtues and partly because it was the handiwork of a dying woman, and perchance owed the fantastic grace of its conception to the delirium of approaching death. after the ceremonial greetings had been paid, lady eleanore rochcliffe stood apart from the mob of guests, insulating herself within a small and distinguished circle to whom she accorded a more cordial favor than to the general throng. the waxen torches threw their radiance vividly over the scene, bringing out its brilliant points in strong relief, but she gazed carelessly, and with now and then an expression of weariness or scorn tempered with such feminine grace that her auditors scarcely perceived the moral deformity of which it was the utterance. she beheld the spectacle not with vulgar ridicule, as disdaining to be pleased with the provincial mockery of a court-festival, but with the deeper scorn of one whose spirit held itself too high to participate in the enjoyment of other human souls. whether or no the recollections of those who saw her that evening were influenced by the strange events with which she was subsequently connected, so it was that her figure ever after recurred to them as marked by something wild and unnatural, although at the time the general whisper was of her exceeding beauty and of the indescribable charm which her mantle threw around her. some close observers, indeed, detected a feverish flush and alternate paleness of countenance, with a corresponding flow and revulsion of spirits, and once or twice a painful and helpless betrayal of lassitude, as if she were on the point of sinking to the ground. then, with a nervous shudder, she seemed to arouse her energies, and threw some bright and playful yet half-wicked sarcasm into the conversation. there was so strange a characteristic in her manners and sentiments that it astonished every right-minded listener, till, looking in her face, a lurking and incomprehensible glance and smile perplexed them with doubts both as to her seriousness and sanity. gradually, lady eleanore rochcliffe's circle grew smaller, till only four gentlemen remained in it. these were captain langford, the english officer before mentioned; a virginian planter who had come to massachusetts on some political errand; a young episcopal clergyman, the grandson of a british earl; and, lastly, the private secretary of governor shute, whose obsequiousness had won a sort of tolerance from lady eleanore. at different periods of the evening the liveried servants of the province-house passed among the guests bearing huge trays of refreshments and french and spanish wines. lady eleanore rochcliffe, who refused to wet her beautiful lips even with a bubble of champagne, had sunk back into a large damask chair, apparently overwearied either with the excitement of the scene or its tedium; and while, for an instant, she was unconscious of voices, laughter and music, a young man stole forward and knelt down at her feet. he bore a salver in his hand on which was a chased silver goblet filled to the brim with wine, which he offered as reverentially as to a crowned queen--or, rather, with the awful devotion of a priest doing sacrifice to his idol. conscious that some one touched her robe, lady eleanore started, and unclosed her eyes upon the pale, wild features and dishevelled hair of jervase helwyse. "why do you haunt me thus?" said she, in a languid tone, but with a kindlier feeling than she ordinarily permitted herself to express. "they tell me that i have done you harm." "heaven knows if that be so," replied the young man, solemnly. "but, lady eleanore, in requital of that harm, if such there be, and for your own earthly and heavenly welfare, i pray you to take one sip of this holy wine and then to pass the goblet round among the guests. and this shall be a symbol that you have not sought to withdraw yourself from the chain of human sympathies, which whoso would shake off must keep company with fallen angels." "where has this mad fellow stolen that sacramental vessel?" exclaimed the episcopal clergyman. this question drew the notice of the guests to the silver cup, which was recognized as appertaining to the communion-plate of the old south church, and, for aught that could be known, it was brimming over with the consecrated wine. "perhaps it is poisoned," half whispered the governor's secretary. "pour it down the villain's throat!" cried the virginian, fiercely. "turn him out of the house!" cried captain langford, seizing jervase helwyse so roughly by the shoulder that the sacramental cup was overturned and its contents sprinkled upon lady eleanore's mantle. "whether knave, fool or bedlamite, it is intolerable that the fellow should go at large." "pray, gentlemen, do my poor admirer no harm," said lady eleanore, with a faint and weary smile. "take him out of my sight, if such be your pleasure, for i can find in my heart to do nothing but laugh at him, whereas, in all decency and conscience, it would become me to weep for the mischief i have wrought." but while the bystanders were attempting to lead away the unfortunate young man he broke from them and with a wild, impassioned earnestness offered a new and equally strange petition to lady eleanore. it was no other than that she should throw off the mantle, which while he pressed the silver cup of wine upon her she had drawn more closely around her form, so as almost to shroud herself within it. "cast it from you," exclaimed jervase helwyse, clasping his hands in an agony of entreaty. "it may not yet be too late. give the accursed garment to the flames." but lady eleanore, with a laugh of scorn, drew the rich folds of the embroidered mantle over her head in such a fashion as to give a completely new aspect to her beautiful face, which, half hidden, half revealed, seemed to belong to some being of mysterious character and purposes. "farewell, jervase helwyse!" said she. "keep my image in your remembrance as you behold it now." "alas, lady!" he replied, in a tone no longer wild, but sad as a funeral-bell; "we must meet shortly when your face may wear another aspect, and that shall be the image that must abide within me." he made no more resistance to the violent efforts of the gentlemen and servants who almost dragged him out of the apartment and dismissed him roughly from the iron gate of the province-house. captain langford, who had been very active in this affair, was returning to the presence of lady eleanore rochcliffe, when he encountered the physician, dr. clarke, with whom he had held some casual talk on the day of her arrival. the doctor stood apart, separated from lady eleanore by the width of the room, but eying her with such keen sagacity that captain langford involuntarily gave him credit for the discovery of some deep secret. "you appear to be smitten, after all, with the charms of this queenly maiden," said he, hoping thus to draw forth the physician's hidden knowledge. "god forbid!" answered dr. clarke, with a grave smile; "and if you be wise, you will put up the same prayer for yourself. woe to those who shall be smitten by this beautiful lady eleanore! but yonder stands the governor, and i have a word or two for his private ear. good-night!" he accordingly advanced to governor shute and addressed him in so low a tone that none of the bystanders could catch a word of what he said, although the sudden change of his excellency's hitherto cheerful visage betokened that the communication could be of no agreeable import. a very few moments afterward it was announced to the guests that an unforeseen circumstance rendered it necessary to put a premature close to the festival. the ball at the province-house supplied a topic of conversation for the colonial metropolis for some days after its occurrence, and might still longer have been the general theme, only that a subject of all-engrossing interest thrust it for a time from the public recollection. this was the appearance of a dreadful epidemic which in that age, and long before and afterward, was wont to slay its hundreds and thousands on both sides of the atlantic. on the occasion of which we speak it was distinguished by a peculiar virulence, insomuch that it has left its traces--its pitmarks, to use an appropriate figure--on the history of the country, the affairs of which were thrown into confusion by its ravages. at first, unlike its ordinary course, the disease seemed to confine itself to the higher circles of society, selecting its victims from among the proud, the well-born and the wealthy, entering unabashed into stately chambers and lying down with the slumberers in silken beds. some of the most distinguished guests of the province-house--even those whom the haughty lady eleanore rochcliffe had deemed not unworthy of her favor--were stricken by this fatal scourge. it was noticed with an ungenerous bitterness of feeling that the four gentlemen--the virginian, the british officer, the young clergyman and the governor's secretary--who had been her most devoted attendants on the evening of the ball were the foremost on whom the plague-stroke fell. but the disease, pursuing its onward progress, soon ceased to be exclusively a prerogative of aristocracy. its red brand was no longer conferred like a noble's star or an order of knighthood. it threaded its way through the narrow and crooked streets, and entered the low, mean, darksome dwellings and laid its hand of death upon the artisans and laboring classes of the town. it compelled rich and poor to feel themselves brethren then, and stalking to and fro across the three hills with a fierceness which made it almost a new pestilence, there was that mighty conqueror--that scourge and horror of our forefathers--the small-pox. we cannot estimate the affright which this plague inspired of yore by contemplating it as the fangless monster of the present day. we must remember, rather, with what awe we watched the gigantic footsteps of the asiatic cholera striding from shore to shore of the atlantic and marching like destiny upon cities far remote which flight had already half depopulated. there is no other fear so horrible and unhumanizing as that which makes man dread to breathe heaven's vital air lest it be poison, or to grasp the hand of a brother or friend lest the grip of the pestilence should clutch him. such was the dismay that now followed in the track of the disease or ran before it throughout the town. graves were hastily dug and the pestilential relics as hastily covered, because the dead were enemies of the living and strove to draw them headlong, as it were, into their own dismal pit. the public councils were suspended, as if mortal wisdom might relinquish its devices now that an unearthly usurper had found his way into the ruler's mansion. had an enemy's fleet been hovering on the coast or his armies trampling on our soil, the people would probably have committed their defence to that same direful conqueror who had wrought their own calamity and would permit no interference with his sway. this conqueror had a symbol of his triumphs: it was a blood-red flag that fluttered in the tainted air over the door of every dwelling into which the small-pox had entered. such a banner was long since waving over the portal of the province-house, for thence, as was proved by tracking its footsteps back, had all this dreadful mischief issued. it had been traced back to a lady's luxurious chamber, to the proudest of the proud, to her that was so delicate and hardly owned herself of earthly mould, to the haughty one who took her stand above human sympathies--to lady eleanore. there remained no room for doubt that the contagion had lurked in that gorgeous mantle which threw so strange a grace around her at the festival. its fantastic splendor had been conceived in the delirious brain of a woman on her death-bed and was the last toil of her stiffening fingers, which had interwoven fate and misery with its golden threads. this dark tale, whispered at first, was now bruited far and wide. the people raved against the lady eleanore and cried out that her pride and scorn had evoked a fiend, and that between them both this monstrous evil had been born. at times their rage and despair took the semblance of grinning mirth; and whenever the red flag of the pestilence was hoisted over another and yet another door, they clapped their hands and shouted through the streets in bitter mockery: "behold a new triumph for the lady eleanore!" one day in the midst of these dismal times a wild figure approached the portal of the province-house, and, folding his arms, stood contemplating the scarlet banner, which a passing breeze shook fitfully, as if to fling abroad the contagion that it typified. at length, climbing one of the pillars by means of the iron balustrade, he took down the flag, and entered the mansion waving it above his head. at the foot of the staircase he met the governor, booted and spurred, with his cloak drawn around him, evidently on the point of setting forth upon a journey. "wretched lunatic, what do you seek here?" exclaimed shute, extending his cane to guard himself from contact. "there is nothing here but death; back, or you will meet him." "death will not touch me, the banner-bearer of the pestilence," cried jervase helwyse, shaking the red flag aloft. "death and the pestilence, who wears the aspect of the lady eleanore, will walk through the streets to-night, and i must march before them with this banner." "why do i waste words on the fellow?" muttered the governor, drawing his cloak across his mouth. "what matters his miserable life, when none of us are sure of twelve hours' breath?--on, fool, to your own destruction!" he made way for jervase helwyse, who immediately ascended the staircase, but on the first landing-place was arrested by the firm grasp of a hand upon his shoulder. looking fiercely up with a madman's impulse to struggle with and rend asunder his opponent, he found himself powerless beneath a calm, stern eye which possessed the mysterious property of quelling frenzy at its height. the person whom he had now encountered was the physician, dr. clarke, the duties of whose sad profession had led him to the province-house, where he was an infrequent guest in more prosperous times. "young man, what is your purpose?" demanded he. "i seek the lady eleanore," answered jervase helwyse, submissively. "all have fled from her," said the physician. "why do you seek her now? i tell you, youth, her nurse fell death-stricken on the threshold of that fatal chamber. know ye not that never came such a curse to our shores as this lovely lady eleanore, that her breath has filled the air with poison, that she has shaken pestilence and death upon the land from the folds of her accursed mantle?" "let me look upon her," rejoined the mad youth, more wildly. "let me behold her in her awful beauty, clad in the regal garments of the pestilence. she and death sit on a throne together; let me kneel down before them." "poor youth!" said dr. clarke, and, moved by a deep sense of human weakness, a smile of caustic humor curled his lip even then. "wilt thou still worship the destroyer and surround her image with fantasies the more magnificent the more evil she has wrought? thus man doth ever to his tyrants. approach, then. madness, as i have noted, has that good efficacy that it will guard you from contagion, and perhaps its own cure may be found in yonder chamber." ascending another flight of stairs, he threw open a door and signed to jervase helwyse that he should enter. the poor lunatic, it seems probable, had cherished a delusion that his haughty mistress sat in state, unharmed herself by the pestilential influence which as by enchantment she scattered round about her. he dreamed, no doubt, that her beauty was not dimmed, but brightened into superhuman splendor. with such anticipations he stole reverentially to the door at which the physician stood, but paused upon the threshold, gazing fearfully into the gloom of the darkened chamber. "where is the lady eleanore?" whispered he. "call her," replied the physician. "lady eleanore! princess! queen of death!" cried jervase helwyse, advancing three steps into the chamber. "she is not here. there, on yonder table, i behold the sparkle of a diamond which once she wore upon her bosom. there"--and he shuddered--"there hangs her mantle, on which a dead woman embroidered a spell of dreadful potency. but where is the lady eleanore?" something stirred within the silken curtains of a canopied bed and a low moan was uttered, which, listening intently, jervase helwyse began to distinguish as a woman's voice complaining dolefully of thirst. he fancied, even, that he recognized its tones. "my throat! my throat is scorched," murmured the voice. "a drop of water!" "what thing art thou?" said the brain-stricken youth, drawing near the bed and tearing asunder its curtains. "whose voice hast thou stolen for thy murmurs and miserable petitions, as if lady eleanore could be conscious of mortal infirmity? fie! heap of diseased mortality, why lurkest thou in my lady's chamber?" "oh, jervase helwyse," said the voice--and as it spoke the figure contorted itself, struggling to hide its blasted face--"look not now on the woman you once loved. the curse of heaven hath stricken me because i would not call man my brother nor woman sister. i wrapped myself in pride as in a mantle and scorned the sympathies of nature, and therefore has nature made this wretched body the medium of a dreadful sympathy. you are avenged, they are all avenged, nature is avenged; for i am eleanore rochcliffe." the malice of his mental disease, the bitterness lurking at the bottom of his heart, mad as he was, for a blighted and ruined life and love that had been paid with cruel scorn, awoke within the breast of jervase helwyse. he shook his finger at the wretched girl, and the chamber echoed, the curtains of the bed were shaken, with his outburst of insane merriment. "another triumph for the lady eleanore!" he cried. "all have been her victims; who so worthy to be the final victim as herself?" impelled by some new fantasy of his crazed intellect, he snatched the fatal mantle and rushed from the chamber and the house. that night a procession passed by torchlight through the streets, bearing in the midst the figure of a woman enveloped with a richly-embroidered mantle, while in advance stalked jervase helwyse waving the red flag of the pestilence. arriving opposite the province-house, the mob burned the effigy, and a strong wind came and swept away the ashes. it was said that from that very hour the pestilence abated, as if its sway had some mysterious connection, from the first plague-stroke to the last, with lady elcanore's mantle. a remarkable uncertainty broods over that unhappy lady's fate. there is a belief, however, that in a certain chamber of this mansion a female form may sometimes be duskily discerned shrinking into the darkest corner and muffling her face within an embroidered mantle. supposing the legend true, can this be other than the once proud lady eleanore? * * * * * mine host and the old loyalist and i bestowed no little warmth of applause upon this narrative, in which we had all been deeply interested; for the reader can scarcely conceive how unspeakably the effect of such a tale is heightened when, as in the present case, we may repose perfect confidence in the veracity of him who tells it. for my own part, knowing how scrupulous is mr. tiffany to settle the foundation of his facts, i could not have believed him one whit the more faithfully had he professed himself an eyewitness of the doings and sufferings of poor lady eleanore. some sceptics, it is true, might demand documentary evidence, or even require him to produce the embroidered mantle, forgetting that--heaven be praised!--it was consumed to ashes. but now the old loyalist, whose blood was warmed by the good cheer, began to talk, in his turn, about the traditions of the province house, and hinted that he, if it were agreeable, might add a few reminiscences to our legendary stock. mr. tiffany, having no cause to dread a rival, immediately besought him to favor us with a specimen; my own entreaties, of course, were urged to the same effect; and our venerable guest, well pleased to find willing auditors, awaited only the return of mr. thomas waite, who had been summoned forth to provide accommodations for several new arrivals. perchance the public--but be this as its own caprice and ours shall settle the matter--may read the result in another tale of the province house. iv. old esther dudley. our host having resumed the chair, he as well as mr. tiffany and myself expressed much eagerness to be made acquainted with the story to which the loyalist had alluded. that venerable man first of all saw lit to moisten his throat with another glass of wine, and then, turning his face toward our coal-fire, looked steadfastly for a few moments into the depths of its cheerful glow. finally he poured forth a great fluency of speech. the generous liquid that he had imbibed, while it warmed his age-chilled blood, likewise took off the chill from his heart and mind, and gave him an energy to think and feel which we could hardly have expected to find beneath the snows of fourscore winters. his feelings, indeed, appeared to me more excitable than those of a younger man--or, at least, the same degree of feeling manifested itself by more visible effects than if his judgment and will had possessed the potency of meridian life. at the pathetic passages of his narrative he readily melted into tears. when a breath of indignation swept across his spirit, the blood flushed his withered visage even to the roots of his white hair, and he shook his clinched fist at the trio of peaceful auditors, seeming to fancy enemies in those who felt very kindly toward the desolate old soul. but ever and anon, sometimes in the midst of his most earnest talk, this ancient person's intellect would wander vaguely, losing its hold of the matter in hand and groping for it amid misty shadows. then would he cackle forth a feeble laugh and express a doubt whether his wits--for by that phrase it pleased our ancient friend to signify his mental powers--were not getting a little the worse for wear. under these disadvantages, the old loyalist's story required more revision to render it fit for the public eye than those of the series which have preceded it; nor should it be concealed that the sentiment and tone of the affair may have undergone some slight--or perchance more than slight--metamorphosis in its transmission to the reader through the medium of a thoroughgoing democrat. the tale itself is a mere sketch with no involution of plot nor any great interest of events, yet possessing, if i have rehearsed it aright, that pensive influence over the mind which the shadow of the old province house flings upon the loiterer in its court-yard. * * * * * the hour had come--the hour of defeat and humiliation--when sir william howe was to pass over the threshold of the province-house and embark, with no such triumphal ceremonies as he once promised himself, on board the british fleet. he bade his servants and military attendants go before him, and lingered a moment in the loneliness of the mansion to quell the fierce emotions that struggled in his bosom as with a death-throb. preferable then would he have deemed his fate had a warrior's death left him a claim to the narrow territory of a grave within the soil which the king had given him to defend. with an ominous perception that as his departing footsteps echoed adown the staircase the sway of britain was passing for ever from new england, he smote his clenched hand on his brow and cursed the destiny that had flung the shame of a dismembered empire upon him. "would to god," cried he, hardly repressing his tears of rage, "that the rebels were even now at the doorstep! a blood-stain upon the floor should then bear testimony that the last british ruler was faithful to his trust." the tremulous voice of a woman replied to his exclamation. "heaven's cause and the king's are one," it said. "go forth, sir william howe, and trust in heaven to bring back a royal governor in triumph." subduing at once the passion to which he had yielded only in the faith that it was unwitnessed, sir william howe became conscious that an aged woman leaning on a gold-headed staff was standing betwixt him and the door. it was old esther dudley, who had dwelt almost immemorial years in this mansion, until her presence seemed as inseparable from it as the recollections of its history. she was the daughter of an ancient and once eminent family which had fallen into poverty and decay and left its last descendant no resource save the bounty of the king, nor any shelter except within the walls of the province-house. an office in the household with merely nominal duties had been assigned to her as a pretext for the payment of a small pension, the greater part of which she expended in adorning herself with an antique magnificence of attire. the claims of esther dudley's gentle blood were acknowledged by all the successive governors, and they treated her with the punctilious courtesy which it was her foible to demand, not always with success, from a neglectful world. the only actual share which she assumed in the business of the mansion was to glide through its passages and public chambers late at night to see that the servants had dropped no fire from their flaring torches nor left embers crackling and blazing on the hearths. perhaps it was this invariable custom of walking her rounds in the hush of midnight that caused the superstition of the times to invest the old woman with attributes of awe and mystery, fabling that she had entered the portal of the province-house--none knew whence--in the train of the first royal governor, and that it was her fate to dwell there till the last should have departed. but sir william howe, if he ever heard this legend, had forgotten it. "mistress dudley, why are you loitering here?" asked he, with some severity of tone. "it is my pleasure to be the last in this mansion of the king." "not so, if it please your excellency," answered the time-stricken woman. "this roof has sheltered me long; i will not pass from it until they bear me to the tomb of my forefathers. what other shelter is there for old esther dudley save the province-house or the grave?" "now, heaven forgive me!" said sir william howe to himself. "i was about to leave this wretched old creature to starve or beg.--take this, good mistress dudley," he added, putting a purse into her hands. "king george's head on these golden guineas is sterling yet, and will continue so, i warrant you, even should the rebels crown john hancock their king. that purse will buy a better shelter than the province-house can now afford." "while the burden of life remains upon me i will have no other shelter than this roof," persisted esther dudley, striking her staff upon the floor with a gesture that expressed immovable resolve; "and when your excellency returns in triumph, i will totter into the porch to welcome you." "my poor old friend!" answered the british general, and all his manly and martial pride could no longer restrain a gush of bitter tears. "this is an evil hour for you and me. the province which the king entrusted to my charge is lost. i go hence in misfortune--perchance in disgrace--to return no more. and you, whose present being is incorporated with the past, who have seen governor after governor in stately pageantry ascend these steps, whose whole life has been an observance of majestic ceremonies and a worship of the king,--how will you endure the change? come with us; bid farewell to a land that has shaken off its allegiance, and live still under a royal government at halifax." "never! never!" said the pertinacious old dame. "here will i abide, and king george shall still have one true subject in his disloyal province." "beshrew the old fool!" muttered sir william howe, growing impatient of her obstinacy and ashamed of the emotion into which he had been betrayed. "she is the very moral of old-fashioned prejudice, and could exist nowhere but in this musty edifice.--well, then, mistress dudley, since you will needs tarry, i give the province-house in charge to you. take this key, and keep it safe until myself or some other royal governor shall demand it of you." smiling bitterly at himself and her, he took the heavy key of the province-house, and, delivering it into the old lady's hands, drew his cloak around him for departure. as the general glanced back at esther dudley's antique figure he deemed her well fitted for such a charge, as being so perfect a representative of the decayed past--of an age gone by, with its manners, opinions, faith and feelings all fallen into oblivion or scorn, of what had once been a reality, but was now merely a vision of faded magnificence. then sir william howe strode forth, smiting his clenched hands together in the fierce anguish of his spirit, and old esther dudley was left to keep watch in the lonely province-house, dwelling there with memory; and if hope ever seemed to flit around her, still it was memory in disguise. the total change of affairs that ensued on the departure of the british troops did not drive the venerable lady from her stronghold. there was not for many years afterward a governor of massachusetts, and the magistrates who had charge of such matters saw no objection to esther dudley's residence in the province-house, especially as they must otherwise have paid a hireling for taking care of the premises, which with her was a labor of love; and so they left her the undisturbed mistress of the old historic edifice. many and strange were the fables which the gossips whispered about her in all the chimney-corners of the town. among the time-worn articles of furniture that had been left in the mansion, there was a tall antique mirror which was well worthy of a tale by itself, and perhaps may hereafter be the theme of one. the gold of its heavily-wrought frame was tarnished, and its surface so blurred that the old woman's figure, whenever she paused before it, looked indistinct and ghostlike. but it was the general belief that esther could cause the governors of the overthrown dynasty, with the beautiful ladies who had once adorned their festivals, the indian chiefs who had come up to the province-house to hold council or swear allegiance, the grim provincial warriors, the severe clergymen--in short, all the pageantry of gone days, all the figures that ever swept across the broad-plate of glass in former times,--she could cause the whole to reappear and people the inner world of the mirror with shadows of old life. such legends as these, together with the singularity of her isolated existence, her age and the infirmity that each added winter flung upon her, made mistress dudley the object both of fear and pity, and it was partly the result of either sentiment that, amid all the angry license of the times, neither wrong nor insult ever fell upon her unprotected head. indeed, there was so much haughtiness in her demeanor toward intruders--among whom she reckoned all persons acting under the new authorities--that it was really an affair of no small nerve to look her in the face. and, to do the people justice, stern republicans as they had now become, they were well content that the old gentlewoman, in her hoop-petticoat and faded embroidery, should still haunt the palace of ruined pride and overthrown power, the symbol of a departed system, embodying a history in her person. so esther dudley dwelt year after year in the province-house, still reverencing all that others had flung aside, still faithful to her king, who, so long as the venerable dame yet held her post, might be said to retain one true subject in new england and one spot of the empire that had been wrested from him. and did she dwell there in utter loneliness? rumor said, "not so." whenever her chill and withered heart desired warmth, she was wont to summon a black slave of governor shirley's from the blurred mirror and send him in search of guests who had long ago been familiar in those deserted chambers. forth went the sable messenger, with the starlight or the moonshine gleaming through him, and did his errand in the burial-grounds, knocking at the iron doors of tombs or upon the marble slabs that covered them, and whispering to those within, "my mistress, old esther dudley, bids you to the province-house at midnight;" and punctually as the clock of the old south told twelve came the shadows of the olivers, the hutchinsons, the dudleys--all the grandees of a bygone generation--gliding beneath the portal into the well-known mansion, where esther mingled with them as if she likewise were a shade. without vouching for the truth of such traditions, it is certain that mistress dudley sometimes assembled a few of the stanch though crestfallen old tories who had lingered in the rebel town during those days of wrath and tribulation. out of a cobwebbed bottle containing liquor that a royal governor might have smacked his lips over they quaffed healths to the king and babbled treason to the republic, feeling as if the protecting shadow of the throne were still flung around them. but, draining the last drops of their liquor, they stole timorously homeward, and answered not again if the rude mob reviled them in the street. yet esther dudley's most frequent and favored guests were the children of the town. toward them she was never stern. a kindly and loving nature hindered elsewhere from its free course by a thousand rocky prejudices lavished itself upon these little ones. by bribes of gingerbread of her own making, stamped with a royal crown, she tempted their sunny sportiveness beneath the gloomy portal of the province-house, and would often beguile them to spend a whole play-day there, sitting in a circle round the verge of her hoop-petticoat, greedily attentive to her stories of a dead world. and when these little boys and girls stole forth again from the dark, mysterious mansion, they went bewildered, full of old feelings that graver people had long ago forgotten, rubbing their eyes at the world around them as if they had gone astray into ancient times and become children of the past. at home, when their parents asked where they had loitered such a weary while and with whom they had been at play, the children would talk of all the departed worthies of the province as far back as governor belcher and the haughty dame of sir william phipps. it would seem as though they had been sitting on the knees of these famous personages, whom the grave had hidden for half a century, and had toyed with the embroidery of their rich waistcoats or roguishly pulled the long curls of their flowing wigs. "but governor belcher has been dead this many a year," would the mother say to her little boy. "and did you really see him at the province-house?"--"oh yes, dear mother--yes!" the half-dreaming child would answer. "but when old esther had done speaking about him, he faded away out of his chair." thus, without affrighting her little guests, she led them by the hand into the chambers of her own desolate heart and made childhood's fancy discern the ghosts that haunted there. living so continually in her own circle of ideas, and never regulating her mind by a proper reference to present things, esther dudley appears to have grown partially crazed. it was found that she had no right sense of the progress and true state of the revolutionary war, but held a constant faith that the armies of britain were victorious on every field and destined to be ultimately triumphant. whenever the town rejoiced for a battle won by washington or gates or morgan or greene, the news, in passing through the door of the province-house as through the ivory gate of dreams, became metamorphosed into a strange tale of the prowess of howe, clinton or cornwallis. sooner or later, it was her invincible belief, the colonies would be prostrate at the footstool of the king. sometimes she seemed to take for granted that such was already the case. on one occasion she startled the townspeople by a brilliant illumination of the province-house with candles at every pane of glass and a transparency of the king's initials and a crown of light in the great balcony-window. the figure of the aged woman in the most gorgeous of her mildewed velvets and brocades was seen passing from casement to casement, until she paused before the balcony and flourished a huge key above her head. her wrinkled visage actually gleamed with triumph, as if the soul within her were a festal lamp. "what means this blaze of light? what does old esther's joy portend?" whispered a spectator. "it is frightful to see her gliding about the chambers and rejoicing there without a soul to bear her company." "it is as if she were making merry in a tomb," said another. "pshaw! it is no such mystery," observed an old man, after some brief exercise of memory. "mistress dudley is keeping jubilee for the king of england's birthday." then the people laughed aloud, and would have thrown mud against the blazing transparency of the king's crown and initials, only that they pitied the poor old dame who was so dismally triumphant amid the wreck and ruin of the system to which she appertained. oftentimes it was her custom to climb the weary staircase that wound upward to the cupola, and thence strain her dimmed eyesight seaward and countryward, watching for a british fleet or for the march of a grand procession with the king's banner floating over it. the passengers in the street below would discern her anxious visage and send up a shout: "when the golden indian on the province-house shall shoot his arrow, and when the cock on the old south spire shall crow, then look for a royal governor again!" for this had grown a by-word through the town. and at last, after long, long years, old esther dudley knew--or perchance she only dreamed--that a royal governor was on the eve of returning to the province-house to receive the heavy key which sir william howe had committed to her charge. now, it was the fact that intelligence bearing some faint analogy to esther's version of it was current among the townspeople. she set the mansion in the best order that her means allowed, and, arraying herself in silks and tarnished gold, stood long before the blurred mirror to admire her own magnificence. as she gazed the gray and withered lady moved her ashen lips, murmuring half aloud, talking to shapes that she saw within the mirror, to shadows of her own fantasies, to the household friends of memory, and bidding them rejoice with her and come forth to meet the governor. and while absorbed in this communion mistress dudley heard the tramp of many footsteps in the street, and, looking out at the window, beheld what she construed as the royal governor's arrival. "oh, happy day! oh, blessed, blessed hour!" she exclaimed. "let me but bid him welcome within the portal, and my task in the province-house and on earth is done." then, with tottering feet which age and tremulous joy caused to tread amiss, she hurried down the grand staircase, her silks sweeping and rustling as she went; so that the sound was as if a train of special courtiers were thronging from the dim mirror. and esther dudley fancied that as soon as the wide door should be flung open all the pomp and splendor of bygone times would pace majestically into the province-house and the gilded tapestry of the past would be brightened by the sunshine of the present. she turned the key, withdrew it from the lock, unclosed the door and stepped across the threshold. advancing up the court-yard appeared a person of most dignified mien, with tokens, as esther interpreted them, of gentle blood, high rank and long-accustomed authority even in his walk and every gesture. he was richly dressed, but wore a gouty shoe, which, however, did not lessen the stateliness of his gait. around and behind him were people in plain civic dresses and two or three war-worn veterans--evidently officers of rank--arrayed in a uniform of blue and buff. but esther dudley, firm in the belief that had fastened its roots about her heart, beheld only the principal personage, and never doubted that this was the long-looked-for governor to whom she was to surrender up her charge. as he approached she involuntarily sank down on her knees and tremblingly held forth the heavy key. "receive my trust! take it quickly," cried she, "for methinks death is striving to snatch away my triumph. but he comes too late. thank heaven for this blessed hour! god save king george!" "that, madam, is a strange prayer to be offered up at such a moment," replied the unknown guest of the province-house, and, courteously removing his hat, he offered his arm to raise the aged woman. "yet, in reverence for your gray hairs and long-kept faith, heaven forbid that any here should say you nay. over the realms which still acknowledge his sceptre, god save king george!" esther dudley started to her feet, and, hastily clutching back the key, gazed with fearful earnestness at the stranger, and dimly and doubtfully, as if suddenly awakened from a dream, her bewildered eyes half recognized his face. years ago she had known him among the gentry of the province, but the ban of the king had fallen upon him. how, then, came the doomed victim here? proscribed, excluded from mercy, the monarch's most dreaded and hated foe, this new england merchant had stood triumphantly against a kingdom's strength, and his foot now trod upon humbled royalty as he ascended the steps of the province-house, the people's chosen governor of massachusetts. "wretch, wretch that i am!" muttered the old woman, with such a heartbroken expression that the tears gushed from the stranger's eyes. "have i bidden a traitor welcome?--come, death! come quickly!" "alas, venerable lady!" said governor hancock, lending her his support with all the reverence that a courtier would have shown to a queen, "your life has been prolonged until the world has changed around you. you have treasured up all that time has rendered worthless--the principles, feelings, manners, modes of being and acting which another generation has flung aside--and you are a symbol of the past. and i and these around me--we represent a new race of men, living no longer in the past, scarcely in the present, but projecting our lives forward into the future. ceasing to model ourselves on ancestral superstitions, it is our faith and principle to press onward--onward.--yet," continued he, turning to his attendants, "let us reverence for the last time the stately and gorgeous prejudices of the tottering past." while the republican governor spoke he had continued to support the helpless form of esther dudley; her weight grew heavier against his arm, but at last, with a sudden effort to free herself, the ancient woman sank down beside one of the pillars of the portal. the key of the province-house fell from her grasp and clanked against the stone. "i have been faithful unto death," murmured she. "god save the king!" "she hath done her office," said hancock, solemnly. "we will follow her reverently to the tomb of her ancestors, and then, my fellow-citizens, onward--onward. we are no longer children of the past." as the old loyalist concluded his narrative the enthusiasm which had been fitfully flashing within his sunken eyes and quivering across his wrinkled visage faded away, as if all the lingering fire of his soul were extinguished. just then, too, a lamp upon the mantelpiece threw out a dying gleam, which vanished as speedily as it shot upward, compelling our eyes to grope for one another's features by the dim glow of the hearth. with such a lingering fire, methought, with such a dying gleam, had the glory of the ancient system vanished from the province-house when the spirit of old esther dudley took its flight. and now, again, the clock of the old south threw its voice of ages on the breeze, knolling the hourly knell of the past, crying out far and wide through the multitudinous city, and filling our ears, as we sat in the dusky chamber, with its reverberating depth of tone. in that same mansion--in that very chamber--what a volume of history had been told off into hours by the same voice that was now trembling in the air! many a governor had heard those midnight accents and longed to exchange his stately cares for slumber. and, as for mine host and mr. bela tiffany and the old loyalist and me, we had babbled about dreams of the past until we almost fancied that the clock was still striking in a bygone century. neither of us would have wondered had a hoop-petticoated phantom of esther dudley tottered into the chamber, walking her rounds in the hush of midnight as of yore, and motioned us to quench the fading embers of the fire and leave the historic precincts to herself and her kindred shades. but, as no such vision was vouchsafed, i retired unbidden, and would advise mr. tiffany to lay hold of another auditor, being resolved not to show my face in the province house for a good while hence--if ever. the haunted mind. what a singular moment is the first one, when you have hardly begun to recollect yourself, after starting from midnight slumber! by unclosing your eyes so suddenly you seem to have surprised the personages of your dream in full convocation round your bed, and catch one broad glance at them before they can flit into obscurity. or, to vary the metaphor, you find yourself for a single instant wide awake in that realm of illusions whither sleep has been the passport, and behold its ghostly inhabitants and wondrous scenery with a perception of their strangeness such as you never attain while the dream is undisturbed. the distant sound of a church-clock is borne faintly on the wind. you question with yourself, half seriously, whether it has stolen to your waking ear from some gray tower that stood within the precincts of your dream. while yet in suspense another clock flings its heavy clang over the slumbering town with so full and distinct a sound, and such a long murmur in the neighboring air, that you are certain it must proceed from the steeple at the nearest corner; you count the strokes--one, two; and there they cease with a booming sound like the gathering of a third stroke within the bell. if you could choose an hour of wakefulness out of the whole night, it would be this. since your sober bedtime, at eleven, you have had rest enough to take off the pressure of yesterday's fatigue, while before you, till the sun comes from "far cathay" to brighten your window, there is almost the space of a summer night--one hour to be spent in thought with the mind's eye half shut, and two in pleasant dreams, and two in that strangest of enjoyments the forgetfulness alike of joy and woe. the moment of rising belongs to another period of time, and appears so distant that the plunge out of a warm bed into the frosty air cannot yet be anticipated with dismay. yesterday has already vanished among the shadows of the past; to-morrow has not yet emerged from the future. you have found an intermediate space where the business of life does not intrude, where the passing moment lingers and becomes truly the present; a spot where father time, when he thinks nobody is watching him, sits down by the wayside to take breath. oh that he would fall asleep and let mortals live on without growing older! hitherto you have lain perfectly still, because the slightest motion would dissipate the fragments of your slumber. now, being irrevocably awake, you peep through the half-drawn window-curtain, and observe that the glass is ornamented with fanciful devices in frost-work, and that each pane presents something like a frozen dream. there will be time enough to trace out the analogy while waiting the summons to breakfast. seen through the clear portion of the glass where the silvery mountain-peaks of the frost-scenery do not ascend, the most conspicuous object is the steeple, the white spire of which directs you to the wintry lustre of the firmament. you may almost distinguish the figures on the clock that has just told the hour. such a frosty sky and the snow-covered roofs and the long vista of the frozen street, all white, and the distant water hardened into rock, might make you shiver even under four blankets and a woollen comforter. yet look at that one glorious star! its beams are distinguishable from all the rest, and actually cast the shadow of the casement on the bed with a radiance of deeper hue than moonlight, though not so accurate an outline. you sink down and muffle your head in the clothes, shivering all the while, but less from bodily chill than the bare idea of a polar atmosphere. it is too cold even for the thoughts to venture abroad. you speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth such as you now feel again. ah! that idea has brought a hideous one in its train. you think how the dead are lying in their cold shrouds and narrow coffins through the drear winter of the grave, and cannot persuade your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver when the snow is drifting over their little hillocks and the bitter blast howls against the door of the tomb. that gloomy thought will collect a gloomy multitude and throw its complexion over your wakeful hour. in the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music and revelry, above may cause us to forget their existence and the buried ones or prisoners whom they hide. but sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, those dark receptacles are flung wide open. in an hour like this, when the mind has a passive sensibility, but no active strength--when the imagination is a mirror imparting vividness to all ideas without the power of selecting or controlling them--then pray that your griefs may slumber and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain. it is too late. a funeral train comes gliding by your bed in which passion and feeling assume bodily shape and things of the mind become dim spectres to the eye. there is your earliest sorrow, a pale young mourner wearing a sister's likeness to first love, sadly beautiful, with a hallowed sweetness in her melancholy features and grace in the flow of her sable robe. next appears a shade of ruined loveliness with dust among her golden hair and her bright garments all faded and defaced, stealing from your glance with drooping head, as fearful of reproach: she was your fondest hope, but a delusive one; so call her disappointment now. a sterner form succeeds, with a brow of wrinkles, a look and gesture of iron authority; there is no name for him unless it be fatality--an emblem of the evil influence that rules your fortunes, a demon to whom you subjected yourself by some error at the outset of life, and were bound his slave for ever by once obeying him. see those fiendish lineaments graven on the darkness, the writhed lip of scorn, the mockery of that living eye, the pointed finger touching the sore place in your heart! do you remember any act of enormous folly at which you would blush even in the remotest cavern of the earth? then recognize your shame. pass, wretched band! well for the wakeful one if, riotously miserable, a fiercer tribe do not surround him--the devils of a guilty heart that holds its hell within itself. what if remorse should assume the features of an injured friend? what if the fiend should come in woman's garments with a pale beauty amid sin and desolation, and lie down by your side? what if he should stand at your bed's foot in the likeness of a corpse with a bloody stain upon the shroud? sufficient without such guilt is this nightmare of the soul, this heavy, heavy sinking of the spirits, this wintry gloom about the heart, this indistinct horror of the mind blending itself with the darkness of the chamber. by a desperate effort you start upright, breaking from a sort of conscious sleep and gazing wildly round the bed, as if the fiends were anywhere but in your haunted mind. at the same moment the slumbering embers on the hearth send forth a gleam which palely illuminates the whole outer room and flickers through the door of the bedchamber, but cannot quite dispel its obscurity. your eye searches for whatever may remind you of the living world. with eager minuteness you take note of the table near the fireplace, the book with an ivory knife between its leaves, the unfolded letter, the hat and the fallen glove. soon the flame vanishes, and with it the whole scene is gone, though its image remains an instant in your mind's eye when darkness has swallowed the reality. throughout the chamber there is the same obscurity as before, but not the same gloom within your breast. as your head falls back upon the pillow you think--in a whisper be it spoken--how pleasant in these night solitudes would be the rise and fall of a softer breathing than your own, the slight pressure of a tenderer bosom, the quiet throb of a purer heart, imparting its peacefulness to your troubled one, as if the fond sleeper were involving you in her dream. her influence is over you, though she have no existence but in that momentary image. you sink down in a flowery spot on the borders of sleep and wakefulness, while your thoughts rise before you in pictures, all disconnected, yet all assimilated by a pervading gladsomeness and beauty. the wheeling of gorgeous squadrons that glitter in the sun is succeeded by the merriment of children round the door of a schoolhouse beneath the glimmering shadow of old trees at the corner of a rustic lane. you stand in the sunny rain of a summer shower, and wander among the sunny trees of an autumnal wood, and look upward at the brightest of all rainbows overarching the unbroken sheet of snow on the american side of niagara. your mind struggles pleasantly between the dancing radiance round the hearth of a young man and his recent bride and the twittering flight of birds in spring about their new-made nest. you feel the merry bounding of a ship before the breeze, and watch the tuneful feet of rosy girls as they twine their last and merriest dance in a splendid ball-room, and find yourself in the brilliant circle of a crowded theatre as the curtain falls over a light and airy scene. with an involuntary start you seize hold on consciousness, and prove yourself but half awake by running a doubtful parallel between human life and the hour which has now elapsed. in both you emerge from mystery, pass through a vicissitude that you can but imperfectly control, and are borne onward to another mystery. now comes the peal of the distant clock with fainter and fainter strokes as you plunge farther into the wilderness of sleep. it is the knell of a temporary death. your spirit has departed, and strays like a free citizen among the people of a shadowy world, beholding strange sights, yet without wonder or dismay. so calm, perhaps, will be the final change--so undisturbed, as if among familiar things, the entrance of the soul to its eternal home. the village uncle. an imaginary retrospect. come! another log upon the hearth. true, our little parlor is comfortable, especially here where the old man sits in his old arm-chair; but on thanksgiving-night the blaze should dance higher up the chimney and send a shower of sparks into the outer darkness. toss on an armful of those dry oak chips, the last relicts of the mermaid's knee-timbers--the bones of your namesake, susan. higher yet, and clearer, be the blaze, till our cottage windows glow the ruddiest in the village and the light of our household mirth flash far across the bay to nahant. and now come, susan; come, my children. draw your chairs round me, all of you. there is a dimness over your figures. you sit quivering indistinctly with each motion of the blaze, which eddies about you like a flood; so that you all have the look of visions or people that dwell only in the firelight, and will vanish from existence as completely as your own shadows when the flame shall sink among the embers. hark! let me listen for the swell of the surf; it should be audible a mile inland on a night like this. yes; there i catch the sound, but only an uncertain murmur, as if a good way down over the beach, though by the almanac it is high tide at eight o'clock, and the billows must now be dashing within thirty yards of our door. ah! the old man's ears are failing him, and so is his eyesight, and perhaps his mind, else you would not all be so shadowy in the blaze of his thanksgiving fire. how strangely the past is peeping over the shoulders of the present! to judge by my recollections, it is but a few moments since i sat in another room. yonder model of a vessel was not there, nor the old chest of drawers, nor susan's profile and mine in that gilt frame--nothing, in short, except this same fire, which glimmered on books, papers and a picture, and half discovered my solitary figure in a looking-glass. but it was paler than my rugged old self, and younger, too, by almost half a century. speak to me, susan; speak, my beloved ones; for the scene is glimmering on my sight again, and as it brightens you fade away. oh, i should be loth to lose my treasure of past happiness and become once more what i was then--a hermit in the depths of my own mind, sometimes yawning over drowsy volumes and anon a scribbler of wearier trash than what i read; a man who had wandered out of the real world and got into its shadow, where his troubles, joys and vicissitudes were of such slight stuff that he hardly knew whether he lived or only dreamed of living. thank heaven i am an old man now and have done with all such vanities! still this dimness of mine eyes!--come nearer, susan, and stand before the fullest blaze of the hearth. now i behold you illuminated from head to foot, in your clean cap and decent gown, with the dear lock of gray hair across your forehead and a quiet smile about your mouth, while the eyes alone are concealed by the red gleam of the fire upon your spectacles. there! you made me tremble again. when the flame quivered, my sweet susan, you quivered with it and grew indistinct, as if melting into the warm light, that my last glimpse of you might be as visionary as the first was, full many a year since. do you remember it? you stood on the little bridge over the brook that runs across king's beach into the sea. it was twilight, the waves rolling in, the wind sweeping by, the crimson clouds fading in the west and the silver moon brightening above the hill; and on the bridge were you, fluttering in the breeze like a sea-bird that might skim away at your pleasure. you seemed a daughter of the viewless wind, a creature of the ocean-foam and the crimson light, whose merry life was spent in dancing on the crests of the billows that threw up their spray to support your footsteps. as i drew nearer i fancied you akin to the race of mermaids, and thought how pleasant it would be to dwell with you among the quiet coves in the shadow of the cliffs, and to roam along secluded beaches of the purest sand, and, when our northern shores grew bleak, to haunt the islands, green and lonely, far amid summer seas. and yet it gladdened me, after all this nonsense, to find you nothing but a pretty young girl sadly perplexed with the rude behavior of the wind about your petticoats. thus i did with susan as with most other things in my earlier days, dipping her image into my mind and coloring it of a thousand fantastic hues before i could see her as she really was. now, susan, for a sober picture of our village. it was a small collection of dwellings that seemed to have been cast up by the sea with the rock-weed and marine plants that it vomits after a storm, or to have come ashore among the pipe-staves and other lumber which had been washed from the deck of an eastern schooner. there was just space for the narrow and sandy street between the beach in front and a precipitous hill that lifted its rocky forehead in the rear among a waste of juniper-bushes and the wild growth of a broken pasture. the village was picturesque in the variety of its edifices, though all were rude. here stood a little old hovel, built, perhaps, of driftwood, there a row of boat-houses, and beyond them a two-story dwelling of dark and weatherbeaten aspect, the whole intermixed with one or two snug cottages painted white, a sufficiency of pig-styes and a shoemaker's shop. two grocery stores stood opposite each other in the centre of the village. these were the places of resort at their idle hours of a hardy throng of fishermen in red baize shirts, oilcloth trousers and boots of brown leather covering the whole leg--true seven-league boots, but fitter to wade the ocean than walk the earth. the wearers seemed amphibious, as if they did but creep out of salt water to sun themselves; nor would it have been wonderful to see their lower limbs covered with clusters of little shellfish such as cling to rocks and old ship-timber over which the tide ebbs and flows. when their fleet of boats was weather-bound, the butchers raised their price, and the spit was busier than the frying-pan; for this was a place of fish, and known as such to all the country round about. the very air was fishy, being perfumed with dead sculpins, hard-heads and dogfish strewn plentifully on the beach.--you see, children, the village is but little changed since your mother and i were young. how like a dream it was when i bent over a pool of water one pleasant morning and saw that the ocean had dashed its spray over me and made me a fisherman! there was the tarpaulin, the baize shirt, the oilcloth trousers and seven-league boots, and there my own features, but so reddened with sunburn and sea-breezes that methought i had another face, and on other shoulders too. the seagulls and the loons and i had now all one trade: we skimmed the crested waves and sought our prey beneath them, the man with as keen enjoyment as the birds. always when the east grew purple i launched my dory, my little flat-bottomed skiff, and rowed cross-handed to point ledge, the middle ledge, or perhaps beyond egg rock; often, too, did i anchor off dread ledge--a spot of peril to ships unpiloted--and sometimes spread an adventurous sail and tracked across the bay to south shore, casting my lines in sight of scituate. ere nightfall i hauled my skiff high and dry on the beach, laden with red rock-cod or the white-bellied ones of deep water, haddock bearing the black marks of st. peter's fingers near the gills, the long-bearded hake whose liver holds oil enough for a midnight lamp, and now and then a mighty halibut with a back broad as my boat. in the autumn i toled and caught those lovely fish the mackerel. when the wind was high, when the whale-boats anchored off the point nodded their slender masts at each other and the dories pitched and tossed in the surf, when nahant beach was thundering three miles off and the spray broke a hundred feet in the air round the distant base of egg rock, when the brimful and boisterous sea threatened to tumble over the street of our village,--then i made a holiday on shore. many such a day did i sit snugly in mr. bartlett's store, attentive to the yarns of uncle parker--uncle to the whole village by right of seniority, but of southern blood, with no kindred in new england. his figure is before me now enthroned upon a mackerel-barrel--a lean old man of great height, but bent with years and twisted into an uncouth shape by seven broken limbs; furrowed, also, and weatherworn, as if every gale for the better part of a century had caught him somewhere on the sea. he looked like a harbinger of tempest--a shipmate of the flying dutchman. after innumerable voyages aboard men-of-war and merchantmen, fishing-schooners and chebacco-boats, the old salt had become master of a hand-cart, which he daily trundled about the vicinity, and sometimes blew his fish-horn through the streets of salem. one of uncle parker's eyes had been blown out with gunpowder, and the other did but glimmer in its socket. turning it upward as he spoke, it was his delight to tell of cruises against the french and battles with his own shipmates, when he and an antagonist used to be seated astride of a sailor's chest, each fastened down by a spike-nail through his trousers, and there to fight it out. sometimes he expatiated on the delicious flavor of the hagden, a greasy and goose-like fowl which the sailors catch with hook and line on the grand banks. he dwelt with rapture on an interminable winter at the isle of sables, where he had gladdened himself amid polar snows with the rum and sugar saved from the wreck of a west india schooner. and wrathfully did he shake his fist as he related how a party of cape cod men had robbed him and his companions of their lawful spoils and sailed away with every keg of old jamaica, leaving him not a drop to drown his sorrow. villains they were, and of that wicked brotherhood who are said to tie lanterns to horses' tails to mislead the mariner along the dangerous shores of the cape. even now i seem to see the group of fishermen with that old salt in the midst. one fellow sits on the counter, a second bestrides an oil-barrel, a third lolls at his length on a parcel of new cod-lines, and another has planted the tarry seat of his trousers on a heap of salt which will shortly be sprinkled over a lot of fish. they are a likely set of men. some have voyaged to the east indies or the pacific, and most of them have sailed in marblehead schooners to newfoundland; a few have been no farther than the middle banks, and one or two have always fished along the shore; but, as uncle parker used to say, they have all been christened in salt water and know more than men ever learn in the bushes. a curious figure, by way of contrast, is a fish-dealer from far up-country listening with eyes wide open to narratives that might startle sinbad the sailor.--be it well with you, my brethren! ye are all gone--some to your graves ashore and others to the depths of ocean--but my faith is strong that ye are happy; for whenever i behold your forms, whether in dream or vision, each departed friend is puffing his long nine, and a mug of the right blackstrap goes round from lip to lip. but where was the mermaid in those delightful times? at a certain window near the centre of the village appeared a pretty display of gingerbread men and horses, picture-books and ballads, small fish-hooks, pins, needles, sugarplums and brass thimbles--articles on which the young fishermen used to expend their money from pure gallantry. what a picture was susan behind the counter! a slender maiden, though the child of rugged parents, she had the slimmest of all waists, brown hair curling on her neck, and a complexion rather pale except when the sea-breeze flushed it. a few freckles became beauty-spots beneath her eyelids.--how was it, susan, that you talked and acted so carelessly, yet always for the best, doing whatever was right in your own eyes, and never once doing wrong in mine, nor shocked a taste that had been morbidly sensitive till now? and whence had you that happiest gift of brightening every topic with an unsought gayety, quiet but irresistible, so that even gloomy spirits felt your sunshine and did not shrink from it? nature wrought the charm. she made you a frank, simple, kind-hearted, sensible and mirthful girl. obeying nature, you did free things without indelicacy, displayed a maiden's thoughts to every eye, and proved yourself as innocent as naked eve.--it was beautiful to observe how her simple and happy nature mingled itself with mine. she kindled a domestic fire within my heart and took up her dwelling there, even in that chill and lonesome cavern hung round with glittering icicles of fancy. she gave me warmth of feeling, while the influence of my mind made her contemplative. i taught her to love the moonlight hour, when the expanse of the encircled bay was smooth as a great mirror and slept in a transparent shadow, while beyond nahant the wind rippled the dim ocean into a dreamy brightness which grew faint afar off without becoming gloomier. i held her hand and pointed to the long surf-wave as it rolled calmly on the beach in an unbroken line of silver; we were silent together till its deep and peaceful murmur had swept by us. when the sabbath sun shone down into the recesses of the cliffs, i led the mermaid thither and told her that those huge gray, shattered rocks, and her native sea that raged for ever like a storm against them, and her own slender beauty in so stern a scene, were all combined into a strain of poetry. but on the sabbath-eve, when her mother had gone early to bed and her gentle sister had smiled and left us, as we sat alone by the quiet hearth with household things around, it was her turn to make me feel that here was a deeper poetry, and that this was the dearest hour of all. thus went on our wooing, till i had shot wild-fowl enough to feather our bridal-bed, and the daughter of the sea was mine. i built a cottage for susan and myself, and made a gateway in the form of a gothic arch by setting up a whale's jaw-bones. we bought a heifer with her first calf, and had a little garden on the hillside to supply us with potatoes and green sauce for our fish. our parlor, small and neat, was ornamented with our two profiles in one gilt frame, and with shells and pretty pebbles on the mantelpiece, selected from the sea's treasury of such things on nahant beach. on the desk, beneath the looking-glass, lay the bible, which i had begun to read aloud at the book of genesis, and the singing-book that susan used for her evening psalm. except the almanac, we had no other literature. all that i heard of books was when an indian history or tale of shipwreck was sold by a pedler or wandering subscription-man to some one in the village, and read through its owner's nose to a slumbrous auditory. like my brother-fishermen, i grew into the belief that all human erudition was collected in our pedagogue, whose green spectacles and solemn phiz as he passed to his little schoolhouse amid a waste of sand might have gained him a diploma from any college in new england. in truth, i dreaded him.--when our children were old enough to claim his care, you remember, susan, how i frowned, though you were pleased at this learned man's encomiums on their proficiency. i feared to trust them even with the alphabet: it was the key to a fatal treasure. but i loved to lead them by their little hands along the beach and point to nature in the vast and the minute--the sky, the sea, the green earth, the pebbles and the shells. then did i discourse of the mighty works and coextensive goodness of the deity with the simple wisdom of a man whose mind had profited by lonely days upon the deep and his heart by the strong and pure affections of his evening home. sometimes my voice lost itself in a tremulous depth, for i felt his eye upon me as i spoke. once, while my wife and all of us were gazing at ourselves in the mirror left by the tide in a hollow of the sand, i pointed to the pictured heaven below and bade her observe how religion was strewn everywhere in our path, since even a casual pool of water recalled the idea of that home whither we were travelling to rest for ever with our children. suddenly your image, susan, and all the little faces made up of yours and mine, seemed to fade away and vanish around me, leaving a pale visage like my own of former days within the frame of a large looking-glass. strange illusion! my life glided on, the past appearing to mingle with the present and absorb the future, till the whole lies before me at a glance. my manhood has long been waning with a stanch decay; my earlier contemporaries, after lives of unbroken health, are all at rest without having known the weariness of later age; and now with a wrinkled forehead and thin white hair as badges of my dignity i have become the patriarch--the uncle--of the village. i love that name: it widens the circle of my sympathies; it joins all the youthful to my household in the kindred of affection. like uncle parker, whose rheumatic bones were dashed against egg rock full forty years ago, i am a spinner of long yarns. seated on the gunnel of a dory or on the sunny side of a boat-house, where the warmth is grateful to my limbs, or by my own hearth when a friend or two are there, i overflow with talk, and yet am never tedious. with a broken voice i give utterance to much wisdom. such, heaven be praised! is the vigor of my faculties that many a forgotten usage, and traditions ancient in my youth, and early adventures of myself or others hitherto effaced by things more recent, acquire new distinctness in my memory. i remember the happy days when the haddock were more numerous on all the fishing-grounds than sculpins in the surf--when the deep-water cod swam close in-shore, and the dogfish, with his poisonous horn, had not learnt to take the hook. i can number every equinoctial storm in which the sea has overwhelmed the street, flooded the cellars of the village and hissed upon our kitchen hearth. i give the history of the great whale that was landed on whale beach, and whose jaws, being now my gateway, will last for ages after my coffin shall have passed beneath them. thence it is an easy digression to the halibut--scarcely smaller than the whale--which ran out six codlines and hauled my dory to the mouth of boston harbor before i could touch him with the gaff. if melancholy accidents be the theme of conversation, i tell how a friend of mine was taken out of his boat by an enormous shark, and the sad, true tale of a young man on the eve of marriage who had been nine days missing, when his drowned body floated into the very pathway on marble-head neck that had often led him to the dwelling of his bride, as if the dripping corpse would have come where the mourner was. with such awful fidelity did that lover return to fulfil his vows! another favorite story is of a crazy maiden who conversed with angels and had the gift of prophecy, and whom all the village loved and pitied, though she went from door to door accusing us of sin, exhorting to repentance and foretelling our destruction by flood or earthquake. if the young men boast their knowledge of the ledges and sunken rocks, i speak of pilots who knew the wind by its scent and the wave by its taste, and could have steered blindfold to any port between boston and mount desert guided only by the rote of the shore--the peculiar sound of the surf on each island, beach and line of rocks along the coast. thus do i talk, and all my auditors grow wise while they deem it pastime. i recollect no happier portion of my life than this my calm old age. it is like the sunny and sheltered slope of a valley where late in the autumn the grass is greener than in august, and intermixed with golden dandelions that had not been seen till now since the first warmth of the year. but with me the verdure and the flowers are not frost-bitten in the midst of winter. a playfulness has revisited my mind--a sympathy with the young and gay, an unpainful interest in the business of others, a light and wandering curiosity--arising, perhaps, from the sense that my toil on earth is ended and the brief hour till bedtime may be spent in play. still, i have fancied that there is a depth of feeling and reflection under this superficial levity peculiar to one who has lived long and is soon to die. show me anything that would make an infant smile, and you shall behold a gleam of mirth over the hoary ruin of my visage. i can spend a pleasant hour in the sun watching the sports of the village children on the edge of the surf. now they chase the retreating wave far down over the wet sand; now it steals softly up to kiss their naked feet; now it comes onward with threatening front, and roars after the laughing crew as they scamper beyond its reach. why should not an old man be merry too, when the great sea is at play with those little children? i delight, also, to follow in the wake of a pleasure-party of young men and girls strolling along the beach after an early supper at the point. here, with handkerchiefs at nose, they bend over a heap of eel-grass entangled in which is a dead skate so oddly accoutred with two legs and a long tail that they mistake him for a drowned animal. a few steps farther the ladies scream, and the gentlemen make ready to protect them against a young shark of the dogfish kind rolling with a lifelike motion in the tide that has thrown him up. next they are smit with wonder at the black shells of a wagon-load of live lobsters packed in rock-weed for the country-market. and when they reach the fleet of dories just hauled ashore after the day's fishing, how do i laugh in my sleeve, and sometimes roar outright, at the simplicity of these young folks and the sly humor of the fishermen! in winter, when our village is thrown into a bustle by the arrival of perhaps a score of country dealers bargaining for frozen fish to be transported hundreds of miles and eaten fresh in vermont or canada, i am a pleased but idle spectator in the throng. for i launch my boat no more. when the shore was solitary, i have found a pleasure that seemed even to exalt my mind in observing the sports or contentions of two gulls as they wheeled and hovered about each other with hoarse screams, one moment flapping on the foam of the wave, and then soaring aloft till their white bosoms melted into the upper sunshine. in the calm of the summer sunset i drag my aged limbs with a little ostentation of activity, because i am so old, up to the rocky brow of the hill. there i see the white sails of many a vessel outward bound or homeward from afar, and the black trail of a vapor behind the eastern steamboat; there, too, is the sun, going down, but not in gloom, and there the illimitable ocean mingling with the sky, to remind me of eternity. but sweetest of all is the hour of cheerful musing and pleasant talk that comes between the dusk and the lighted candle by my glowing fireside. and never, even on the first thanksgiving-night, when susan and i sat alone with our hopes, nor the second, when a stranger had been sent to gladden us and be the visible image of our affection, did i feel such joy as now. all that belongs to me are here: death has taken none, nor disease kept them away, nor strife divided them from their parents or each other; with neither poverty nor riches to disturb them, nor the misery of desires beyond their lot, they have kept new england's festival round the patriarch's board. for i am a patriarch. here i sit among my descendants, in my old arm-chair and immemorial corner, while the firelight throws an appropriate glory round my venerable frame.--susan! my children! something whispers me that this happiest hour must be the final one, and that nothing remains but to bless you all and depart with a treasure of recollected joys to heaven. will you meet me there? alas! your figures grow indistinct, fading into pictures on the air, and now to fainter outlines, while the fire is glimmering on the walls of a familiar room, and shows the book that i flung down and the sheet that i left half written some fifty years ago. i lift my eyes to the looking-glass, and perceive myself alone, unless those be the mermaid's features retiring into the depths of the mirror with a tender and melancholy smile. ah! one feels a chilliness--not bodily, but about the heart--and, moreover, a foolish dread of looking behind him, after these pastimes. i can imagine precisely how a magician would sit down in gloom and terror after dismissing the shadows that had personated dead or distant people and stripping his cavern of the unreal splendor which had changed it to a palace. and now for a moral to my reverie. shall it be that, since fancy can create so bright a dream of happiness, it were better to dream on from youth to age than to awake and strive doubtfully for something real? oh, the slight tissue of a dream can no more preserve us from the stern reality of misfortune than a robe of cobweb could repel the wintry blast. be this the moral, then: in chaste and warm affections, humble wishes and honest toil for some useful end there is health for the mind and quiet for the heart, the prospect of a happy life and the fairest hope of heaven. the ambitious guest. one september night a family had gathered round their hearth and piled it high with the driftwood of mountain-streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing down the precipice. up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze. the faces of the father and mother had a sober gladness; the children laughed. the eldest daughter was the image of happiness at seventeen, and the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was the image of happiness grown old. they had found the "herb heart's-ease" in the bleakest spot of all new england. this family were situated in the notch of the white hills, where the wind was sharp throughout the year and pitilessly cold in the winter, giving their cottage all its fresh inclemency before it descended on the valley of the saco. they dwelt in a cold spot and a dangerous one, for a mountain towered above their heads so steep that the stones would often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight. the daughter had just uttered some simple jest that filled them all with mirth, when the wind came through the notch and seemed to pause before their cottage, rattling the door with a sound of wailing and lamentation before it passed into the valley. for a moment it saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the tones. but the family were glad again when they perceived that the latch was lifted by some traveller whose footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast which heralded his approach and wailed as he was entering and went moaning away from the door. though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily converse with the world. the romantic pass of the notch is a great artery through which the life-blood of internal commerce is continually throbbing between maine on one side and the green mountains and the shores of the st. lawrence on the other. the stage-coach always drew up before the door of the cottage. the wayfarer with no companion but his staff paused here to exchange a word, that the sense of loneliness might not utterly overcome him ere he could pass through the cleft of the mountain or reach the first house in the valley. and here the teamster on his way to portland market would put up for the night, and, if a bachelor, might sit an hour beyond the usual bedtime and steal a kiss from the mountain-maid at parting. it was one of those primitive taverns where the traveller pays only for food and lodging, but meets with a homely kindness beyond all price. when the footsteps were heard, therefore, between the outer door and the inner one, the whole family rose up, grandmother, children and all, as if about to welcome some one who belonged to them, and whose fate was linked with theirs. the door was opened by a young man. his face at first wore the melancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a wild and bleak road at nightfall and alone, but soon brightened up when he saw the kindly warmth of his reception. he felt his heart spring forward to meet them all, from the old woman who wiped a chair with her apron to the little child that held out its arms to him. one glance and smile placed the stranger on a footing of innocent familiarity with the eldest daughter. "ah! this fire is the right thing," cried he, "especially when there is such a pleasant circle round it. i am quite benumbed, for the notch is just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows; it has blown a terrible blast in my face all the way from bartlett." "then you are going toward vermont?" said the master of the house as he helped to take a light knapsack off the young man's shoulders. "yes, to burlington, and far enough beyond," replied he. "i meant to have been at ethan crawford's to-night, but a pedestrian lingers along such a road as this. it is no matter; for when i saw this good fire and all your cheerful faces, i felt as if you had kindled it on purpose for me and were waiting my arrival. so i shall sit down among you and make myself at home." the frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire when something like a heavy footstep was heard without, rushing down the steep side of the mountain as with long and rapid strides, and taking such a leap in passing the cottage as to strike the opposite precipice. the family held their breath, because they knew the sound, and their guest held his by instinct. "the old mountain has thrown a stone at us for fear we should forget him," said the landlord, recovering himself. "he sometimes nods his head and threatens to come down, but we are old neighbors, and agree together pretty well, upon the whole. besides, we have a sure place of refuge hard by if he should be coming in good earnest." let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of bear's meat, and by his natural felicity of manner to have placed himself on a footing of kindness with the whole family; so that they talked as freely together as if he belonged to their mountain-brood. he was of a proud yet gentle spirit, haughty and reserved among the rich and great, but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door and be like a brother or a son at the poor man's fireside. in the household of the notch he found warmth and simplicity of feeling, the pervading intelligence of new england, and a poetry of native growth which they had gathered when they little thought of it from the mountain-peaks and chasms, and at the very threshold of their romantic and dangerous abode. he had travelled far and alone; his whole life, indeed, had been a solitary path, for, with the lofty caution of his nature, he had kept himself apart from those who might otherwise have been his companions. the family, too, though so kind and hospitable, had that consciousness of unity among themselves and separation from the world at large which in every domestic circle should still keep a holy place where no stranger may intrude. but this evening a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence. and thus it should have been. is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of birth? the secret of the young man's character was a high and abstracted ambition. he could have borne to live an undistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave. yearning desire had been transformed to hope, and hope, long cherished, had become like certainty that, obscurely as he journeyed now, a glory was to beam on all his pathway, though not, perhaps, while he was treading it. but when posterity should gaze back into the gloom of what was now the present, they would trace the brightness of his footsteps, brightening as meaner glories faded, and confess that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to his tomb with none to recognize him. "as yet," cried the stranger, his cheek glowing and his eye flashing with enthusiasm--"as yet i have done nothing. were i to vanish from the earth to-morrow, none would know so much of me as you--that a nameless youth came up at nightfall from the valley of the saco, and opened his heart to you in the evening, and passed through the notch by sunrise, and was seen no more. not a soul would ask, 'who was he? whither did the wanderer go?' but i cannot die till i have achieved my destiny. then let death come: i shall have built my monument." there was a continual flow of natural emotion gushing forth amid abstracted reverie which enabled the family to understand this young man's sentiments, though so foreign from their own. with quick sensibility of the ludicrous, he blushed at the ardor into which he had been betrayed. "you laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's hand and laughing himself. "you think my ambition as nonsensical as if i were to freeze myself to death on the top of mount washington only that people might spy at me from the country roundabout. and truly that would be a noble pedestal for a man's statue." "it is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl, blushing, "and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks about us." "i suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, "there is something natural in what the young man says; and if my mind had been turned that way, i might have felt just the same.--it is strange, wife, how his talk has set my head running on things that are pretty certain never to come to pass." "perhaps they may," observed the wife. "is the man thinking what he will do when he is a widower?" "no, no!" cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful kindness. "when i think of your death, esther, i think of mine too. but i was wishing we had a good farm in bartlett or bethlehem or littleton, or some other township round the white mountains, but not where they could tumble on our heads. i should want to stand well with my neighbors and be called squire and sent to general court for a term or two; for a plain, honest man may do as much good there as a lawyer. and when i should be grown quite an old man, and you an old woman, so as not to be long apart, i might die happy enough in my bed, and leave you all crying around me. a slate gravestone would suit me as well as a marble one, with just my name and age, and a verse of a hymn, and something to let people know that i lived an honest man and died a christian." "there, now!" exclaimed the stranger; "it is our nature to desire a monument, be it slate or marble, or a pillar of granite, or a glorious memory in the universal heart of man." "we're in a strange way to-night," said the wife, with tears in her eyes. "they say it's a sign of something when folks' minds go a-wandering so. hark to the children!" they listened accordingly. the younger children had been put to bed in another room, but with an open door between; so that they could be heard talking busily among themselves. one and all seemed to have caught the infection from the fireside circle, and were outvying each other in wild wishes and childish projects of what they would do when they came to be men and women. at length a little boy, instead of addressing his brothers and sisters, called out to his mother. "i'll tell you what i wish, mother," cried he: "i want you and father and grandma'm, and all of us, and the stranger too, to start right away and go and take a drink out of the basin of the flume." nobody could help laughing at the child's notion of leaving a warm bed and dragging them from a cheerful fire to visit the basin of the flume--a brook which tumbles over the precipice deep within the notch. the boy had hardly spoken, when a wagon rattled along the road and stopped a moment before the door. it appeared to contain two or three men who were cheering their hearts with the rough chorus of a song which resounded in broken notes between the cliffs, while the singers hesitated whether to continue their journey or put up here for the night. "father," said the girl, "they are calling you by name." but the good man doubted whether they had really called him, and was unwilling to show himself too solicitous of gain by inviting people to patronize his house. he therefore did not hurry to the door, and, the lash being soon applied, the travellers plunged into the notch, still singing and laughing, though their music and mirth came back drearily from the heart of the mountain. "there, mother!" cried the boy, again; "they'd have given us a ride to the flume." again they laughed at the child's pertinacious fancy for a night-ramble. but it happened that a light cloud passed over the daughter's spirit; she looked gravely into the fire and drew a breath that was almost a sigh. it forced its way, in spite of a little struggle to repress it. then, starting and blushing, she looked quickly around the circle, as if they had caught a glimpse into her bosom. the stranger asked what she had been thinking of. "nothing," answered she, with a downcast smile; "only i felt lonesome just then." "oh, i have always had a gift of feeling what is in other people's hearts," said he, half seriously. "shall i tell the secrets of yours? for i know what to think when a young girl shivers by a warm hearth and complains of lonesomeness at her mother's side. shall i put these feelings into words?" "they would not be a girl's feelings any longer if they could be put into words," replied the mountain-nymph, laughing, but avoiding his eye. all this was said apart. perhaps a germ of love was springing in their hearts so pure that it might blossom in paradise, since it could not be matured on earth; for women worship such gentle dignity as his, and the proud, contemplative, yet kindly, soul is oftenest captivated by simplicity like hers. but while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings, of a maiden's nature, the wind through the notch took a deeper and drearier sound. it seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain of the spirits of the blast who in old indian times had their dwelling among these mountains and made their heights and recesses a sacred region. there was a wail along the road as if a funeral were passing. to chase away the gloom, the family threw pine-branches on their fire till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, discovering once again a scene of peace and humble happiness. the light hovered about them fondly and caressed them all. there were the little faces of the children peeping from their bed apart, and here the father's frame of strength, the mother's subdued and careful mien, the high-browed youth, the budding girl and the good old grandam, still knitting in the warmest place. the aged woman looked up from her task, and with fingers ever busy was the next to speak. "old folks have their notions," said she, "as well as young ones. you've been wishing and planning and letting your heads run on one thing and another till you've set my mind a-wandering too. now, what should an old woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two before she comes to her grave? children, it will haunt me night and day till i tell you." "what is it, mother?" cried the husband and wife at once. then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circle closer round the fire, informed them that she had provided her grave-clothes some years before--a nice linen shroud, a cap with a muslin ruff, and everything of a finer sort than she had worn since her wedding-day. but this evening an old superstition had strangely recurred to her. it used to be said in her younger days that if anything were amiss with a corpse--if only the ruff were not smooth or the cap did not set right--the corpse, in the coffin and beneath the clods, would strive to put up its cold hands and arrange it. the bare thought made her nervous. "don't talk so, grandmother," said the girl, shuddering. "now," continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her own folly, "i want one of you, my children, when your mother is dressed and in the coffin,--i want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. who knows but i may take a glimpse at myself and see whether all's right?" "old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," murmured the stranger-youth. "i wonder how mariners feel when the ship is sinking and they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean, that wide and nameless sepulchre?" for a moment the old woman's ghastly conception so engrossed the minds of her hearers that a sound abroad in the night, rising like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep and terrible before the fated group were conscious of it. the house and all within it trembled; the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound were the peal of the last trump. young and old exchanged one wild glance and remained an instant pale, affrighted, without utterance or power to move. then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips: "the slide! the slide!" the simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the unutterable horror of the catastrophe. the victims rushed from their cottage and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot, where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reared. alas! they had quitted their security and fled right into the pathway of destruction. down came the whole side of the mountain in a cataract of ruin. just before it reached the house the stream broke into two branches, shivered not a window there, but overwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked up the road and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. long ere the thunder of that great slide had ceased to roar among the mountains the mortal agony had been endured and the victims were at peace. their bodies were never found. the next morning the light smoke was seen stealing from the cottage chimney up the mountain-side. within, the fire was yet smouldering on the hearth, and the chairs in a circle round it, as if the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation of the slide and would shortly return to thank heaven for their miraculous escape. all had left separate tokens by which those who had known the family were made to shed a tear for each. who has not heard their name? the story has been told far and wide, and will for ever be a legend of these mountains. poets have sung their fate. there were circumstances which led some to suppose that a stranger had been received into the cottage on this awful night, and had shared the catastrophe of all its inmates; others denied that there were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture. woe for the high-souled youth with his dream of earthly immortality! his name and person utterly unknown, his history, his way of life, his plans, a mystery never to be solved, his death and his existence equally a doubt,--whose was the agony of that death-moment? the sister-years. last night, between eleven and twelve o'clock, when the old year was leaving her final footprints on the borders of time's empire, she found herself in possession of a few spare moments, and sat down--of all places in the world--on the steps of our new city-hall. the wintry moonlight showed that she looked weary of body and sad of heart, like many another wayfarer of earth. her garments, having been exposed to much foul weather and rough usage, were in very ill condition, and, as the hurry of her journey had never before allowed her to take an instant's rest, her shoes were so worn as to be scarcely worth the mending. but after trudging only a little distance farther this poor old year was destined to enjoy a long, long sleep. i forgot to mention that when she seated herself on the steps she deposited by her side a very capacious bandbox in which, as is the custom among travellers of her sex, she carried a great deal of valuable property. besides this luggage, there was a folio book under her arm very much resembling the annual volume of a newspaper. placing this volume across her knees and resting her elbows upon it, with her forehead in her hands, the weary, bedraggled, world-worn old year heaved a heavy sigh and appeared to be taking no very pleasant retrospect of her past existence. while she thus awaited the midnight knell that was to summon her to the innumerable sisterhood of departed years, there came a young maiden treading lightsomely on tip-toe along the street from the direction of the railroad dépôt. she was evidently a stranger, and perhaps had come to town by the evening train of cars. there was a smiling cheerfulness in this fair maiden's face which bespoke her fully confident of a kind reception from the multitude of people with whom she was soon to form acquaintance. her dress was rather too airy for the season, and was bedizened with fluttering ribbons and other vanities which were likely soon to be rent away by the fierce storms or to fade in the hot sunshine amid which she was to pursue her changeful course. but still she was a wonderfully pleasant-looking figure, and had so much promise and such an indescribable hopefulness in her aspect that hardly anybody could meet her without anticipating some very desirable thing--the consummation of some long-sought good--from her kind offices. a few dismal characters there may be here and there about the world who have so often been trifled with by young maidens as promising as she that they have now ceased to pin any faith upon the skirts of the new year. but, for my own part, i have great faith in her, and, should i live to see fifty more such, still from each of those successive sisters i shall reckon upon receiving something that will be worth living for. the new year--for this young maiden was no less a personage--carried all her goods and chattels in a basket of no great size or weight, which hung upon her arm. she greeted the disconsolate old year with great affection, and sat down beside her on the steps of the city-hall, waiting for the signal to begin her rambles through the world. the two were own sisters, being both granddaughters of time, and, though one looked so much older than the other, it was rather owing to hardships and trouble than to age, since there was but a twelvemonth's difference between them. "well, my dear sister," said the new year, after the first salutations, "you look almost tired to death. what have you been about during your sojourn in this part of infinite space?" "oh, i have it all recorded here in my book of chronicles," answered the old year, in a heavy tone. "there is nothing that would amuse you, and you will soon get sufficient knowledge of such matters from your own personal experience. it is but tiresome reading." nevertheless, she turned over the leaves of the folio and glanced at them by the light of the moon, feeling an irresistible spell of interest in her own biography, although its incidents were remembered without pleasure. the volume, though she termed it her book of chronicles, seemed to be neither more nor less than the salem _gazette_ for ; in the accuracy of which journal this sagacious old year had so much confidence that she deemed it needless to record her history with her own pen. "what have you been doing in the political way?" asked the new year. "why, my course here in the united states," said the old year--"though perhaps i ought to blush at the confession--my political course, i must acknowledge, has been rather vacillatory, sometimes inclining toward the whigs, then causing the administration party to shout for triumph, and now again uplifting what seemed the almost prostrate banner of the opposition; so that historians will hardly know what to make of me in this respect. but the loco-focos--" "i do not like these party nicknames," interrupted her sister, who seemed remarkably touchy about some points. "perhaps we shall part in better humor if we avoid any political discussion." "with all my heart," replied the old year, who had already been tormented half to death with squabbles of this kind. "i care not if the name of whig or tory, with their interminable brawls about banks and the sub-treasury, abolition, texas, the florida war, and a million of other topics which you will learn soon enough for your own comfort,--i care not, i say, if no whisper of these matters ever reaches my ears again. yet they have occupied so large a share of my attention that i scarcely know what else to tell you. there has, indeed been a curious sort of war on the canada border, where blood has streamed in the names of liberty and patriotism; but it must remain for some future, perhaps far-distant, year to tell whether or no those holy names have been rightfully invoked. nothing so much depresses me in my view of mortal affairs as to see high energies wasted and human life and happiness thrown away for ends that appear oftentimes unwise, and still oftener remain unaccomplished. but the wisest people and the best keep a steadfast faith that the progress of mankind is onward and upward, and that the toil and anguish of the path serve to wear away the imperfections of the immortal pilgrim, and will be felt no more when they have done their office." "perhaps," cried the hopeful new year--"perhaps i shall see that happy day." "i doubt whether it be so close at hand," answered the old year, gravely smiling. "you will soon grow weary of looking for that blessed consummation, and will turn for amusement--as has frequently been my own practice--to the affairs of some sober little city like this of salem. here we sit on the steps of the new city-hall which has been completed under my administration, and it would make you laugh to see how the game of politics of which the capitol at washington is the great chess-board is here played in miniature. burning ambition finds its fuel here; here patriotism speaks boldly in the people's behalf and virtuous economy demands retrenchment in the emoluments of a lamplighter; here the aldermen range their senatorial dignity around the mayor's chair of state and the common council feel that they have liberty in charge. in short, human weakness and strength, passion and policy, man's tendencies, his aims and modes of pursuing them, his individual character and his character in the mass, may be studied almost as well here as on the theatre of nations, and with this great advantage--that, be the lesson ever so disastrous, its liliputian scope still makes the beholder smile." "have you done much for the improvement of the city?" asked the new year. "judging from what little i have seen, it appears to be ancient and time-worn." "i have opened the railroad," said the elder year, "and half a dozen times a day you will hear the bell which once summoned the monks of a spanish convent to their devotions announcing the arrival or departure of the cars. old salem now wears a much livelier expression than when i first beheld her. strangers rumble down from boston by hundreds at a time. new faces throng in essex street. railroad-hacks and omnibuses rattle over the pavements. there is a perceptible increase of oyster-shops and other establishments for the accommodation of a transitory diurnal multitude. but a more important change awaits the venerable town. an immense accumulation of musty prejudices will be carried off by the free circulation of society. a peculiarity of character of which the inhabitants themselves are hardly sensible will be rubbed down and worn away by the attrition of foreign substances. much of the result will be good; there will likewise be a few things not so good. whether for better or worse, there will be a probable diminution of the moral influence of wealth, and the sway of an aristocratic class which from an era far beyond my memory has held firmer dominion here than in any other new england town." the old year, having talked away nearly all of her little remaining breath, now closed her book of chronicles, and was about to take her departure, but her sister detained her a while longer by inquiring the contents of the huge bandbox which she was so painfully lugging along with her. "these are merely a few trifles," replied the old year, "which i have picked up in my rambles and am going to deposit in the receptacle of things past and forgotten. we sisterhood of years never carry anything really valuable out of the world with us. here are patterns of most of the fashions which i brought into vogue, and which have already lived out their allotted term; you will supply their place with others equally ephemeral. here, put up in little china pots, like rouge, is a considerable lot of beautiful women's bloom which the disconsolate fair ones owe me a bitter grudge for stealing. i have likewise a quantity of men's dark hair, instead of which i have left gray locks or none at all. the tears of widows and other afflicted mortals who have received comfort during the last twelve months are preserved in some dozens of essence-bottles well corked and sealed. i have several bundles of love-letters eloquently breathing an eternity of burning passion which grew cold and perished almost before the ink was dry. moreover, here is an assortment of many thousand broken promises and other broken ware, all very light and packed into little space. the heaviest articles in my possession are a large parcel of disappointed hopes which a little while ago were buoyant enough to have inflated mr. lauriat's balloon." "i have a fine lot of hopes here in my basket," remarked the new year. "they are a sweet-smelling flower--a species of rose." "they soon lose their perfume," replied the sombre old year. "what else have you brought to insure a welcome from the discontented race of mortals?" "why, to say the truth, little or nothing else," said her sister, with a smile, "save a few new _annuals_ and almanacs, and some new year's gifts for the children. but i heartily wish well to poor mortals, and mean to do all i can for their improvement and happiness." "it is a good resolution," rejoined the old year. "and, by the way, i have a plentiful assortment of good resolutions which have now grown so stale and musty that i am ashamed to carry them any farther. only for fear that the city authorities would send constable mansfield with a warrant after me, i should toss them into the street at once. many other matters go to make up the contents of my bandbox, but the whole lot would not fetch a single bid even at an auction of worn-out furniture; and as they are worth nothing either to you or anybody else, i need not trouble you with a longer catalogue." "and must i also pick up such worthless luggage in my travels?" asked the new year. "most certainly, and well if you have no heavier load to bear," replied the other. "and now, my dear sister, i must bid you farewell, earnestly advising and exhorting you to expect no gratitude nor good-will from this peevish, unreasonable, inconsiderate, ill-intending and worse-behaving world. however warmly its inhabitants may seem to welcome you, yet, do what you may and lavish on them what means of happiness you please, they will still be complaining, still craving what it is not in your power to give, still looking forward to some other year for the accomplishment of projects which ought never to have been formed, and which, if successful, would only provide new occasions of discontent. if these ridiculous people ever see anything tolerable in you, it will be after you are gone for ever." "but i," cried the fresh-hearted new year--"i shall try to leave men wiser than i find them. i will offer them freely whatever good gifts providence permits me to distribute, and will tell them to be thankful for what they have and humbly hopeful for more; and surely, if they are not absolute fools, they will condescend to be happy, and will allow me to be a happy year. for my happiness must depend on them." "alas for you, then, my poor sister!" said the old year, sighing, as she uplifted her burden. "we grandchildren of time are born to trouble. happiness, they say, dwells in the mansions of eternity, but we can only lead mortals thither step by step with reluctant murmurings, and ourselves must perish on the threshold. but hark! my task is done." the clock in the tall steeple of dr. emerson's church struck twelve; there was a response from dr. flint's, in the opposite quarter of the city; and while the strokes were yet dropping into the air the old year either flitted or faded away, and not the wisdom and might of angels, to say nothing of the remorseful yearnings of the millions who had used her ill, could have prevailed with that departed year to return one step. but she, in the company of time and all her kindred, must hereafter hold a reckoning with mankind. so shall it be, likewise, with the maidenly new year, who, as the clock ceased to strike, arose from the steps of the city-hall and set out rather timorously on her earthly course. "a happy new year!" cried a watchman, eying her figure very questionably, but without the least suspicion that he was addressing the new year in person. "thank you kindly," said the new year; and she gave the watchman one of the roses of hope from her basket. "may this flower keep a sweet smell long after i have bidden you good-bye!" then she stepped on more briskly through the silent streets, and such as were awake at the moment heard her footfall and said, "the new year is come!" wherever there was a knot of midnight roisterers, they quaffed her health. she sighed, however, to perceive that the air was tainted--as the atmosphere of this world must continually be--with the dying breaths of mortals who had lingered just long enough for her to bury them. but there were millions left alive to rejoice at her coming, and so she pursued her way with confidence, strewing emblematic flowers on the doorstep of almost every dwelling, which some persons will gather up and wear in their bosoms, and others will trample under foot. the carrier-boy can only say further that early this morning she filled his basket with new year's addresses, assuring him that the whole city, with our new mayor and the aldermen and common council at its head, would make a general rush to secure copies. kind patrons, will not you redeem the pledge of the new year? snowflakes. there is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning, and through the partially-frosted window-panes i love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm. a few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air and hover downward with uncertain flight, now almost alighting on the earth, now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere. these are not the big flakes heavy with moisture which melt as they touch the ground and are portentous of a soaking rain. it is to be in good earnest a wintry storm. the two or three people visible on the sidewalks have an aspect of endurance, a blue-nosed, frosty fortitude, which is evidently assumed in anticipation of a comfortless and blustering day. by nightfall--or, at least, before the sun sheds another glimmering smile upon us--the street and our little garden will be heaped with mountain snowdrifts. the soil, already frozen for weeks past, is prepared to sustain whatever burden may be laid upon it, and to a northern eye the landscape will lose its melancholy bleakness and acquire a beauty of its own when mother earth, like her children, shall have put on the fleecy garb of her winter's wear. the cloud-spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle. as yet, indeed, there is barely a rime like hoar-frost over the brown surface of the street; the withered green of the grass-plat is still discernible, and the slated roofs of the houses do but begin to look gray instead of black. all the snow that has yet fallen within the circumference of my view, were it heaped up together, would hardly equal the hillock of a grave. thus gradually by silent and stealthy influences are great changes wrought. these little snow-particles which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls through the air will bury the great earth under their accumulated mass, nor permit her to behold her sister sky again for dreary months. we likewise shall lose sight of our mother's familiar visage, and must content ourselves with looking heavenward the oftener. now, leaving the storm to do his appointed office, let us sit down, pen in hand, by our fireside. gloomy as it may seem, there is an influence productive of cheerfulness and favorable to imaginative thought in the atmosphere of a snowy day. the native of a southern clime may woo the muse beneath the heavy shade of summer foliage reclining on banks of turf, while the sound of singing-birds and warbling rivulets chimes in with the music of his soul. in our brief summer i do not think, but only exist in the vague enjoyment of a dream. my hour of inspiration--if that hour ever comes--is when the green log hisses upon the hearth, and the bright flame, brighter for the gloom of the chamber, rustles high up the chimney, and the coals drop tinkling down among the growing heaps of ashes. when the casement rattles in the gust and the snowflakes or the sleety raindrops pelt hard against the window-panes, then i spread out my sheet of paper with the certainty that thoughts and fancies will gleam forth upon it like stars at twilight or like violets in may, perhaps to fade as soon. however transitory their glow, they at least shine amid the darksome shadow which the clouds of the outward sky fling through the room. blessed, therefore, and reverently welcomed by me, her true-born son, be new england's winter, which makes us one and all the nurslings of the storm and sings a familiar lullaby even in the wildest shriek of the december blast. now look we forth again and see how much of his task the storm-spirit has done. slow and sure! he has the day--perchance the week--before him, and may take his own time to accomplish nature's burial in snow. a smooth mantle is scarcely yet thrown over the withered grass-plat, and the dry stalks of annuals still thrust themselves through the white surface in all parts of the garden. the leafless rose-bushes stand shivering in a shallow snowdrift, looking, poor things! as disconsolate as if they possessed a human consciousness of the dreary scene. this is a sad time for the shrubs that do not perish with the summer. they neither live nor die; what they retain of life seems but the chilling sense of death. very sad are the flower-shrubs in midwinter. the roofs of the houses are now all white, save where the eddying wind has kept them bare at the bleak corners. to discern the real intensity of the storm, we must fix upon some distant object--as yonder spire--and observe how the riotous gust fights with the descending snow throughout the intervening space. sometimes the entire prospect is obscured; then, again, we have a distinct but transient glimpse of the tall steeple, like a giant's ghost; and now the dense wreaths sweep between, as if demons were flinging snowdrifts at each other in mid-air. look next into the street, where we have an amusing parallel to the combat of those fancied demons in the upper regions. it is a snow-battle of schoolboys. what a pretty satire on war and military glory might be written in the form of a child's story by describing the snow-ball fights of two rival schools, the alternate defeats and victories of each, and the final triumph of one party, or perhaps of neither! what pitched battles worthy to be chanted in homeric strains! what storming of fortresses built all of massive snow-blocks! what feats of individual prowess and embodied onsets of martial enthusiasm! and when some well-contested and decisive victory had put a period to the war, both armies should unite to build a lofty monument of snow upon the battlefield and crown it with the victor's statue hewn of the same frozen marble. in a few days or weeks thereafter the passer-by would observe a shapeless mound upon the level common, and, unmindful of the famous victory, would ask, "how came it there? who reared it? and what means it?" the shattered pedestal of many a battle-monument has provoked these questions when none could answer. turn we again to the fireside and sit musing there, lending our ears to the wind till perhaps it shall seem like an articulate voice and dictate wild and airy matter for the pen. would it might inspire me to sketch out the personification of a new england winter! and that idea, if i can seize the snow-wreathed figures that flit before my fancy, shall be the theme of the next page. how does winter herald his approach? by the shrieking blast of latter autumn which is nature's cry of lamentation as the destroyer rushes among the shivering groves where she has lingered and scatters the sear leaves upon the tempest. when that cry is heard, the people wrap themselves in cloaks and shake their heads disconsolately, saying, "winter is at hand." then the axe of the woodcutter echoes sharp and diligently in the forest; then the coal-merchants rejoice because each shriek of nature in her agony adds something to the price of coal per ton; then the peat-smoke spreads its aromatic fragrance through the atmosphere. a few days more, and at eventide the children look out of the window and dimly perceive the flaunting of a snowy mantle in the air. it is stern winter's vesture. they crowd around the hearth and cling to their mother's gown or press between their father's knees, affrighted by the hollow roaring voice that bellows adown the wide flue of the chimney. it is the voice of winter; and when parents and children hear it, they shudder and exclaim, "winter is come. cold winter has begun his reign already." now throughout new england each hearth becomes an altar sending up the smoke of a continued sacrifice to the immitigable deity who tyrannizes over forest, country-side and town. wrapped in his white mantle, his staff a huge icicle, his beard and hair a wind-tossed snowdrift, he travels over the land in the midst of the northern blast, and woe to the homeless wanderer whom he finds upon his path! there he lies stark and stiff, a human shape of ice, on the spot where winter overtook him. on strides the tyrant over the rushing rivers and broad lakes, which turn to rock beneath his footsteps. his dreary empire is established; all around stretches the desolation of the pole. yet not ungrateful be his new england children (for winter is our sire, though a stern and rough one)--not ungrateful even for the severities which have nourished our unyielding strength of character. and let us thank him, too, for the sleigh-rides cheered by the music of merry bells; for the crackling and rustling hearth when the ruddy firelight gleams on hardy manhood and the blooming cheek of woman: for all the home-enjoyments and the kindred virtues which flourish in a frozen soil. not that we grieve when, after some seven months of storm and bitter frost, spring, in the guise of a flower-crowned virgin, is seen driving away the hoary despot, pelting him with violets by the handful and strewing green grass on the path behind him. often ere he will give up his empire old winter rushes fiercely buck and hurls a snowdrift at the shrinking form of spring, yet step by step he is compelled to retreat northward, and spends the summer month within the arctic circle. such fantasies, intermixed among graver toils of mind, have made the winter's day pass pleasantly. meanwhile, the storm has raged without abatement, and now, as the brief afternoon declines, is tossing denser volumes to and fro about the atmosphere. on the window-sill there is a layer of snow reaching halfway up the lowest pane of glass. the garden is one unbroken bed. along the street are two or three spots of uncovered earth where the gust has whirled away the snow, heaping it elsewhere to the fence-tops or piling huge banks against the doors of houses. a solitary passenger is seen, now striding mid-leg deep across a drift, now scudding over the bare ground, while his cloak is swollen with the wind. and now the jingling of bells--a sluggish sound responsive to the horse's toilsome progress through the unbroken drifts--announces the passage of a sleigh with a boy clinging behind and ducking his head to escape detection by the driver. next comes a sledge laden with wood for some unthrifty housekeeper whom winter has surprised at a cold hearth. but what dismal equipage now struggles along the uneven street? a sable hearse bestrewn with snow is bearing a dead man through the storm to his frozen bed. oh how dreary is a burial in winter, when the bosom of mother earth has no warmth for her poor child! evening--the early eve of december--begins to spread its deepening veil over the comfortless scene. the firelight gradually brightens and throws my flickering shadow upon the walls and ceiling of the chamber, but still the storm rages and rattles against the windows. alas! i shiver and think it time to be disconsolate, but, taking a farewell glance at dead nature in her shroud, i perceive a flock of snowbirds skimming lightsomely through the tempest and flitting from drift to drift as sportively as swallows in the delightful prime of summer. whence come they? where do they build their nests and seek their food? why, having airy wings, do they not follow summer around the earth, instead of making themselves the playmates of the storm and fluttering on the dreary verge of the winter's eve? i know not whence they come, nor why; yet my spirit has been cheered by that wandering flock of snow-birds. the seven vagabonds. rambling on foot in the spring of my life and the summer of the year, i came one afternoon to a point which gave me the choice of three directions. straight before me the main road extended its dusty length to boston; on the left a branch went toward the sea, and would have lengthened my journey a trifle of twenty or thirty miles, while by the right-hand path i might have gone over hills and lakes to canada, visiting in my way the celebrated town of stamford. on a level spot of grass at the foot of the guide-post appeared an object which, though locomotive on a different principle, reminded me of gulliver's portable mansion among the brobdignags. it was a huge covered wagon--or, more properly, a small house on wheels--with a door on one side and a window shaded by green blinds on the other. two horses munching provender out of the baskets which muzzled them were fastened near the vehicle. a delectable sound of music proceeded from the interior, and i immediately conjectured that this was some itinerant show halting at the confluence of the roads to intercept such idle travellers as myself. a shower had long been climbing up the western sky, and now hung so blackly over my onward path that it was a point of wisdom to seek shelter here. "halloo! who stands guard here? is the doorkeeper asleep?" cried i, approaching a ladder of two or three steps which was let down from the wagon. the music ceased at my summons, and there appeared at the door, not the sort of figure that i had mentally assigned to the wandering showman, but a most respectable old personage whom i was sorry to have addressed in so free a style. he wore a snuff-colored coat and small-clothes, with white top-boots, and exhibited the mild dignity of aspect and manner which may often be noticed in aged schoolmasters, and sometimes in deacons, selectmen or other potentates of that kind. a small piece of silver was my passport within his premises, where i found only one other person, hereafter to be described. "this is a dull day for business," said the old gentleman as he ushered me in; "but i merely tarry here to refresh the cattle, being bound for the camp-meeting at stamford." perhaps the movable scene of this narrative is still peregrinating new england, and may enable the reader to test the accuracy of my description. the spectacle--for i will not use the unworthy term of "puppet-show"--consisted of a multitude of little people assembled on a miniature stage. among them were artisans of every kind in the attitudes of their toil, and a group of fair ladies and gay gentlemen standing ready for the dance; a company of foot-soldiers formed a line across the stage, looking stern, grim and terrible enough to make it a pleasant consideration that they were but three inches high; and conspicuous above the whole was seen a merry andrew in the pointed cap and motley coat of his profession. all the inhabitants of this mimic world were motionless, like the figures in a picture, or like that people who one moment were alive in the midst of their business and delights and the next were transformed to statues, preserving an eternal semblance of labor that was ended and pleasure that could be felt no more. anon, however, the old gentleman turned the handle of a barrel-organ, the first note of which produced a most enlivening effect upon the figures and awoke them all to their proper occupations and amusements. by the selfsame impulse the tailor plied his needle, the blacksmith's hammer descended upon the anvil and the dancers whirled away on feathery tiptoes; the company of soldiers broke into platoons, retreated from the stage, and were succeeded by a troop of horse, who came prancing onward with such a sound of trumpets and trampling of hoofs as might have startled don quixote himself; while an old toper of inveterate ill-habits uplifted his black bottle and took off a hearty swig. meantime, the merry andrew began to caper and turn somersets, shaking his sides, nodding his head and winking his eyes in as lifelike a manner as if he were ridiculing the nonsense of all human affairs and making fun of the whole multitude beneath him. at length the old magician (for i compared the showman to prospero entertaining his guests with a masque of shadows) paused that i might give utterance to my wonder. "what an admirable piece of work is this!" exclaimed i, lifting up my hands in astonishment. indeed, i liked the spectacle and was tickled with the old man's gravity as he presided at it, for i had none of that foolish wisdom which reproves every occupation that is not useful in this world of vanities. if there be a faculty which i possess more perfectly than most men, it is that of throwing myself mentally into situations foreign to my own and detecting with a cheerful eye the desirable circumstances of each. i could have envied the life of this gray-headed showman, spent as it had been in a course of safe and pleasurable adventure in driving his huge vehicle sometimes through the sands of cape cod and sometimes over the rough forest-roads of the north and east, and halting now on the green before a village meeting-house and now in a paved square of the metropolis. how often must his heart have been gladdened by the delight of children as they viewed these animated figures, or his pride indulged by haranguing learnedly to grown men on the mechanical powers which produced such wonderful effects, or his gallantry brought into play--for this is an attribute which such grave men do not lack--by the visits of pretty maidens! and then with how fresh a feeling must he return at intervals to his own peculiar home! "i would i were assured of as happy a life as his," thought i. though the showman's wagon might have accommodated fifteen or twenty spectators, it now contained only himself and me and a third person, at whom i threw a glance on entering. he was a neat and trim young man of two or three and twenty; his drab hat and green frock-coat with velvet collar were smart, though no longer new, while a pair of green spectacles that seemed needless to his brisk little eyes gave him something of a scholar-like and literary air. after allowing me a sufficient time to inspect the puppets, he advanced with a bow and drew my attention to some books in a corner of the wagon. these he forthwith began to extol with an amazing volubility of well-sounding words and an ingenuity of praise that won him my heart as being myself one of the most merciful of critics. indeed, his stock required some considerable powers of commendation in the salesman. there were several ancient friends of mine--the novels of those happy days when my affections wavered between the _scottish chiefs_ and _thomas thumb_--besides a few of later date whose merits had not been acknowledged by the public. i was glad to find that dear little venerable volume the _new england primer_, looking as antique as ever, though in its thousandth new edition; a bundle of superannuated gilt picture-books made such a child of me that, partly for the glittering covers and partly for the fairy-tales within, i bought the whole, and an assortment of ballads and popular theatrical songs drew largely on my purse. to balance these expenditures, i meddled neither with sermons nor science nor morality, though volumes of each were there, nor with a _life of franklin_ in the coarsest of paper, but so showily bound that it was emblematical of the doctor himself in the court-dress which he refused to wear at paris, nor with webster's spelling-book, nor some of byron's minor poems, nor half a dozen little testaments at twenty-five cents each. thus far the collection might have been swept from some great bookstore or picked up at an evening auction-room, but there was one small blue-covered pamphlet which the pedler handed me with so peculiar an air that i purchased it immediately at his own price; and then for the first time the thought struck me that i had spoken face to face with the veritable author of a printed book. the literary-man now evinced a great kindness for me, and i ventured to inquire which way he was travelling. "oh," said he, "i keep company with this old gentlemen here, and we are moving now toward the camp-meeting at stamford." he then explained to me that for the present season he had rented a corner of the wagon as a book-store, which, as he wittily observed, was a true circulating library, since there were few parts of the country where it had not gone its rounds. i approved of the plan exceedingly, and began to sum up within my mind the many uncommon felicities in the life of a book-pedler, especially when his character resembled that of the individual before me. at a high rate was to be reckoned the daily and hourly enjoyment of such interviews as the present, in which he seized upon the admiration of a passing stranger and made him aware that a man of literary taste, and even of literary achievement, was travelling the country in a showman's wagon. a more valuable yet not infrequent triumph might be won in his conversations with some elderly clergyman long vegetating in a rocky, woody, watery back-settlement of new england, who as he recruited his library from the pedler's stock of sermons would exhort him to seek a college education and become the first scholar in his class. sweeter and prouder yet would be his sensations when, talking poetry while he sold spelling-books, he should charm the mind, and haply touch the heart, of a fair country schoolmistress, herself an unhonored poetess, a wearer of blue stockings which none but himself took pains to look at. but the scene of his completest glory would be when the wagon had halted for the night and his stock of books was transferred to some crowded bar-room. then would he recommend to the multifarious company, whether traveller from the city, or teamster from the hills, or neighboring squire, or the landlord himself, or his loutish hostler, works suited to each particular taste and capacity, proving, all the while, by acute criticism and profound remark, that the lore in his books was even exceeded by that in his brain. thus happily would he traverse the land, sometimes a herald before the march of mind, sometimes walking arm in arm with awful literature, and reaping everywhere a harvest of real and sensible popularity which the secluded bookworms by whose toil he lived could never hope for. "if ever i meddle with literature," thought i, fixing myself in adamantine resolution, "it shall be as a travelling bookseller." though it was still mid-afternoon, the air had now grown dark about us, and a few drops of rain came down upon the roof of our vehicle, pattering like the feet of birds that had flown thither to rest. a sound of pleasant voices made us listen, and there soon appeared halfway up the ladder the pretty person of a young damsel whose rosy face was so cheerful that even amid the gloomy light it seemed as if the sunbeams were peeping under her bonnet. we next saw the dark and handsome features of a young man who, with easier gallantry than might have been expected in the heart of yankee-land, was assisting her into the wagon. it became immediately evident to us, when the two strangers stood within the door, that they were of a profession kindred to those of my companions, and i was delighted with the more than hospitable--the even paternal--kindness of the old showman's manner as he welcomed them, while the man of literature hastened to lead the merry-eyed girl to a seat on the long bench. "you are housed but just in time, my young friends," said the master of the wagon; "the sky would have been down upon you within five minutes." the young man's reply marked him as a foreigner--not by any variation from the idiom and accent of good english, but because he spoke with more caution and accuracy than if perfectly familiar with the language. "we knew that a shower was hanging over us," said he, "and consulted whether it were best to enter the house on the top of yonder hill, but, seeing your wagon in the road--" "we agreed to come hither," interrupted the girl, with a smile, "because we should be more at home in a wandering house like this." i, meanwhile, with many a wild and undetermined fantasy was narrowly inspecting these two doves that had flown into our ark. the young man, tall, agile and athletic, wore a mass of black shining curls clustering round a dark and vivacious countenance which, if it had not greater expression, was at least more active and attracted readier notice, than the quiet faces of our countrymen. at his first appearance he had been laden with a neat mahogany box of about two feet square, but very light in proportion to its size, which he had immediately unstrapped from his shoulders and deposited on the floor of the wagon. the girl had nearly as fair a complexion as our own beauties, and a brighter one than most of them; the lightness of her figure, which seemed calculated to traverse the whole world without weariness, suited well with the glowing cheerfulness of her face, and her gay attire, combining the rainbow hues of crimson, green and a deep orange, was as proper to her lightsome aspect as if she had been born in it. this gay stranger was appropriately burdened with that mirth-inspiring instrument the fiddle, which her companion took from her hands, and shortly began the process of tuning. neither of us the previous company of the wagon needed to inquire their trade, for this could be no mystery to frequenters of brigade-musters, ordinations, cattle-shows, commencements, and other festal meetings in our sober land; and there is a dear friend of mine who will smile when this page recalls to his memory a chivalrous deed performed by us in rescuing the show-box of such a couple from a mob of great double-fisted countrymen. "come," said i to the damsel of gay attire; "shall we visit all the wonders of the world together?" she understood the metaphor at once, though, indeed, it would not much have troubled me if she had assented to the literal meaning of my words. the mahogany box was placed in a proper position, and i peeped in through its small round magnifying-window while the girl sat by my side and gave short descriptive sketches as one after another the pictures were unfolded to my view. we visited together--at least, our imaginations did--full many a famous city in the streets of which i had long yearned to tread. once, i remember, we were in the harbor of barcelona, gazing townward; next, she bore me through the air to sicily and bade me look up at blazing Ã�tna; then we took wing to venice and sat in a gondola beneath the arch of the rialto, and anon she set me down among the thronged spectators at the coronation of napoleon. but there was one scene--its locality she could not tell--which charmed my attention longer than all those gorgeous palaces and churches, because the fancy haunted me that i myself the preceding summer had beheld just such a humble meeting-house, in just such a pine-surrounded nook, among our own green mountains. all these pictures were tolerably executed, though far inferior to the girl's touches of description; nor was it easy to comprehend how in so few sentences, and these, as i supposed, in a language foreign to her, she contrived to present an airy copy of each varied scene. when we had travelled through the vast extent of the mahogany box, i looked into my guide's face. "'where are you going, my pretty maid?'" inquired i, in the words of an old song. "ah!" said the gay damsel; "you might as well ask where the summer wind is going. we are wanderers here and there and everywhere. wherever there is mirth our merry hearts are drawn to it. to-day, indeed, the people have told us of a great frolic and festival in these parts; so perhaps we may be needed at what you call the camp-meeting at stamford." then, in my happy youth, and while her pleasant voice yet sounded in my ears, i sighed; for none but myself, i thought, should have been her companion in a life which seemed to realize my own wild fancies cherished all through visionary boyhood to that hour. to these two strangers the world was in its golden age--not that, indeed, it was less dark and sad than ever, but because its weariness and sorrow had no community with their ethereal nature. wherever they might appear in their pilgrimage of bliss, youth would echo back their gladness, care-stricken maturity would rest a moment from its toil, and age, tottering among the graves, would smile in withered joy for their sakes. the lonely cot, the narrow and gloomy street, the sombre shade, would catch a passing gleam like that now shining on ourselves as these bright spirits wandered by. blessed pair, whose happy home was throughout all the earth! i looked at my shoulders, and thought them broad enough to sustain those pictured towns and mountains; mine, too, was an elastic foot as tireless as the wing of the bird of paradise; mine was then an untroubled heart that would have gone singing on its delightful way. "oh, maiden," said i aloud, "why did you not come hither alone?" while the merry girl and myself were busy with the show-box the unceasing rain had driven another wayfarer into the wagon. he seemed pretty nearly of the old showman's age, but much smaller, leaner and more withered than he, and less respectably clad in a patched suit of gray; withal, he had a thin, shrewd countenance and a pair of diminutive gray eyes, which peeped rather too keenly out of their puckered sockets. this old fellow had been joking with the showman in a manner which intimated previous acquaintance, but, perceiving that the damsel and i had terminated our affairs, he drew forth a folded document and presented it to me. as i had anticipated, it proved to be a circular, written in a very fair and legible hand and signed by several distinguished gentlemen whom i had never heard of, stating that the bearer had encountered every variety of misfortune and recommending him to the notice of all charitable people. previous disbursements had left me no more than a five-dollar bill, out of which, however, i offered to make the beggar a donation provided he would give me change for it. the object of my beneficence looked keenly in my face, and discerned that i had none of that abominable spirit, characteristic though it be, of a full-blooded yankee, which takes pleasure in detecting every little harmless piece of knavery. "why, perhaps," said the ragged old mendicant, "if the bank is in good standing, i can't say but i may have enough about me to change your bill." "it is a bill of the suffolk bank," said i, "and better than the specie." as the beggar had nothing to object, he now produced a small buff leather bag tied up carefully with a shoe-string. when this was opened, there appeared a very comfortable treasure of silver coins of all sorts and sizes, and i even fancied that i saw gleaming among them the golden plumage of that rare bird in our currency the american eagle. in this precious heap was my bank-note deposited, the rate of exchange being considerably against me. his wants being thus relieved, the destitute man pulled out of his pocket an old pack of greasy cards which had probably contributed to fill the buff leather bag in more ways than one. "come!" said he; "i spy a rare fortune in your face, and for twenty-five cents more i'll tell you what it is." i never refuse to take a glimpse into futurity; so, after shuffling the cards and when the fair damsel had cut them, i dealt a portion to the prophetic beggar. like others of his profession, before predicting the shadowy events that were moving on to meet me he gave proof of his preternatural science by describing scenes through which i had already passed. here let me have credit for a sober fact. when the old man had read a page in his book of fate, he bent his keen gray eyes on mine and proceeded to relate in all its minute particulars what was then the most singular event of my life. it was one which i had no purpose to disclose till the general unfolding of all secrets, nor would it be a much stranger instance of inscrutable knowledge or fortunate conjecture if the beggar were to meet me in the street today and repeat word for word the page which i have here written. the fortune-teller, after predicting a destiny which time seems loth to make good, put up his cards, secreted his treasure-bag and began to converse with the other occupants of the wagon. "well, old friend," said the showman, "you have not yet told us which way your face is turned this afternoon." "i am taking a trip northward this warm weather," replied the conjurer, "across the connecticut first, and then up through vermont, and maybe into canada before the fall. but i must stop and see the breaking up of the camp-meeting at stamford." i began to think that all the vagrants in new england were converging to the camp-meeting and had made this wagon, their rendezvous by the way. the showman now proposed that when the shower was over they should pursue the road to stamford together, it being sometimes the policy of these people to form a sort of league and confederacy. "and the young lady too," observed the gallant bibliopolist, bowing to her profoundly, "and this foreign gentleman, as i understand, are on a jaunt of pleasure to the same spot. it would add incalculably to my own enjoyment, and i presume to that of my colleague and his friend, if they could be prevailed upon to join our party." this arrangement met with approbation on all hands, nor were any of those concerned more sensible of its advantages than myself, who had no title to be included in it. having already satisfied myself as to the several modes in which the four others attained felicity, i next set my mind at work to discover what enjoyments were peculiar to the old "straggler," as the people of the country would have termed the wandering mendicant and prophet. as he pretended to familiarity with the devil, so i fancied that he was fitted to pursue and take delight in his way of life by possessing some of the mental and moral characteristics--the lighter and more comic ones--of the devil in popular stories. among them might be reckoned a love of deception for its own sake, a shrewd eye and keen relish for human weakness and ridiculous infirmity, and the talent of petty fraud. thus to this old man there would be pleasure even in the consciousness--so insupportable to some minds--that his whole life was a cheat upon the world, and that, so far as he was concerned with the public, his little cunning had the upper hand of its united wisdom. every day would furnish him with a succession of minute and pungent triumphs--as when, for instance, his importunity wrung a pittance out of the heart of a miser, or when my silly good-nature transferred a part of my slender purse to his plump leather bag, or when some ostentatious gentleman should throw a coin to the ragged beggar who was richer than himself, or when--though he would not always be so decidedly diabolical--his pretended wants should make him a sharer in the scanty living of real indigence. and then what an inexhaustible field of enjoyment, both as enabling him to discern so much folly and achieve such quantities of minor mischief, was opened to his sneering spirit by his pretensions to prophetic knowledge. all this was a sort of happiness which i could conceive of, though i had little sympathy with it. perhaps, had i been then inclined to admit it, i might have found that the roving life was more proper to him than to either of his companions; for satan, to whom i had compared the poor man, has delighted, ever since the time of job, in "wandering up and down upon the earth," and, indeed, a crafty disposition which operates not in deep-laid plans, but in disconnected tricks, could not have an adequate scope, unless naturally impelled to a continual change of scene and society. my reflections were here interrupted. "another visitor!" exclaimed the old showman. the door of the wagon had been closed against the tempest, which was roaring and blustering with prodigious fury and commotion and beating violently against our shelter, as if it claimed all those homeless people for its lawful prey, while we, caring little for the displeasure of the elements, sat comfortably talking. there was now an attempt to open the door, succeeded by a voice uttering some strange, unintelligible gibberish which my companions mistook for greek and i suspected to be thieves' latin. however, the showman stepped forward and gave admittance to a figure which made me imagine either that our wagon had rolled back two hundred years into past ages or that the forest and its old inhabitants had sprung up around us by enchantment. it was a red indian armed with his bow and arrow. his dress was a sort of cap adorned with a single feather of some wild bird, and a frock of blue cotton girded tight about him; on his breast, like orders of knighthood, hung a crescent and a circle and other ornaments of silver, while a small crucifix betokened that our father the pope had interposed between the indian and the great spirit whom he had worshipped in his simplicity. this son of the wilderness and pilgrim of the storm took his place silently in the midst of us. when the first surprise was over, i rightly conjectured him to be one of the penobscot tribe, parties of which i had often seen in their summer excursions down our eastern rivers. there they paddle their birch canoes among the coasting-schooners, and build their wigwam beside some roaring mill-dam, and drive a little trade in basket-work where their fathers hunted deer. our new visitor was probably wandering through the country toward boston, subsisting on the careless charity of the people while he turned his archery to profitable account by shooting at cents which were to be the prize of his successful aim. the indian had not long been seated ere our merry damsel sought to draw him into conversation. she, indeed, seemed all made up of sunshine in the month of may, for there was nothing so dark and dismal that her pleasant mind could not cast a glow over it; and the wild man, like a fir tree in his native forest, soon began to brighten into a sort of sombre cheerfulness. at length she inquired whether his journey had any particular end or purpose. "i go shoot at the camp-meeting at stamford," replied the indian. "and here are five more," said the girl, "all aiming at the camp-meeting too. you shall be one of us, for we travel with light hearts; and, as for me, i sing merry songs and tell merry tales and am full of merry thoughts, and i dance merrily along the road, so that there is never any sadness among them that keep me company. but oh, you would find it very dull indeed to go all the way to stamford alone." my ideas of the aboriginal character led me to fear that the indian would prefer his own solitary musings to the gay society thus offered him; on the contrary, the girl's proposal met with immediate acceptance and seemed to animate him with a misty expectation of enjoyment. i now gave myself up to a course of thought which, whether it flowed naturally from this combination of events or was drawn forth by a wayward fancy, caused my mind to thrill as if i were listening to deep music. i saw mankind in this weary old age of the world either enduring a sluggish existence amid the smoke and dust of cities, or, if they breathed a purer air, still lying down at night with no hope but to wear out to-morrow, and all the to-morrows which make up life, among the same dull scenes and in the same wretched toil that had darkened the sunshine of today. but there were some full of the primeval instinct who preserved the freshness of youth to their latest years by the continual excitement of new objects, new pursuits and new associates, and cared little, though their birthplace might have been here in new england, if the grave should close over them in central asia. fate was summoning a parliament of these free spirits; unconscious of the impulse which directed them to a common centre, they had come hither from far and near, and last of all appeared the representatives of those mighty vagrants who had chased the deer during thousands of years, and were chasing it now in the spirit-land. wandering down through the waste of ages, the woods had vanished around his path; his arm had lost somewhat of its strength, his foot of its fleetness, his mien of its wild regality, his heart and mind of their savage virtue and uncultured force, but here, untamable to the routine of artificial life, roving now along the dusty road as of old over the forest-leaves,--here was the indian still. "well," said the old showman, in the midst of my meditations, "here is an honest company of us--one, two, three, four, five, six--all going to the camp-meeting at stamford. now, hoping no offence, i should like to know where this young gentleman may be going?" i started. how came i among these wanderers? the free mind that preferred its own folly to another's wisdom, the open spirit that found companions everywhere--above all, the restless impulse that had so often made me wretched in the midst of enjoyments,--these were my claims to be of their society. "my friends," cried i, stepping into the centre of the wagon, "i am going with you to the camp-meeting at stamford." "but in what capacity?" asked the old showman, after a moment's silence. "all of us here can get our bread in some creditable way. every honest man should have his livelihood. you, sir, as i take it, are a mere strolling gentleman." i proceeded to inform the company that when nature gave me a propensity to their way of life she had not left me altogether destitute of qualifications for it, though i could not deny that my talent was less respectable, and might be less profitable, than the meanest of theirs. my design, in short, was to imitate the story-tellers of whom oriental travellers have told us, and become an itinerant novelist, reciting my own extemporaneous fictions to such audiences as i could collect. "either this," said i, "is my vocation, or i have been born in vain." the fortune-teller, with a sly wink to the company, proposed to take me as an apprentice to one or other of his professions, either of which undoubtedly would have given full scope to whatever inventive talent i might possess. the bibliopolist spoke a few words in opposition to my plan--influenced partly, i suspect, by the jealousy of authorship, and partly by an apprehension that the _vivâ-voce_ practice would become general among novelists, to the infinite detriment of the book trade. dreading a rejection, i solicited the interest of the merry damsel. "'mirth,'" cried i, most aptly appropriating the words of l'allegro, "'to thee i sue! mirth, admit me of thy crew!'" "let us indulge the poor youth," said mirth, with a kindness which made me love her dearly, though i was no such coxcomb as to misinterpret her motives. "i have espied much promise in him. true, a shadow sometimes flits across his brow, but the sunshine is sure to follow in a moment. he is never guilty of a sad thought but a merry one is twin-born with it. we will take him with us, and you shall see that he will set us all a-laughing before we reach the camp-meeting at stamford." her voice silenced the scruples of the rest and gained me admittance into the league; according to the terms of which, without a community of goods or profits, we were to lend each other all the aid and avert all the harm that might be in our power. this affair settled, a marvellous jollity entered into the whole tribe of us, manifesting itself characteristically in each individual. the old showman, sitting down to his barrel-organ, stirred up the souls of the pigmy people with one of the quickest tunes in the music-book; tailors, blacksmiths, gentlemen and ladies all seemed to share in the spirit of the occasion, and the merry andrew played his part more facetiously than ever, nodding and winking particularly at me. the young foreigner flourished his fiddle-bow with a master's hand, and gave an inspiring echo to the showman's melody. the bookish man and the merry damsel started up simultaneously to dance, the former enacting the double shuffle in a style which everybody must have witnessed ere election week was blotted out of time, while the girl, setting her arms akimbo with both hands at her slim waist, displayed such light rapidity of foot and harmony of varying attitude and motion that i could not conceive how she ever was to stop, imagining at the moment that nature had made her, as the old showman had made his puppets, for no earthly purpose but to dance jigs. the indian bellowed forth a succession of most hideous outcries, somewhat affrighting us till we interpreted them as the war-song with which, in imitation of his ancestors, he was prefacing the assault on stamford. the conjurer, meanwhile, sat demurely in a corner extracting a sly enjoyment from the whole scene, and, like the facetious merry andrew, directing his queer glance particularly at me. as for myself, with great exhilaration of fancy, i began to arrange and color the incidents of a tale wherewith i proposed to amuse an audience that very evening; for i saw that my associates were a little ashamed of me, and that no time was to be lost in obtaining a public acknowledgment of my abilities. "come, fellow-laborers," at last said the old showman, whom we had elected president; "the shower is over, and we must be doing our duty by these poor souls at stamford." "we'll come among them in procession, with music and dancing," cried the merry damsel. accordingly--for it must be understood that our pilgrimage was to be performed on foot--we sallied joyously out of the wagon, each of us, even the old gentleman in his white top-boots, giving a great skip as we came down the ladder. above our heads there was such a glory of sunshine and splendor of clouds, and such brightness of verdure below, that, as i modestly remarked at the time, nature seemed to have washed her face and put on the best of her jewelry and a fresh green gown in honor of our confederation. casting our eyes northward, we beheld a horseman approaching leisurely and splashing through the little puddle on the stamford road. onward he came, sticking up in his saddle with rigid perpendicularity, a tall, thin figure in rusty black, whom the showman and the conjurer shortly recognized to be what his aspect sufficiently indicated--a travelling preacher of great fame among the methodists. what puzzled us was the fact that his face appeared turned from, instead of to, the camp-meeting at stamford. however, as this new votary of the wandering life drew near the little green space where the guide-post and our wagon were situated, my six fellow-vagabonds and myself rushed forward and surrounded him, crying out with united voices, "what news? what news from the camp-meeting at stamford?" the missionary looked down in surprise at as singular a knot of people as could have been selected from all his heterogeneous auditors. indeed, considering that we might all be classified under the general head of vagabond, there was great diversity of character among the grave old showman, the sly, prophetic beggar, the fiddling foreigner and his merry damsel, the smart bibliopolist, the sombre indian and myself, the itinerant novelist, a slender youth of eighteen. i even fancied that a smile was endeavoring to disturb the iron gravity of the preacher's mouth. "good people," answered he, "the camp-meeting is broke up." so saying, the methodist minister switched his steed and rode westward. our union being thus nullified by the removal of its object, we were sundered at once to the four winds of heaven. the fortune-teller, giving a nod to all and a peculiar wink to me, departed on his northern tour, chuckling within himself as he took the stamford road. the old showman and his literary coadjutor were already tackling their horses to the wagon with a design to peregrinate south-west along the sea-coast. the foreigner and the merry damsel took their laughing leave and pursued the eastern road, which i had that day trodden; as they passed away the young man played a lively strain and the girl's happy spirit broke into a dance, and, thus dissolving, as it were, into sunbeams and gay music, that pleasant pair departed from my view. finally, with a pensive shadow thrown across my mind, yet emulous of the light philosophy of my late companions, i joined myself to the penobscot indian and set forth toward the distant city. the white old maid. the moonbeams came through two deep and narrow windows and showed a spacious chamber richly furnished in an antique fashion. from one lattice the shadow of the diamond panes was thrown upon the floor; the ghostly light through the other slept upon a bed, falling between the heavy silken curtains and illuminating the face of a young man. but how quietly the slumberer lay! how pale his features! and how like a shroud the sheet was wound about his frame! yes, it was a corpse in its burial-clothes. suddenly the fixed features seemed to move with dark emotion. strange fantasy! it was but the shadow of the fringed curtain waving betwixt the dead face and the moonlight as the door of the chamber opened and a girl stole softly to the bedside. was there delusion in the moonbeams, or did her gesture and her eye betray a gleam of triumph as she bent over the pale corpse, pale as itself, and pressed her living lips to the cold ones of the dead? as she drew back from that long kiss her features writhed as if a proud heart were fighting with its anguish. again it seemed that the features of the corpse had moved responsive to her own. still an illusion. the silken curtains had waved a second time betwixt the dead face and the moonlight as another fair young girl unclosed the door and glided ghostlike to the bedside. there the two maidens stood, both beautiful, with the pale beauty of the dead between them. but she who had first entered was proud and stately, and the other a soft and fragile thing. "away!" cried the lofty one. "thou hadst him living; the dead is mine." "thine!" returned the other, shuddering. "well hast thou spoken; the dead is thine." the proud girl started and stared into her face with a ghastly look, but a wild-and mournful expression passed across the features of the gentle one, and, weak and helpless, she sank down on the bed, her head pillowed beside that of the corpse and her hair mingling with his dark locks. a creature of hope and joy, the first draught of sorrow had bewildered her. "edith!" cried her rival. edith groaned as with a sudden compression of the heart, and, removing her cheek from the dead youth's pillow, she stood upright, fearfully encountering the eyes of the lofty girl. "wilt thou betray me?" said the latter, calmly. "till the dead bid me speak i will be silent," answered edith. "leave us alone together. go and live many years, and then return and tell me of thy life. he too will be here. then, if thou tellest of sufferings more than death, we will both forgive thee." "and what shall be the token?" asked the proud girl, as if her heart acknowledged a meaning in these wild words. "this lock of hair," said edith, lifting one of the dark clustering curls that lay heavily on the dead man's brow. the two maidens joined their hands over the bosom of the corpse and appointed a day and hour far, far in time to come for their next meeting in that chamber. the statelier girl gave one deep look at the motionless countenance and departed, yet turned again and trembled ere she closed the door, almost believing that her dead lover frowned upon her. and edith, too! was not her white form fading into the moonlight? scorning her own weakness, she went forth and perceived that a negro slave was waiting in the passage with a waxlight, which he held between her face and his own and regarded her, as she thought, with an ugly expression of merriment. lifting his torch on high, the slave lighted her down the staircase and undid the portal of the mansion. the young clergyman of the town had just ascended the steps, and, bowing to the lady, passed in without a word. years--many years--rolled on. the world seemed new again, so much older was it grown since the night when those pale girls had clasped their hands across the bosom of the corpse. in the interval a lonely woman had passed from youth to extreme age, and was known by all the town as the "old maid in the winding-sheet." a taint of insanity had affected her whole life, but so quiet, sad and gentle, so utterly free from violence, that she was suffered to pursue her harmless fantasies unmolested by the world with whose business or pleasures she had naught to do. she dwelt alone, and never came into the daylight except to follow funerals. whenever a corpse was borne along the street, in sunshine, rain or snow, whether a pompous train of the rich and proud thronged after it or few and humble were the mourners, behind them came the lonely woman in a long white garment which the people called her shroud. she took no place among the kindred or the friends, but stood at the door to hear the funeral prayer, and walked in the rear of the procession as one whose earthly charge it was to haunt the house of mourning and be the shadow of affliction and see that the dead were duly buried. so long had this been her custom that the inhabitants of the town deemed her a part of every funeral, as much as the coffin-pall or the very corpse itself, and augured ill of the sinner's destiny unless the old maid in the winding-sheet came gliding like a ghost behind. once, it is said, she affrighted a bridal-party with her pale presence, appearing suddenly in the illuminated hall just as the priest was uniting a false maid to a wealthy man before her lover had been dead a year. evil was the omen to that marriage. sometimes she stole forth by moonlight and visited the graves of venerable integrity and wedded love and virgin innocence, and every spot where the ashes of a kind and faithful heart were mouldering. over the hillocks of those favored dead would she stretch out her arms with a gesture as if she were scattering seeds, and many believed that she brought them from the garden of paradise, for the graves which she had visited were green beneath the snow and covered with sweet flowers from april to november. her blessing was better than a holy verse upon the tombstone. thus wore away her long, sad, peaceful and fantastic life till few were so old as she, and the people of later generations wondered how the dead had ever been buried or mourners had endured their grief without the old maid in the winding-sheet. still years went on, and still she followed funerals and was not yet summoned to her own festival of death. one afternoon the great street of the town was all alive with business and bustle, though the sun now gilded only the upper half of the church-spire, having left the housetops and loftiest trees in shadow. the scene was cheerful and animated in spite of the sombre shade between the high brick buildings. here were pompous merchants in white wigs and laced velvet, the bronzed faces of sea-captains, the foreign garb and air of spanish creoles, and the disdainful port of natives of old england, all contrasted with the rough aspect of one or two back-settlers negotiating sales of timber from forests where axe had never sounded. sometimes a lady passed, swelling roundly forth in an embroidered petticoat, balancing her steps in high-heeled shoes and courtesying with lofty grace to the punctilious obeisances of the gentlemen. the life of the town seemed to have its very centre not far from an old mansion that stood somewhat back from the pavement, surrounded by neglected grass, with a strange air of loneliness rather deepened than dispelled by the throng so near it. its site would have been suitably occupied by a magnificent exchange or a brick block lettered all over with various signs, or the large house itself might have made a noble tavern with the "king's arms" swinging before it and guests in every chamber, instead of the present solitude. but, owing to some dispute about the right of inheritance, the mansion had been long without a tenant, decaying from year to year and throwing the stately gloom of its shadow over the busiest part of the town. such was the scene, and such the time, when a figure unlike any that have been described was observed at a distance down the street. "i espy a strange sail yonder," remarked a liverpool captain--"that woman in the long white garment." the sailor seemed much struck by the object, as were several others who at the same moment caught a glimpse of the figure that had attracted his notice. almost immediately the various topics of conversation gave place to speculations in an undertone on this unwonted occurrence. "can there be a funeral so late this afternoon?" inquired some. they looked for the signs of death at every door--the sexton, the hearse, the assemblage of black-clad relatives, all that makes up the woeful pomp of funerals. they raised their eyes, also, to the sun-gilt spire of the church, and wondered that no clang proceeded from its bell, which had always tolled till now when this figure appeared in the light of day. but none had heard that a corpse was to be borne to its home that afternoon, nor was there any token of a funeral except the apparition of the old maid in the winding-sheet. "what may this portend?" asked each man of his neighbor. all smiled as they put the question, yet with a certain trouble in their eyes, as if pestilence, or some other wide calamity, were prognosticated by the untimely intrusion among the living of one whose presence had always been associated with death and woe. what a comet is to the earth was that sad woman to the town. still she moved on, while the hum of surprise was hushed at her approach, and the proud and the humble stood aside that her white garment might not wave against them. it was a long, loose robe of spotless purity. its wearer appeared very old, pale, emaciated and feeble, yet glided onward without the unsteady pace of extreme age. at one point of her course a little rosy boy burst forth from a door and ran with open arms toward the ghostly woman, seeming to expect a kiss from her bloodless lips. she made a slight pause, fixing her eye upon him with an expression of no earthly sweetness, so that the child shivered and stood awestruck rather than affrighted while the old maid passed on. perhaps her garment might have been polluted even by an infant's touch; perhaps her kiss would have been death to the sweet boy within the year. "she is but a shadow," whispered the superstitious. "the child put forth his arms and could not grasp her robe." the wonder was increased when the old maid passed beneath the porch of the deserted mansion, ascended the moss-covered steps, lifted the iron knocker and gave three raps. the people could only conjecture that some old remembrance, troubling her bewildered brain, had impelled the poor woman hither to visit the friends of her youth--all gone from their home long since and for ever unless their ghosts still haunted it, fit company for the old maid in the winding-sheet. an elderly man approached the steps, and, reverently uncovering his gray locks, essayed to explain the matter. "none, madam," said he, "have dwelt in this house these fifteen years agone--no, not since the death of old colonel fenwicke, whose funeral you may remember to have followed. his heirs, being ill-agreed among themselves, have let the mansion-house go to ruin." the old maid looked slowly round with a slight gesture of one hand and a finger of the other upon her lip, appearing more shadow-like than ever in the obscurity of the porch. but again she lifted the hammer, and gave, this time, a single rap. could it be that a footstep was now heard coming down the staircase of the old mansion which all conceived to have been so long untenanted? slowly, feebly, yet heavily, like the pace of an aged and infirm person, the step approached, more distinct on every downward stair, till it reached the portal. the bar fell on the inside; the door was opened. one upward glance toward the church-spire, whence the sunshine had just faded, was the last that the people saw of the old maid in the winding-sheet. "who undid the door?" asked many. this question, owing to the depth of shadow beneath the porch, no one could satisfactorily answer. two or three aged men, while protesting against an inference which might be drawn, affirmed that the person within was a negro and bore a singular resemblance to old cæsar, formerly a slave in the house, but freed by death some thirty years before. "her summons has waked up a servant of the old family," said one, half seriously. "let us wait here," replied another; "more guests will knock at the door anon. but the gate of the graveyard should be thrown open." twilight had overspread the town before the crowd began to separate or the comments on this incident were exhausted. one after another was wending his way homeward, when a coach--no common spectacle in those days--drove slowly into the street. it was an old-fashioned equipage, hanging close to the ground, with arms on the panels, a footman behind and a grave, corpulent coachman seated high in front, the whole giving an idea of solemn state and dignity. there was something awful in the heavy rumbling of the wheels. the coach rolled down the street, till, coming to the gateway of the deserted mansion, it drew up, and the footman sprang to the ground. "whose grand coach is this?" asked a very inquisitive body. the footman made no reply, but ascended the steps of the old house, gave three taps with the iron hammer, and returned to open the coach door. an old man possessed of the heraldic lore so common in that day examined the shield of arms on the panel. "azure, a lion's head erased, between three flowers de luce," said he, then whispered the name of the family to whom these bearings belonged. the last inheritor of its honors was recently dead, after a long residence amid the splendor of the british court, where his birth and wealth had given him no mean station. "he left no child," continued the herald, "and these arms, being in a lozenge, betoken that the coach appertains to his widow." further disclosures, perhaps, might have been made had not the speaker been suddenly struck dumb by the stern eye of an ancient lady who thrust forth her head from the coach, preparing to descend. as she emerged the people saw that her dress was magnificent, and her figure dignified in spite of age and infirmity--a stately ruin, but with a look at once of pride and wretchedness. her strong and rigid features had an awe about them unlike that of the white old maid, but as of something evil. she passed up the steps, leaning on a gold-headed cane. the door swung open as she ascended, and the light of a torch glittered on the embroidery of her dress and gleamed on the pillars of the porch. after a momentary pause, a glance backward and then a desperate effort, she went in. the decipherer of the coat-of-arms had ventured up the lower step, and, shrinking back immediately, pale and tremulous, affirmed that the torch was held by the very image of old cæsar. "but such a hideous grin," added he, "was never seen on the face of mortal man, black or white. it will haunt me till my dying-day." meantime, the coach had wheeled round with a prodigious clatter on the pavement and rumbled up the street, disappearing in the twilight, while the ear still tracked its course. scarcely was it gone when the people began to question whether the coach and attendants, the ancient lady, the spectre of old cæsar and the old maid herself were not all a strangely-combined delusion with some dark purport in its mystery. the whole town was astir, so that, instead of dispersing, the crowd continually increased, and stood gazing up at the windows of the mansion, now silvered by the brightening moon. the elders, glad to indulge the narrative propensity of age, told of the long-faded splendor of the family, the entertainments they had given and the guests, the greatest of the land, and even titled and noble ones from abroad, who had passed beneath that portal. these graphic reminiscences seemed to call up the ghosts of those to whom they referred. so strong was the impression on some of the more imaginative hearers that two or three were seized with trembling fits at one and the same moment, protesting that they had distinctly heard three other raps of the iron knocker. "impossible!" exclaimed others. "see! the moon shines beneath the porch, and shows every part of it except in the narrow shade of that pillar. there is no one there." "did not the door open?" whispered one of these fanciful persons. "didst thou see it too?" said his companion, in a startled tone. but the general sentiment was opposed to the idea that a third visitant had made application at the door of the deserted house. a few, however, adhered to this new marvel, and even declared that a red gleam like that of a torch had shone through the great front window, as if the negro were lighting a guest up the staircase. this too was pronounced a mere fantasy. but at once the whole multitude started, and each man beheld his own terror painted in the faces of all the rest. "what an awful thing is this!" cried they. a shriek too fearfully distinct for doubt had been heard within the mansion, breaking forth suddenly and succeeded by a deep stillness, as if a heart had burst in giving it utterance. the people knew not whether to fly from the very sight of the house or to rush trembling in and search out the strange mystery. amid their confusion and affright they were somewhat reassured by the appearance of their clergyman, a venerable patriarch, and equally a saint, who had taught them and their fathers the way to heaven for more than the space of an ordinary lifetime. he was a reverend figure with long white hair upon his shoulders, a white beard upon his breast and a back so bent over his staff that he seemed to be looking downward continually, as if to choose a proper grave for his weary frame. it was some time before the good old man, being deaf and of impaired intellect, could be made to comprehend such portions of the affair as were comprehensible at all. but when possessed of the facts, his energies assumed unexpected vigor. "verily," said the old gentleman, "it will be fitting that i enter the mansion-house of the worthy colonel fenwicke, lest any harm should have befallen that true christian woman whom ye call the 'old maid in the winding-sheet.'" behold, then, the venerable clergyman ascending the steps of the mansion with a torch-bearer behind him. it was the elderly man who had spoken to the old maid, and the same who had afterward explained the shield of arms and recognized the features of the negro. like their predecessors, they gave three raps with the iron hammer. "old cæsar cometh not," observed the priest. "well, i wot he no longer doth service in this mansion." "assuredly, then, it was something worse in old cæsar's likeness," said the other adventurer. "be it as god wills," answered the clergyman. "see! my strength, though it be much decayed, hath sufficed to open this heavy door. let us enter and pass up the staircase." here occurred a singular exemplification of the dreamy state of a very old man's mind. as they ascended the wide flight of stairs the aged clergyman appeared to move with caution, occasionally standing aside, and oftener bending his head, as it were in salutation, thus practising all the gestures of one who makes his way through a throng. reaching the head of the staircase, he looked around with sad and solemn benignity, laid aside his staff, bared his hoary locks, and was evidently on the point of commencing a prayer. "reverend sir," said his attendant, who conceived this a very suitable prelude to their further search, "would it not be well that the people join with us in prayer?" "well-a-day!" cried the old clergyman, staring strangely around him. "art thou here with me, and none other? verily, past times were present to me, and i deemed that i was to make a funeral prayer, as many a time heretofore, from the head of this staircase. of a truth, i saw the shades of many that are gone. yea, i have prayed at their burials, one after another, and the old maid in the winding-sheet hath seen them to their graves." being now more thoroughly awake to their present purpose, he took his staff and struck forcibly on the floor, till there came an echo from each deserted chamber, but no menial to answer their summons. they therefore walked along the passage, and again paused, opposite to the great front window, through which was seen the crowd in the shadow and partial moonlight of the street beneath. on their right hand was the open door of a chamber, and a closed one on their left. the clergyman pointed his cane to the carved oak panel of the latter. "within that chamber," observed he, "a whole lifetime since, did i sit by the death-bed of a goodly young man who, being now at the last gasp--" apparently, there was some powerful excitement in the ideas which had now flashed across his mind. he snatched the torch from his companion's hand, and threw open the door with such sudden violence that the flame was extinguished, leaving them no other light than the moonbeams which fell through two windows into the spacious chamber. it was sufficient to discover all that could be known. in a high-backed oaken arm-chair, upright, with her hands clasped across her breast and her head thrown back, sat the old maid in the winding-sheet. the stately dame had fallen on her knees with her forehead on the holy knees of the old maid, one hand upon the floor and the other pressed convulsively against her heart. it clutched a lock of hair--once sable, now discolored with a greenish mould. as the priest and layman advanced into the chamber the old maid's features assumed such a semblance of shifting expression that they trusted to hear the whole mystery explained by a single word. but it was only the shadow of a tattered curtain waving betwixt the dead face and the moonlight. "both dead!" said the venerable man. "then who shall divulge the secret? methinks it glimmers to and fro in my mind like the light and shadow across the old maid's face. and now 'tis gone!" peter goldthwaite's treasure. "and so, peter, you won't even consider of the business?" said mr. john brown, buttoning his surtout over the snug rotundity of his person and drawing on his gloves. "you positively refuse to let me have this crazy old house, and the land under and adjoining, at the price named?" "neither at that, nor treble the sum," responded the gaunt, grizzled and threadbare peter goldthwaite. "the fact is, mr. brown, you must find another site for your brick block and be content to leave my estate with the present owner. next summer i intend to put a splendid new mansion over the cellar of the old house." "pho, peter!" cried mr. brown as he opened the kitchen door; "content yourself with building castles in the air, where house-lots are cheaper than on earth, to say nothing of the cost of bricks and mortar. such foundations are solid enough for your edifices, while this underneath us is just the thing for mine; and so we may both be suited. what say you, again?" "precisely what i said before, mr. brown," answered peter goldthwaite. "and, as for castles in the air, mine may not be as magnificent as that sort of architecture, but perhaps as substantial, mr. brown, as the very respectable brick block with dry-goods stores, tailors' shops and banking-rooms on the lower floor, and lawyers' offices in the second story, which you are so anxious to substitute." "and the cost, peter? eh?" said mr. brown as he withdrew in something of a pet. "that, i suppose, will be provided for off-hand by drawing a check on bubble bank?" john brown and peter goldthwaite had been jointly known to the commercial world between twenty and thirty years before under the firm of goldthwaite & brown; which copartnership, however, was speedily dissolved by the natural incongruity of its constituent parts. since that event, john brown, with exactly the qualities of a thousand other john browns, and by just such plodding methods as they used, had prospered wonderfully and become one of the wealthiest john browns on earth. peter goldthwaite, on the contrary, after innumerable schemes which ought to have collected all the coin and paper currency of the country into his coffers, was as needy a gentleman as ever wore a patch upon his elbow. the contrast between him and his former partner may be briefly marked, for brown never reckoned upon luck, yet always had it, while peter made luck the main condition of his projects, and always missed it. while the means held out his speculations had been magnificent, but were chiefly confined of late years to such small business as adventures in the lottery. once he had gone on a gold-gathering expedition somewhere to the south, and ingeniously contrived to empty his pockets more thoroughly than ever, while others, doubtless, were filling theirs with native bullion by the handful. more recently he had expended a legacy of a thousand or two of dollars in purchasing mexican scrip, and thereby became the proprietor of a province; which, however, so far as peter could find out, was situated where he might have had an empire for the same money--in the clouds. from a search after this valuable real estate peter returned so gaunt and threadbare that on reaching new england the scarecrows in the corn-fields beckoned to him as he passed by. "they did but flutter in the wind," quoth peter goldthwaite. no, peter, they beckoned, for the scarecrows knew their brother. at the period of our story his whole visible income would not have paid the tax of the old mansion in which we find him. it was one of those rusty, moss-grown, many-peaked wooden houses which are scattered about the streets of our elder towns, with a beetle-browed second story projecting over the foundation, as if it frowned at the novelty around it. this old paternal edifice, needy as he was, and though, being centrally situated on the principal street of the town, it would have brought him a handsome sum, the sagacious peter had his own reasons for never parting with, either by auction or private sale. there seemed, indeed, to be a fatality that connected him with his birthplace; for, often as he had stood on the verge of ruin, and standing there even now, he had not yet taken the step beyond it which would have compelled him to surrender the house to his creditors. so here he dwelt with bad luck till good should come. here, then, in his kitchen--the only room where a spark of fire took off the chill of a november evening--poor peter goldthwaite had just been visited by his rich old partner. at the close of their interview, peter, with rather a mortified look, glanced downward at his dress, parts of which appeared as ancient as the days of goldthwaite & brown. his upper garment was a mixed surtout, woefully faded, and patched with newer stuff on each elbow; beneath this he wore a threadbare black coat, some of the silk buttons of which had been replaced with others of a different pattern; and, lastly, though he lacked not a pair of gray pantaloons, they were very shabby ones, and had been partially turned brown by the frequent toasting of peter's shins before a scanty fire. peter's person was in keeping with his goodly apparel. gray-headed, hollow-eyed, pale-cheeked and lean-bodied, he was the perfect picture of a man who had fed on windy schemes and empty hopes till he could neither live on such unwholesome trash nor stomach more substantial food. but, withal, this peter goldthwaite, crack-brained simpleton as, perhaps, he was, might have cut a very brilliant figure in the world had he employed his imagination in the airy business of poetry instead of making it a demon of mischief in mercantile pursuits. after all, he was no bad fellow, but as harmless as a child, and as honest and honorable, and as much of the gentleman which nature meant him for, as an irregular life and depressed circumstances will permit any man to be. as peter stood on the uneven bricks of his hearth looking round at the disconsolate old kitchen his eyes began to kindle with the illumination of an enthusiasm that never long deserted him. he raised his hand, clenched it and smote it energetically against the smoky panel over the fireplace. "the time is come," said he; "with such a treasure at command, it were folly to be a poor man any longer. tomorrow morning i will begin with the garret, nor desist till i have torn the house down." deep in the chimney-corner, like a witch in a dark cavern, sat a little old woman mending one of the two pairs of stockings wherewith peter goldthwaite kept his toes from being frost-bitten. as the feet were ragged past all darning, she had cut pieces out of a cast-off flannel petticoat to make new soles. tabitha porter was an old maid upward of sixty years of age, fifty-five of which she had sat in that same chimney-corner, such being the length of time since peter's grandfather had taken her from the almshouse. she had no friend but peter, nor peter any friend but tabitha; so long as peter might have a shelter for his own head, tabitha would know where to shelter hers, or, being homeless elsewhere, she would take her master by the hand and bring him to her native home, the almshouse. should it ever be necessary, she loved him well enough to feed him with her last morsel and clothe him with her under-petticoat. but tabitha was a queer old woman, and, though never infected with peter's flightiness, had become so accustomed to his freaks and follies that she viewed them all as matters of course. hearing him threaten to tear the house down, she looked quietly up from her work. "best leave the kitchen till the last, mr. peter," said she. "the sooner we have it all down, the better," said peter goldthwaite. "i am tired to death of living in this cold, dark, windy, smoky, creaking, groaning, dismal old house. i shall feel like a younger man when we get into my splendid brick mansion, as, please heaven, we shall by this time next autumn. you shall have a room on the sunny side, old tabby, finished and furnished as best may suit your own notions." "i should like it pretty much such a room as this kitchen," answered tabitha. "it will never be like home to me till the chimney-corner gets as black with smoke as this, and that won't be these hundred years. how much do you mean to lay out on the house, mr. peter?" "what is that to the purpose?" exclaimed peter, loftily. "did not my great-grand-uncle, peter goldthwaite, who died seventy years ago, and whose namesake i am, leave treasure enough to build twenty such?" "i can't say but he did, mr. peter," said tabitha, threading her needle. tabitha well understood that peter had reference to an immense hoard of the precious metals which was said to exist somewhere in the cellar or walls, or under the floors, or in some concealed closet or other out-of-the-way nook of the old house. this wealth, according to tradition, had been accumulated by a former peter goldthwaite whose character seems to have borne a remarkable similitude to that of the peter of our story. like him, he was a wild projector, seeking to heap up gold by the bushel and the cart-load instead of scraping it together coin by coin. like peter the second, too, his projects had almost invariably failed, and, but for the magnificent success of the final one, would have left him with hardly a coat and pair of breeches to his gaunt and grizzled person. reports were various as to the nature of his fortunate speculation, one intimating that the ancient peter had made the gold by alchemy; another, that he had conjured it out of people's pockets by the black art; and a third--still more unaccountable--that the devil had given him free access to the old provincial treasury. it was affirmed, however, that some secret impediment had debarred him from the enjoyment of his riches, and that he had a motive for concealing them from his heir, or, at any rate, had died without disclosing the place of deposit. the present peter's father had faith enough in the story to cause the cellar to be dug over. peter himself chose to consider the legend as an indisputable truth, and amid his many troubles had this one consolation--that, should all other resources fail, he might build up his fortunes by tearing his house down. yet, unless he felt a lurking distrust of the golden tale, it is difficult to account for his permitting the paternal roof to stand so long, since he had never yet seen the moment when his predecessor's treasure would not have found plenty of room in his own strong-box. but now was the crisis. should he delay the search a little longer, the house would pass from the lineal heir, and with it the vast heap of gold, to remain in its burial-place till the ruin of the aged walls should discover it to strangers of a future generation. "yes," cried peter goldthwaite, again; "to-morrow i will set about it." the deeper he looked at the matter, the more certain of success grew peter. his spirits were naturally so elastic that even now, in the blasted autumn of his age, he could often compete with the springtime gayety of other people. enlivened by his brightening prospects, he began to caper about the kitchen like a hobgoblin, with the queerest antics of his lean limbs and gesticulations of his starved features. nay, in the exuberance of his feelings, he seized both of tabitha's hands and danced the old lady across the floor till the oddity of her rheumatic motions set him into a roar of laughter, which was echoed back from the rooms and chambers, as if peter goldthwaite were laughing in every one. finally, he bounded upward, almost out of sight, into the smoke that clouded the roof of the kitchen, and, alighting safely on the floor again, endeavored to resume his customary gravity. "to-morrow, at sunrise," he repeated, taking his lamp to retire to bed, "i'll see whether this treasure be hid in the wall of the garret." "and, as we're out of wood, mr. peter," said tabitha, puffing and panting with her late gymnastics, "as fast as you tear the house down i'll make a fire with the pieces." gorgeous that night were the dreams of peter goldthwaite. at one time he was turning a ponderous key in an iron door not unlike the door of a sepulchre, but which, being opened, disclosed a vault heaped up with gold coin as plentifully as golden corn in a granary. there were chased goblets, also, and tureens, salvers, dinner-dishes and dish-covers of gold or silver-gilt, besides chains and other jewels, incalculably rich, though tarnished with the damps of the vault; for, of all the wealth that was irrevocably lost to man, whether buried in the earth or sunken in the sea, peter goldthwaite had found it in this one treasure-place. anon he had returned to the old house as poor as ever, and was received at the door by the gaunt and grizzled figure of a man whom he might have mistaken for himself, only that his garments were of a much elder fashion. but the house, without losing its former aspect, had been changed into a palace of the precious metals. the floors, walls and ceilings were of burnished silver; the doors, the window-frames, the cornices, the balustrades and the steps of the staircase, of pure gold; and silver, with gold bottoms, were the chairs, and gold, standing on silver legs, the high chests of drawers, and silver the bedsteads, with blankets of woven gold and sheets of silver tissue. the house had evidently been transmuted by a single touch, for it retained all the marks that peter remembered, but in gold or silver instead of wood, and the initials of his name--which when a boy he had cut in the wooden door-post--remained as deep in the pillar of gold. a happy man would have been peter goldthwaite except for a certain ocular deception which, whenever he glanced backward, caused the house to darken from its glittering magnificence into the sordid gloom of yesterday. up betimes rose peter, seized an axe, hammer and saw which he had placed by his bedside, and hied him to the garret. it was but scantily lighted up as yet by the frosty fragments of a sunbeam which began to glimmer through the almost opaque bull-eyes of the window. a moralizer might find abundant themes for his speculative and impracticable wisdom in a garret. there is the limbo of departed fashions, aged trifles of a day and whatever was valuable only to one generation of men, and which passed to the garret when that generation passed to the grave--not for safekeeping, but to be out of the way. peter saw piles of yellow and musty account-books in parchment covers, wherein creditors long dead and buried had written the names of dead and buried debtors in ink now so faded that their moss-grown tombstones were more legible. he found old moth-eaten garments, all in rags and tatters, or peter would have put them on. here was a naked and rusty sword--not a sword of service, but a gentleman's small french rapier--which had never left its scabbard till it lost it. here were canes of twenty different sorts, but no gold-headed ones, and shoebuckles of various pattern and material, but not silver nor set with precious stones. here was a large box full of shoes with high heels and peaked toes. here, on a shelf, were a multitude of phials half filled with old apothecary's stuff which, when the other half had done its business on peter's ancestors, had been brought hither from the death-chamber. here--not to give a longer inventory of articles that will never be put up at auction--was the fragment of a full-length looking-glass which by the dust and dimness of its surface made the picture of these old things look older than the reality. when peter, not knowing that there was a mirror there, caught the faint traces of his own figure, he partly imagined that the former peter goldthwaite had come back either to assist or impede his search for the hidden wealth. and at that moment a strange notion glimmered through his brain that he was the identical peter who had concealed the gold, and ought to know whereabout it lay. this, however, he had unaccountably forgotten. "well, mr. peter!" cried tabitha, on the garret stairs. "have you torn the house down enough to heat the teakettle?" "not yet, old tabby," answered peter, "but that's soon done, as you shall see." with the word in his mouth, he uplifted the axe, and laid about him so vigorously that the dust flew, the boards crashed, and in a twinkling the old woman had an apron full of broken rubbish. "we shall get our winter's wood cheap," quoth tabitha. the good work being thus commenced, peter beat down all before him, smiting and hewing at the joints and timbers, unclenching spike-nails, ripping and tearing away boards, with a tremendous racket from morning till night. he took care, however, to leave the outside shell of the house untouched, so that the neighbors might not suspect what was going on. never, in any of his vagaries, though each had made him happy while it lasted, had peter been happier than now. perhaps, after all, there was something in peter goldthwaite's turn of mind which brought him an inward recompense for all the external evil that it caused. if he were poor, ill-clad, even hungry and exposed, as it were, to be utterly annihilated by a precipice of impending ruin, yet only his body remained in these miserable circumstances, while his aspiring soul enjoyed the sunshine of a bright futurity. it was his nature to be always young, and the tendency of his mode of life to keep him so. gray hairs were nothing--no, nor wrinkles nor infirmity; he might look old, indeed, and be somewhat disagreeably connected with a gaunt old figure much the worse for wear, but the true, the essential peter was a young man of high hopes just entering on the world. at the kindling of each new fire his burnt-out youth rose afresh from the old embers and ashes. it rose exulting now. having lived thus long--not too long, but just to the right age--a susceptible bachelor with warm and tender dreams, he resolved, so soon as the hidden gold should flash to light, to go a-wooing and win the love of the fairest maid in town. what heart could resist him? happy peter goldthwaite! every evening--as peter had long absented himself from his former lounging-places at insurance offices, news-rooms, and book-stores, and as the honor of his company was seldom requested in private circles--he and tabitha used to sit down sociably by the kitchen hearth. this was always heaped plentifully with the rubbish of his day's labor. as the foundation of the fire there would be a goodly-sized back-log of red oak, which after being sheltered from rain or damp above a century still hissed with the heat and distilled streams of water from each end, as if the tree had been cut down within a week or two. next there were large sticks, sound, black and heavy, which had lost the principle of decay and were indestructible except by fire, wherein they glowed like red-hot bars of iron. on this solid basis tabitha would rear a lighter structure, composed of the splinters of door-panels, ornamented mouldings, and such quick combustibles, which caught like straw and threw a brilliant blaze high up the spacious flue, making its sooty sides visible almost to the chimney-top. meantime, the gloom of the old kitchen would be chased out of the cobwebbed corners and away from the dusky cross-beams overhead, and driven nobody could tell whither, while peter smiled like a gladsome man and tabitha seemed a picture of comfortable age. all this, of course, was but an emblem of the bright fortune which the destruction of the house would shed upon its occupants. while the dry pine was flaming and crackling like an irregular discharge of fairy-musketry, peter sat looking and listening in a pleasant state of excitement; but when the brief blaze and uproar were succeeded by the dark-red glow, the substantial heat and the deep singing sound which were to last throughout the evening, his humor became talkative. one night--the hundredth time--he teased tabitha to tell him something new about his great-granduncle. "you have been sitting in that chimney-corner fifty-five years, old tabby, and must have heard many a tradition about him," said peter. "did not you tell me that when you first came to the house there was an old woman sitting where you sit now who had been housekeeper to the famous peter goldthwaite?" "so there was, mr. peter," answered tabitha, "and she was near about a hundred years old. she used to say that she and old peter goldthwaite had often spent a sociable evening by the kitchen fire--pretty much as you and i are doing now, mr. peter." "the old fellow must have resembled me in more points than one," said peter, complacently, "or he never would have grown so rich. but methinks he might have invested the money better than he did. no interest! nothing but good security! and the house to be torn down to come at it! what made him hide it so snug, tabby?" "because he could not spend it," said tabitha, "for as often as he went to unlock the chest the old scratch came behind and caught his arm. the money, they say, was paid peter out of his purse, and he wanted peter to give him a deed of this house and land, which peter swore he would not do." "just as i swore to john brown, my old partner," remarked peter. "but this is all nonsense, tabby; i don't believe the story." "well, it may not be just the truth," said tabitha, "for some folks say that peter did make over the house to the old scratch, and that's the reason it has always been so unlucky to them that lived in it. and as soon as peter had given him the deed the chest flew open, and peter caught up a handful of the gold. but, lo and behold! there was nothing in his fist but a parcel of old rags." "hold your tongue, you silly old tabby!" cried peter, in great wrath. "they were as good golden guineas as ever bore the effigies of the king of england. it seems as if i could recollect the whole circumstance, and how i, or old peter, or whoever it was, thrust in my hand, or his hand, and drew it out all of a blaze with gold. old rags indeed!" but it was not an old woman's legend that would discourage peter goldthwaite. all night long he slept among pleasant dreams, and awoke at daylight with a joyous throb of the heart which few are fortunate enough to feel beyond their boyhood. day after day he labored hard without wasting a moment except at meal-times, when tabitha summoned him to the pork and cabbage, or such other sustenance as she had picked up or providence had sent them. being a truly pious man, peter never failed to ask a blessing--if the food were none of the best, then so much the more earnestly, as it was more needed--nor to return thanks, if the dinner had been scanty, yet for the good appetite which was better than a sick stomach at a feast. then did he hurry back to his toil, and in a moment was lost to sight in a cloud of dust from the old walls, though sufficiently perceptible to the ear by the clatter which he raised in the midst of it. how enviable is the consciousness of being usefully employed! nothing troubled peter, or nothing but those phantoms of the mind which seem like vague recollections, yet have also the aspect of presentiments. he often paused with his axe uplifted in the air, and said to himself, "peter goldthwaite, did you never strike this blow before?" or "peter, what need of tearing the whole house down? think a little while, and you will remember where the gold is hidden." days and weeks passed on, however, without any remarkable discovery. sometimes, indeed, a lean gray rat peeped forth at the lean gray man, wondering what devil had got into the old house, which had always been so peaceable till now. and occasionally peter sympathized with the sorrows of a female mouse who had brought five or six pretty, little, soft and delicate young ones into the world just in time to see them crushed by its ruin. but as yet no treasure. by this time, peter, being as determined as fate and as diligent as time, had made an end with the uppermost regions and got down to the second story, where he was busy in one of the front chambers. it had formerly been the state-bedchamber, and was honored by tradition as the sleeping-apartment of governor dudley and many other eminent guests. the furniture was gone. there were remnants of faded and tattered paper-hangings, but larger spaces of bare wall ornamented with charcoal sketches, chiefly of people's heads in profile. these being specimens of peter's youthful genius, it went more to his heart to obliterate them than if they had been pictures on a church wall by michael angelo. one sketch, however, and that the best one, affected him differently. it represented a ragged man partly supporting himself on a spade and bending his lean body over a hole in the earth, with one hand extended to grasp something that he had found. but close behind him, with a fiendish laugh on his features, appeared a figure with horns, a tufted tail and a cloven hoof. "avaunt, satan!" cried peter. "the man shall have his gold." uplifting his axe, he hit the horned gentleman such a blow on the head as not only demolished him, but the treasure-seeker also, and caused the whole scene to vanish like magic. moreover, his axe broke quite through the plaster and laths and discovered a cavity. "mercy on us, mr. peter! are you quarrelling with the old scratch?" said tabitha, who was seeking some fuel to put under the dinner-pot. without answering the old woman, peter broke down a further space of the wall, and laid open a small closet or cupboard on one side of the fireplace, about breast-high from the ground. it contained nothing but a brass lamp covered with verdigris, and a dusty piece of parchment. while peter inspected the latter, tabitha seized the lamp and began to rub it with her apron. "there is no use in rubbing it, tabitha," said peter. "it is not aladdin's lamp, though i take it to be a token of as much luck. look here, tabby!" tabitha took the parchment and held it close to her nose, which was saddled with a pair of iron-bound spectacles. but no sooner had she begun to puzzle over it than she burst into a chuckling laugh, holding both her hands against her sides. "you can't make a fool of the old woman," cried she. "this is your own handwriting, mr. peter, the same as in the letter you sent me from mexico." "there is certainly a considerable resemblance," said peter, again examining the parchment. "but you know yourself, tabby, that this closet must have been plastered up before you came to the house or i came into the world. no; this is old peter goldthwaite's writing. these columns of pounds, shillings and pence are his figures, denoting the amount of the treasure, and this, at the bottom, is doubtless a reference to the place of concealment. but the ink has either faded or peeled off, so that it is absolutely illegible. what a pity!" "well, this lamp is as good as new. that's some comfort," said tabitha. "a lamp!" thought peter. "that indicates light on my researches." for the present peter felt more inclined to ponder on this discovery than to resume his labors. after tabitha had gone down stairs he stood poring over the parchment at one of the front windows, which was so obscured with dust that the sun could barely throw an uncertain shadow of the casement across the floor. peter forced it open and looked out upon the great street of the town, while the sun looked in at his old house. the air, though mild, and even warm, thrilled peter as with a dash of water. it was the first day of the january thaw. the snow lay deep upon the housetops, but was rapidly dissolving into millions of water-drops, which sparkled downward through the sunshine with the noise of a summer shower beneath the eaves. along the street the trodden snow was as hard and solid as a pavement of white marble, and had not yet grown moist in the spring-like temperature. but when peter thrust forth his head, he saw that the inhabitants, if not the town, were already thawed out by this warm day, after two or three weeks of winter weather. it gladdened him--a gladness with a sigh breathing through it--to see the stream of ladies gliding along the slippery sidewalks with their red cheeks set off by quilted hoods, boas and sable capes like roses amidst a new kind of foliage. the sleigh bells jingled to and fro continually, sometimes announcing the arrival of a sleigh from vermont laden with the frozen bodies of porkers or sheep, and perhaps a deer or two; sometimes, of a regular marketman with chickens, geese and turkeys, comprising the whole colony of a barn-yard; and sometimes, of a farmer and his dame who had come to town partly for the ride, partly to go a-shopping and partly for the sale of some eggs and butter. this couple rode in an old-fashioned square sleigh which had served them twenty winters and stood twenty summers in the sun beside their door. now a gentleman and lady skimmed the snow in an elegant car shaped somewhat like a cockle-shell; now a stage-sleigh with its cloth curtains thrust aside to admit the sun dashed rapidly down the street, whirling in and out among the vehicles that obstructed its passage; now came round a corner the similitude of noah's ark on runners, being an immense open sleigh with seats for fifty people and drawn by a dozen horses. this spacious receptacle was populous with merry maids and merry bachelors, merry girls and boys and merry old folks, all alive with fun and grinning to the full width of their mouths. they kept up a buzz of babbling voices and low laughter, and sometimes burst into a deep, joyous shout which the spectators answered with three cheers, while a gang of roguish boys let drive their snow-balls right among the pleasure-party. the sleigh passed on, and when concealed by a bend of the street was still audible by a distant cry of merriment. never had peter beheld a livelier scene than was constituted by all these accessories--the bright sun, the flashing water-drops, the gleaming snow, the cheerful multitude, the variety of rapid vehicles and the jingle-jangle of merry bells which made the heart dance to their music. nothing dismal was to be seen except that peaked piece of antiquity peter goldthwaite's house, which might well look sad externally, since such a terrible consumption was preying on its insides. and peter's gaunt figure, half visible in the projecting second story, was worthy of his house. "peter! how goes it, friend peter?" cried a voice across the street as peter was drawing in his head. "look out here, peter!" peter looked, and saw his old partner, mr. john brown, on the opposite sidewalk, portly and comfortable, with his furred cloak thrown open, disclosing a handsome surtout beneath. his voice had directed the attention of the whole town to peter goldthwaite's window, and to the dusty scarecrow which appeared at it. "i say, peter!" cried mr. brown, again; "what the devil are you about there, that i hear such a racket whenever i pass by? you are repairing the old house, i suppose, making a new one of it? eh?" "too late for that, i am afraid, mr. brown," replied peter. "if i make it new, it will be new inside and out, from the cellar upward." "had not you better let me take the job?" said mr. brown, significantly. "not yet," answered peter, hastily shutting the window; for ever since he had been in search of the treasure he hated to have people stare at him. as he drew back, ashamed of his outward poverty, yet proud of the secret wealth within his grasp, a haughty smile shone out on peter's visage with precisely the effect of the dim sunbeams in the squalid chamber. he endeavored to assume such a mien as his ancestor had probably worn when he gloried in the building of a strong house for a home to many generations of his posterity. but the chamber was very dark to his snow-dazzled eyes, and very dismal, too, in contrast with the living scene that he had just looked upon. his brief glimpse into the street had given him a forcible impression of the manner in which the world kept itself cheerful and prosperous by social pleasures and an intercourse of business, while he in seclusion was pursuing an object that might possibly be a phantasm by a method which most people would call madness. it is one great advantage of a gregarious mode of life that each person rectifies his mind by other minds and squares his conduct to that of his neighbors, so as seldom to be lost in eccentricity. peter goldthwaite had exposed himself to this influence by merely looking out of the window. for a while he doubted whether there were any hidden chest of gold, and in that case whether it was so exceedingly wise to tear the house down only to be convinced of its non-existence. but this was momentary. peter the destroyer resumed the task which fate had assigned him, nor faltered again till it was accomplished. in the course of his search he met with many things that are usually found in the ruins of an old house, and also with some that are not. what seemed most to the purpose was a rusty key which had been thrust into a chink of the wall, with a wooden label appended to the handle, bearing the initials "p.g." another singular discovery was that of a bottle of wine walled up in an old oven. a tradition ran in the family that peter's grandfather, a jovial officer in the old french war, had set aside many dozens of the precious liquor for the benefit of topers then unborn. peter needed no cordial to sustain his hopes, and therefore kept the wine to gladden his success. many half-pence did he pick up that had been lost through the cracks of the floor, and some few spanish coins, and the half of a broken sixpence which had doubtless been a love-token. there was likewise a silver coronation medal of george iii. but old peter goldthwaite's strong-box fled from one dark corner to another, or otherwise eluded the second peter's clutches till, should he seek much farther, he must burrow into the earth. we will not follow him in his triumphant progress step by step. suffice it that peter worked like a steam-engine and finished in that one winter the job which all the former inhabitants of the house, with time and the elements to aid them, had only half done in a century. except the kitchen, every room and chamber was now gutted. the house was nothing but a shell, the apparition of a house, as unreal as the painted edifices of a theatre. it was like the perfect rind of a great cheese in which a mouse had dwelt and nibbled till it was a cheese no more. and peter was the mouse. what peter had torn down, tabitha had burnt up, for she wisely considered that without a house they should need no wood to warm it, and therefore economy was nonsense. thus the whole house might be said to have dissolved in smoke and flown up among the clouds through the great black flue of the kitchen chimney. it was an admirable parallel to the feat of the man who jumped down his own throat. on the night between the last day of winter and the first of spring every chink and cranny had been ransacked except within the precincts of the kitchen. this fated evening was an ugly one. a snow-storm had set in some hours before, and was still driven and tossed about the atmosphere by a real hurricane which fought against the house as if the prince of the air in person were putting the final stroke to peter's labors. the framework being so much weakened and the inward props removed, it would have been no marvel if in some stronger wrestle of the blast the rotten walls of the edifice and all the peaked roofs had come crashing down upon the owner's head. he, however, was careless of the peril, but as wild and restless as the night itself, or as the flame that quivered up the chimney at each roar of the tempestuous wind. "the wine, tabitha," he cried--"my grandfather's rich old wine! we will drink it now." tabitha arose from her smoke-blackened bench in the chimney-corner and placed the bottle before peter, close beside the old brass lamp which had likewise been the prize of his researches. peter held it before his eyes, and, looking through the liquid medium, beheld the kitchen illuminated with a golden glory which also enveloped tabitha and gilded her silver hair and converted her mean garments into robes of queenly splendor. it reminded him of his golden dream. "mr. peter," remarked tabitha, "must the wine be drunk before the money is found?" "the money _is_ found!" exclaimed peter, with a sort of fierceness. "the chest is within my reach; i will not sleep till i have turned this key in the rusty lock. but first of all let us drink." there being no corkscrew in the house, he smote the neck of the bottle with old peter goldthwaite's rusty key, and decapitated the sealed cork at a single blow. he then filled two little china teacups which tabitha had brought from the cupboard. so clear and brilliant was this aged wine that it shone within the cups and rendered the sprig of scarlet flowers at the bottom of each more distinctly visible than when there had been no wine there. its rich and delicate perfume wasted itself round the kitchen. "drink, tabitha!" cried peter. "blessings on the honest old fellow who set aside this good liquor for you and me! and here's to peter goldthwaite's memory!" "and good cause have we to remember him," quoth tabitha as she drank. how many years, and through what changes of fortune and various calamity, had that bottle hoarded up its effervescent joy, to be quaffed at last by two such boon-companions! a portion of the happiness of a former age had been kept for them, and was now set free in a crowd of rejoicing visions to sport amid the storm and desolation of the present time. until they have finished the bottle we must turn our eyes elsewhere. it so chanced that on this stormy night mr. john brown found himself ill at ease in his wire-cushioned arm-chair by the glowing grate of anthracite which heated his handsome parlor. he was naturally a good sort of a man, and kind and pitiful whenever the misfortunes of others happened to reach his heart through the padded vest of his own prosperity. this evening he had thought much about his old partner, peter goldthwaite, his strange vagaries and continual ill-luck, the poverty of his dwelling at mr. brown's last visit, and peter's crazed and haggard aspect when he had talked with him at the window. "poor fellow!" thought mr. john brown. "poor crack-brained peter goldthwaite! for old acquaintance' sake i ought to have taken care that he was comfortable this rough winter." these feelings grew so powerful that, in spite of the inclement weather, he resolved to visit peter goldthwaite immediately. the strength of the impulse was really singular. every shriek of the blast seemed a summons, or would have seemed so had mr. brown been accustomed to hear the echoes of his own fancy in the wind. much amazed at such active benevolence, he huddled himself in his cloak, muffled his throat and ears in comforters and handkerchiefs, and, thus fortified, bade defiance to the tempest. but the powers of the air had rather the best of the battle. mr. brown was just weathering the corner by peter goldthwaite's house when the hurricane caught him off his feet, tossed him face downward into a snow-bank and proceeded to bury his protuberant part beneath fresh drifts. there seemed little hope of his reappearance earlier than the next thaw. at the same moment his hat was snatched away and whirled aloft into some far-distant region whence no tidings have as yet returned. nevertheless mr. brown contrived to burrow a passage through the snow-drift, and with his bare head bent against the storm floundered onward to peter's door. there was such a creaking and groaning and rattling, and such an ominous shaking, throughout the crazy edifice that the loudest rap would have been inaudible to those within. he therefore entered without ceremony, and groped his way to the kitchen. his intrusion even there was unnoticed. peter and tabitha stood with their backs to the door, stooping over a large chest which apparently they had just dragged from a cavity or concealed closet on the left side of the chimney. by the lamp in the old woman's hand mr. brown saw that the chest was barred and clamped with iron, strengthened with iron plates and studded with iron nails, so as to be a fit receptacle in which the wealth of one century might be hoarded up for the wants of another. peter goldthwaite was inserting a key into the lock. "oh, tabitha," cried he, with tremulous rapture, "how shall i endure the effulgence? the gold!--the bright, bright gold! methinks i can remember my last glance at it just as the iron-plated lid fell down. and ever since, being seventy years, it has been blazing in secret and gathering its splendor against this glorious moment. it will flash upon us like the noonday sun." "then shade your eyes, mr. peter!" said tabitha, with somewhat less patience than usual. "but, for mercy's sake, do turn the key!" and with a strong effort of both hands peter did force the rusty key through the intricacies of the rusty lock. mr. brown, in the mean time, had drawn near and thrust his eager visage between those of the other two at the instant that peter threw up the lid. no sudden blaze illuminated the kitchen. "what's here?" exclaimed tabitha, adjusting her spectacles and holding the lamp over the open chest. "old peter goldthwaite's hoard of old rags!" "pretty much so, tabby," said mr. brown, lifting a handful of the treasure. oh what a ghost of dead and buried wealth had peter goldthwaite raised to scare himself out of his scanty wits withal! here was the semblance of an incalculable sum, enough to purchase the whole town and build every street anew, but which, vast as it was, no sane man would have given a solid sixpence for. what, then, in sober earnest, were the delusive treasures of the chest? why, here were old provincial bills of credit and treasury notes and bills of land-banks, and all other bubbles of the sort, from the first issue--above a century and a half ago--down nearly to the revolution. bills of a thousand pounds were intermixed with parchment pennies, and worth no more than they. "and this, then, is old peter goldthwaite's treasure!" said john brown. "your namesake, peter, was something like yourself; and when the provincial currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five per cent, he bought it up in expectation of a rise. i have heard my grandfather say that old peter gave his father a mortgage of this very house and land to raise cash for his silly project. but the currency kept sinking till nobody would take it as a gift, and there was old peter goldthwaite, like peter the second, with thousands in his strong-box and hardly a coat to his back. he went mad upon the strength of it. but never mind, peter; it is just the sort of capital for building castles in the air." "the house will be down about our ears," cried tabitha as the wind shook it with increasing violence. "let it fall," said peter, folding his arms, as he seated himself upon the chest. "no, no, my old friend peter!" said john brown. "i have house-room for you and tabby, and a safe vault for the chest of treasure. to-morrow we will try to come to an agreement about the sale of this old house; real estate is well up, and i could afford you a pretty handsome price." "and i," observed peter goldthwaite, with reviving spirits, "have a plan for laying out the cash to great advantage." "why, as to that," muttered john brown to himself, "we must apply to the next court for a guardian to take care of the solid cash; and if peter insists upon speculating, he may do it to his heart's content with old peter goldthwaite's treasure." chippings with a chisel. passing a summer several years since at edgartown, on the island of martha's vineyard, i became acquainted with a certain carver of tombstones who had travelled and voyaged thither from the interior of massachusetts in search of professional employment. the speculation had turned out so successful that my friend expected to transmute slate and marble into silver and gold to the amount of at least a thousand dollars during the few months of his sojourn at nantucket and the vineyard. the secluded life and the simple and primitive spirit which still characterizes the inhabitants of those islands, especially of martha's vineyard, insure their dead friends a longer and dearer remembrance than the daily novelty and revolving bustle of the world can elsewhere afford to beings of the past. yet, while every family is anxious to erect a memorial to its departed members, the untainted breath of ocean bestows such health and length of days upon the people of the isles as would cause a melancholy dearth of business to a resident artist in that line. his own monument, recording his decease by starvation, would probably be an early specimen of his skill. gravestones, therefore, have generally been an article of imported merchandise. in my walks through the burial-ground of edgartown--where the dead have lain so long that the soil, once enriched by their decay, has returned to its original barrenness--in that ancient burial-ground i noticed much variety of monumental sculpture. the elder stones, dated a century back or more, have borders elaborately carved with flowers and are adorned with a multiplicity of death's-heads, crossbones, scythes, hour-glasses, and other lugubrious emblems of mortality, with here and there a winged cherub to direct the mourner's spirit upward. these productions of gothic taste must have been quite beyond the colonial skill of the day, and were probably carved in london and brought across the ocean to commemorate the defunct worthies of this lonely isle. the more recent monuments are mere slabs of slate in the ordinary style, without any superfluous flourishes to set off the bald inscriptions. but others--and those far the most impressive both to my taste and feelings--were roughly hewn from the gray rocks of the island, evidently by the unskilled hands of surviving friends and relatives. on some there were merely the initials of a name; some were inscribed with misspelt prose or rhyme, in deep letters which the moss and wintry rain of many years had not been able to obliterate. these, these were graves where loved ones slept. it is an old theme of satire, the falsehood and vanity of monumental eulogies; but when affection and sorrow grave the letters with their own painful labor, then we may be sure that they copy from the record on their hearts. my acquaintance the sculptor--he may share that title with greenough, since the dauber of signs is a painter as well as raphael--had found a ready market for all his blank slabs of marble and full occupation in lettering and ornamenting them. he was an elderly man, a descendant of the old puritan family of wigglesworth, with a certain simplicity and singleness both of heart and mind which, methinks, is more rarely found among us yankees than in any other community of people. in spite of his gray head and wrinkled brow, he was quite like a child in all matters save what had some reference to his own business; he seemed, unless my fancy misled me, to view mankind in no other relation than as people in want of tombstones, and his literary attainments evidently comprehended very little either of prose or poetry which had not at one time or other been inscribed on slate or marble. his sole task and office among the immortal pilgrims of the tomb--the duty for which providence had sent the old man into the world, as it were with a chisel in his hand--was to label the dead bodies, lest their names should be forgotten at the resurrection. yet he had not failed, within a narrow scope, to gather a few sprigs of earthly, and more than earthly, wisdom--the harvest of many a grave. and, lugubrious as his calling might appear, he was as cheerful an old soul as health and integrity and lack of care could make him, and used to set to work upon one sorrowful inscription or another with that sort of spirit which impels a man to sing at his labor. on the whole, i found mr. wigglesworth an entertaining, and often instructive, if not an interesting, character; and, partly for the charm of his society, and still more because his work has an invariable attraction for "man that is born of woman," i was accustomed to spend some hours a day at his workshop. the quaintness of his remarks and their not infrequent truth--a truth condensed and pointed by the limited sphere of his view--gave a raciness to his talk which mere worldliness and general cultivation would at once have destroyed. sometimes we would discuss the respective merits of the various qualities of marble, numerous slabs of which were resting against the walls of the shop, or sometimes an hour or two would pass quietly without a word on either side while i watched how neatly his chisel struck out letter after letter of the names of the nortons, the mayhews, the luces, the daggets, and other immemorial families of the vineyard. often with an artist's pride the good old sculptor would speak of favorite productions of his skill which were scattered throughout the village graveyards of new england. but my chief and most instructive amusement was to witness his interviews with his customers, who held interminable consultations about the form and fashion of the desired monuments, the buried excellence to be commemorated, the anguish to be expressed, and finally the lowest price in dollars and cents for which a marble transcript of their feelings might be obtained. really, my mind received many fresh ideas which perhaps may remain in it even longer than mr. wigglesworth's hardest marble will retain the deepest strokes of his chisel. an elderly lady came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed by a whale in the pacific ocean no less than forty years before. it was singular that so strong an impression of early feeling should have survived through the changes of her subsequent life, in the course of which she had been a wife and a mother, and, so far as i could judge, a comfortable and happy woman. reflecting within myself, it appeared to me that this lifelong sorrow--as, in all good faith, she deemed it--was one of the most fortunate circumstances of her history. it had given an ideality to her mind; it had kept her purer and less earthy than she would otherwise have been by drawing a portion of her sympathies apart from earth. amid the throng of enjoyments and the pressure of worldly care and all the warm materialism of this life she had communed with a vision, and had been the better for such intercourse. faithful to the husband of her maturity, and loving him with a far more real affection than she ever could have felt for this dream of her girlhood, there had still been an imaginative faith to the ocean-buried; so that an ordinary character had thus been elevated and refined. her sighs had been the breath of heaven to her soul. the good lady earnestly desired that the proposed monument should be ornamented with a carved border of marine plants interwined with twisted sea-shells, such as were probably waving over her lover's skeleton or strewn around it in the far depths of the pacific. but, mr. wigglesworth's chisel being inadequate to the task, she was forced to content herself with a rose hanging its head from a broken stem. after her departure i remarked that the symbol was none of the most apt. "and yet," said my friend the sculptor, embodying in this image the thoughts that had been passing through my own mind, "that broken rose has shed its sweet smell through forty years of the good woman's life." it was seldom that i could find such pleasant food for contemplation as in the above instance. none of the applicants, i think, affected me more disagreeably than an old man who came, with his fourth wife hanging on his arm, to bespeak gravestones for the three former occupants of his marriage-bed. i watched with some anxiety to see whether his remembrance of either were more affectionate than of the other two, but could discover no symptom of the kind. the three monuments were all to be of the same material and form, and each decorated in bas-relief with two weeping willows, one of these sympathetic trees bending over its fellow, which was to be broken in the midst and rest upon a sepulchral urn. this, indeed, was mr. wigglesworth's standing emblem of conjugal bereavement. i shuddered at the gray polygamist who had so utterly lost the holy sense of individuality in wedlock that methought he was fain to reckon upon his fingers how many women who had once slept by his side were now sleeping in their graves. there was even--if i wrong him, it is no great matter--a glance sidelong at his living spouse, as if he were inclined to drive a thriftier bargain by bespeaking four gravestones in a lot. i was better pleased with a rough old whaling-captain who gave directions for a broad marble slab divided into two compartments, one of which was to contain an epitaph on his deceased wife and the other to be left vacant till death should engrave his own name there. as is frequently the case among the whalers of martha's vineyard, so much of this storm-beaten widower's life had been tossed away on distant seas that out of twenty years of matrimony he had spent scarce three, and those at scattered intervals, beneath his own roof. thus the wife of his youth, though she died in his and her declining age, retained the bridal dewdrops fresh around her memory. my observations gave me the idea, and mr. wigglesworth confirmed it, that husbands were more faithful in setting up memorials to their dead wives than widows to their dead husbands. i was not ill-natured enough to fancy that women less than men feel so sure of their own constancy as to be willing to give a pledge of it in marble. it is more probably the fact that, while men are able to reflect upon their lost companions as remembrances apart from themselves, women, on the other hand, are conscious that a portion of their being has gone with the departed whithersoever he has gone. soul clings to soul, the living dust has a sympathy with the dust of the grave; and by the very strength of that sympathy the wife of the dead shrinks the more sensitively from reminding the world of its existence. the link is already strong enough; it needs no visible symbol. and, though a shadow walks ever by her side and the touch of a chill hand is on her bosom, yet life, and perchance its natural yearnings, may still be warm within her and inspire her with new hopes of happiness. then would she mark out the grave the scent of which would be perceptible on the pillow of the second bridal? no, but rather level its green mound with the surrounding earth, as if, when she dug up again her buried heart, the spot had ceased to be a grave. yet, in spite of these sentimentalities, i was prodigiously amused by an incident of which i had not the good-fortune to be a witness, but which mr. wigglesworth related with considerable humor. a gentlewoman of the town, receiving news of her husband's loss at sea, had bespoken a handsome slab of marble, and came daily to watch the progress of my friend's chisel. one afternoon, when the good lady and the sculptor were in the very midst of the epitaph--which the departed spirit might have been greatly comforted to read--who should walk into the workshop but the deceased himself, in substance as well as spirit! he had been picked up at sea, and stood in no present need of tombstone or epitaph. "and how," inquired i, "did his wife bear the shock of joyful surprise?" "why," said the old man, deepening the grin of a death's-head on which his chisel was just then employed, "i really felt for the poor woman; it was one of my best pieces of marble--and to be thrown away on a living man!" a comely woman with a pretty rosebud of a daughter came to select a gravestone for a twin-daughter, who had died a month before. i was impressed with the different nature of their feelings for the dead. the mother was calm and woefully resigned, fully conscious of her loss, as of a treasure which she had not always possessed, and therefore had been aware that it might be taken from her; but the daughter evidently had no real knowledge of what death's doings were. her thoughts knew, but not her heart. it seemed to me that by the print and pressure which the dead sister had left upon the survivor's spirit her feelings were almost the same as if she still stood side by side and arm in arm with the departed, looking at the slabs of marble, and once or twice she glanced around with a sunny smile, which, as its sister-smile had faded for ever, soon grew confusedly overshadowed. perchance her consciousness was truer than her reflection; perchance her dead sister was a closer companion than in life. the mother and daughter talked a long while with mr. wigglesworth about a suitable epitaph, and finally chose an ordinary verse of ill-matched rhymes which had already been inscribed upon innumerable tombstones. but when we ridicule the triteness of monumental verses, we forget that sorrow reads far deeper in them than we can, and finds a profound and individual purport in what seems so vague and inexpressive unless interpreted by her. she makes the epitaph anew, though the selfsame words may have served for a thousand graves. "and yet," said i afterward to mr. wigglesworth, "they might have made a better choice than this. while you were discussing the subject i was struck by at least a dozen simple and natural expressions from the lips of both mother and daughter. one of these would have formed an inscription equally original and appropriate." "no, no!" replied the sculptor, shaking his head; "there is a good deal of comfort to be gathered from these little old scraps of poetry, and so i always recommend them in preference to any new-fangled ones. and somehow they seem to stretch to suit a great grief and shrink to fit a small one." it was not seldom that ludicrous images were excited by what took place between mr. wigglesworth and his customers. a shrewd gentlewoman who kept a tavern in the town was anxious to obtain two or three gravestones for the deceased members of her family, and to pay for these solemn commodities by taking the sculptor to board. hereupon a fantasy arose in my mind of good mr. wigglesworth sitting down to dinner at a broad, flat tombstone carving one of his own plump little marble cherubs, gnawing a pair of crossbones and drinking out of a hollow death's-head or perhaps a lachrymatory vase or sepulchral urn, while his hostess's dead children waited on him at the ghastly banquet. on communicating this nonsensical picture to the old man he laughed heartily and pronounced my humor to be of the right sort. "i have lived at such a table all my days," said he, "and eaten no small quantity of slate and marble." "hard fare," rejoined i, smiling, "but you seemed to have found it excellent of digestion, too." a man of fifty or thereabouts with a harsh, unpleasant countenance ordered a stone for the grave of his bitter enemy, with whom he had waged warfare half a lifetime, to their mutual misery and ruin. the secret of this phenomenon was that hatred had become the sustenance and enjoyment of the poor wretch's soul; it had supplied the place of all kindly affections; it had been really a bond of sympathy between himself and the man who shared the passion; and when its object died, the unappeasable foe was the only mourner for the dead. he expressed a purpose of being buried side by side with his enemy. "i doubt whether their dust will mingle," remarked the old sculptor to me; for often there was an earthliness in his conceptions. "oh yes," replied i, who had mused long upon the incident; "and when they rise again, these bitter foes may find themselves dear friends. methinks what they mistook for hatred was but love under a mask." a gentleman of antiquarian propensities provided a memorial for an indian of chabbiquidick--one of the few of untainted blood remaining in that region, and said to be a hereditary chieftain descended from the sachem who welcomed governor mayhew to the vineyard. mr. wiggles-worth exerted his best skill to carve a broken bow and scattered sheaf of arrows in memory of the hunters and warriors whose race was ended here, but he likewise sculptured a cherub, to denote that the poor indian had shared the christian's hope of immortality. "why," observed i, taking a perverse view of the winged boy and the bow and arrows, "it looks more like cupid's tomb than an indian chief's." "you talk nonsense," said the sculptor, with the offended pride of art. he then added with his usual good-nature, "how can cupid die when there are such pretty maidens in the vineyard?" "very true," answered i; and for the rest of the day i thought of other matters than tombstones. at our next meeting i found him chiselling an open book upon a marble headstone, and concluded that it was meant to express the erudition of some black-letter clergyman of the cotton mather school. it turned out, however, to be emblematical of the scriptural knowledge of an old woman who had never read anything but her bible, and the monument was a tribute to her piety and good works from the orthodox church of which she had been a member. in strange contrast with this christian woman's memorial was that of an infidel whose gravestone, by his own direction, bore an avowal of his belief that the spirit within him would be extinguished like a flame, and that the nothingness whence he sprang would receive him again. mr. wigglesworth consulted me as to the propriety of enabling a dead man's dust to utter this dreadful creed. "if i thought," said he, "that a single mortal would read the inscription without a shudder, my chisel should never cut a letter of it. but when the grave speaks such falsehoods, the soul of man will know the truth by its own horror." "so it will," said i, struck by the idea. "the poor infidel may strive to preach blasphemies from his grave, but it will be only another method of impressing the soul with a consciousness of immortality." there was an old man by the name of norton, noted throughout the island for his great wealth, which he had accumulated by the exercise of strong and shrewd faculties combined with a most penurious disposition. this wretched miser, conscious that he had not a friend to be mindful of him in his grave, had himself taken the needful precautions for posthumous remembrance by bespeaking an immense slab of white marble with a long epitaph in raised letters, the whole to be as magnificent as mr. wigglesworth's skill could make it. there was something very characteristic in this contrivance to have his money's worth even from his own tombstone, which, indeed, afforded him more enjoyment in the few months that he lived thereafter than it probably will in a whole century, now that it is laid over his bones. this incident reminds me of a young girl--a pale, slender, feeble creature most unlike the other rosy and healthful damsels of the vineyard, amid whose brightness she was fading away. day after day did the poor maiden come to the sculptor's shop and pass from one piece of marble to another, till at last she pencilled her name upon a slender slab which, i think, was of a more spotless white than all the rest. i saw her no more, but soon afterward found mr. wigglesworth cutting her virgin-name into the stone which she had chosen. "she is dead, poor girl!" said he, interrupting the tune which he was whistling, "and she chose a good piece of stuff for her headstone. now, which of these slabs would you like best to see your own name upon?" "why, to tell you the truth, my good mr. wigglesworth," replied i, after a moment's pause, for the abruptness of the question had somewhat startled me--"to be quite sincere with you, i care little or nothing about a stone for my own grave, and am somewhat inclined to scepticism as to the propriety of erecting monuments at all over the dust that once was human. the weight of these heavy marbles, though unfelt by the dead corpse or the enfranchised soul, presses drearily upon the spirit of the survivor and causes him to connect the idea of death with the dungeon-like imprisonment of the tomb, instead of with the freedom of the skies. every gravestone that you ever made is the visible symbol of a mistaken system. our thoughts should soar upward with the butterfly, not linger with the exuviæ that confined him. in truth and reason, neither those whom we call the living, and still less the departed, have anything to do with the grave." "i never heard anything so heathenish," said mr. wigglesworth, perplexed and displeased at sentiments which controverted all his notions and feelings and implied the utter waste, and worse, of his whole life's labor. "would you forget your dead friends the moment they are under the sod?" "they are not under the sod," i rejoined; "then why should i mark the spot where there is no treasure hidden? forget them? no; but, to remember them aright, i would forget what they have cast off. and to gain the truer conception of death i would forget the grave." but still the good old sculptor murmured, and stumbled, as it were, over the gravestones amid which he had walked through life. whether he were right or wrong, i had grown the wiser from our companionship and from my observations of nature and character as displayed by those who came, with their old griefs or their new ones, to get them recorded upon his slabs of marble. and yet with my gain of wisdom i had likewise gained perplexity; for there was a strange doubt in my mind whether the dark shadowing of this life, the sorrows and regrets, have not as much real comfort in them--leaving religious influences out of the question--as what we term life's joys. the shaker bridal. one day, in the sick-chamber of father ephraim, who had been forty years the presiding elder over the shaker settlement at goshen, there was an assemblage of several of the chief men of the sect. individuals had come from the rich establishment at lebanon, from canterbury, harvard and alfred, and from all the other localities where this strange people have fertilized the rugged hills of new england by their systematic industry. an elder was likewise there who had made a pilgrimage of a thousand miles from a village of the faithful in kentucky to visit his spiritual kindred the children of the sainted mother ann. he had partaken of the homely abundance of their tables, had quaffed the far-famed shaker cider, and had joined in the sacred dance every step of which is believed to alienate the enthusiast from earth and bear him onward to heavenly purity and bliss. his brethren of the north had now courteously invited him to be present on an occasion when the concurrence of every eminent member of their community was peculiarly desirable. the venerable father ephraim sat in his easy-chair, not only hoary-headed and infirm with age, but worn down by a lingering disease which it was evident would very soon transfer his patriarchal staff to other hands. at his footstool stood a man and woman, both clad in the shaker garb. "my brethren," said father ephraim to the surrounding elders, feebly exerting himself to utter these few words, "here are the son and daughter to whom i would commit the trust of which providence is about to lighten my weary shoulders. read their faces, i pray you, and say whether the inward movement of the spirit hath guided my choice aright." accordingly, each elder looked at the two candidates with a most scrutinizing gaze. the man--whose name was adam colburn--had a face sunburnt with labor in the fields, yet intelligent, thoughtful and traced with cares enough for a whole lifetime, though he had barely reached middle age. there was something severe in his aspect and a rigidity throughout his person--characteristics that caused him generally to be taken for a schoolmaster; which vocation, in fact, he had formerly exercised for several years. the woman, martha pierson, was somewhat above thirty, thin and pale, as a shaker sister almost invariably is, and not entirely free from that corpse-like appearance which the garb of the sisterhood is so well calculated to impart. "this pair are still in the summer of their years," observed the elder from harvard, a shrewd old man. "i would like better to see the hoar-frost of autumn on their heads. methinks, also, they will be exposed to peculiar temptations on account of the carnal desires which have heretofore subsisted between them." "nay, brother," said the elder from canterbury; "the hoar-frost and the black frost hath done its work on brother adam and sister martha, even as we sometimes discern its traces in our cornfields while they are yet green. and why should we question the wisdom of our venerable father's purpose, although this pair in their early youth have loved one another as the world's people love? are there not many brethren and sisters among us who have lived long together in wedlock, yet, adopting our faith, find their hearts purified from all but spiritual affection?" whether or no the early loves of adam and martha had rendered it inexpedient that they should now preside together over a shaker village, it was certainly most singular that such should be the final result of many warm and tender hopes. children of neighboring families, their affection was older even than their school-days; it seemed an innate principle interfused among all their sentiments and feelings, and not so much a distinct remembrance as connected with their whole volume of remembrances. but just as they reached a proper age for their union misfortunes had fallen heavily on both and made it necessary that they should resort to personal labor for a bare subsistence. even under these circumstances martha pierson would probably have consented to unite her fate with adam colburn's, and, secure of the bliss of mutual love, would patiently have awaited the less important gifts of fortune. but adam, being of a calm and cautious character, was loth to relinquish the advantages which a single man possesses for raising himself in the world. year after year, therefore, their marriage had been deferred. adam colburn had followed many vocations, had travelled far and seen much of the world and of life. martha had earned her bread sometimes as a sempstress, sometimes as help to a farmer's wife, sometimes as schoolmistress of the village children, sometimes as a nurse or watcher of the sick, thus acquiring a varied experience the ultimate use of which she little anticipated. but nothing had gone prosperously with either of the lovers; at no subsequent moment would matrimony have been so prudent a measure as when they had first parted, in the opening bloom of life, to seek a better fortune. still, they had held fast their mutual faith. martha might have been the wife of a man who sat among the senators of his native state, and adam could have won the hand, as he had unintentionally won the heart, of a rich and comely widow. but neither of them desired good-fortune save to share it with the other. at length that calm despair which occurs only in a strong and somewhat stubborn character and yields to no second spring of hope settled down on the spirit of adam colburn. he sought an interview with martha and proposed that they should join the society of shakers. the converts of this sect are oftener driven within its hospitable gates by worldly misfortune than drawn thither by fanaticism, and are received without inquisition as to their motives. martha, faithful still, had placed her hand in that of her lover and accompanied him to the shaker village. here the natural capacity of each, cultivated and strengthened by the difficulties of their previous lives, had soon gained them an important rank in the society, whose members are generally below the ordinary standard of intelligence. their faith and feelings had in some degree become assimilated to those of their fellow-worshippers. adam colburn gradually acquired reputation not only in the management of the temporal affairs of the society, but as a clear and efficient preacher of their doctrines. martha was not less distinguished in the duties proper to her sex. finally, when the infirmities of father ephraim had admonished him to seek a successor in his patriarchal office, he thought of adam and martha, and proposed to renew in their persons the primitive form of shaker government as established by mother ann. they were to be the father and mother of the village. the simple ceremony which would constitute them such was now to be performed. "son adam and daughter martha," said the venerable father ephraim, fixing his aged eyes piercingly upon them, "if ye can conscientiously undertake this charge, speak, that the brethren may not doubt of your fitness." "father," replied adam, speaking with the calmness of his character, "i came to your village a disappointed man, weary of the world, worn out with continual trouble, seeking only a security against evil fortune, as i had no hope of good. even my wishes of worldly success were almost dead within me. i came hither as a man might come to a tomb willing to lie down in its gloom and coldness for the sake of its peace and quiet. there was but one earthly affection in my breast, and it had grown calmer since my youth; so that i was satisfied to bring martha to be my sister in our new abode. we are brother and sister, nor would i have it otherwise. and in this peaceful village i have found all that i hope for--all that i desire. i will strive with my best strength for the spiritual and temporal good of our community. my conscience is not doubtful in this matter. i am ready to receive the trust." "thou hast spoken well, son adam," said the father. "god will bless thee in the office which i am about to resign." "but our sister," observed the elder from harvard. "hath she not likewise a gift to declare her sentiments?" martha started and moved her lips as if she would have made a formal reply to this appeal. but, had she attempted it, perhaps the old recollections, the long-repressed feelings of childhood, youth and womanhood, might have gushed from her heart in words that it would have been profanation to utter there. "adam has spoken," said she, hurriedly; "his sentiments are likewise mine." but while speaking these few words martha grew so pale that she looked fitter to be laid in her coffin than to stand in the presence of father ephraim and the elders; she shuddered, also, as if there were something awful or horrible in her situation and destiny. it required, indeed, a more than feminine strength of nerve to sustain the fixed observance of men so exalted and famous throughout the sect as these were. they had overcome their natural sympathy with human frailties and affections. one, when he joined the society, had brought with him his wife and children, but never from that hour had spoken a fond word to the former or taken his best-loved child upon his knee. another, whose family refused to follow him, had been enabled--such was his gift of holy fortitude--to leave them to the mercy of the world. the youngest of the elders, a man of about fifty, had been bred from infancy in a shaker village, and was said never to have clasped a woman's hand in his own, and to have no conception of a closer tie than the cold fraternal one of the sect. old father ephraim was the most awful character of all. in his youth he had been a dissolute libertine, but was converted by mother ann herself, and had partaken of the wild fanaticism of the early shakers. tradition whispered at the firesides of the village that mother ann had been compelled to sear his heart of flesh with a red-hot iron before it could be purified from earthly passions. however that might be, poor martha had a woman's heart, and a tender one, and it quailed within her as she looked round at those strange old men, and from them to the calm features of adam colburn. but, perceiving that the elders eyed her doubtfully, she gasped for breath and again spoke. "with what strength is left me by my many troubles," said she, "i am ready to undertake this charge, and to do my best in it." "my children, join your hands," said father ephraim. they did so. the elders stood up around, and the father feebly raised himself to a more erect position, but continued sitting in his great chair. "i have bidden you to join your hands," said he, "not in earthly affection, for ye have cast off its chains for ever, but as brother and sister in spiritual love and helpers of one another in your allotted task. teach unto others the faith which ye have received. open wide your gates--i deliver you the keys thereof--open them wide to all who will give up the iniquities of the world and come hither to lead lives of purity and peace. receive the weary ones who have known the vanity of earth; receive the little children, that they may never learn that miserable lesson. and a blessing be upon your labors; so that the time may hasten on when the mission of mother ann shall have wrought its full effect, when children shall no more be born and die, and the last survivor of mortal race--some old and weary man like me--shall see the sun go down nevermore to rise on a world of sin and sorrow." the aged father sank back exhausted, and the surrounding elders deemed, with good reason, that the hour was come when the new heads of the village must enter on their patriarchal duties. in their attention to father ephraim their eyes were turned from martha pierson, who grew paler and paler, unnoticed even by adam colburn. he, indeed, had withdrawn his hand from hers and folded his arms with a sense of satisfied ambition. but paler and paler grew martha by his side, till, like a corpse in its burial-clothes, she sank down at the feet of her early lover; for, after many trials firmly borne, her heart could endure the weight of its desolate agony no longer. night-sketches, beneath an umbrella. pleasant is a rainy winter's day within-doors. the best study for such a day--or the best amusement: call it what you will--is a book of travels describing scenes the most unlike that sombre one which is mistily presented through the windows. i have experienced that fancy is then most successful in imparting distinct shapes and vivid colors to the objects which the author has spread upon his page, and that his words become magic spells to summon up a thousand varied pictures. strange landscapes glimmer through the familiar walls of the room, and outlandish figures thrust themselves almost within the sacred precincts of the hearth. small as my chamber is, it has space enough to contain the ocean-like circumference of an arabian desert, its parched sands tracked by the long line of a caravan with the camels patiently journeying through the heavy sunshine. though my ceiling be not lofty, yet i can pile up the mountains of central asia beneath it till their summits shine far above the clouds of the middle atmosphere. and with my humble means--a wealth that is not taxable--i can transport hither the magnificent merchandise of an oriental bazaar, and call a crowd of purchasers from distant countries to pay a fair profit for the precious articles which are displayed on all sides. true it is, however, that amid the bustle of traffic, or whatever else may seem to be going on around me, the raindrops will occasionally be heard to patter against my window-panes, which look forth upon one of the quietest streets in a new england town. after a time, too, the visions vanish, and will not appear again at my bidding. then, it being nightfall, a gloomy sense of unreality depresses my spirits, and impels me to venture out before the clock shall strike bedtime to satisfy myself that the world is not entirely made up of such shadowy materials as have busied me throughout the day. a dreamer may dwell so long among fantasies that the things without him will seem as unreal as those within. when eve has fairly set in, therefore, i sally forth, tightly buttoning my shaggy overcoat and hoisting my umbrella, the silken dome of which immediately resounds with the heavy drumming of the invisible raindrops. pausing on the lowest doorstep, i contrast the warmth and cheerfulness of my deserted fireside with the drear obscurity and chill discomfort into which i am about to plunge. now come fearful auguries innumerable as the drops of rain. did not my manhood cry shame upon me, i should turn back within-doors, resume my elbow-chair, my slippers and my book, pass such an evening of sluggish enjoyment as the day has been, and go to bed inglorious. the same shivering reluctance, no doubt, has quelled for a moment the adventurous spirit of many a traveller when his feet, which were destined to measure the earth around, were leaving their last tracks in the home-paths. in my own case poor human nature may be allowed a few misgivings. i look upward and discern no sky, not even an unfathomable void, but only a black, impenetrable nothingness, as though heaven and all its lights were blotted from the system of the universe. it is as if nature were dead and the world had put on black and the clouds were weeping for her. with their tears upon my cheek i turn my eyes earthward, but find little consolation here below. a lamp is burning dimly at the distant corner, and throws just enough of light along the street to show, and exaggerate by so faintly showing, the perils and difficulties which beset my path. yonder dingily-white remnant of a huge snowbank, which will yet cumber the sidewalk till the latter days of march, over or through that wintry waste must i stride onward. beyond lies a certain slough of despond, a concoction of mud and liquid filth, ankle-deep, leg-deep, neck-deep--in a word, of unknown bottom--on which the lamplight does not even glimmer, but which i have occasionally watched in the gradual growth of its horrors from morn till nightfall. should i flounder into its depths, farewell to upper earth! and hark! how roughly resounds the roaring of a stream the turbulent career of which is partially reddened by the gleam of the lamp, but elsewhere brawls noisily through the densest gloom! oh, should i be swept away in fording that impetuous and unclean torrent, the coroner will have a job with an unfortunate gentleman who would fain end his troubles anywhere but in a mud-puddle. pshaw! i will linger not another instant at arm's-length from these dim terrors, which grow more obscurely formidable the longer i delay to grapple with them. now for the onset, and, lo! with little damage save a dash of rain in the face and breast, a splash of mud high up the pantaloons and the left boot full of ice-cold water, behold me at the corner of the street. the lamp throws down a circle of red light around me, and twinkling onward from corner to corner i discern other beacons, marshalling my way to a brighter scene. but this is a lonesome and dreary spot. the tall edifices bid gloomy defiance to the storm with their blinds all closed, even as a man winks when he faces a spattering gust. how loudly tinkles the collected rain down the tin spouts! the puffs of wind are boisterous, and seem to assail me from various quarters at once. i have often observed that this corner is a haunt and loitering-place for those winds which have no work to do upon the deep dashing ships against our iron-bound shores, nor in the forest tearing up the sylvan giants with half a rood of soil at their vast roots. here they amuse themselves with lesser freaks of mischief. see, at this moment, how they assail yonder poor woman who is passing just within the verge of the lamplight! one blast struggles for her umbrella and turns it wrong side outward, another whisks the cape of her cloak across her eyes, while a third takes most unwarrantable liberties with the lower part of her attire. happily, the good dame is no gossamer, but a figure of rotundity and fleshly substance; else would these aerial tormentors whirl her aloft like a witch upon a broomstick, and set her down, doubtless, in the filthiest kennel hereabout. from hence i tread upon firm pavements into the centre of the town. here there is almost as brilliant an illumination as when some great victory has been won either on the battlefield or at the polls. two rows of shops with windows down nearly to the ground cast a glow from side to side, while the black night hangs overhead like a canopy, and thus keeps the splendor from diffusing itself away. the wet sidewalks gleam with a broad sheet of red light. the raindrops glitter as if the sky were pouring down rubies. the spouts gush with fire. methinks the scene is an emblem of the deceptive glare which mortals throw around their footsteps in the moral world, thus bedazzling themselves till they forget the impenetrable obscurity that hems them in, and that can be dispelled only by radiance from above. and, after all, it is a cheerless scene, and cheerless are the wanderers in it. here comes one who has so long been familiar with tempestuous weather that he takes the bluster of the storm for a friendly greeting, as if it should say, "how fare ye, brother?" he is a retired sea-captain wrapped in some nameless garment of the pea-jacket order, and is now laying his course toward the marine-insurance office, there to spin yarns of gale and shipwreck with a crew of old seadogs like himself. the blast will put in its word among their hoarse voices, and be understood by all of them. next i meet an unhappy slipshod gentleman with a cloak flung hastily over his shoulders, running a race with boisterous winds and striving to glide between the drops of rain. some domestic emergency or other has blown this miserable man from his warm fireside in quest of a doctor. see that little vagabond! how carelessly he has taken his stand right underneath a spout while staring at some object of curiosity in a shop-window! surely the rain is his native element; he must have fallen with it from the clouds, as frogs are supposed to do. here is a picture, and a pretty one--a young man and a girl, both enveloped in cloaks and huddled beneath the scanty protection of a cotton umbrella. she wears rubber overshoes, but he is in his dancing-pumps, and they are on their way no doubt, to some cotillon-party or subscription-ball at a dollar a head, refreshments included. thus they struggle against the gloomy tempest, lured onward by a vision of festal splendor. but ah! a most lamentable disaster! bewildered by the red, blue and yellow meteors in an apothecary's window, they have stepped upon a slippery remnant of ice, and are precipitated into a confluence of swollen floods at the corner of two streets. luckless lovers! were it my nature to be other than a looker-on in life, i would attempt your rescue. since that may not be, i vow, should you be drowned, to weave such a pathetic story of your fate as shall call forth tears enough to drown you both anew. do ye touch bottom, my young friends? yes; they emerge like a water-nymph and a river-deity, and paddle hand in hand out of the depths of the dark pool. they hurry homeward, dripping, disconsolate, abashed, but with love too warm to be chilled by the cold water. they have stood a test which proves too strong for many. faithful though over head and ears in trouble! onward i go, deriving a sympathetic joy or sorrow from the varied aspect of mortal affairs even as my figure catches a gleam from the lighted windows or is blackened by an interval of darkness. not that mine is altogether a chameleon spirit with no hue of its own. now i pass into a more retired street where the dwellings of wealth and poverty are intermingled, presenting a range of strongly-contrasted pictures. here, too, may be found the golden mean. through yonder casement i discern a family circle--the grandmother, the parents and the children--all flickering, shadow-like, in the glow of a wood-fire.--bluster, fierce blast, and beat, thou wintry rain, against the window-panes! ye cannot damp the enjoyment of that fireside.--surely my fate is hard that i should be wandering homeless here, taking to my bosom night and storm and solitude instead of wife and children. peace, murmurer! doubt not that darker guests are sitting round the hearth, though the warm blaze hides all but blissful images. well, here is still a brighter scene--a stately mansion illuminated for a ball, with cut-glass chandeliers and alabaster lamps in every room, and sunny landscapes hanging round the walls. see! a coach has stopped, whence emerges a slender beauty who, canopied by two umbrellas, glides within the portal and vanishes amid lightsome thrills of music. will she ever feel the night-wind and the rain? perhaps--perhaps! and will death and sorrow ever enter that proud mansion? as surely as the dancers will be gay within its halls to-night. such thoughts sadden yet satisfy my heart, for they teach me that the poor man in this mean, weatherbeaten hovel, without a fire to cheer him, may call the rich his brother--brethren by sorrow, who must be an inmate of both their households; brethren by death, who will lead them both to other homes. onward, still onward, i plunge into the night. now have i reached the utmost limits of the town, where the last lamp struggles feebly with the darkness like the farthest star that stands sentinel on the borders of uncreated space. it is strange what sensations of sublimity may spring from a very humble source. such are suggested by this hollow roar of a subterranean cataract where the mighty stream of a kennel precipitates itself beneath an iron grate and is seen no more on earth. listen a while to its voice of mystery, and fancy will magnify it till you start and smile at the illusion. and now another sound--the rumbling of wheels as the mail-coach, outward bound, rolls heavily off the pavements and splashes through the mud and water of the road. all night long the poor passengers will be tossed to and fro between drowsy watch and troubled sleep, and will dream of their own quiet beds and awake to find themselves still jolting onward. happier my lot, who will straightway hie me to my familiar room and toast myself comfortably before the fire, musing and fitfully dozing and fancying a strangeness in such sights as all may see. but first let me gaze at this solitary figure who comes hitherward with a tin lantern which throws the circular pattern of its punched holes on the ground about him. he passes fearlessly into the unknown gloom, whither i will not follow him. this figure shall supply me with a moral wherewith, for lack of a more appropriate one, i may wind up my sketch. he fears not to tread the dreary path before him, because his lantern, which was kindled at the fireside of his home, will light him back to that same fireside again. and thus we, night-wanderers through a stormy and dismal world, if we bear the lamp of faith enkindled at a celestial fire, it will surely lead us home to that heaven whence its radiance was borrowed. endicott and the red cross. at noon of an autumnal day more than two centuries ago the english colors were displayed by the standard bearer of the salem train-band, which had mustered for martial exercise under the orders of john endicott. it was a period when the religious exiles were accustomed often to buckle on their armor and practise the handling of their weapons of war. since the first settlement of new england its prospects had never been so dismal. the dissensions between charles i. and his subjects were then, and for several years afterward, confined to the floor of parliament. the measures of the king and ministry were rendered more tyrannically violent by an opposition which had not yet acquired sufficient confidence in its own strength to resist royal injustice with the sword. the bigoted and haughty primate laud, archbishop of canterbury, controlled the religious affairs of the realm, and was consequently invested with powers which might have wrought the utter ruin of the two puritan colonies, plymouth and massachusetts. there is evidence on record that our forefathers perceived their danger, but were resolved that their infant country should not fall without a struggle, even beneath the giant strength of the king's right arm. such was the aspect of the times when the folds of the english banner with the red cross in its field were flung out over a company of puritans. their leader, the famous endicott, was a man of stern and resolute countenance, the effect of which was heightened by a grizzled beard that swept the upper portion of his breastplate. this piece of armor was so highly polished that the whole surrounding scene had its image in the glittering steel. the central object in the mirrored picture was an edifice of humble architecture with neither steeple nor bell to proclaim it--what, nevertheless, it was--the house of prayer. a token of the perils of the wilderness was seen in the grim head of a wolf which had just been slain within the precincts of the town, and, according to the regular mode of claiming the bounty, was nailed on the porch of the meeting-house. the blood was still plashing on the doorstep. there happened to be visible at the same noontide hour so many other characteristics of the times and manners of the puritans that we must endeavor to represent them in a sketch, though far less vividly than they were reflected in the polished breastplate of john endicott. in close vicinity to the sacred edifice appeared that important engine of puritanic authority the whipping-post, with the soil around it well trodden by the feet of evil-doers who had there been disciplined. at one corner of the meeting-house was the pillory and at the other the stocks, and, by a singular good fortune for our sketch, the head of an episcopalian and suspected catholic was grotesquely encased in the former machine, while a fellow-criminal who had boisterously quaffed a health to the king was confined by the legs in the latter. side by side on the meeting-house steps stood a male and a female figure. the man was a tall, lean, haggard personification of fanaticism, bearing on his breast this label, "a wanton gospeller," which betokened that he had dared to give interpretations of holy writ unsanctioned by the infallible judgment of the civil and religious rulers. his aspect showed no lack of zeal to maintain his heterodoxies even at the stake. the woman wore a cleft stick on her tongue, in appropriate retribution for having wagged that unruly member against the elders of the church, and her countenance and gestures gave much cause to apprehend that the moment the stick should be removed a repetition of the offence would demand new ingenuity in chastising it. the above-mentioned individuals had been sentenced to undergo their various modes of ignominy for the space of one hour at noonday. but among the crowd were several whose punishment would be lifelong--some whose ears had been cropped like those of puppy-dogs, others whose cheeks had been branded with the initials of their misdemeanors; one with his nostrils slit and seared, and another with a halter about his neck, which he was forbidden ever to take off or to conceal beneath his garments. methinks he must have been grievously tempted to affix the other end of the rope to some convenient beam or bough. there was likewise a young woman with no mean share of beauty whose doom it was to wear the letter a on the breast of her gown in the eyes of all the world and her own children. and even her own children knew what that initial signified. sporting with her infamy, the lost and desperate creature had embroidered the fatal token in scarlet cloth with golden thread and the nicest art of needlework; so that the capital a might have been thought to mean "admirable," or anything rather than "adulteress." let not the reader argue from any of these evidences of iniquity that the times of the puritans were more vicious than our own, when as we pass along the very street of this sketch we discern no badge of infamy on man or woman. it was the policy of our ancestors to search out even the most secret sins and expose them to shame, without fear or favor, in the broadest light of the noonday sun. were such the custom now, perchance we might find materials for a no less piquant sketch than the above. except the malefactors whom we have described and the diseased or infirm persons, the whole male population of the town, between sixteen years and sixty were seen in the ranks of the train-band. a few stately savages in all the pomp and dignity of the primeval indian stood gazing at the spectacle. their flint-headed arrows were but childish weapons, compared with the matchlocks of the puritans, and would have rattled harmlessly against the steel caps and hammered iron breastplates which enclosed each soldier in an individual fortress. the valiant john endicott glanced with an eye of pride at his sturdy followers, and prepared to renew the martial toils of the day. "come, my stout hearts!" quoth he, drawing his sword. "let us show these poor heathen that we can handle our weapons like men of might. well for them if they put us not to prove it in earnest!" the iron-breasted company straightened their line, and each man drew the heavy butt of his matchlock close to his left foot, thus awaiting the orders of the captain. but as endicott glanced right and left along the front he discovered a personage at some little distance with whom it behoved him to hold a parley. it was an elderly gentleman wearing a black cloak and band and a high-crowned hat beneath which was a velvet skull-cap, the whole being the garb of a puritan minister. this reverend person bore a staff which seemed to have been recently cut in the forest, and his shoes were bemired, as if he had been travelling on foot through the swamps of the wilderness. his aspect was perfectly that of a pilgrim, heightened also by an apostolic dignity. just as endicott perceived him he laid aside his staff and stooped to drink at a bubbling fountain which gushed into the sunshine about a score of yards from the corner of the meeting-house. but ere the good man drank he turned his face heavenward in thankfulness, and then, holding back his gray beard with one hand, he scooped up his simple draught in the hollow of the other. "what ho, good mr. williams!" shouted endicott. "you are welcome back again to our town of peace. how does our worthy governor winthrop? and what news from boston?" "the governor hath his health, worshipful sir," answered roger williams, now resuming his staff and drawing near. "and, for the news, here is a letter which, knowing i was to travel hitherward to-day, his excellency committed to my charge. belike it contains tidings of much import, for a ship arrived yesterday from england." mr. williams, the minister of salem, and of course known to all the spectators, had now reached the spot where endicott was standing under the banner of his company, and put the governor's epistle into his hand. the broad seal was impressed with winthrop's coat-of-arms. endicott hastily unclosed the letter and began to read, while, as his eye passed down the page, a wrathful change came over his manly countenance. the blood glowed through it till it seemed to be kindling with an internal heat, nor was it unnatural to suppose that his breastplate would likewise become red hot with the angry fire of the bosom which it covered. arriving at the conclusion, he shook the letter fiercely in his hand, so that it rustled as loud as the flag above his head. "black tidings these, mr. williams," said he; "blacker never came to new england. doubtless you know their purport?" "yea, truly," replied roger williams, "for the governor consulted respecting this matter with my brethren in the ministry at boston, and my opinion was likewise asked. and his excellency entreats you by me that the news be not suddenly noised abroad, lest the people be stirred up unto some outbreak, and thereby give the king and the archbishop a handle against us." "the governor is a wise man--a wise man, and a meek and moderate," said endicott, setting his teeth grimly. "nevertheless, i must do according to my own best judgment. there is neither man, woman nor child in new england but has a concern as dear as life in these tidings; and if john endicott's voice be loud enough, man, woman and child shall hear them.--soldiers, wheel into a hollow square.--ho, good people! here are news for one and all of you." the soldiers closed in around their captain, and he and roger williams stood together under the banner of the red cross, while the women and the aged men pressed forward and the mothers held up their children to look endicott in the face. a few taps of the drum gave signal for silence and attention. "fellow-soldiers, fellow-exiles," began endicott, speaking under strong excitement, yet powerfully restraining it, "wherefore did ye leave your native country? wherefore, i say, have we left the green and fertile fields, the cottages, or, perchance, the old gray halls, where we were born and bred, the churchyards where our forefathers lie buried? wherefore have we come hither to set up our own tombstones in a wilderness? a howling wilderness it is. the wolf and the bear meet us within halloo of our dwellings. the savage lieth in wait for us in the dismal shadow of the woods. the stubborn roots of the trees break our ploughshares when we would till the earth. our children cry for bread, and we must dig in the sands of the seashore to satisfy them. wherefore, i say again, have we sought this country of a rugged soil and wintry sky? was it not for the enjoyment of our civil rights? was it not for liberty to worship god according to our conscience?" "call you this liberty of conscience?" interrupted a voice on the steps of the meeting-house. it was the wanton gospeller. a sad and quiet smile flitted across the mild visage of roger williams, but endicott, in the excitement of the moment, shook his sword wrathfully at the culprit--an ominous gesture from a man like him. "what hast thou to do with conscience, thou knave?" cried he. "i said liberty to worship god, not license to profane and ridicule him. break not in upon my speech, or i will lay thee neck and heels till this time to-morrow.--hearken to me, friends, nor heed that accursed rhapsodist. as i was saying, we have sacrificed all things, and have come to a land whereof the old world hath scarcely heard, that we might make a new world unto ourselves and painfully seek a path from hence to heaven. but what think ye now? this son of a scotch tyrant--this grandson of a papistical and adulterous scotch woman whose death proved that a golden crown doth not always save an anointed head from the block--" "nay, brother, nay," interposed mr. williams; "thy words are not meet for a secret chamber, far less for a public street." "hold thy peace, roger williams!" answered endicott, imperiously. "my spirit is wiser than thine for the business now in hand.--i tell ye, fellow-exiles, that charles of england and laud, our bitterest persecutor, arch-priest of canterbury, are resolute to pursue us even hither. they are taking counsel, saith this letter, to send over a governor-general in whose breast shall be deposited all the law and equity of the land. they are minded, also, to establish the idolatrous forms of english episcopacy; so that when laud shall kiss the pope's toe as cardinal of rome he may deliver new england, bound hand and foot, into the power of his master." a deep groan from the auditors--a sound of wrath as well as fear and sorrow--responded to this intelligence. "look ye to it, brethren," resumed endicott, with increasing energy. "if this king and this arch-prelate have their will, we shall briefly behold a cross on the spire of this tabernacle which we have builded, and a high altar within its walls, with wax tapers burning round it at noon-day. we shall hear the sacring-bell and the voices of the romish priests saying the mass. but think ye, christian men, that these abominations may be suffered without a sword drawn, without a shot fired, without blood spilt--yea, on the very stairs of the pulpit? no! be ye strong of hand and stout of heart. here we stand on our own soil, which we have bought with our goods, which we have won with our swords, which we have cleared with our axes, which we have tilled with the sweat of our brows, which we have sanctified with our prayers to the god that brought us hither! who shall enslave us here? what have we to do with this mitred prelate--with this crowned king? what have we to do with england?" endicott gazed round at the excited countenances of the people, now full of his own spirit, and then turned suddenly to the standard-bearer, who stood close behind him. "officer, lower your banner," said he. the officer obeyed, and, brandishing his sword, endicott thrust it through the cloth and with his left hand rent the red cross completely out of the banner. he then waved the tattered ensign above his head. "sacrilegious wretch!" cried the high-churchman in the pillory, unable longer to restrain himself; "thou hast rejected the symbol of our holy religion." "treason! treason!" roared the royalist in the stocks. "he hath defaced the king's banner!" "before god and man i will avouch the deed," answered endicott.--"beat a flourish, drummer--shout, soldiers and people--in honor of the ensign of new england. neither pope nor tyrant hath part in it now." with a cry of triumph the people gave their sanction to one of the boldest exploits which our history records. and for ever honored be the name of endicott! we look back through the mist of ages, and recognize in the rending of the red cross from new england's banner the first omen of that deliverance which our fathers consummated after the bones of the stern puritan had lain more than a century in the dust. the lily's quest. an apologue. two lovers once upon a time had planned a little summer-house in the form of an antique temple which it was their purpose to consecrate to all manner of refined and innocent enjoyments. there they would hold pleasant intercourse with one another and the circle of their familiar friends; there they would give festivals of delicious fruit; there they would hear lightsome music intermingled with the strains of pathos which make joy more sweet; there they would read poetry and fiction and permit their own minds to flit away in day-dreams and romance; there, in short--for why should we shape out the vague sunshine of their hopes?--there all pure delights were to cluster like roses among the pillars of the edifice and blossom ever new and spontaneously. so one breezy and cloudless afternoon adam forrester and lilias fay set out upon a ramble over the wide estate which they were to possess together, seeking a proper site for their temple of happiness. they were themselves a fair and happy spectacle, fit priest and priestess for such a shrine, although, making poetry of the pretty name of lilias, adam forrester was wont to call her "lily" because her form was as fragile and her cheek almost as pale. as they passed hand in hand down the avenue of drooping elms that led from the portal of lilias fay's paternal mansion they seemed to glance like winged creatures through the strips of sunshine, and to scatter brightness where the deep shadows fell. but, setting forth at the same time with this youthful pair, there was a dismal figure wrapped in a black velvet cloak that might have been made of a coffin-pall, and with a sombre hat such as mourners wear drooping its broad brim over his heavy brows. glancing behind them, the lovers well knew who it was that followed, but wished from their hearts that he had been elsewhere, as being a companion so strangely unsuited to their joyous errand. it was a near relative of lilias fay, an old man by the name of walter gascoigne, who had long labored under the burden of a melancholy spirit which was sometimes maddened into absolute insanity and always had a tinge of it. what a contrast between the young pilgrims of bliss and their unbidden associate! they looked as if moulded of heaven's sunshine and he of earth's gloomiest shade; they flitted along like hope and joy roaming hand in hand through life, while his darksome figure stalked behind, a type of all the woeful influences which life could fling upon them. but the three had not gone far when they reached a spot that pleased the gentle lily, and she paused. "what sweeter place shall we find than this?" said she. "why should we seek farther for the site of our temple?" it was indeed a delightful spot of earth, though undistinguished by any very prominent beauties, being merely a nook in the shelter of a hill, with the prospect of a distant lake in one direction and of a church-spire in another. there were vistas and pathways leading onward and onward into the green woodlands and vanishing away in the glimmering shade. the temple, if erected here, would look toward the west; so that the lovers could shape all sorts of magnificent dreams out of the purple, violet and gold of the sunset sky, and few of their anticipated pleasures were dearer than this sport of fantasy. "yes," said adam forrester; "we might seek all day and find no lovelier spot. we will build our temple here." but their sad old companion, who had taken his stand on the very site which they proposed to cover with a marble floor, shook his head and frowned, and the young man and the lily deemed it almost enough to blight the spot and desecrate it for their airy temple that his dismal figure had thrown its shadow there. he pointed to some scattered stones, the remnants of a former structure, and to flowers such as young girls delight to nurse in their gardens, but which had now relapsed into the wild simplicity of nature. "not here," cried old walter gascoigne. "here, long ago, other mortals built their temple of happiness; seek another site for yours." "what!" exclaimed lilias fay. "have any ever planned such a temple save ourselves?" "poor child!" said her gloomy kinsman. "in one shape or other every mortal has dreamed your dream." then he told the lovers, how--not, indeed, an antique temple, but a dwelling--had once stood there, and that a dark-clad guest had dwelt among its inmates, sitting for ever at the fireside and poisoning all their household mirth. under this type adam forrester and lilias saw that the old man spake of sorrow. he told of nothing that might not be recorded in the history of almost every household, and yet his hearers felt as if no sunshine ought to fall upon a spot where human grief had left so deep a stain--or, at least, that no joyous temple should be built there. "this is very sad," said the lily, sighing. "well, there are lovelier spots than this," said adam forrester, soothingly--"spots which sorrow has not blighted." so they hastened away, and the melancholy gascoigne followed them, looking as if he had gathered up all the gloom of the deserted spot and was bearing it as a burden of inestimable treasure. but still they rambled on, and soon found themselves in a rocky dell through the midst of which ran a streamlet with ripple and foam and a continual voice of inarticulate joy. it was a wild retreat walled on either side with gray precipices which would have frowned somewhat too sternly had not a profusion of green shrubbery rooted itself into their crevices and wreathed gladsome foliage around their solemn brows. but the chief joy of the dell was in the little stream which seemed like the presence of a blissful child with nothing earthly to do save to babble merrily and disport itself, and make every living soul its playfellow, and throw the sunny gleams of its spirit upon all. "here, here is the spot!" cried the two lovers, with one voice, as they reached a level space on the brink of a small cascade. "this glen was made on purpose for our temple." "and the glad song of the brook will be always in our ears," said lilias fay. "and its long melody shall sing the bliss of our lifetime," said adam forrester. "ye must build no temple here," murmured their dismal companion. and there again was the old lunatic standing just on the spot where they meant to rear their lightsome dome, and looking like the embodied symbol of some great woe that in forgotten days had happened there. and, alas! there had been woe, nor that alone. a young man more than a hundred years before had lured hither a girl that loved him, and on this spot had murdered her and washed his bloody hands in the stream which sang so merrily, and ever since the victim's death-shrieks were often heard to echo between the cliffs. "and see!" cried old gascoigne; "is the stream yet pure from the stain of the murderer's hands?" "methinks it has a tinge of blood," faintly answered the lily; and, being as slight as the gossamer, she trembled and clung to her lover's arm, whispering, "let us flee from this dreadful vale." "come, then," said adam forrester as cheerily as he could; "we shall soon find a happier spot." they set forth again, young pilgrims on that quest which millions--which every child of earth--has tried in turn. and were the lily and her lover to be more fortunate than all those millions? for a long time it seemed not so. the dismal shape of the old lunatic still glided behind them, and for every spot that looked lovely in their eyes he had some legend of human wrong or suffering so miserably sad that his auditors could never afterward connect the idea of joy with the place where it had happened. here a heartbroken woman kneeling to her child had been spurned from his feet; here a desolate old creature had prayed to the evil one, and had received a fiendish malignity of soul in answer to her prayer; here a new-born infant, sweet blossom of life, had been found dead with the impress of its mother's fingers round its throat; and here, under a shattered oak, two lovers had been stricken by lightning and fell blackened corpses in each other's arms. the dreary gascoigne had a gift to know whatever evil and lamentable thing had stained the bosom of mother earth; and when his funereal voice had told the tale, it appeared like a prophecy of future woe as well as a tradition of the past. and now, by their sad demeanor, you would have fancied that the pilgrim-lovers were seeking, not a temple of earthly joy, but a tomb for themselves and their posterity. "where in this world," exclaimed adam forrester, despondingly, "shall we build our temple of happiness?" "where in this world, indeed?" repeated lilias fay; and, being faint and weary--the more so by the heaviness of her heart--the lily drooped her head and sat down on the summit of a knoll, repeating, "where in this world shall we build our temple?" "ah! have you already asked yourselves that question?" said their companion, his shaded features growing even gloomier with the smile that dwelt on them. "yet there is a place even in this world where ye may build it." while the old man spoke adam forrester and lilias had carelessly thrown their eyes around, and perceived that the spot where they had chanced to pause possessed a quiet charm which was well enough adapted to their present mood of mind. it was a small rise of ground with a certain regularity of shape that had perhaps been bestowed by art, and a group of trees which almost surrounded it threw their pensive shadows across and far beyond, although some softened glory of the sunshine found its way there. the ancestral mansion wherein the lovers would dwell together appeared on one side, and the ivied church where they were to worship on another. happening to cast their eyes on the ground, they smiled, yet with a sense of wonder, to see that a pale lily was growing at their feet. "we will build our temple here," said they, simultaneously, and with an indescribable conviction that they had at last found the very spot. yet while they uttered this exclamation the young man and the lily turned an apprehensive glance at their dreary associate, deeming it hardly possible that some tale of earthly affliction should not make those precincts loathsome, as in every former case. the old man stood just behind them, so as to form the chief figure in the group, with his sable cloak muffling the lower part of his visage and his sombre hat overshadowing his brows. but he gave no word of dissent from their purpose, and an inscrutable smile was accepted by the lovers as a token that here had been no footprint of guilt or sorrow to desecrate the site of their temple of happiness. in a little time longer, while summer was still in its prime, the fairy-structure of the temple arose on the summit of the knoll amid the solemn shadows of the trees, yet often gladdened with bright sunshine. it was built of white marble, with slender and graceful pillars supporting a vaulted dome, and beneath the centre of this dome, upon a pedestal, was a slab of dark-veined marble on which books and music might be strewn. but there was a fantasy among the people of the neighborhood that the edifice was planned after an ancient mausoleum and was intended for a tomb, and that the central slab of dark-veined marble was to be inscribed with the names of buried ones. they doubted, too, whether the form of lilias fay could appertain to a creature of this earth, being so very delicate and growing every day more fragile, so that she looked as if the summer breeze should snatch her up and waft her heavenward. but still she watched the daily growth of the temple, and so did old walter gascoigne, who now made that spot his continual haunt, leaning whole hours together on his staff and giving as deep attention to the work as though it had been indeed a tomb. in due time it was finished and a day appointed for a simple rite of dedication. on the preceding evening, after adam forrester had taken leave of his mistress, he looked back toward the portal of her dwelling and felt a strange thrill of fear, for he imagined that as the setting sunbeams faded from her figure she was exhaling away, and that something of her ethereal substance was withdrawn with each lessening gleam of light. with his farewell glance a shadow had fallen over the portal, and lilias was invisible. his foreboding spirit deemed it an omen at the time, and so it proved; for the sweet earthly form by which the lily had been manifested to the world was found lifeless the next morning in the temple with her head resting on her arms, which were folded upon the slab of dark-veined marble. the chill winds of the earth had long since breathed a blight into this beautiful flower; so that a loving hand had now transplanted it to blossom brightly in the garden of paradise. but alas for the temple of happiness! in his unutterable grief adam forrester had no purpose more at heart than to convert this temple of many delightful hopes into a tomb and bury his dead mistress there. and, lo! a wonder! digging a grave beneath the temple's marble floor, the sexton found no virgin earth such as was meet to receive the maiden's dust, but an ancient sepulchre in which were treasured up the bones of generations that had died long ago. among those forgotten ancestors was the lily to be laid; and when the funeral procession brought lilias thither in her coffin, they beheld old walter gascoigne standing beneath the dome of the temple with his cloak of pall and face of darkest gloom, and wherever that figure might take its stand the spot would seem a sepulchre. he watched the mourners as they lowered the coffin down. "and so," said he to adam forrester, with the strange smile in which his insanity was wont to gleam forth, "you have found no better foundation for your happiness than on a grave?" but as the shadow of affliction spoke a vision of hope and joy had its birth in adam's mind even from the old man's taunting words, for then he knew what was betokened by the parable in which the lily and himself had acted, and the mystery of life and death was opened to him. "joy! joy!" he cried, throwing his arms toward heaven. "on a grave be the site of our temple, and now our happiness is for eternity." with those words a ray of sunshine broke through the dismal sky and glimmered down into the sepulchre, while at the same moment the shape of old walter gascoigne stalked drearily away, because his gloom, symbolic of all earthly sorrow, might no longer abide there now that the darkest riddle of humanity was read. footprints on the seashore. it must be a spirit much unlike my own which can keep itself in health and vigor without sometimes stealing from the sultry sunshine of the world to plunge into the cool bath of solitude. at intervals, and not infrequent ones, the forest and the ocean summon me--one with the roar of its waves, the other with the murmur of its boughs--forth from the haunts of men. but i must wander many a mile ere i could stand beneath the shadow of even one primeval tree, much less be lost among the multitude of hoary trunks and hidden from the earth and sky by the mystery of darksome foliage. nothing is within my daily reach more like a forest than the acre or two of woodland near some suburban farmhouse. when, therefore, the yearning for seclusion becomes a necessity within me, i am drawn to the seashore which extends its line of rude rocks and seldom-trodden sands for leagues around our bay. setting forth at my last ramble on a september morning, i bound myself with a hermit's vow to interchange no thoughts with man or woman, to share no social pleasure, but to derive all that day's enjoyment from shore and sea and sky, from my soul's communion with these, and from fantasies and recollections or anticipated realities. surely here is enough to feed a human spirit for a single day.--farewell, then, busy world! till your evening lights shall shine along the street--till they gleam upon my sea-flushed face as i tread homeward--free me from your ties and let me be a peaceful outlaw. highways and cross-paths are hastily traversed, and, clambering down a crag, i find myself at the extremity of a long beach. how gladly does the spirit leap forth and suddenly enlarge its sense of being to the full extent of the broad blue, sunny deep! a greeting and a homage to the sea! i descend over its margin and dip my hand into the wave that meets me, and bathe my brow. that far-resounding roar is ocean's voice of welcome. his salt breath brings a blessing along with it. now let us pace together--the reader's fancy arm in arm with mine--this noble beach, which extends a mile or more from that craggy promontory to yonder rampart of broken rocks. in front, the sea; in the rear, a precipitous bank the grassy verge of which is breaking away year after year, and flings down its tufts of verdure upon the barrenness below. the beach itself is a broad space of sand, brown and sparkling, with hardly any pebbles intermixed. near the water's edge there is a wet margin which glistens brightly in the sunshine and reflects objects like a mirror, and as we tread along the glistening border a dry spot flashes around each footstep, but grows moist again as we lift our feet. in some spots the sand receives a complete impression of the sole, square toe and all; elsewhere it is of such marble firmness that we must stamp heavily to leave a print even of the iron-shod heel. along the whole of this extensive beach gambols the surf-wave. now it makes a feint of dashing onward in a fury, yet dies away with a meek murmur and does but kiss the strand; now, after many such abortive efforts, it rears itself up in an unbroken line, heightening as it advances, without a speck of foam on its green crest. with how fierce a roar it flings itself forward and rushes far up the beach! as i threw my eyes along the edge of the surf i remember that i was startled, as robinson crusoe might have been, by the sense that human life was within the magic circle of my solitude. afar off in the remote distance of the beach, appearing like sea-nymphs, or some airier things such as might tread upon the feathery spray, was a group of girls. hardly had i beheld them, when they passed into the shadow of the rocks and vanished. to comfort myself--for truly i would fain have gazed a while longer--i made acquaintance with a flock of beach-birds. these little citizens of the sea and air preceded me by about a stone's-throw along the strand, seeking, i suppose, for food upon its margin. yet, with a philosophy which mankind would do well to imitate, they drew a continual pleasure from their toil for a subsistence. the sea was each little bird's great playmate. they chased it downward as it swept back, and again ran up swiftly before the impending wave, which sometimes overtook them and bore them off their feet. but they floated as lightly as one of their own feathers on the breaking crest. in their airy flutterings they seemed to rest on the evanescent spray. their images--long-legged little figures with gray backs and snowy bosoms--were seen as distinctly as the realities in the mirror of the glistening strand. as i advanced they flew a score or two of yards, and, again alighting, recommenced their dalliance with the surf-wave; and thus they bore me company along the beach, the types of pleasant fantasies, till at its extremity they took wing over the ocean and were gone. after forming a friendship with these small surf-spirits, it is really worth a sigh to find no memorial of them save their multitudinous little tracks in the sand. when we have paced the length of the beach, it is pleasant and not unprofitable to retrace our steps and recall the whole mood and occupation of the mind during the former passage. our tracks, being all discernible, will guide us with an observing consciousness through every unconscious wandering of thought and fancy. here we followed the surf in its reflux to pick up a shell which the sea seemed loth to relinquish. here we found a seaweed with an immense brown leaf, and trailed it behind us by its long snake-like stalk. here we seized a live horseshoe by the tail, and counted the many claws of that queer monster. here we dug into the sand for pebbles, and skipped them upon the surface of the water. here we wet our feet while examining a jelly-fish which the waves, having just tossed it up, now sought to snatch away again. here we trod along the brink of a fresh-water brooklet which flows across the beach, becoming shallower and more shallow, till at last it sinks into the sand and perishes in the effort to bear its little tribute to the main. here some vagary appears to have bewildered us, for our tracks go round and round and are confusedly intermingled, as if we had found a labyrinth upon the level beach. and here amid our idle pastime we sat down upon almost the only stone that breaks the surface of the sand, and were lost in an unlooked-for and overpowering conception of the majesty and awfulness of the great deep. thus by tracking our footprints in the sand we track our own nature in its wayward course, and steal a glance upon it when it never dreams of being so observed. such glances always make us wiser. this extensive beach affords room for another pleasant pastime. with your staff you may write verses--love-verses if they please you best--and consecrate them with a woman's name. here, too, may be inscribed thoughts, feelings, desires, warm outgushings from the heart's secret places, which you would not pour upon the sand without the certainty that almost ere the sky has looked upon them the sea will wash them out. stir not hence till the record be effaced. now (for there is room enough on your canvas) draw huge faces--huge as that of the sphynx on egyptian sands--and fit them with bodies of corresponding immensity and legs which might stride halfway to yonder island. child's-play becomes magnificent on so grand a scale. but, after all, the most fascinating employment is simply to write your name in the sand. draw the letters gigantic, so that two strides may barely measure them, and three for the long strokes; cut deep, that the record may be permanent. statesmen and warriors and poets have spent their strength in no better cause than this. is it accomplished? return, then, in an hour or two, and seek for this mighty record of a name. the sea will have swept over it, even as time rolls its effacing waves over the names of statesmen and warriors and poets. hark! the surf-wave laughs at you. passing from the beach, i begin to clamber over the crags, making my difficult way among the ruins of a rampart shattered and broken by the assaults of a fierce enemy. the rocks rise in every variety of attitude. some of them have their feet in the foam and are shagged halfway upward with seaweed; some have been hollowed almost into caverns by the unwearied toil of the sea, which can afford to spend centuries in wearing away a rock, or even polishing a pebble. one huge rock ascends in monumental shape, with a face like a giant's tombstone, on which the veins resemble inscriptions, but in an unknown tongue. we will fancy them the forgotten characters of an antediluvian race, or else that nature's own hand has here recorded a mystery which, could i read her language, would make mankind the wiser and the happier. how many a thing has troubled me with that same idea! pass on and leave it unexplained. here is a narrow avenue which might seem to have been hewn through the very heart of an enormous crag, affording passage for the rising sea to thunder back and forth, filling it with tumultuous foam and then leaving its floor of black pebbles bare and glistening. in this chasm there was once an intersecting vein of softer stone, which the waves have gnawed away piecemeal, while the granite walls remain entire on either side. how sharply and with what harsh clamor does the sea rake back the pebbles as it momentarily withdraws into its own depths! at intervals the floor of the chasm is left nearly dry, but anon, at the outlet, two or three great waves are seen struggling to get in at once; two hit the walls athwart, while one rushes straight through, and all three thunder as if with rage and triumph. they heap the chasm with a snow-drift of foam and spray. while watching this scene i can never rid myself of the idea that a monster endowed with life and fierce energy is striving to burst his way through the narrow pass. and what a contrast to look through the stormy chasm and catch a glimpse of the calm bright sea beyond! many interesting discoveries may be made among these broken cliffs. once, for example, i found a dead seal which a recent tempest had tossed into the nook of the rocks, where his shaggy carcase lay rolled in a heap of eel-grass as if the sea-monster sought to hide himself from my eye. another time a shark seemed on the point of leaping from the surf to swallow me, nor did i wholly without dread approach near enough to ascertain that the man-eater had already met his own death from some fisherman in the bay. in the same ramble i encountered a bird--a large gray bird--but whether a loon or a wild goose or the identical albatross of the ancient mariner was beyond my ornithology to decide. it reposed so naturally on a bed of dry seaweed, with its head beside its wing, that i almost fancied it alive, and trod softly lest it should suddenly spread its wings skyward. but the sea-bird would soar among the clouds no more, nor ride upon its native waves; so i drew near and pulled out one of its mottled tail-feathers for a remembrance. another day i discovered an immense bone wedged into a chasm of the rocks; it was at least ten feet long, curved like a scymitar, bejewelled with barnacles and small shellfish and partly covered with a growth of seaweed. some leviathan of former ages had used this ponderous mass as a jaw-bone. curiosities of a minuter order may be observed in a deep reservoir which is replenished with water at every tide, but becomes a lake among the crags save when the sea is at its height. at the bottom of this rocky basin grow marine plants, some of which tower high beneath the water and cast a shadow in the sunshine. small fishes dart to and fro and hide themselves among the seaweed; there is also a solitary crab who appears to lead the life of a hermit, communing with none of the other denizens of the place, and likewise several five-fingers; for i know no other name than that which children give them. if your imagination be at all accustomed to such freaks, you may look down into the depths of this pool and fancy it the mysterious depth of ocean. but where are the hulks and scattered timbers of sunken ships? where the treasures that old ocean hoards? where the corroded cannon? where the corpses and skeletons of seamen who went down in storm and battle? on the day of my last ramble--it was a september day, yet as warm as summer--what should i behold as i approached the above-described basin but three girls sitting on its margin and--yes, it is veritably so--laving their snowy feet in the sunny water? these, these are the warm realities of those three visionary shapes that flitted from me on the beach. hark their merry voices as they toss up the water with their feet! they have not seen me. i must shrink behind this rock and steal away again. in honest truth, vowed to solitude as i am, there is something in this encounter that makes the heart flutter with a strangely pleasant sensation. i know these girls to be realities of flesh and blood, yet, glancing at them so briefly, they mingle like kindred creatures with the ideal beings of my mind. it is pleasant, likewise, to gaze down from some high crag and watch a group of children gathering pebbles and pearly shells and playing with the surf as with old ocean's hoary beard. nor does it infringe upon my seclusion to see yonder boat at anchor off the shore swinging dreamily to and fro and rising and sinking with the alternate swell, while the crew--four gentlemen in roundabout jackets--are busy with their fishing-lines. but with an inward antipathy and a headlong flight do i eschew the presence of any meditative stroller like myself, known by his pilgrim-staff, his sauntering step, his shy demeanor, his observant yet abstracted eye. from such a man as if another self had scared me i scramble hastily over the rocks, and take refuge in a nook which many a secret hour has given me a right to call my own. i would do battle for it even with the churl that should produce the title-deeds. have not my musings melted into its rocky walls and sandy floor and made them a portion of myself? it is a recess in the line of cliffs, walled round by a rough, high precipice which almost encircles and shuts in a little space of sand. in front the sea appears as between the pillars of a portal; in the rear the precipice is broken and intermixed with earth which gives nourishment not only to clinging and twining shrubs, but to trees that grip the rock with their naked roots and seem to struggle hard for footing and for soil enough to live upon. these are fir trees, but oaks hang their heavy branches from above, and throw down acorns on the beach, and shed their withering foliage upon the waves. at this autumnal season the precipice is decked with variegated splendor. trailing wreaths of scarlet flaunt from the summit downward; tufts of yellow-flowering shrubs and rose-bushes, with their reddened leaves and glossy seed-berries, sprout from each crevice; at every glance i detect some new light or shade of beauty, all contrasting with the stern gray rock. a rill of water trickles down the cliff and fills a little cistern near the base. i drain it at a draught, and find it fresh and pure. this recess shall be my dining-hall. and what the feast? a few biscuits made savory by soaking them in sea-water, a tuft of samphire gathered from the beach, and an apple for the dessert. by this time the little rill has filled its reservoir again, and as i quaff it i thank god more heartily than for a civic banquet that he gives me the healthful appetite to make a feast of bread and water. dinner being over, i throw myself at length upon the sand and, basking in the sunshine, let my mind disport itself at will. the walls of this my hermitage have no tongue to tell my follies, though i sometimes fancy that they have ears to hear them and a soul to sympathize. there is a magic in this spot. dreams haunt its precincts and flit around me in broad sunlight, nor require that sleep shall blindfold me to real objects ere these be visible. here can i frame a story of two lovers, and make their shadows live before me and be mirrored in the tranquil water as they tread along the sand, leaving no footprints. here, should i will it, i can summon up a single shade and be myself her lover.--yes, dreamer, but your lonely heart will be the colder for such fancies.--sometimes, too, the past comes back, and finds me here, and in her train come faces which were gladsome when i knew them, yet seem not gladsome now. would that my hiding-place were lonelier, so that the past might not find me!--get ye all gone, old friends, and let me listen to the murmur of the sea--a melancholy voice, but less sad than yours. of what mysteries is it telling? of sunken ships and whereabouts they lie? of islands afar and undiscovered whose tawny children are unconscious of other islands and of continents, and deem the stars of heaven their nearest neighbors? nothing of all this. what, then? has it talked for so many ages and meant nothing all the while? no; for those ages find utterance in the sea's unchanging voice, and warn the listener to withdraw his interest from mortal vicissitudes and let the infinite idea of eternity pervade his soul. this is wisdom, and therefore will i spend the next half-hour in shaping little boats of driftwood and launching them on voyages across the cove, with the feather of a sea-gull for a sail. if the voice of ages tell me true, this is as wise an occupation as to build ships of five hundred tons and launch them forth upon the main, bound to "far cathay." yet how would the merchant sneer at me! and, after all, can such philosophy be true? methinks i could find a thousand arguments against it. well, then, let yonder shaggy rock mid-deep in the surf--see! he is somewhat wrathful: he rages and roars and foams,--let that tall rock be my antagonist, and let me exercise my oratory like him of athens who bandied words with an angry sea and got the victory. my maiden-speech is a triumphant one, for the gentleman in seaweed has nothing to offer in reply save an immitigable roaring. his voice, indeed, will be heard a long while after mine is hushed. once more i shout and the cliffs reverberate the sound. oh what joy for a shy man to feel himself so solitary that he may lift his voice to its highest pitch without hazard of a listener!--but hush! be silent, my good friend! whence comes that stifled laughter? it was musical, but how should there be such music in my solitude? looking upward, i catch a glimpse of three faces peeping from the summit of the cliff like angels between me and their native sky.--ah, fair girls! you may make yourself merry at my eloquence, but it was my turn to smile when i saw your white feet in the pool. let us keep each other's secrets. the sunshine has now passed from my hermitage, except a gleam upon the sand just where it meets the sea. a crowd of gloomy fantasies will come and haunt me if i tarry longer here in the darkening twilight of these gray rocks. this is a dismal place in some moods of the mind. climb we, therefore, the precipice, and pause a moment on the brink gazing down into that hollow chamber by the deep where we have been what few can be--sufficient to our own pastime. yes, say the word outright: self-sufficient to our own happiness. how lonesome looks the recess now, and dreary too, like all other spots where happiness has been! there lies my shadow in the departing sunshine with its head upon the sea. i will pelt it with pebbles. a hit! a hit! i clap my hands in triumph, and see my shadow clapping its unreal hands and claiming the triumph for itself. what a simpleton must i have been all day, since my own shadow makes a mock of my fooleries! homeward! homeward! it is time to hasten home. it is time--it is time; for as the sun sinks over the western wave the sea grows melancholy and the surf has a saddened tone. the distant sails appear astray and not of earth in their remoteness amid the desolate waste. my spirit wanders forth afar, but finds no resting-place and comes shivering back. it is time that i were hence. but grudge me not the day that has been spent in seclusion which yet was not solitude, since the great sea has been my companion, and the little sea-birds my friends, and the wind has told me his secrets, and airy shapes have flitted around me in my hermitage. such companionship works an effect upon a man's character as if he had been admitted to the society of creatures that are not mortal. and when, at noontide, i tread the crowded streets, the influence of this day will still be felt; so that i shall walk among men kindly and as a brother, with affection and sympathy, but yet shall not melt into the indistinguishable mass of humankind. i shall think my own thoughts and feel my own emotions and possess my individuality unviolated. but it is good at the eve of such a day to feel and know that there are men and women in the world. that feeling and that knowledge are mine at this moment, for on the shore, far below me, the fishing-party have landed from their skiff and are cooking their scaly prey by a fire of driftwood kindled in the angle of two rude rocks. the three visionary girls are likewise there. in the deepening twilight, while the surf is dashing near their hearth, the ruddy gleam of the fire throws a strange air of comfort over the wild cove, bestrewn as it is with pebbles and seaweed and exposed to the "melancholy main." moreover, as the smoke climbs up the precipice, it brings with it a savory smell from a pan of fried fish and a black kettle of chowder, and reminds me that my dinner was nothing but bread and water and a tuft of samphire and an apple. methinks the party might find room for another guest at that flat rock which serves them for a table; and if spoons be scarce, i could pick up a clam-shell on the beach. they see me now; and--the blessing of a hungry man upon him!--one of them sends up a hospitable shout: "halloo, sir solitary! come down and sup with us!" the ladies wave their handkerchiefs. can i decline? no; and be it owned, after all my solitary joys, that this is the sweetest moment of a day by the seashore. edward fane's rosebud. there is hardly a more difficult exercise of fancy than, while gazing at a figure of melancholy age, to recreate its youth, and without entirely obliterating the identity of form and features to restore those graces which time has snatched away. some old people--especially women--so age-worn and woeful are they, seem never to have been young and gay. it is easier to conceive that such gloomy phantoms were sent into the world as withered and decrepit as we behold them now, with sympathies only for pain and grief, to watch at death-beds and weep at funerals. even the sable garments of their widowhood appear essential to their existence; all their attributes combine to render them darksome shadows creeping strangely amid the sunshine of human life. yet it is no unprofitable task to take one of these doleful creatures and set fancy resolutely at work to brighten the dim eye, and darken the silvery locks, and paint the ashen cheek with rose-color, and repair the shrunken and crazy form, till a dewy maiden shall be seen in the old matron's elbow-chair. the miracle being wrought, then let the years roll back again, each sadder than the last, and the whole weight of age and sorrow settle down upon the youthful figure. wrinkles and furrows, the handwriting of time, may thus be deciphered and found to contain deep lessons of thought and feeling. such profit might be derived by a skilful observer from my much-respected friend the widow toothaker, a nurse of great repute who has breathed the atmosphere of sick-chambers and dying-breaths these forty years. see! she sits cowering over her lonesome hearth with her gown and upper petticoat drawn upward, gathering thriftily into her person the whole warmth of the fire which now at nightfall begins to dissipate the autumnal chill of her chamber. the blaze quivers capriciously in front, alternately glimmering into the deepest chasms of her wrinkled visage, and then permitting a ghostly dimness to mar the outlines of her venerable figure. and nurse toothaker holds a teaspoon in her right hand with which to stir up the contents of a tumbler in her left, whence steams a vapory fragrance abhorred of temperance societies. now she sips, now stirs, now sips again. her sad old heart has need to be revived by the rich infusion of geneva which is mixed half and half with hot water in the tumbler. all day long she has been sitting by a death-pillow, and quitted it for her home only when the spirit of her patient left the clay and went homeward too. but now are her melancholy meditations cheered and her torpid blood warmed and her shoulders lightened of at least twenty ponderous years by a draught from the true fountain of youth in a case-bottle. it is strange that men should deem that fount a fable, when its liquor fills more bottles than the congress-water.--sip it again, good nurse, and see whether a second draught will not take off another score of years, and perhaps ten more, and show us in your high-backed chair the blooming damsel who plighted troths with edward fane.--get you gone, age and widowhood!--come back, unwedded youth!--but, alas! the charm will not work. in spite of fancy's most potent spell, i can see only an old dame cowering over the fire, a picture of decay and desolation, while the november blast roars at her in the chimney and fitful showers rush suddenly against the window. yet there was a time when rose grafton--such was the pretty maiden-name of nurse toothaker--possessed beauty that would have gladdened this dim and dismal chamber as with sunshine. it won for her the heart of edward fane, who has since made so great a figure in the world and is now a grand old gentleman with powdered hair and as gouty as a lord. these early lovers thought to have walked hand in hand through life. they had wept together for edward's little sister mary, whom rose tended in her sickness--partly because she was the sweetest child that ever lived or died, but more for love of him. she was but three years old. being such an infant, death could not embody his terrors in her little corpse; nor did rose fear to touch the dead child's brow, though chill, as she curled the silken hair around it, nor to take her tiny hand and clasp a flower within its fingers. afterward, when she looked through the pane of glass in the coffin-lid and beheld mary's face, it seemed not so much like death or life as like a wax-work wrought into the perfect image of a child asleep and dreaming of its mother's smile. rose thought her too fair a thing to be hidden in the grave, and wondered that an angel did not snatch up little mary's coffin and bear the slumbering babe to heaven and bid her wake immortal. but when the sods were laid on little mary, the heart of rose was troubled. she shuddered at the fantasy that in grasping the child's cold fingers her virgin hand had exchanged a first greeting with mortality and could never lose the earthy taint. how many a greeting since! but as yet she was a fair young girl with the dewdrops of fresh feeling in her bosom, and, instead of "rose"--which seemed too mature a name for her half-opened beauty--her lover called her "rosebud." the rosebud was destined never to bloom for edward fane. his mother was a rich and haughty dame with all the aristocratic prejudices of colonial times. she scorned rose grafton's humble parentage and caused her son to break his faith, though, had she let him choose, he would have prized his rosebud above the richest diamond. the lovers parted, and have seldom met again. both may have visited the same mansions, but not at the same time, for one was bidden to the festal hall and the other to the sick-chamber; he was the guest of pleasure and prosperity, and she of anguish. rose, after their separation, was long secluded within the dwelling of mr. toothaker, whom she married with the revengeful hope of breaking her false lover's heart. she went to her bridegroom's arms with bitterer tears, they say, than young girls ought to shed at the threshold of the bridal-chamber. yet, though her husband's head was getting gray and his heart had been chilled with an autumnal frost, rose soon began to love him, and wondered at her own conjugal affection. he was all she had to love; there were no children. in a year or two poor mr. toothaker was visited with a wearisome infirmity which settled in his joints and made him weaker than a child. he crept forth about his business, and came home at dinner-time and eventide, not with the manly tread that gladdens a wife's heart, but slowly, feebly, jotting down each dull footstep with a melancholy dub of his staff. we must pardon his pretty wife if she sometimes blushed to own him. her visitors, when they heard him coming, looked for the appearance of some old, old man, but he dragged his nerveless limbs into the parlor--and there was mr. toothaker! the disease increasing, he never went into the sunshine save with a staff in his right hand and his left on his wife's shoulder, bearing heavily downward like a dead man's hand. thus, a slender woman still looking maiden-like, she supported his tall, broad-chested frame along the pathway of their little garden, and plucked the roses for her gray-haired husband, and spoke soothingly as to an infant. his mind was palsied with his body; its utmost energy was peevishness. in a few months more she helped him up the staircase with a pause at every step, and a longer one upon the landing-place, and a heavy glance behind as he crossed the threshold of his chamber. he knew, poor man! that the precincts of those four walls would thenceforth be his world--his world, his home, his tomb, at once a dwelling-and a burial-place--till he were borne to a darker and a narrower one. but rose was with him in the tomb. he leaned upon her in his daily passage from the bed to the chair by the fireside, and back again from the weary chair to the joyless bed--his bed and hers, their marriage-bed--till even this short journey ceased and his head lay all day upon the pillow and hers all night beside it. how long poor mr. toothaker was kept in misery! death seemed to draw near the door, and often to lift the latch, and sometimes to thrust his ugly skull into the chamber, nodding to rose and pointing at her husband, but still delayed to enter. "this bedridden wretch cannot escape me," quoth death. "i will go forth and run a race with the swift and fight a battle with the strong, and come back for toothaker at my leisure." oh, when the deliverer came so near, in the dull anguish of her worn-out sympathies did she never long to cry, "death, come in"? but no; we have no right to ascribe such a wish to our friend rose. she never failed in a wife's duty to her poor sick husband. she murmured not though a glimpse of the sunny sky was as strange to her as him, nor answered peevishly though his complaining accents roused her from sweetest dream only to share his wretchedness. he knew her faith, yet nourished a cankered jealousy; and when the slow disease had chilled all his heart save one lukewarm spot which death's frozen fingers were searching for, his last words were, "what would my rose have done for her first love, if she has been so true and kind to a sick old man like me?" and then his poor soul crept away and left the body lifeless, though hardly more so than for years before, and rose a widow, though in truth it was the wedding-night that widowed her. she felt glad, it must be owned, when mr. toothaker was buried, because his corpse had retained such a likeness to the man half alive that she hearkened for the sad murmur of his voice bidding her shift his pillow. but all through the next winter, though the grave had held him many a month, she fancied him calling from that cold bed, "rose, rose! come put a blanket on my feet!" so now the rosebud was the widow toothaker. her troubles had come early, and, tedious as they seemed, had passed before all her bloom was fled. she was still fair enough to captivate a bachelor, or with a widow's cheerful gravity she might have won a widower, stealing into his heart in the very guise of his dead wife. but the widow toothaker had no such projects. by her watchings and continual cares her heart had become knit to her first husband with a constancy which changed its very nature and made her love him for his infirmities, and infirmity for his sake. when the palsied old man was gone, even her early lover could not have supplied his place. she had dwelt in a sick-chamber and been the companion of a half-dead wretch till she could scarcely breathe in a free air and felt ill at ease with the healthy and the happy. she missed the fragrance of the doctor's stuff. she walked the chamber with a noiseless footfall. if visitors came in, she spoke in soft and soothing accents, and was startled and shocked by their loud voices. often in the lonesome evening she looked timorously from the fireside to the bed, with almost a hope of recognizing a ghastly face upon the pillow. then went her thoughts sadly to her husband's grave. if one impatient throb had wronged him in his lifetime, if she had secretly repined because her buoyant youth was imprisoned with his torpid age, if ever while slumbering beside him a treacherous dream had admitted another into her heart,--yet the sick man had been preparing a revenge which the dead now claimed. on his painful pillow he had cast a spell around her; his groans and misery had proved more captivating charms than gayety and youthful grace; in his semblance disease itself had won the rosebud for a bride, nor could his death dissolve the nuptials. by that indissoluble bond she had gained a home in every sick-chamber, and nowhere else; there were her brethren and sisters; thither her husband summoned her with that voice which had seemed to issue from the grave of toothaker. at length she recognized her destiny. we have beheld her as the maid, the wife, the widow; now we see her in a separate and insulated character: she was in all her attributes nurse toothaker. and nurse toothaker alone, with her own shrivelled lips, could make known her experience in that capacity. what a history might she record of the great sicknesses in which she has gone hand in hand with the exterminating angel! she remembers when the small-pox hoisted a red banner on almost every house along the street. she has witnessed when the typhus fever swept off a whole household, young and old, all but a lonely mother, who vainly shrieked to follow her last loved one. where would be death's triumph if none lived to weep? she can speak of strange maladies that have broken out as if spontaneously, but were found to have been imported from foreign lands with rich silks and other merchandise, the costliest portion of the cargo. and once, she recollects, the people died of what was considered a new pestilence, till the doctors traced it to the ancient grave of a young girl who thus caused many deaths a hundred years after her own burial. strange that such black mischief should lurk in a maiden's grave! she loves to tell how strong men fight with fiery fevers, utterly refusing to give up their breath, and how consumptive virgins fade out of the world, scarcely reluctant, as if their lovers were wooing them to a far country.--tell us, thou fearful woman; tell us the death-secrets. fain would i search out the meaning of words faintly gasped with intermingled sobs and broken sentences half-audibly spoken between earth and the judgment-seat. an awful woman! she is the patron-saint of young physicians and the bosom-friend of old ones. in the mansions where she enters the inmates provide themselves black garments; the coffin-maker follows her, and the bell tolls as she comes away from the threshold. death himself has met her at so many a bedside that he puts forth his bony hand to greet nurse toothaker. she is an awful woman. and oh, is it conceivable that this handmaid of human infirmity and affliction--so darkly stained, so thoroughly imbued with all that is saddest in the doom of mortals--can ever again be bright and gladsome even though bathed in the sunshine of eternity? by her long communion with woe has she not forfeited her inheritance of immortal joy? does any germ of bliss survive within her? hark! an eager knocking st nurse toothaker's door. she starts from her drowsy reverie, sets aside the empty tumbler and teaspoon, and lights a lamp at the dim embers of the fire. "rap, rap, rap!" again, and she hurries adown the staircase, wondering which of her friends can be at death's door now, since there is such an earnest messenger at nurse toothaker's. again the peal resounds just as her hand is on the lock. "be quick, nurse toothaker!" cries a man on the doorstep. "old general fane is taken with the gout in his stomach and has sent for you to watch by his death-bed. make haste, for there is no time to lose."--"fane! edward fane! and has he sent for me at last? i am ready. i will get on my cloak and begone. so," adds the sable-gowned, ashen-visaged, funereal old figure, "edward fane remembers his rosebud." our question is answered. there is a germ of bliss within her. her long-hoarded constancy, her memory of the bliss that was remaining amid the gloom of her after-life like a sweet-smelling flower in a coffin, is a symbol that all may be renewed. in some happier clime the rosebud may revive again with all the dewdrops in its bosom. the threefold destiny. a faÃ�ry legend. i have sometimes produced a singular and not unpleasing effect, so far as my own mind was concerned, by imagining a train of incidents in which the spirit and mechanism of the faëry legend should be combined with the characters and manners of familiar life. in the little tale which follows a subdued tinge of the wild and wonderful is thrown over a sketch of new england personages and scenery, yet, it is hoped, without entirely obliterating the sober hues of nature. rather than a story of events claiming to be real, it may be considered as an allegory such as the writers of the last century would have expressed in the shape of an eastern tale, but to which i have endeavored to give a more lifelike warmth than could be infused into those fanciful productions. in the twilight of a summer eve a tall dark figure over which long and remote travel had thrown an outlandish aspect was entering a village not in "faëry londe," but within our own familiar boundaries. the staff on which this traveller leaned had been his companion from the spot where it grew in the jungles of hindostan; the hat that overshadowed his sombre brow, had shielded him from the suns of spain; but his cheek had been blackened by the red-hot wind of an arabian desert and had felt the frozen breath of an arctic region. long sojourning amid wild and dangerous men, he still wore beneath his vest the ataghan which he had once struck into the throat of a turkish robber. in every foreign clime he had lost something of his new england characteristics, and perhaps from every people he had unconsciously borrowed a new peculiarity; so that when the world-wanderer again trod the street of his native village it is no wonder that he passed unrecognized, though exciting the gaze and curiosity of all. yet, as his arm casually touched that of a young woman who was wending her way to an evening lecture, she started and almost uttered a cry. "ralph cranfield!" was the name that she half articulated. "can that be my old playmate faith egerton?" thought the traveller, looking round at her figure, but without pausing. ralph cranfield from his youth upward had felt himself marked out for a high destiny. he had imbibed the idea--we say not whether it were revealed to him by witchcraft or in a dream of prophecy, or that his brooding fancy had palmed its own dictates upon him as the oracles of a sybil, but he had imbibed the idea, and held it firmest among his articles of faith--that three marvellous events of his life were to be confirmed to him by three signs. the first of these three fatalities, and perhaps the one on which his youthful imagination had dwelt most fondly, was the discovery of the maid who alone of all the maids on earth could make him happy by her love. he was to roam around the world till he should meet a beautiful woman wearing on her bosom a jewel in the shape of a heart--whether of pearl or ruby or emerald or carbuncle or a changeful opal, or perhaps a priceless diamond, ralph cranfield little cared, so long as it were a heart of one peculiar shape. on encountering this lovely stranger he was bound to address her thus: "maiden, i have brought you a heavy heart. may i rest its weight on you?" and if she were his fated bride--if their kindred souls were destined to form a union here below which all eternity should only bind more closely--she would reply, with her finger on the heart-shaped jewel, "this token which i have worn so long is the assurance that you may." and, secondly, ralph cranfield had a firm belief that there was a mighty treasure hidden somewhere in the earth of which the burial-place would be revealed to none but him. when his feet should press upon the mysterious spot, there would be a hand before him pointing downward--whether carved of marble or hewn in gigantic dimensions on the side of a rocky precipice, or perchance a hand of flame in empty air, he could not tell, but at least he would discern a hand, the forefinger pointing downward, and beneath it the latin word "_effode_"--"dig!" and, digging thereabouts, the gold in coin or ingots, the precious stones, or of whatever else the treasure might consist, would be certain to reward his toil. the third and last of the miraculous events in the life of this high-destined man was to be the attainment of extensive influence and sway over his fellow-creatures. whether he were to be a king and founder of a hereditary throne, or the victorious leader of a people contending for their freedom, or the apostle of a purified and regenerated faith, was left for futurity to show. as messengers of the sign by which ralph cranfield might recognize the summons, three venerable men were to claim audience of him. the chief among them--a dignified and majestic person arrayed, it may be supposed, in the flowing garments of an ancient sage--would be the bearer of a wand or prophet's rod. with this wand or rod or staff the venerable sage would trace a certain figure in the air, and then proceed to make known his heaven-instructed message, which, if obeyed, must lead to glorious results. with this proud fate before him, in the flush of his imaginative youth ralph cranfield had set forth to seek the maid, the treasure, and the venerable sage with his gift of extended empire. and had he found them? alas! it was not with the aspect of a triumphant man who had achieved a nobler destiny than all his fellows, but rather with the gloom of one struggling against peculiar and continual adversity, that he now passed homeward to his mother's cottage. he had come back, but only for a time, to lay aside the pilgrim's staff, trusting that his weary manhood would regain somewhat of the elasticity of youth in the spot where his threefold fate had been foreshown him. there had been few changes in the village, for it was not one of those thriving places where a year's prosperity makes more than the havoc of a century's decay, but, like a gray hair in a young man's head, an antiquated little town full of old maids and aged elms and moss-grown dwellings. few seemed to be the changes here. the drooping elms, indeed, had a more majestic spread, the weather-blackened houses were adorned with a denser thatch of verdant moss, and doubtless there were a few more gravestones in the burial-ground inscribed with names that had once been familiar in the village street; yet, summing up all the mischief that ten years had wrought, it seemed scarcely more than if ralph cranfield had gone forth that very morning and dreamed a day-dream till the twilight, and then turned back again. but his heart grew cold because the village did not remember him as he remembered the village. "here is the change," sighed he, striking his hand upon his breast. "who is this man of thought and care, weary with world-wandering and heavy with disappointed hopes? the youth returns not who went forth so joyously." and now ralph cranfield was at his mother's gate, in front of the small house where the old lady, with slender but sufficient means, had kept herself comfortable during her son's long absence. admitting himself within the enclosure, he leaned against a great old tree, trifling with his own impatience as people often do in those intervals when years are summed into a moment. he took a minute survey of the dwelling--its windows brightened with the sky-gleam, its doorway with the half of a millstone for a step, and the faintly-traced path waving thence to the gate. he made friends again with his childhood's friend--the old tree against which he leaned--and, glancing his eye down its trunk, beheld something that excited a melancholy smile. it was a half-obliterated inscription--the latin word "_effode_"--which he remembered to have carved in the bark of the tree with a whole day's toil when he had first begun to muse about his exalted destiny. it might be accounted a rather singular coincidence that the bark just above the inscription had put forth an excrescence shaped not unlike a hand, with the forefinger pointing obliquely at the word of fate. such, at least, was its appearance in the dusky light. "now, a credulous man," said ralph cranfield, carelessly, to himself, "might suppose that the treasure which i have sought round the world lies buried, after all, at the very door of my mother's dwelling. that would be a jest indeed." more he thought not about the matter, for now the door was opened and an elderly woman appeared on the threshold, peering into the dusk to discover who it might be that had intruded on her premises and was standing in the shadow of her tree. it was ralph cranfield's mother. pass we over their greeting, and leave the one to her joy and the other to his rest--if quiet rest he found. but when morning broke, he arose with a troubled brow, for his sleep and his wakefulness had alike been full of dreams. all the fervor was rekindled with which he had burned of yore to unravel the threefold mystery of his fate. the crowd of his early visions seemed to have awaited him beneath his mother's roof and thronged riotously around to welcome his return. in the well-remembered chamber, on the pillow where his infancy had slumbered, he had passed a wilder night than ever in an arab tent or when he had reposed his head in the ghastly shades of a haunted forest. a shadowy maid had stolen to his bedside and laid her finger on the scintillating heart; a hand of flame had glowed amid the darkness, pointing downward to a mystery within the earth; a hoary sage had waved his prophetic wand and beckoned the dreamer onward to a chair of state. the same phantoms, though fainter in the daylight, still flitted about the cottage and mingled among the crowd of familiar faces that were drawn thither by the news of ralph cranfield's return to bid him welcome for his mother's sake. there they found him, a tall, dark, stately man of foreign aspect, courteous in demeanor and mild of speech, yet with an abstracted eye which seemed often to snatch a glance at the invisible. meantime, the widow cranfield went bustling about the house full of joy that she again had somebody to love and be careful of, and for whom she might vex and tease herself with the petty troubles of daily life. it was nearly noon when she looked forth from the door and descried three personages of note coming along the street through the hot sunshine and the masses of elm-tree shade. at length they reached her gate and undid the latch. "see, ralph!" exclaimed she, with maternal pride; "here is squire hawkwood and the two other selectmen coming on purpose to see you. now, do tell them a good long story about what you have seen in foreign parts." the foremost of the three visitors, squire hawkwood, was a very pompous but excellent old gentleman, the head and prime-mover in all the affairs of the village, and universally acknowledged to be one of the sagest men on earth. he wore, according to a fashion even then becoming antiquated, a three-cornered hat, and carried a silver-headed cane the use of which seemed to be rather for flourishing in the air than for assisting the progress of his legs. his two companions were elderly and respectable yeomen who, retaining an ante-revolutionary reverence for rank and hereditary wealth, kept a little in the squire's rear. as they approached along the pathway ralph cranfield sat in an oaken elbow-chair half unconsciously gazing at the three visitors and enveloping their homely figures in the misty romance that pervaded his mental world. "here," thought he, smiling at the conceit--"here come three elderly personages, and the first of the three is a venerable sage with a staff. what if this embassy should bring me the message of my fate?" while squire hawkwood and his colleagues entered, ralph rose from his seat and advanced a few steps to receive them, and his stately figure and dark countenance as he bent courteously toward his guests had a natural dignity contrasting well with the bustling importance of the squire. the old gentleman, according to invariable custom, gave an elaborate preliminary flourish with his cane in the air, then removed his three-cornered hat in order to wipe his brow, and finally proceeded to make known his errand. "my colleagues and myself," began the squire, "are burdened with momentous duties, being jointly selectmen of this village. our minds for the space of three days past have been laboriously bent on the selection of a suitable person to fill a most important office and take upon himself a charge and rule which, wisely considered, may be ranked no lower than those of kings and potentates. and whereas you, our native townsman, are of good natural intellect and well cultivated by foreign travel, and that certain vagaries and fantasies of your youth are doubtless long ago corrected,--taking all these matters, i say, into due consideration, we are of opinion that providence hath sent you hither at this juncture for our very purpose." during this harangue cranfield gazed fixedly at the speaker, as if he beheld something mysterious and unearthly in his pompous little figure, and as if the squire had worn the flowing robes of an ancient sage instead of a square-skirted coat, flapped waistcoat, velvet breeches and silk stockings. nor was his wonder without sufficient cause, for the flourish of the squire's staff, marvellous to relate, had described precisely the signal in the air which was to ratify the message of the prophetic sage whom cranfield had sought around the world. "and what," inquired ralph cranfield, with a tremor in his voice--"what may this office be which is to equal me with kings and potentates?" "no less than instructor of our village school," answered squire hawkwood, "the office being now vacant by the death of the venerable master whitaker after a fifty years' incumbency." "i will consider of your proposal," replied ralph cranfield, hurriedly, "and will make known my decision within three days." after a few more words the village dignitary and his companions took their leave. but to cranfield's fancy their images were still present, and became more and more invested with the dim awfulness of figures which had first appeared to him in a dream, and afterward had shown themselves in his waking moments, assuming homely aspects among familiar things. his mind dwelt upon the features of the squire till they grew confused with those of the visionary sage and one appeared but the shadow of the other. the same visage, he now thought, had looked forth upon him from the pyramid of cheops; the same form had beckoned to him among the colonnades of the alhambra; the same figure had mistily revealed itself through the ascending steam of the great geyser. at every effort of his memory he recognized some trait of the dreamy messenger of destiny in this pompous, bustling, self-important, little-great man of the village. amid such musings ralph cranfield sat all day in the cottage, scarcely hearing and vaguely answering his mother's thousand questions about his travels and adventures. at sunset he roused himself to take a stroll, and, passing the aged elm tree, his eye was again caught by the semblance of a hand pointing downward at the half-obliterated inscription. as cranfield walked down the street of the village the level sunbeams threw his shadow far before him, and he fancied that, as his shadow walked among distant objects, so had there been a presentiment stalking in advance of him throughout his life. and when he drew near each object over which his tall shadow had preceded him, still it proved to be one of the familiar recollections of his infancy and youth. every crook in the pathway was remembered. even the more transitory characteristics of the scene were the same as in by-gone days. a company of cows were grazing on the grassy roadside, and refreshed him with their fragrant breath. "it is sweeter," thought he, "than the perfume which was wafted to our ship from the spice islands." the round little figure of a child rolled from a doorway and lay laughing almost beneath cranfield's feet. the dark and stately man stooped down, and, lifting the infant, restored him to his mother's arms. "the children," said he to himself, and sighed and smiled--"the children are to be my charge." and while a flow of natural feeling gushed like a well-spring in his heart he came to a dwelling which he could nowise forbear to enter. a sweet voice which seemed to come from a deep and tender soul was warbling a plaintive little air within. he bent his head and passed through the lowly door. as his foot sounded upon the threshold a young woman advanced from the dusky interior of the house, at first hastily, and then with a more uncertain step, till they met face to face. there was a singular contrast in their two figures--he dark and picturesque, one who had battled with the world, whom all suns had shone upon and whom all winds had blown on a varied course; she neat, comely and quiet--quiet even in her agitation--as if all her emotions had been subdued to the peaceful tenor of her life. yet their faces, all unlike as they were, had an expression that seemed not so alien--a glow of kindred feeling flashing upward anew from half-extinguished embers. "you are welcome home," said faith egerton. but cranfield did not immediately answer, for his eye had, been caught by an ornament in the shape of a heart which faith wore as a brooch upon her bosom. the material was the ordinary white quartz, and he recollected having himself shaped it out of one of those indian arrowheads which are so often found in the ancient haunts of the red men. it was precisely on the pattern of that worn by the visionary maid. when cranfield departed on his shadowy search, he had bestowed this brooch, in a gold setting, as a parting gift to faith egerton. "so, faith, you have kept the heart?" said he, at length. "yes," said she, blushing deeply; then, more gayly, "and what else have you brought me from beyond the sea?" "faith," replied ralph cranfield, uttering the fated words by an uncontrollable impulse, "i have brought you nothing but a heavy heart. may i rest its weight on you?" "this token which i have worn so long," said faith, laying her tremulous finger on the heart, "is the assurance that you may." "faith, faith!" cried cranfield, clasping her in his arms; "you have interpreted my wild and weary dream!" yes, the wild dreamer was awake at last. to find the mysterious treasure he was to till the earth around his mother's dwelling and reap its products; instead of warlike command or regal or religious sway, he was to rule over the village children; and now the visionary maid had faded from his fancy, and in her place he saw the playmate of his childhood. would all who cherish such wild wishes but look around them, they would oftenest find their sphere of duty, of prosperity and happiness, within those precincts and in that station where providence itself has cast their lot. happy they who read the riddle without a weary world-search or a lifetime spent in vain! little masterpieces edited by bliss perry nathaniel hawthorne dr. heidegger's experiment the birthmark ethan brand wakefield drowne's wooden image the ambitious guest the great stone face the gray champion new york doubleday & mcclure co. copyright, , by doubleday & mcclure co. _these selections are used by special arrangement with messrs. houghton, mifflin & co., the authorized publishers of hawthorne's works._ mcclure press new york city [illustration: nathaniel hawthorne] introduction hawthorne made three collections of his short stories and sketches: "twice-told tales," "mosses from an old manse," and "the snow image and other tales." the prefaces to these volumes express, with characteristic charm, the author's dissatisfaction with his handiwork. no critic has pointed out so clearly as hawthorne himself the ineffectiveness of some of the "twice-told tales"; he thinks that the "mosses from an old manse" afford no solid basis for a literary reputation; and his comment upon the earlier and later work gathered indiscriminately into his final volume is that "the ripened autumnal fruit tastes but little better than the early windfalls." it must be remembered that the collections were made in desultory fashion. they included some work that hawthorne had outgrown even when the first volume was published, such as elaborate exercises in description and fanciful allegories, excellently composed but without substance. yet side by side with these proofs of his long, weary apprenticeship are stories that reveal the consummate artist, mature in mind and heart, and with the sure hand of the master. the qualities of imagination and style that place hawthorne easily first among american writers of fiction are as readily discernible in his best brief tales as in his romances. "dr. heidegger's experiment," with which the present volume opens, is hawthorne's earliest treatment of the elixir of immortality theme, which haunted him throughout his life and was the subject of the unfinished romance which rested upon his coffin. he handles it daintily, poetically here, with an irony at once exquisite and profound. "the birthmark" represents another favorite theme: the rivalry between scientific passion and human affection. it is not wholly free from the morbid fancy which hawthorne occasionally betrays, and which allies him, on one side of his many-gifted mind, with edgar allan poe; but the essential sanity of hawthorne's moral, and the perfection of the workmanship, render "the birthmark" worthy of its high place among modern short stories. "ethan brand" dates obviously from the sojourn at north adams, massachusetts, described in the "american note-book." fragmentary as it is, it is one of hawthorne's most powerful pieces of writing, the unpardonable sin which it portrays--the development of the intellect at the expense of the heart--being one which the lonely romancer himself had had cause to dread. the motive of the humorous character sketch entitled "wakefield" is somewhat similar: the danger of stepping aside, even for a moment, from one's allotted place. "drowne's wooden image" is a charming old boston version of the artistic miracles made possible by love. in "the ambitious guest," the familiar story of the willey house, in the notch of the white hills, is told with singular delicacy and imaginativeness, while "the great stone face," a parable after hawthorne's own heart, is suggested by a well-known phenomenon of the same mountainous region. hawthorne's numerous tales based upon new england history are represented by one of the briefest, "the gray champion," whose succinct opening and eloquent close are no less admirable than the stern passion of its dramatic climax. not every note of which hawthorne's deep-toned instrument was capable is exhibited in these eight tales, but they will serve, perhaps, to show the nature of his magic. certain characteristics of his art are everywhere in evidence: simplicity of theme and treatment, absolute clearness, verbal melody, with now and again a dusky splendor of coloring. the touch of a few other men may be as perfect, the notes they evoke more brilliant, certainly more gay, but hawthorne's graver harmonies linger in the ear and abide in the memory. it is only after intimate acquaintance, however, that one perceives fully hawthorne's real scope, his power to convey an idea in its totality. his art is the product of a rich personality, strong, self-contained, content to brood long over its treasures. it is seldom in the history of literature--and quite without parallel in american letters--that a nature so perfectly dowered should attain to such perfect self-expression. here lies his supreme fortune as an artist. he was permitted to give adequate expression to a rare and beautiful genius, and for thousands of his countrymen life has been touched to finer issues because hawthorne followed his boyish bent and became a writer of fiction. bliss perry. contents page editor's introduction v dr. heidegger's experiment the birthmark ethan brand wakefield drowne's wooden image the ambitious guest the great stone face the gray champion dr. heidegger's experiment that very singular man, old dr. heidegger, once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. there were three white-bearded gentlemen, mr. medbourne, colonel killigrew, and mr. gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman, whose name was the widow wycherly. they were all melancholy old creatures, who had been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves. mr. medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic speculation, and was now little better than a mendicant. colonel killigrew had wasted his best years, and his health and substance, in the pursuit of sinful pleasures, which had given birth to a brood of pains, such as the gout, and divers other torments of soul and body. mr. gascoigne was a ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at least had been so, till time had buried him from the knowledge of the present generation, and made him obscure instead of infamous. as for the widow wycherly, tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in her day; but, for a long while past, she had lived in deep seclusion, on account of certain scandalous stories, which had prejudiced the gentry of the town against her. it is a circumstance worth mentioning, that each of these three old gentlemen, mr. medbourne, colonel killigrew, and mr. gascoigne, were early lovers of the widow wycherly, and had once been on the point of cutting each other's throats for her sake. and, before proceeding further, i will merely hint, that dr. heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves; as is not unfrequently the case with old people, when worried either by present troubles or woful recollections. "my dear old friends," said dr. heidegger, motioning them to be seated, "i am desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments with which i amuse myself here in my study." if all stories were true, dr. heidegger's study must have been a very curious place. it was a dim, old-fashioned chamber, festooned with cobwebs and besprinkled with antique dust. around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos. over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities, dr. heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations, in all difficult cases of his practice. in the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton. between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame. among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that the spirits of all the doctor's deceased patients dwelt within its verge, and would stare him in the face whenever he looked thitherward. the opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of a young lady, arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk, satin, and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. above half a century ago, dr. heidegger had been on the point of marriage with this young lady; but, being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions, and died on the bridal evening. the greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned; it was a ponderous folio volume, bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. there were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. but it was well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor, and several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror; while the brazen head of hippocrates frowned, and said, "forbear!" such was dr. heidegger's study. on the summer afternoon of our tale, a small round table, as black as ebony, stood in the centre of the room, sustaining a cut-glass vase, of beautiful form and elaborate workmanship. the sunshine came through the window, between the heavy festoons of two faded damask curtains, and fell directly across this vase; so that a mild splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five old people who sat around. four champagne-glasses were also on the table. "my dear old friends," repeated dr. heidegger, "may i reckon on your aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment?" now dr. heidegger was a very strange old gentleman, whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. some of these fables, to my shame be it spoken, might possibly be traced back to mine own veracious self; and if any passages of the present tale should startle the reader's faith, i must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction-monger. when the doctor's four guests heard him talk of his proposed experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of a mouse in an air-pump, or the examination of a cobweb by the microscope, or some similar nonsense, with which he was constantly in the habit of pestering his intimates. but without waiting for a reply, dr. heidegger hobbled across the chamber, and returned with the same ponderous folio, bound in black leather, which common report affirmed to be a book of magic. undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume, and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose, though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish hue, and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to dust in the doctor's hands. "this rose," said dr. heidegger, with a sigh, "this same withered and crumbling flower, blossomed five-and-fifty years ago. it was given me by sylvia ward, whose portrait hangs yonder; and i meant to wear it in my bosom at our wedding. five-and-fifty years it has been treasured between the leaves of this old volume. now, would you deem it possible that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again?" "nonsense!" said the widow wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. "you might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ever bloom again." "see!" answered dr. heidegger. he uncovered the vase, and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained. at first, it lay lightly on the surface of the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its moisture. soon, however, a singular change began to be visible. the crushed and dried petals stirred, and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if the flower were reviving from a death-like slumber; the slender stalk and twigs of foliage became green; and there was the rose of half a century, looking as fresh as when sylvia ward had first given it to her lover. it was scarcely full blown; for some of its delicate red leaves curled modestly around its moist bosom, within which two or three dewdrops were sparkling. "that is certainly a very pretty deception," said the doctor's friends; carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer's show; "pray how was it effected?" "did you never hear of the 'fountain of youth,'" asked dr. heidegger, "which ponce de leon, the spanish adventurer, went in search of, two or three centuries ago?" "but did ponce de leon ever find it?" said the widow wycherly. "no," answered dr. heidegger, "for he never sought it in the right place. the famous fountain of youth, if i am rightly informed, is situated in the southern part of the floridian peninsula, not far from lake macaco. its source is overshadowed by several gigantic magnolias, which, though numberless centuries old, have been kept as fresh as violets, by the virtues of this wonderful water. an acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me what you see in the vase. "ahem!" said colonel killigrew, who believed not a word of the doctor's story; "and what may be the effect of this fluid on the human frame?" "you shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel," replied dr. heidegger; "and all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to so much of this admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom of youth. for my own part, having had much trouble in growing old, i am in no hurry to grow young again. with your permission, therefore, i will merely watch the progress of the experiment." while he spoke, dr. heidegger had been filling the four champagne-glasses with the water of the fountain of youth. it was apparently impregnated with an effervescent gas, for little bubbles were continually ascending from the depths of the glasses, and bursting in silvery spray at the surface. as the liquor diffused a pleasant perfume, the old people doubted not that it possessed cordial and comfortable properties; and, though utter sceptics as to its rejuvenescent power, they were inclined to swallow it at once. but dr. heidegger besought them to stay a moment. "before you drink, my respectable old friends," said he, "it would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in passing a second time through the perils of youth. think what a sin and shame it would be, if, with your peculiar advantages, you should not become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the age." the doctor's four venerable friends made him no answer, except by a feeble and tremulous laugh; so very ridiculous was the idea, that, knowing how closely repentance treads behind the steps of error, they should ever go astray again. "drink, then," said the doctor, bowing. "i rejoice that i have so well selected the subjects of my experiment." with palsied hands, they raised the glasses to their lips. the liquor, if it really possessed such virtues as dr. heidegger imputed to it, could not have been bestowed on four human beings who needed it more wofully. they looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had been the off-spring of nature's dotage, and always the gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures who now sat stooping round the doctor's table, without life enough in their souls or bodies to be animated even by the prospect of growing young again. they drank off the water, and replaced their glasses on the table. assuredly there was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect of the party, not unlike what might have been produced by a glass of generous wine, together with a sudden glow of cheerful sunshine, brightening over all their visages at once. there was a healthful suffusion on their cheeks, instead of the ashen hue that had made them look so corpse-like. they gazed at one another, and fancied that some magic power had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad inscriptions which father time had been so long engraving on their brows. the widow wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a woman again. "give us more of this wondrous water!" cried they, eagerly. "we are younger,--but we are still too old! quick,--give us more!" "patience, patience!" quoth dr. heidegger, who sat watching the experiment, with philosophic coolness. "you have been a long time growing old. surely, you might be content to grow young in half an hour! but the water is at your service." again he filled their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough of which still remained in the vase to turn half the old people in the city to the age of their own grandchildren. while the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim, the doctor's four guests snatched their glasses from the table, and swallowed the contents at a single gulp. was it delusion? even while the draught was passing down their throats, it seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems. their eyes grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery locks; they sat around the table, three gentlemen of middle age, and a woman, hardly beyond her buxom prime. "my dear widow, you are charming!" cried colonel killigrew, whose eyes had been fixed upon her face, while the shadows of age were flitting from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak. the fair widow knew, of old, that colonel killigrew's compliments were not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran to the mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman would meet her gaze. meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such a manner, as proved that the water of the fountain of youth possessed some intoxicating qualities; unless, indeed, their exhilaration of spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness, caused by the sudden removal of the weight of years. mr. gascoigne's mind seemed to run on political topics, but whether relating to the past, present, or future, could not easily be determined, since the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue these fifty years. now he rattled forth full-throated sentences about patriotism, national glory, and the people's right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other, in a sly and doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents, and a deeply deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his well-turned periods. colonel killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle-song, and ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward the buxom figure of the widow wycherly. on the other side of the table, mr. medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents, with which was strangely intermingled a project for supplying the east indies with ice, by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs. as for the widow wycherly, she stood before the mirror courtesying and simpering to her own image, and greeting it as the friend whom she loved better than all the world beside. she thrust her face close to the glass, to see whether some long-remembered wrinkle or crow's-foot had indeed vanished. she examined whether the snow had so entirely melted from her hair, that the venerable cap could be safely thrown aside. at last, turning briskly away, she came with a sort of dancing step to the table. "my dear old doctor," cried she, "pray favor me with another glass!" "certainly, my dear madam, certainly!" replied the complaisant doctor; "see! i have already filled the glasses." there, in fact, stood the four glasses, brimful of this wonderful water, the delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from the surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds. it was now so nearly sunset, that the chamber had grown duskier than ever; but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed from within the vase, and rested alike on the four guests, and on the doctor's venerable figure. he sat in a high-backed, elaborately carved oaken arm-chair, with a gray dignity of aspect that might have well befitted that very father time, whose power had never been disputed, save by this fortunate company. even while quaffing the third draught of the fountain of youth, they were almost awed by the expression of his mysterious visage. but, the next moment, the exhilarating gush of young life shot through their veins. they were now in the happy prime of youth. age, with its miserable train of cares, and sorrows, and diseases, was remembered only as the trouble of a dream, from which they had joyously awoke. the fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost, and without which the world's successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded pictures, again threw its enchantment over all their prospects. they felt like new-created beings, in a new-created universe. "we are young! we are young!" they cried exultingly. youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly marked characteristics of middle life, and mutually assimilated them all. they were a group of merry youngsters, almost maddened with the exuberant frolicsomeness of their years. the most singular effect of their gayety was an impulse to mock the infirmity and decrepitude of which they had so lately been the victims. they laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire, the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the young men, and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. one limped across the floor, like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles astride of his nose, and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of the book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair, and strove to imitate the venerable dignity of dr. heidegger. then all shouted mirthfully, and leaped about the room. the widow wycherly--if so fresh a damsel could be called a widow--tripped up to the doctor's chair, with a mischievous merriment in her rosy face. "doctor, you dear old soul," cried she, "get up and dance with me!" and then the four young people laughed louder than ever, to think what a queer figure the poor old doctor would cut. "pray excuse me," answered the doctor, quietly. "i am old and rheumatic, and my dancing days were over long ago. but either of these gay young gentlemen will be glad of so pretty a partner." "dance with me, clara!" cried colonel killigrew. "no, no, i will be her partner!" shouted mr. gascoigne. "she promised me her hand, fifty years ago!" exclaimed mr. medbourne. they all gathered round her. one caught both her hands in his passionate grasp,--another threw his arm about her waist,--the third buried his hand among the glossy curls that clustered beneath the widow's cap. blushing, panting, struggling, chiding, laughing, her warm breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove to disengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize. yet, by a strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the chamber, and the antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to have reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered grandsires, ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled grandam. but they were young: their burning passions proved them so. inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals began to interchange threatening glances. still keeping hold of the fair prize, they grappled fiercely at one another's throats. as they struggled to and fro, the table was overturned, and the vase dashed into a thousand fragments. the precious water of youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor, moistening the wings of a butterfly, which, grown old in the decline of summer, had alighted there to die. the insect fluttered lightly through the chamber, and settled on the snowy head of dr. heidegger. "come, come, gentlemen!--come, madam wycherly," exclaimed the doctor, "i really must protest against this riot." they stood still and shivered; for it seemed as if gray time were calling them back from their sunny youth, far down into the chill and darksome vale of years. they looked at old dr. heidegger, who sat in his carved arm-chair, holding the rose of half a century, which he had rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase. at the motion of his hand, the four rioters resumed their seats; the more readily, because their violent exertions had wearied them, youthful though they were. "my poor sylvia's rose!" ejaculated dr. heidegger, holding it in the light of the sunset clouds; "it appears to be fading again." and so it was. even while the party were looking at it, the flower continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the doctor had first thrown it into the vase. he shook off the few drops of moisture which clung to its petals. "i love it as well thus, as in its dewy freshness," observed he, pressing the withered rose to his withered lips. while he spoke, the butterfly fluttered down from the doctor's snowy head, and fell upon the floor. his guests shivered again. a strange chillness, whether of the body or spirit they could not tell, was creeping gradually over them all. they gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting moment snatched away a charm, and left a deepening furrow where none had been before. was it an illusion? had the changes of a lifetime been crowded into so brief a space, and were they now four aged people, sitting with their old friend, dr. heidegger? "are we grown old again, so soon?" cried they, dolefully. in truth, they had. the water of youth possessed merely a virtue more transient than that of wine. the delirium which it created had effervesced away. yes! they were old again. with a shuddering impulse, that showed her a woman still, the widow clasped her skinny hands before her face, and wished that the coffin-lid were over it, since it could be no longer beautiful. "yes, friends, ye are old again," said dr. heidegger; "and lo! the water of youth is all lavished on the ground. well, i bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, i would not stoop to bathe my lips in it; no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments. such is the lesson ye have taught me!" but the doctor's four friends had taught no such lesson to themselves. they resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to florida, and quaff at morning, noon, and night from the fountain of youth. note.--in an english review, not long since, i have been accused of plagiarizing the idea of this story from a chapter in one of the novels of alexandre dumas. there has undoubtedly been a plagiarism on one side or the other; but as my story was written a good deal more than twenty years ago, and as the novel is of considerably more recent date, i take pleasure in thinking that m. dumas has done me the honor to appropriate one of the fanciful conceptions of my earlier days. he is heartily welcome to it: nor is it the only instance, by many, in which the great french romancer has exercised the privilege of commanding genius by confiscating the intellectual property of less famous people to his own use and behoof. _september, ._ the birthmark in the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. he had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace-smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. in those days, when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. the higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. we know not whether aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over nature. he had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weakened from them by any second passion. his love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science and uniting the strength of the latter to his own. such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. one day, very soon after their marriage, aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke. "georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?" "no, indeed," said she, smiling; but, perceiving the seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply. "to tell you the truth, it has been so often called a charm, that i was simple enough to imagine it might be so." "ah, upon another face perhaps it might," replied her husband; "but never on yours. no, dearest georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of nature, that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection." "shocks you, my husband!" cried georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with momentary anger but then bursting into tears. "then why did you take me from my mother's side? you cannot love what shocks you!" to explain this conversation, it must be mentioned that in the centre of georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. in the usual state of her complexion--a healthy though delicate bloom--the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. when she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. but if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth-hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. it must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign-manual varied exceedingly according to the difference of temperament in the beholders. some fastidious persons--but they were exclusively of her own sex--affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of georgiana's beauty and rendered her countenance even hideous. but it would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the eve of powers to a monster. masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw. after his marriage,--for he thought little or nothing of the matter before,--aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself. had she been less beautiful,--if envy's self could have found aught else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but, seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. it was the fatal flaw of humanity which nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. the crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. in this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, aylmer's sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight. at all the seasons which should have been their happiest he invariably, and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, reverted to this one disastrous topic. trifling as it at first appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. with the morning twilight aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood-fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped. georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. it needed but a glance with the peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a death-like paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bas-relief of ruby on the whitest marble. late one night, when the lights were growing dim so as hardly to betray the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily took up the subject. "do you remember, my dear aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, "have you any recollection, of a dream last night about this odious hand?" "none! none whatever!" replied aylmer, starting; but then he added, in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of his emotion, "i might well dream of it; for, before i fell asleep, it had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy." "and you did dream of it?" continued georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. "a terrible dream! i wonder that you can forget it. is it possible to forget this one expression?--'it is in her heart now; we must have it out!' reflect, my husband; for by all means i would have you recall that dream." the mind is in a sad state when sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. aylmer now remembered his dream. he had fancied himself with his servant aminadab attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away. when the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, aylmer sat in his wife's presence with a guilty feeling. truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments. until now he had not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace. "aylmer," resumed georgiana, solemnly, "i know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself. again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little hand which was laid upon me before i came into the world?" "dearest georgiana, i have spent much thought upon the subject," hastily interrupted aylmer. "i am convinced of the perfect practicability of its removal." "if there be the remotest possibility of it," continued georgiana, "let the attempt be made, at whatever risk. danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust,--life is a burden which i would fling down with joy. either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life! you have deep science. all the world bears witness of it. you have achieved great wonders. cannot you remove this little, little mark, which i cover with the tips of two small fingers? is this beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?" "noblest, dearest, tenderest wife," cried aylmer, rapturously, "doubt not my power. i have already given this matter the deepest thought,--thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect than yourself. georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of science. i feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when i shall have corrected what nature left imperfect in her fairest work! even pygmalion, when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be." "it is resolved, then," said georgiana, faintly smiling. "and, aylmer, spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my heart at last." her husband tenderly kissed her cheek,--her right cheek,--not that which bore the impress of the crimson hand. the next day aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its success. they were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments occupied by aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of nature that had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in europe. seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the secrets of the highest cloud-region and of the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. the latter pursuit, however, aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth--against which all seekers sooner or later stumble--that our great creative mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. she permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. now, however, aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the treatment of georgiana. as he led her over the threshold of the laboratory georgiana was cold and tremulous. aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a strong convulsive shudder. his wife fainted. "aminadab! aminadab!" shouted aylmer, stamping violently on the floor. forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace. this personage had been aylmer's underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the details of his master's experiments. with his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical nature; while aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element. "throw open the door of the boudoir, aminadab," said aylmer, "and burn a pastil." "yes, master," answered aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form of georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, "if she were my wife, i'd never part with that birthmark." when georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled her from her death-like faintness. the scene around her looked like enchantment. aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman. the walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other species of adornment can achieve; and, as they fell from the ceiling to the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. for aught georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. and aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled radiance. he now knelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude. "where am i? ah, i remember," said georgiana, faintly; and she placed her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband's eyes. "fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "do not shrink from me! believe me, georgiana, i even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be such a rapture to remove it." "o, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "pray do not look at it again. i never can forget that convulsive shudder." in order to soothe georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from the burden of actual things, aylmer now put in practice some of the light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its profounder lore. airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and danced before her, imprinting their momentary footsteps on beams of light. though she had some indistinct idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the spiritual world. then again, when she felt a wish to look forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. the scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented but with that bewitching yet indescribable difference which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the original. when wearied of this, aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of earth. she did so, with little interest at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant shooting upward from the soil. then came the slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely flower. "it is magical!" cried georgiana. "i dare not touch it." "nay, pluck it," answered aylmer,--"pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume while you may. the flower will wither in a few moments and leave nothing save its brown seed-vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself." but georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of fire. "there was too powerful a stimulus," said aylmer, thoughtfully. to make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. it was to be effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal. georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been. aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive acid. soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. in the intervals of study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of the resources of his art. he gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and base. aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover this long-sought medium. "but," he added, "a philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it." not less singular were his opinions in regard to the elixir vitæ. he more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause to curse. "aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked georgiana, looking at him with amazement and fear. "it is terrible to possess such power, or even to dream of possessing it." "o, do not tremble, my love," said her husband. "i would not wrong either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our lives; but i would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the skill requisite to remove this little hand." at the mention of the birthmark, georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a red-hot iron had touched her cheek. again aylmer applied himself to his labors. she could hear his voice in the distant furnace-room giving directions to aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt or growl of a brute than human speech. after hours of absence, aylmer reappeared and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. among the former he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the breezes that blow across a kingdom. they were of inestimable value, the contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and invigorating delight. "and what is this?" asked georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe containing a gold-colored liquid. "it is so beautiful to the eye that i could imagine it the elixir of life." "in one sense it is," replied aylmer; "or rather, the elixir of immortality. it is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in this world. by its aid i could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might point your finger. the strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the midst of a breath. no king on his guarded throne could keep his life if i, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions justified me in depriving him of it." "why do you keep such a terrific drug?" inquired georgiana, in horror. "do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its virtuous potency is yet greater than its harmful one. but see! here is a powerful cosmetic. with a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. a stronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty a pale ghost." "is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" asked georgiana, anxiously. "o no," hastily replied her husband; "this is merely superficial. your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper." in his interviews with georgiana, aylmer generally made minute inquiries as to her sensations, and whether the confinement of the rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. these questions had such a particular drift that georgiana began to conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her food. she fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her system,--a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her cheek. not even aylmer now hated it so much as she. to dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, georgiana turned over the volumes of his scientific library. in many dark old tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. they were the works of the philosophers of the middle ages, such as albertus magnus, cornelius agrippa, paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the prophetic brazen head. all these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired from the investigation of nature a power above nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual world. hardly less curious and imaginative were the early volumes of the transactions of the royal society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were continually recording wonders or proposing methods whereby wonders might be wrought. but, to georgiana, the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was attributable. the book, in truth was both the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and laborious life. he handled physical details as if there were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration towards the infinite. in his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. georgiana, as she read, reverenced aylmer and loved him more profoundly than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than heretofore. much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. his brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. the volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. it was the sad confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part. perhaps every man of genius, in whatever sphere, might recognize the image of his own experience in aylmer's journal. so deeply did these reflections affect georgiana that she laid her face upon the open volume and burst into tears. in this situation she was found by her husband. "it is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a smile, though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "georgiana, there are pages in that volume which i can scarcely glance over and keep my senses. take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you." "it has made me worship you more than ever," said she. "ah, wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you will. i shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. but come, i have sought you for the luxury of your voice. sing to me, dearest." so she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit. he then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and that the result was already certain. scarcely had he departed when georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. she had forgotten to inform aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had begun to excite her attention. it was a sensation in the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her system. hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time into the laboratory. the first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. there was a distilling-apparatus in full operation. around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research. an electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. the atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. the severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. but what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of aylmer himself. he was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. how different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for georgiana's encouragement! "carefully now, aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, thou man of clay," muttered aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. "now, if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over." "ho! ho!" mumbled aminadab. "look, master! look!" aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than ever, on beholding georgiana. he rushed towards her and seized her arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it. "why do you come hither? have you no trust in your husband?" cried he, impetuously. "would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over my labors? it is not well done. go, prying woman! go!" "nay, aylmer," said georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain. you mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch the development of this experiment. think not so unworthily of me, my husband. tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that i shall shrink; for my share in it is far less than your own." "no, no, georgiana!" said aylmer, impatiently; "it must not be." "i submit," replied she, calmly. "and, aylmer, i shall quaff whatever draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand." "my noble wife," said aylmer, deeply moved, "i knew not the height and depth of your nature until now. nothing shall be concealed. know, then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength of which i had no previous conception. i have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except to change your entire physical system. only one thing remains to be tried. if that fail us we are ruined." "why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she. "because, georgiana," said aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger." "danger? there is but one danger,--that this horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!" cried georgiana. "remove it, remove it, whatever be the cost, or we shall both go mad!" "heaven knows your words are too true," said aylmer, sadly. "and now, dearest, return to your boudoir. in a little while all will be tested." he conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. after his departure georgiana became rapt in musings. she considered the character of aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love,--so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection, nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. she felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before. the sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. he bore a crystal goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be the draught of immortality. aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the consequence of a highly wrought state of mind and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt. "the concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer to georgiana's look. "unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail." "save on your account, my dearest aylmer," observed his wife, "i might wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode. life is but a sad possession to those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which i stand. were i weaker and blinder, it might be happiness. were i stronger, it might be endured hopefully. but, being what i find myself, methinks i am of all mortals the most fit to die." "you are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband. "but why do we speak of dying? the draught cannot fail. behold its effect upon this plant." on the window-seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. aylmer poured a small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. in a little time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure. "there needed no proof," said georgiana, quietly. "give me the goblet. i joyfully stake all upon your word." "drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed aylmer, with fervid admiration. "there is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. thy sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect." she quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand. "it is grateful," said she, with a placid smile. "methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains i know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. it allays a feverish thirst that had parched me for many days. now, dearest, let me sleep. my earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the heart of a rose at sunset." she spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering syllables. scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in slumber. aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man, the whole value of whose existence was involved in the process now to be tested. mingled with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. not the minutest symptom escaped him. a heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,--such were the details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume; but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last. while thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and not without a shudder. yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse, he pressed it with his lips. his spirit recoiled, however, in the very act; and georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured, as if in remonstrance. again aylmer resumed his watch. nor was it without avail. the crimson hand, which at first had been strongly visible upon the marble paleness of georgiana's cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. she remained not less pale than ever; but the birthmark, with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of its former distinctness. its presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still. watch the stain of the rainbow fading out of the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. "by heaven! it is wellnigh gone!" said aylmer to himself, in almost irrepressible ecstasy. "i can scarcely trace it now. success! success! and now it is like the faintest rose-color. the lightest flush of blood across her cheek would overcome it. but she is so pale!" he drew aside the window-curtain and suffered the light of natural day to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. at the same time he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant aminadab's expression of delight. "ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy, "you have served me well! matter and spirit--earth and heaven--have both done their part in this! laugh, thing of the senses! you have earned the right to laugh." these exclamations broke georgiana's sleep. she slowly unclosed her eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that purpose. a faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their happiness. but then her eyes sought aylmer's face with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for. "my poor aylmer!" murmured she. "poor? nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "my peerless bride, it is successful! you are perfect!" "my poor aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, "you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. do not repent that, with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. aylmer, dearest aylmer, i am dying!" alas! it was too true! the fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. as the last crimson tint of the birthmark--that sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half-development, demands the completeness of a higher state. yet, had aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the self-same texture with the celestial. the momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present. ethan brand a chapter from an abortive romance bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with charcoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his little son played at building houses with the scattered fragments of marble, when, on the hillside below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow, and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest. "father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and pressing betwixt his father's knees. "o, some drunken man, i suppose," answered the lime-burner; "some merry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loud enough within doors lest he should blow the roof of the house off. so here he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of graylock." "but, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse, middle-aged clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. so the noise frightens me!" "don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "you will never make a man, i do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. i have known the rustling of a leaf startle you. hark! here comes the merry fellow now. you shall see that there is no harm in him." bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the same lime-kiln that had been the scene of ethan brand's solitary and meditative life, before he began his search for the unpardonable sin. many years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since that portentous night when the idea was first developed. the kiln, however, on the mountain-side, stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he had thrown his dark thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were, into the one thought that took possession of his life. it was a rude, round, tower-like structure, about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones, and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circumference; so that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads, and thrown in at the top. there was an opening at the bottom of the tower, like an oven-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture, and provided with a massive iron door. with the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the hillside, it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the delectable mountains were accustomed to show to pilgrims. there are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the purpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part of the substance of the hills. some of them, built years ago, and long deserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the sky, and grass and wild-flowers rooting themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already like relics of antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the lichens of centuries to come. others, where the lime-burner still feeds his daily and night-long fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among the hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to hold a chat with the solitary man. it is a lonesome, and, when the character is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful occupation; as it proved in the case of ethan brand, who had mused to such strange purpose, in days gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning. the man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled himself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his business. at frequent intervals, he flung back the clashing weight of the iron door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of oak, or stirred the immense brands with a long pole. within the furnace were seen the curling and riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost molten with the intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire quivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showed in the foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, the spring beside its door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of the lime-burner, and the half-frightened child, shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. and when again the iron door was closed, then reappeared the tender light of the half-full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset, though thus far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago. the little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were heard ascending the hillside, and a human form thrust aside the bushes that clustered beneath the trees. "halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's timidity, yet half infected by it. "come forward, and show yourself, like a man, or i'll fling this chunk of marble at your head!" "you offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown man drew nigh. "yet i neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my own fireside." to obtain a distincter view, bartram threw open the iron door of the kiln, whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote full upon the stranger's face and figure. to a careless eye there appeared nothing very remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man in a coarse, brown, country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of a wayfarer. as he advanced, he fixed his eyes--which were very bright--intently upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to behold, some object worthy of note within it. "good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, so late in the day?" "i come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is finished." "drunk!--or crazy!" muttered bartram to himself. "i shall have trouble with the fellow. the sooner i drive him away, the better." the little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged him to shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much light; for that there was something in the man's face which he was afraid to look at, yet could not look away from. and, indeed, even the lime-burner's dull and torpid sense began to be impressed by an indescribable something in that thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with the grizzled hair hanging wildly about it, and those deeply sunken eyes, which gleamed like fires within the entrance of a mysterious cavern. but, as he closed the door, the stranger turned towards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made bartram feel as if he were a sane and sensible man, after all. "your task draws to an end, i see," said he. "this marble has already been burning three days. a few hours more will convert the stone to lime." "why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "you seem as well acquainted with my business as i am myself." "and well i may be," said the stranger; "for i followed the same craft many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. but you are a new-comer in these parts. did you never hear of ethan brand?" "the man that went in search of the unpardonable sin?" asked bartram, with a laugh. "the same," answered the stranger. "he has found what he sought, and therefore he comes back again." "what! then you are ethan brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, in amazement. "i am a new-comer here, as you say, and they call it eighteen years since you left the foot of graylock. but, i can tell you, the good folks still talk about ethan brand, in the village yonder, and what a strange errand took him away from his lime-kiln. well, and so you have found the unpardonable sin?" "even so!" said the stranger, calmly. "if the question is a fair one," proceeded bartram, "where might it be?" ethan brand laid his finger on his own heart. "here!" replied he. and then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking throughout the world for what was the closest of all things to himself, and looking into every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast, he broke into a laugh of scorn. it was the same slow, heavy laugh, that had almost appalled the lime-burner when it heralded the wayfarer's approach. the solitary mountain-side was made dismal by it. laughter, when out of place, mis-timed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice. the laughter of one asleep, even if it be a little child,--the madman's laugh,--the wild, screaming laugh of a born idiot,--are sounds that we sometimes tremble to hear, and would always willingly forget. poets have imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. and even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberated among the hills. "joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the village, and tell the jolly fellows there that ethan brand has come back, and that he has found the unpardonable sin!" the boy darted away on his errand, to which ethan brand made no objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. he sat on a log of wood, looking steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. when the child was out of sight, and his swift and light footsteps ceased to be heard treading first on the fallen leaves and then on the rocky mountain-path, the lime-burner began to regret his departure. he felt that the little fellow's presence had been a barrier between his guest and himself, and that he must now deal, heart to heart, with a man who, on his own confession, had committed the one only crime for which heaven could afford no mercy. that crime, in its indistinct blackness, seemed to overshadow him. the lime-burner's own sins rose up within him, and made his memory riotous with a throng of evil shapes that asserted their kindred with the master sin, whatever it might be, which it was within the scope of man's corrupted nature to conceive and cherish. they were all of one family; they went to and fro between his breast and ethan brand's, and carried dark greetings from one to the other. then bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary in reference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadow of the night, and was making himself at home in his old place, after so long absence that the dead people, dead and buried for years, would have had more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he. ethan brand, it was said, had conversed with satan himself in the lurid blaze of this very kiln. the legend had been matter of mirth heretofore, but looked grisly now. according to this tale, before ethan brand departed on his search, he had been accustomed to evoke a fiend from the hot furnace of the lime-kiln, night after night, in order to confer with him about the unpardonable sin; the man and the fiend each laboring to frame the image of some mode of guilt which could neither be atoned for nor forgiven. and, with the first gleam of light upon the mountain-top, the fiend crept in at the iron door, there to abide the intensest element of fire, until again summoned forth to share in the dreadful task of extending man's possible guilt beyond the scope of heaven's else infinite mercy. while the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts, ethan brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. the action was in such accordance with the idea in bartram's mind, that he almost expected to see the evil one issue forth, red-hot from the raging furnace. "hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was ashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "don't, for mercy's sake, bring out your devil now!" "man!" sternly replied ethan brand, "what need have i of the devil? i have left him behind me, on my track. it is with such half-way sinners as you that he busies himself. fear not, because i open the door. i do but act by old custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a lime-burner, as i was once." he stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the fierce glow that reddened upon his face. the lime-burner sat watching him, and half suspected his strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke a fiend, at least to plunge bodily into the flames, and thus vanish from the sight of man. ethan brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed the door of the kiln. "i have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times hotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire. but i found not there what i sought. no, not the unpardonable sin!" "what is the unpardonable sin?" asked the lime-burner; and then he shrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question should be answered. "it is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied ethan brand, standing erect, with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of his stamp. "a sin that grew nowhere else! the sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for god, and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims! the only sin that deserves a recompense of immortal agony! freely, were it to do again, would i incur the guilt. unshrinkingly i accept the retribution!" "the man's head is turned," muttered the lime-burner to himself. "he may be a sinner, like the rest of us,--nothing more likely,--but, i'll be sworn, he is a madman too." nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with ethan brand on the wild mountain-side, and was right glad to hear the rough murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the underbrush. soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk flip beside the bar-room fire through all the winters, and smoked their pipes beneath the stoop through all the summers, since ethan brand's departure. laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voices together in unceremonious talk, they now burst into the moonshine and narrow streaks of firelight that illuminated the open space before the lime-kiln. bartram set the door ajar again, flooding the spot with light, that the whole company might get a fair view of ethan brand, and he of them. there, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous man, now almost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at the hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. it was the stage-agent. the present specimen of the genus was a wilted and smoke-dried man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, brown, bobtailed coat, with brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown, had kept his desk and corner in the bar-room, and was still puffing what seemed to be the same cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. he had great fame as a dry joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any intrinsic humor than from a certain flavor of brandy-toddy and tobacco-smoke, which impregnated all his ideas and expressions, as well as his person. another well-remembered though strangely altered face was that of lawyer giles, as people still called him in courtesy; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiled shirt-sleeves and tow-cloth trousers. this poor fellow had been an attorney, in what he called his better days, a sharp practitioner, and in great vogue among the village litigants; but flip, and sling, and toddy, and cocktails, imbibed at all hours, morning, noon, and night, had caused him to slide from intellectual to various kinds and degrees of bodily labor, till, at last, to adopt his own phrase, he slid into a soap-vat. in other words, giles was now a soap-boiler, in a small way. he had come to be but the fragment of a human being, a part of one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn away by the devilish grip of a steam-engine. yet, though the corporeal hand was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump, giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers with as vivid a sensation as before the real ones were amputated. a maimed and miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom the world could not trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous stage of his misfortunes, since he had still kept up the courage and spirit of a man, asked nothing in charity, and with his one hand--and that the left one--fought a stern battle against want and hostile circumstances. among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain points of similarity to lawyer giles, had many more of difference. it was the village doctor; a man of some fifty years, whom, at an earlier period of his life, we introduced as paying a professional visit to ethan brand during the latter's supposed insanity. he was now a purple-visaged, rude, and brutal, yet half-gentlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and desperate in his talk, and in all the details of his gesture and manners. brandy possessed this man like an evil spirit, and made him as surly and savage as a wild beast, and as miserable as a lost soul; but there was supposed to be in him such wonderful skill, such native gifts of healing, beyond any which medical science could impart, that society caught hold of him, and would not let him sink out of its reach. so, swaying to and fro upon his horse, and grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he visited all the sick-chambers for miles about among the mountain towns, and sometimes raised a dying man, as it were, by miracle, or quite as often, no doubt, sent his patient to a grave that was dug many a year too soon. the doctor had an everlasting pipe in his mouth, and, as somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it was always alight with hell-fire. these three worthies pressed forward, and greeted ethan brand each after his own fashion, earnestly inviting him to partake of the contents of a certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he would find something far better worth seeking for than the unpardonable sin. no mind, which has wrought itself by intense and solitary meditation into a high state of enthusiasm, can endure the kind of contact with low and vulgar modes of thought and feeling to which ethan brand was now subjected. it made him doubt--and, strange to say, it was a painful doubt--whether he had indeed found the unpardonable sin and found it within himself. the whole question on which he had exhausted life, and more than life, looked like a delusion. "leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made yourselves so, shrivelling up your souls with fiery liquors! i have done with you. years and years ago, i groped into your hearts, and found nothing there for my purpose. get ye gone!" "why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the way you respond to the kindness of your best friends? then let me tell you the truth. you have no more found the unpardonable sin than yonder boy joe has. you are but a crazy fellow,--i told you so twenty years ago,--neither better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and the fit companion of old humphrey, here!" he pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin visage, and unsteady eyes. for some years past this aged person had been wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom he met for his daughter. the girl, it seemed, had gone off with a company of circus-performers; and occasionally tidings of her came to the village, and fine stories were told of her glittering appearance as she rode on horseback in the ring, or performed marvellous feats on the tight-rope. the white-haired father now approached ethan brand, and gazed unsteadily into his face. "they tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing his hands with earnestness. "you must have seen my daughter, for she makes a grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. did she send any word to her old father, or say when she was coming back?" ethan brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. that daughter, from whom he so earnestly desired a word of greeting, was the esther of our tale, the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, ethan brand had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process. "yes," murmured he, turning away from the hoary wanderer; "it is no delusion. there is an unpardonable sin!" while these things were passing, a merry scene was going forward in the area of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of the hut. a number of the youth of the village, young men and girls, had hurried up the hillside, impelled by curiosity to see ethan brand, the hero of so many a legend familiar to their childhood. finding nothing, however, very remarkable in his aspect,--nothing but a sunburnt wayfarer, in plain garb and dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fire, as if he fancied pictures among the coals,--these young people speedily grew tired of observing him. as it happened, there was other amusement at hand. an old german jew, travelling with a diorama on his back, was passing down the mountain-road towards the village just as the party turned aside from it, and, in hopes of eking out the profits of the day, the showman had kept them company to the lime-kiln. "come, old dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your pictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!" "o yes, captain," answered the jew,--whether was a matter of courtesy or craft, he styled everybody captain,--"i shall show you, indeed, some very superb pictures!" so, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and girls to look through the glass orifices of the machine, and proceeded to exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings, as specimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the face to impose upon his circle of spectators. the pictures were worn out, moreover, tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy with tobacco-smoke, and otherwise in a most pitiable condition. some purported to be cities, public edifices, and ruined castles in europe; others represented napoleon's battles and nelson's sea-fights; and in the midst of these would be seen a gigantic, brown, hairy hand,--which might have been mistaken for the hand of destiny, though, in truth, it was only the showman's,--pointing its forefinger to various scenes of the conflict, while its owner gave historical illustrations. when, with much merriment at its abominable deficiency of merit, the exhibition was concluded, the german bade little joe put his head into the box. viewed through the magnifying-glasses, the boy's round, rosy visage assumed the strangest imaginable aspect of an immense titanic child, the mouth grinning broadly, and the eyes and every other feature overflowing with fun at the joke. suddenly, however, that merry face turned pale, and its expression changed to horror, for this easily impressed and excitable child had become sensible that the eye of ethan brand was fixed upon him through the glass. "you make the little man to be afraid, captain," said the german jew, turning up the dark and strong outline of his visage, from his stooping posture. "but look again, and, by chance, i shall cause you to see somewhat that is very fine, upon my word!" ethan brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back, looked fixedly at the german. what had he seen? nothing, apparently; for a curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld only a vacant space of canvas. "i remember you now," muttered ethan brand to the showman. "ah, captain," whispered the jew of nuremburg, with a dark smile, "i find it to be a heavy matter in my show-box,--this unpardonable sin! by my faith, captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to carry it over the mountain." "peace," answered ethan brand, sternly, "or get thee into the furnace yonder!" the jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great, elderly dog--who seemed to be his own master, as no person in the company laid claim to him--saw fit to render himself the object of public notice. hitherto, he had shown himself a very quiet, well-disposed old dog, going round from one to another, and, by way of being sociable, offering his rough head to be patted by any kindly hand that would take so much trouble. but now, all of a sudden, this grave and venerable quadruped, of his own mere motion, and without the slightest suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after his tail, which, to heighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal shorter than it should have been. never was seen such headlong eagerness in pursuit of an object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard such a tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,--as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most unforgivable enmity with the other. faster and faster, round about went the cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail; and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his performance as suddenly as he had begun it. the next moment he was as mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his deportment, as when he first scraped acquaintance with the company. as may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter, clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine performer responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but appeared totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amuse the spectators. meanwhile, ethan brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved, it might be, by a perception of some remote analogy between his own case and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh, which, more than any other token, expressed the condition of his inward being. from that moment, the merriment of the party was at an end; they stood aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should be reverberated around the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to mountain, and so the horror be prolonged upon their ears. then, whispering one to another that it was late,--that the moon was almost down,--that the august night was growing chill,--they hurried homewards, leaving the lime-burner and little joe to deal as they might with their unwelcome guest. save for these three human beings, the open space on the hillside was a solitude, set in a vast gloom of forest. beyond that darksome verge, the firelight glimmered on the stately trunks and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the lighter verdure of sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there lay the gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil. and it seemed to little joe--a timorous and imaginative child--that the silent forest was holding its breath, until some fearful thing should happen. ethan brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the kiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, he bade, rather than advised, them to retire to rest. "for myself, i cannot sleep," said he. "i have matters that it concerns me to meditate upon. i will watch the fire, as i used to do in the old time." "and call the devil out of the furnace to keep you company, i suppose," muttered bartram, who had been making intimate acquaintance with the black bottle above mentioned. "but watch, if you like, and call as many devils as you like! for my part, i shall be all the better for a snooze. come, joe!" as the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at the wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for his tender spirit had an intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man had enveloped himself. when they had gone, ethan brand sat listening to the crackling of the kindled wood, and looking at the little spirts of fire that issued through the chinks of the door. these trifles, however, once so familiar, had but the slightest hold of his attention, while deep within his mind he was reviewing the gradual but marvellous change that had been wrought upon him by the search to which he had devoted himself. he remembered how the night dew had fallen upon him,--how the dark forest had whispered to him,--how the stars had gleamed upon him,--a simple and loving man, watching his fire in the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned. he remembered with what tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind, and what pity for human guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas which afterwards became the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he had then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; with what awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and prayed that the unpardonable sin might never be revealed to him. then ensued that vast intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed the counterpoise between his mind and heart. the idea that possessed his life had operated as a means of education; it had gone on cultivating his powers to the highest point of which they were susceptible; it had raised him from the level of an unlettered laborer to stand on a star-lit eminence, whither the philosophers of the earth, laden with the lore of universities, might vainly strive to clamber after him. so much for the intellect! but where was the heart? that, indeed, had withered,--had contracted,--had hardened,--had perished! it had ceased to partake of the universal throb. he had lost his hold of the magnetic chain of humanity. he was no longer a brother-man, opening the chambers of the dungeons of our common nature by the key of holy sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he was now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his experiment, and, at length, converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pulling the wires that moved them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for his study. thus ethan brand became a fiend. he began to be so from the moment that his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improvement with his intellect. and now, as his highest effort and inevitable development,--as the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his life's labor,--he had produced the unpardonable sin! "what more have i to seek? what more to achieve?" said ethan brand to himself. "my task is done, and well done!" starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and ascending the hillock of earth that was raised against the stone circumference of the lime-kiln, he thus reached the top of the structure. it was a space of perhaps ten feet across, from edge to edge, presenting a view of the upper surface of the immense mass of broken marble with which the kiln was heaped. all these innumerable blocks and fragments of marble were red-hot and vividly on fire, sending up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and danced madly, as within a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with continual and multitudinous activity. as the lonely man bent forward over this terrible body of fire, the blasting heat smote up against his person with a breath that, it might be supposed, would have scorched and shrivelled him up in a moment. ethan brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. the blue flames played upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light which alone could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on the verge of plunging into his gulf of intensest torment. "o mother earth," cried he, "who art no more my mother, and into whose bosom this frame shall never be resolved! o mankind, whose brotherhood i have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! o stars of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward and upward!--farewell all, and forever. come, deadly element of fire,--henceforth my familiar frame! embrace me, as i do thee!" that night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavily through the sleep of the lime-burner and his little son; dim shapes of horror and anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present in the rude hovel, when they opened their eyes to the daylight. "up, boy, up!" cried the lime-burner, staring about him. "thank heaven, the night is gone, at last; and rather than pass such another, i would watch my lime-kiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. this ethan brand, with his humbug of an unpardonable sin, has done me no such mighty favor, in taking my place!" he issued from the hut, followed by little joe, who kept fast hold of his father's hand. the early sunshine was already pouring its gold upon the mountain-tops; and though the valleys were still in shadow, they smiled cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was hastening onward. the village, completely shut in by hills, which swelled away gently about it, looked as if it had rested peacefully in the hollow of the great hand of providence. every dwelling was distinctly visible; the little spires of the two churches pointed upwards, and caught a fore-glimmering of brightness from the sun-gilt skies upon their gilded weathercocks. the tavern was astir, and the figure of the old, smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen beneath the stoop. old graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his head. scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down into the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of the same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper atmosphere. stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the heavenly regions. earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to look at it. to supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay claim to little share. the great hills played a concert among themselves, each contributing a strain of airy sweetness. little joe's face brightened at once. "dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strange man is gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!" "yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire go down, and no thanks to him if five hundred bushels of lime are not spoiled. if i catch the fellow hereabouts again, i shall feel like tossing him into the furnace!" with his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln. after a moment's pause, he called to his son. "come up here, joe!" said he. so little joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. the marble was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. but on its surface, in the midst of the circle,--snow-white too, and thoroughly converted into lime,--lay a human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who, after long toil, lies down to long repose. within the ribs--strange to say--was the shape of a human heart. "was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried bartram, in some perplexity at this phenomenon. "at any rate, it is burnt into what looks like special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my kiln is half a bushel the richer for him." so saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall upon the skeleton, the relics of ethan brand were crumbled into fragments. wakefield in some old magazine or newspaper, i recollect a story, told as truth, of a man--let us call him wakefield--who absented himself for a long time from his wife. the fact thus abstractedly stated is not very uncommon, nor--without a proper distinction of circumstances--to be condemned either as naughty or nonsensical. howbeit, this, though far from the most aggravated, is perhaps the strangest instance on record of marital delinquency; and, moreover, as remarkable a freak as may be found in the whole list of human oddities. the wedded couple lived in london. the man, under pretence of going a journey, took lodgings in the next street to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends, and without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt upwards of twenty years. during that period, he beheld his home every day, and frequently the forlorn mrs. wakefield. and after so great a gap in his matrimonial felicity--when his death was reckoned certain, his estate settled, his name dismissed from memory, and his wife, long, long ago resigned to her autumnal widowhood--he entered the door one evening, quietly, as from a day's absence, and became a loving spouse till death. this outline is all that i remember. but the incident, though of the purest originality, unexampled, and probably never to be repeated, is one, i think, which appeals to the generous sympathies of mankind. we know, each for himself, that none of us would perpetrate such a folly, yet feel as if some other might. to my own contemplations, at least, it has often recurred, always exciting wonder, but with a sense that the story must be true, and a conception of its hero's character. whenever any subject so forcibly affects the mind, time is well spent in thinking of it. if the reader choose, let him do his own meditation; or if he prefer to ramble with me through the twenty years of wakefield's vagary, i bid him welcome; trusting that there will be a pervading spirit and a moral, even should we fail to find them, done up neatly, and condensed into the final sentence. thought has always its efficacy, and every striking incident its moral. what sort of a man was wakefield? we are free to shape out our own idea, and call it by his name. he was now in the meridian of life; his matrimonial affections, never violent, were sobered into a calm, habitual sentiment; of all husbands, he was likely to be the most constant, because a certain sluggishness would keep his heart at rest, wherever it might be placed. he was intellectual, but not actively so; his mind occupied itself in long and lazy musings, that tended to no purpose, or had not vigor to attain it; his thoughts were seldom so energetic as to seize hold of words. imagination, in the proper meaning of the term, made no part of wakefield's gifts. with a cold but not depraved nor wandering heart, and a mind never feverish with riotous thoughts, nor perplexed with originality, who could have anticipated that our friend would entitle himself to a foremost place among the doers of eccentric deeds? had his acquaintances been asked, who was the man in london, the surest to perform nothing to-day which should be remembered on the morrow, they would have thought of wakefield. only the wife of his bosom might have hesitated. she, without having analyzed his character, was partly aware of a quiet selfishness, that had rusted into his inactive mind,--of a peculiar sort of vanity, the most uneasy attribute about him,--of a disposition to craft, which had seldom produced more positive effects than the keeping of petty secrets, hardly worth revealing,--and, lastly, of what she called a little strangeness, sometimes, in the good man. this latter quality is indefinable, and perhaps non-existent. let us now imagine wakefield bidding adieu to his wife. it is the dusk of an october evening. his equipment is a drab great-coat, a hat covered with an oil-cloth, top-boots, an umbrella in one hand and a small portmanteau in the other. he has informed mrs. wakefield that he is to take the night coach into the country. she would fain inquire the length of his journey, its object, and the probable time of his return; but, indulgent to his harmless love of mystery, interrogates him only by a look. he tells her not to expect him positively by the return coach, nor to be alarmed should he tarry three or four days; but, at all events, to look for him at supper on friday evening. wakefield himself, be it considered, has no suspicion of what is before him. he holds out his hand; she gives her own, and meets his parting kiss, in the matter-of-course way of a ten years' matrimony; and forth goes the middle-aged mr. wakefield, almost resolved to perplex his good lady by a whole week's absence. after the door has closed behind him, she perceives it thrust partly open, and a vision of her husband's face, through the aperture, smiling on her, and gone in a moment. for the time, this little incident is dismissed without a thought. but, long afterwards, when she has been more years a widow than a wife, that smile recurs, and flickers across all her reminiscences of wakefield's visage. in her many musings, she surrounds the original smile with a multitude of fantasies, which make it strange and awful; as, for instance, if she imagines him in a coffin, that parting look is frozen on his pale features; or, if she dreams of him in heaven, still his blessed spirit wears a quiet and crafty smile. yet, for its sake, when all others have given him up for dead, she sometimes doubts whether she is a widow. but our business is with the husband. we must hurry after him, along the street, ere he lose his individuality, and melt into the great mass of london life. it would be vain searching for him there. let us follow close at his heels, therefore, until, after several superfluous turns and doublings, we find him comfortably established by the fireside of a small apartment, previously bespoken. he is in the next street to his own, and at his journey's end. he can scarcely trust his good fortune in having got thither unperceived,--recollecting that, at one time, he was delayed by the throng, in the very focus of a lighted lantern; and, again, there were footsteps, that seemed to tread behind his own, distinct from the multitudinous tramp around him; and, anon, he heard a voice shouting afar, and fancied that it called his name. doubtless, a dozen busybodies had been watching him, and told his wife the whole affair. poor wakefield! little knowest thou thine own insignificance in this great world! no mortal eye but mine has traced thee. go quietly to thy bed, foolish man; and, on the morrow, if thou wilt be wise, get thee home to good mrs. wakefield, and tell her the truth. remove not thyself, even for a little week, from thy place in her chaste bosom. were she, for a single moment to deem thee dead, or lost, or lastingly divided from her, thou wouldst be wofully conscious of a change in thy true wife, forever after. it is perilous to make a chasm in human affections; not that they gape so long and wide, but so quickly close again! almost repenting of his frolic, or whatever it may be termed, wakefield lies down betimes, and starting from his first nap, spreads forth his arms into the wide and solitary waste of the unaccustomed bed. "no,"--thinks he, gathering the bedclothes about him,--"i will not sleep alone another night." in the morning, he rises earlier than usual, and sets himself to consider what he really means to do. such are his loose and rambling modes of thought, that he has taken this very singular step, with the consciousness of a purpose, indeed, but without being able to define it sufficiently for his own contemplation. the vagueness of the project, and the convulsive effort with which he plunges into the execution of it, are equally characteristic of a feeble-minded man. wakefield sifts his ideas, however, as minutely as he may, and finds himself curious to know the progress of matters at home,--how his exemplary wife will endure her widowhood of a week; and, briefly, how the little sphere of creatures and circumstances, in which he was a central object, will be affected by his removal. a morbid vanity, therefore, lies nearest the bottom of the affair. but, how is he to attain his ends? not, certainly, by keeping close in this comfortable lodging, where, though he slept and awoke in the next street to his home, he is as effectually abroad, as if the stage-coach had been whirling him away all night. yet, should he reappear, the whole project is knocked in the head. his poor brains being hopelessly puzzled with this dilemma, he at length ventures out, partly resolving to cross the head of the street, and send one hasty glance towards his forsaken domicile. habit--for he is a man of habits--takes him by the hand, and guides him, wholly unaware, to his own door, where, just at the critical moment, he is aroused by the scraping of his foot upon the step. wakefield! whither are you going? at that instant, his fate was turning on the pivot. little dreaming of the doom to which his first backward step devotes him, he hurries away, breathless with agitation hitherto unfelt, and hardly dares turn his head, at the distant corner. can it be that nobody caught sight of him? will not the whole household--the decent mrs. wakefield, the smart maid-servant, and the dirty little footboy--raise a hue and cry, through london streets, in pursuit of their fugitive lord and master? wonderful escape! he gathers courage to pause and look homeward, but is perplexed with a sense of change about the familiar edifice, such as affects us all, when after a separation of months or years, we again see some hill or lake, or work of art, with which we were friends of old. in ordinary cases, this indescribable impression is caused by the comparison and contrast between our imperfect reminiscences and the reality. in wakefield, the magic of a single night has wrought a similar transformation, because, in that brief period, a great moral change has been effected. but this is a secret from himself. before leaving the spot, he catches a far and momentary glimpse of his wife, passing athwart the front window, with her face turned towards the head of the street. the crafty nincompoop takes to his heels, scared with the idea, that, among a thousand such atoms of mortality, her eye must have detected him. right glad is his heart, though his brain be somewhat dizzy, when he finds himself by the coal-fire of his lodgings. so much for the commencement of this long whim-wham. after the initial conception, and the stirring up of the man's sluggish temperament to put it in practice, the whole matter evolves itself in a natural train. we may suppose him, as the result of deep deliberation, buying a new wig, of reddish hair, and selecting sundry garments, in a fashion unlike his customary suit of brown, from a jew's old-clothes bag. it is accomplished. wakefield is another man. the new system being now established, a retrograde movement to the old would be almost as difficult as the step that placed him in his unparalleled position. furthermore, he is rendered obstinate by a sulkiness, occasionally incident to his temper, and brought on, at present, by the inadequate sensation which he conceives to have been produced in the bosom of mrs. wakefield. he will not go back until she be frightened half to death. well; twice or thrice has she passed before his sight, each time with a heavier step, a paler cheek, and more anxious brow; and in the third week of his non-appearance, he detects a portent of evil entering the house, in the guise of an apothecary. next day, the knocker is muffled. towards nightfall comes the chariot of a physician, and deposits its big-wigged and solemn burden at wakefield's door, whence, after a quarter of an hour's visit, he emerges, perchance the herald of a funeral. dear woman! will she die? by this time, wakefield is excited to something like energy of feeling, but still lingers away from his wife's bedside, pleading with his conscience, that she must not be disturbed at such a juncture. if aught else restrains him, he does not know it. in the course of a few weeks, she gradually recovers; the crisis is over; her heart is sad, perhaps, but quiet; and, let him return soon or late, it will never be feverish for him again. such ideas glimmer through the mist of wakefield's mind, and render him indistinctly conscious that an almost impassable gulf divides his hired apartment from his former home. "it is but in the next street!" he sometimes says. fool! it is in another world. hitherto, he has put off his return from one particular day to another; henceforward, he leaves the precise time undetermined. not to-morrow,--probably next week,--pretty soon. poor man! the dead have nearly as much chance of revisiting their earthly homes, as the self-banished wakefield. would that i had a folio to write, instead of an article of a dozen pages! then might i exemplify how an influence, beyond our control, lays its strong hand on every deed which we do, and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of necessity. wakefield is spellbound. we must leave him, for ten years or so, to haunt around his house, without once crossing the threshold, and to be faithful to his wife, with all the affection of which his heart is capable, while he is slowly fading out of hers. long since, it must be remarked, he has lost the perception of singularity in his conduct. now for a scene! amid the throng of a london street, we distinguish a man, now waxing elderly, with few characteristics to attract careless observers, yet bearing, in his whole aspect, the handwriting of no common fate, for such as have the skill to read it. he is meagre; his low and narrow forehead is deeply wrinkled; his eyes, small and lustreless, sometimes wander apprehensively about him, but oftener seem to look inward. he bends his head, and moves with an indescribable obliquity of gait, as if unwilling to display his full front to the world. watch him, long enough to see what we have described, and you will allow, that circumstances--which often produce remarkable men from nature's ordinary handiwork--have produced one such here. next, leaving him to sidle along the footwalk, cast your eyes in the opposite direction, where a portly female, considerably in the wane of life, with a prayer-book in her hand, is proceeding to yonder church. she has the placid mien of settled widowhood. her regrets have either died away, or have become so essential to her heart, that they would be poorly exchanged for joy. just as the lean man and well-conditioned woman are passing, a slight obstruction occurs, and brings these two figures directly in contact. their hands touch; the pressure of the crowd forces her bosom against his shoulder; they stand, face to face, staring into each other's eyes. after a ten years' separation, thus wakefield meets his wife! the throng eddies away, and carries them asunder. the sober widow, resuming her former pace, proceeds to church, but pauses in the portal, and throws a perplexed glance along the street. she passes in, however, opening her prayer-book as she goes. and the man! with so wild a face, that busy and selfish london stands to gaze after him, he hurries to his lodgings, bolts the door, and throws himself upon the bed. the latent feelings of years break out; his feeble mind acquires a brief energy from their strength; all the miserable strangeness of his life is revealed to him at a glance: and he cries out, passionately, "wakefield! wakefield! you are mad!" perhaps he was so. the singularity of his situation must have so moulded him to himself, that, considered in regard to his fellow-creatures and the business of life, he could not be said to possess his right mind. he had contrived, or rather he had happened, to dissever himself from the world,--to vanish,--to give up his place and privileges with living men, without being admitted among the dead. the life of a hermit is nowise parallel to his. he was in the bustle of the city, as of old; but the crowd swept by, and saw him not; he was, we may figuratively say, always beside his wife, and at his hearth, yet must never feel the warmth of the one, nor the affection of the other. it was wakefield's unprecedented fate, to retain his original share of human sympathies, and to be still involved in human interests, while he had lost his reciprocal influence on them. it would be a most curious speculation, to trace out the effect of such circumstances on his heart and intellect, separately, and in unison. yet, changed as he was, he would seldom be conscious of it, but deem himself the same man as ever; glimpses of the truth, indeed, would come, but only for the moment; and still he would keep saying, "i shall soon go back!" nor reflect that he had been saying so for twenty years. i conceive, also, that these twenty years would appear, in the retrospect, scarcely longer than the week to which wakefield had at first limited his absence. he would look on the affair as no more than an interlude in the main business of his life. when, after a little while more, he should deem it time to re-enter his parlor, his wife would clap her hands for joy, on beholding the middle-aged mr. wakefield. alas, what a mistake! would time but await the close of our favorite follies, we should be young men, all of us, and till doomsday. one evening, in the twentieth year since he vanished, wakefield is taking his customary walk towards the dwelling which he still calls his own. it is a gusty night of autumn, with frequent showers, that patter down upon the pavement, and are gone, before a man can put up his umbrella. pausing near the house, wakefield discerns, through the parlor windows of the second floor, the red glow, and the glimmer and fitful flash of a comfortable fire. on the ceiling appears a grotesque shadow of good mrs. wakefield. the cap, the nose and chin, and the broad waist form an admirable caricature, which dances, moreover, with the up-flickering and down-sinking blaze, almost too merrily for the shade of an elderly widow. at this instant, a shower chances to fall, and is driven, by the unmannerly gust, full into wakefield's face and bosom. he is quite penetrated with its autumnal chill. shall he stand, wet and shivering here, when his own hearth has a good fire to warm him, and his own wife will run to fetch the gray coat and small-clothes, which doubtless she has kept carefully in the closet of their bedchamber? no! wakefield is no such fool. he ascends the steps,--heavily!--for twenty years have stiffened his legs, since he came down,--but he knows it not. stay, wakefield! would you go to the sole home that is left you? then step into your grave! the door opens. as he passes in, we have a parting glimpse of his visage, and recognize the crafty smile, which was the precursor of the little joke that he has ever since been playing off at his wife's expense. how unmercifully has he quizzed the poor woman! well, a good night's rest to wakefield! this happy event--supposing it to be such--could only have occurred at an unpremeditated moment. we will not follow our friend across the threshold. he has left us much food for thought, a portion of which shall lend its wisdom to a moral, and be shaped into a figure. amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another, and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever. like wakefield, he may become, as it were, the outcast of the universe. drowne's wooden image one sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of boston, a young carver in wood, well known by the name of drowne, stood contemplating a large oaken log, which it was his purpose to convert into the figure-head of a vessel. and while he discussed within his own mind what sort of shape or similitude it were well to bestow upon this excellent piece of timber, there came into drowne's workshop a certain captain hunnewell, owner and commander of the good brig called the cynosure, which had just returned from her first voyage to fayal. "ah! that will do, drowne, that will do!" cried the jolly captain, tapping the log with his ratan. "i bespeak this very piece of oak for the figure-head of the cynosure. she has shown herself the sweetest craft that ever floated, and i mean to decorate her prow with the handsomest image that the skill of man can cut out of timber. and, drowne, you are the fellow to execute it." "you give me more credit than i deserve, captain hunnewell," said the carver, modestly, yet as one conscious of eminence in his art. "but, for the sake of the good brig, i stand ready to do my best. and which of these designs do you prefer? here,"--pointing to a staring, half-length figure, in a white wig and scarlet coat,--"here is an excellent model, the likeness of our gracious king. here is the valiant admiral vernon. or, if you prefer a female figure, what say you to britannia with the trident?" "all very fine, drowne; all very fine," answered the mariner. "but as nothing like the brig ever swam the ocean, so i am determined she shall have such a figure-head as old neptune never saw in his life. and what is more, as there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge your credit not to betray it." "certainly," said drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery there could be in reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the inspection of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. "you may depend, captain, on my being as secret as the nature of the case will permit." captain hunnewell then took drowne by the button, and communicated his wishes in so low a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was evidently intended for the carver's private ear. we shall, therefore, take the opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars about drowne himself. he was the first american who is known to have attempted--in a very humble line, it is true--that art in which we can now reckon so many names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. from his earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack,--for it would be too proud a word to call it genius,--a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the human figure in whatever material came most readily to hand. the snows of a new england winter had often supplied him with a species of marble as dazzlingly white, at least, as the parian or the carrara, and if less durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent existence possessed by the boy's frozen statues. yet they won admiration from maturer judges than his schoolfellows, and were, indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. as he advanced in life, the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the display of his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid silver as well as the empty praise that had been an apt reward enough for his productions of evanescent snow. he became noted for carving ornamental pump-heads, and wooden urns for gate-posts, and decorations, more grotesque than fanciful, for mantel-pieces. no apothecary would have deemed himself in the way of obtaining custom, without setting up a gilded mortar, if not a head of galen or hippocrates, from the skilful hand of drowne. but the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of figure-heads for vessels. whether it were the monarch himself, or some famous british admiral or general, or the governor of the province, or perchance the favorite daughter of the ship-owner, there the image stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous colors, magnificently gilded, and staring the whole world out of countenance, as if from an innate consciousness of its own superiority. these specimens of native sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions, and been not ignobly noticed among the crowded shipping of the thames, and wherever else the hardy mariners of new england had pushed their adventures. it must be confessed that a family likeness pervaded these respectable progeny of drowne's skill; that the benign countenance of the king resembled those of his subjects, and that miss peggy hobart, the merchant's daughter, bore a remarkable similitude to britannia, victory, and other ladies of the allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, that they all had a kind of wooden aspect, which proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped blocks of timber in the carver's workshop. but at least there was no inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to render them really works of art, except that deep quality, be it of soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and warmth upon the cold, and which, had it been present, would have made drowne's wooden image instinct with spirit. the captain of the cynosure had now finished his instructions. "and, drowne," said he, impressively, "you must lay aside all other business and set about this forthwith. and as to the price, only do the job in first-rate style, and you shall settle that point yourself." "very well, captain," answered the carver, who looked grave and somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort of smile upon his visage; "depend upon it, i'll do my utmost to satisfy you." from that moment the men of taste about long wharf and the town dock who were wont to show their love for the arts by frequent visits to drowne's workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, began to be sensible of a mystery in the carver's conduct. often he was absent in the daytime. sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light from the shop-windows, he was at work until a late hour of the evening; although neither knock nor voice, on such occasions, could gain admittance for a visitor, or elicit any word of response. nothing remarkable, however, was observed in the shop at those hours when it was thrown open. a fine piece of timber, indeed, which drowne was known to have reserved for some work of especial dignity, was seen to be gradually assuming shape. what shape it was destined ultimately to take was a problem to his friends and a point on which the carver himself preserved a rigid silence. but day after day, though drowne was seldom noticed in the act of working upon it, this rude form began to be developed until it became evident to all observers that a female figure was growing into mimic life. at each new visit they beheld a larger pile of wooden chips and a nearer approximation to something beautiful. it seemed as if the hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative world within the heart of her native tree, and that it was only necessary to remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and reveal the grace and loveliness of a divinity. imperfect as the design, the attitude, the costume, and especially the face of the image still remained, there was already an effect that drew the eye from the wooden cleverness of drowne's earlier productions and fixed it upon the tantalizing mystery of this new project. copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident of boston, came one day to visit drowne; for he had recognized so much of moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the dearth of professional sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance. on entering the shop the artist glanced at the inflexible image of the king, commander, dame, and allegory that stood around, on the best of which might have been bestowed the questionable praise that it looked as if a living man had here been changed to wood, and that not only the physical, but the intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation. but in not a single instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing the ethereal essence of humanity. what a wide distinction is here! and how far would the slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued the utmost degree of the former! "my friend drowne," said copley, smiling to himself, but alluding to the mechanical and wooden cleverness that so invariably distinguished the images, "you are really a remarkable person! i have seldom met with a man in your line of business that could do so much; for one other touch might make this figure of general wolfe, for instance, a breathing and intelligent human creature." "you would have me think that you are praising me highly, mr. copley," answered drowne, turning his back upon wolfe's image in apparent disgust. "but there has come a light into my mind. i know, what you know as well, that the one touch which you speak of as deficient is the only one that would be truly valuable, and that without it these works of mine are no better than worthless abortions. there is the same difference between them and the works of an inspired artist as between a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures." "this is strange," cried copley, looking him in the face, which now, as the painter fancied, had a singular depth of intelligence, though hitherto it had not given him greatly the advantage over his own family of wooden images. "what has come over you? how is it that, possessing the idea which you have now uttered, you should produce only such works as these?" the carver smiled, but made no reply. copley turned again to the images, conceiving that the sense of deficiency which drowne had just expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had heretofore been overlooked. but no; there was not a trace of it. he was about to withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a half-developed figure which lay in a corner of the workshop, surrounded by scattered chips of oak. it arrested him at once. "what is here? who has done this?" he broke out, after contemplating it in speechless astonishment for an instant. "here is the divine, the life-giving touch. what inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise and live? whose work is this?" "no man's work," replied drowne. "the figure lies within that block of oak, and it is my business to find it." "drowne," said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the hand, "you are a man of genius!" as copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he beheld drowne bending over the half-created shape, and stretching forth his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart; while, had such a miracle been possible, his countenance expressed passion enough to communicate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless oak. "strange enough!" said the artist to himself. "who would have looked for a modern pygmalion in the person of a yankee mechanic!" as yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as in the cloud-shapes around the western sun, the observer rather felt, or was led to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. day by day, however, the work assumed greater precision, and settled its irregular and misty outline into distincter grace and beauty. the general design was now obvious to the common eye. it was a female figure, in what appeared to be a foreign dress; the gown being laced over the bosom, and opening in front so as to disclose a skirt or petticoat, the folds and inequalities of which were admirably represented in the oaken substance. she wore a hat of singular gracefulness, and abundantly laden with flowers, such as never grew in the rude soil of new england, but which, with all their fanciful luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible for the most fertile imagination to have attained without copying from real prototypes. there were several little appendages to this dress, such as a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the bosom, and a ring upon the finger, all of which would have been deemed beneath the dignity of sculpture. they were put on, however, with as much taste as a lovely woman might have shown in her attire, and could therefore have shocked none but a judgment spoiled by artistic rules. the face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch, intelligence and sensibility brightened through the features, with all the effect of light gleaming forth from within the solid oak. the face became alive. it was a beautiful, though not precisely regular, and somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain piquancy about the eyes and mouth, which, of all expressions, would have seemed the most impossible to throw over a wooden countenance. and now, so far as carving went, this wonderful production was complete. "drowne," said copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his visits to the carver's workshop, "if this work were in marble it would make you famous at once; nay, i would almost affirm that it would make an era in the art. it is as ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real as any lovely woman whom one meets at a fireside or in the street. but i trust you do not mean to desecrate this exquisite creature with paint, like those staring kings and admirals yonder?" "not paint her!" exclaimed captain hunnewell, who stood by; "not paint the figure-head of the cynosure! and what sort of a figure should i cut in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick as this over my prow! she must, and she shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost flower in her hat down to the silver spangles on her slippers." "mr. copley," said drowne, quietly, "i know nothing of marble statuary, and nothing of the sculptor's rules of art; but of this wooden image, this work of my hands, this creature of my heart,"--and here his voice faltered and choked in a very singular manner,--"of this--of her--i may say that i know something. a wellspring of inward wisdom gushed within me as i wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and faith. let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules they choose. if i can produce my desired effect by painted wood, those rules are not for me, and i have a right to disregard them." "the very spirit of genius," muttered copley to himself. "how otherwise should this carver feel himself entitled to transcend all rules, and make me ashamed of quoting them?" he looked earnestly at drowne, and again saw that expression of human love which, in a spiritual sense, as the artist could not help imagining, was the secret of the life that had been breathed into this block of wood. the carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his operations upon this mysterious image, proceeded to paint the habiliments in their proper colors, and the countenance with nature's red and white. when all was finished he threw open his workshop, and admitted the towns-people to behold what he had done. most persons, at their first entrance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and pay such reverence as was due to the richly dressed and beautiful young lady who seemed to stand in a corner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings scattered at her feet. then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be something preternatural. there was, in truth, an indefinable air and expression that might reasonably induce the query, who and from what sphere this daughter of the oak should be? the strange, rich flowers of eden on her head; the complexion, so much deeper and more brilliant than those of our native beauties; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, yet not too fantastic to be worn decorously in the street; the delicately wrought embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain about her neck; the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely sculptured in open-work, and painted to resemble pearl and ebony;--where could drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision here so matchlessly embodied! and then her face! in the dark eyes and around the voluptuous mouth there played a look made up of pride, coquetry, and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed copley with the idea that the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing admiration of himself and other beholders. "and will you," said he to the carver, "permit this masterpiece to become the figure-head of a vessel? give the honest captain yonder figure of britannia,--it will answer his purpose far better,--and send this fairy queen to england, where, for aught i know, it may bring you a thousand pounds." "i have not wrought it for money," said drowne. "what sort of a fellow is this!" thought copley. "a yankee, and throw away the chance of making his fortune! he has gone mad; and thence has come this gleam of genius." there was still further proof of drowne's lunacy, if credit were due to the rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady, and gazing with a lover's passionate ardor into the face that his own hands had created. the bigots of the day hinted that it would be no matter of surprise if an evil spirit were allowed to enter this beautiful form and seduce the carver to destruction. the fame of the image spread far and wide. the inhabitants visited it so universally that after a few days of exhibition there was hardly an old man or a child who had not become minutely familiar with its aspect. even had the story of drowne's wooden image ended here, its celebrity might have been prolonged for many years by the reminiscences of those who looked upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else so beautiful in after life. but the town was now astounded by an event the narrative of which has formed itself into one of the most singular legends that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney-corners of the new england metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming of the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the present and the future. one fine morning, just before the departure of the cynosure on her second voyage to fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel was seen to issue from his residence in hanover street. he was stylishly dressed in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold-lace at the seams and button-holes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat, with a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted hanger at his side. but the good captain might have been arrayed in the robes of a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either case attracting notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm. the people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped aside from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in astonishment. "do you see it?--do you see it?" cried one, with tremulous eagerness. "it is the very same!" "the same?" answered another, who had arrived in town only the night before. "who do you mean? i see only a sea-captain in his shore-going clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful flowers in her hat. on my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as my eyes have looked on this many a day!" "yes; the same!--the very same!" repeated the other. "drowne's wooden image has come to life!" here was a miracle indeed! yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or darkened by the alternate shade of the houses, and with its garments fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed the image along the street. it was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the face which the towns-people had so recently thronged to see and admire. not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had its prototype in drowne's wooden workmanship, although now their fragile grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the wearer made. the broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the one represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. a real diamond sparkled on her finger. in her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony fan, which she flourished with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry, that was likewise expressed in all her movements as well as in the style of her beauty and the attire that so well harmonized with it. the face, with its brilliant depth of complexion, had the same piquancy of mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. on the whole, there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal so perfectly did it represent drowne's image, that people knew not whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized into a spirit or warmed and softened into an actual woman. "one thing is certain," muttered a puritan of the old stamp, "drowne has sold himself to the devil; and doubtless this gay captain hunnewell is a party to the bargain." "and i," said a young man who overheard him, "would almost consent to be the third victim, for the liberty of saluting those lovely lips." "and so would i," said copley, the painter, "for the privilege of taking her picture." the image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still escorted by the bold captain, proceeded from hanover street through some of the cross lanes that make this portion of the town so intricate, to ann street, thence into dock square, and so downward to drowne's shop, which stood just on the water's edge. the crowd still followed, gathering volume as it rolled along. never had a modern miracle occurred in such broad daylight, nor in the presence of such a multitude of witnesses. the airy image, as if conscious that she was the object of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind her, appeared slightly vexed and flustered, yet still in a manner consistent with the light vivacity and sportive mischief that were written in her countenance. she was observed to flutter her fan with such vehement rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its workmanship gave way, and it remained broken in her hand. arriving at drowne's door, while the captain threw it open, the marvellous apparition paused an instant on the threshold, assuming the very attitude of the image, and casting over the crowd that glance of sunny coquetry which all remembered on the face of the oaken lady. she and her cavalier then disappeared. "ah!" murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast pair of lungs. "the world looks darker now that she has vanished," said some of the young men. but the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch times, shook their heads, and hinted that our forefathers would have thought it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire. "if she be other than a bubble of the elements," exclaimed copley, "i must look upon her face again." he accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, stood the image, gazing at him, as it might seem, with the very same expression of mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of the apparition when, but a moment before, she turned her face towards the crowd. the carver stood beside his creation, mending the beautiful fan, which by some accident was broken in her hand. but there was no longer any motion in the life-like image, nor any real woman in the workshop, nor even the witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that might have deluded people's eyes as it flitted along the street. captain hunnewell, too, had vanished. his hoarse, sea-breezy tones, however, were audible on the other side of a door that opened upon the water. "sit down in the stern sheets, my lady," said the gallant captain. "come, bear a hand, you lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of a minute-glass." and then was heard the stroke of oars. "drowne," said copley, with a smile of intelligence, "you have been a truly fortunate man. what painter or statuary ever had such a subject! no wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and first created the artist who afterwards created her image." drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, but from which the light of imagination and sensibility, so recently illuminating it, had departed. he was again the mechanical carver that he had been known to be all his lifetime. "i hardly understand what you mean, mr. copley," said he, putting his hand to his brow. "this image! can it have been my work? well, i have wrought it in a kind of dream; and now that i am broad awake i must set about finishing yonder figure of admiral vernon." and forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of one of his wooden progeny, and completed it in his own mechanical style, from which he was never known afterwards to deviate. he followed his business industriously for many years, acquired a competence, and in the latter part of his life attained to a dignified station in the church, being remembered in records and traditions as deacon drowne, the carver. one of his productions, an indian chief, gilded all over, stood during the better part of a century on the cupola of the province house, bedazzling the eyes of those who looked upward, like an angel of the sun. another work of the good deacon's hand--a reduced likeness of his friend captain hunnewell, holding a telescope and quadrant--may be seen to this day, at the corner of broad and state streets, serving in the useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical-instrument maker. we know not how to account for the inferiority of this quaint old figure as compared with the recorded excellence of the oaken lady, unless on the supposition that in every human spirit there is imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which, according to circumstances, may either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a mask of dulness until another state of being. to our friend drowne there came a brief season of excitement, kindled by love. it rendered him a genius for that one occasion, but quenched in disappointment, left him again the mechanical carver in wood, without the power even of appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought. yet, who can doubt that the very highest state to which a human spirit can attain, in its loftiest aspirations, is its truest and most natural state, and that drowne was more consistent with himself when he wrought the admirable figure of the mysterious lady, than when he perpetrated a whole progeny of blockheads? there was a rumor in boston, about this period, that a young portuguese lady of rank, on some occasion of political or domestic disquietude, had fled from her home in fayal and put herself under the protection of captain hunnewell, on board of whose vessel, and at whose residence, she was sheltered until a change of affairs. this fair stranger must have been the original of drowne's wooden image. the ambitious guest one september night, a family had gathered round their hearth, and piled it high with the drift-wood of mountain streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees, that had come crashing down the precipice. up the chimney roared the fire, and brightened the room with its broad blaze. the faces of the father and mother had a sober gladness; the children laughed; the eldest daughter was the image of happiness at seventeen; and the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was the image of happiness grown old. they had found the "herb, heart's-ease," in the bleakest spot of all new england. this family were situated in the notch of the white hills, where the wind was sharp throughout the year, and pitilessly cold in the winter,--giving their cottage all its fresh inclemency, before it descended on the valley of the saco. they dwelt in a cold spot and a dangerous one; for a mountain towered above their heads, so steep, that the stones would often rumble down its sides, and startle them at midnight. the daughter had just uttered some simple jest, that filled them all with mirth, when the wind came through the notch and seemed to pause before their cottage,--rattling the door, with a sound of wailing and lamentation, before it passed into the valley. for a moment, it saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the tones. but the family were glad again, when they perceived that the latch was lifted by some traveller, whose footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast, which heralded his approach, and wailed as he was entering, and went moaning away from the door. though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily converse with the world. the romantic pass of the notch is a great artery, through which the life-blood of internal commerce is continually throbbing, between maine on one side and the green mountains and the shores of the st. lawrence on the other. the stage-coach always drew up before the door of the cottage. the wayfarer, with no companion but his staff, paused here to exchange a word, that the sense of loneliness might not utterly overcome him, ere he could pass through the cleft of the mountain, or reach the first house in the valley. and there the teamster, on his way to portland market, would put up for the night; and, if a bachelor, might sit an hour beyond the usual bedtime, and steal a kiss from the mountain-maid, at parting. it was one of those primitive taverns, where the traveller pays only for food and lodging, but meets with a homely kindness, beyond all price. when the footsteps were heard, therefore, between the outer door and the inner one, the whole family rose up, grandmother, children, and all, as if about to welcome some one who belonged to them, and whose fate was linked with theirs. the door was opened by a young man. his face at first wore the melancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a wild and bleak road, at nightfall and alone, but soon brightened up, when he saw the kindly warmth of his reception. he felt his heart spring forward to meet them all, from the old woman, who wiped a chair with her apron, to the little child that held out its arms to him. one glance and smile placed the stranger on a footing of innocent familiarity with the eldest daughter. "ah, this fire is the right thing!" cried he; "especially when there is such a pleasant circle round it. i am quite benumbed; for the notch is just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows; it has blown a terrible blast in my face, all the way from bartlett." "then you are going towards vermont?" said the master of the house, as he helped to take a light knapsack off the young man's shoulders. "yes; to burlington, and far enough beyond," replied he. "i meant to have been at ethan crawford's to-night; but a pedestrian lingers along such a road as this. it is no matter; for, when i saw this good fire, and all your cheerful faces, i felt as if you had kindled it on purpose for me, and were waiting my arrival. so i shall sit down among you, and make myself at home." the frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire, when something like a heavy footstep was heard without, rushing down the steep side of the mountain, as with long and rapid strides, and taking such a leap, in passing the cottage, as to strike the opposite precipice. the family held their breath, because they knew the sound, and their guest held his, by instinct. "the old mountain has thrown a stone at us, for fear we should forget him," said the landlord, recovering himself. "he sometimes nods his head, and threatens to come down; but we are old neighbors, and agree together pretty well, upon the whole. besides, we have a sure place of refuge, hard by, if he should be coming in good earnest." let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of bear's meat; and, by his natural felicity of manner, to have placed himself on a footing of kindness with the whole family, so that they talked as freely together, as if he belonged to their mountain brood. he was of a proud, yet gentle spirit,--haughty and reserved among the rich and great; but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door, and be like a brother or a son at the poor man's fireside. in the household of the notch, he found warmth and simplicity of feeling, the pervading intelligence of new england, and a poetry of native growth, which they had gathered, when they little thought of it, from the mountain peaks and chasms, and at the very threshold of their romantic and dangerous abode. he had travelled far and alone; his whole life, indeed, had been a solitary path; for, with the lofty caution of his nature, he had kept himself apart from those who might otherwise have been his companions. the family, too, though so kind and hospitable, had that consciousness of unity among themselves, and separation from the world at large, which, in every domestic circle, should still keep a holy place, where no stranger may intrude. but, this evening, a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence. and thus it should have been. is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of birth? the secret of the young man's character was, a high and abstracted ambition. he could have borne to live an undistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave. yearning desire had been transformed to hope; and hope, long cherished, had become like certainty, that, obscurely as he journeyed now, a glory was to beam on all his pathway,--though not, perhaps, while he was treading it. but, when posterity should gaze back into the gloom of what was now the present, they would trace the brightness of his footsteps, brightening as meaner glories faded, and confess, that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to his tomb, with none to recognize him. "as yet," cried the stranger, his cheek glowing and his eye flashing with enthusiasm,--"as yet, i have done nothing. were i to vanish from the earth to-morrow, none would know so much of me as you; that a nameless youth came up, at nightfall, from the valley of the saco, and opened his heart to you in the evening, and passed through the notch, by sunrise, and was seen no more. not a soul would ask, 'who was he? whither did the wanderer go?' but, i cannot die till i have achieved my destiny. then, let death come! i shall have built my monument!" there was a continual flow of natural emotion, gushing forth amid abstracted revery, which enabled the family to understand this young man's sentiments, though so foreign from their own. with quick sensibility of the ludicrous, he blushed at the ardor into which he had been betrayed. "you laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's hand, and laughing himself. "you think my ambition as nonsensical as if i were to freeze myself to death on the top of mount washington, only that people might spy at me from the country round about. and truly, that would be a noble pedestal for a man's statue!" "it is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl, blushing, "and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks about us." "i suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, "there is something natural in what the young man says; and if my mind had been turned that way, i might have felt just the same. it is strange, wife, how his talk has set my head running on things that are pretty certain never to come to pass." "perhaps they may," observed the wife. "is the man thinking what he will do when he is a widower?" "no, no!" cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful kindness. "when i think of your death, esther, i think of mine, too. but i was wishing we had a good farm, in bartlett, or bethlehem, or littleton, or some other township round the white mountains; but not where they could tumble on our heads. i should want to stand well with my neighbors, and be called squire, and sent to general court for a term or two; for a plain, honest man may do as much good there as a lawyer. and when i should be grown quite an old man, and you an old woman, so as not to be long apart, i might die happy enough in my bed, and leave you all crying around me. a slate gravestone would suit me as well as a marble one,--with just my name and age, and a verse of a hymn, and something to let people know that i lived an honest man and died a christian." "there now!" exclaimed the stranger; "it is our nature to desire a monument, be it slate, or marble, or a pillar of granite, or a glorious memory in the universal heart of man." "we're in a strange way, to-night," said the wife, with tears in her eyes. "they say it's a sign of something, when folks' minds go a wandering so. hark to the children!" they listened accordingly. the younger children had been put to bed in another room, but with an open door between, so that they could be heard talking busily among themselves. one and all seemed to have caught the infection from the fireside circle, and were outvying each other in wild wishes and childish projects of what they would do when they came to be men and women. at length, a little boy, instead of addressing his brothers and sisters, called out to his mother. "i'll tell you what i wish, mother," cried he. "i want you and father and grandma'm, and all of us, and the stranger too, to start right away, and go and take a drink out of the basin of the flume!" nobody could help laughing at the child's notion of leaving a warm bed, and dragging them from a cheerful fire, to visit the basin of the flume,--a brook which tumbles over the precipice, deep within the notch. the boy had hardly spoken, when a wagon rattled along the road, and stopped a moment before the door. it appeared to contain two or three men, who were cheering their hearts with the rough chorus of a song, which resounded, in broken notes, between the cliffs, while the singers hesitated whether to continue their journey, or put up here for the night. "father," said the girl, "they are calling you by name." but the good man doubted whether they had really called him, and was unwilling to show himself too solicitous of gain, by inviting people to patronize his house. he therefore did not hurry to the door; and the lash being soon applied, the travellers plunged into the notch, still singing and laughing, though their music and mirth came back drearily from the heart of the mountain. "there, mother!" cried the boy, again. "they'd have given us a ride to the flume." again they laughed at the child's pertinacious fancy for a night ramble. but it happened, that a light cloud passed over the daughter's spirit; she looked gravely into the fire, and drew a breath that was almost a sigh. it forced its way, in spite of a little struggle to repress it. then starting and blushing, she looked quickly round the circle, as if they had caught a glimpse into her bosom. the stranger asked what she had been thinking of. "nothing," answered she, with a downcast smile. "only i felt lonesome just then." "o, i have always had a gift of feeling what is in other people's hearts!" said he, half seriously. "shall i tell the secrets of yours? for i know what to think, when a young girl shivers by a warm hearth, and complains of lonesomeness at her mother's side. shall i put these feelings into words?" "they would not be a girl's feelings any longer, if they could be put into words," replied the mountain nymph, laughing, but avoiding his eye. all this was said apart. perhaps a germ of love was springing in their hearts, so pure that it might blossom in paradise, since it could not be matured on earth; for women worship such gentle dignity as his; and the proud, contemplative, yet kindly soul is oftenest captivated by simplicity like hers. but, while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings of a maiden's nature, the wind, through the notch, took a deeper and drearier sound. it seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain of the spirits of the blast, who, in old indian times, had their dwelling among these mountains, and made their heights and recesses a sacred region. there was a wail, along the road, as if a funeral were passing. to chase away the gloom, the family threw pine branches on their fire, till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, discovering once again a scene of peace and humble happiness. the light hovered about them fondly, and caressed them all. there were the little faces of the children, peeping from their bed apart, and here the father's frame of strength, the mother's subdued and careful mien, the high-browed youth, the budding girl, and the good old grandam, still knitting in the warmest place. the aged woman looked up from her task, and, with fingers ever busy, was the next to speak. "old folks have their notions," said she, "as well as young ones. you've been wishing and planning; and letting your heads run on one thing and another, till you've set my mind a-wandering too. now what should an old woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two before she comes to her grave? children, it will haunt me night and day, till i tell you." "what is it, mother?" cried the husband and wife, at once. then the old woman, with an air of mystery, which drew the circle closer round the fire, informed them that she had provided her graveclothes some years before,--a nice linen shroud, a cap with a muslin ruff, and everything of a finer sort than she had worn since her wedding-day. but, this evening, an old superstition had strangely recurred to her. it used to be said, in her younger days, that, if anything were amiss with a corpse, if only the ruff were not smooth, or the cap did not set right, the corpse, in the coffin and beneath the clods, would strive to put up its cold hands and arrange it. the bare thought made her nervous. "don't talk so, grandmother!" said the girl, shuddering. "now," continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her own folly, "i want one of you, my children,--when your mother is dressed, and in the coffin,--i want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. who knows but i may take a glimpse at myself, and see whether all's right?" "old and young, we dream of graves and monuments," murmured the stranger youth. "i wonder how mariners feel, when the ship is sinking, and they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean,--that wide and nameless sepulchre?" for a moment, the old woman's ghastly conception so engrossed the minds of her hearers, that a sound, abroad in the night, rising like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep, and terrible, before the fated group were conscious of it. the house, and all within it, trembled; the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound were the peal of the last trump. young and old exchanged one wild glance, and remained an instant, pale, affrighted, without utterance, or power to move. then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips. "the slide! the slide!" the simplest words must intimate, but not portray, the unutterable horror of the catastrophe. the victims rushed from their cottage, and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot,--where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reared. alas! they had quitted their security, and fled right into the pathway of destruction. down came the whole side of the mountain, in a cataract of ruin. just before it reached the house, the stream broke into two branches,--shivered not a window there, but overwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked up the road, and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. long ere the thunder of that great slide had ceased to roar among the mountains, the mortal agony had been endured, and the victims were at peace. their bodies were never found. the next morning, the light smoke was seen stealing from the cottage chimney, up the mountain-side. within, the fire was yet smouldering on the hearth, and the chairs in a circle round it, as if the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation of the slide, and would shortly return, to thank heaven for their miraculous escape. all had left separate tokens, by which those who had known the family were made to shed a tear for each. who has not heard their name? the story has been told far and wide, and will forever be a legend of these mountains. poets have sung their fate. there were circumstances which led some to suppose that a stranger had been received into the cottage on this awful night, and had shared the catastrophe of all its inmates. others denied that there were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture. woe, for the high-souled youth, with his dream of earthly immortality! his name and person utterly unknown; his history, his way of life, his plans, a mystery never to be solved; his death and his existence equally a doubt! whose was the agony of that death moment? the great stone face one afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the great stone face. they had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features. and what was the great stone face? embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. some of these good people dwelt in log-huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hillsides. others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. others, again, were congregated into populous villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper mountain region, had been caught and tamed by human cunning, and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. the inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. but all of them, grown people and children, had a kind of familiarity with the great stone face, although some possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of their neighbors. the great stone face, then, was a work of nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the human countenance. it seemed as if an enormous giant, or a titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. there was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other. true it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. retracing his steps, however, the wondrous features would again be seen; and the farther he withdrew from them, the more like a human face, with all its original divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it, the great stone face seemed positively to be alive. it was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the great stone face before their eyes, for all the features were noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and had room for more. it was an education only to look at it. according to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine. as we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their cottage-door, gazing at the great stone face, and talking about it. the child's name was ernest. "mother," said he, while the titanic visage smiled on him, "i wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be pleasant. if i were to see a man with such a face, i should love him dearly." "if an old prophecy should come to pass," answered his mother, "we may see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that." "what prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired ernest. "pray tell me all about it!" so his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when she herself was younger than little ernest; a story, not of things that were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very old, that even the indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree-tops. the purport was, that, at some future day, a child should be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblest personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the great stone face. not a few old-fashioned people, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. but others, who had seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. at all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared. "o mother, dear mother!" cried ernest, clapping his hands above his head, "i do hope that i shall live to see him!" his mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. so she only said to him, "perhaps you may." and ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. it was always in his mind, whenever he looked upon the great stone face. he spent his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and was dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. in this manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in many lads who have been taught at famous schools. yet ernest had had no teacher, save only that the great stone face became one to him. when the toil of the day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration. we must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the face may have looked no more kindly at ernest than at all the world besides. but the secret was, that the boy's tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became his peculiar portion. about this time, there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the great man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the great stone face, had appeared at last. it seems that, many years before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a distant seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. his name--but i could never learn whether it was his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in life--was gathergold. being shrewd and active, and endowed by providence with that inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck, he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed ships. all the countries of the globe appeared to join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the mountainous accumulation of this one man's wealth. the cold regions of the north, almost within the gloom and shadow of the arctic circle, sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; hot africa sifted for him the golden sands of her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the forests; the east came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity of large pearls. the ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that mr. gathergold might sell their oil, and make a profit on it. be the original commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. it might be said of him, as of midas in the fable, that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles of coin. and, when mr. gathergold had become so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go back thither, and end his days where he was born. with this purpose in view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such a palace as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in. as i have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that mr. gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long and vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable similitude of the great stone face. people were the more ready to believe that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father's old weather-beaten farm-house. the exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly white that it seemed as though the whole structure might melt away in the sunshine, like those humbler ones which mr. gathergold, in his young play-days, before his fingers were gifted with the touch of transmutation, had been accustomed to build of snow. it had a richly ornamented portico, supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been brought from beyond the sea. the windows, from the floor to the ceiling of each stately apartment, were composed, respectively, of but one enormous pane of glass, so transparently pure that it was said to be a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere. hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this palace; but it was reported, and with good semblance of truth, to be far more gorgeous than the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or gold in this; and mr. gathergold's bed-chamber, especially, made such a glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close his eyes there. but, on the other hand, mr. gathergold was now so inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his eyelids. in due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with magnificent furniture; then, a whole troop of black and white servants, the harbingers of mr. gathergold, who in his own majestic person, was expected to arrive at sunset. our friend ernest, meanwhile, had been deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to be made manifest to his native valley. he knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways in which mr. gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the great stone face. full of faith and hope, ernest doubted not that what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous features on the mountain-side. while the boy was still gazing up the valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the great stone face returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road. "here he comes!" cried a group of people who were assembled to witness the arrival. "here comes the great mr. gathergold!" a carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road. within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy of a little old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own midas-hand had transmuted it. he had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly together. "the very image of the great stone face!" shouted the people. "sure enough, the old prophecy is true; and here we have the great man come, at last!" and, what greatly perplexed ernest, they seemed actually to believe that here was the likeness which they spoke of. by the roadside there chanced to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. a yellow claw--the very same that had clawed together so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed scattercopper. still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed,-- "he is the very image of the great stone face!" but ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had impressed themselves into his soul. their aspect cheered him. what did the benign lips seem to say? "he will come! fear not, ernest; the man will come!" the years went on, and ernest ceased to be a boy. he had grown to be a young man now. he attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and gaze and meditate upon the great stone face. according to their idea of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as ernest was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of indulging this idle habit. they knew not that the great stone face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts. they knew not that thence would come a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than could be moulded on the defaced example of other human lives. neither did ernest know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, and wherever he communed with himself, were of a higher tone than those which all men shared with him. a simple soul,--simple as when his mother first taught him the old prophecy,--he beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his appearance. by this time poor mr. gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest part of the matter was, that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin. since the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally conceded that there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain-side. so the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his decease. once in a while, it is true, his memory was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to visit that famous natural curiosity, the great stone face. thus, mr. gathergold being discredited and thrown into the shade, the man of prophecy was yet to come. it so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before, had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had now become an illustrious commander. whatever he may be called in history, he was known in camps and on the battle-field under the nickname of old blood-and-thunder. this war-worn veteran, being now infirm with age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where he remembered to have left it. the inhabitants, his old neighbors and their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the renowned warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmed that now, at last, the likeness of the great stone face had actually appeared. an aid-de-camp of old blood-and-thunder, travelling through the valley, was said to have been struck with the resemblance. moreover the schoolmates and early acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to the best of their recollection, the aforesaid general had been exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a boy, only that the idea had never occurred to them at that period. great, therefore, was the excitement throughout the valley; and many people, who had never once thought of glancing at the great stone face for years before, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how general blood-and-thunder looked. on the day of the great festival, ernest, with all the other people of the valley, left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan banquet was prepared. as he approached, the loud voice of the rev. dr. battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor they were assembled. the tables were arranged in a cleared space of the woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened eastward, and afforded a distant view of the great stone face. over the general's chair, which was a relic from the home of washington, there was an arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely intermixed, and surmounted by his country's banner, beneath which he had won his victories. our friend ernest raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person among the throng. so ernest, being of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into the background, where he could see no more of old blood-and-thunder's physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on the battle-field. to console himself, he turned towards the great stone face, which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back and smiled upon him through the vista of the forest. meantime, however, he could overhear the remarks of various individuals, who were comparing the features of the hero with the face on the distant mountain-side. "'tis the same face, to a hair!" cried one man, cutting a caper for joy. "wonderfully like, that's a fact!" responded another. "like! why, i call it old blood-and-thunder himself, in a monstrous looking-glass!" cried a third. "and why not? he's the greatest man of this or any other age, beyond a doubt." and then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, which communicated electricity to the crowd, and called forth a roar from a thousand voices, that went reverberating for miles among the mountains, until you might have supposed that the great stone face had poured its thunder-breath into the cry. all these comments, and this vast enthusiasm, served the more to interest our friend; nor did he think of questioning that now, at length, the mountain-visage had found its human counterpart. it is true, ernest had imagined that this long-looked-for personage would appear in the character of a man of peace, uttering wisdom, and doing good, and making people happy. but, taking an habitual breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he contended that providence should choose its own method of blessing mankind, and could conceive that this great end might be effected even by a warrior and a bloody sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matters so. "the general! the general!" was now the cry. "hush! silence! old blood-and-thunder's going to make a speech." even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been drunk amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank the company. ernest saw him. there he was, over the shoulders of the crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward, beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner drooping as if to shade his brow! and there, too, visible in the same glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the great stone face! and was there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had testified? alas, ernest could not recognize it! he beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies, were altogether wanting in old blood-and-thunder's visage; and even if the great stone face had assumed his look of stern command, the milder traits would still have tempered it. "this is not the man of prophecy," sighed ernest, to himself, as he made his way out of the throng. "and must the world wait longer yet?" the mists had congregated about the distant mountain-side, and there were seen the grand and awful features of the great stone face, awful but benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of gold and purple. as he looked, ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of the lips. it was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting through the thinly diffused vapors that had swept between him and the object that he gazed at. but--as it always did--the aspect of his marvellous friend made ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain. "fear not, ernest," said his heart, even as if the great face were whispering him,--"fear not, ernest; he will come." more years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. ernest still dwelt in his native valley, and was now a man of middle age. by imperceptible degrees, he had become known among the people. now, as heretofore, he labored for his bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been. but he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that it seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed a portion of their wisdom unawares. it was visible in the calm and well-considered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide green margin all along its course. not a day passed by, that the world was not the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. he never stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing to his neighbor. almost involuntarily, too, he had become a preacher. the pure and high simplicity of his thought, which, as one of its manifestations, took shape in the good deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowed also forth in speech. he uttered truths that wrought upon and moulded the lives of those who heard him. his auditors, it may be, never suspected that ernest, their own neighbor and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did ernest himself suspect it; but, inevitably as the murmur of a rivulet, came thoughts out of his mouth that no other human lips had spoken. when the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between general blood-and-thunder's truculent physiognomy and the benign visage on the mountain-side. but now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the great stone face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent statesman. he, like mr. gathergold and old blood-and-thunder, was a native of the valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of law and politics. instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword, he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. so wonderfully eloquent was he, that whatever he might choose to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and right like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural daylight with it. his tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. it was the blast of war,--the song of peace; and it seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no such matter. in good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable success,--when it had been heard in halls of state, and in the courts of princes and potentates,--after it had made him known all over the world, even as a voice crying from shore to shore,--it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the presidency. before this time,--indeed, as soon as he began to grow celebrated,--his admirers had found out the resemblance between him and the great stone face; and so much were they struck by it, that throughout the country this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of old stony phiz. the phrase was considered as giving a highly favorable aspect to his political prospects; for, as is likewise the case with the popedom, nobody ever becomes president without taking a name other than his own. while his friends were doing their best to make him president, old stony phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he was born. of course, he had no other object than to shake hands with his fellow-citizens, and neither thought nor cared about any effect which his progress through the country might have upon the election. magnificent preparations were made to receive the illustrious statesman; a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary line of the state, and all the people left their business and gathered along the wayside to see him pass. among these was ernest. though more than once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and confiding nature, that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed beautiful and good. he kept his heart continually open, and thus was sure to catch the blessing from on high, when it should come. so now again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the great stone face. the cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high that the visage of the mountain-side was completely hidden from ernest's eyes. all the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback: militia officers, in uniform; the member of congress; the sheriff of the county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted his patient steed, with his sunday coat upon his back. it really was a very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits of the illustrious statesman and the great stone face, smiling familiarly at one another, like two brothers. if the pictures were to be trusted, the mutual resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvellous. we must not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the echoes of the mountains ring and reverberate with the loud triumph of its strains; so that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice, to welcome the distinguished guest. but the grandest effect was when the far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the great stone face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come. all this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting, with enthusiasm so contagious that the heart of ernest kindled up, and he likewise threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loudest, "huzza for the great man! huzza for old stony phiz!" but as yet he had not seen him. "here he is, now!" cried those who stood near ernest. "there! there! look at old stony phiz and then at the old man of the mountain, and see if they are not as like as two twin-brothers!" in the midst of all this gallant array, came an open barouche, drawn by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, old stony phiz himself. "confess it," said one of ernest's neighbors to him, "the great stone face has met its match at last!" now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, ernest did fancy that there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the mountain-side. the brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all the other features, indeed, were boldly and strongly hewn, as if in emulation of a more than heroic, of a titanic model. but the sublimity and stateliness, the grand expression of a divine sympathy, that illuminated the mountain visage, and etherealized its ponderous granite substance into spirit, might here be sought in vain. something had been originally left out, or had departed. and therefore the marvellously gifted statesman had always a weary gloom in the deep caverns of his eyes, as of a child that has outgrown its playthings, or a man of mighty faculties and little aims, whose life, with all its high performances, was vague and empty, because no high purpose had endowed it with reality. still, ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and pressing him for an answer. "confess! confess! is not he the very picture of your old man of the mountain?" "no!" said ernest, bluntly, "i see little or no likeness." "then so much the worse for the great stone face!" answered his neighbor; and again he set up a shout for old stony phiz. but ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent: for this was the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. meantime, the cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down, and the great stone face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it had worn for untold centuries. "lo, here i am, ernest!" the benign lips seemed to say. "i have waited longer than thou, and am not yet weary. fear not; the man will come." the years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's heels. and now they began to bring white hairs, and scatter them over the head of ernest; they made reverend wrinkles across his forehead, and furrows in his cheeks. he was an aged man. but not in vain had he grown old: more than the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that time had graved, and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor of a life. and ernest had ceased to be obscure. unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. college professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far to see and converse with ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple husbandman had ideas unlike those of other men, not gained from books, but of a higher tone,--a tranquil and familiar majesty, as if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. whether it were sage, statesman, or philanthropist, ernest received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had characterized him from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart or their own. while they talked together, his face would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light. pensive with the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave and went their way; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the great stone face, imagining that they had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but could not remember where. while ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful providence had granted a new poet to this earth. he, likewise, was a native of the valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and din of cities. often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere of his poetry. neither was the great stone face forgotten, for the poet had celebrated it in an ode, which was grand enough to have been uttered by its own majestic lips. this man of genius, we may say, had come down from heaven with wonderful endowments. if he sang of a mountain, the eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast, or soaring to its summit, than had before been seen there. if his theme were a lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to gleam forever on its surface. if it were the vast old sea, even the deep immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by the emotions of the song. thus the world assumed another and a better aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. the creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork. creation was not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so complete it. the effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were the subject of his verse. the man or woman, sordid with the common dust of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in it, were glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic faith. he showed the golden links of the great chain that intertwined them with an angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial birth that made them worthy of such kin. some, indeed, there were, who thought to show the soundness of their judgment by affirming that all the beauty and dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet's fancy. let such men speak for themselves, who undoubtedly appear to have been spawned forth by nature with a contemptuous bitterness; she having plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were made. as respects all things else, the poet's ideal was the truest truth. the songs of this poet found their way to ernest. he read them after his customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage-door, where for such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing at the great stone face. and now as he read stanzas that caused the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance beaming on him so benignantly. "o majestic friend," he murmured, addressing the great stone face, "is not this man worthy to resemble thee?" the face seemed to smile, but answered not a word. now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only heard of ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wisdom walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. one summer morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from ernest's cottage. the great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of mr. gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on his arm, inquired at once where ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as his guest. approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the great stone face. "good evening," said the poet. "can you give a traveller a night's lodging?" "willingly," answered ernest; and then he added, smiling, "methinks i never saw the great stone face look so hospitably at a stranger." the poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and ernest talked together. often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never before with a man like ernest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. angels, as had been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and, dwelling with angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household words. so thought the poet. and ernest, on the other hand, was moved and agitated by the living images which the poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage-door with shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. the sympathies of these two men instructed them with a profounder sense than either could have attained alone. their minds accorded into one strain, and made delightful music which neither of them could have claimed as all his own, nor distinguished his own share from the other's. they led one another, as it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so dim, that they had never entered it before, and so beautiful that they desired to be there always. as ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the great stone face was bending forward to listen too. he gazed earnestly into the poet's glowing eyes. "who are you, my strangely gifted guest?" he said. the poet laid his finger on the volume that ernest had been reading. "you have read these poems," said he. "you know me, then,--for i wrote them." again, and still more earnestly than before, ernest examined the poet's features; then turned towards the great stone face; then back, with an uncertain aspect, to his guest. but his countenance fell; he shook his head, and sighed. "wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet. "because," replied ernest, "all through life i have awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when i read these poems, i hoped that it might be fulfilled in you." "you hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the likeness of the great stone face. and you are disappointed, as formerly with mr. gathergold, and old blood-and-thunder, and old stony phiz. yes, ernest, it is my doom. you must add my name to the illustrious three, and record another failure of your hopes. for--in shame and sadness do i speak it, ernest--i am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic image." "and why?" asked ernest. he pointed to the volume. "are not those thoughts divine?" "they have a strain of the divinity," replied the poet. "you can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. but my life, dear ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. i have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because i have lived--and that, too, by my own choice--among poor and mean realities. sometimes even--shall i dare to say it?--i lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness, which my own works are said to have made more evident in nature and in human life. why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me, in yonder image of the divine?" the poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. so, likewise, were those of ernest. at the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, ernest was to discourse to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open air. he and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went along, proceeded to the spot. it was a small nook among the hills, with a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, that made a tapestry for the naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. at a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure, there appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, with freedom for such gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest thought and genuine emotion. into this natural pulpit ernest ascended, and threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. they stood, or sat, or reclined upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. in another direction was seen the great stone face, with the same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect. ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and mind. his words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the life which he had always lived. it was not mere breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into this precious draught. the poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he had ever written. his eyes glistened with tears, he gazed reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with the glory of white hair diffused about it. at a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun, appeared the great stone face, with hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of ernest. its look of grand beneficence seemed to embrace the world. at that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms aloft, and shouted,-- "behold! behold! ernest is himself the likeness of the great stone face!" then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said was true. the prophecy was fulfilled. but ernest, having finished what he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear, bearing a resemblance to the great stone face. the gray champion there was once a time when new england groaned under the actual pressure of heavier wrongs than those threatened ones which brought on the revolution. james ii., the bigoted successor of charles the voluptuous, had annulled the charters of all the colonies, and sent a harsh and unprincipled soldier to take away our liberties and endanger our religion. the administration of sir edmund andros lacked scarcely a single characteristic of tyranny: a governor and council, holding office from the king, and wholly independent of the country; laws made and taxes levied without concurrence of the people, immediate or by their representatives; the rights of private citizens violated, and the titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint stifled by restrictions on the press; and, finally, disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil. for two years our ancestors were kept in sullen submission by that filial love which had invariably secured their allegiance to the mother country, whether its head chanced to be a parliament, protector, or popish monarch. till these evil times, however, such allegiance had been merely nominal, and the colonists had ruled themselves, enjoying far more freedom than is even yet the privilege of the native subjects of great britain. at length a rumor reached our shores that the prince of orange had ventured on an enterprise the success of which would be the triumph of civil and religious rights and the salvation of new england. it was but a doubtful whisper; it might be false, or the attempt might fail; and, in either case, the man that stirred against king james would lose his head. still, the intelligence produced a marked effect. the people smiled mysteriously in the streets, and threw bold glances at their oppressors; while, far and wide, there was a subdued and silent agitation, as if the slightest signal would rouse the whole land from its sluggish despondency. aware of their danger, the rulers resolved to avert it by an imposing display of strength, and perhaps to confirm their despotism by yet harsher measures. one afternoon in april, , sir edmund andros and his favorite councillors, being warm with wine, assembled the redcoats of the governor's guard, and made their appearance in the streets of boston. the sun was near setting when the march commenced. the roll of the drum, at that unquiet crisis, seemed to go through the streets, less as the martial music of the soldiers, than as a muster-call to the inhabitants themselves. a multitude, by various avenues, assembled in king street, which was destined to be the scene, nearly a century afterwards, of another encounter between the troops of britain and a people struggling against her tyranny. though more than sixty years had elapsed since the pilgrims came, this crowd of their descendants still showed the strong and sombre features of their character, perhaps more strikingly in such a stern emergency than on happier occasions. there were the sober garb, the general severity of mien, the gloomy but undismayed expression, the scriptural forms of speech, and the confidence in heaven's blessing on a righteous cause, which would have marked a band of the original puritans, when threatened by some peril of the wilderness. indeed, it was not yet time for the old spirit to be extinct; since there were men in the street, that day, who had worshipped there beneath the trees, before a house was reared to the god for whom they had become exiles. old soldiers of the parliament were here, too, smiling grimly at the thought, that their aged arms might strike another blow against the house of stuart. here, also, were the veterans of king philip's war, who had burned villages and slaughtered young and old, with pious fierceness, while the godly souls throughout the land were helping them with prayer. several ministers were scattered among the crowd, which, unlike all other mobs, regarded them with such reverence, as if there were sanctity in their very garments. these holy men exerted their influence to quiet the people, but not to disperse them. meantime, the purpose of the governor, in disturbing the peace of the town, at a period when the slightest commotion might throw the country into a ferment, was almost the universal subject of inquiry, and variously explained. "satan will strike his master-stroke presently," cried some, "because he knoweth that his time is short. all our godly pastors are to be dragged to prison! we shall see them at a smithfield fire in king street!" hereupon the people of each parish gathered closer round their minister, who looked calmly upwards and assumed a more apostolic dignity, as well befitted a candidate for the highest honor of his profession, the crown of martyrdom. it was actually fancied, at that period, that new england might have a john rogers of her own, to take the place of that worthy in the primer. "the pope of rome has given orders for a new st. bartholomew!" cried others. "we are to be massacred, man and male child!" neither was this rumor wholly discredited, although the wiser class believed the governor's object somewhat less atrocious. his predecessor under the old charter, bradstreet, a venerable companion of the first settlers, was known to be in town. there were grounds for conjecturing that sir edmund andros intended, at once, to strike terror, by a parade of military force, and to confound the opposite faction by possessing himself of their chief. "stand firm for the old charter, governor!" shouted the crowd, seizing upon the idea. "the good old governor bradstreet!" while this cry was at the loudest, the people were surprised by the well-known figure of governor bradstreet himself, a patriarch of nearly ninety, who appeared on the elevated steps of a door, and, with characteristic mildness, besought them to submit to the constituted authorities. "my children," concluded this venerable person, "do nothing rashly. cry not aloud, but pray for the welfare of new england, and expect patiently what the lord will do in this matter!" the event was soon to be decided. all this time, the roll of the drum had been approaching through cornhill, louder and deeper, till with reverberations from house to house, and the regular tramp of martial footsteps, it burst into the street. a double rank of soldiers made their appearance, occupying the whole breadth of the passage, with shouldered matchlocks, and matches burning, so as to present a row of fires in the dusk. their steady march was like the progress of a machine, that would roll irresistibly over everything in its way. next, moving slowly, with a confused clatter of hoofs on the pavement, rode a party of mounted gentlemen, the central figure being sir edmund andros, elderly, but erect and soldier-like. those around him were his favorite councillors, and the bitterest foes of new england. at his right hand rode edward randolph, our arch-enemy, that "blasted wretch," as cotton mather calls him, who achieved the downfall of our ancient government, and was followed with a sensible curse, through life and to his grave. on the other side was bullivant, scattering jests and mockery as he rode along. dudley came behind, with a downcast look, dreading, as well he might, to meet the indignant gaze of the people, who beheld him, their only countryman by birth, among the oppressors of his native land. the captain of a frigate in the harbor, and two or three civil officers under the crown, were also there. but the figure which most attracted the public eye, and stirred up the deepest feeling, was the episcopal clergyman of king's chapel, riding haughtily among the magistrates in his priestly vestments, the fitting representative of prelacy and persecution, the union of church and state, and all those abominations which had driven the puritans to the wilderness. another guard of soldiers, in double rank, brought up the rear. the whole scene was a picture of the condition of new england, and its moral, the deformity of any government that does not grow out of the nature of things and the character of the people. on one side the religious multitude, with their sad visages and dark attire, and on the other, the group of despotic rulers, with the high-churchman in the midst, and here and there a crucifix at their bosoms, all magnificently clad, flushed with wine, proud of unjust authority, and scoffing at the universal groan. and the mercenary soldiers, waiting but the word to deluge the street with blood, showed the only means by which obedience could be secured. "o lord of hosts," cried a voice among the crowd, "provide a champion for thy people!" this ejaculation was loudly uttered, and served as a herald's cry, to introduce a remarkable personage. the crowd had rolled back, and were now huddled together nearly at the extremity of the street, while the soldiers had advanced no more than a third of its length. the intervening space was empty,--a paved solitude, between lofty edifices, which threw almost a twilight shadow over it. suddenly, there was seen the figure of an ancient man, who seemed to have emerged from among the people, and was walking by himself along the centre of the street, to confront the armed band. he wore the old puritan dress, a dark cloak and a steeple-crowned hat, in the fashion of at least fifty years before, with a heavy sword upon his thigh, but a staff in his hand to assist the tremulous gait of age. when at some distance from the multitude, the old man turned slowly round, displaying a face of antique majesty, rendered doubly venerable by the hoary beard that descended on his breast. he made a gesture at once of encouragement and warning, then turned again, and resumed his way. "who is this gray patriarch?" asked the young men of their sires. "who is this venerable brother?" asked the old men among themselves. but none could make reply. the fathers of the people, those of fourscore years and upwards, were disturbed, deeming it strange that they should forget one of such evident authority, whom they must have known in their early days, the associate of winthrop, and all the old councillors, giving laws, and making prayers, and leading them against the savage. the elderly men ought to have remembered him, too, with locks as gray in their youth as their own were now. and the young! how could he have passed so utterly from their memories,--that hoary sire, the relic of long-departed times, whose awful benediction had surely been bestowed on their uncovered heads, in childhood? "whence did he come? what is his purpose? who can this old man be?" whispered the wondering crowd. meanwhile, the venerable stranger, staff in hand, was pursuing his solitary walk along the centre of the street. as he drew near the advancing soldiers, and as the roll of their drum came full upon his ear, the old man raised himself to a loftier mien, while the decrepitude of age seemed to fall from his shoulders, leaving him in gray but unbroken dignity. now, he marched onward with a warrior's step, keeping time to the military music. thus the aged form advanced on one side, and the whole parade of soldiers and magistrates on the other, till, when scarcely twenty yards remained between, the old man grasped his staff by the middle, and held it before him like a leader's truncheon. "stand!" cried he. the eye, the face, and attitude of command; the solemn, yet warlike peal of that voice, fit either to rule a host in the battle-field or be raised to god in prayer, were irresistible. at the old man's word and outstretched arm, the roll of the drum was hushed at once, and the advancing line stood still. a tremulous enthusiasm seized upon the multitude. that stately form, combining the leader and the saint, so gray, so dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could only belong to some old champion of the righteous cause, whom the oppressor's drum had summoned from his grave. they raised a shout of awe and exultation, and looked for the deliverance of new england. the governor, and the gentlemen of his party, perceiving themselves brought to an unexpected stand, rode hastily forward, as if they would have pressed their snorting and affrighted horses right against the hoary apparition. he, however, blenched not a step, but glancing his severe eye round the group, which half encompassed him, at last bent it sternly on sir edmund andros. one would have thought that the dark old man was chief ruler there, and that the governor and council, with soldiers at their back, representing the whole power and authority of the crown, had no alternative but obedience. "what does this old fellow here?" cried edward randolph, fiercely. "on, sir edmund! bid the soldiers forward, and give the dotard the same choice that you give all his countrymen,--to stand aside or be trampled on!" "nay, nay, let us show respect to the good grandsire," said bullivant, laughing. "see you not, he is some old round-headed dignitary, who hath lain asleep these thirty years, and knows nothing of the change of times? doubtless, he thinks to put us down with a proclamation in old noll's name!" "are you mad, old man?" demanded sir edmund andros, in loud and harsh tones. "how dare you stay the march of king james's governor?" "i have stayed the march of a king himself, ere now," replied the gray figure, with stern composure. "i am here, sir governor, because the cry of an oppressed people hath disturbed me in my secret place; and beseeching this favor earnestly of the lord, it was vouchsafed me to appear once again on earth, in the good old cause of his saints. and what speak ye of james? there is no longer a popish tyrant on the throne of england, and by to-morrow noon his name shall be a byword in this very street, where ye would make it a word of terror. back, thou that wast a governor, back! with this night thy power is ended,--to-morrow, the prison!--back, lest i foretell the scaffold!" the people had been drawing nearer and nearer, and drinking in the words of their champion, who spoke in accents long disused, like one unaccustomed to converse, except with the dead of many years ago. but his voice stirred their souls. they confronted the soldiers, not wholly without arms, and ready to convert the very stones of the street into deadly weapons. sir edmund andros looked at the old man; then he cast his hard and cruel eye over the multitude, and beheld them burning with that lurid wrath, so difficult to kindle or to quench; and again he fixed his gaze on the aged form, which stood obscurely in an open space, where neither friend nor foe had thrust himself. what were his thoughts, he uttered no word which might discover. but whether the oppressor were overawed by the gray champion's look, or perceived his peril in the threatening attitude of the people, it is certain that he gave back, and ordered his soldiers to commence a slow and guarded retreat. before another sunset, the governor, and all that rode so proudly with him, were prisoners, and long ere it was known that james had abdicated, king william was proclaimed throughout new england. but where was the gray champion? some reported, that when the troops had gone from king street, and the people were thronging tumultuously in their rear, bradstreet, the aged governor, was seen to embrace a form more aged than his own. others soberly affirmed, that while they marvelled at the venerable grandeur of his aspect, the old man had faded from their eyes, melting slowly into the hues of twilight, till, where he stood, there was an empty space. but all agreed that the hoary shape was gone. the men of that generation watched for his reappearance, in sunshine and in twilight, but never saw him more, nor knew when his funeral passed, nor where his gravestone was. and who was the gray champion? perhaps his name might be found in the records of that stern court of justice, which passed a sentence, too mighty for the age, but glorious in all after times, for its humbling lesson to the monarch and its high example to the subject. i have heard, that whenever the descendants of the puritans are to show the spirit of their sires, the old man appears again. when eighty years had passed, he walked once more in king street. five years later, in the twilight of an april morning, he stood on the green, beside the meeting-house, at lexington, where now the obelisk of granite, with a slab of slate inlaid, commemorates the first fallen of the revolution. and when our fathers were toiling at the breastwork on bunker's hill, all through that night the old warrior walked his rounds. long, long may it be, ere he comes again! his hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril. but should domestic tyranny oppress us, or the invader's step pollute our soil, still may the gray champion come, for he is the type of new england's hereditary spirit, and his shadowy march, on the eve of danger, must ever be the pledge that new england's sons will vindicate their ancestry. a wonder book and tanglewood tales for girls and boys by nathaniel hawthorne with pictures by maxfield parrish new york duffield & company mcmx copyright, , by duffield & company the university press, cambridge, u. s. a. [illustration: jason and the talking oak (from the original in the collection of austin m. purves, esqu're philadelphia)] preface the author has long been of opinion that many of the classical myths were capable of being rendered into very capital reading for children. in the little volume here offered to the public, he has worked up half a dozen of them, with this end in view. a great freedom of treatment was necessary to his plan; but it will be observed by every one who attempts to render these legends malleable in his intellectual furnace, that they are marvellously independent of all temporary modes and circumstances. they remain essentially the same, after changes that would affect the identity of almost anything else. he does not, therefore, plead guilty to a sacrilege, in having sometimes shaped anew, as his fancy dictated, the forms that have been hallowed by an antiquity of two or three thousand years. no epoch of time can claim a copyright in these immortal fables. they seem never to have been made; and certainly, so long as man exists, they can never perish; but, by their indestructibility itself, they are legitimate subjects for every age to clothe with its own garniture of manners and sentiment, and to imbue with its own morality. in the present version they may have lost much of their classical aspect (or, at all events, the author has not been careful to preserve it), and have, perhaps, assumed a gothic or romantic guise. in performing this pleasant task,--for it has been really a task fit for hot weather, and one of the most agreeable, of a literary kind, which he ever undertook,--the author has not always thought it necessary to write downward, in order to meet the comprehension of children. he has generally suffered the theme to soar, whenever such was its tendency, and when he himself was buoyant enough to follow without an effort. children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high, in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple, likewise. it is only the artificial and the complex that bewilder them. lenox, _july , _. contents a wonder book for girls and boys the gorgon's head the golden touch the paradise of children the three golden apples the miraculous pitcher the chimæra tanglewood tales the wayside--_introductory_ the minotaur the pygmies the dragon's teeth circe's palace the pomegranate seeds the golden fleece illustrations jason and the talking oak pandora atlas bellerophon by the fountain of pirene the fountain of pirene cadmus sowing the dragon's teeth circe's palace proserpina jason and his teacher the argonauts in quest of the golden fleece a wonder book the gorgon's head tanglewood porch _introductory to "the gorgon's head"_ beneath the porch of the country-seat called tanglewood, one fine autumnal morning, was assembled a merry party of little folks, with a tall youth in the midst of them. they had planned a nutting expedition, and were impatiently waiting for the mists to roll up the hill-slopes, and for the sun to pour the warmth of the indian summer over the fields and pastures, and into the nooks of the many-colored woods. there was a prospect of as fine a day as ever gladdened the aspect of this beautiful and comfortable world. as yet, however, the morning mist filled up the whole length and breadth of the valley, above which, on a gently sloping eminence, the mansion stood. this body of white vapor extended to within less than a hundred yards of the house. it completely hid everything beyond that distance, except a few ruddy or yellow tree-tops, which here and there emerged, and were glorified by the early sunshine, as was likewise the broad surface of the mist. four or five miles off to the southward rose the summit of monument mountain, and seemed to be floating on a cloud. some fifteen miles farther away, in the same direction, appeared the loftier dome of taconic, looking blue and indistinct, and hardly so substantial as the vapory sea that almost rolled over it. the nearer hills, which bordered the valley, were half submerged, and were specked with little cloud-wreaths all the way to their tops. on the whole, there was so much cloud, and so little solid earth, that it had the effect of a vision. the children above-mentioned, being as full of life as they could hold, kept overflowing from the porch of tanglewood, and scampering along the gravel-walk, or rushing across the dewy herbage of the lawn. i can hardly tell how many of these small people there were; not less than nine or ten, however, nor more than a dozen, of all sorts, sizes, and ages, whether girls or boys. they were brothers, sisters, and cousins, together with a few of their young acquaintances, who had been invited by mr. and mrs. pringle to spend some of this delightful weather with their own children, at tanglewood. i am afraid to tell you their names, or even to give them any names which other children have ever been called by; because, to my certain knowledge, authors sometimes get themselves into great trouble by accidentally giving the names of real persons to the characters in their books. for this reason i mean to call them primrose, periwinkle, sweet fern, dandelion, blue eye, clover, huckleberry, cowslip, squash-blossom, milkweed, plantain, and buttercup; although, to be sure, such titles might better suit a group of fairies than a company of earthly children. it is not to be supposed that these little folks were to be permitted by their careful fathers and mothers, uncles, aunts, or grandparents, to stray abroad into the woods and fields, without the guardianship of some particularly grave and elderly person. oh no, indeed! in the first sentence of my book, you will recollect that i spoke of a tall youth, standing in the midst of the children. his name--(and i shall let you know his real name, because he considers it a great honor to have told the stories that are here to be printed)--his name was eustace bright. he was a student at williams college, and had reached, i think, at this period, the venerable age of eighteen years; so that he felt quite like a grandfather towards periwinkle, dandelion, huckleberry, squash-blossom, milkweed, and the rest, who were only half or a third as venerable as he. a trouble in his eyesight (such as many students think it necessary to have, nowadays, in order to prove their diligence at their books) had kept him from college a week or two after the beginning of the term. but, for my part, i have seldom met with a pair of eyes that looked as if they could see farther or better than those of eustace bright. this learned student was slender, and rather pale, as all yankee students are; but yet of a healthy aspect, and as light and active as if he had wings to his shoes. by the by, being much addicted to wading through streamlets and across meadows, he had put on cowhide boots for the expedition. he wore a linen blouse, a cloth cap, and a pair of green spectacles, which he had assumed, probably, less for the preservation of his eyes than for the dignity that they imparted to his countenance. in either case, however, he might as well have let them alone; for huckleberry, a mischievous little elf, crept behind eustace as he sat on the steps of the porch, snatched the spectacles from his nose, and clapped them on her own; and as the student forgot to take them back, they fell off into the grass, and lay there till the next spring. now, eustace bright, you must know, had won great fame among the children, as a narrator of wonderful stories; and though he sometimes pretended to be annoyed, when they teased him for more, and more, and always for more, yet i really doubt whether he liked anything quite so well as to tell them. you might have seen his eyes twinkle, therefore, when clover, sweet fern, cowslip, buttercup, and most of their playmates, besought him to relate one of his stories, while they were waiting for the mist to clear up. "yes, cousin eustace," said primrose, who was a bright girl of twelve, with laughing eyes, and a nose that turned up a little, "the morning is certainly the best time for the stories with which you so often tire out our patience. we shall be in less danger of hurting your feelings, by falling asleep at the most interesting points,--as little cowslip and i did last night!" "naughty primrose," cried cowslip, a child of six years old; "i did not fall asleep, and i only shut my eyes, so as to see a picture of what cousin eustace was telling about. his stories are good to hear at night, because we can dream about them asleep; and good in the morning, too, because then we can dream about them awake. so i hope he will tell us one this very minute." "thank you, my little cowslip," said eustace; "certainly you shall have the best story i can think of, if it were only for defending me so well from that naughty primrose. but, children, i have already told you so many fairy tales, that i doubt whether there is a single one which you have not heard at least twice over. i am afraid you will fall asleep in reality, if i repeat any of them again." "no, no, no!" cried blue eye, periwinkle, plantain, and half a dozen others. "we like a story all the better for having heard it two or three times before." and it is a truth, as regards children, that a story seems often to deepen its mark in their interest, not merely by two or three, but by numberless repetitions. but eustace bright, in the exuberance of his resources, scorned to avail himself of an advantage which an older story-teller would have been glad to grasp at. "it would be a great pity," said he, "if a man of my learning (to say nothing of original fancy) could not find a new story every day, year in and year out, for children such as you. i will tell you one of the nursery tales that were made for the amusement of our great old grandmother, the earth, when she was a child in frock and pinafore. there are a hundred such; and it is a wonder to me that they have not long ago been put into picture-books for little girls and boys. but, instead of that, old gray-bearded grandsires pore over them in musty volumes of greek, and puzzle themselves with trying to find out when, and how, and for what they were made." "well, well, well, well, cousin eustace!" cried all the children at once; "talk no more about your stories, but begin." "sit down, then, every soul of you," said eustace bright, "and be all as still as so many mice. at the slightest interruption, whether from great, naughty primrose, little dandelion, or any other, i shall bite the story short off between my teeth, and swallow the untold part. but, in the first place, do any of you know what a gorgon is?" "i do," said primrose. "then hold your tongue!" rejoined eustace, who had rather she would have known nothing about the matter. "hold all your tongues, and i shall tell you a sweet pretty story of a gorgon's head." and so he did, as you may begin to read on the next page. working up his sophomorical erudition with a good deal of tact, and incurring great obligations to professor anthon, he, nevertheless, disregarded all classical authorities, whenever the vagrant audacity of his imagination impelled him to do so. the gorgon's head perseus was the son of danaë, who was the daughter of a king. and when perseus was a very little boy, some wicked people put his mother and himself into a chest, and set them afloat upon the sea. the wind blew freshly, and drove the chest away from the shore, and the uneasy billows tossed it up and down; while danaë clasped her child closely to her bosom, and dreaded that some big wave would dash its foamy crest over them both. the chest sailed on, however, and neither sank nor was upset; until, when night was coming, it floated so near an island that it got entangled in a fisherman's nets, and was drawn out high and dry upon the sand. the island was called seriphus, and it was reigned over by king polydectes, who happened to be the fisherman's brother. this fisherman, i am glad to tell you, was an exceedingly humane and upright man. he showed great kindness to danaë and her little boy; and continued to befriend them, until perseus had grown to be a handsome youth, very strong and active, and skilful in the use of arms. long before this time, king polydectes had seen the two strangers--the mother and her child--who had come to his dominions in a floating chest. as he was not good and kind, like his brother the fisherman, but extremely wicked, he resolved to send perseus on a dangerous enterprise, in which he would probably be killed, and then to do some great mischief to danaë herself. so this bad-hearted king spent a long while in considering what was the most dangerous thing that a young man could possibly undertake to perform. at last, having hit upon an enterprise that promised to turn out as fatally as he desired, he sent for the youthful perseus. the young man came to the palace, and found the king sitting upon his throne. "perseus," said king polydectes, smiling craftily upon him, "you are grown up a fine young man. you and your good mother have received a great deal of kindness from myself, as well as from my worthy brother the fisherman, and i suppose you would not be sorry to repay some of it." "please your majesty," answered perseus, "i would willingly risk my life to do so." "well, then," continued the king, still with a cunning smile on his lips, "i have a little adventure to propose to you; and, as you are a brave and enterprising youth, you will doubtless look upon it as a great piece of good luck to have so rare an opportunity of distinguishing yourself. you must know, my good perseus, i think of getting married to the beautiful princess hippodamia; and it is customary, on these occasions, to make the bride a present of some far-fetched and elegant curiosity. i have been a little perplexed, i must honestly confess, where to obtain anything likely to please a princess of her exquisite taste. but, this morning, i flatter myself, i have thought of precisely the article." "and can i assist your majesty in obtaining it?" cried perseus, eagerly. "you can, if you are as brave a youth as i believe you to be," replied king polydectes, with the utmost graciousness of manner. "the bridal gift which i have set my heart on presenting to the beautiful hippodamia is the head of the gorgon medusa with the snaky locks; and i depend on you, my dear perseus, to bring it to me. so, as i am anxious to settle affairs with the princess, the sooner you go in quest of the gorgon, the better i shall be pleased." "i will set out to-morrow morning," answered perseus. "pray do so, my gallant youth," rejoined the king. "and, perseus, in cutting off the gorgon's head, be careful to make a clean stroke, so as not to injure its appearance. you must bring it home in the very best condition, in order to suit the exquisite taste of the beautiful princess hippodamia." perseus left the palace, but was scarcely out of hearing before polydectes burst into a laugh; being greatly amused, wicked king that he was, to find how readily the young man fell into the snare. the news quickly spread abroad that perseus had undertaken to cut off the head of medusa with the snaky locks. everybody was rejoiced; for most of the inhabitants of the island were as wicked as the king himself, and would have liked nothing better than to see some enormous mischief happen to danaë and her son. the only good man in this unfortunate island of seriphus appears to have been the fisherman. as perseus walked along, therefore, the people pointed after him, and made mouths, and winked to one another, and ridiculed him as loudly as they dared. "ho, ho!" cried they; "medusa's snakes will sting him soundly!" now, there were three gorgons alive at that period; and they were the most strange and terrible monsters that had ever been since the world was made, or that have been seen in after days, or that are likely to be seen in all time to come. i hardly know what sort of creature or hobgoblin to call them. they were three sisters, and seem to have borne some distant resemblance to women, but were really a very frightful and mischievous species of dragon. it is, indeed, difficult to imagine what hideous beings these three sisters were. why, instead of locks of hair, if you can believe me, they had each of them a hundred enormous snakes growing on their heads, all alive, twisting, wriggling, curling, and thrusting out their venomous tongues, with forked stings at the end! the teeth of the gorgons were terribly long tusks; their hands were made of brass; and their bodies were all over scales, which, if not iron, were something as hard and impenetrable. they had wings, too, and exceedingly splendid ones, i can assure you; for every feather in them was pure, bright, glittering, burnished gold, and they looked very dazzlingly, no doubt, when the gorgons were flying about in the sunshine. but when people happened to catch a glimpse of their glittering brightness, aloft in the air, they seldom stopped to gaze, but ran and hid themselves as speedily as they could. you will think, perhaps, that they were afraid of being stung by the serpents that served the gorgons instead of hair,--or of having their heads bitten off by their ugly tusks,--or of being torn all to pieces by their brazen claws. well, to be sure, these were some of the dangers, but by no means the greatest, nor the most difficult to avoid. for the worst thing about these abominable gorgons was, that, if once a poor mortal fixed his eyes full upon one of their faces, he was certain, that very instant, to be changed from warm flesh and blood into cold and lifeless stone! thus, as you will easily perceive, it was a very dangerous adventure that the wicked king polydectes had contrived for this innocent young man. perseus himself, when he had thought over the matter, could not help seeing that he had very little chance of coming safely through it, and that he was far more likely to become a stone image than to bring back the head of medusa with the snaky locks. for, not to speak of other difficulties, there was one which it would have puzzled an older man than perseus to get over. not only must he fight with and slay this golden-winged, iron-scaled, long-tusked, brazen-clawed, snaky-haired monster, but he must do it with his eyes shut, or, at least, without so much as a glance at the enemy with whom he was contending. else, while his arm was lifted to strike, he would stiffen into stone, and stand with that uplifted arm for centuries, until time, and the wind and weather, should crumble him quite away. this would be a very sad thing to befall a young man who wanted to perform a great many brave deeds, and to enjoy a great deal of happiness, in this bright and beautiful world. so disconsolate did these thoughts make him, that perseus could not bear to tell his mother what he had undertaken to do. he therefore took his shield, girded on his sword, and crossed over from the island to the mainland, where he sat down in a solitary place, and hardly refrained from shedding tears. but, while he was in this sorrowful mood, he heard a voice close beside him. "perseus," said the voice, "why are you sad?" he lifted his head from his hands, in which he had hidden it, and behold! all alone as perseus had supposed himself to be, there was a stranger in the solitary place. it was a brisk, intelligent, and remarkably shrewd-looking young man, with a cloak over his shoulders, an odd sort of cap on his head, a strangely twisted staff in his hand, and a short and very crooked sword hanging by his side. he was exceedingly light and active in his figure, like a person much accustomed to gymnastic exercises, and well able to leap or run. above all, the stranger had such a cheerful, knowing, and helpful aspect (though it was certainly a little mischievous, into the bargain), that perseus could not help feeling his spirits grow livelier as he gazed at him. besides, being really a courageous youth, he felt greatly ashamed that anybody should have found him with tears in his eyes, like a timid little school-boy, when, after all, there might be no occasion for despair. so perseus wiped his eyes, and answered the stranger pretty briskly, putting on as brave a look as he could. "i am not so very sad," said he, "only thoughtful about an adventure that i have undertaken." "oho!" answered the stranger. "well, tell me all about it, and possibly i may be of service to you. i have helped a good many young men through adventures that looked difficult enough beforehand. perhaps you may have heard of me. i have more names than one; but the name of quicksilver suits me as well as any other. tell me what the trouble is, and we will talk the matter over, and see what can be done." the stranger's words and manner put perseus into quite a different mood from his former one. he resolved to tell quicksilver all his difficulties, since he could not easily be worse off than he already was, and, very possibly, his new friend might give him some advice that would turn out well in the end. so he let the stranger know, in few words, precisely what the case was,--how that king polydectes wanted the head of medusa with the snaky locks as a bridal gift for the beautiful princess hippodamia, and how that he had undertaken to get it for him, but was afraid of being turned into stone. "and that would be a great pity," said quicksilver, with his mischievous smile. "you would make a very handsome marble statue, it is true, and it would be a considerable number of centuries before you crumbled away; but, on the whole, one would rather be a young man for a few years, than a stone image for a great many." "oh, far rather!" exclaimed perseus, with the tears again standing in his eyes. "and, besides, what would my dear mother do, if her beloved son were turned into a stone?" "well, well, let us hope that the affair will not turn out so very badly," replied quicksilver, in an encouraging tone. "i am the very person to help you, if anybody can. my sister and myself will do our utmost to bring you safe through the adventure, ugly as it now looks." "your sister?" repeated perseus. "yes, my sister," said the stranger. "she is very wise, i promise you; and as for myself, i generally have all my wits about me, such as they are. if you show yourself bold and cautious, and follow our advice, you need not fear being a stone image yet awhile. but, first of all, you must polish your shield, till you can see your face in it as distinctly as in a mirror." this seemed to perseus rather an odd beginning of the adventure; for he thought it of far more consequence that the shield should be strong enough to defend him from the gorgon's brazen claws, than that it should be bright enough to show him the reflection of his face. however, concluding that quicksilver knew better than himself, he immediately set to work, and scrubbed the shield with so much diligence and good-will, that it very quickly shone like the moon at harvest-time. quicksilver looked at it with a smile, and nodded his approbation. then, taking off his own short and crooked sword, he girded it about perseus, instead of the one which he had before worn. "no sword but mine will answer your purpose," observed he; "the blade has a most excellent temper, and will cut through iron and brass as easily as through the slenderest twig. and now we will set out. the next thing is to find the three gray women, who will tell us where to find the nymphs." "the three gray women!" cried perseus, to whom this seemed only a new difficulty in the path of his adventure; "pray who may the three gray women be? i never heard of them before." "they are three very strange old ladies," said quicksilver, laughing. "they have but one eye among them, and only one tooth. moreover, you must find them out by starlight, or in the dusk of the evening; for they never show themselves by the light either of the sun or moon." "but," said perseus, "why should i waste my time with these three gray women? would it not be better to set out at once in search of the terrible gorgons?" "no, no," answered his friend. "there are other things to be done, before you can find your way to the gorgons. there is nothing for it but to hunt up these old ladies; and when we meet with them, you may be sure that the gorgons are not a great way off. come, let us be stirring!" perseus, by this time, felt so much confidence in his companion's sagacity, that he made no more objections, and professed himself ready to begin the adventure immediately. they accordingly set out, and walked at a pretty brisk pace; so brisk, indeed, that perseus found it rather difficult to keep up with his nimble friend quicksilver. to say the truth, he had a singular idea that quicksilver was furnished with a pair of winged shoes, which, of course, helped him along marvellously. and then, too, when perseus looked sideways at him, out of the corner of his eye, he seemed to see wings on the side of his head; although, if he turned a full gaze, there were no such things to be perceived, but only an odd kind of cap. but, at all events, the twisted staff was evidently a great convenience to quicksilver, and enabled him to proceed so fast, that perseus, though a remarkably active young man, began to be out of breath. "here!" cried quicksilver, at last,--for he knew well enough, rogue that he was, how hard perseus found it to keep pace with him,--"take you the staff, for you need it a great deal more than i. are there no better walkers than yourself in the island of seriphus?" "i could walk pretty well," said perseus, glancing slyly at his companion's feet, "if i had only a pair of winged shoes." "we must see about getting you a pair," answered quicksilver. but the staff helped perseus along so bravely, that he no longer felt the slightest weariness. in fact, the stick seemed to be alive in his hand, and to lend some of its life to perseus. he and quicksilver now walked onward at their ease, talking very sociably together; and quicksilver told so many pleasant stories about his former adventures, and how well his wits had served him on various occasions, that perseus began to think him a very wonderful person. he evidently knew the world; and nobody is so charming to a young man as a friend who has that kind of knowledge. perseus listened the more eagerly, in the hope of brightening his own wits by what he heard. at last, he happened to recollect that quicksilver had spoken of a sister, who was to lend her assistance in the adventure which they were now bound upon. "where is she?" he inquired. "shall we not meet her soon?" "all at the proper time," said his companion. "but this sister of mine, you must understand, is quite a different sort of character from myself. she is very grave and prudent, seldom smiles, never laughs, and makes it a rule not to utter a word unless she has something particularly profound to say. neither will she listen to any but the wisest conversation." "dear me!" ejaculated perseus; "i shall be afraid to say a syllable." "she is a very accomplished person, i assure you," continued quicksilver, "and has all the arts and sciences at her fingers' ends. in short, she is so immoderately wise, that many people call her wisdom personified. but, to tell you the truth, she has hardly vivacity enough for my taste; and i think you would scarcely find her so pleasant a travelling companion as myself. she has her good points, nevertheless; and you will find the benefit of them, in your encounter with the gorgons." by this time it had grown quite dusk. they were now come to a very wild and desert place, overgrown with shaggy bushes, and so silent and solitary that nobody seemed ever to have dwelt or journeyed there. all was waste and desolate, in the gray twilight, which grew every moment more obscure. perseus looked about him, rather disconsolately, and asked quicksilver whether they had a great deal farther to go. "hist! hist!" whispered his companion. "make no noise! this is just the time and place to meet the three gray women. be careful that they do not see you before you see them; for, though they have but a single eye among the three, it is as sharp-sighted as half a dozen common eyes." "but what must i do," asked perseus, "when we meet them?" quicksilver explained to perseus how the three gray women managed with their one eye. they were in the habit, it seems, of changing it from one to another, as if it had been a pair of spectacles, or--which would have suited them better--a quizzing-glass. when one of the three had kept the eye a certain time, she took it out of the socket and passed it to one of her sisters, whose turn it might happen to be, and who immediately clapped it into her own head, and enjoyed a peep at the visible world. thus it will easily be understood that only one of the three gray women could see, while the other two were in utter darkness; and, moreover, at the instant when the eye was passing from hand to hand, neither of the poor old ladies was able to see a wink. i have heard of a great many strange things, in my day, and have witnessed not a few; but none, it seems to me, that can compare with the oddity of these three gray women, all peeping through a single eye. so thought perseus, likewise, and was so astonished that he almost fancied his companion was joking with him, and that there were no such old women in the world. "you will soon find whether i tell the truth or no," observed quicksilver. "hark! hush! hist! hist! there they come, now!" perseus looked earnestly through the dusk of the evening, and there, sure enough, at no great distance off, he descried the three gray women. the light being so faint, he could not well make out what sort of figures they were; only he discovered that they had long gray hair; and, as they came nearer, he saw that two of them had but the empty socket of an eye, in the middle of their foreheads. but, in the middle of the third sister's forehead, there was a very large, bright, and piercing eye, which sparkled like a great diamond in a ring; and so penetrating did it seem to be, that perseus could not help thinking it must possess the gift of seeing in the darkest midnight just as perfectly as at noonday. the sight of three persons' eyes was melted and collected into that single one. thus the three old dames got along about as comfortably, upon the whole, as if they could all see at once. she who chanced to have the eye in her forehead led the other two by the hands, peeping sharply about her, all the while; insomuch that perseus dreaded lest she should see right through the thick clump of bushes behind which he and quicksilver had hidden themselves. my stars! it was positively terrible to be within reach of so very sharp an eye! but, before they reached the clump of bushes, one of the three gray women spoke. "sister! sister scarecrow!" cried she, "you have had the eye long enough. it is my turn now!" "let me keep it a moment longer, sister nightmare," answered scarecrow. "i thought i had a glimpse of something behind that thick bush." "well, and what of that?" retorted nightmare, peevishly. "can't i see into a thick bush as easily as yourself? the eye is mine as well as yours; and i know the use of it as well as you, or may be a little better. i insist upon taking a peep immediately!" but here the third sister, whose name was shakejoint, began to complain, and said that it was her turn to have the eye, and that scarecrow and nightmare wanted to keep it all to themselves. to end the dispute, old dame scarecrow took the eye out of her forehead, and held it forth in her hand. "take it, one of you," cried she, "and quit this foolish quarrelling. for my part, i shall be glad of a little thick darkness. take it quickly, however, or i must clap it into my own head again!" accordingly, both nightmare and shakejoint put out their hands, groping eagerly to snatch the eye out of the hand of scarecrow. but, being both alike blind, they could not easily find where scarecrow's hand was; and scarecrow, being now just as much in the dark as shakejoint and nightmare, could not at once meet either of their hands, in order to put the eye into it. thus (as you will see, with half an eye, my wise little auditors), these good old dames had fallen into a strange perplexity. for, though the eye shone and glistened like a star, as scarecrow held it out, yet the gray women caught not the least glimpse of its light, and were all three in utter darkness, from too impatient a desire to see. quicksilver was so much tickled at beholding shakejoint and nightmare both groping for the eye, and each finding fault with scarecrow and one another, that he could scarcely help laughing aloud. "now is your time!" he whispered to perseus. "quick, quick! before they can clap the eye into either of their heads. rush out upon the old ladies, and snatch it from scarecrow's hand!" in an instant, while the three gray women were still scolding each other, perseus leaped from behind the clump of bushes, and made himself master of the prize. the marvellous eye, as he held it in his hand, shone very brightly, and seemed to look up into his face with a knowing air, and an expression as if it would have winked, had it been provided with a pair of eyelids for that purpose. but the gray women knew nothing of what had happened; and, each supposing that one of her sisters was in possession of the eye, they began their quarrel anew. at last, as perseus did not wish to put these respectable dames to greater inconvenience than was really necessary, he thought it right to explain the matter. "my good ladies," said he, "pray do not be angry with one another. if anybody is in fault, it is myself; for i have the honor to hold your very brilliant and excellent eye in my own hand!" "you! you have our eye! and who are you?" screamed the three gray women, all in a breath; for they were terribly frightened, of course, at hearing a strange voice, and discovering that their eyesight had got into the hands of they could not guess whom. "oh, what shall we do, sisters? what shall we do? we are all in the dark! give us our eye! give us our one, precious, solitary eye! you have two of your own! give us our eye!" "tell them," whispered quicksilver to perseus, "that they shall have back the eye as soon as they direct you where to find the nymphs who have the flying slippers, the magic wallet, and the helmet of darkness." "my dear, good, admirable old ladies," said perseus, addressing the gray women, "there is no occasion for putting yourselves into such a fright. i am by no means a bad young man. you shall have back your eye, safe and sound, and as bright as ever, the moment you tell me where to find the nymphs." "the nymphs! goodness me! sisters, what nymphs does he mean?" screamed scarecrow. "there are a great many nymphs, people say; some that go a hunting in the woods, and some that live inside of trees, and some that have a comfortable home in fountains of water. we know nothing at all about them. we are three unfortunate old souls, that go wandering about in the dusk, and never had but one eye amongst us, and that one you have stolen away. oh, give it back, good stranger!--whoever you are, give it back!" all this while the three gray women were groping with their outstretched hands, and trying their utmost to get hold of perseus. but he took good care to keep out of their reach. "my respectable dames," said he,--for his mother had taught him always to use the greatest civility,--"i hold your eye fast in my hand, and shall keep it safely for you, until you please to tell me where to find these nymphs. the nymphs, i mean, who keep the enchanted wallet, the flying slippers, and the what is it?--the helmet of invisibility." "mercy on us, sisters! what is the young man talking about?" exclaimed scarecrow, nightmare, and shakejoint, one to another, with great appearance of astonishment. "a pair of flying slippers, quoth he! his heels would quickly fly higher than his head, if he were silly enough to put them on. and a helmet of invisibility! how could a helmet make him invisible, unless it were big enough for him to hide under it? and an enchanted wallet! what sort of a contrivance may that be, i wonder? no, no, good stranger! we can tell you nothing of these marvellous things. you have two eyes of your own, and we have but a single one amongst us three. you can find out such wonders better than three blind old creatures, like us." perseus, hearing them talk in this way, began really to think that the gray women knew nothing of the matter; and, as it grieved him to have put them to so much trouble, he was just on the point of restoring their eye and asking pardon for his rudeness in snatching it away. but quicksilver caught his hand. "don't let them make a fool of you!" said he. "these three gray women are the only persons in the world that can tell you where to find the nymphs; and, unless you get that information, you will never succeed in cutting off the head of medusa with the snaky locks. keep fast hold of the eye, and all will go well." as it turned out, quicksilver was in the right. there are but few things that people prize so much as they do their eyesight; and the gray women valued their single eye as highly as if it had been half a dozen, which was the number they ought to have had. finding that there was no other way of recovering it, they at last told perseus what he wanted to know. no sooner had they done so, than he immediately, and with the utmost respect, clapped the eye into the vacant socket in one of their foreheads, thanked them for their kindness, and bade them farewell. before the young man was out of hearing, however, they had got into a new dispute, because he happened to have given the eye to scarecrow, who had already taken her turn of it when their trouble with perseus commenced. it is greatly to be feared that the three gray women were very much in the habit of disturbing their mutual harmony by bickerings of this sort; which was the more pity, as they could not conveniently do without one another, and were evidently intended to be inseparable companions. as a general rule, i would advise all people, whether sisters or brothers, old or young, who chance to have but one eye amongst them, to cultivate forbearance, and not all insist upon peeping through it at once. quicksilver and perseus, in the mean time, were making the best of their way in quest of the nymphs. the old dames had given them such particular directions, that they were not long in finding them out. they proved to be very different persons from nightmare, shakejoint, and scarecrow; for, instead of being old, they were young and beautiful; and instead of one eye amongst the sisterhood, each nymph had two exceedingly bright eyes of her own, with which she looked very kindly at perseus. they seemed to be acquainted with quicksilver; and, when he told them the adventure which perseus had undertaken, they made no difficulty about giving him the valuable articles that were in their custody. in the first place, they brought out what appeared to be a small purse, made of deer skin, and curiously embroidered, and bade him be sure and keep it safe. this was the magic wallet. the nymphs next produced a pair of shoes, or slippers, or sandals, with a nice little pair of wings at the heel of each. "put them on, perseus," said quicksilver. "you will find yourself as light-heeled as you can desire for the remainder of our journey." so perseus proceeded to put one of the slippers on, while he laid the other on the ground by his side. unexpectedly, however, this other slipper spread its wings, fluttered up off the ground, and would probably have flown away, if quicksilver had not made a leap, and luckily caught it in the air. "be more careful," said he, as he gave it back to perseus. "it would frighten the birds, up aloft, if they should see a flying slipper amongst them." when perseus had got on both of these wonderful slippers, he was altogether too buoyant to tread on earth. making a step or two, lo and behold! upward he popped into the air, high above the heads of quicksilver and the nymphs, and found it very difficult to clamber down again. winged slippers, and all such high-flying contrivances, are seldom quite easy to manage until one grows a little accustomed to them. quicksilver laughed at his companion's involuntary activity, and told him that he must not be in so desperate a hurry, but must wait for the invisible helmet. the good-natured nymphs had the helmet, with its dark tuft of waving plumes, all in readiness to put upon his head. and now there happened about as wonderful an incident as anything that i have yet told you. the instant before the helmet was put on, there stood perseus, a beautiful young man, with golden ringlets and rosy cheeks, the crooked sword by his side, and the brightly polished shield upon his arm,--a figure that seemed all made up of courage, sprightliness, and glorious light. but when the helmet had descended over his white brow, there was no longer any perseus to be seen! nothing but empty air! even the helmet, that covered him with its invisibility, had vanished! "where are you, perseus?" asked quicksilver. "why, here, to be sure!" answered perseus, very quietly, although his voice seemed to come out of the transparent atmosphere. "just where i was a moment ago. don't you see me?" "no, indeed!" answered his friend. "you are hidden under the helmet. but, if i cannot see you, neither can the gorgons. follow me, therefore, and we will try your dexterity in using the winged slippers." with these words, quicksilver's cap spread its wings, as if his head were about to fly away from his shoulders; but his whole figure rose lightly into the air, and perseus followed. by the time they had ascended a few hundred feet, the young man began to feel what a delightful thing it was to leave the dull earth so far beneath him, and to be able to flit about like a bird. it was now deep night. perseus looked upward, and saw the round, bright, silvery moon, and thought that he should desire nothing better than to soar up thither, and spend his life there. then he looked downward again, and saw the earth, with its seas and lakes, and the silver courses of its rivers, and its snowy mountain-peaks, and the breadth of its fields, and the dark cluster of its woods, and its cities of white marble; and, with the moonshine sleeping over the whole scene, it was as beautiful as the moon or any star could be. and, among other objects, he saw the island of seriphus, where his dear mother was. sometimes he and quicksilver approached a cloud, that, at a distance, looked as if it were made of fleecy silver; although, when they plunged into it, they found themselves chilled and moistened with gray mist. so swift was their flight, however, that, in an instant, they emerged from the cloud into the moonlight again. once, a high-soaring eagle flew right against the invisible perseus. the bravest sights were the meteors, that gleamed suddenly out, as if a bonfire had been kindled in the sky, and made the moonshine pale for as much as a hundred miles around them. as the two companions flew onward, perseus fancied that he could hear the rustle of a garment close by his side; and it was on the side opposite to the one where he beheld quicksilver, yet only quicksilver was visible. "whose garment is this," inquired perseus, "that keeps rustling close beside me in the breeze?" "oh, it is my sister's!" answered quicksilver. "she is coming along with us, as i told you she would. we could do nothing without the help of my sister. you have no idea how wise she is. she has such eyes, too! why, she can see you, at this moment, just as distinctly as if you were not invisible; and i'll venture to say, she will be the first to discover the gorgons." by this time, in their swift voyage through the air, they had come within sight of the great ocean, and were soon flying over it. far beneath them, the waves tossed themselves tumultuously in mid-sea, or rolled a white surf-line upon the long beaches, or foamed against the rocky cliffs, with a roar that was thunderous, in the lower world; although it became a gentle murmur, like the voice of a baby half asleep, before it reached the ears of perseus. just then a voice spoke in the air close by him. it seemed to be a woman's voice, and was melodious, though not exactly what might be called sweet, but grave and mild. "perseus," said the voice, "there are the gorgons." "where?" exclaimed perseus. "i cannot see them." "on the shore of that island beneath you," replied the voice. "a pebble, dropped from your hand, would strike in the midst of them." "i told you she would be the first to discover them," said quicksilver to perseus. "and there they are!" straight downward, two or three thousand feet below him, perseus perceived a small island, with the sea breaking into white foam all around its rocky shore, except on one side, where there was a beach of snowy sand. he descended towards it, and, looking earnestly at a cluster or heap of brightness, at the foot of a precipice of black rocks, behold, there were the terrible gorgons! they lay fast asleep, soothed by the thunder of the sea; for it required a tumult that would have deafened everybody else to lull such fierce creatures into slumber. the moonlight glistened on their steely scales, and on their golden wings, which drooped idly over the sand. their brazen claws, horrible to look at, were thrust out, and clutched the wave-beaten fragments of rock, while the sleeping gorgons dreamed of tearing some poor mortal all to pieces. the snakes that served them instead of hair seemed likewise to be asleep; although, now and then, one would writhe, and lift its head, and thrust out its forked tongue, emitting a drowsy hiss, and then let itself subside among its sister snakes. the gorgons were more like an awful, gigantic kind of insect,--immense, golden-winged beetles, or dragon-flies, or things of that sort,--at once ugly and beautiful,--than like anything else; only that they were a thousand and a million times as big. and, with all this, there was something partly human about them, too. luckily for perseus, their faces were completely hidden from him by the posture in which they lay; for, had he but looked one instant at them, he would have fallen heavily out of the air, an image of senseless stone. "now," whispered quicksilver, as he hovered by the side of perseus,--"now is your time to do the deed! be quick; or, if one of the gorgons should awake, you are too late!" "which shall i strike at?" asked perseus, drawing his sword and descending a little lower. "they all three look alike. all three have snaky locks. which of the three is medusa?" it must be understood that medusa was the only one of these dragon-monsters whose head perseus could possibly cut off. as for the other two, let him have the sharpest sword that ever was forged, and he might have hacked away by the hour together, without doing them the least harm. "be cautious," said the calm voice which had before spoken to him. "one of the gorgons is stirring in her sleep, and is just about to turn over. that is medusa. do not look at her! the sight would turn you to stone! look at the reflection of her face and figure in the bright mirror of your shield." perseus now understood quicksilver's motive for so earnestly exhorting him to polish his shield. in its surface he could safely look at the reflection of the gorgon's face. and there it was,--that terrible countenance,--mirrored in the brightness of the shield, with the moonlight falling over it, and displaying all its horror. the snakes, whose venomous natures could not altogether sleep, kept twisting themselves over the forehead. it was the fiercest and most horrible face that ever was seen or imagined, and yet with a strange, fearful, and savage kind of beauty in it. the eyes were closed, and the gorgon was still in a deep slumber; but there was an unquiet expression disturbing her features, as if the monster was troubled with an ugly dream. she gnashed her white tusks, and dug into the sand with her brazen claws. the snakes, too, seemed to feel medusa's dream, and to be made more restless by it. they twined themselves into tumultuous knots, writhed fiercely, and uplifted a hundred hissing heads, without opening their eyes. "now, now!" whispered quicksilver, who was growing impatient. "make a dash at the monster!" "but be calm," said the grave, melodious voice, at the young man's side. "look in your shield, as you fly downward, and take care that you do not miss your first stroke." perseus flew cautiously downward, still keeping his eyes on medusa's face, as reflected in his shield. the nearer he came, the more terrible did the snaky visage and metallic body of the monster grow. at last, when he found himself hovering over her within arm's length, perseus uplifted his sword, while, at the same instant, each separate snake upon the gorgon's head stretched threateningly upward, and medusa unclosed her eyes. but she awoke too late. the sword was sharp; the stroke fell like a lightning-flash; and the head of the wicked medusa tumbled from her body! "admirably done!" cried quicksilver. "make haste, and clap the head into your magic wallet." to the astonishment of perseus, the small, embroidered wallet, which he had hung about his neck, and which had hitherto been no bigger than a purse, grew all at once large enough to contain medusa's head. as quick as thought, he snatched it up, with the snakes still writhing upon it, and thrust it in. "your task is done," said the calm voice. "now fly; for the other gorgons will do their utmost to take vengeance for medusa's death." it was, indeed, necessary to take flight; for perseus had not done the deed so quietly but that the clash of his sword, and the hissing of the snakes, and the thump of medusa's head as it tumbled upon the sea-beaten sand, awoke the other two monsters. there they sat, for an instant, sleepily rubbing their eyes with their brazen fingers, while all the snakes on their heads reared themselves on end with surprise, and with venomous malice against they knew not what. but when the gorgons saw the scaly carcass of medusa, headless, and her golden wings all ruffled, and half spread out on the sand, it was really awful to hear what yells and screeches they set up. and then the snakes! they sent forth a hundred-fold hiss, with one consent, and medusa's snakes answered them out of the magic wallet. no sooner were the gorgons broad awake than they hurtled upward into the air, brandishing their brass talons, gnashing their horrible tusks, and flapping their huge wings so wildly, that some of the golden feathers were shaken out, and floated down upon the shore. and there, perhaps, those very feathers lie scattered, till this day. up rose the gorgons, as i tell you, staring horribly about, in hopes of turning somebody to stone. had perseus looked them in the face, or had he fallen into their clutches, his poor mother would never have kissed her boy again! but he took good care to turn his eyes another way; and, as he wore the helmet of invisibility, the gorgons knew not in what direction to follow him; nor did he fail to make the best use of the winged slippers, by soaring upward a perpendicular mile or so. at that height, when the screams of those abominable creatures sounded faintly beneath him, he made a straight course for the island of seriphus, in order to carry medusa's head to king polydectes. i have no time to tell you of several marvellous things that befell perseus, on his way homeward; such as his killing a hideous sea-monster, just as it was on the point of devouring a beautiful maiden; nor how he changed an enormous giant into a mountain of stone, merely by showing him the head of the gorgon. if you doubt this latter story, you may make a voyage to africa, some day or other, and see the very mountain, which is still known by the ancient giant's name. finally, our brave perseus arrived at the island, where he expected to see his dear mother. but, during his absence, the wicked king had treated danaë so very ill that she was compelled to make her escape, and had taken refuge in a temple, where some good old priests were extremely kind to her. these praise-worthy priests, and the kind-hearted fisherman, who had first shown hospitality to danaë and little perseus when he found them afloat in the chest, seem to have been the only persons on the island who cared about doing right. all the rest of the people, as well as king polydectes himself, were remarkably ill-behaved, and deserved no better destiny than that which was now to happen. not finding his mother at home, perseus went straight to the palace, and was immediately ushered into the presence of the king. polydectes was by no means rejoiced to see him; for he had felt almost certain, in his own evil mind, that the gorgons would have torn the poor young man to pieces, and have eaten him up, out of the way. however, seeing him safely returned, he put the best face he could upon the matter and asked perseus how he had succeeded. "have you performed your promise?" inquired he. "have you brought me the head of medusa with the snaky locks? if not, young man, it will cost you dear; for i must have a bridal present for the beautiful princess hippodamia, and there is nothing else that she would admire so much." "yes, please your majesty," answered perseus, in a quiet way, as if it were no very wonderful deed for such a young man as he to perform. "i have brought you the gorgon's head, snaky locks and all!" "indeed! pray let me see it," quoth king polydectes. "it must be a very curious spectacle, if all that travellers tell about it be true!" "your majesty is in the right," replied perseus. "it is really an object that will be pretty certain to fix the regards of all who look at it. and, if your majesty think fit, i would suggest that a holiday be proclaimed, and that all your majesty's subjects be summoned to behold this wonderful curiosity. few of them, i imagine, have seen a gorgon's head before, and perhaps never may again!" the king well knew that his subjects were an idle set of reprobates, and very fond of sight-seeing, as idle persons usually are. so he took the young man's advice, and sent out heralds and messengers, in all directions, to blow the trumpet at the street-corners, and in the market-places, and wherever two roads met, and summon everybody to court. thither, accordingly, came a great multitude of good-for-nothing vagabonds, all of whom, out of pure love of mischief, would have been glad if perseus had met with some ill-hap in his encounter with the gorgons. if there were any better people in the island (as i really hope there may have been, although the story tells nothing about any such), they stayed quietly at home, minding their business, and taking care of their little children. most of the inhabitants, at all events, ran as fast as they could to the palace, and shoved, and pushed, and elbowed one another, in their eagerness to get near a balcony, on which perseus showed himself, holding the embroidered wallet in his hand. on a platform, within full view of the balcony, sat the mighty king polydectes, amid his evil counsellors, and with his flattering courtiers in a semicircle round about him. monarch, counsellors, courtiers, and subjects, all gazed eagerly towards perseus. "show us the head! show us the head!" shouted the people; and there was a fierceness in their cry as if they would tear perseus to pieces, unless he should satisfy them with what he had to show. "show us the head of medusa with the snaky locks!" a feeling of sorrow and pity came over the youthful perseus. "o king polydectes," cried he, "and ye many people, i am very loath to show you the gorgon's head!" "ah, the villain and coward!" yelled the people, more fiercely than before. "he is making game of us! he has no gorgon's head! show us the head, if you have it, or we will take your own head for a football!" the evil counsellors whispered bad advice in the king's ear; the courtiers murmured, with one consent, that perseus had shown disrespect to their royal lord and master; and the great king polydectes himself waved his hand, and ordered him, with the stern, deep voice of authority, on his peril, to produce the head. "show me the gorgon's head, or i will cut off your own!" and perseus sighed. "this instant," repeated polydectes, "or you die!" "behold it, then!" cried perseus, in a voice like the blast of a trumpet. and, suddenly holding up the head, not an eyelid had time to wink before the wicked king polydectes, his evil counsellors, and all his fierce subjects were no longer anything but the mere images of a monarch and his people. they were all fixed, forever, in the look and attitude of that moment! at the first glimpse of the terrible head of medusa, they whitened into marble! and perseus thrust the head back into his wallet, and went to tell his dear mother that she need no longer be afraid of the wicked king polydectes. tanglewood porch _after the story_ "was not that a very fine story?" asked eustace. "oh yes, yes!" cried cowslip, clapping her hands. "and those funny old women, with only one eye amongst them! i never heard of anything so strange." "as to their one tooth, which they shifted about," observed primrose, "there was nothing so very wonderful in that. i suppose it was a false tooth. but think of your turning mercury into quicksilver, and talking about his sister! you are too ridiculous!" "and was she not his sister?" asked eustace bright. "if i had thought of it sooner, i would have described her as a maiden lady, who kept a pet owl!" "well, at any rate," said primrose, "your story seems to have driven away the mist." and, indeed, while the tale was going forward, the vapors had been quite exhaled from the landscape. a scene was now disclosed which the spectators might almost fancy as having been created since they had last looked in the direction where it lay. about half a mile distant, in the lap of the valley, now appeared a beautiful lake, which reflected a perfect image of its own wooded banks, and of the summits of the more distant hills. it gleamed in glassy tranquillity, without the trace of a winged breeze on any part of its bosom. beyond its farther shore was monument mountain, in a recumbent position, stretching almost across the valley. eustace bright compared it to a huge, headless sphinx, wrapped in a persian shawl; and, indeed, so rich and diversified was the autumnal foliage of its woods, that the simile of the shawl was by no means too high-colored for the reality. in the lower ground, between tanglewood and the lake, the clumps of trees and borders of woodland were chiefly golden-leaved or dusky brown, as having suffered more from frost than the foliage on the hill-sides. over all this scene there was a genial sunshine, intermingled with a slight haze, which made it unspeakably soft and tender. oh, what a day of indian summer was it going to be! the children snatched their baskets, and set forth, with hop, skip, and jump, and all sorts of frisks and gambols; while cousin eustace proved his fitness to preside over the party, by outdoing all their antics, and performing several new capers, which none of them could ever hope to imitate. behind went a good old dog, whose name was ben. he was one of the most respectable and kind-hearted of quadrupeds, and probably felt it to be his duty not to trust the children away from their parents without some better guardian than this feather-brained eustace bright. the golden touch shadow brook _introductory to "the golden touch"_ at noon, our juvenile party assembled in a dell, through the depths of which ran a little brook. the dell was narrow, and its steep sides, from the margin of the stream upward, were thickly set with trees, chiefly walnuts and chestnuts, among which grew a few oaks and maples. in the summer time, the shade of so many clustering branches, meeting and intermingling across the rivulet, was deep enough to produce a noontide twilight. hence came the name of shadow brook. but now, ever since autumn had crept into this secluded place, all the dark verdure was changed to gold, so that it really kindled up the dell, instead of shading it. the bright yellow leaves, even had it been a cloudy day, would have seemed to keep the sunlight among them; and enough of them had fallen to strew all the bed and margin of the brook with sunlight, too. thus the shady nook, where summer had cooled herself, was now the sunniest spot anywhere to be found. the little brook ran along over its pathway of gold, here pausing to form a pool, in which minnows were darting to and fro; and then it hurried onward at a swifter pace, as if in haste to reach the lake; and, forgetting to look whither it went, it tumbled over the root of a tree, which stretched quite across its current. you would have laughed to hear how noisily it babbled about this accident. and even after it had run onward, the brook still kept talking to itself, as if it were in a maze. it was wonder-smitten, i suppose, at finding its dark dell so illuminated, and at hearing the prattle and merriment of so many children. so it stole away as quickly as it could, and hid itself in the lake. in the dell of shadow brook, eustace bright and his little friends had eaten their dinner. they had brought plenty of good things from tanglewood, in their baskets, and had spread them out on the stumps of trees, and on mossy trunks, and had feasted merrily, and made a very nice dinner indeed. after it was over, nobody felt like stirring. "we will rest ourselves here," said several of the children, "while cousin eustace tells us another of his pretty stories." cousin eustace had a good right to be tired, as well as the children, for he had performed great feats on that memorable forenoon. dandelion, clover, cowslip, and buttercup were almost most persuaded that he had winged slippers, like those which the nymphs gave perseus; so often had the student shown himself at the tip-top of a nut-tree, when only a moment before he had been standing on the ground. and then, what showers of walnuts had he sent rattling down upon their heads, for their busy little hands to gather into the baskets! in short, he had been as active as a squirrel or a monkey, and now, flinging himself down on the yellow leaves, seemed inclined to take a little rest. but children have no mercy nor consideration for anybody's weariness; and if you had but a single breath left, they would ask you to spend it in telling them a story. "cousin eustace," said cowslip, "that was a very nice story of the gorgon's head. do you think you could tell us another as good?" "yes, child," said eustace, pulling the brim of his cap over his eyes, as if preparing for a nap. "i can tell you a dozen, as good or better, if i choose." "o primrose and periwinkle, do you hear what he says?" cried cowslip, dancing with delight. "cousin eustace is going to tell us a dozen better stories than that about the gorgon's head!" "i did not promise you even one, you foolish little cowslip!" said eustace, half pettishly. "however, i suppose you must have it. this is the consequence of having earned a reputation! i wish i were a great deal duller than i am, or that i had never shown half the bright qualities with which nature has endowed me; and then i might have my nap out, in peace and comfort!" but cousin eustace, as i think i have hinted before, was as fond of telling his stories as the children of hearing them. his mind was in a free and happy state, and took delight in its own activity, and scarcely required any external impulse to set it at work. how different is this spontaneous play of the intellect from the trained diligence of maturer years, when toil has perhaps grown easy by long habit, and the day's work may have become essential to the day's comfort, although the rest of the matter has bubbled away! this remark, however, is not meant for the children to hear. without further solicitation, eustace bright proceeded to tell the following really splendid story. it had come into his mind as he lay looking upward into the depths of a tree, and observing how the touch of autumn had transmuted every one of its green leaves into what resembled the purest gold. and this change, which we have all of us witnessed, is as wonderful as anything that eustace told about in the story of midas. the golden touch once upon a time, there lived a very rich man, and a king besides, whose name was midas; and he had a little daughter, whom nobody but myself ever heard of, and whose name i either never knew, or have entirely forgotten. so, because i love odd names for little girls, i choose to call her marygold. this king midas was fonder of gold than of anything else in the world. he valued his royal crown chiefly because it was composed of that precious metal. if he loved anything better, or half so well, it was the one little maiden who played so merrily around her father's footstool. but the more midas loved his daughter, the more did he desire and seek for wealth. he thought, foolish man! that the best thing he could possibly do for this dear child would be to bequeath her the immensest pile of yellow, glistening coin, that had ever been heaped together since the world was made. thus, he gave all his thoughts and all his time to this one purpose. if ever he happened to gaze for an instant at the gold-tinted clouds of sunset, he wished that they were real gold, and that they could be squeezed safely into his strong box. when little marygold ran to meet him, with a bunch of buttercups and dandelions, he used to say, "poh, poh, child! if these flowers were as golden as they look, they would be worth the plucking!" and yet, in his earlier days, before he was so entirely possessed of this insane desire for riches, king midas had shown a great taste for flowers. he had planted a garden, in which grew the biggest and beautifullest and sweetest roses that any mortal ever saw or smelt. these roses were still growing in the garden, as large, as lovely, and as fragrant, as when midas used to pass whole hours in gazing at them, and inhaling their perfume. but now, if he looked at them at all, it was only to calculate how much the garden would be worth if each of the innumerable rose-petals were a thin plate of gold. and though he once was fond of music (in spite of an idle story about his ears, which were said to resemble those of an ass), the only music for poor midas, now, was the chink of one coin against another. at length, as people always grow more and more foolish, unless they take care to grow wiser and wiser, midas had got to be so exceedingly unreasonable, that he could scarcely bear to see or touch any object that was not gold. he made it his custom, therefore, to pass a large portion of every day in a dark and dreary apartment, under ground, at the basement of his palace. it was here that he kept his wealth. to this dismal hole--for it was little better than a dungeon--midas betook himself, whenever he wanted to be particularly happy. here, after carefully locking the door, he would take a bag of gold coin, or a gold cup as big as a washbowl, or a heavy golden bar, or a peck-measure of gold-dust, and bring them from the obscure corners of the room into the one bright and narrow sunbeam that fell from the dungeon-like window. he valued the sunbeam for no other reason but that his treasure would not shine without its help. and then would he reckon over the coins in the bag; toss up the bar, and catch it as it came down; sift the gold-dust through his fingers; look at the funny image of his own face, as reflected in the burnished circumference of the cup; and whisper to himself, "o midas, rich king midas, what a happy man art thou!" but it was laughable to see how the image of his face kept grinning at him, out of the polished surface of the cup. it seemed to be aware of his foolish behavior, and to have a naughty inclination to make fun of him. midas called himself a happy man, but felt that he was not yet quite so happy as he might be. the very tip-top of enjoyment would never be reached, unless the whole world were to become his treasure-room, and be filled with yellow metal which should be all his own. now, i need hardly remind such wise little people as you are, that in the old, old times, when king midas was alive, a great many things came to pass, which we should consider wonderful if they were to happen in our own day and country. and, on the other hand, a great many things take place nowadays, which seem not only wonderful to us, but at which the people of old times would have stared their eyes out. on the whole, i regard our own times as the strangest of the two; but, however that may be, i must go on with my story. midas was enjoying himself in his treasure-room, one day, as usual, when he perceived a shadow fall over the heaps of gold; and, looking suddenly up, what should he behold but the figure of a stranger, standing in the bright and narrow sunbeam! it was a young man, with a cheerful and ruddy face. whether it was that the imagination of king midas threw a yellow tinge over everything, or whatever the cause might be, he could not help fancying that the smile with which the stranger regarded him had a kind of golden radiance in it. certainly, although his figure intercepted the sunshine, there was now a brighter gleam upon all the piled-up treasures than before. even the remotest corners had their share of it, and were lighted up, when the stranger smiled, as with tips of flame and sparkles of fire. as midas knew that he had carefully turned the key in the lock, and that no mortal strength could possibly break into his treasure-room, he, of course, concluded that his visitor must be something more than mortal. it is no matter about telling you who he was. in those days, when the earth was comparatively a new affair, it was supposed to be often the resort of beings endowed with supernatural power, and who used to interest themselves in the joys and sorrows of men, women, and children, half playfully and half seriously. midas had met such beings before now, and was not sorry to meet one of them again. the stranger's aspect, indeed, was so good-humored and kindly, if not beneficent, that it would have been unreasonable to suspect him of intending any mischief. it was far more probable that he came to do midas a favor. and what could that favor be, unless to multiply his heaps of treasure? the stranger gazed about the room; and when his lustrous smile had glistened upon all the golden objects that were there, he turned again to midas. "you are a wealthy man, friend midas!" he observed. "i doubt whether any other four walls, on earth, contain so much gold as you have contrived to pile up in this room." "i have done pretty well,--pretty well," answered midas, in a discontented tone. "but, after all, it is but a trifle, when you consider that it has taken me my whole life to get it together. if one could live a thousand years, he might have time to grow rich!" "what!" exclaimed the stranger. "then you are not satisfied?" midas shook his head. "and pray what would satisfy you?" asked the stranger. "merely for the curiosity of the thing, i should be glad to know." midas paused and meditated. he felt a presentiment that this stranger, with such a golden lustre in his good-humored smile, had come hither with both the power and the purpose of gratifying his utmost wishes. now, therefore, was the fortunate moment, when he had but to speak, and obtain whatever possible, or seemingly impossible, thing it might come into his head to ask. so he thought, and thought, and thought, and heaped up one golden mountain upon another, in his imagination, without being able to imagine them big enough. at last, a bright idea occurred to king midas. it seemed really as bright as the glistening metal which he loved so much. raising his head, he looked the lustrous stranger in the face. "well, midas," observed his visitor, "i see that you have at length hit upon something that will satisfy you. tell me your wish." "it is only this," replied midas. "i am weary of collecting my treasures with so much trouble, and beholding the heap so diminutive, after i have done my best. i wish everything that i touch to be changed to gold!" the stranger's smile grew so very broad, that it seemed to fill the room like an outburst of the sun, gleaming into a shadowy dell, where the yellow autumnal leaves--for so looked the lumps and particles of gold--lie strewn in the glow of light. "the golden touch!" exclaimed he. "you certainly deserve credit, friend midas, for striking out so brilliant a conception. but are you quite sure that this will satisfy you?" "how could it fail?" said midas. "and will you never regret the possession of it?" "what could induce me?" asked midas. "i ask nothing else, to render me perfectly happy." "be it as you wish, then," replied the stranger, waving his hand in token of farewell. "to-morrow, at sunrise, you will find yourself gifted with the golden touch." the figure of the stranger then became exceedingly bright, and midas involuntarily closed his eyes. on opening them again, he beheld only one yellow sunbeam in the room, and, all around him, the glistening of the precious metal which he had spent his life in hoarding up. whether midas slept as usual that night, the story does not say. asleep or awake, however, his mind was probably in the state of a child's, to whom a beautiful new plaything has been promised in the morning. at any rate, day had hardly peeped over the hills, when king midas was broad awake, and, stretching his arms out of bed, began to touch the objects that were within reach. he was anxious to prove whether the golden touch had really come, according to the stranger's promise. so he laid his finger on a chair by the bedside, and on various other things, but was grievously disappointed to perceive that they remained of exactly the same substance as before. indeed, he felt very much afraid that he had only dreamed about the lustrous stranger, or else that the latter had been making game of him. and what a miserable affair would it be, if, after all his hopes, midas must content himself with what little gold he could scrape together by ordinary means, instead of creating it by a touch! all this while, it was only the gray of the morning, with but a streak of brightness along the edge of the sky, where midas could not see it. he lay in a very disconsolate mood, regretting the downfall of his hopes, and kept growing sadder and sadder, until the earliest sunbeam shone through the window, and gilded the ceiling over his head. it seemed to midas that this bright yellow sunbeam was reflected in rather a singular way on the white covering of the bed. looking more closely, what was his astonishment and delight, when he found that this linen fabric had been transmuted to what seemed a woven texture of the purest and brightest gold! the golden touch had come to him with the first sunbeam! midas started up, in a kind of joyful frenzy, and ran about the room, grasping at everything that happened to be in his way. he seized one of the bed-posts, and it became immediately a fluted golden pillar. he pulled aside a window-curtain, in order to admit a clear spectacle of the wonders which he was performing; and the tassel grew heavy in his hand,--a mass of gold. he took up a book from the table. at his first touch, it assumed the appearance of such a splendidly bound and gilt-edged volume as one often meets with, nowadays; but, on running his fingers through the leaves, behold! it was a bundle of thin golden plates, in which all the wisdom of the book had grown illegible. he hurriedly put on his clothes, and was enraptured to see himself in a magnificent suit of gold cloth, which retained its flexibility and softness, although it burdened him a little with its weight. he drew out his handkerchief, which little marygold had hemmed for him. that was likewise gold, with the dear child's neat and pretty stitches running all along the border, in gold thread! somehow or other, this last transformation did not quite please king midas. he would rather that his little daughter's handiwork should have remained just the same as when she climbed his knee and put it into his hand. but it was not worth while to vex himself about a trifle. midas now took his spectacles from his pocket, and put them on his nose, in order that he might see more distinctly what he was about. in those days, spectacles for common people had not been invented, but were already worn by kings; else, how could midas have had any? to his great perplexity, however, excellent as the glasses were, he discovered that he could not possibly see through them. but this was the most natural thing in the world; for, on taking them off, the transparent crystals turned out to be plates of yellow metal, and, of course, were worthless as spectacles, though valuable as gold. it struck midas as rather inconvenient that, with all his wealth, he could never again be rich enough to own a pair of serviceable spectacles. "it is no great matter, nevertheless," said he to himself, very philosophically. "we cannot expect any great good, without its being accompanied with some small inconvenience. the golden touch is worth the sacrifice of a pair of spectacles, at least, if not of one's very eyesight. my own eyes will serve for ordinary purposes, and little marygold will soon be old enough to read to me." wise king midas was so exalted by his good fortune, that the palace seemed not sufficiently spacious to contain him. he therefore went down stairs, and smiled, on observing that the balustrade of the staircase became a bar of burnished gold, as his hand passed over it, in his descent. he lifted the door-latch (it was brass only a moment ago, but golden when his fingers quitted it), and emerged into the garden. here, as it happened, he found a great number of beautiful roses in full bloom, and others in all the stages of lovely bud and blossom. very delicious was their fragrance in the morning breeze. their delicate blush was one of the fairest sights in the world; so gentle, so modest, and so full of sweet tranquillity, did these roses seem to be. but midas knew a way to make them far more precious, according to his way of thinking, than roses had ever been before. so he took great pains in going from bush to bush, and exercised his magic touch most indefatigably; until every individual flower and bud, and even the worms at the heart of some of them, were changed to gold. by the time this good work was completed, king midas was summoned to breakfast; and as the morning air had given him an excellent appetite, he made haste back to the palace. what was usually a king's breakfast in the days of midas, i really do not know, and cannot stop now to investigate. to the best of my belief, however, on this particular morning, the breakfast consisted of hot cakes, some nice little brook trout, roasted potatoes, fresh boiled eggs, and coffee, for king midas himself, and a bowl of bread and milk for his daughter marygold. at all events, this is a breakfast fit to set before a king; and, whether he had it or not, king midas could not have had a better. little marygold had not yet made her appearance. her father ordered her to be called, and, seating himself at table, awaited the child's coming, in order to begin his own breakfast. to do midas justice, he really loved his daughter, and loved her so much the more this morning, on account of the good fortune which had befallen him. it was not a great while before he heard her coming along the passageway crying bitterly. this circumstance surprised him, because marygold was one of the cheerfullest little people whom you would see in a summer's day, and hardly shed a thimbleful of tears in a twelvemonth. when midas heard her sobs, he determined to put little marygold into better spirits, by an agreeable surprise; so, leaning across the table, he touched his daughter's bowl (which was a china one, with pretty figures all around it), and transmuted it to gleaming gold. meanwhile, marygold slowly and disconsolately opened the door, and showed herself with her apron at her eyes, still sobbing as if her heart would break. "how now, my little lady!" cried midas. "pray what is the matter with you, this bright morning?" marygold, without taking the apron from her eyes, held out her hand, in which was one of the roses which midas had so recently transmuted. "beautiful!" exclaimed her father. "and what is there in this magnificent golden rose to make you cry?" "ah, dear father!" answered the child, as well as her sobs would let her; "it is not beautiful, but the ugliest flower that ever grew! as soon as i was dressed i ran into the garden to gather some roses for you; because i know you like them, and like them the better when gathered by your little daughter. but, oh dear, dear me! what do you think has happened? such a misfortune! all the beautiful roses, that smelled so sweetly and had so many lovely blushes, are blighted and spoilt! they are grown quite yellow, as you see this one, and have no longer any fragrance! what can have been the matter with them?" "poh, my dear little girl,--pray don't cry about it!" said midas, who was ashamed to confess that he himself had wrought the change which so greatly afflicted her. "sit down and eat your bread and milk! you will find it easy enough to exchange a golden rose like that (which will last hundreds of years) for an ordinary one which would wither in a day." "i don't care for such roses as this!" cried marygold, tossing it contemptuously away. "it has no smell, and the hard petals prick my nose!" the child now sat down to table, but was so occupied with her grief for the blighted roses that she did not even notice the wonderful transmutation of her china bowl. perhaps this was all the better; for marygold was accustomed to take pleasure in looking at the queer figures, and strange trees and houses, that were painted on the circumference of the bowl; and these ornaments were now entirely lost in the yellow hue of the metal. midas, meanwhile, had poured out a cup of coffee, and, as a matter of course, the coffee-pot, whatever metal it may have been when he took it up, was gold when he set it down. he thought to himself, that it was rather an extravagant style of splendor, in a king of his simple habits, to breakfast off a service of gold, and began to be puzzled with the difficulty of keeping his treasures safe. the cupboard and the kitchen would no longer be a secure place of deposit for articles so valuable as golden bowls and coffee-pots. amid these thoughts, he lifted a spoonful of coffee to his lips, and, sipping it, was astonished to perceive that, the instant his lips touched the liquid, it became molten gold, and, the next moment, hardened into a lump! "ha!" exclaimed midas, rather aghast. "what is the matter, father?" asked little marygold, gazing at him, with the tears still standing in her eyes. "nothing, child, nothing!" said midas. "eat your milk, before it gets quite cold." he took one of the nice little trouts on his plate, and, by way of experiment, touched its tail with his finger. to his horror, it was immediately transmuted from an admirably fried brook-trout into a gold-fish, though not one of those gold-fishes which people often keep in glass globes, as ornaments for the parlor. no; but it was really a metallic fish, and looked as if it had been very cunningly made by the nicest goldsmith in the world. its little bones were now golden wires; its fins and tail were thin plates of gold; and there were the marks of the fork in it, and all the delicate, frothy appearance of a nicely fried fish, exactly imitated in metal. a very pretty piece of work, as you may suppose; only king midas, just at that moment, would much rather have had a real trout in his dish than this elaborate and valuable imitation of one. "i don't quite see," thought he to himself, "how i am to get any breakfast!" he took one of the smoking-hot cakes, and had scarcely broken it, when, to his cruel mortification, though, a moment before, it had been of the whitest wheat, it assumed the yellow hue of indian meal. to say the truth, if it had really been a hot indian cake, midas would have prized it a good deal more than he now did, when its solidity and increased weight made him too bitterly sensible that it was gold. almost in despair, he helped himself to a boiled egg, which immediately underwent a change similar to those of the trout and the cake. the egg, indeed, might have been mistaken for one of those which the famous goose, in the story-book, was in the habit of laying; but king midas was the only goose that had had anything to do with the matter. "well, this is a quandary!" thought he, leaning back in his chair, and looking quite enviously at little marygold, who was now eating her bread and milk with great satisfaction. "such a costly breakfast before me, and nothing that can be eaten!" hoping that, by dint of great dispatch, he might avoid what he now felt to be a considerable inconvenience, king midas next snatched a hot potato, and attempted to cram it into his mouth, and swallow it in a hurry. but the golden touch was too nimble for him. he found his mouth full, not of mealy potato, but of solid metal, which so burnt his tongue that he roared aloud, and, jumping up from the table, began to dance and stamp about the room, both with pain and affright. "father, dear father!" cried little marygold, who was a very affectionate child, "pray what is the matter? have you burnt your mouth?" "ah, dear child," groaned midas, dolefully, "i don't know what is to become of your poor father!" and, truly, my dear little folks, did you ever hear of such a pitiable case in all your lives? here was literally the richest breakfast that could be set before a king, and its very richness made it absolutely good for nothing. the poorest laborer, sitting down to his crust of bread and cup of water, was far better off than king midas, whose delicate food was really worth its weight in gold. and what was to be done? already, at breakfast, midas was excessively hungry. would he be less so by dinner-time? and how ravenous would be his appetite for supper, which must undoubtedly consist of the same sort of indigestible dishes as those now before him! how many days, think you, would he survive a continuance of this rich fare? these reflections so troubled wise king midas, that he began to doubt whether, after all, riches are the one desirable thing in the world, or even the most desirable. but this was only a passing thought. so fascinated was midas with the glitter of the yellow metal, that he would still have refused to give up the golden touch for so paltry a consideration as a breakfast. just imagine what a price for one meal's victuals! it would have been the same as paying millions and millions of money (and as many millions more as would take forever to reckon up) for some fried trout, an egg, a potato, a hot cake, and a cup of coffee! "it would be quite too dear," thought midas. nevertheless, so great was his hunger, and the perplexity of his situation, that he again groaned aloud, and very grievously too. our pretty marygold could endure it no longer. she sat, a moment, gazing at her father, and trying, with all the might of her little wits, to find out what was the matter with him. then, with a sweet and sorrowful impulse to comfort him, she started from her chair, and, running to midas, threw her arms affectionately about his knees. he bent down and kissed her. he felt that his little daughter's love was worth a thousand times more than he had gained by the golden touch. "my precious, precious marygold!" cried he. but marygold made no answer. alas, what had he done? how fatal was the gift which the stranger bestowed! the moment the lips of midas touched marygold's forehead, a change had taken place. her sweet, rosy face, so full of affection as it had been, assumed a glittering yellow color, with yellow tear-drops congealing on her cheeks. her beautiful brown ringlets took the same tint. her soft and tender little form grew hard and inflexible within her father's encircling arms. oh, terrible misfortune! the victim of his insatiable desire for wealth, little marygold was a human child no longer, but a golden statue! yes, there she was, with the questioning look of love, grief, and pity, hardened into her face. it was the prettiest and most woful sight that ever mortal saw. all the features and tokens of marygold were there; even the beloved little dimple remained in her golden chin. but, the more perfect was the resemblance, the greater was the father's agony at beholding this golden image, which was all that was left him of a daughter. it had been a favorite phrase of midas, whenever he felt particularly fond of the child, to say that she was worth her weight in gold. and now the phrase had become literally true. and now, at last, when it was too late, he felt how infinitely a warm and tender heart, that loved him, exceeded in value all the wealth that could be piled up betwixt the earth and sky! it would be too sad a story, if i were to tell you how midas, in the fulness of all his gratified desires, began to wring his hands and bemoan himself; and how he could neither bear to look at marygold, nor yet to look away from her. except when his eyes were fixed on the image, he could not possibly believe that she was changed to gold. but, stealing another glance, there was the precious little figure, with a yellow tear-drop on its yellow cheek, and a look so piteous and tender, that it seemed as if that very expression must needs soften the gold, and make it flesh again. this, however, could not be. so midas had only to wring his hands, and to wish that he were the poorest man in the wide world, if the loss of all his wealth might bring back the faintest rose-color to his dear child's face. while he was in this tumult of despair, he suddenly beheld a stranger standing near the door. midas bent down his head, without speaking; for he recognized the same figure which had appeared to him, the day before, in the treasure-room, and had bestowed on him this disastrous faculty of the golden touch. the stranger's countenance still wore a smile, which seemed to shed a yellow lustre all about the room, and gleamed on little marygold's image, and on the other objects that had been transmuted by the touch of midas. "well, friend midas," said the stranger, "pray how do you succeed with the golden touch?" midas shook his head. "i am very miserable," said he. "very miserable, indeed!" exclaimed the stranger. "and how happens that? have i not faithfully kept my promise with you? have you not everything that your heart desired?" "gold is not everything," answered midas. "and i have lost all that my heart really cared for." "ah! so you have made a discovery, since yesterday?" observed the stranger. "let us see, then. which of these two things do you think is really worth the most,--the gift of the golden touch, or one cup of clear cold water?" "o blessed water!" exclaimed midas. "it will never moisten my parched throat again!" "the golden touch," continued the stranger, "or a crust of bread?" "a piece of bread," answered midas, "is worth all the gold on earth!" "the golden touch," asked the stranger, "or your own little marygold, warm, soft, and loving as she was an hour ago?" "oh my child, my dear child!" cried poor midas, wringing his hands. "i would not have given that one small dimple in her chin for the power of changing this whole big earth into a solid lump of gold!" "you are wiser than you were, king midas!" said the stranger, looking seriously at him. "your own heart, i perceive, has not been entirely changed from flesh to gold. were it so, your case would indeed be desperate. but you appear to be still capable of understanding that the commonest things, such as lie within everybody's grasp, are more valuable than the riches which so many mortals sigh and struggle after. tell me, now, do you sincerely desire to rid yourself of this golden touch?" "it is hateful to me!" replied midas. a fly settled on his nose, but immediately fell to the floor; for it, too, had become gold. midas shuddered. "go, then," said the stranger, "and plunge into the river that glides past the bottom of your garden. take likewise a vase of the same water, and sprinkle it over any object that you may desire to change back again from gold into its former substance. if you do this in earnestness and sincerity, it may possibly repair the mischief which your avarice has occasioned." king midas bowed low; and when he lifted his head, the lustrous stranger had vanished. you will easily believe that midas lost no time in snatching up a great earthen pitcher (but, alas me! it was no longer earthen after he touched it), and hastening to the river-side. as he scampered along, and forced his way through the shrubbery, it was positively marvellous to see how the foliage turned yellow behind him, as if the autumn had been there, and nowhere else. on reaching the river's brink, he plunged headlong in, without waiting so much as to pull off his shoes. "poof! poof! poof!" snorted king midas, as his head emerged out of the water. "well; this is really a refreshing bath, and i think it must have quite washed away the golden touch. and now for filling my pitcher!" as he dipped the pitcher into the water, it gladdened his very heart to see it change from gold into the same good, honest earthen vessel which it had been before he touched it. he was conscious, also, of a change within himself. a cold, hard, and heavy weight seemed to have gone out of his bosom. no doubt, his heart had been gradually losing its human substance, and transmuting itself into insensible metal, but had now softened back again into flesh. perceiving a violet, that grew on the bank of the river, midas touched it with his finger, and was overjoyed to find that the delicate flower retained its purple hue, instead of undergoing a yellow blight. the curse of the golden touch had, therefore, really been removed from him. king midas hastened back to the palace; and, i suppose, the servants knew not what to make of it when they saw their royal master so carefully bringing home an earthen pitcher of water. but that water, which was to undo all the mischief that his folly had wrought, was more precious to midas than an ocean of molten gold could have been. the first thing he did, as you need hardly be told, was to sprinkle it by handfuls over the golden figure of little marygold. no sooner did it fall on her than you would have laughed to see how the rosy color came back to the dear child's cheek! and how she began to sneeze and sputter!--and how astonished she was to find herself dripping wet, and her father still throwing more water over her! "pray do not, dear father!" cried she. "see how you have wet my nice frock, which i put on only this morning!" for marygold did not know that she had been a little golden statue; nor could she remember anything that had happened since the moment when she ran with outstretched arms to comfort poor king midas. her father did not think it necessary to tell his beloved child how very foolish he had been, but contented himself with showing how much wiser he had now grown. for this purpose, he led little marygold into the garden, where he sprinkled all the remainder of the water over the rose-bushes, and with such good effect that above five thousand roses recovered their beautiful bloom. there were two circumstances, however, which, as long as he lived, used to put king midas in mind of the golden touch. one was, that the sands of the river sparkled like gold; the other, that little marygold's hair had now a golden tinge, which he had never observed in it before she had been transmuted by the effect of his kiss. this change of hue was really an improvement, and made marygold's hair richer than in her babyhood. when king midas had grown quite an old man, and used to trot marygold's children on his knee, he was fond of telling them this marvellous story, pretty much as i have now told it to you. and then would he stroke their glossy ringlets, and tell them that their hair, likewise, had a rich shade of gold, which they had inherited from their mother. "and to tell you the truth, my precious little folks," quoth king midas, diligently trotting the children all the while, "ever since that morning, i have hated the very sight of all other gold, save this!" shadow brook _after the story_ "well, children," inquired eustace, who was very fond of eliciting a definite opinion from his auditors, "did you ever, in all your lives, listen to a better story than this of 'the golden touch'?" "why, as to the story of king midas," said saucy primrose, "it was a famous one thousands of years before mr. eustace bright came into the world, and will continue to be so as long after he quits it. but some people have what we may call 'the leaden touch,' and make everything dull and heavy that they lay their fingers upon." "you are a smart child, primrose, to be not yet in your teens," said eustace, taken rather aback by the piquancy of her criticism. "but you well know, in your naughty little heart, that i have burnished the old gold of midas all over anew, and have made it shine as it never shone before. and then that figure of marygold! do you perceive no nice workmanship in that? and how finely i have brought out and deepened the moral! what say you, sweet fern, dandelion, clover, periwinkle? would any of you, after hearing this story, be so foolish as to desire the faculty of changing things to gold?" "i should like," said periwinkle, a girl of ten, "to have the power of turning everything to gold with my right forefinger; but, with my left forefinger, i should want the power of changing it back again, if the first change did not please me. and i know what i would do, this very afternoon!" "pray tell me," said eustace. "why," answered periwinkle, "i would touch every one of these golden leaves on the trees with my left forefinger, and make them all green again; so that we might have the summer back at once, with no ugly winter in the mean time." "o periwinkle!" cried eustace bright, "there you are wrong, and would do a great deal of mischief. were i midas, i would make nothing else but just such golden days as these over and over again, all the year throughout. my best thoughts always come a little too late. why did not i tell you how old king midas came to america, and changed the dusky autumn, such as it is in other countries, into the burnished beauty which it here puts on? he gilded the leaves of the great volume of nature." "cousin eustace," said sweet fern, a good little boy, who was always making particular inquiries about the precise height of giants and the littleness of fairies, "how big was marygold, and how much did she weigh after she was turned to gold?" "she was about as tall as you are," replied eustace, "and, as gold is very heavy, she weighed at least two thousand pounds, and might have been coined into thirty or forty thousand gold dollars. i wish primrose were worth half as much. come, little people, let us clamber out of the dell, and look about us." they did so. the sun was now an hour or two beyond its noontide mark, and filled the great hollow of the valley with its western radiance, so that it seemed to be brimming with mellow light, and to spill it over the surrounding hill-sides, like golden wine out of a bowl. it was such a day that you could not help saying of it, "there never was such a day before!" although yesterday was just such a day, and to-morrow will be just such another. ah, but there are very few of them in a twelvemonth's circle! it is a remarkable peculiarity of these october days, that each of them seems to occupy a great deal of space, although the sun rises rather tardily at that season of the year, and goes to bed, as little children ought, at sober six o'clock, or even earlier. we cannot, therefore, call the days long; but they appear, somehow or other, to make up for their shortness by their breadth; and when the cool night comes, we are conscious of having enjoyed a big armful of life, since morning. "come, children, come!" cried eustace bright. "more nuts, more nuts, more nuts! fill all your baskets; and, at christmas time, i will crack them for you, and tell you beautiful stories!" so away they went; all of them in excellent spirits, except little dandelion, who, i am sorry to tell you, had been sitting on a chestnut-bur, and was stuck as full as a pincushion of its prickles. dear me, how uncomfortably he must have felt! the paradise of children tanglewood play-room _introductory to "the paradise of children"_ the golden days of october passed away, as so many other octobers have, and brown november likewise, and the greater part of chill december, too. at last came merry christmas, and eustace bright along with it, making it all the merrier by his presence. and, the day after his arrival from college, there came a mighty snow-storm. up to this time, the winter had held back, and had given us a good many mild days, which were like smiles upon its wrinkled visage. the grass had kept itself green, in sheltered places, such as the nooks of southern hill-slopes, and along the lee of the stone fences. it was but a week or two ago, and since the beginning of the month, that the children had found a dandelion in bloom, on the margin of shadow brook, where it glides out of the dell. but no more green grass and dandelions now. this was such a snow-storm! twenty miles of it might have been visible at once, between the windows of tanglewood and the dome of taconic, had it been possible to see so far among the eddying drifts that whitened all the atmosphere. it seemed as if the hills were giants, and were flinging monstrous handfuls of snow at one another, in their enormous sport. so thick were the fluttering snow-flakes, that even the trees, midway down the valley, were hidden by them the greater part of the time. sometimes, it is true, the little prisoners of tanglewood could discern a dim outline of monument mountain, and the smooth whiteness of the frozen lake at its base, and the black or gray tracts of woodland in the nearer landscape. but these were merely peeps through the tempest. nevertheless, the children rejoiced greatly in the snow-storm. they had already made acquaintance with it, by tumbling heels over head into its highest drifts, and flinging snow at one another, as we have just fancied the berkshire mountains to be doing. and now they had come back to their spacious play-room, which was as big as the great drawing-room, and was lumbered with all sorts of playthings, large and small. the biggest was a rocking-horse, that looked like a real pony; and there was a whole family of wooden, waxen, plaster, and china dolls, besides rag-babies; and blocks enough to build bunker hill monument, and nine-pins, and balls, and humming tops, and battledores, and grace-sticks, and skipping-ropes, and more of such valuable property than i could tell of in a printed page. but the children liked the snow-storm better than them all. it suggested so many brisk enjoyments for to-morrow, and all the remainder of the winter. the sleigh-ride; the slides down hill into the valley; the snow-images that were to be shaped out; the snow-fortresses that were to be built; and the snowballing to be carried on! so the little folks blessed the snow-storm, and were glad to see it come thicker and thicker, and watched hopefully the long drift that was piling itself up in the avenue, and was already higher than any of their heads. "why, we shall be blocked up till spring!" cried they, with the hugest delight. "what a pity that the house is too high to be quite covered up! the little red house, down yonder, will be buried up to its eaves." "you silly children, what do you want of more snow?" asked eustace, who, tired of some novel that he was skimming through, had strolled into the play-room. "it has done mischief enough already, by spoiling the only skating that i could hope for through the winter. we shall see nothing more of the lake till april; and this was to have been my first day upon it! don't you pity me, primrose?" "oh, to be sure!" answered primrose, laughing. "but, for your comfort, we will listen to another of your old stories, such as you told us under the porch, and down in the hollow, by shadow brook. perhaps i shall like them better now, when there is nothing to do, than while there were nuts to be gathered, and beautiful weather to enjoy." hereupon, periwinkle, clover, sweet fern, and as many others of the little fraternity and cousinhood as were still at tanglewood, gathered about eustace, and earnestly besought him for a story. the student yawned, stretched himself, and then, to the vast admiration of the small people, skipped three times back and forth over the top of a chair, in order, as he explained to them, to set his wits in motion. "well, well, children," said he, after these preliminaries, "since you insist, and primrose has set her heart upon it, i will see what can be done for you. and, that you may know what happy days there were before snow-storms came into fashion, i will tell you a story of the oldest of all old times, when the world was as new as sweet fern's bran-new humming-top. there was then but one season in the year, and that was the delightful summer; and but one age for mortals, and that was childhood." "i never heard of that before," said primrose. "of course, you never did," answered eustace. "it shall be a story of what nobody but myself ever dreamed of,--a paradise of children,--and how, by the naughtiness of just such a little imp as primrose here, it all came to nothing." so eustace bright sat down in the chair which he had just been skipping over, took cowslip upon his knee, ordered silence throughout the auditory, and began a story about a sad naughty child, whose name was pandora, and about her playfellow epimetheus. you may read it, word for word, in the pages that come next. the paradise of children long, long ago, when this old world was in its tender infancy, there was a child, named epimetheus, who never had either father or mother; and, that he might not be lonely, another child, fatherless and motherless like himself, was sent from a far country, to live with him, and be his playfellow and helpmate. her name was pandora. the first thing that pandora saw, when she entered the cottage where epimetheus dwelt, was a great box. and almost the first question which she put to him, after crossing the threshold, was this,-- "epimetheus, what have you in that box?" "my dear little pandora," answered epimetheus, "that is a secret, and you must be kind enough not to ask any questions about it. the box was left here to be kept safely, and i do not myself know what it contains." "but who gave it to you?" asked pandora. "and where did it come from?" "that is a secret, too," replied epimetheus. "how provoking!" exclaimed pandora, pouting her lip. "i wish the great ugly box were out of the way!" "oh come, don't think of it any more," cried epimetheus. "let us run out of doors, and have some nice play with the other children." it is thousands of years since epimetheus and pandora were alive; and the world, nowadays, is a very different sort of thing from what it was in their time. then, everybody was a child. there needed no fathers and mothers to take care of the children; because there was no danger, nor trouble of any kind, and no clothes to be mended, and there was always plenty to eat and drink. whenever a child wanted his dinner, he found it growing on a tree; and, if he looked at the tree in the morning, he could see the expanding blossom of that night's supper; or, at eventide, he saw the tender bud of to-morrow's breakfast. it was a very pleasant life indeed. no labor to be done, no tasks to be studied; nothing but sports and dances, and sweet voices of children talking, or carolling like birds, or gushing out in merry laughter, throughout the livelong day. what was most wonderful of all, the children never quarrelled among themselves; neither had they any crying fits; nor, since time first began, had a single one of these little mortals ever gone apart into a corner, and sulked. oh, what a good time was that to be alive in? the truth is, those ugly little winged monsters, called troubles, which are now almost as numerous as mosquitoes, had never yet been seen on the earth. it is probable that the very greatest disquietude which a child had ever experienced was pandora's vexation at not being able to discover the secret of the mysterious box. this was at first only the faint shadow of a trouble; but, every day, it grew more and more substantial, until, before a great while, the cottage of epimetheus and pandora was less sunshiny than those of the other children. "whence can the box have come?" pandora continually kept saying to herself and to epimetheus. "and what in the world can be inside of it?" "always talking about this box!" said epimetheus, at last; for he had grown extremely tired of the subject. "i wish, dear pandora, you would try to talk of something else. come, let us go and gather some ripe figs, and eat them under the trees, for our supper. and i know a vine that has the sweetest and juiciest grapes you ever tasted." "always talking about grapes and figs!" cried pandora, pettishly. [illustration: pandora] "well, then," said epimetheus, who was a very good-tempered child, like a multitude of children in those days, "let us run out and have a merry time with our playmates." "i am tired of merry times, and don't care if i never have any more!" answered our pettish little pandora. "and, besides, i never do have any. this ugly box! i am so taken up with thinking about it all the time. i insist upon your telling me what is inside of it." "as i have already said, fifty times over, i do not know!" replied epimetheus, getting a little vexed. "how, then, can i tell you what is inside?" "you might open it," said pandora, looking sideways at epimetheus, "and then we could see for ourselves." "pandora, what are you thinking of?" exclaimed epimetheus. and his face expressed so much horror at the idea of looking into a box, which had been confided to him on the condition of his never opening it, that pandora thought it best not to suggest it any more. still, however, she could not help thinking and talking about the box. "at least," said she, "you can tell me how it came here." "it was left at the door," replied epimetheus, "just before you came, by a person who looked very smiling and intelligent, and who could hardly forbear laughing as he put it down. he was dressed in an odd kind of a cloak, and had on a cap that seemed to be made partly of feathers, so that it looked almost as if it had wings." "what sort of a staff had he?" asked pandora. "oh, the most curious staff you ever saw!" cried epimetheus. "it was like two serpents twisting around a stick, and was carved so naturally that i, at first, thought the serpents were alive." "i know him," said pandora, thoughtfully. "nobody else has such a staff. it was quicksilver; and he brought me hither, as well as the box. no doubt he intended it for me; and, most probably, it contains pretty dresses for me to wear, or toys for you and me to play with, or something very nice for us both to eat!" "perhaps so," answered epimetheus, turning away. "but until quicksilver comes back and tells us so, we have neither of us any right to lift the lid of the box." "what a dull boy he is!" muttered pandora, as epimetheus left the cottage. "i do wish he had a little more enterprise!" for the first time since her arrival, epimetheus had gone out without asking pandora to accompany him. he went to gather figs and grapes by himself, or to seek whatever amusement he could find, in other society than his little playfellow's. he was tired to death of hearing about the box, and heartily wished that quicksilver, or whatever was the messenger's name, had left it at some other child's door, where pandora would never have set eyes on it. so perseveringly as she did babble about this one thing! the box, the box, and nothing but the box! it seemed as if the box were bewitched, and as if the cottage were not big enough to hold it, without pandora's continually stumbling over it, and making epimetheus stumble over it likewise, and bruising all four of their shins. well, it was really hard that poor epimetheus should have a box in his ears from morning till night; especially as the little people of the earth were so unaccustomed to vexations, in those happy days, that they knew not how to deal with them. thus, a small vexation made as much disturbance then, as a far bigger one would in our own times. after epimetheus was gone, pandora stood gazing at the box. she had called it ugly, above a hundred times; but, in spite of all that she had said against it, it was positively a very handsome article of furniture, and would have been quite an ornament to any room in which it should be placed. it was made of a beautiful kind of wood, with dark and rich veins spreading over its surface, which was so highly polished that little pandora could see her face in it. as the child had no other looking-glass, it is odd that she did not value the box, merely on this account. the edges and corners of the box were carved with most wonderful skill. around the margin there were figures of graceful men and women, and the prettiest children ever seen, reclining or sporting amid a profusion of flowers and foliage; and these various objects were so exquisitely represented, and were wrought together in such harmony, that flowers, foliage, and human beings seemed to combine into a wreath of mingled beauty. but here and there, peeping forth from behind the carved foliage, pandora once or twice fancied that she saw a face not so lovely, or something or other that was disagreeable, and which stole the beauty out of all the rest. nevertheless, on looking more closely, and touching the spot with her finger, she could discover nothing of the kind. some face, that was really beautiful, had been made to look ugly by her catching a sideway glimpse at it. the most beautiful face of all was done in what is called high relief, in the centre of the lid. there was nothing else, save the dark, smooth richness of the polished wood, and this one face in the centre, with a garland of flowers about its brow. pandora had looked at this face a great many times, and imagined that the mouth could smile if it liked, or be grave when it chose, the same as any living mouth. the features, indeed, all wore a very lively and rather mischievous expression, which looked almost as if it needs must burst out of the carved lips, and utter itself in words. had the mouth spoken, it would probably have been something like this: "do not be afraid, pandora! what harm can there be in opening the box? never mind that poor, simple epimetheus! you are wiser than he, and have ten times as much spirit. open the box, and see if you do not find something very pretty!" the box, i had almost forgotten to say, was fastened; not by a lock, nor by any other such contrivance, but by a very intricate knot of gold cord. there appeared to be no end to this knot, and no beginning. never was a knot so cunningly twisted, nor with so many ins and outs, which roguishly defied the skilfullest fingers to disentangle them. and yet, by the very difficulty that there was in it, pandora was the more tempted to examine the knot, and just see how it was made. two or three times, already, she had stooped over the box, and taken the knot between her thumb and forefinger, but without positively trying to undo it. "i really believe," said she to herself, "that i begin to see how it was done. nay, perhaps i could tie it up again, after undoing it. there would be no harm in that, surely. even epimetheus would not blame me for that. i need not open the box, and should not, of course, without the foolish boy's consent, even if the knot were untied." it might have been better for pandora if she had had a little work to do, or anything to employ her mind upon, so as not to be so constantly thinking of this one subject. but children led so easy a life, before any troubles came into the world, that they had really a great deal too much leisure. they could not be forever playing at hide-and-seek among the flower-shrubs, or at blind-man's-buff with garlands over their eyes, or at whatever other games had been found out, while mother earth was in her babyhood. when life is all sport, toil is the real play. there was absolutely nothing to do. a little sweeping and dusting about the cottage, i suppose, and the gathering of fresh flowers (which were only too abundant everywhere), and arranging them in vases,--and poor little pandora's day's work was over. and then, for the rest of the day, there was the box! after all, i am not quite sure that the box was not a blessing to her in its way. it supplied her with such a variety of ideas to think of, and to talk about, whenever she had anybody to listen! when she was in good-humor, she could admire the bright polish of its sides, and the rich border of beautiful faces and foliage that ran all around it. or, if she chanced to be ill-tempered, she could give it a push, or kick it with her naughty little foot. and many a kick did the box--(but it was a mischievous box, as we shall see, and deserved all it got)--many a kick did it receive. but, certain it is, if it had not been for the box, our active-minded little pandora would not have known half so well how to spend her time as she now did. for it was really an endless employment to guess what was inside. what could it be, indeed? just imagine, my little hearers, how busy your wits would be, if there were a great box in the house, which, as you might have reason to suppose, contained something new and pretty for your christmas or new-year's gifts. do you think that you should be less curious than pandora? if you were left alone with the box, might you not feel a little tempted to lift the lid? but you would not do it. oh, fie! no, no! only, if you thought there were toys in it, it would be so very hard to let slip an opportunity of taking just one peep! i know not whether pandora expected any toys; for none had yet begun to be made, probably, in those days, when the world itself was one great plaything for the children that dwelt upon it. but pandora was convinced that there was something very beautiful and valuable in the box; and therefore she felt just as anxious to take a peep as any of these little girls, here around me, would have felt. and, possibly, a little more so; but of that i am not quite so certain. on this particular day, however, which we have so long been talking about, her curiosity grew so much greater than it usually was, that, at last, she approached the box. she was more than half determined to open it, if she could. ah, naughty pandora! first, however, she tried to lift it. it was heavy; quite too heavy for the slender strength of a child, like pandora. she raised one end of the box a few inches from the floor, and let it fall again, with a pretty loud thump. a moment afterwards, she almost fancied that she heard something stir inside of the box. she applied her ear as closely as possible, and listened. positively, there did seem to be a kind of stifled murmur, within! or was it merely the singing in pandora's ears? or could it be the beating of her heart? the child could not quite satisfy herself whether she had heard anything or no. but, at all events, her curiosity was stronger than ever. as she drew back her head, her eyes fell upon the knot of gold cord. "it must have been a very ingenious person who tied this knot," said pandora to herself. "but i think i could untie it nevertheless. i am resolved, at least, to find the two ends of the cord." so she took the golden knot in her fingers, and pried into its intricacies as sharply as she could. almost without intending it, or quite knowing what she was about, she was soon busily engaged in attempting to undo it. meanwhile, the bright sunshine came through the open window; as did likewise the merry voices of the children, playing at a distance, and perhaps the voice of epimetheus among them. pandora stopped to listen. what a beautiful day it was! would it not be wiser, if she were to let the troublesome knot alone, and think no more about the box, but run and join her little playfellows, and be happy? all this time, however, her fingers were half unconsciously busy with the knot; and happening to glance at the flower-wreathed face on the lid of the enchanted box, she seemed to perceive it slyly grinning at her. "that face looks very mischievous," thought pandora. "i wonder whether it smiles because i am doing wrong! i have the greatest mind in the world to run away!" but just then, by the merest accident, she gave the knot a kind of a twist, which produced a wonderful result. the gold cord untwined itself, as if by magic, and left the box without a fastening. "this is the strangest thing i ever knew!" said pandora. "what will epimetheus say? and how can i possibly tie it up again?" she made one or two attempts to restore the knot, but soon found it quite beyond her skill. it had disentangled itself so suddenly that she could not in the least remember how the strings had been doubled into one another; and when she tried to recollect the shape and appearance of the knot, it seemed to have gone entirely out of her mind. nothing was to be done, therefore, but to let the box remain as it was until epimetheus should come in. "but," said pandora, "when he finds the knot untied, he will know that i have done it. how shall i make him believe that i have not looked into the box?" and then the thought came into her naughty little heart, that, since she would be suspected of having looked into the box, she might just as well do so at once. oh, very naughty and very foolish pandora! you should have thought only of doing what was right, and of leaving undone what was wrong, and not of what your playfellow epimetheus would have said or believed. and so perhaps she might, if the enchanted face on the lid of the box had not looked so bewitchingly persuasive at her, and if she had not seemed to hear, more distinctly than before, the murmur of small voices within. she could not tell whether it was fancy or no; but there was quite a little tumult of whispers in her ear,--or else it was her curiosity that whispered,-- "let us out, dear pandora,--pray let us out! we will be such nice pretty playfellows for you! only let us out!" "what can it be?" thought pandora. "is there something alive in the box? well!--yes!--i am resolved to take just one peep! only one peep; and then the lid shall be shut down as safely as ever! there cannot possibly be any harm in just one little peep!" but it is now time for us to see what epimetheus was doing. this was the first time, since his little playmate had come to dwell with him, that he had attempted to enjoy any pleasure in which she did not partake. but nothing went right; nor was he nearly so happy as on other days. he could not find a sweet grape or a ripe fig (if epimetheus had a fault, it was a little too much fondness for figs); or, if ripe at all, they were over-ripe, and so sweet as to be cloying. there was no mirth in his heart, such as usually made his voice gush out, of its own accord, and swell the merriment of his companions. in short, he grew so uneasy and discontented, that the other children could not imagine what was the matter with epimetheus. neither did he himself know what ailed him, any better than they did. for you must recollect that, at the time we are speaking of, it was everybody's nature, and constant habit, to be happy. the world had not yet learned to be otherwise. not a single soul or body, since these children were first sent to enjoy themselves on the beautiful earth, had ever been sick or out of sorts. at length, discovering that, somehow or other, he put a stop to all the play, epimetheus judged it best to go back to pandora, who was in a humor better suited to his own. but, with a hope of giving her pleasure, he gathered some flowers, and made them into a wreath, which he meant to put upon her head. the flowers were very lovely,--roses, and lilies, and orange-blossoms, and a great many more, which left a trail of fragrance behind, as epimetheus carried them along; and the wreath was put together with as much skill as could reasonably be expected of a boy. the fingers of little girls, it has always appeared to me, are the fittest to twine flower-wreaths; but boys could do it, in those days, rather better than they can now. and here i must mention that a great black cloud had been gathering in the sky, for some time past, although it had not yet overspread the sun. but, just as epimetheus reached the cottage door, this cloud began to intercept the sunshine, and thus to make a sudden and sad obscurity. he entered softly; for he meant, if possible, to steal behind pandora, and fling the wreath of flowers over her head, before she should be aware of his approach. but, as it happened, there was no need of his treading so very lightly. he might have trod as heavily as he pleased,--as heavily as a grown man,--as heavily, i was going to say, as an elephant,--without much probability of pandora's hearing his footsteps. she was too intent upon her purpose. at the moment of his entering the cottage, the naughty child had put her hand to the lid, and was on the point of opening the mysterious box. epimetheus beheld her. if he had cried out, pandora would probably have withdrawn her hand, and the fatal mystery of the box might never have been known. but epimetheus himself, although he said very little about it, had his own share of curiosity to know what was inside. perceiving that pandora was resolved to find out the secret, he determined that his playfellow should not be the only wise person in the cottage. and if there were anything pretty or valuable in the box, he meant to take half of it to himself. thus, after all his sage speeches to pandora about restraining her curiosity, epimetheus turned out to be quite as foolish, and nearly as much in fault, as she. so, whenever we blame pandora for what happened, we must not forget to shake our heads at epimetheus likewise. as pandora raised the lid, the cottage grew very dark and dismal; for the black cloud had now swept quite over the sun, and seemed to have buried it alive. there had, for a little while past, been a low growling and muttering, which all at once broke into a heavy peal of thunder. but pandora, heeding nothing of all this, lifted the lid nearly upright, and looked inside. it seemed as if a sudden swarm of winged creatures brushed past her, taking flight out of the box, while, at the same instant, she heard the voice of epimetheus, with a lamentable tone, as if he were in pain. "oh, i am stung!" cried he. "i am stung! naughty pandora! why have you opened this wicked box?" pandora let fall the lid, and, starting up, looked about her, to see what had befallen epimetheus. the thunder-cloud had so darkened the room that she could not very clearly discern what was in it. but she heard a disagreeable buzzing, as if a great many huge flies, or gigantic mosquitoes, or those insects which we call dor-bugs, and pinching-dogs, were darting about. and, as her eyes grew more accustomed to the imperfect light, she saw a crowd of ugly little shapes, with bats' wings, looking abominably spiteful, and armed with terribly long stings in their tails. it was one of these that had stung epimetheus. nor was it a great while before pandora herself began to scream, in no less pain and affright than her playfellow, and making a vast deal more hubbub about it. an odious little monster had settled on her forehead, and would have stung her i know not how deeply, if epimetheus had not run and brushed it away. now, if you wish to know what these ugly things might be, which had made their escape out of the box, i must tell you that they were the whole family of earthly troubles. there were evil passions; there were a great many species of cares; there were more than a hundred and fifty sorrows; there were diseases, in a vast number of miserable and painful shapes; there were more kinds of naughtiness than it would be of any use to talk about. in short, everything that has since afflicted the souls and bodies of mankind had been shut up in the mysterious box, and given to epimetheus and pandora to be kept safely, in order that the happy children of the world might never be molested by them. had they been faithful to their trust, all would have gone well. no grown person would ever have been sad, nor any child have had cause to shed a single tear, from that hour until this moment. but--and you may see by this how a wrong act of any one mortal is a calamity to the whole world--by pandora's lifting the lid of that miserable box, and by the fault of epimetheus, too, in not preventing her, these troubles have obtained a foothold among us, and do not seem very likely to be driven away in a hurry. for it was impossible, as you will easily guess, that the two children should keep the ugly swarm in their own little cottage. on the contrary, the first thing that they did was to fling open the doors and windows, in hopes of getting rid of them; and, sure enough, away flew the winged troubles all abroad, and so pestered and tormented the small people, everywhere about, that none of them so much as smiled for many days afterwards. and, what was very singular, all the flowers and dewy blossoms on earth, not one of which had hitherto faded, now began to droop and shed their leaves, after a day or two. the children, moreover, who before seemed immortal in their childhood, now grew older, day by day, and came soon to be youths and maidens, and men and women by and by, and aged people, before they dreamed of such a thing. meanwhile, the naughty pandora, and hardly less naughty epimetheus, remained in their cottage. both of them had been grievously stung, and were in a good deal of pain, which seemed the more intolerable to them, because it was the very first pain that had ever been felt since the world began. of course, they were entirely unaccustomed to it, and could have no idea what it meant. besides all this, they were in exceedingly bad humor, both with themselves and with one another. in order to indulge it to the utmost, epimetheus sat down sullenly in a corner with his back towards pandora; while pandora flung herself upon the floor and rested her head on the fatal and abominable box. she was crying bitterly, and sobbing as if her heart would break. suddenly there was a gentle little tap on the inside of the lid. "what can that be?" cried pandora, lifting her head. but either epimetheus had not heard the tap, or was too much out of humor to notice it. at any rate, he made no answer. "you are very unkind," said pandora, sobbing anew, "not to speak to me!" again the tap! it sounded like the tiny knuckles of a fairy's hand, knocking lightly and playfully on the inside of the box. "who are you?" asked pandora, with a little of her former curiosity. "who are you, inside of this naughty box?" a sweet little voice spoke from within,-- "only lift the lid, and you shall see." "no, no," answered pandora, again beginning to sob, "i have had enough of lifting the lid! you are inside of the box, naughty creature, and there you shall stay! there are plenty of your ugly brothers and sisters already flying about the world. you need never think that i shall be so foolish as to let you out!" she looked towards epimetheus, as she spoke, perhaps expecting that he would commend her for her wisdom. but the sullen boy only muttered that she was wise a little too late. "ah," said the sweet little voice again, "you had much better let me out. i am not like those naughty creatures that have stings in their tails. they are no brothers and sisters of mine, as you would see at once, if you were only to get a glimpse of me. come, come, my pretty pandora! i am sure you will let me out!" and, indeed, there was a kind of cheerful witchery in the tone, that made it almost impossible to refuse anything which this little voice asked. pandora's heart had insensibly grown lighter, at every word that came from within the box. epimetheus, too, though still in the corner, had turned half round, and seemed to be in rather better spirits than before. "my dear epimetheus," cried pandora, "have you heard this little voice?" "yes, to be sure i have," answered he, but in no very good-humor as yet. "and what of it?" "shall i lift the lid again?" asked pandora. "just as you please," said epimetheus. "you have done so much mischief already, that perhaps you may as well do a little more. one other trouble, in such a swarm as you have set adrift about the world, can make no very great difference." "you might speak a little more kindly!" murmured pandora, wiping her eyes. "ah, naughty boy!" cried the little voice within the box, in an arch and laughing tone. "he knows he is longing to see me. come, my dear pandora, lift up the lid. i am in a great hurry to comfort you. only let me have some fresh air, and you shall soon see that matters are not quite so dismal as you think them!" "epimetheus," exclaimed pandora, "come what may, i am resolved to open the box!" "and, as the lid seems very heavy," cried epimetheus, running across the room, "i will help you!" so, with one consent, the two children again lifted the lid. out flew a sunny and smiling little personage, and hovered about the room, throwing a light wherever she went. have you never made the sunshine dance into dark corners, by reflecting it from a bit of looking-glass? well, so looked the winged cheerfulness of this fairy-like stranger, amid the gloom of the cottage. she flew to epimetheus, and laid the least touch of her finger on the inflamed spot where the trouble had stung him, and immediately the anguish of it was gone. then she kissed pandora on the forehead, and her hurt was cured likewise. after performing these good offices, the bright stranger fluttered sportively over the children's heads, and looked so sweetly at them, that they both began to think it not so very much amiss to have opened the box, since, otherwise, their cheery guest must have been kept a prisoner among those naughty imps with stings in their tails. "pray, who are you, beautiful creature?" inquired pandora. "i am to be called hope!" answered the sunshiny figure. "and because i am such a cheery little body, i was packed into the box, to make amends to the human race for that swarm of ugly troubles, which was destined to be let loose among them. never fear! we shall do pretty well in spite of them all." "your wings are colored like the rainbow!" exclaimed pandora. "how very beautiful!" "yes, they are like the rainbow," said hope, "because, glad as my nature is, i am partly made of tears as well as smiles." "and will you stay with us," asked epimetheus, "forever and ever?" "as long as you need me," said hope, with her pleasant smile,--"and that will be as long as you live in the world,--i promise never to desert you. there may come times and seasons, now and then, when you will think that i have utterly vanished. but again, and again, and again, when perhaps you least dream of it, you shall see the glimmer of my wings on the ceiling of your cottage. yes, my dear children, and i know something very good and beautiful that is to be given you hereafter!" "oh tell us," they exclaimed,--"tell us what it is!" "do not ask me," replied hope, putting her finger on her rosy mouth. "but do not despair, even if it should never happen while you live on this earth. trust in my promise, for it is true." "we do trust you!" cried epimetheus and pandora, both in one breath. and so they did; and not only they, but so has everybody trusted hope, that has since been alive. and to tell you the truth, i cannot help being glad--(though, to be sure, it was an uncommonly naughty thing for her to do)--but i cannot help being glad that our foolish pandora peeped into the box. no doubt--no doubt--the troubles are still flying about the world, and have increased in multitude, rather than lessened, and are a very ugly set of imps, and carry most venomous stings in their tails. i have felt them already, and expect to feel them more, as i grow older. but then that lovely and lightsome little figure of hope! what in the world could we do without her? hope spiritualizes the earth; hope makes it always new; and, even in the earth's best and brightest aspect, hope shows it to be only the shadow of an infinite bliss hereafter! tanglewood play-room _after the story_ "primrose," asked eustace, pinching her ear, "how do you like my little pandora? don't you think her the exact picture of yourself? but you would not have hesitated half so long about opening the box." "then i should have been well punished for my naughtiness," retorted primrose, smartly; "for the first thing to pop out, after the lid was lifted, would have been mr. eustace bright, in the shape of a trouble." "cousin eustace," said sweet fern, "did the box hold all the trouble that has ever come into the world?" "every mite of it!" answered eustace. "this very snow-storm, which has spoiled my skating, was packed up there." "and how big was the box?" asked sweet fern. "why, perhaps three feet long," said eustace, "two feet wide, and two feet and a half high." "ah," said the child, "you are making fun of me, cousin eustace! i know there is not trouble enough in the world to fill such a great box as that. as for the snow-storm, it is no trouble at all, but a pleasure; so it could not have been in the box." "hear the child!" cried primrose, with an air of superiority. "how little he knows about the troubles of this world! poor fellow! he will be wiser when he has seen as much of life as i have." so saying, she began to skip the rope. meantime, the day was drawing towards its close. out of doors the scene certainly looked dreary. there was a gray drift, far and wide, through the gathering twilight; the earth was as pathless as the air; and the bank of snow over the steps of the porch proved that nobody had entered or gone out for a good many hours past. had there been only one child at the window of tanglewood, gazing at this wintry prospect, it would perhaps have made him sad. but half a dozen children together, though they cannot quite turn the world into a paradise, may defy old winter and all his storms to put them out of spirits. eustace bright, moreover, on the spur of the moment, invented several new kinds of play, which kept them all in a roar of merriment till bedtime, and served for the next stormy day besides. the three golden apples tanglewood fireside _introductory to "the three golden apples"_ the snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, i cannot possibly imagine. at any rate, it entirely cleared away during the night; and when the sun arose the next morning, it shone brightly down on as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in berkshire, as could be seen anywhere in the world. the frostwork had so covered the window-panes that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery outside. but, while waiting for breakfast, the small populace of tanglewood had scratched peep-holes with their finger-nails, and saw with vast delight that--unless it were one or two bare patches on a precipitous hill-side, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with the black pine forest--all nature was as white as a sheet. how exceedingly pleasant! and, to make it all the better, it was cold enough to nip one's nose short off! if people have but life enough in them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the slope of a hill, as a bright, hard frost. no sooner was breakfast over, than the whole party, well muffled in furs and woollens, floundered forth into the midst of the snow. well, what a day of frosty sport was this! they slid down hill into the valley, a hundred times, nobody knows how far; and, to make it all the merrier, upsetting their sledges, and tumbling head over heels, quite as often as they came safely to the bottom. and, once, eustace bright took periwinkle, sweet fern, and squash-blossom, on the sledge with him, by way of insuring a safe passage; and down they went, full speed. but, behold, half-way down, the sledge hit against a hidden stump, and flung all four of its passengers into a heap; and, on gathering themselves up, there was no little squash-blossom to be found! why, what could have become of the child? and while they were wondering and staring about, up started squash-blossom out of a snow-bank, with the reddest face you ever saw, and looking as if a large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted up in midwinter. then there was a great laugh. when they had grown tired of sliding down hill, eustace set the children to digging a cave in the biggest snow-drift that they could find. unluckily, just as it was completed, and the party had squeezed themselves into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads, and buried every soul of them alive! the next moment, up popped all their little heads out of the ruins, and the tall student's head in the midst of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had got amongst his brown curls. and then, to punish cousin eustace for advising them to dig such a tumble-down cavern, the children attacked him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to take to his heels. so he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of shadow brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it see the light of day. there were adamantine icicles glittering around all its little cascades. thence he strolled to the shore of the lake, and beheld a white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his own feet to the foot of monument mountain. and, it being now almost sunset, eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful as the scene. he was glad that the children were not with him; for their lively spirits and tumble-about activity would quite have chased away his higher and graver mood, so that he would merely have been merry (as he had already been, the whole day long), and would not have known the loveliness of the winter sunset among the hills. when the sun was fairly down, our friend eustace went home to eat his supper. after the meal was over, he betook himself to the study, with a purpose, i rather imagine, to write an ode, or two or three sonnets, or verses of some kind or other, in praise of the purple and golden clouds which he had seen around the setting sun. but, before he had hammered out the very first rhyme, the door opened, and primrose and periwinkle made their appearance. "go away, children! i can't be troubled with you now!" cried the student, looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers. "what in the world do you want here? i thought you were all in bed!" "hear him, periwinkle, trying to talk like a grown man!" said primrose. "and he seems to forget that i am now thirteen years old, and may sit up almost as late as i please. but, cousin eustace, you must put off your airs, and come with us to the drawing-room. the children have talked so much about your stories, that my father wishes to hear one of them, in order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief." "poh, poh, primrose!" exclaimed the student, rather vexed. "i don't believe i can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people. besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that i am much afraid of his scholarship, neither, for i doubt not it is as rusty as an old case-knife by this time. but then he will be sure to quarrel with the admirable nonsense that i put into these stories, out of my own head, and which makes the great charm of the matter for children, like yourself. no man of fifty, who has read the classical myths in his youth, can possibly understand my merit as a reinventor and improver of them." "all this may be very true," said primrose, "but come you must! my father will not open his book, nor will mamma open the piano, till you have given us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call it. so be a good boy, and come along." whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise, on second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to mr. pringle what an excellent faculty he had in modernizing the myths of ancient times. until twenty years of age, a young man may, indeed, be rather bashful about showing his poetry and his prose; but, for all that, he is pretty apt to think that these very productions would place him at the tip-top of literature, if once they could be known. accordingly, without much more resistance, eustace suffered primrose and periwinkle to drag him into the drawing-room. it was a large, handsome apartment, with a semicircular window at one end, in the recess of which stood a marble copy of greenough's angel and child. on one side of the fireplace there were many shelves of books, gravely but richly bound. the white light of the astral-lamp, and the red glow of the bright coal-fire, made the room brilliant and cheerful; and before the fire, in a deep arm-chair, sat mr. pringle, looking just fit to be seated in such a chair, and in such a room. he was a tall and quite a handsome gentleman, with a bald brow; and was always so nicely dressed, that even eustace bright never liked to enter his presence without at least pausing at the threshold to settle his shirt-collar. but now, as primrose had hold of one of his hands, and periwinkle of the other, he was forced to make his appearance with a rough-and-tumble sort of look, as if he had been rolling all day in a snow-bank. and so he had. mr. pringle turned towards the student benignly enough, but in a way that made him feel how uncombed and unbrushed he was, and how uncombed and unbrushed, likewise, were his mind and thoughts. "eustace," said mr. pringle, with a smile, "i find that you are producing a great sensation among the little public of tanglewood, by the exercise of your gifts of narrative. primrose here, as the little folks choose to call her, and the rest of the children, have been so loud in praise of your stories, that mrs. pringle and myself are really curious to hear a specimen. it would be so much the more gratifying to myself, as the stories appear to be an attempt to render the fables of classical antiquity into the idiom of modern fancy and feeling. at least, so i judge from a few of the incidents which have come to me at second hand." "you are not exactly the auditor that i should have chosen, sir," observed the student, "for fantasies of this nature." "possibly not," replied mr. pringle. "i suspect, however, that a young author's most useful critic is precisely the one whom he would be least apt to choose. pray oblige me, therefore." "sympathy, methinks, should have some little share in the critic's qualifications," murmured eustace bright. "however, sir, if you will find patience, i will find stories. but be kind enough to remember that i am addressing myself to the imagination and sympathies of the children, not to your own." accordingly, the student snatched hold of the first theme which presented itself. it was suggested by a plate of apples that he happened to spy on the mantelpiece. the three golden apples did you ever hear of the golden apples, that grew in the garden of the hesperides? ah, those were such apples as would bring a great price, by the bushel, if any of them could be found growing in the orchards of nowadays! but there is not, i suppose, a graft of that wonderful fruit on a single tree in the wide world. not so much as a seed of those apples exists any longer. and, even in the old, old, half-forgotten times, before the garden of the hesperides was overrun with weeds, a great many people doubted whether there could be real trees that bore apples of solid gold upon their branches. all had heard of them, but nobody remembered to have seen any. children, nevertheless, used to listen, open-mouthed, to stories of the golden apple-tree, and resolved to discover it, when they should be big enough. adventurous young men, who desired to do a braver thing than any of their fellows, set out in quest of this fruit. many of them returned no more; none of them brought back the apples. no wonder that they found it impossible to gather them! it is said that there was a dragon beneath the tree, with a hundred terrible heads, fifty of which were always on the watch, while the other fifty slept. in my opinion it was hardly worth running so much risk for the sake of a solid golden apple. had the apples been sweet, mellow, and juicy, indeed that would be another matter. there might then have been some sense in trying to get at them, in spite of the hundred-headed dragon. but, as i have already told you, it was quite a common thing with young persons, when tired of too much peace and rest, to go in search of the garden of the hesperides. and once the adventure was undertaken by a hero who had enjoyed very little peace or rest since he came into the world. at the time of which i am going to speak, he was wandering through the pleasant land of italy, with a mighty club in his hand, and a bow and quiver slung across his shoulders. he was wrapt in the skin of the biggest and fiercest lion that ever had been seen, and which he himself had killed; and though, on the whole, he was kind, and generous, and noble, there was a good deal of the lion's fierceness in his heart. as he went on his way, he continually inquired whether that were the right road to the famous garden. but none of the country people knew anything about the matter, and many looked as if they would have laughed at the question, if the stranger had not carried so very big a club. so he journeyed on and on, still making the same inquiry, until, at last, he came to the brink of a river where some beautiful young women sat twining wreaths of flowers. "can you tell me, pretty maidens," asked the stranger, "whether this is the right way to the garden of the hesperides?" the young women had been having a fine time together, weaving the flowers into wreaths, and crowning one another's heads. and there seemed to be a kind of magic in the touch of their fingers, that made the flowers more fresh and dewy, and of brighter hues, and sweeter fragrance, while they played with them, than even when they had been growing on their native stems. but, on hearing the stranger's question, they dropped all their flowers on the grass, and gazed at him with astonishment. "the garden of the hesperides!" cried one. "we thought mortals had been weary of seeking it, after so many disappointments. and pray, adventurous traveller, what do you want there?" [illustration: atlas] "a certain king, who is my cousin," replied he, "has ordered me to get him three of the golden apples." "most of the young men who go in quest of these apples," observed another of the damsels, "desire to obtain them for themselves, or to present them to some fair maiden whom they love. do you, then, love this king, your cousin, so very much?" "perhaps not," replied the stranger, sighing. "he has often been severe and cruel to me. but it is my destiny to obey him." "and do you know," asked the damsel who had first spoken, "that a terrible dragon, with a hundred heads, keeps watch under the golden apple-tree?" "i know it well," answered the stranger, calmly. "but, from my cradle upwards, it has been my business, and almost my pastime, to deal with serpents and dragons." the young women looked at his massive club, and at the shaggy lion's skin which he wore, and likewise at his heroic limbs and figure; and they whispered to each other that the stranger appeared to be one who might reasonably expect to perform deeds far beyond the might of other men. but, then, the dragon with a hundred heads! what mortal, even if he possessed a hundred lives, could hope to escape the fangs of such a monster? so kind-hearted were the maidens, that they could not bear to see this brave and handsome traveller attempt what was so very dangerous, and devote himself, most probably, to become a meal for the dragon's hundred ravenous mouths. "go back," cried they all,--"go back to your own home! your mother, beholding you safe and sound, will shed tears of joy; and what can she do more, should you win ever so great a victory? no matter for the golden apples! no matter for the king, your cruel cousin! we do not wish the dragon with the hundred heads to eat you up!" the stranger seemed to grow impatient at these remonstrances. he carelessly lifted his mighty club, and let it fall upon a rock that lay half buried in the earth, near by. with the force of that idle blow, the great rock was shattered all to pieces. it cost the stranger no more effort to achieve this feat of a giant's strength than for one of the young maidens to touch her sister's rosy cheek with a flower. "do you not believe," said he, looking at the damsels with a smile, "that such a blow would have crushed one of the dragon's hundred heads?" then he sat down on the grass, and told them the story of his life, or as much of it as he could remember, from the day when he was first cradled in a warrior's brazen shield. while he lay there, two immense serpents came gliding over the floor, and opened their hideous jaws to devour him; and he, a baby of a few months old, had griped one of the fierce snakes in each of his little fists, and strangled them to death. when he was but a stripling, he had killed a huge lion, almost as big as the one whose vast and shaggy hide he now wore upon his shoulders. the next thing that he had done was to fight a battle with an ugly sort of monster, called a hydra, which had no less than nine heads, and exceedingly sharp teeth in every one. "but the dragon of the hesperides, you know," observed one of the damsels, "has a hundred heads!" "nevertheless," replied the stranger, "i would rather fight two such dragons than a single hydra. for, as fast as i cut off a head, two others grew in its place; and, besides, there was one of the heads that could not possibly be killed, but kept biting as fiercely as ever, long after it was cut off. so i was forced to bury it under a stone, where it is doubtless alive to this very day. but the hydra's body, and its eight other heads, will never do any further mischief." the damsels, judging that the story was likely to last a good while, had been preparing a repast of bread and grapes, that the stranger might refresh himself in the intervals of his talk. they took pleasure in helping him to this simple food; and, now and then, one of them would put a sweet grape between her rosy lips, lest it should make him bashful to eat alone. the traveller proceeded to tell how he had chased a very swift stag, for a twelvemonth together, without ever stopping to take breath, and had at last caught it by the antlers, and carried it home alive. and he had fought with a very odd race of people, half horses and half men, and had put them all to death, from a sense of duty, in order that their ugly figures might never be seen any more. besides all this, he took to himself great credit for having cleaned out a stable. "do you call that a wonderful exploit?" asked one of the young maidens, with a smile. "any clown in the country has done as much!" "had it been an ordinary stable," replied the stranger, "i should not have mentioned it. but this was so gigantic a task that it would have taken me all my life to perform it, if i had not luckily thought of turning the channel of a river through the stable-door. that did the business in a very short time!" seeing how earnestly his fair auditors listened, he next told them how he had shot some monstrous birds, and had caught a wild bull alive and let him go again, and had tamed a number of very wild horses, and had conquered hippolyta, the warlike queen of the amazons. he mentioned, likewise, that he had taken off hippolyta's enchanted girdle, and had given it to the daughter of his cousin, the king. "was it the girdle of venus," inquired the prettiest of the damsels, "which makes women beautiful?" "no," answered the stranger. "it had formerly been the sword-belt of mars; and it can only make the wearer valiant and courageous." "an old sword-belt!" cried the damsel, tossing her head. "then i should not care about having it!" "you are right," said the stranger. going on with his wonderful narrative, he informed the maidens that as strange an adventure as ever happened was when he fought with geryon, the six-legged man. this was a very odd and frightful sort of figure, as you may well believe. any person, looking at his tracks in the sand or snow, would suppose that three sociable companions had been walking along together. on hearing his footsteps at a little distance, it was no more than reasonable to judge that several people must be coming. but it was only the strange man geryon clattering onward, with his six legs! six legs, and one gigantic body! certainly, he must have been a very queer monster to look at; and, my stars, what a waste of shoe-leather! when the stranger had finished the story of his adventures, he looked around at the attentive faces of the maidens. "perhaps you may have heard of me before," said he, modestly. "my name is hercules!" "we had already guessed it," replied the maidens; "for your wonderful deeds are known all over the world. we do not think it strange, any longer, that you should set out in quest of the golden apples of the hesperides. come, sisters, let us crown the hero with flowers!" then they flung beautiful wreaths over his stately head and mighty shoulders, so that the lion's skin was almost entirely covered with roses. they took possession of his ponderous club, and so entwined it about with the brightest, softest, and most fragrant blossoms, that not a finger's breadth of its oaken substance could be seen. it looked all like a huge bunch of flowers. lastly, they joined hands, and danced around him, chanting words which became poetry of their own accord, and grew into a choral song, in honor of the illustrious hercules. and hercules was rejoiced, as any other hero would have been, to know that these fair young girls had heard of the valiant deeds which it had cost him so much toil and danger to achieve. but, still, he was not satisfied. he could not think that what he had already done was worthy of so much honor, while there remained any bold or difficult adventure to be undertaken. "dear maidens," said he, when they paused to take breath, "now that you know my name, will you not tell me how i am to reach the garden of the hesperides?" "ah! must you go so soon?" they exclaimed. "you--that have performed so many wonders, and spent such a toilsome life--cannot you content yourself to repose a little while on the margin of this peaceful river?" hercules shook his head. "i must depart now," said he. "we will then give you the best directions we can," replied the damsels. "you must go to the sea-shore, and find out the old one, and compel him to inform you where the golden apples are to be found." "the old one!" repeated hercules, laughing at this odd name. "and, pray, who may the old one be?" "why, the old man of the sea, to be sure!" answered one of the damsels. "he has fifty daughters, whom some people call very beautiful; but we do not think it proper to be acquainted with them, because they have sea-green hair, and taper away like fishes. you must talk with this old man of the sea. he is a sea-faring person, and knows all about the garden of the hesperides; for it is situated in an island which he is often in the habit of visiting." hercules then asked whereabouts the old one was most likely to be met with. when the damsels had informed him, he thanked them for all their kindness,--for the bread and grapes with which they had fed him, the lovely flowers with which they had crowned him, and the songs and dances wherewith they had done him honor,--and he thanked them, most of all, for telling him the right way,--and immediately set forth upon his journey. but, before he was out of hearing, one of the maidens called after him. "keep fast hold of the old one, when you catch him!" cried she, smiling, and lifting her finger to make the caution more impressive. "do not be astonished at anything that may happen. only hold him fast, and he will tell you what you wish to know." hercules again thanked her, and pursued his way, while the maidens resumed their pleasant labor of making flower-wreaths. they talked about the hero, long after he was gone. "we will crown him with the loveliest of our garlands," said they, "when he returns hither with the three golden apples, after slaying the dragon with a hundred heads." meanwhile, hercules travelled constantly onward, over hill and dale, and through the solitary woods. sometimes he swung his club aloft, and splintered a mighty oak with a downright blow. his mind was so full of the giants and monsters with whom it was the business of his life to fight, that perhaps he mistook the great tree for a giant or a monster. and so eager was hercules to achieve what he had undertaken, that he almost regretted to have spent so much time with the damsels, wasting idle breath upon the story of his adventures. but thus it always is with persons who are destined to perform great things. what they have already done seems less than nothing. what they have taken in hand to do seems worth toil, danger, and life itself. persons who happened to be passing through the forest must have been affrighted to see him smite the trees with his great club. with but a single blow, the trunk was riven as by the stroke of lightning, and the broad boughs came rustling and crashing down. hastening forward, without ever pausing or looking behind, he by and by heard the sea roaring at a distance. at this sound, he increased his speed, and soon came to a beach, where the great surf-waves tumbled themselves upon the hard sand, in a long line of snowy foam. at one end of the beach, however, there was a pleasant spot, where some green shrubbery clambered up a cliff, making its rocky face look soft and beautiful. a carpet of verdant grass, largely intermixed with sweet-smelling clover, covered the narrow space between the bottom of the cliff and the sea. and what should hercules espy there, but an old man, fast asleep! but was it really and truly an old man? certainly, at first sight, it looked very like one; but, on closer inspection, it rather seemed to be some kind of a creature that lived in the sea. for, on his legs and arms there were scales, such as fishes have; he was web-footed and web-fingered, after the fashion of a duck; and his long beard, being of a greenish tinge, had more the appearance of a tuft of sea-weed than of an ordinary beard. have you never seen a stick of timber, that has been long tossed about by the waves, and has got all overgrown with barnacles, and, at last drifting ashore, seems to have been thrown up from the very deepest bottom of the sea? well, the old man would have put you in mind of just such a wave-tost spar! but hercules, the instant he set eyes on this strange figure, was convinced that it could be no other than the old one, who was to direct him on his way. yes, it was the selfsame old man of the sea whom the hospitable maidens had talked to him about. thanking his stars for the lucky accident of finding the old fellow asleep, hercules stole on tiptoe towards him, and caught him by the arm and leg. "tell me," cried he, before the old one was well awake, "which is the way to the garden of the hesperides?" as you may easily imagine, the old man of the sea awoke in a fright. but his astonishment could hardly have been greater than was that of hercules, the next moment. for, all of a sudden, the old one seemed to disappear out of his grasp, and he found himself holding a stag by the fore and hind leg! but still he kept fast hold. then the stag disappeared, and in its stead there was a sea-bird, fluttering and screaming, while hercules clutched it by the wing and claw! but the bird could not get away. immediately afterwards, there was an ugly three-headed dog, which growled and barked at hercules, and snapped fiercely at the hands by which he held him! but hercules would not let him go. in another minute, instead of the three-headed dog, what should appear but geryon, the six-legged man-monster, kicking at hercules with five of his legs, in order to get the remaining one at liberty! but hercules held on. by and by, no geryon was there, but a huge snake, like one of those which hercules had strangled in his babyhood, only a hundred times as big; and it twisted and twined about the hero's neck and body, and threw its tail high into the air, and opened its deadly jaws as if to devour him outright; so that it was really a very terrible spectacle! but hercules was no whit disheartened, and squeezed the great snake so tightly that he soon began to hiss with pain. you must understand that the old man of the sea, though he generally looked so much like the wave-beaten figure-head of a vessel, had the power of assuming any shape he pleased. when he found himself so roughly seized by hercules, he had been in hopes of putting him into such surprise and terror, by these magical transformations, that the hero would be glad to let him go. if hercules had relaxed his grasp, the old one would certainly have plunged down to the very bottom of the sea, whence he would not soon have given himself the trouble of coming up, in order to answer any impertinent questions. ninety-nine people out of a hundred, i suppose, would have been frightened out of their wits by the very first of his ugly shapes, and would have taken to their heels at once. for, one of the hardest things in this world is, to see the difference between real dangers and imaginary ones. but, as hercules held on so stubbornly, and only squeezed the old one so much the tighter at every change of shape, and really put him to no small torture, he finally thought it best to reappear in his own figure. so there he was again, a fishy, scaly, web-footed sort of personage, with something like a tuft of sea-weed at his chin. "pray, what do you want with me?" cried the old one, as soon as he could take breath; for it is quite a tiresome affair to go through so many false shapes. "why do you squeeze me so hard? let me go, this moment, or i shall begin to consider you an extremely uncivil person!" "my name is hercules!" roared the mighty stranger. "and you will never get out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the garden of the hesperides!" when the old fellow heard who it was that had caught him, he saw, with half an eye, that it would be necessary to tell him everything that he wanted to know. the old one was an inhabitant of the sea, you must recollect, and roamed about everywhere, like other sea-faring people. of course, he had often heard of the fame of hercules, and of the wonderful things that he was constantly performing, in various parts of the earth, and how determined he always was to accomplish whatever he undertook. he therefore made no more attempts to escape, but told the hero how to find the garden of the hesperides, and likewise warned him of many difficulties which must be overcome, before he could arrive thither. "you must go on, thus and thus," said the old man of the sea, after taking the points of the compass, "till you come in sight of a very tall giant, who holds the sky on his shoulders. and the giant, if he happens to be in the humor, will tell you exactly where the garden of the hesperides lies." "and if the giant happens not to be in the humor," remarked hercules, balancing his club on the tip of his finger, "perhaps i shall find means to persuade him!" thanking the old man of the sea, and begging his pardon for having squeezed him so roughly, the hero resumed his journey. he met with a great many strange adventures, which would be well worth your hearing, if i had leisure to narrate them as minutely as they deserve. it was in this journey, if i mistake not, that he encountered a prodigious giant, who was so wonderfully contrived by nature, that, every time he touched the earth, he became ten times as strong as ever he had been before. his name was antæus. you may see, plainly enough, that it was a very difficult business to fight with such a fellow; for, as often as he got a knock-down blow, up he started again, stronger, fiercer, and abler to use his weapons, than if his enemy had let him alone. thus, the harder hercules pounded the giant with his club, the further he seemed from winning the victory. i have sometimes argued with such people, but never fought with one. the only way in which hercules found it possible to finish the battle, was by lifting antæus off his feet into the air, and squeezing, and squeezing, and squeezing him, until, finally, the strength was quite squeezed out of his enormous body. when this affair was finished, hercules continued his travels, and went to the land of egypt, where he was taken prisoner, and would have been put to death, if he had not slain the king of the country, and made his escape. passing through the deserts of africa, and going as fast as he could, he arrived at last on the shore of the great ocean. and here, unless he could walk on the crests of the billows, it seemed as if his journey must needs be at an end. nothing was before him, save the foaming, dashing, measureless ocean. but, suddenly, as he looked towards the horizon, he saw something, a great way off, which he had not seen the moment before. it gleamed very brightly, almost as you may have beheld the round, golden disk of the sun, when it rises or sets over the edge of the world. it evidently drew nearer; for, at every instant, this wonderful object became larger and more lustrous. at length, it had come so nigh that hercules discovered it to be an immense cup or bowl, made either of gold or burnished brass. how it had got afloat upon the sea is more than i can tell you. there it was, at all events, rolling on the tumultuous billows, which tossed it up and down, and heaved their foamy tops against its sides, but without ever throwing their spray over the brim. "i have seen many giants, in my time," thought hercules, "but never one that would need to drink his wine out of a cup like this!" and, true enough, what a cup it must have been! it was as large--as large--but, in short, i am afraid to say how immeasurably large it was. to speak within bounds, it was ten times larger than a great mill-wheel; and, all of metal as it was, it floated over the heaving surges more lightly than an acorn-cup adown the brook. the waves tumbled it onward, until it grazed against the shore, within a short distance of the spot where hercules was standing. as soon as this happened, he knew what was to be done; for he had not gone through so many remarkable adventures without learning pretty well how to conduct himself, whenever anything came to pass a little out of the common rule. it was just as clear as daylight that this marvellous cup had been set adrift by some unseen power, and guided hitherward, in order to carry hercules across the sea, on his way to the garden of the hesperides. accordingly, without a moment's delay, he clambered over the brim, and slid down on the inside, where, spreading out his lion's skin, he proceeded to take a little repose. he had scarcely rested, until now, since he bade farewell to the damsels on the margin of the river. the waves dashed, with a pleasant and ringing sound, against the circumference of the hollow cup; it rocked lightly to and fro, and the motion was so soothing that it speedily rocked hercules into an agreeable slumber. his nap had probably lasted a good while, when the cup chanced to graze against a rock, and, in consequence, immediately resounded and reverberated through its golden or brazen substance, a hundred times as loudly as ever you heard a church-bell. the noise awoke hercules, who instantly started up and gazed around him, wondering whereabouts he was. he was not long in discovering that the cup had floated across a great part of the sea, and was approaching the shore of what seemed to be an island. and, on that island, what do you think he saw? no; you will never guess it, not if you were to try fifty thousand times! it positively appears to me that this was the most marvellous spectacle that had ever been seen by hercules, in the whole course of his wonderful travels and adventures. it was a greater marvel than the hydra with nine heads, which kept growing twice as fast as they were cut off; greater than the six-legged man-monster; greater than antæus; greater than anything that was ever beheld by anybody, before or since the days of hercules, or than anything that remains to be beheld, by travellers in all time to come. it was a giant! but such an intolerably big giant! a giant as tall as a mountain; so vast a giant, that the clouds rested about his midst, like a girdle, and hung like a hoary beard from his chin, and flitted before his huge eyes, so that he could neither see hercules nor the golden cup in which he was voyaging. and, most wonderful of all, the giant held up his great hands and appeared to support the sky, which, so far as hercules could discern through the clouds, was resting upon his head! this does really seem almost too much to believe. meanwhile, the bright cup continued to float onward, and finally touched the strand. just then a breeze wafted away the clouds from before the giant's visage, and hercules beheld it, with all its enormous features; eyes each of them as big as yonder lake, a nose a mile long, and a mouth of the same width. it was a countenance terrible from its enormity of size, but disconsolate and weary, even as you may see the faces of many people, nowadays, who are compelled to sustain burdens above their strength. what the sky was to the giant, such are the cares of earth to those who let themselves be weighed down by them. and whenever men undertake what is beyond the just measure of their abilities, they encounter precisely such a doom as had befallen this poor giant. poor fellow! he had evidently stood there a long while. an ancient forest had been growing and decaying around his feet; and oak-trees, of six or seven centuries old, had sprung from the acorn, and forced themselves between his toes. the giant now looked down from the far height of his great eyes, and, perceiving hercules, roared out, in a voice that resembled thunder, proceeding out of the cloud that had just flitted away from his face. "who are you, down at my feet there? and whence do you come, in that little cup?" "i am hercules!" thundered back the hero, in a voice pretty nearly or quite as loud as the giant's own. "and i am seeking for the garden of the hesperides!" "ho! ho! ho!" roared the giant, in a fit of immense laughter. "that is a wise adventure, truly!" "and why not?" cried hercules, getting a little angry at the giant's mirth. "do you think i am afraid of the dragon with a hundred heads!" just at this time, while they were talking together, some black clouds gathered about the giant's middle, and burst into a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, causing such a pother that hercules found it impossible to distinguish a word. only the giant's immeasurable legs were to be seen, standing up into the obscurity of the tempest; and, now and then, a momentary glimpse of his whole figure, mantled in a volume of mist. he seemed to be speaking, most of the time; but his big, deep, rough voice chimed in with the reverberations of the thunder-claps, and rolled away over the hills, like them. thus, by talking out of season, the foolish giant expended an incalculable quantity of breath, to no purpose; for the thunder spoke quite as intelligibly as he. at last, the storm swept over, as suddenly as it had come. and there again was the clear sky, and the weary giant holding it up, and the pleasant sunshine beaming over his vast height, and illuminating it against the background of the sullen thunderclouds. so far above the shower had been his head, that not a hair of it was moistened by the rain-drops! when the giant could see hercules still standing on the sea-shore, he roared out to him anew. "i am atlas, the mightiest giant in the world! and i hold the sky upon my head!" "so i see," answered hercules. "but, can you show me the way to the garden of the hesperides?" "what do you want there?" asked the giant. "i want three of the golden apples," shouted hercules, "for my cousin, the king." "there is nobody but myself," quoth the giant, "that can go to the garden of the hesperides, and gather the golden apples. if it were not for this little business of holding up the sky, i would make half a dozen steps across the sea, and get them for you." "you are very kind," replied hercules. "and cannot you rest the sky upon a mountain?" "none of them are quite high enough," said atlas, shaking his head. "but, if you were to take your stand on the summit of that nearest one, your head would be pretty nearly on a level with mine. you seem to be a fellow of some strength. what if you should take my burden on your shoulders, while i do your errand for you?" hercules, as you must be careful to remember, was a remarkably strong man; and though it certainly requires a great deal of muscular power to uphold the sky, yet, if any mortal could be supposed capable of such an exploit, he was the one. nevertheless, it seemed so difficult an undertaking, that, for the first time in his life, he hesitated. "is the sky very heavy?" he inquired. "why, not particularly so, at first," answered the giant, shrugging his shoulders. "but it gets to be a little burdensome, after a thousand years!" "and how long a time," asked the hero, "will it take you to get the golden apples?" "oh, that will be done in a few moments," cried atlas. "i shall take ten or fifteen miles at a stride, and be at the garden and back again before your shoulders begin to ache." "well, then," answered hercules, "i will climb the mountain behind you there, and relieve you of your burden." the truth is, hercules had a kind heart of his own, and considered that he should be doing the giant a favor, by allowing him this opportunity for a ramble. and, besides, he thought that it would be still more for his own glory, if he could boast of upholding the sky, than merely to do so ordinary a thing as to conquer a dragon with a hundred heads. accordingly, without more words, the sky was shifted from the shoulders of atlas, and placed upon those of hercules. when this was safely accomplished, the first thing that the giant did was to stretch himself; and you may imagine what a prodigious spectacle he was then. next, he slowly lifted one of his feet out of the forest that had grown up around it; then, the other. then, all at once, he began to caper, and leap, and dance, for joy at his freedom; flinging himself nobody knows how high into the air, and floundering down again with a shock that made the earth tremble. then he laughed--ho! ho! ho!--with a thunderous roar that was echoed from the mountains, far and near, as if they and the giant had been so many rejoicing brothers. when his joy had a little subsided, he stepped into the sea; ten miles at the first stride, which brought him midleg deep; and ten miles at the second, when the water came just above his knees; and ten miles more at the third, by which he was immersed nearly to his waist. this was the greatest depth of the sea. hercules watched the giant, as he still went onward; for it was really a wonderful sight, this immense human form, more than thirty miles off, half hidden in the ocean, but with his upper half as tall, and misty, and blue, as a distant mountain. at last the gigantic shape faded entirely out of view. and now hercules began to consider what he should do, in case atlas should be drowned in the sea, or if he were to be stung to death by the dragon with the hundred heads, which guarded the golden apples of the hesperides. if any such misfortune were to happen, how could he ever get rid of the sky? and, by the by, its weight began already to be a little irksome to his head and shoulders. "i really pity the poor giant," thought hercules. "if it wearies me so much in ten minutes, how must it have wearied him in a thousand years!" o my sweet little people, you have no idea what a weight there was in that same blue sky, which looks so soft and aerial above our heads! and there, too, was the bluster of the wind, and the chill and watery clouds, and the blazing sun, all taking their turns to make hercules uncomfortable! he began to be afraid that the giant would never come back. he gazed wistfully at the world beneath him, and acknowledged to himself that it was a far happier kind of life to be a shepherd at the foot of a mountain, than to stand on its dizzy summit, and bear up the firmament with his might and main. for, of course, as you will easily understand, hercules had an immense responsibility on his mind, as well as a weight on his head and shoulders. why, if he did not stand perfectly still, and keep the sky immovable, the sun would perhaps be put ajar! or, after nightfall, a great many of the stars might be loosened from their places, and shower down, like fiery rain, upon the people's heads! and how ashamed would the hero be, if, owing to his unsteadiness beneath its weight, the sky should crack, and show a great fissure quite across it! i know not how long it was before, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld the huge shape of the giant, like a cloud, on the far-off edge of the sea. at his nearer approach, atlas held up his hand, in which hercules could perceive three magnificent golden apples, as big as pumpkins, all hanging from one branch. "i am glad to see you again," shouted hercules, when the giant was within hearing. "so you have got the golden apples?" "certainly, certainly," answered atlas; "and very fair apples they are. i took the finest that grew on the tree, i assure you. ah! it is a beautiful spot, that garden of the hesperides. yes; and the dragon with a hundred heads is a sight worth any man's seeing. after all, you had better have gone for the apples yourself." "no matter," replied hercules. "you have had a pleasant ramble, and have done the business as well as i could. i heartily thank you for your trouble. and now, as i have a long way to go, and am rather in haste,--and as the king, my cousin, is anxious to receive the golden apples,--will you be kind enough to take the sky off my shoulders again?" "why, as to that," said the giant, chucking the golden apples into the air twenty miles high, or thereabouts and catching them as they came down,--"as to that, my good friend, i consider you a little unreasonable. cannot i carry the golden apples to the king, your cousin, much quicker than you could? as his majesty is in such a hurry to get them, i promise you to take my longest strides. and, besides, i have no fancy for burdening myself with the sky, just now." here hercules grew impatient, and gave a great shrug of his shoulders. it being now twilight, you might have seen two or three stars tumble out of their places. everybody on earth looked upward in affright, thinking that the sky might be going to fall next. "oh, that will never do!" cried giant atlas, with a great roar of laughter. "i have not let fall so many stars within the last five centuries. by the time you have stood there as long as i did, you will begin to learn patience!" "what!" shouted hercules, very wrathfully, "do you intend to make me bear this burden forever?" "we will see about that, one of these days," answered the giant. "at all events, you ought not to complain, if you have to bear it the next hundred years, or perhaps the next thousand. i bore it a good while longer, in spite of the back-ache. well, then, after a thousand years, if i happen to feel in the mood, we may possibly shift about again. you are certainly a very strong man, and can never have a better opportunity to prove it. posterity will talk of you, i warrant it!" "pish! a fig for its talk!" cried hercules, with another hitch of his shoulders. "just take the sky upon your head one instant, will you? i want to make a cushion of my lion's skin, for the weight to rest upon. it really chafes me, and will cause unnecessary inconvenience in so many centuries as i am to stand here." "that's no more than fair, and i'll do it!" quoth the giant; for he had no unkind feeling towards hercules, and was merely acting with a too selfish consideration of his own ease. "for just five minutes, then, i'll take back the sky. only for five minutes, recollect! i have no idea of spending another thousand years as i spent the last. variety is the spice of life, say i." ah, the thick-witted old rogue of a giant! he threw down the golden apples, and received back the sky, from the head and shoulders of hercules, upon his own, where it rightly belonged. and hercules picked up the three golden apples, that were as big or bigger than pumpkins, and straightway set out on his journey homeward, without paying the slightest heed to the thundering tones of the giant, who bellowed after him to come back. another forest sprang up around his feet, and grew ancient there; and again might be seen oak-trees, of six or seven centuries old, that had waxed thus aged betwixt his enormous toes. and there stands the giant to this day; or, at any rate, there stands a mountain as tall as he, and which bears his name; and when the thunder rumbles about its summit, we may imagine it to be the voice of giant atlas, bellowing after hercules! tanglewood fireside _after the story_ "cousin eustace," demanded sweet fern, who had been sitting at the story-teller's feet, with his mouth wide open, "exactly how tall was this giant?" "o sweet fern, sweet fern!" cried the student, "do you think i was there, to measure him with a yard-stick? well, if you must know to a hair's-breadth, i suppose he might be from three to fifteen miles straight upward, and that he might have seated himself on taconic, and had monument mountain for a footstool." "dear me!" ejaculated the good little boy, with a contented sort of a grunt, "that was a giant, sure enough! and how long was his little finger?" "as long as from tanglewood to the lake," said eustace. "sure enough, that was a giant!" repeated sweet fern, in an ecstasy at the precision of these measurements. "and how broad, i wonder, were the shoulders of hercules?" "that is what i have never been able to find out," answered the student. "but i think they must have been a great deal broader than mine, or than your father's, or than almost any shoulders which one sees nowadays." "i wish," whispered sweet fern, with his mouth close to the student's ear, "that you would tell me how big were some of the oak-trees that grew between the giant's toes." "they were bigger," said eustace, "than the great chestnut-tree which stands beyond captain smith's house." "eustace," remarked mr. pringle, after some deliberation, "i find it impossible to express such an opinion of this story as will be likely to gratify, in the smallest degree, your pride of authorship. pray let me advise you never more to meddle with a classical myth. your imagination is altogether gothic, and will inevitably gothicize everything that you touch. the effect is like bedaubing a marble statue with paint. this giant, now! how can you have ventured to thrust his huge, disproportioned mass among the seemly outlines of grecian fable, the tendency of which is to reduce even the extravagant within limits, by its pervading elegance?" "i described the giant as he appeared to me," replied the student, rather piqued. "and, sir, if you would only bring your mind into such a relation with these fables as is necessary in order to remodel them, you would see at once that an old greek had no more exclusive right to them than a modern yankee has. they are the common property of the world, and of all time. the ancient poets remodelled them at pleasure, and held them plastic in their hands; and why should they not be plastic in my hands as well?" mr. pringle could not forbear a smile. "and besides," continued eustace, "the moment you put any warmth of heart, any passion or affection, any human or divine morality, into a classic mould, you make it quite another thing from what it was before. my own opinion is, that the greeks, by taking possession of these legends (which were the immemorial birthright of mankind), and putting them into shapes of indestructible beauty, indeed, but cold and heartless, have done all subsequent ages an incalculable injury." "which you, doubtless, were born to remedy," said mr. pringle, laughing outright. "well, well, go on; but take my advice, and never put any of your travesties on paper. and, as your next effort, what if you should try your hand on some one of the legends of apollo?" "ah, sir, you propose it as an impossibility," observed the student, after a moment's meditation; "and, to be sure, at first thought, the idea of a gothic apollo strikes one rather ludicrously. but i will turn over your suggestion in my mind, and do not quite despair of success." during the above discussion, the children (who understood not a word of it) had grown very sleepy, and were now sent off to bed. their drowsy babble was heard, ascending the staircase, while a northwest-wind roared loudly among the tree-tops of tanglewood, and played an anthem around the house. eustace bright went back to the study, and again endeavored to hammer out some verses, but fell asleep between two of the rhymes. the miraculous pitcher the hill-side _introductory to "the miraculous pitcher"_ and when, and where, do you think we find the children next? no longer in the winter-time, but in the merry month of may. no longer in tanglewood play-room, or at tanglewood fireside, but more than half-way up a monstrous hill, or a mountain, as perhaps it would be better pleased to have us call it. they had set out from home with the mighty purpose of climbing this high hill, even to the very tip-top of its bald head. to be sure, it was not quite so high as chimborazo, or mont blanc, and was even a good deal lower than old graylock. but, at any rate, it was higher than a thousand ant-hillocks, or a million of mole-hills; and, when measured by the short strides of little children, might be reckoned a very respectable mountain. and was cousin eustace with the party? of that you may be certain; else how could the book go on a step further? he was now in the middle of the spring vacation, and looked pretty much as we saw him four or five months ago, except that, if you gazed quite closely at his upper lip, you could discern the funniest little bit of a mustache upon it. setting aside this mark of mature manhood, you might have considered cousin eustace just as much a boy as when you first became acquainted with him. he was as merry, as playful, as good-humored, as light of foot and of spirits, and equally a favorite with the little folks, as he had always been. this expedition up the mountain was entirely of his contrivance. all the way up the steep ascent, he had encouraged the elder children with his cheerful voice; and when dandelion, cowslip, and squash-blossom grew weary, he had lugged them along, alternately, on his back. in this manner, they had passed through the orchards and pastures on the lower part of the hill, and had reached the wood, which extends thence towards its bare summit. the month of may, thus far, had been more amiable than it often is, and this was as sweet and genial a day as the heart of man or child could wish. in their progress up the hill, the small people had found enough of violets, blue and white, and some that were as golden as if they had the touch of midas on them. that sociablest of flowers, the little houstonia, was very abundant. it is a flower that never lives alone, but which loves its own kind, and is always fond of dwelling with a great many friends and relatives around it. sometimes you see a family of them, covering a space no bigger than the palm of your hand; and sometimes a large community, whitening a whole tract of pasture, and all keeping one another in cheerful heart and life. within the verge of the wood there were columbines, looking more pale than red, because they were so modest, and had thought proper to seclude themselves too anxiously from the sun. there were wild geraniums, too, and a thousand white blossoms of the strawberry. the trailing arbutus was not yet quite out of bloom; but it hid its precious flowers under the last year's withered forest-leaves, as carefully as a mother-bird hides its little young ones. it knew, i suppose, how beautiful and sweet-scented they were. so cunning was their concealment, that the children sometimes smelt the delicate richness of their perfume before they knew whence it proceeded. amid so much new life, it was strange and truly pitiful to behold, here and there, in the fields and pastures, the hoary periwigs of dandelions that had already gone to seed. they had done with summer before the summer came. within those small globes of winged seeds it was autumn now! well, but we must not waste our valuable pages with any more talk about the spring-time and wild flowers. there is something, we hope, more interesting to be talked about. if you look at the group of children, you may see them all gathered around eustace bright, who, sitting on the stump of a tree, seems to be just beginning a story. the fact is, the younger part of the troop have found out that it takes rather too many of their short strides to measure the long ascent of the hill. cousin eustace, therefore, has decided to leave sweet fern, cowslip, squash-blossom, and dandelion, at this point, midway up, until the return of the rest of the party from the summit. and because they complain a little, and do not quite like to stay behind, he gives them some apples out of his pocket, and proposes to tell them a very pretty story. hereupon they brighten up, and change their grieved looks into the broadest kind of smiles. as for the story, i was there to hear it, hidden behind a bush, and shall tell it over to you in the pages that come next. the miraculous pitcher one evening, in times long ago, old philemon and his old wife baucis sat at their cottage-door, enjoying the calm and beautiful sunset. they had already eaten their frugal supper, and intended now to spend a quiet hour or two before bedtime. so they talked together about their garden, and their cow, and their bees, and their grapevine, which clambered over the cottage-wall, and on which the grapes were beginning to turn purple. but the rude shouts of children, and the fierce barking of dogs, in the village near at hand, grew louder and louder, until, at last, it was hardly possible for baucis and philemon to hear each other speak. "ah, wife," cried philemon, "i fear some poor traveller is seeking hospitality among our neighbors yonder, and, instead of giving him food and lodging, they have set their dogs at him, as their custom is!" "well-a-day!" answered old baucis, "i do wish our neighbors felt a little more kindness for their fellow-creatures. and only think of bringing up their children in this naughty way, and patting them on the head when they fling stones at strangers!" "those children will never come to any good," said philemon, shaking his white head. "to tell you the truth, wife, i should not wonder if some terrible thing were to happen to all the people in the village, unless they mend their manners. but, as for you and me, so long as providence affords us a crust of bread, let us be ready to give half to any poor, homeless stranger, that may come along and need it." "that's right, husband!" said baucis. "so we will!" these old folks, you must know, were quite poor, and had to work pretty hard for a living. old philemon toiled diligently in his garden, while baucis was always busy with her distaff, or making a little butter and cheese with their cow's milk, or doing one thing and another about the cottage. their food was seldom anything but bread, milk, and vegetables, with sometimes a portion of honey from their beehive, and now and then a bunch of grapes, that had ripened against the cottage wall. but they were two of the kindest old people in the world, and would cheerfully have gone without their dinners, any day, rather than refuse a slice of their brown loaf, a cup of new milk, and a spoonful of honey, to the weary traveller who might pause before their door. they felt as if such guests had a sort of holiness, and that they ought, therefore, to treat them better and more bountifully than their own selves. their cottage stood on a rising ground, at some short distance from a village, which lay in a hollow valley, that was about half a mile in breadth. this valley, in past ages, when the world was new, had probably been the bed of a lake. there, fishes had glided to and fro in the depths, and water-weeds had grown along the margin, and trees and hills had seen their reflected images in the broad and peaceful mirror. but, as the waters subsided, men had cultivated the soil, and built houses on it, so that it was now a fertile spot, and bore no traces of the ancient lake, except a very small brook, which meandered through the midst of the village, and supplied the inhabitants with water. the valley had been dry land so long, that oaks had sprung up, and grown great and high, and perished with old age, and been succeeded by others, as tall and stately as the first. never was there a prettier or more fruitful valley. the very sight of the plenty around them should have made the inhabitants kind and gentle, and ready to show their gratitude to providence by doing good to their fellow-creatures. but, we are sorry to say, the people of this lovely village were not worthy to dwell in a spot on which heaven had smiled so beneficently. they were a very selfish and hard-hearted people, and had no pity for the poor, nor sympathy with the homeless. they would only have laughed, had anybody told them that human beings owe a debt of love to one another, because there is no other method of paying the debt of love and care which all of us owe to providence. you will hardly believe what i am going to tell you. these naughty people taught their children to be no better than themselves, and used to clap their hands, by way of encouragement, when they saw the little boys and girls run after some poor stranger, shouting at his heels, and pelting him with stones. they kept large and fierce dogs, and whenever a traveller ventured to show himself in the village street, this pack of disagreeable curs scampered to meet him, barking, snarling, and showing their teeth. then they would seize him by his leg, or by his clothes, just as it happened; and if he were ragged when he came, he was generally a pitiable object before he had time to run away. this was a very terrible thing to poor travellers, as you may suppose, especially when they chanced to be sick, or feeble, or lame, or old. such persons (if they once knew how badly these unkind people, and their unkind children and curs, were in the habit of behaving) would go miles and miles out of their way, rather than try to pass through the village again. what made the matter seem worse, if possible, was that when rich persons came in their chariots, or riding on beautiful horses, with their servants in rich liveries attending on them, nobody could be more civil and obsequious than the inhabitants of the village. they would take off their hats, and make the humblest bows you ever saw. if the children were rude, they were pretty certain to get their ears boxed; and as for the dogs, if a single cur in the pack presumed to yelp, his master instantly beat him with a club, and tied him up without any supper. this would have been all very well, only it proved that the villagers cared much about the money that a stranger had in his pocket, and nothing whatever for the human soul, which lives equally in the beggar and the prince. so now you can understand why old philemon spoke so sorrowfully, when he heard the shouts of the children and the barking of the dogs, at the farther extremity of the village street. there was a confused din, which lasted a good while, and seemed to pass quite through the breadth of the valley. "i never heard the dogs so loud!" observed the good old man. "nor the children so rude!" answered his good old wife. they sat shaking their heads, one to another, while the noise came nearer and nearer; until, at the foot of the little eminence on which their cottage stood, they saw two travellers approaching on foot. close behind them came the fierce dogs, snarling at their very heels. a little farther off, ran a crowd of children, who sent up shrill cries, and flung stones at the two strangers, with all their might. once or twice, the younger of the two men (he was a slender and very active figure) turned about and drove back the dogs with a staff which he carried in his hand. his companion, who was a very tall person, walked calmly along, as if disdaining to notice either the naughty children, or the pack of curs, whose manners the children seemed to imitate. both of the travellers were very humbly clad, and looked as if they might not have money enough in their pockets to pay for a night's lodging. and this, i am afraid, was the reason why the villagers had allowed their children and dogs to treat them so rudely. "come, wife," said philemon to baucis, "let us go and meet these poor people. no doubt, they feel almost too heavy-hearted to climb the hill." "go you and meet them," answered baucis, "while i make haste within doors, and see whether we can get them anything for supper. a comfortable bowl of bread and milk would do wonders towards raising their spirits." accordingly, she hastened into the cottage. philemon, on his part, went forward, and extended his hand with so hospitable an aspect that there was no need of saying what nevertheless he did say, in the heartiest tone imaginable,-- "welcome, strangers! welcome!" "thank you!" replied the younger of the two, in a lively kind of way, notwithstanding his weariness and trouble. "this is quite another greeting than we have met with yonder in the village. pray, why do you live in such a bad neighborhood?" "ah!" observed old philemon, with a quiet and benign smile, "providence put me here, i hope, among other reasons, in order that i may make you what amends i can for the inhospitality of my neighbors." "well said, old father!" cried the traveller, laughing; "and, if the truth must be told, my companion and myself need some amends. those children (the little rascals!) have bespattered us finely with their mud-balls; and one of the curs has torn my cloak, which was ragged enough already. but i took him across the muzzle with my staff; and i think you may have heard him yelp, even thus far off." philemon was glad to see him in such good spirits; nor, indeed, would you have fancied, by the traveller's look and manner, that he was weary with a long day's journey, besides being disheartened by rough treatment at the end of it. he was dressed in rather an odd way, with a sort of cap on his head, the brim of which stuck out over both ears. though it was a summer evening, he wore a cloak, which he kept wrapt closely about him, perhaps because his under garments were shabby. philemon perceived, too, that he had on a singular pair of shoes; but, as it was now growing dusk, and as the old man's eyesight was none the sharpest, he could not precisely tell in what the strangeness consisted. one thing, certainly, seemed queer. the traveller was so wonderfully light and active, that it appeared as if his feet sometimes rose from the ground of their own accord, or could only be kept down by an effort. "i used to be light-footed, in my youth," said philemon to the traveller. "but i always found my feet grow heavier towards nightfall." "there is nothing like a good staff to help one along," answered the stranger; "and i happen to have an excellent one, as you see." this staff, in fact, was the oddest-looking staff that philemon had ever beheld. it was made of olivewood, and had something like a little pair of wings near the top. two snakes, carved in the wood, were represented as twining themselves about the staff, and were so very skilfully executed that old philemon (whose eyes, you know, were getting rather dim) almost thought them alive, and that he could see them wriggling and twisting. "a curious piece of work, sure enough!" said he. "a staff with wings! it would be an excellent kind of stick for a little boy to ride astride of!" by this time, philemon and his two guests had reached the cottage door. "friends," said the old man, "sit down and rest yourselves here on this bench. my good wife baucis has gone to see what you can have for supper. we are poor folks; but you shall be welcome to whatever we have in the cupboard." the younger stranger threw himself carelessly on the bench, letting his staff fall, as he did so. and here happened something rather marvellous, though trifling enough, too. the staff seemed to get up from the ground of its own accord, and, spreading its little pair of wings, it half hopped, half flew, and leaned itself against the wall of the cottage. there it stood quite still, except that the snakes continued to wriggle. but, in my private opinion, old philemon's eyesight had been playing him tricks again. before he could ask any questions, the elder stranger drew his attention from the wonderful staff, by speaking to him. "was there not," asked the stranger, in a remarkably deep tone of voice, "a lake, in very ancient times, covering the spot where now stands yonder village?" "not in my day, friend," answered philemon; "and yet i am an old man, as you see. there were always the fields and meadows, just as they are now, and the old trees, and the little stream murmuring through the midst of the valley. my father, nor his father before him, ever saw it otherwise, so far as i know; and doubtless it will still be the same, when old philemon shall be gone and forgotten!" "that is more than can be safely foretold," observed the stranger; and there was something very stern in his deep voice. he shook his head, too, so that his dark and heavy curls were shaken with the movement. "since the inhabitants of yonder village have forgotten the affections and sympathies of their nature, it were better that the lake should be rippling over their dwellings again!" the traveller looked so stern, that philemon was really almost frightened; the more so, that, at his frown, the twilight seemed suddenly to grow darker, and that, when he shook his head, there was a roll as of thunder in the air. but, in a moment afterwards, the stranger's face became so kindly and mild that the old man quite forgot his terror. nevertheless, he could not help feeling that this elder traveller must be no ordinary personage, although he happened now to be attired so humbly and to be journeying on foot. not that philemon fancied him a prince in disguise, or any character of that sort; but rather some exceedingly wise man, who went about the world in this poor garb, despising wealth and all worldly objects, and seeking everywhere to add a mite to his wisdom. this idea appeared the more probable, because, when philemon raised his eyes to the stranger's face, he seemed to see more thought there, in one look, than he could have studied out in a lifetime. while baucis was getting the supper, the travellers both began to talk very sociably with philemon. the younger, indeed, was extremely loquacious, and made such shrewd and witty remarks, that the good old man continually burst out a-laughing, and pronounced him the merriest fellow whom he had seen for many a day. "pray, my young friend," said he, as they grew familiar together, "what may i call your name?" "why, i am very nimble, as you see," answered the traveller. "so, if you call me quicksilver, the name will fit tolerably well." "quicksilver? quicksilver?" repeated philemon, looking in the traveller's face, to see if he were making fun of him. "it is a very odd name! and your companion there? has he as strange a one?" "you must ask the thunder to tell it you!" replied quicksilver, putting on a mysterious look. "no other voice is loud enough." this remark, whether it were serious or in jest, might have caused philemon to conceive a very great awe of the elder stranger, if, on venturing to gaze at him, he had not beheld so much beneficence in his visage. but, undoubtedly, here was the grandest figure that ever sat so humbly beside a cottage door. when the stranger conversed, it was with gravity, and in such a way that philemon felt irresistibly moved to tell him everything which he had most at heart. this is always the feeling that people have, when they meet with any one wise enough to comprehend all their good and evil, and to despise not a tittle of it. but philemon, simple and kind-hearted old man that he was, had not many secrets to disclose. he talked, however, quite garrulously, about the events of his past life, in the whole course of which he had never been a score of miles from this very spot. his wife baucis and himself had dwelt in the cottage from their youth upward, earning their bread by honest labor, always poor, but still contented. he told what excellent butter and cheese baucis made, and how nice were the vegetables which he raised in his garden. he said, too, that, because they loved one another so very much, it was the wish of both that death might not separate them, but that they should die, as they had lived, together. as the stranger listened, a smile beamed over his countenance, and made its expression as sweet as it was grand. "you are a good old man," said he to philemon, "and you have a good old wife to be your helpmeet. it is fit that your wish be granted." and it seemed to philemon, just then, as if the sunset clouds threw up a bright flash from the west, and kindled a sudden light in the sky. baucis had now got supper ready, and, coming to the door, began to make apologies for the poor fare which she was forced to set before her guests. "had we known you were coming," said she, "my good man and myself would have gone without a morsel, rather than you should lack a better supper. but i took the most part of to-day's milk to make cheese; and our last loaf is already half eaten. ah me! i never feel the sorrow of being poor, save when a poor traveller knocks at our door." "all will be very well; do not trouble yourself, my good dame," replied the elder stranger, kindly. "an honest, hearty welcome to a guest works miracles with the fare, and is capable of turning the coarsest food to nectar and ambrosia." "a welcome you shall have," cried baucis, "and likewise a little honey that we happen to have left, and a bunch of purple grapes besides." "why, mother baucis, it is a feast!" exclaimed quicksilver, laughing, "an absolute feast! and you shall see how bravely i will play my part at it! i think i never felt hungrier in my life." "mercy on us!" whispered baucis to her husband. "if the young man has such a terrible appetite, i am afraid there will not be half enough supper!" they all went into the cottage. and now, my little auditors, shall i tell you something that will make you open your eyes very wide? it is really one of the oddest circumstances in the whole story. quicksilver's staff, you recollect, had set itself up against the wall of the cottage. well; when its master entered the door, leaving this wonderful staff behind, what should it do but immediately spread its little wings, and go hopping and fluttering up the door steps! tap, tap, went the staff, on the kitchen floor; nor did it rest until it had stood itself on end, with the greatest gravity and decorum, beside quicksilver's chair. old philemon, however, as well as his wife, was so taken up in attending to their guests, that no notice was given to what the staff had been about. as baucis had said, there was but a scanty supper for two hungry travellers. in the middle of the table was the remnant of a brown loaf, with a piece of cheese on one side of it, and a dish of honeycomb on the other. there was a pretty good bunch of grapes for each of the guests. a moderately sized earthen pitcher, nearly full of milk, stood at a corner of the board; and when baucis had filled two bowls, and set them before the strangers, only a little milk remained in the bottom of the pitcher. alas! it is a very sad business, when a bountiful heart finds itself pinched and squeezed among narrow circumstances. poor baucis kept wishing that she might starve for a week to come, if it were possible, by so doing, to provide these hungry folks a more plentiful supper. and, since the supper was so exceedingly small, she could not help wishing that their appetites had not been quite so large. why, at their very first sitting down, the travellers both drank off all the milk in their two bowls, at a draught. "a little more milk, kind mother baucis, if you please," said quicksilver. "the day has been hot, and i am very much athirst." "now, my dear people," answered baucis, in great confusion, "i am so sorry and ashamed! but the truth is, there is hardly a drop more milk in the pitcher. o husband! husband! why didn't we go without our supper?" "why, it appears to me," cried quicksilver, starting up from table and taking the pitcher by the handle, "it really appears to me that matters are not quite so bad as you represent them. here is certainly more milk in the pitcher." so saying, and to the vast astonishment of baucis, he proceeded to fill, not only his own bowl, but his companion's likewise, from the pitcher, that was supposed to be almost empty. the good woman could scarcely believe her eyes. she had certainly poured out nearly all the milk, and had peeped in afterwards, and seen the bottom of the pitcher, as she set it down upon the table. "but i am old," thought baucis to herself, "and apt to be forgetful. i suppose i must have made a mistake. at all events, the pitcher cannot help being empty now, after filling the bowls twice over." "what excellent milk!" observed quicksilver, after quaffing the contents of the second bowl. "excuse me, my kind hostess, but i must really ask you for a little more." now baucis had seen, as plainly as she could see anything, that quicksilver had turned the pitcher upside down, and consequently had poured out every drop of milk, in filling the last bowl. of course, there could not possibly be any left. however, in order to let him know precisely how the case was, she lifted the pitcher, and made a gesture as if pouring milk into quicksilver's bowl, but without the remotest idea that any milk would stream forth. what was her surprise, therefore, when such an abundant cascade fell bubbling into the bowl, that it was immediately filled to the brim, and overflowed upon the table! the two snakes that were twisted about quicksilver's staff (but neither baucis nor philemon happened to observe this circumstance) stretched out their heads, and began to lap up the spilt milk. and then what a delicious fragrance the milk had! it seemed as if philemon's only cow must have pastured, that day, on the richest herbage that could be found anywhere in the world. i only wish that each of you, my beloved little souls, could have a bowl of such nice milk, at supper-time! "and now a slice of your brown loaf, mother baucis," said quicksilver, "and a little of that honey!" baucis cut him a slice, accordingly; and though the loaf, when she and her husband ate of it, had been rather too dry and crusty to be palatable, it was now as light and moist as if but a few hours out of the oven. tasting a crumb, which had fallen on the table, she found it more delicious than bread ever was before, and could hardly believe that it was a loaf of her own kneading and baking. yet, what other loaf could it possibly be? but, oh the honey! i may just as well let it alone, without trying to describe how exquisitely it smelt and looked. its color was that of the purest and most transparent gold; and it had the odor of a thousand flowers; but of such flowers as never grew in an earthly garden, and to seek which the bees must have flown high above the clouds. the wonder is, that, after alighting on a flower-bed of so delicious fragrance and immortal bloom, they should have been content to fly down again to their hive in philemon's garden. never was such honey tasted, seen, or smelt. the perfume floated around the kitchen, and made it so delightful, that, had you closed your eyes, you would instantly have forgotten the low ceiling and smoky walls, and have fancied yourself in an arbor, with celestial honeysuckles creeping over it. although good mother baucis was a simple old dame, she could not but think that there was something rather out of the common way, in all that had been going on. so, after helping the guests to bread and honey, and laying a bunch of grapes by each of their plates, she sat down by philemon, and told him what she had seen, in a whisper. "did you ever hear the like?" asked she. "no, i never did," answered philemon, with a smile. "and i rather think, my dear old wife, you have been walking about in a sort of a dream. if i had poured out the milk, i should have seen through the business at once. there happened to be a little more in the pitcher than you thought,--that is all." "ah, husband," said baucis, "say what you will these are very uncommon people." "well, well," replied philemon, still smiling, "perhaps they are. they certainly do look as if they had seen better days; and i am heartily glad to see them making so comfortable a supper." each of the guests had now taken his bunch of grapes upon his plate. baucis (who rubbed her eyes, in order to see the more clearly) was of opinion that the clusters had grown larger and richer, and that each separate grape seemed to be on the point of bursting with ripe juice. it was entirely a mystery to her how such grapes could ever have been produced from the old stunted vine that climbed against the cottage wall. "very admirable grapes these!" observed quicksilver, as he swallowed one after another, without apparently diminishing his cluster. "pray, my good host, whence did you gather them?" "from my own vine," answered philemon. "you may see one of its branches twisting across the window, yonder. but wife and i never thought the grapes very fine ones." "i never tasted better," said the guest. "another cup of this delicious milk, if you please, and i shall then have supped better than a prince." this time, old philemon bestirred himself, and took up the pitcher; for he was curious to discover whether there was any reality in the marvels which baucis had whispered to him. he knew that his good old wife was incapable of falsehood, and that she was seldom mistaken in what she supposed to be true; but this was so very singular a case, that he wanted to see into it with his own eyes. on taking up the pitcher, therefore, he slyly peeped into it, and was fully satisfied that it contained not so much as a single drop. all at once, however, he beheld a little white fountain, which gushed up from the bottom of the pitcher, and speedily filled it to the brim with foaming and deliciously fragrant milk. it was lucky that philemon, in his surprise, did not drop the miraculous pitcher from his hand. "who are ye, wonder-working strangers!" cried he, even more bewildered than his wife had been. "your guests, my good philemon, and your friends," replied the elder traveller, in his mild, deep voice, that had something at once sweet and awe-inspiring in it. "give me likewise a cup of the milk; and may your pitcher never be empty for kind baucis and yourself, any more than for the needy wayfarer!" the supper being now over, the strangers requested to be shown to their place of repose. the old people would gladly have talked with them a little longer, and have expressed the wonder which they felt, and their delight at finding the poor and meagre supper prove so much better and more abundant than they hoped. but the elder traveller had inspired them with such reverence, that they dared not ask him any questions. and when philemon drew quicksilver aside, and inquired how under the sun a fountain of milk could have got into an old earthen pitcher, this latter personage pointed to his staff. "there is the whole mystery of the affair," quoth quicksilver; "and if you can make it out, i'll thank you to let me know. i can't tell what to make of my staff. it is always playing such odd tricks as this; sometimes getting me a supper, and, quite as often, stealing it away. if i had any faith in such nonsense, i should say the stick was bewitched!" he said no more, but looked so slyly in their faces, that they rather fancied he was laughing at them. the magic staff went hopping at his heels, as quicksilver quitted the room. when left alone, the good old couple spent some little time in conversation about the events of the evening, and then lay down on the floor, and fell fast asleep. they had given up their sleeping-room to the guests, and had no other bed for themselves, save these planks, which i wish had been as soft as their own hearts. the old man and his wife were stirring, betimes, in the morning, and the strangers likewise arose with the sun, and made their preparations to depart. philemon hospitably entreated them to remain a little longer, until baucis could milk the cow, and bake a cake upon the hearth, and, perhaps, find them a few fresh eggs, for breakfast. the guests, however, seemed to think it better to accomplish a good part of their journey before the heat of the day should come on. they, therefore, persisted in setting out immediately, but asked philemon and baucis to walk forth with them a short distance, and show them the road which they were to take. so they all four issued from the cottage, chatting together like old friends. it was very remarkable, indeed, how familiar the old couple insensibly grew with the elder traveller, and how their good and simple spirits melted into his, even as two drops of water would melt into the illimitable ocean. and as for quicksilver, with his keen, quick, laughing wits, he appeared to discover every little thought that but peeped into their minds, before they suspected it themselves. they sometimes wished, it is true, that he had not been quite so quick-witted, and also that he would fling away his staff, which looked so mysteriously mischievous, with the snakes always writhing about it. but then, again, quicksilver showed himself so very good-humored, that they would have been rejoiced to keep him in their cottage, staff, snakes, and all, every day, and the whole day long. "ah me! well-a-day!" exclaimed philemon, when they had walked a little way from their door. "if our neighbors only knew what a blessed thing it is to show hospitality to strangers, they would tie up all their dogs, and never allow their children to fling another stone." "it is a sin and shame for them to behave so,--that it is!" cried good old baucis, vehemently. "and i mean to go this very day, and tell some of them what naughty people they are!" "i fear," remarked quicksilver, slyly smiling, "that you will find none of them at home." the elder traveller's brow, just then, assumed such a grave, stern, and awful grandeur, yet serene withal, that neither baucis nor philemon dared to speak a word. they gazed reverently into his face, as if they had been gazing at the sky. "when men do not feel towards the humblest stranger as if he were a brother," said the traveller, in tones so deep that they sounded like those of an organ, "they are unworthy to exist on earth, which was created as the abode of a great human brotherhood!" "and, by the by, my dear old people," cried quicksilver, with the liveliest look of fun and mischief in his eyes, "where is this same village that you talk about? on which side of us does it lie? methinks i do not see it hereabouts." philemon and his wife turned towards the valley, where, at sunset, only the day before, they had seen the meadows, the houses, the gardens, the clumps of trees, the wide, green-margined street, with children playing in it, and all the tokens of business, enjoyment, and prosperity. but what was their astonishment! there was no longer any appearance of a village! even the fertile vale, in the hollow of which it lay, had ceased to have existence. in its stead, they beheld the broad, blue surface of a lake, which filled the great basin of the valley from brim to brim, and reflected the surrounding hills in its bosom with as tranquil an image as if it had been there ever since the creation of the world. for an instant, the lake remained perfectly smooth. then, a little breeze sprang up, and caused the water to dance, glitter, and sparkle in the early sunbeams, and to dash, with a pleasant rippling murmur, against the hither shore. the lake seemed so strangely familiar, that the old couple were greatly perplexed, and felt as if they could only have been dreaming about a village having lain there. but, the next moment, they remembered the vanished dwellings, and the faces and characters of the inhabitants, far too distinctly for a dream. the village had been there yesterday, and now was gone! "alas!" cried these kind-hearted old people, "what has become of our poor neighbors?" "they exist no longer as men and women," said the elder traveller, in his grand and deep voice, while a roll of thunder seemed to echo it at a distance. "there was neither use nor beauty in such a life as theirs; for they never softened or sweetened the hard lot of mortality by the exercise of kindly affections between man and man. they retained no image of the better life in their bosoms; therefore, the lake, that was of old, has spread itself forth again, to reflect the sky!" "and as for those foolish people," said quicksilver, with his mischievous smile, "they are all transformed to fishes. there needed but little change, for they were already a scaly set of rascals, and the coldest-blooded beings in existence. so, kind mother baucis, whenever you or your husband have an appetite for a dish of broiled trout, he can throw in a line, and pull out half a dozen of your old neighbors!" "all," cried baucis, shuddering, "i would not, for the world, put one of them on the gridiron!" "no," added philemon, making a wry face, "we could never relish them!" "as for you, good philemon," continued the elder traveller,--"and you, kind baucis,--you, with your scanty means, have mingled so much heartfelt hospitality with your entertainment of the homeless stranger, that the milk became an inexhaustible fount of nectar, and the brown loaf and the honey were ambrosia. thus, the divinities have feasted, at your board, off the same viands that supply their banquets on olympus. you have done well, my dear old friends. wherefore, request whatever favor you have most at heart, and it is granted." philemon and baucis looked at one another, and then,--i know not which of the two it was who spoke, but that one uttered the desire of both their hearts. "let us live together, while we live, and leave the world at the same instant, when we die! for we have always loved one another!" "be it so!" replied the stranger, with majestic kindness. "now, look towards your cottage!" they did so. but what was their surprise on beholding a tall edifice of white marble, with a wide-open portal, occupying the spot where their humble residence had so lately stood! "there is your home," said the stranger, beneficently smiling on them both. "exercise your hospitality in yonder palace as freely as in the poor hovel to which you welcomed us last evening." the old folks fell on their knees to thank him; but, behold! neither he nor quicksilver was there. so philemon and baucis took up their residence in the marble palace, and spent their time, with vast satisfaction to themselves, in making everybody jolly and comfortable who happened to pass that way. the milk-pitcher, i must not forget to say, retained its marvellous quality of being never empty, when it was desirable to have it full. whenever an honest, good-humored, and free-hearted guest took a draught from this pitcher, he invariably found it the sweetest and most invigorating fluid that ever ran down his throat. but, if a cross and disagreeable curmudgeon happened to sip, he was pretty certain to twist his visage into a hard knot, and pronounce it a pitcher of sour milk! thus the old couple lived in their palace a great, great while, and grew older and older, and very old indeed. at length, however, there came a summer morning when philemon and baucis failed to make their appearance, as on other mornings, with one hospitable smile overspreading both their pleasant faces, to invite the guests of over-night to breakfast. the guests searched everywhere, from top to bottom of the spacious palace, and all to no purpose. but, after a great deal of perplexity, they espied, in front of the portal, two venerable trees, which nobody could remember to have seen there the day before. yet there they stood, with their roots fastened deep into the soil, and a huge breadth of foliage overshadowing the whole front of the edifice. one was an oak, and the other a linden-tree. their boughs--it was strange and beautiful to see--were intertwined together, and embraced one another, so that each tree seemed to live in the other tree's bosom much more than in its own. while the guests were marvelling how these trees, that must have required at least a century to grow, could have come to be so tall and venerable in a single night, a breeze sprang up, and set their intermingled boughs astir. and then there was a deep, broad murmur in the air, as if the two mysterious trees were speaking. "i am old philemon!" murmured the oak. "i am old baucis!" murmured the linden-tree. but, as the breeze grew stronger, the trees both spoke at once,--"philemon! baucis! baucis! philemon!"--as if one were both and both were one, and talking together in the depths of their mutual heart. it was plain enough to perceive that the good old couple had renewed their age, and were now to spend a quiet and delightful hundred years or so, philemon as an oak, and baucis as a linden-tree. and oh, what a hospitable shade did they fling around them. whenever a wayfarer paused beneath it, he heard a pleasant whisper of the leaves above his head, and wondered how the sound should so much resemble words like these:-- "welcome, welcome, dear traveller, welcome!" and some kind soul, that knew what would have pleased old baucis and old philemon best, built a circular seat around both their trunks, where, for a great while afterwards, the weary, and the hungry, and the thirsty used to repose themselves, and quaff milk abundantly out of the miraculous pitcher. and i wish, for all our sakes, that we had the pitcher here now! the hill-side _after the story_ "how much did the pitcher hold?" asked sweet fern. "it did not hold quite a quart," answered the student; "but you might keep pouring milk out of it, till you should fill a hogshead, if you pleased. the truth is, it would run on forever, and not be dry even at midsummer,--which is more than can be said of yonder rill, that goes babbling down the hill-side." "and what has become of the pitcher now?" inquired the little boy. "it was broken, i am sorry to say, about twenty-five thousand years ago," replied cousin eustace. "the people mended it as well as they could, but, though it would hold milk pretty well, it was never afterwards known to fill itself of its own accord. so, you see, it was no better than any other cracked earthen pitcher." "what a pity!" cried all the children at once. the respectable dog ben had accompanied the party, as did likewise a half-grown newfoundland puppy, who went by the name of bruin, because he was just as black as a bear. ben, being elderly, and of very circumspect habits, was respectfully requested, by cousin eustace, to stay behind with the four little children, in order to keep them out of mischief. as for black bruin, who was himself nothing but a child, the student thought it best to take him along, lest, in his rude play with the other children, he should trip them up, and send them rolling and tumbling down the hill. advising cowslip, sweet fern, dandelion, and squash-blossom to sit pretty still, in the spot where he left them, the student, with primrose and the elder children, began to ascend, and were soon out of sight among the trees. the chimÆra bald-summit _introductory to "the chimæra"_ upward, along the steep and wooded hill-side, went eustace bright and his companions. the trees were not yet in full leaf, but had budded forth sufficiently to throw an airy shadow, while the sunshine filled them with green light. there were moss-grown rocks, half hidden among the old, brown, fallen leaves; there were rotten tree-trunks, lying at full length where they had long ago fallen; there were decayed boughs, that had been shaken down by the wintry gales, and were scattered everywhere about. but still, though these things looked so aged, the aspect of the wood was that of the newest life; for, whichever way you turned your eyes, something fresh and green was springing forth, so as to be ready for the summer. at last, the young people reached the upper verge of the wood, and found themselves almost at the summit of the hill. it was not a peak, nor a great round ball, but a pretty wide plain, or table-land, with a house and barn upon it, at some distance. that house was the home of a solitary family; and often-times the clouds, whence fell the rain, and whence the snow-storm drifted down into the valley, hung lower than this bleak and lonely dwelling-place. on the highest point of the hill was a heap of stones, in the centre of which was stuck a long pole, with a little flag fluttering at the end of it. eustace led the children thither, and bade them look around, and see how large a tract of our beautiful world they could take in at a glance. and their eyes grew wider as they looked. monument mountain, to the southward, was still in the centre of the scene, but seemed to have sunk and subsided, so that it was now but an undistinguished member of a large family of hills. beyond it, the taconic range looked higher and bulkier than before. our pretty lake was seen, with all its little bays and inlets; and not that alone, but two or three new lakes were opening their blue eyes to the sun. several white villages, each with its steeple, were scattered about in the distance. there were so many farm-houses, with their acres of woodland, pasture, mowing-fields, and tillage, that the children could hardly make room in their minds to receive all these different objects. there, too, was tanglewood, which they had hitherto thought such an important apex of the world. it now occupied so small a space, that they gazed far beyond it, and on either side, and searched a good while with all their eyes, before discovering whereabout it stood. white, fleecy clouds were hanging in the air, and threw the dark spots of their shadow here and there over the landscape. but, by and by, the sunshine was where the shadow had been, and the shadow was somewhere else. far to the westward was a range of blue mountains, which eustace bright told the children were the catskills. among those misty hills, he said, was a spot where some old dutchmen were playing an everlasting game of nine-pins, and where an idle fellow, whose name was rip van winkle, had fallen asleep, and slept twenty years at a stretch. the children eagerly besought eustace to tell them all about this wonderful affair. but the student replied that the story had been told once already, and better than it ever could be told again; and that nobody would have a right to alter a word of it, until it should have grown as old as "the gorgon's head," and "the three golden apples," and the rest of those miraculous legends. "at least," said periwinkle, "while we rest ourselves here, and are looking about us, you can tell us another of your own stories." "yes, cousin eustace," cried primrose, "i advise you to tell us a story here. take some lofty subject or other, and see if your imagination will not come up to it. perhaps the mountain air may make you poetical, for once. and no matter how strange and wonderful the story may be, now that we are up among the clouds, we can believe anything." "can you believe," asked eustace, "that there was once a winged horse?" "yes," said saucy primrose; "but i am afraid you will never be able to catch him." "for that matter, primrose," rejoined the student, "i might possibly catch pegasus, and get upon his back, too, as well as a dozen other fellows that i know of. at any rate, here is a story about him; and, of all places in the world, it ought certainly to be told upon a mountain-top." so, sitting on the pile of stones, while the children clustered themselves at its base, eustace fixed his eyes on a white cloud that was sailing by, and began as follows. the chimæra once, in the old, old times (for all the strange things which i tell you about happened long before anybody can remember), a fountain gushed out of a hill-side, in the marvellous land of greece. and, for aught i know, after so many thousand years, it is still gushing out of the very selfsame spot. at any rate, there was the pleasant fountain, welling freshly forth and sparkling adown the hill-side, in the golden sunset, when a handsome young man named bellerophon drew near its margin. in his hand he held a bridle, studded with brilliant gems, and adorned with a golden bit. seeing an old man, and another of middle age, and a little boy, near the fountain, and likewise a maiden, who was dipping up some of the water in a pitcher, he paused, and begged that he might refresh himself with a draught. "this is very delicious water," he said to the maiden as he rinsed and filled her pitcher, after drinking out of it. "will you be kind enough to tell me whether the fountain has any name?" "yes; it is called the fountain of pirene," answered the maiden; and then she added, "my grandmother has told me that this clear fountain was once a beautiful woman; and when her son was killed by the arrows of the huntress diana, she melted all away into tears. and so the water, which you find so cool and sweet, is the sorrow of that poor mother's heart!" "i should not have dreamed," observed the young stranger, "that so clear a well-spring, with its gush and gurgle, and its cheery dance out of the shade into the sunlight, had so much as one tear-drop in its bosom! and this, then, is pirene? i thank you, pretty maiden, for telling me its name. i have come from a far-away country to find this very spot." a middle-aged country fellow (he had driven his cow to drink out of the spring) stared hard at young bellerophon, and at the handsome bridle which he carried in his hand. "the water-courses must be getting low, friend, in your part of the world," remarked he, "if you come so far only to find the fountain of pirene. but, pray, have you lost a horse? i see you carry the bridle in your hand; and a very pretty one it is with that double row of bright stones upon it. if the horse was as fine as the bridle, you are much to be pitied for losing him." "i have lost no horse," said bellerophon, with a smile. "but i happen to be seeking a very famous one, which, as wise people have informed me, must be found hereabouts, if anywhere. do you know whether the winged horse pegasus still haunts the fountain of pirene, as he used to do in your forefathers' days?" but then the country fellow laughed. some of you, my little friends, have probably heard that this pegasus was a snow-white steed, with beautiful silvery wings, who spent most of his time on the summit of mount helicon. he was as wild, and as swift, and as buoyant, in his flight through the air, as any eagle that ever soared into the clouds. there was nothing else like him in the world. he had no mate; he never had been backed or bridled by a master; and, for many a long year, he led a solitary and a happy life. oh, how fine a thing it is to be a winged horse! sleeping at night, as he did, on a lofty mountain-top, and passing the greater part of the day in the air, pegasus seemed hardly to be a creature of the earth. whenever he was seen, up very high above people's heads, with the sunshine on his silvery wings, you would have thought that he belonged to the sky, and that, skimming a little too low, he had got astray among our mists and vapors, and was seeking his way back again. it was very pretty to behold him plunge into the fleecy bosom of a bright cloud, and be lost in it, for a moment or two, and then break forth from the other side. or, in a sullen rain-storm, when there was a gray pavement of clouds over the whole sky, it would sometimes happen that the winged horse descended right through it, and the glad light of the upper region would gleam after him. in another instant, it is true, both pegasus and the pleasant light would be gone away together. but any one that was fortunate enough to see this wondrous spectacle felt cheerful the whole day afterwards, and as much longer as the storm lasted. in the summer-time, and in the beautifullest of weather, pegasus often alighted on the solid earth, and, closing his silvery wings, would gallop over hill and dale for pastime, as fleetly as the wind. oftener than in any other place, he had been seen near the fountain of pirene, drinking the delicious water, or rolling himself upon the soft grass of the margin. sometimes, too (but pegasus was very dainty in his food), he would crop a few of the clover-blossoms that happened to be sweetest. to the fountain of pirene, therefore, people's great-grandfathers had been in the habit of going (as long as they were youthful, and retained their faith in winged horses), in hopes of getting a glimpse at the beautiful pegasus. but, of late years, he had been very seldom seen. indeed, there were many of the country folks, dwelling within half an hour's walk of the fountain, who had never beheld pegasus, and did not believe that there was any such creature in existence. the country fellow to whom bellerophon was speaking chanced to be one of those incredulous persons. and that was the reason why he laughed. "pegasus, indeed!" cried he, turning up his nose as high as such a flat nose could be turned up,--"pegasus, indeed! a winged horse, truly! why, friend, are you in your senses? of what use would wings be to a horse? could he drag the plough so well, think you? to be sure, there might be a little saving in the expense of shoes; but then, how would a man like to see his horse flying out of the stable window?--yes, or whisking him up above the clouds, when he only wanted to ride to mill? no, no! i don't believe in pegasus. there never was such a ridiculous kind of a horse-fowl made!" "i have some reason to think otherwise," said bellerophon, quietly. and then he turned to an old, gray man, who was leaning on a staff, and listening very attentively, with his head stretched forward, and one hand at his ear, because, for the last twenty years, he had been getting rather deaf. "and what say you, venerable sir?" inquired he. "in your younger days, i should imagine, you must frequently have seen the winged steed!" "ah, young stranger, my memory is very poor!" said the aged man. "when i was a lad, if i remember rightly, i used to believe there was such a horse, and so did everybody else. but, nowadays, i hardly know what to think, and very seldom think about the winged horse at all. if i ever saw the creature, it was a long, long while ago; and, to tell you the truth, i doubt whether i ever did see him. one day, to be sure, when i was quite a youth, i remember seeing some hoof-tramps round about the brink of the fountain. pegasus might have made those hoof-marks; and so might some other horse." "and have you never seen him, my fair maiden?" asked bellerophon of the girl, who stood with the pitcher on her head, while this talk went on. "you certainly could see pegasus, if anybody can, for your eyes are very bright." "once i thought i saw him," replied the maiden, with a smile and a blush. "it was either pegasus, or a large white bird, a very great way up in the air. and one other time, as i was coming to the fountain with my pitcher, i heard a neigh. oh, such a brisk and melodious neigh as that was! my very heart leaped with delight at the sound. but it startled me, nevertheless; so that i ran home without filling my pitcher." "that was truly a pity!" said bellerophon. and he turned to the child, whom i mentioned at the beginning of the story, and who was gazing at him, as children are apt to gaze at strangers, with his rosy mouth wide open. "well, my little fellow," cried bellerophon, playfully pulling one of his curls, "i suppose you have often seen the winged horse." "that i have," answered the child, very readily. "i saw him yesterday, and many times before." "you are a fine little man!" said bellerophon, drawing the child closer to him. "come, tell me all about it." "why," replied the child, "i often come here to sail little boats in the fountain, and to gather pretty pebbles out of its basin. and sometimes, when i look down into the water, i see the image of the winged horse, in the picture of the sky that is there. i wish he would come down, and take me on his back, and let me ride him up to the moon! but, if i so much as stir to look at him, he flies far away out of sight." and bellerophon put his faith in the child, who had seen the image of pegasus in the water, and in the maiden, who had heard him neigh so melodiously, rather than in the middle-aged clown, who believed only in cart-horses, or in the old man who had forgotten the beautiful things of his youth. therefore, he haunted about the fountain of pirene for a great many days afterwards. he kept continually on the watch, looking upward at the sky, or else down into the water, hoping forever that he should see either the reflected image of the winged horse, or the marvellous reality. he held the bridle, with its bright gems and golden bit, always ready in his hand. the rustic people, who dwelt in the neighborhood, and drove their cattle to the fountain to drink, would often laugh at poor bellerophon, and sometimes take him pretty severely to task. they told him that an able-bodied young man, like himself, ought to have better business than to be wasting his time in such an idle pursuit. they offered to sell him a horse, if he wanted one; and when bellerophon declined the purchase, they tried to drive a bargain with him for his fine bridle. even the country boys thought him so very foolish, that they used to have a great deal of sport about him, and were rude enough not to care a fig, although bellerophon saw and heard it. one little urchin, for example, would play pegasus, and cut the oddest imaginable capers, by way of flying; while one of his schoolfellows would scamper after him, holding forth a twist of bulrushes, which was intended to represent bellerophon's ornamental bridle. but the gentle child, who had seen the picture of pegasus in the water, comforted the young stranger more than all the naughty boys could torment him. the dear little fellow, in his play-hours, often sat down beside him, and, without speaking a word, would look down into the fountain and up towards the sky, with so innocent a faith, that bellerophon could not help feeling encouraged. now you will, perhaps, wish to be told why it was that bellerophon had undertaken to catch the winged horse. and we shall find no better opportunity to speak about this matter than while he is waiting for pegasus to appear. if i were to relate the whole of bellerophon's previous adventures, they might easily grow into a very long story. it will be quite enough to say, that, in a certain country of asia, a terrible monster, called a chimæra, had made its appearance, and was doing more mischief than could be talked about between now and sunset. according to the best accounts which i have been able to obtain, this chimæra was nearly, if not quite, the ugliest and most poisonous creature, and the strangest and unaccountablest, and the hardest to fight with, and the most difficult to run away from, that ever came out of the earth's inside. it had a tail like a boa-constrictor; its body was like i do not care what; and it had three separate heads, one of which was a lion's, the second a goat's, and the third an abominably great snake's. and a hot blast of fire came flaming out of each of its three mouths! being an earthly monster, i doubt whether it had any wings; but, wings or no, it ran like a goat and a lion, and wriggled along like a serpent, and thus contrived to make about as much speed as all the three together. [illustration: bellerophon by the fountain of pirene] oh, the mischief, and mischief, and mischief that this naughty creature did! with its flaming breath, it could set a forest on fire, or burn up a field of grain, or, for that matter, a village, with all its fences and houses. it laid waste the whole country round about, and used to eat up people and animals alive, and cook them afterwards in the burning oven of its stomach. mercy on us, little children, i hope neither you nor i will ever happen to meet a chimæra! while the hateful beast (if a beast we can anywise call it) was doing all these horrible things, it so chanced that bellerophon came to that part of the world, on a visit to the king. the king's name was iobates, and lycia was the country which he ruled over. bellerophon was one of the bravest youths in the world, and desired nothing so much as to do some valiant and beneficent deed, such as would make all mankind admire and love him. in those days, the only way for a young man to distinguish himself was by fighting battles, either with the enemies of his country, or with wicked giants, or with troublesome dragons, or with wild beasts, when he could find nothing more dangerous to encounter. king iobates, perceiving the courage of his youthful visitor, proposed to him to go and fight the chimæra, which everybody else was afraid of, and which, unless it should be soon killed, was likely to convert lycia into a desert. bellerophon hesitated not a moment, but assured the king that he would either slay this dreaded chimæra, or perish in the attempt. but, in the first place, as the monster was so prodigiously swift, he bethought himself that he should never win the victory by fighting on foot. the wisest thing he could do, therefore, was to get the very best and fleetest horse that could anywhere be found. and what other horse, in all the world, was half so fleet as the marvellous horse pegasus, who had wings as well as legs, and was even more active in the air than on the earth? to be sure, a great many people denied that there was any such horse with wings, and said that the stories about him were all poetry and nonsense. but, wonderful as it appeared, bellerophon believed that pegasus was a real steed, and hoped that he himself might be fortunate enough to find him; and, once fairly mounted on his back, he would be able to fight the chimæra at better advantage. and this was the purpose with which he had travelled from lycia to greece, and had brought the beautifully ornamented bridle in his hand. it was an enchanted bridle. if he could only succeed in putting the golden bit into the mouth of pegasus, the winged horse would be submissive, and would own bellerophon for his master, and fly whithersoever he might choose to turn the rein. but, indeed, it was a weary and anxious time, while bellerophon waited and waited for pegasus, in hopes that he would come and drink at the fountain of pirene. he was afraid lest king iobates should imagine that he had fled from the chimæra. it pained him, too, to think how much mischief the monster was doing, while he himself, instead of fighting with it, was compelled to sit idly poring over the bright waters of pirene, as they gushed out of the sparkling sand. and as pegasus came thither so seldom in these latter years, and scarcely alighted there more than once in a lifetime, bellerophon feared that he might grow an old man, and have no strength left in his arms nor courage in his heart, before the winged horse would appear. oh, how heavily passes the time, while an adventurous youth is yearning to do his part in life, and to gather in the harvest of his renown! how hard a lesson it is to wait! our life is brief, and how much of it is spent in teaching us only this! well was it for bellerophon that the gentle child had grown so fond of him, and was never weary of keeping him company. every morning the child gave him a new hope to put in his bosom, instead of yesterday's withered one. "dear bellerophon," he would cry, looking up hopefully into his face, "i think we shall see pegasus to-day!" and, at length, if it had not been for the little boy's unwavering faith, bellerophon would have given up all hope, and would have gone back to lycia, and have done his best to slay the chimæra without the help of the winged horse. and in that case poor bellerophon would at least have been terribly scorched by the creature's breath, and would most probably have been killed and devoured. nobody should ever try to fight an earth-born chimæra, unless he can first get upon the back of an aerial steed. one morning the child spoke to bellerophon even more hopefully than usual. "dear, dear bellerophon," cried he, "i know not why it is, but i feel as if we should certainly see pegasus to-day!" and all that day he would not stir a step from bellerophon's side; so they ate a crust of bread together, and drank some of the water of the fountain. in the afternoon, there they sat, and bellerophon had thrown his arm around the child, who likewise had put one of his little hands into bellerophon's. the latter was lost in his own thoughts, and was fixing his eyes vacantly on the trunks of the trees that overshadowed the fountain, and on the grapevines that clambered up among their branches. but the gentle child was gazing down into the water; he was grieved, for bellerophon's sake, that the hope of another day should be deceived, like so many before it; and two or three quiet tear-drops fell from his eyes, and mingled with what were said to be the many tears of pirene, when she wept for her slain children. but, when he least thought of it, bellerophon felt the pressure of the child's little hand, and heard a soft, almost breathless, whisper. "see there, dear bellerophon! there is an image in the water!" the young man looked down into the dimpling mirror of the fountain, and saw what he took to be the reflection of a bird which seemed to be flying at a great height in the air, with a gleam of sunshine on its snowy or silvery wings. "what a splendid bird it must be!" said he. "and how very large it looks, though it must really be flying higher than the clouds!" "it makes me tremble!" whispered the child. "i am afraid to look up into the air! it is very beautiful, and yet i dare only look at its image in the water. dear bellerophon, do you not see that it is no bird? it is the winged horse pegasus!" bellerophon's heart began to throb! he gazed keenly upward, but could not see the winged creature, whether bird or horse; because, just then, it had plunged into the fleecy depths of a summer cloud. it was but a moment, however, before the object reappeared, sinking lightly down out of the cloud, although still at a vast distance from the earth. bellerophon caught the child in his arms, and shrank back with him, so that they were both hidden among the thick shrubbery which grew all around the fountain. not that he was afraid of any harm, but he dreaded lest, if pegasus caught a glimpse of them, he would fly far away, and alight in some inaccessible mountain-top. for it was really the winged horse. after they had expected him so long, he was coming to quench his thirst with the water of pirene. nearer and nearer came the aerial wonder, flying in great circles, as you may have seen a dove when about to alight. downward came pegasus, in those wide, sweeping circles, which grew narrower, and narrower still, as he gradually approached the earth. the nigher the view of him, the more beautiful he was, and the more marvellous the sweep of his silvery wings. at last, with so light a pressure as hardly to bend the grass about the fountain, or imprint a hoof-tramp in the sand of its margin, he alighted, and, stooping his wild head, began to drink. he drew in the water, with long and pleasant sighs, and tranquil pauses of enjoyment; and then another draught, and another, and another. for, nowhere in the world, or up among the clouds, did pegasus love any water as he loved this of pirene. and when his thirst was slaked, he cropped a few of the honey-blossoms of the clover, delicately tasting them, but not caring to make a hearty meal, because the herbage, just beneath the clouds, on the lofty sides of mount helicon, suited his palate better than this ordinary grass. after thus drinking to his heart's content, and in his dainty fashion, condescending to take a little food, the winged horse began to caper to and fro, and dance as it were, out of mere idleness and sport. there never was a more playful creature made than this very pegasus. so there he frisked, in a way that it delights me to think about, fluttering his great wings as lightly as ever did a linnet, and running little races, half on earth and half in air, and which i know not whether to call a flight or a gallop. when a creature is perfectly able to fly, he sometimes chooses to run, just for the pastime of the thing; and so did pegasus, although it cost him some little trouble to keep his hoofs so near the ground. bellerophon, meanwhile, holding the child's hand, peeped forth from the shrubbery, and thought that never was any sight so beautiful as this, nor ever a horse's eyes so wild and spirited as those of pegasus. it seemed a sin to think of bridling him and riding on his back. once or twice, pegasus stopped, and snuffed the air, pricking up his ears, tossing his head, and turning it on all sides, as if he partly suspected some mischief or other. seeing nothing, however, and hearing no sound, he soon began his antics again. at length,--not that he was weary, but only idle and luxurious,--pegasus folded his wings, and lay down on the soft green turf. but, being too full of aerial life to remain quiet for many moments together, he soon rolled over on his back, with his four slender legs in the air. it was beautiful to see him, this one solitary creature, whose mate had never been created, but who needed no companion, and, living a great many hundred years, was as happy as the centuries were long. the more he did such things as mortal horses are accustomed to do, the less earthly and the more wonderful he seemed. bellerophon and the child almost held their breath, partly from a delightful awe, but still more because they dreaded lest the slightest stir or murmur should send him up, with the speed of an arrow-flight, into the farthest blue of the sky. finally, when he had had enough of rolling over and over, pegasus turned himself about, and, indolently, like any other horse, put out his fore legs, in order to rise from the ground; and bellerophon, who had guessed that he would do so, darted suddenly from the thicket, and leaped astride of his back. yes, there he sat, on the back of the winged horse! but what a bound did pegasus make, when, for the first time, he felt the weight of a mortal man upon his loins! a bound, indeed! before he had time to draw a breath, bellerophon found himself five hundred feet aloft, and still shooting upward, while the winged horse snorted and trembled with terror and anger. upward he went, up, up, up, until he plunged into the cold misty bosom of a cloud, at which, only a little while before, bellerophon had been gazing, and fancying it a very pleasant spot. then again, out of the heart of the cloud, pegasus shot down like a thunderbolt, as if he meant to dash both himself and his rider headlong against a rock. then he went through about a thousand of the wildest caprioles that had ever been performed either by a bird or a horse. i cannot tell you half that he did. he skimmed straight forward, and sideways, and backward. he reared himself erect, with his fore legs on a wreath of mist, and his hind legs on nothing at all. he flung out his heels behind, and put down his head between his legs, with his wings pointing right upward. at about two miles' height above the earth, he turned a somerset, so that bellerophon's heels were where his head should have been, and he seemed to look down into the sky, instead of up. he twisted his head about, and, looking bellerophon in the face, with fire flashing from his eyes, made a terrible attempt to bite him. he fluttered his pinions so wildly that one of the silver feathers was shaken out, and floating earthward, was picked up by the child, who kept it as long as he lived, in memory of pegasus and bellerophon. but the latter (who, as you may judge, was as good a horseman as ever galloped) had been watching his opportunity, and at last clapped the golden bit of the enchanted bridle between the winged steed's jaws. no sooner was this done, than pegasus became as manageable as if he had taken food, all his life, out of bellerophon's hand. to speak what i really feel, it was almost a sadness to see so wild a creature grow suddenly so tame. and pegasus seemed to feel it so, likewise. he looked round to bellerophon, with the tears in his beautiful eyes, instead of the fire that so recently flashed from them. but when bellerophon patted his head, and spoke a few authoritative, yet kind and soothing words, another look came into the eyes of pegasus; for he was glad at heart, after so many lonely centuries, to have found a companion and a master. thus it always is with winged horses, and with all such wild and solitary creatures. if you can catch and overcome them, it is the surest way to win their love. while pegasus had been doing his utmost to shake bellerophon off his back, he had flown a very long distance; and they had come within sight of a lofty mountain by the time the bit was in his mouth. bellerophon had seen this mountain before, and knew it to be helicon, on the summit of which was the winged horse's abode. thither (after looking gently into his rider's face, as if to ask leave) pegasus now flew, and, alighting, waited patiently until bellerophon should please to dismount. the young man, accordingly, leaped from his steed's back, but still held him fast by the bridle. meeting his eyes, however, he was so affected by the gentleness of his aspect, and by the thought of the free life which pegasus had heretofore lived, that he could not bear to keep him a prisoner, if he really desired his liberty. obeying this generous impulse he slipped the enchanted bridle off the head of pegasus, and took the bit from his mouth. "leave me, pegasus!" said he. "either leave me, or love me." in an instant, the winged horse shot almost out of sight, soaring straight upward from the summit of mount helicon. being long after sunset, it was now twilight on the mountain-top, and dusky evening over all the country round about. but pegasus flew so high that he overtook the departed day, and was bathed in the upper radiance of the sun. ascending higher and higher, he looked like a bright speck, and, at last, could no longer be seen in the hollow waste of the sky. and bellerophon was afraid that he should never behold him more. but, while he was lamenting his own folly, the bright speck reappeared, and drew nearer and nearer, until it descended lower than the sunshine; and, behold, pegasus had come back! after this trial there was no more fear of the winged horse's making his escape. he and bellerophon were friends, and put loving faith in one another. that night they lay down and slept together, with bellerophon's arm about the neck of pegasus, not as a caution, but for kindness. and they awoke at peep of day, and bade one another good morning, each in his own language. in this manner, bellerophon and the wondrous steed spent several days, and grew better acquainted and fonder of each other all the time. they went on long aerial journeys, and sometimes ascended so high that the earth looked hardly bigger than--the moon. they visited distant countries, and amazed the inhabitants, who thought that the beautiful young man, on the back of the winged horse, must have come down out of the sky. a thousand miles a day was no more than an easy space for the fleet pegasus to pass over. bellerophon was delighted with this kind of life, and would have liked nothing better than to live always in the same way, aloft in the clear atmosphere; for it was always sunny weather up there, however cheerless and rainy it might be in the lower region. but he could not forget the horrible chimæra, which he had promised king iobates to slay. so, at last, when he had become well accustomed to feats of horsemanship in the air, and could manage pegasus with the least motion of his hand, and had taught him to obey his voice, he determined to attempt the performance of this perilous adventure. at daybreak, therefore, as soon as he unclosed his eyes, he gently pinched the winged horse's ear, in order to arouse him. pegasus immediately started from the ground, and pranced about a quarter of a mile aloft, and made a grand sweep around the mountain-top, by way of showing that he was wide awake, and ready for any kind of an excursion. during the whole of this little flight, he uttered a loud, brisk, and melodious neigh, and finally came down at bellerophon's side, as lightly as ever you saw a sparrow hop upon a twig. "well done, dear pegasus! well done, my sky-skimmer!" cried bellerophon, fondly stroking the horse's neck. "and now, my fleet and beautiful friend, we must break our fast. to-day we are to fight the terrible chimæra." as soon as they had eaten their morning meal, and drank some sparkling water from a spring called hippocrene, pegasus held out his head, of his own accord, so that his master might put on the bridle. then, with a great many playful leaps and airy caperings, he showed his impatience to be gone; while bellerophon was girding on his sword, and hanging his shield about his neck, and preparing himself for battle. when everything was ready, the rider mounted, and (as was his custom, when going a long distance) ascended five miles perpendicularly, so as the better to see whither he was directing his course. he then turned the head of pegasus towards the east, and set out for lycia. in their flight they overtook an eagle, and came so nigh him, before he could get out of their way, that bellerophon might easily have caught him by the leg. hastening onward at this rate, it was still early in the forenoon when they beheld the lofty mountains of lycia, with their deep and shaggy valleys. if bellerophon had been told truly, it was in one of those dismal valleys that the hideous chimæra had taken up its abode. being now so near their journey's end, the winged horse gradually descended with his rider; and they took advantage of some clouds that were floating over the mountain-tops, in order to conceal themselves. hovering on the upper surface of a cloud, and peeping over its edge, bellerophon had a pretty distinct view of the mountainous part of lycia, and could look into all its shadowy vales at once. at first there appeared to be nothing remarkable. it was a wild, savage, and rocky tract of high and precipitous hills. in the more level part of the country, there were the ruins of houses that had been burnt, and, here and there, the carcasses of dead cattle, strewn about the pastures where they had been feeding. "the chimæra must have done this mischief," thought bellerophon. "but where can the monster be?" as i have already said, there was nothing remarkable to be detected, at first sight, in any of the valleys and dells that lay among the precipitous heights of the mountains. nothing at all; unless, indeed it were three spires of black smoke, which issued from what seemed to be the mouth of a cavern, and clambered sullenly into the atmosphere. before reaching the mountain-top, these three black smoke-wreaths mingled themselves into one. the cavern was almost directly beneath the winged horse and his rider, at the distance of about a thousand feet. the smoke, as it crept heavily upward, had an ugly, sulphurous, stifling scent, which caused pegasus to snort and bellerophon to sneeze. so disagreeable was it to the marvellous steed (who was accustomed to breathe only the purest air), that he waved his wings, and shot half a mile out of the range of this offensive vapor. but, on looking behind him, bellerophon saw something that induced him first to draw the bridle, and then to turn pegasus about. he made a sign, which the winged horse understood, and sunk slowly through the air, until his hoofs were scarcely more than a man's height above the rocky bottom of the valley. in front, as far off as you could throw a stone, was the cavern's mouth, with the three smoke-wreaths oozing out of it. and what else did bellerophon behold there? there seemed to be a heap of strange and terrible creatures curled up within the cavern. their bodies lay so close together, that bellerophon could not distinguish them apart; but, judging by their heads, one of these creatures was a huge snake, the second a fierce lion, and the third an ugly goat. the lion and the goat were asleep; the snake was broad awake, and kept staring around him with a great pair of fiery eyes. but--and this was the most wonderful part of the matter--the three spires of smoke evidently issued from the nostrils of these three heads! so strange was the spectacle, that, though bellerophon had been all along expecting it, the truth did not immediately occur to him, that here was the terrible three-headed chimæra. he had found out the chimæra's cavern. the snake, the lion, and the goat, as he supposed them to be, were not three separate creatures, but one monster! the wicked, hateful thing! slumbering as two thirds of it were, it still held, in its abominable claws, the remnant of an unfortunate lamb,--or possibly (but i hate to think so) it was a dear little boy,--which its three mouths had been gnawing, before two of them fell asleep! all at once, bellerophon started as from a dream, and knew it to be the chimæra. pegasus seemed to know it, at the same instant, and sent forth a neigh, that sounded like the call of a trumpet to battle. at this sound the three heads reared themselves erect, and belched out great flashes of flame. before bellerophon had time to consider what to do next, the monster flung itself out of the cavern and sprung straight towards him, with its immense claws extended, and its snaky tail twisting itself venomously behind. if pegasus had not been as nimble as a bird, both he and his rider would have been overthrown by the chimera's headlong rush, and thus the battle have been ended before it was well begun. but the winged horse was not to be caught so. in the twinkling of an eye he was up aloft, half-way to the clouds, snorting with anger. he shuddered, too, not with affright, but with utter disgust at the loathsomeness of this poisonous thing with three heads. the chimæra, on the other hand, raised itself up so as to stand absolutely on the tip-end of its tail, with its talons pawing fiercely in the air, and its three heads spluttering fire at pegasus and his rider. my stars, how it roared, and hissed, and bellowed! bellerophon, meanwhile, was fitting his shield on his arm, and drawing his sword. "now, my beloved pegasus," he whispered in the winged horse's ear, "thou must help me to slay this insufferable monster; or else thou shalt fly back to thy solitary mountain-peak without thy friend bellerophon. for either the chimæra dies, or its three mouths shall gnaw this head of mine, which has slumbered upon thy neck!" pegasus whinnied, and, turning back his head, rubbed his nose tenderly against his rider's cheek. it was his way of telling him that, though he had wings and was an immortal horse, yet he would perish, if it were possible for immortality to perish, rather than leave bellerophon behind. "i thank you, pegasus," answered bellerophon. "now, then, let us make a dash at the monster!" uttering these words, he shook the bridle; and pegasus darted down aslant, as swift as the flight of an arrow, right towards the chimæra's threefold head, which, all this time, was poking itself as high as it could into the air. as he came within arm's-length, bellerophon made a cut at the monster, but was carried onward by his steed, before he could see whether the blow had been successful. pegasus continued his course, but soon wheeled round, at about the same distance from the chimæra as before. bellerophon then perceived that he had cut the goat's head of the monster almost off, so that it dangled downward by the skin, and seemed quite dead. but, to make amends, the snake's head and the lion's head had taken all the fierceness of the dead one into themselves, and spit flame, and hissed, and roared, with a vast deal more fury than before. "never mind, my brave pegasus!" cried bellerophon. "with another stroke like that, we will stop either its hissing or its roaring." and again he shook the bridle. dashing aslantwise, as before, the winged horse made another arrow-flight towards the chimæra, and bellerophon aimed another downright stroke at one of the two remaining heads, as he shot by. but this time, neither he nor pegasus escaped so well as at first. with one of its claws, the chimæra had given the young man a deep scratch in his shoulder, and had slightly damaged the left wing of the flying steed with the other. on his part, bellerophon had mortally wounded the lion's head of the monster, insomuch that it now hung downward, with its fire almost extinguished, and sending out gasps of thick black smoke. the snake's head, however (which was the only one now left), was twice as fierce and venomous as ever before. it belched forth shoots of fire five hundred yards long, and emitted hisses so loud, so harsh, and so ear-piercing, that king iobates heard them, fifty miles off, and trembled till the throne shook under him. "well-a-day!" thought the poor king; "the chimæra is certainly coming to devour me!" meanwhile pegasus had again paused in the air, and neighed angrily, while sparkles of a pure crystal flame darted out of his eyes. how unlike the lurid fire of the chimæra! the aerial steed's spirit was all aroused, and so was that of bellerophon. "dost thou bleed, my immortal horse?" cried the young man, caring less for his own hurt than for the anguish of this glorious creature, that ought never to have tasted pain. "the execrable chimæra shall pay for this mischief with his last head!" then he shook the bridle, shouted loudly, and guided pegasus, not aslantwise as before, but straight at the monster's hideous front. so rapid was the onset, that it seemed but a dazzle and a flash before bellerophon was at close gripes with his enemy. the chimæra, by this time, after losing its second head, had got into a red-hot passion of pain and rampant rage. it so flounced about, half on earth and partly in the air, that it was impossible to say which element it rested upon. it opened its snake-jaws to such an abominable width, that pegasus might almost, i was going to say, have flown right down its throat, wings outspread, rider and all! at their approach it shot out a tremendous blast of its fiery breath, and enveloped bellerophon and his steed in a perfect atmosphere of flame, singeing the wings of pegasus, scorching off one whole side of the young man's golden ringlets, and making them both far hotter than was comfortable, from head to foot. but this was nothing to what followed. when the airy rush of the winged horse had brought him within the distance of a hundred yards, the chimæra gave a spring, and flung its huge, awkward, venomous, and utterly detestable carcass right upon poor pegasus, clung round him with might and main, and tied up its snaky tail into a knot! up flew the aerial steed, higher, higher, higher, above the mountain-peaks, above the clouds, and almost out of sight of the solid earth. but still the earth-born monster kept its hold, and was borne upward, along with the creature of light and air. bellerophon, meanwhile, turning about, found himself face to face with the ugly grimness of the chimæra's visage, and could only avoid being scorched to death, or bitten right in twain, by holding up his shield. over the upper edge of the shield, he looked sternly into the savage eyes of the monster. but the chimæra was so mad and wild with pain, that it did not guard itself so well as might else have been the case. perhaps, after all, the best way to fight a chimæra is by getting as close to it as you can. in its efforts to stick its horrible iron claws into its enemy, the creature left its own breast quite exposed; and perceiving this, bellerophon thrust his sword up to the hilt into its cruel heart. immediately the snaky tail untied its knot. the monster let go its hold of pegasus, and fell from that vast height, downward; while the fire within its bosom, instead of being put out, burned fiercer than ever, and quickly began to consume the dead carcass. thus it fell out of the sky, all a-flame, and (it being nightfall before it reached the earth) was mistaken for a shooting star or a comet. but, at early sunrise, some cottagers were going to their day's labor, and saw, to their astonishment, that several acres of ground were strewn with black ashes. in the middle of a field, there was a heap of whitened bones, a great deal higher than a haystack. nothing else was ever seen of the dreadful chimæra! and when bellerophon had won the victory, he bent forward and kissed pegasus, while the tears stood in his eyes. "back now, my beloved steed!" said he. "back to the fountain of pirene!" pegasus skimmed through the air, quicker than ever he did before, and reached the fountain in a very short time. and there he found the old man leaning on his staff, and the country fellow watering his cow, and the pretty maiden filling her pitcher. "i remember now," quoth the old man, "i saw this winged horse once before, when i was quite a lad. but he was ten times handsomer in those days." "i own a cart-horse, worth three of him!" said the country fellow. "if this pony were mine, the first thing i should do would be to clip his wings!" but the poor maiden said nothing, for she had always the luck to be afraid at the wrong time. so she ran away, and let her pitcher tumble down, and broke it. "where is the gentle child," asked bellerophon, "who used to keep me company, and never lost his faith, and never was weary of gazing into the fountain?" "here am i, dear bellerophon!" said the child, softly. for the little boy had spent day after day, on the margin of pirene, waiting for his friend to come back; but when he perceived bellerophon descending through the clouds, mounted on the winged horse, he had shrunk back into the shrubbery. he was a delicate and tender child, and dreaded lest the old man and the country fellow should see the tears gushing from his eyes. "thou hast won the victory," said he, joyfully, running to the knee of bellerophon, who still sat on the back of pegasus. "i knew thou wouldst." "yes, dear child!" replied bellerophon, alighting from the winged horse. "but if thy faith had not helped me, i should never have waited for pegasus, and never have gone up above the clouds, and never have conquered the terrible chimæra. thou, my beloved little friend, hast done it all. and now let us give pegasus his liberty." so he slipped off the enchanted bridle from the head of the marvellous steed. "be free, forevermore, my pegasus!" cried he, with a shade of sadness in his tone. "be as free as thou art fleet!" but pegasus rested his head on bellerophon's shoulder, and would not be persuaded to take flight. "well then," said bellerophon, caressing the airy horse, "thou shalt be with me, as long as thou wilt; and we will go together, forthwith, and tell king iobates that the chimæra is destroyed." then bellerophon embraced the gentle child, and promised to come to him again, and departed. but, in after years, that child took higher flights upon the aerial steed than ever did bellerophon, and achieved more honorable deeds than his friend's victory over the chimæra. for, gentle and tender as he was, he grew to be a mighty poet! bald-summit _after the story_ eustace bright told the legend of bellerophon with as much fervor and animation as if he had really been taking a gallop on the winged horse. at the conclusion, he was gratified to discern, by the glowing countenances of his auditors, how greatly they had been interested. all their eyes were dancing in their heads, except those of primrose. in her eyes there were positively tears; for she was conscious of something in the legend which the rest of them were not yet old enough to feel. child's story as it was, the student had contrived to breathe through it the ardor, the generous hope, and the imaginative enterprise of youth. "i forgive you, now, primrose," said he, "for all your ridicule of myself and my stories. one tear pays for a great deal of laughter." "well, mr. bright," answered primrose, wiping her eyes, and giving him another of her mischievous smiles, "it certainly does elevate your ideas, to get your head above the clouds. i advise you never to tell another story, unless it be, as at present, from the top of a mountain." "or from the back of pegasus," replied eustace, laughing. "don't you think that i succeeded pretty well in catching that wonderful pony?" "it was so like one of your madcap pranks!" cried primrose, clapping her hands. "i think i see you now on his back, two miles high, and with your head downward! it is well that you have not really an opportunity of trying your horsemanship on any wilder steed than our sober davy, or old hundred." [illustration: the fountain of pirene (from the original in the collection of austin m. purves, esq're philadelphia)] "for my part, i wish i had pegasus here, at this moment," said the student. "i would mount him forthwith, and gallop about the country, within a circumference of a few miles, making literary calls on my brother authors. dr. dewey would be within my reach, at the foot of taconic. in stockbridge, yonder, is mr. james, conspicuous to all the world on his mountain-pile of history and romance. longfellow, i believe, is not yet at the ox-bow, else the winged horse would neigh at the sight of him. but, here in lenox, i should find our most truthful novelist, who has made the scenery and life of berkshire all her own. on the hither side of pittsfield sits herman melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his 'white whale,' while the gigantic shape of graylock looms upon him from his study-window. another bound of my flying steed would bring me to the door of holmes, whom i mention last, because pegasus would certainly unseat me, the next minute, and claim the poet as his rider." "have we not an author for our next neighbor?" asked primrose. "that silent man, who lives in the old red house, near tanglewood avenue, and whom we sometimes meet, with two children at his side, in the woods or at the lake. i think i have heard of his having written a poem, or a romance, or an arithmetic, or a school-history, or some other kind of a book." "hush, primrose, hush!" exclaimed eustace, in a thrilling whisper, and putting his finger on his lip. "not a word about that man, even on a hill-top! if our babble were to reach his ears, and happen not to please him, he has but to fling a quire or two of paper into the stove, and you, primrose, and i, and periwinkle, sweet fern, squash-blossom, blue eye, huckleberry, clover, cowslip, plantain, milkweed, dandelion, and buttercup,--yes, and wise mr. pringle, with his unfavorable criticisms on my legends, and poor mrs. pringle, too,--would all turn to smoke, and go whisking up the funnel! our neighbor in the red house is a harmless sort of person enough, for aught i know, as concerns the rest of the world; but something whispers to me that he has a terrible power over ourselves, extending to nothing short of annihilation." "and would tanglewood turn to smoke, as well as we?" asked periwinkle, quite appalled at the threatened destruction. "and what would become of ben and bruin?" "tanglewood would remain," replied the student, "looking just as it does now, but occupied by an entirely different family. and ben and bruin would be still alive, and would make themselves very comfortable with the bones from the dinner-table, without ever thinking of the good times which they and we have had together!" "what nonsense you are talking!" exclaimed primrose. with idle chat of this kind, the party had already begun to descend the hill, and were now within the shadow of the woods. primrose gathered some mountain-laurel, the leaf of which, though of last year's growth, was still as verdant and elastic as if the frost and thaw had not alternately tried their force upon its texture. of these twigs of laurel she twined a wreath, and took off the student's cap, in order to place it on his brow. "nobody else is likely to crown you for your stories," observed saucy primrose, "so take this from me." "do not be too sure," answered eustace, looking really like a youthful poet, with the laurel among his glossy curls, "that i shall not win other wreaths by these wonderful and admirable stories. i mean to spend all my leisure, during the rest of the vacation, and throughout the summer term at college, in writing them out for the press. mr. j. t. fields (with whom i became acquainted when he was in berkshire, last summer, and who is a poet, as well as a publisher) will see their uncommon merit at a glance. he will get them illustrated, i hope, by billings, and will bring them before the world under the very best of auspices, through the eminent house of ticknor & co. in about five months from this moment, i make no doubt of being reckoned among the lights of this age!" "poor boy!" said primrose, half aside. "what a disappointment awaits him!" descending a little lower, bruin began to bark, and was answered by the graver bow-wow of the respectable ben. they soon saw the good old dog, keeping careful watch over dandelion, sweet fern, cowslip, and squash-blossom. these little people, quite recovered from their fatigue, had set about gathering checkerberries, and now came clambering to meet their playfellows. thus reunited, the whole party went down through luther butler's orchard, and made the best of their way home to tanglewood. tanglewood tales, for girls and boys, being a second wonder-book tanglewood tales the wayside _introductory_ a short time ago, i was favored with a flying visit from my young friend eustace bright, whom i had not before met with since quitting the breezy mountains of berkshire. it being the winter vacation at his college, eustace was allowing himself a little relaxation, in the hope, he told me, of repairing the inroads which severe application to study had made upon his health; and i was happy to conclude, from the excellent physical condition in which i saw him, that the remedy had already been attended with very desirable success. he had now run up from boston by the noon train, partly impelled by the friendly regard with which he is pleased to honor me, and partly, as i soon found, on a matter of literary business. it delighted me to receive mr. bright, for the first time, under a roof, though a very humble one, which i could really call my own. nor did i fail (as is the custom of landed proprietors all about the world) to parade the poor fellow up and down over my half a dozen acres; secretly rejoicing, nevertheless, that the disarray of the inclement season, and particularly the six inches of snow then upon the ground, prevented him from observing the ragged neglect of soil and shrubbery into which the place has lapsed. it was idle, however, to imagine that an airy guest from monument mountain, bald-summit, and old graylock, shaggy with primeval forests, could see anything to admire in my poor little hill-side, with its growth of frail and insect-eaten locust-trees. eustace very frankly called the view from my hill-top tame; and so, no doubt, it was, after rough, broken, rugged, headlong berkshire, and especially the northern parts of the county, with which his college residence had made him familiar. but to me there is a peculiar, quiet charm in these broad meadows and gentle eminences. they are better than mountains, because they do not stamp and stereotype themselves into the brain, and thus grow wearisome with the same strong impression, repeated day after day. a few summer weeks among mountains, a lifetime among green meadows and placid slopes, with outlines forever new, because continually fading out of the memory,--such would be my sober choice. i doubt whether eustace did not internally pronounce the whole thing a bore, until i led him to my predecessor's little ruined, rustic summer-house, midway on the hill-side. it is a mere skeleton of slender, decaying tree-trunks, with neither walls nor a roof; nothing but a tracery of branches and twigs, which the next wintry blast will be very likely to scatter in fragments along the terrace. it looks, and is, as evanescent as a dream; and yet, in its rustic net-work of boughs, it has somehow enclosed a hint of spiritual beauty, and has become a true emblem of the subtile and ethereal mind that planned it. i made eustace bright sit down on a snow-bank, which bad heaped itself over the mossy seat, and gazing through the arched window opposite, he acknowledged that the scene at once grew picturesque. "simple as it looks," said he, "this little edifice seems to be the work of magic. it is full of suggestiveness, and, in its way, is as good as a cathedral. ah, it would be just the spot for one to sit in, of a summer afternoon, and tell the children some more of those wild stories from the classic myths!" "it would, indeed," answered i. "the summer-house itself, so airy and so broken, is like one of those old tales, imperfectly remembered; and these living branches of the baldwin apple-tree, thrusting themselves so rudely in, are like your unwarrantable interpolations. but, by the by, have you added any more legends to the series, since the publication of the wonder book?" "many more," said eustace; "primrose, periwinkle, and the rest of them allow me no comfort of my life, unless i tell them a story every day or two. i have run away from home partly to escape the importunity of those little wretches! but i have written out six of the new stories, and have brought them for you to look over." "are they as good as the first?" i inquired. "better chosen, and better handled," replied eustace bright. "you will say so when you read them." "possibly not," i remarked. "i know, from my own experience, that an author's last work is always his best one, in his own estimate, until it quite loses the red heat of composition. after that, it falls into its true place, quietly enough. but let us adjourn to my study, and examine these new stories. it would hardly be doing yourself justice, were you to bring me acquainted with them, sitting here on this snow-bank!" so we descended the hill to my small, old cottage, and shut ourselves up in the southeastern room, where the sunshine comes in, warmly and brightly, through the better half of a winter's day. eustace put his bundle of manuscript into my hands; and i skimmed through it pretty rapidly, trying to find out its merits and demerits by the touch of my fingers, as a veteran story-teller ought to know how to do. it will be remembered, that mr. bright condescended to avail himself of my literary experience by constituting me editor of the wonder book. as he had no reason to complain of the reception of that erudite work by the public, he was now disposed to retain me in a similar position, with respect to the present volume, which he entitled "tanglewood tales." not, as eustace hinted, that there was any real necessity for my services as introductor, inasmuch as his own name had become established, in some good degree of favor, with the literary world. but the connection with myself, he was kind enough to say, had been highly agreeable; nor was he by any means desirous, as most people are, of kicking away the ladder that had perhaps helped him to reach his present elevation. my young friend was willing, in short, that the fresh verdure of his growing reputation should spread over my straggling and half-naked boughs; even as i have sometimes thought of training a vine, with its broad leafiness, and purple fruitage, over the worm-eaten posts and rafters of the rustic summer-house. i was not insensible to the advantages of his proposal, and gladly assured him of my acceptance. merely from the titles of the stories, i saw at once that the subjects were not less rich than those of the former volume; nor did i at all doubt that mr. bright's audacity (so far as that endowment might avail) had enabled him to take full advantage of whatever capabilities they offered. yet, in spite of my experience of his free way of handling them, i did not quite see, i confess, how he could have obviated all the difficulties in the way of rendering them presentable to children. these old legends, so brimming over with everything that is most abhorrent to our christianized moral sense,--some of them so hideous, others so melancholy and miserable, amid which the greek tragedians sought their themes, and moulded them into the sternest forms of grief that ever the world saw; was such material the stuff that children's playthings should be made of! how were they to be purified? how was the blessed sunshine to be thrown into them? but eustace told me that these myths were the most singular things in the world, and that he was invariably astonished, whenever he began to relate one, by the readiness with which it adapted itself to the childish purity of his auditors. the objectionable characteristics seem to be a parasitical growth, having no essential connection with the original fable. they fall away, and are thought of no more, the instant he puts his imagination in sympathy with the innocent little circle, whose wide-open eyes are fixed so eagerly upon him. thus the stories (not by any strained effort of the narrator's, but in harmony with their inherent germ) transform themselves, and reassume the shapes which they might be supposed to possess in the pure childhood of the world. when the first poet or romancer told these marvellous legends (such is eustace bright's opinion), it was still the golden age. evil had never yet existed; and sorrow, misfortune, crime, were mere shadows which the mind fancifully created for itself, as a shelter against too sunny realities; or, at most, but prophetic dreams, to which the dreamer himself did not yield a waking credence. children are now the only representatives of the men and women of that happy era; and therefore it is that we must raise the intellect and fancy to the level of childhood, in order to recreate the original myths. i let the youthful author talk as much and as extravagantly as he pleased, and was glad to see him commencing life with such confidence in himself and his performances. a few years will do all that is necessary towards showing him the truth in both respects. meanwhile, it is but right to say, he does really appear to have overcome the moral objections against these fables, although at the expense of such liberties with their structure as must be left to plead their own excuse, without any help from me. indeed, except that there was a necessity for it,--and that the inner life of the legends cannot be come at save by making them entirely one's own property,--there is no defence to be made. eustace informed me that he had told his stories to the children in various situations,--in the woods, on the shore of the lake, in the dell of shadow brook, in the play-room, at tanglewood fireside, and in a magnificent palace of snow, with ice windows, which he helped his little friends to build. his auditors were even more delighted with the contents of the present volume than with the specimens which have already been given to the world. the classically learned mr. pringle, too, had listened to two or three of the tales, and censured them even more bitterly than he did the three golden apples; so that, what with praise, and what with criticism, eustace bright thinks that there is good hope of at least as much success with the public as in the case of the wonder book. i made all sorts of inquiries about the children, not doubting that there would be great eagerness to hear of their welfare among some good little folks who have written to me, to ask for another volume of myths. they are all, i am happy to say (unless we except clover), in excellent health and spirits. primrose is now almost a young lady, and, eustace tells me, is just as saucy as ever. she pretends to consider herself quite beyond the age to be interested by such idle stories as these; but, for all that, whenever a story is to be told, primrose never fails to be one of the listeners, and to make fun of it when finished. periwinkle is very much grown, and is expected to shut up her baby-house and throw away her doll in a month or two more. sweet fern has learned to read and write, and has put on a jacket and pair of pantaloons,--all of which improvements i am sorry for. squash-blossom, blue eye, plantain, and buttercup have had the scarlet fever, but came easily through it. huckleberry, milkweed, and dandelion were attacked with the hooping-cough, but bore it bravely, and kept out of doors whenever the sun shone. cowslip, during the autumn, had either the measles, or some eruption that looked very much like it, but was hardly sick a day. poor clover has been a good deal troubled with her second teeth, which have made her meagre in aspect and rather fractious in temper; nor, even when she smiles, is the matter much mended, since it discloses a gap just within her lips, almost as wide as the barn door. but all this will pass over, and it is predicted that she will turn out a very pretty girl. as for mr. bright himself, he is now in his senior year at williams college, and has a prospect of graduating with some degree of honorable distinction at the next commencement. in his oration for the bachelor's degree, he gives me to understand, he will treat of the classical myths, viewed in the aspect of baby stories, and has a great mind to discuss the expediency of using up the whole of ancient history for the same purpose. i do not know what he means to do with himself after leaving college, but trust that, by dabbling so early with the dangerous and seductive business of authorship, he will not be tempted to become an author by profession. if so, i shall be very sorry for the little that i have had to do with the matter, in encouraging these first beginnings. i wish there were any likelihood of my soon seeing primrose, periwinkle, dandelion, sweet fern, clover, plantain, huckleberry, milkweed, cowslip, buttercup, blue eye, and squash-blossom again. but as i do not know when i shall revisit tanglewood, and as eustace bright probably will not ask me to edit a third wonder book, the public of little folks must not expect to hear any more about those dear children from me. heaven bless them, and everybody else, whether grown people or children! the wayside, concord, mass. _march , ._ the minotaur in the old city of troezene, at the foot of a lofty mountain, there lived, a very long time ago, a little boy named theseus. his grandfather, king pittheus, was the sovereign of that country, and was reckoned a very wise man; so that theseus, being brought up in the royal palace, and being naturally a bright lad, could hardly fail of profiting by the old king's instructions. his mother's name was Æthra. as for his father, the boy had never seen him. but, from his earliest remembrance, Æthra used to go with little theseus into a wood, and sit down upon a moss-grown rock, which was deeply sunk into the earth. here she often talked with her son about his father, and said that he was called Ægeus, and that he was a great king, and ruled over attica, and dwelt at athens, which was as famous a city as any in the world. theseus was very fond of hearing about king Ægeus, and often asked his good mother Æthra why he did not come and live with them at troezene. "ah, my dear son," answered Æthra, with a sigh, "a monarch has his people to take care of. the men and women over whom he rules are in the place of children to him; and he can seldom spare time to love his own children as other parents do. your father will never be able to leave his kingdom for the sake of seeing his little boy." "well, but, dear mother," asked the boy, "why cannot i go to this famous city of athens, and tell king Ægeus that i am his son?" "that may happen by and by," said Æthra. "be patient, and we shall see. you are not yet big and strong enough to set out on such an errand." "and how soon shall i be strong enough?" theseus persisted in inquiring. "you are but a tiny boy as yet," replied his mother. "see if you can lift this rock on which we are sitting?" the little fellow had a great opinion of his own strength. so, grasping the rough protuberances of the rock, he tugged and toiled amain, and got himself quite out of breath, without being able to stir the heavy stone. it seemed to be rooted into the ground. no wonder he could not move it; for it would have taken all the force of a very strong man to lift it out of its earthy bed. his mother stood looking on, with a sad kind of a smile on her lips and in her eyes, to see the zealous and yet puny efforts of her little boy. she could not help being sorrowful at finding him already so impatient to begin his adventures in the world. "you see how it is, my dear theseus," said she. "you must possess far more strength than now before i can trust you to go to athens, and tell king Ægeus that you are his son. but when you can lift this rock, and show me what is hidden beneath it, i promise you my permission to depart." often and often, after this, did theseus ask his mother whether it was yet time for him to go to athens; and still his mother pointed to the rock, and told him that, for years to come, he could not be strong enough to move it. and again and again the rosy-cheeked and curly-headed boy would tug and strain at the huge mass of stone, striving, child as he was, to do what a giant could hardly have done without taking both of his great hands to the task. meanwhile the rock seemed to be sinking farther and farther into the ground. the moss grew over it thicker and thicker, until at last it looked almost like a soft green seat, with only a few gray knobs of granite peeping out. the overhanging trees, also, shed their brown leaves upon it, as often as the autumn came; and at its base grew ferns and wild flowers, some of which crept quite over its surface. to all appearance, the rock was as firmly fastened as any other portion of the earth's substance. but, difficult as the matter looked, theseus was now growing up to be such a vigorous youth, that, in his own opinion, the time would quickly come when he might hope to get the upper hand of this ponderous lump of stone. "mother, i do believe it has started!" cried he, after one of his attempts. "the earth around it is certainly a little cracked!" "no, no, child!" his mother hastily answered. "it is not possible you can have moved it, such a boy as you still are!" nor would she be convinced, although theseus showed her the place where he fancied that the stem of a flower had been partly uprooted by the movement of the rock. but Æthra sighed and looked disquieted; for, no doubt, she began to be conscious that her son was no longer a child, and that, in a little while hence, she must send him forth among the perils and troubles of the world. it was not more than a year afterwards when they were again sitting on the moss-covered stone. Æthra had once more told him the oft-repeated story of his father, and how gladly he would receive theseus at his stately palace, and how he would present him to his courtiers and the people, and tell them that here was the heir of his dominions. the eyes of theseus glowed with enthusiasm, and he would hardly sit still to hear his mother speak. "dear mother Æthra," he exclaimed, "i never felt half so strong as now! i am no longer a child, nor a boy, nor a mere youth! i feel myself a man! it is now time to make one earnest trial to remove the stone!" "ah, my dearest theseus," replied his mother, "not yet! not yet!" "yes, mother," said he, resolutely, "the time has come." then theseus bent himself in good earnest to the task, and strained every sinew, with manly strength and resolution. he put his whole brave heart into the effort. he wrestled with the big and sluggish stone, as if it had been a living enemy. he heaved, he lifted, he resolved now to succeed, or else to perish there, and let the rock be his monument forever! Æthra stood gazing at him, and clasped her hands, partly with a mother's pride, and partly with a mother's sorrow. the great rock stirred! yes, it was raised slowly from the bedded moss and earth, uprooting the shrubs and flowers along with it, and was turned upon its side. theseus had conquered! while taking breath, he looked joyfully at his mother, and she smiled upon him through her tears. "yes, theseus," she said, "the time has come, and you must stay no longer at my side! see what king Ægeus, your royal father, left for you, beneath the stone, when he lifted it in his mighty arms, and laid it on the spot whence you have now removed it." theseus looked, and saw that the rock had been placed over another slab of stone, containing a cavity within it; so that it somewhat resembled a roughly made chest or coffer, of which the upper mass had served as the lid. within the cavity lay a sword, with a golden hilt, and a pair of sandals. "that was your father's sword," said Æthra, "and those were his sandals. when he went to be king of athens, he bade me treat you as a child until you should prove yourself a man by lifting this heavy stone. that task being accomplished, you are to put on his sandals, in order to follow in your father's footsteps, and to gird on his sword, so that you may fight giants and dragons, as king Ægeus did in his youth." "i will set out for athens this very day!" cried theseus. but his mother persuaded him to stay a day or two longer, while she got ready some necessary articles for his journey. when his grandfather, the wise king pittheus, heard that theseus intended to present himself at his father's palace, he earnestly advised him to get on board of a vessel, and go by sea; because he might thus arrive within fifteen miles of athens, without either fatigue or danger. "the roads are very bad by land," quoth the venerable king; "and they are terribly infested with robbers and monsters. a mere lad, like theseus, is not fit to be trusted on such a perilous journey, all by himself. no, no; let him go by sea!" but when theseus heard of robbers and monsters, he pricked up his ears, and was so much the more eager to take the road along which they were to be met with. on the third day, therefore, he bade a respectful farewell to his grandfather, thanking him for all his kindness, and, after affectionately embracing his mother, he set forth, with a good many of her tears glistening on his cheeks, and some, if the truth must be told, that had gushed out of his own eyes. but he let the sun and wind dry them, and walked stoutly on, playing with the golden hilt of his sword and taking very manly strides in his father's sandals. i cannot stop to tell you hardly any of the adventures that befell theseus on the road to athens. it is enough to say, that he quite cleared that part of the country of the robbers, about whom king pittheus had been so much alarmed. one of these bad people was named procrustes; and he was indeed a terrible fellow, and had an ugly way of making fun of the poor travellers who happened to fall into his clutches. in his cavern he had a bed, on which, with great pretence of hospitality, he invited his guests to lie down; but if they happened to be shorter than the bed, this wicked villain stretched them out by main force; or, if they were too long, he lopped off their heads or feet, and laughed at what he had done, as an excellent joke. thus, however weary a man might be, he never liked to lie in the bed of procrustes. another of these robbers, named scinis, must likewise have been a very great scoundrel. he was in the habit of flinging his victims off a high cliff into the sea; and, in order to give him exactly his deserts, theseus tossed him off the very same place. but if you will believe me, the sea would not pollute itself by receiving such a bad person into its bosom, neither would the earth, having once got rid of him, consent to take him back; so that, between the cliff and the sea, scinis stuck fast in the air, which was forced to bear the burden of his naughtiness. after these memorable deeds, theseus heard of an enormous sow, which ran wild, and was the terror of all the farmers round about; and, as he did not consider himself above doing any good thing that came in his way, he killed this monstrous creature, and gave the carcass to the poor people for bacon. the great sow had been an awful beast, while ramping about the woods and fields, but was a pleasant object enough when cut up into joints, and smoking on i know not how many dinner tables. thus, by the time he had reached his journey's end, theseus had done many valiant deeds with his father's golden-hilted sword, and had gained the renown of being one of the bravest young men of the day. his fame travelled faster than he did, and reached athens before him. as he entered the city, he heard the inhabitants talking at the street-corners, and saying that hercules was brave, and jason too, and castor and pollux likewise, but that theseus, the son of their own king, would turn out as great a hero as the best of them. theseus took longer strides on hearing this, and fancied himself sure of a magnificent reception at his father's court, since he came hither with fame to blow her trumpet before him, and cry to king Ægeus, "behold your son!" he little suspected, innocent youth that he was, that here, in this very athens, where his father reigned, a greater danger awaited him than any which he had encountered on the road. yet this was the truth. you must understand that the father of theseus, though not very old in years, was almost worn out with the cares of government, and had thus grown aged before his time. his nephews, not expecting him to live a very great while, intended to get all the power of the kingdom into their own hands. but when they heard that theseus had arrived in athens, and learned what a gallant young man he was, they saw that he would not be at all the kind of person to let them steal away his father's crown and sceptre, which ought to be his own by right of inheritance. thus these bad-hearted nephews of king Ægeus, who were the own cousins of theseus, at once became his enemies. a still more dangerous enemy was medea, the wicked enchantress; for she was now the king's wife, and wanted to give the kingdom to her son medus, instead of letting it be given to the son of Æthra, whom she hated. it so happened that the king's nephews met theseus, and found out who he was, just as he reached the entrance of the royal palace. with all their evil designs against him, they pretended to be their cousin's best friends, and expressed great joy at making his acquaintance. they proposed to him that he should come into the king's presence as a stranger, in order to try whether Ægeus would discover in the young man's features any likeness either to himself or his mother Æthra, and thus recognize him for a son. theseus consented; for he fancied that his father would know him in a moment, by the love that was in his heart. but, while he waited at the door, the nephews ran and told king Ægeus that a young man had arrived in athens, who, to their certain knowledge, intended to put him to death, and get possession of his royal crown. "and he is now waiting for admission to your majesty's presence," added they. "aha!" cried the old king, on hearing this. "why, he must be a very wicked young fellow indeed! pray, what would you advise me to do with him?" in reply to this question, the wicked medea put in her word. as i have already told you, she was a famous enchantress. according to some stories, she was in the habit of boiling old people in a large caldron, under pretence of making them young again; but king Ægeus, i suppose, did not fancy such an uncomfortable way of growing young, or perhaps was contented to be old, and therefore would never let himself be popped into the caldron. if there were time to spare from more important matters, i should be glad to tell you of medea's fiery chariot, drawn by winged dragons, in which the enchantress used often to take an airing among the clouds. this chariot, in fact, was the vehicle that first brought her to athens, where she had done nothing but mischief ever since her arrival. but these and many other wonders must be left untold; and it is enough to say, that medea, amongst a thousand other bad things, knew how to prepare a poison, that was instantly fatal to whomsoever might so much as touch it with his lips. so, when the king asked what he should do with theseus, this naughty woman had an answer ready at her tongue's end. "leave that to me, please your majesty," she replied. "only admit this evil-minded young man to your presence, treat him civilly, and invite him to drink a goblet of wine. your majesty is well aware that i sometimes amuse myself with distilling very powerful medicines. here is one of them in this small phial. as to what it is made of, that is one of my secrets of state. do but let me put a single drop into the goblet, and let the young man taste it; and i will answer for it, he shall quite lay aside the bad designs with which he comes hither." as she said this, medea smiled; but, for all her smiling face, she meant nothing less than to poison the poor innocent theseus, before his father's eyes. and king Ægeus, like most other kings, thought any punishment mild enough for a person who was accused of plotting against his life. he therefore made little or no objection to medea's scheme, and as soon as the poisonous wine was ready, gave orders that the young stranger should be admitted into his presence. the goblet was set on a table beside the king's throne; and a fly, meaning just to sip a little from the brim, immediately tumbled into it, dead. observing this, medea looked round at the nephews, and smiled again. when theseus was ushered into the royal apartment, the only object that he seemed to behold was the white-bearded old king. there he sat on his magnificent throne, a dazzling crown on his head, and a sceptre in his hand. his aspect was stately and majestic, although his years and infirmities weighed heavily upon him, as if each year were a lump of lead, and each infirmity a ponderous stone, and all were bundled up together, and laid upon his weary shoulders. the tears both of joy and sorrow sprang into the young man's eyes; for he thought how sad it was to see his dear father so infirm, and how sweet it would be to support him with his own youthful strength, and to cheer him up with the alacrity of his loving spirit. when a son takes his father into his warm heart, it renews the old man's youth in a better way than by the heat of medea's magic caldron. and this was what theseus resolved to do. he could scarcely wait to see whether king Ægeus would recognize him, so eager was he to throw himself into his arms. advancing to the foot of the throne, he attempted to make a little speech, which he had been thinking about, as he came up the stairs. but he was almost choked by a great many tender feelings that gushed out of his heart and swelled into his throat, all struggling to find utterance together. and therefore, unless he could have laid his full, over-brimming heart into the king's hand, poor theseus knew not what to do or say. the cunning medea observed what was passing in the young man's mind. she was more wicked at that moment than ever she had been before; for (and it makes me tremble to tell you of it) she did her worst to turn all this unspeakable love with which theseus was agitated, to his own ruin and destruction. "does your majesty see his confusion?" she whispered in the king's ear. "he is so conscious of guilt, that he trembles and cannot speak. the wretch lives too long! quick! offer him the wine!" now king Ægeus had been gazing earnestly at the young stranger, as he drew near the throne. there was something, he knew not what, either in his white brow, or in the fine expression of his mouth, or in his beautiful and tender eyes, that made him indistinctly feel as if he had seen this youth before; as if, indeed, he had trotted him on his knee when a baby, and had beheld him growing to be a stalwart man, while he himself grew old. but medea guessed how the king felt, and would not suffer him to yield to these natural sensibilities; although they were the voice of his deepest heart, telling him, as plainly as it could speak, that here was his dear son, and Æthra's son, coming to claim him for a father. the enchantress again whispered in the king's ear, and compelled him, by her witchcraft, to see everything under a false aspect. he made up his mind, therefore, to let theseus drink off the poisoned wine. "young man," said he, "you are welcome! i am proud to show hospitality to so heroic a youth. do me the favor to drink the contents of this goblet. it is brimming over, as you see, with delicious wine, such as i bestow only on those who are worthy of it! none is more worthy to quaff it than yourself!" so saying, king Ægeus took the golden goblet from the table, and was about to offer it to theseus. but, partly through his infirmities, and partly because it seemed so sad a thing to take away this young man's life, however wicked he might be, and partly, no doubt, because his heart was wiser than his head, and quaked within him at the thought of what he was going to do,--for all these reasons, the king's hand trembled so much that a great deal of the wine slopped over. in order to strengthen his purpose, and fearing lest the whole of the precious poison should be wasted, one of his nephews now whispered to him,-- "has your majesty any doubt of this stranger's guilt? there is the very sword with which he meant to slay you. how sharp, and bright, and terrible it is! quick!--let him taste the wine; or perhaps he may do the deed even yet." at these words, Ægeus drove every thought and feeling out of his breast, except the one idea of how justly the young man deserved to be put to death. he sat erect on his throne, and held out the goblet of wine with a steady hand, and bent on theseus a frown of kingly severity; for, after all, he had too noble a spirit to murder even a treacherous enemy with a deceitful smile upon his face. "drink!" said he, in the stern tone with which he was wont to condemn a criminal to be beheaded. "you have well deserved of me such wine as this!" theseus held out his hand to take the wine. but, before he touched it, king Ægeus trembled again. his eyes had fallen on the gold-hilted sword that hung at the young man's side. he drew back the goblet. "that sword!" he cried; "how came you by it?" "it was my father's sword," replied theseus, with a tremulous voice. "these were his sandals. my dear mother (her name is Æthra) told me his story while i was yet a little child. but it is only a month since i grew strong enough to lift the heavy stone, and take the sword and sandals from beneath it, and come to athens to seek my father." "my son! my son!" cried king Ægeus, flinging away the fatal goblet, and tottering down from the throne to fall into the arms of theseus. "yes, these are Æthra's eyes. it is my son." i have quite forgotten what became of the king's nephews. but when the wicked medea saw this new turn of affairs, she hurried out of the room, and going to her private chamber, lost no time in setting her enchantments at work. in a few moments, she heard a great noise of hissing snakes outside of the chamber window; and, behold! there was her fiery chariot, and four huge winged serpents, wriggling and twisting in the air, flourishing their tails higher than the top of the palace, and all ready to set off on an aerial journey. medea stayed only long enough to take her son with her, and to steal the crown jewels, together with the king's best robes, and whatever other valuable things she could lay hands on; and getting into the chariot, she whipped up the snakes, and ascended high over the city. the king, hearing the hiss of the serpents, scrambled as fast as he could to the window, and bawled out to the abominable enchantress never to come back. the whole people of athens, too, who had run out of doors to see this wonderful spectacle, set up a shout of joy at the prospect of getting rid of her. medea, almost bursting with rage, uttered precisely such a hiss as one of her own snakes, only ten times more venomous and spiteful; and glaring fiercely out of the blaze of the chariot, she shook her hands over the multitude below, as if she were scattering a million of curses among them. in so doing, however, she unintentionally let fall about five hundred diamonds of the first water, together with a thousand great pearls, and two thousand emeralds, rubies, sapphires, opals, and topazes, to which she had helped herself out of the king's strong-box. all these came pelting down, like a shower of many-colored hailstones, upon the heads of grown people and children, who forthwith gathered them up and carried them back to the palace. but king Ægeus told them that they were welcome to the whole, and to twice as many more, if he had them, for the sake of his delight at finding his son, and losing the wicked medea. and, indeed, if you had seen how hateful was her last look, as the flaming chariot flew upward, you would not have wondered that both king and people should think her departure a good riddance. and now prince theseus was taken into great favor by his royal father. the old king was never weary of having him sit beside him on his throne (which was quite wide enough for two), and of hearing him tell about his dear mother, and his childhood, and his many boyish efforts to lift the ponderous stone. theseus, however, was much too brave and active a young man to be willing to spend all his time in relating things which had already happened. his ambition was to perform other and more heroic deeds, which should be better worth telling in prose and verse. nor had he been long in athens before he caught and chained a terrible mad bull, and made a public show of him, greatly to the wonder and admiration of good king Ægeus and his subjects. but pretty soon, he undertook an affair that made all his foregone adventures seem like mere boy's play. the occasion of it was as follows:-- one morning, when prince theseus awoke, he fancied that he must have had a very sorrowful dream, and that it was still running in his mind, even now that his eyes were open. for it appeared as if the air was full of a melancholy wail; and when he listened more attentively, he could hear sobs and groans, and screams of woe, mingled with deep, quiet sighs, which came from the king's palace, and from the streets, and from the temples, and from every habitation in the city. and all these mournful noises, issuing out of thousands of separate hearts, united themselves into the one great sound of affliction, which bad startled theseus from slumber. he put on his clothes as quickly as he could (not forgetting his sandals and gold-hilted sword), and hastening to the king, inquired what it all meant. "alas! my son," quoth king Ægeus, heaving a long sigh, "here is a very lamentable matter in hand! this is the wofullest anniversary in the whole year. it is the day when we annually draw lots to see which of the youths and maidens of athens shall go to be devoured by the horrible minotaur!" "the minotaur!" exclaimed prince theseus; and, like a brave young prince as he was, he put his hand to the hilt of his sword. "what kind of a monster may that be? is it not possible, at the risk of one's life, to slay him?" but king Ægeus shook his venerable head, and to convince theseus that it was quite a hopeless case, he gave him an explanation of the whole affair. it seems that in the island of crete there lived a certain dreadful monster, called a minotaur, which was shaped partly like a man and partly like a bull, and was altogether such a hideous sort of a creature that it is really disagreeable to think of him. if he were suffered to exist at all, it should have been on some desert island, or in the duskiness of some deep cavern, where nobody would ever be tormented by his abominable aspect. but king minos, who reigned over crete, laid out a vast deal of money in building a habitation for the minotaur, and took great care of his health and comfort, merely for mischief's sake. a few years before this time, there had been a war between the city of athens and the island of crete, in which the athenians were beaten, and compelled to beg for peace. no peace could they obtain, however, except on condition that they should send seven young men and seven maidens, every year, to be devoured by the pet monster of the cruel king minos. for three years past, this grievous calamity had been borne. and the sobs, and groans, and shrieks, with which the city was now filled, were caused by the people's woe, because the fatal day had come again, when the fourteen victims were to be chosen by lot; and the old people feared lest their sons or daughters might be taken, and the youths and damsels dreaded lest they themselves might be destined to glut the ravenous maw of that detestable man-brute. but when theseus heard the story, he straightened himself up, so that he seemed taller than ever before; and as for his face, it was indignant, despiteful, bold, tender, and compassionate, all in one look. "let the people of athens, this year, draw lots for only six young men, instead of seven," said he. "i will myself be the seventh; and let the minotaur devour me, if he can!" "o my dear son," cried king Ægeus, "why should you expose yourself to this horrible fate? you are a royal prince, and have a right to hold yourself above the destinies of common men." "it is because i am a prince, your son, and the rightful heir of your kingdom, that i freely take upon me the calamity of your subjects," answered theseus. "and you, my father, being king over this people, and answerable to heaven for their welfare, are bound to sacrifice what is dearest to you, rather than that the son or daughter of the poorest citizen should come to any harm." the old king shed tears, and besought theseus not to leave him desolate in his old age, more especially as he had but just begun to know the happiness of possessing a good and valiant son. theseus, however, felt that he was in the right, and therefore would not give up his resolution. but he assured his father that he did not intend to be eaten up, unresistingly, like a sheep, and that, if the minotaur devoured him, it should not be without a battle for his dinner. and finally, since he could not help it, king Ægeus consented to let him go. so a vessel was got ready, and rigged with black sails; and theseus, with six other young men, and seven tender and beautiful damsels, came down to the harbor to embark. a sorrowful multitude accompanied them to the shore. there was the poor old king, too, leaning on his son's arm, and looking as if his single heart held all the grief of athens. just as prince theseus was going on board, his father bethought himself of one last word to say. "my beloved son," said he, grasping the prince's hand, "you observe that the sails of this vessel are black; as indeed they ought to be, since it goes upon a voyage of sorrow and despair. now, being weighed down with infirmities, i know not whether i can survive till the vessel shall return. but, as long as i do live, i shall creep daily to the top of yonder cliff, to watch if there be a sail upon the sea. and, dearest theseus, if by some happy chance you should escape the jaws of the minotaur, then tear down those dismal sails, and hoist others that shall be bright as the sunshine. beholding them on the horizon, myself and all the people will know that you are coming back victorious, and will welcome you with such a festal uproar as athens never heard before." theseus promised that he would do so. then, going on board, the mariners trimmed the vessel's black sails to the wind, which blew faintly off the shore, being pretty much made up of the sighs that everybody kept pouring forth on this melancholy occasion. but by and by, when they had got fairly out to sea, there came a stiff breeze from the northwest, and drove them along as merrily over the white-capped waves as if they had been going on the most delightful errand imaginable. and though it was a sad business enough, i rather question whether fourteen young people, without any old persons to keep them in order, could continue to spend the whole time of the voyage in being miserable. there had been some few dances upon the undulating deck, i suspect, and some hearty bursts of laughter, and other such unseasonable merriment among the victims, before the high, blue mountains of crete began to show themselves among the far-off clouds. that sight, to be sure, made them all very grave again. theseus stood among the sailors, gazing eagerly towards the land; although, as yet, it seemed hardly more substantial than the clouds, amidst which the mountains were looming up. once or twice, he fancied that he saw a glare of some bright object, a long way off, flinging a gleam across the waves. "did you see that flash of light?" he inquired of the master of the vessel. "no, prince; but i have seen it before," answered the master. "it came from talus, i suppose." as the breeze came fresher just then, the master was busy with trimming his sails, and had no more time to answer questions. but while the vessel flew faster and faster towards crete, theseus was astonished to behold a human figure, gigantic in size, which appeared to be striding with a measured movement, along the margin of the island. it stepped from cliff to cliff, and sometimes from one headland to another, while the sea foamed and thundered on the shore beneath, and dashed its jets of spray over the giant's feet. what was still more remarkable, whenever the sun shone on this huge figure, it flickered and glimmered; its vast countenance, too, had a metallic lustre, and threw great flashes of splendor through the air. the folds of its garments, moreover, instead of waving in the wind, fell heavily over its limbs, as if woven of some kind of metal. the nigher the vessel came, the more theseus wondered what this immense giant could be, and whether it actually had life or no. for though it walked, and made other lifelike motions, there yet was a kind of jerk in its gait, which, together with its brazen aspect, caused the young prince to suspect that it was no true giant, but only a wonderful piece of machinery. the figure looked all the more terrible because it carried an enormous brass club on its shoulder. "what is this wonder?" theseus asked of the master of the vessel, who was now at leisure to answer him. "it is talus, the man of brass," said the master. "and is he a live giant, or a brazen image?" asked theseus. "that, truly," replied the master, "is the point which has always perplexed me. some say, indeed, that this talus was hammered out for king minos by vulcan himself, the skilfullest of all workers in metal. but who ever saw a brazen image that had sense enough to walk round an island three times a day, as this giant walks round the island of crete, challenging every vessel that comes nigh the shore? and, on the other hand, what living thing, unless his sinews were made of brass, would not be weary of marching eighteen hundred miles in the twenty-four hours, as talus does, without ever sitting down to rest? he is a puzzler, take him how you will." still the vessel went bounding onward; and now theseus could hear the brazen clangor of the giant's footsteps, as he trod heavily upon the sea-beaten rocks, some of which were seen to crack and crumble into the foamy waves beneath his weight. as they approached the entrance of the port, the giant straddled clear across it, with a foot firmly planted on each headland, and uplifting his club to such a height that its butt-end was hidden in a cloud, he stood in that formidable posture, with the sun gleaming all over his metallic surface. there seemed nothing else to be expected but that, the next moment, he would fetch his great club down, slam bang, and smash the vessel into a thousand pieces, without heeding how many innocent people he might destroy; for there is seldom any mercy in a giant, you know, and quite as little in a piece of brass clockwork. but just when theseus and his companions thought the blow was coming, the brazen lips unclosed themselves, and the figure spoke. "whence come you, strangers?" and when the ringing voice ceased, there was just such a reverberation as you may have heard within a great church bell, for a moment or two after the stroke of the hammer. "from athens!" shouted the master in reply. "on what errand?" thundered the man of brass. and he whirled his club aloft more threateningly than ever, as if he were about to smite them with a thunder-stroke right amid-ships, because athens, so little while ago, had been at war with crete. "we bring the seven youths and the seven maidens," answered the master, "to be devoured by the minotaur!" "pass!" cried the brazen giant. that one loud word rolled all about the sky, while again there was a booming reverberation within the figure's breast. the vessel glided between the headlands of the port, and the giant resumed his march. in a few moments, this wondrous sentinel was far away, flashing in the distant sunshine, and revolving with immense strides around the island of crete, as it was his never-ceasing task to do. no sooner had they entered the harbor than a party of the guards of king minos came down to the water-side, and took charge of the fourteen young men and damsels. surrounded by these armed warriors, prince theseus and his companions were led to the king's palace, and ushered into his presence. now, minos was a stern and pitiless king. if the figure that guarded crete was made of brass, then the monarch, who ruled over it, might be thought to have a still harder metal in his breast, and might have been called a man of iron. he bent his shaggy brows upon the poor athenian victims. any other mortal, beholding their fresh and tender beauty, and their innocent looks, would have felt himself sitting on thorns until he had made every soul of them happy, by bidding them go free as the summer wind. but this immitigable minos cared only to examine whether they were plump enough to satisfy the minotaur's appetite. for my part, i wish he had himself been the only victim; and the monster would have found him a pretty tough one. one after another, king minos called these pale, frightened youths and sobbing maidens to his footstool, gave them each a poke in the ribs with his sceptre (to try whether they were in good flesh or no), and dismissed them with a nod to his guards. but when his eyes rested on theseus, the king looked at him more attentively, because his face was calm and brave. "young man," asked he, with his stern voice, "are you not appalled at the certainty of being devoured by this terrible minotaur?" "i have offered my life in a good cause," answered theseus, "and therefore i give it freely and gladly. but thou, king minos, art thou not thyself appalled, who, year after year, hast perpetrated this dreadful wrong, by giving seven innocent youths and as many maidens to be devoured by a monster? dost thou not tremble, wicked king, to turn thine eyes inward on thine own heart? sitting there on thy golden throne, and in thy robes of majesty, i tell thee to thy face, king minos, thou art a more hideous monster than the minotaur himself!" "aha! do you think me so?" cried the king, laughing in his cruel way. "to-morrow, at breakfast-time, you shall have an opportunity of judging which is the greater monster, the minotaur or the king! take them away, guards; and let this free-spoken youth be the minotaur's first morsel!" near the king's throne (though i had no time to tell you so before) stood his daughter ariadne. she was a beautiful and tender-hearted maiden, and looked at these poor doomed captives with very different feelings from those of the iron-breasted king minos. she really wept, indeed, at the idea of how much human happiness would be needlessly thrown away, by giving so many young people, in the first bloom and rose blossom of their lives, to be eaten up by a creature who, no doubt, would have preferred a fat ox, or even a large pig, to the plumpest of them. and when she beheld the brave, spirited figure of prince theseus bearing himself so calmly in his terrible peril, she grew a hundred times more pitiful than before. as the guards were taking him away, she flung herself at the king's feet, and besought him to set all the captives free, and especially this one young man. "peace, foolish girl!" answered king minos. "what hast thou to do with an affair like this? it is a matter of state policy, and therefore quite beyond thy weak comprehension. go water thy flowers, and think no more of these athenian caitiffs, whom the minotaur shall as certainly eat up for breakfast as i will eat a partridge for my supper." so saying, the king looked cruel enough to devour theseus and all the rest of the captives, himself, had there been no minotaur to save him the trouble. as he would not hear another word in their favor, the prisoners were now led away, and clapped into a dungeon, where the jailer advised them to go to sleep as soon as possible, because the minotaur was in the habit of calling for breakfast early. the seven maidens and six of the young men soon sobbed themselves to slumber! but theseus was not like them. he felt conscious that he was wiser and braver and stronger than his companions, and that therefore he had the responsibility of all their lives upon him, and must consider whether there was no way to save them, even in this last extremity. so he kept himself awake, and paced to and fro across the gloomy dungeon in which they were shut up. just before midnight, the door was softly unbarred, and the gentle ariadne showed herself, with a torch in her hand. "are you awake, prince theseus?" she whispered. "yes," answered theseus. "with so little time to live, i do not choose to waste any of it in sleep." "then follow me," said ariadne, "and tread softly." what had become of the jailer and the guards, theseus never knew. but however that might be, ariadne opened all the doors, and led him forth from the darksome prison into the pleasant moonlight. "theseus," said the maiden, "you can now get on board your vessel, and sail away for athens." "no," answered the young man; "i will never leave crete unless i can first slay the minotaur, and save my poor companions, and deliver athens from this cruel tribute." "i knew that this would be your resolution," said ariadne. "come, then, with me, brave theseus. here is your own sword, which the guards deprived you of. you will need it; and pray heaven you may use it well." then she led theseus along by the hand until they came to a dark, shadow grove, where the moonlight wasted itself on the tops of the trees, without shedding hardly so much as a glimmering beam upon their pathway. after going a good way through this obscurity, they reached a high, marble wall, which was overgrown with creeping plants, that made it shaggy with their verdure. the wall seemed to have no door, nor any windows, but rose up, lofty, and massive, and mysterious, and was neither to be clambered over, nor, so far as theseus could perceive, to be passed through. nevertheless, ariadne did but press one of her soft little fingers against a particular block of marble, and, though it looked as solid as any other part of the wall, it yielded to her touch, disclosing an entrance just wide enough to admit them. they crept through, and the marble stone swung back into its place. "we are now," said ariadne, "in the famous labyrinth which dædalus built before he made himself a pair of wings, and flew away from our island like a bird. that dædalus was a very cunning workman; but of all his artful contrivances, this labyrinth is the most wondrous. were we to take but a few steps from the doorway, we might wander about all our lifetime, and never find it again. yet in the very centre of this labyrinth is the minotaur; and, theseus, you must go thither to seek him." "but how shall i ever find him?" asked theseus, "if the labyrinth so bewilders me as you say it will?" just as he spoke, they heard a rough and very disagreeable roar, which greatly resembled the lowing of a fierce bull, but yet had some sort of sound like the human voice. theseus even fancied a rude articulation in it, as if the creature that uttered it were trying to shape his hoarse breath into words. it was at some distance, however, and he really could not tell whether it sounded most like a bull's roar or a man's harsh voice. "that is the minotaur's noise," whispered ariadne, closely grasping the hand of theseus, and pressing one of her own hands to her heart, which was all in a tremble. "you must follow that sound through the windings of the labyrinth, and, by and by, you will find him. stay! take the end of this silken string; i will hold the other end; and then, if you win the victory, it will lead you again to this spot. farewell, brave theseus." so the young man took the end of the silken string in his left hand, and his gold-hilted sword, ready drawn from its scabbard, in the other, and trod boldly into the inscrutable labyrinth. how this labyrinth was built is more than i can tell you. but so cunningly contrived a mizmaze was never seen in the world, before nor since. there can be nothing else so intricate, unless it were the brain of a man like dædalus, who planned it, or the heart of any ordinary man; which last, to be sure, is ten times as great a mystery as the labyrinth of crete. theseus had not taken five steps before he lost sight of ariadne; and in five more his head was growing dizzy. but still he went on, now creeping through a low arch, now ascending a flight of steps, now in one crooked passage and now in another, with here a door opening before him, and there one banging behind, until it really seemed as if the walls spun round, and whirled him round along with them. and all the while, through these hollow avenues, now nearer, now farther off again, resounded the cry of the minotaur; and the sound was so fierce, so cruel, so ugly, so like a bull's roar, and withal so like a human voice, and yet like neither of them, that the brave heart of theseus grew sterner and angrier at every step; for he felt it an insult to the moon and sky, and to our affectionate and simple mother earth, that such a monster should have the audacity to exist. as he passed onward, the clouds gathered over the moon, and the labyrinth grew so dusky that theseus could no longer discern the bewilderment through which he was passing. he would have felt quite lost, and utterly hopeless of ever again walking in a straight path, if, every little while, he had not been conscious of a gentle twitch at the silken cord. then he knew that the tender-hearted ariadne was still holding the other end, and that she was fearing for him, and hoping for him, and giving him just as much of her sympathy as if she were close by his side. oh, indeed, i can assure you, there was a vast deal of human sympathy running along that slender thread of silk. but still he followed the dreadful roar of the minotaur, which now grew louder and louder, and finally so very loud that theseus fully expected to come close upon him, at every new zigzag and wriggle of the path. and at last, in an open space, at the very centre of the labyrinth, he did discern the hideous creature. sure enough, what an ugly monster it was! only his horned head belonged to a bull; and yet, somehow or other, he looked like a bull all over, preposterously waddling on his hind legs; or, if you happened to view him in another way, he seemed wholly a man, and all the more monstrous for being so. and there he was, the wretched thing, with no society, no companion, no kind of a mate, living only to do mischief, and incapable of knowing what affection means. theseus hated him, and shuddered at him, and yet could not but be sensible of some sort of pity; and all the more, the uglier and more detestable the creature was. for he kept striding to and fro in a solitary frenzy of rage, continually emitting a hoarse roar, which was oddly mixed up with half-shaped words; and, after listening awhile, theseus understood that the minotaur was saying to himself how miserable he was, and how hungry, and how he hated everybody, and how he longed to eat up the human race alive. ah, the bull-headed villain! and o, my good little people, you will perhaps see, one of these days, as i do now, that every human being who suffers anything evil to get into his nature, or to remain there, is a kind of minotaur, an enemy of his fellow-creatures, and separated from all good companionship, as this poor monster was. was theseus afraid? by no means, my dear auditors. what! a hero like theseus afraid! not had the minotaur had twenty bull heads instead of one. bold as he was, however, i rather fancy that it strengthened his valiant heart, just at this crisis, to feel a tremulous twitch at the silken cord, which he was still holding in his left hand. it was as if ariadne were giving him all her might and courage; and, much as he already had, and little as she had to give, it made his own seem twice as much. and to confess the honest truth, he needed the whole; for now the minotaur, turning suddenly about, caught sight of theseus, and instantly lowered his horribly sharp horns, exactly as a mad bull does when he means to rush against an enemy. at the same time, he belched forth a tremendous roar, in which there was something like the words of human language, but all disjointed and shaken-to pieces by passing through the gullet of a miserably enraged brute. theseus could only guess what the creature intended to say, and that rather by his gestures than his words; for the minotaur's horns were sharper than his wits, and of a great deal more service to him than his tongue. but probably this was the sense of what he uttered:-- "ah, wretch of a human being! i'll stick my horns through you, and toss you fifty feet high, and eat you up the moment you come down." "come on, then, and try it!" was all that theseus deigned to reply; for he was far too magnanimous to assault his enemy with insolent language. without more words on either side, there ensued the most awful fight between theseus and the minotaur that ever happened beneath the sun or moon. i really know not how it might have turned out, if the monster, in his first headlong rush against theseus, had not missed him, by a hair's-breadth, and broken one of his horns short off against the stone wall. on this mishap, he bellowed so intolerably that a part of the labyrinth tumbled down, and all the inhabitants of crete mistook the noise for an uncommonly heavy thunder-storm. smarting with the pain, he galloped around the open space in so ridiculous a way that theseus laughed at it, long afterwards, though not precisely at the moment. after this, the two antagonists stood valiantly up to one another, and fought sword to horn, for a long while. at last, the minotaur made a run at theseus, grazed his left side with his horn, and flung him down; and thinking that he had stabbed him to the heart, he cut a great caper in the air, opened his bull mouth from ear to ear, and prepared to snap his head off. but theseus by this time had leaped up, and caught the monster off his guard. fetching a sword-stroke at him with all his force, he hit him fair upon the neck, and made his bull head skip six yards from his human body, which fell down flat upon the ground. so now the battle was ended. immediately the moon shone out as brightly as if all the troubles of the world, and all the wickedness and the ugliness that infest human life, were past and gone forever. and theseus, as he leaned on his sword, taking breath, felt another twitch of the silken cord; for all through the terrible encounter he had held it fast in his left hand. eager to let ariadne know of his success, he followed the guidance of the thread, and soon found himself at the entrance of the labyrinth. "thou hast slain the monster," cried ariadne, clasping her hands. "thanks to thee, dear ariadne," answered theseus, "i return victorious." "then," said ariadne, "we must quickly summon thy friends, and get them and thyself on board the vessel before dawn. if morning finds thee here, my father will avenge the minotaur." to make my story short, the poor captives were awakened, and, hardly knowing whether it was not a joyful dream, were told of what theseus had done, and that they must set sail for athens before daybreak. hastening down to the vessel, they all clambered on board, except prince theseus, who lingered behind them, on the strand, holding ariadne's hand clasped in his own. "dear maiden," said he, "thou wilt surely go with us. thou art too gentle and sweet a child for such an iron-hearted father as king minos. he cares no more for thee than a granite rock cares for the little flower that grows in one of its crevices. but my father. king Ægeus, and my dear mother, Æthra, and all the fathers and mothers in athens, and all the sons and daughters too, will love and honor thee as their benefactress. come with us, then; for king minos will be very angry when he knows what thou hast done." now, some low-minded people, who pretend to tell the story of theseus and ariadne, have the face to say that this royal and honorable maiden did really flee away, under cover of the night, with the young stranger whose life she had preserved. they say, too, that prince theseus (who would have died sooner than wrong the meanest creature in the world) ungratefully deserted ariadne, on a solitary island, where the vessel touched on its voyage to athens. but, had the noble theseus heard these falsehoods, he would have served their slanderous authors as he served the minotaur! here is what ariadne answered, when the brave prince of athens besought her to accompany him:-- "no, theseus," the maiden said, pressing his hand, and then drawing back a step or two, "i cannot go with you. my father is old, and has nobody but myself to love him. hard as you think his heart is, it would break to lose me. at first king minos will be angry; but he will soon forgive his only child; and, by and by, he will rejoice, i know, that no more youths and maidens must come from athens to be devoured by the minotaur. i have saved you, theseus, as much for my father's sake as for your own. farewell! heaven bless you!" all this was so true, and so maiden-like, and was spoken with so sweet a dignity, that theseus would have blushed to urge her any longer. nothing remained for him, therefore, but to bid ariadne an affectionate farewell, and go on board the vessel, and set sail. in a few moments the white foam was boiling up before their prow, as prince theseus and his companions sailed out of the harbor with a whistling breeze behind them. talus, the brazen giant, on his never-ceasing sentinel's march, happened to be approaching that part of the coast; and they saw him, by the glimmering of the moonbeams on his polished surface, while he was yet a great way off. as the figure moved like clockwork, however, and could neither hasten his enormous strides nor retard them, he arrived at the port when they were just beyond the reach of his club. nevertheless, straddling from headland to headland, as his custom was, talus attempted to strike a blow at the vessel, and, overreaching himself, tumbled at full length into the sea, which splashed high over his gigantic shape, as when an iceberg turns a somerset. there he lies yet; and whoever desires to enrich himself by means of brass had better go thither with a diving-bell, and fish up talus. on the homeward voyage, the fourteen youths and damsels were in excellent spirits, as you will easily suppose. they spent most of their time in dancing, unless when the sidelong breeze made the deck slope too much. in due season, they came within sight of the coast of attica, which was their native country. but here, i am grieved to tell you, happened a sad misfortune. you will remember (what theseus unfortunately forgot) that his father, king Ægeus, had enjoined it upon him to hoist sunshine sails, instead of black ones, in case he should overcome the minotaur, and return victorious. in the joy of their success, however, and amidst the sports, dancing, and other merriment, with which these young folks wore away the time, they never once thought whether their sails were black, white, or rainbow colored, and, indeed, left it entirely to the mariners whether they had any sails at all. thus the vessel returned, like a raven, with the same sable wings that had wafted her away. but poor king Ægeus, day after day, infirm as he was, had clambered to the summit of a cliff that overhung the sea, and there sat watching for prince theseus, homeward bound; and no sooner did he behold the fatal blackness of the sails, than he concluded that his dear son, whom he loved so much, and felt so proud of, had been eaten by the minotaur. he could not bear the thought of living any longer; so, first flinging his crown and sceptre into the sea, (useless bawbles that they were to him now!) king Ægeus merely stooped forward, and fell headlong over the cliff, and was drowned, poor soul, in the waves that foamed at its base! this was melancholy news for prince theseus, who, when he stepped ashore, found himself king of all the country, whether he would or no; and such a turn of fortune was enough to make any young man feel very much out of spirits. however, he sent for his dear mother to athens, and, by taking her advice in matters of state, became a very excellent monarch, and was greatly beloved by his people. the pygmies a great while ago, when the world was full of wonders, there lived an earth-born giant named antæus, and a million or more of curious little earth-born people, who were called pygmies. this giant and these pygmies being children of the same mother (that is to say, our good old grandmother earth), were all brethren and dwelt together in a very friendly and affectionate manner, far, far off, in the middle of hot africa. the pygmies were so small, and there were so many sandy deserts and such high mountains between them and the rest of mankind, that nobody could get a peep at them oftener than once in a hundred years. as for the giant, being of a very lofty stature, it was easy enough to see him, but safest to keep out of his sight. among the pygmies, i suppose, if one of them grew to the height of six or eight inches, he was reckoned a prodigiously tall man. it must have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with streets two or three feet wide, paved with the smallest pebbles, and bordered by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage. the king's palace attained to the stupendous magnitude of periwinkle's baby-house, and stood in the centre of a spacious square, which could hardly have been covered by our hearth-rug. their principal temple, or cathedral, was as lofty as yonder bureau, and was looked upon as a wonderfully sublime and magnificent edifice. all these structures were built neither of stone nor wood. they were neatly plastered together by the pygmy workmen, pretty much like bird's-nests, out of straw, feathers, eggshells, and other small bits of stuff, with stiff clay instead of mortar; and when the hot sun had dried them, they were just as snug and comfortable as a pygmy could desire. the country round about was conveniently laid out in fields, the largest of which was nearly of the same extent as one of sweet fern's flower-beds. here the pygmies used to plant wheat and other kinds of grain, which, when it grew up and ripened, overshadowed these tiny people, as the pines, and the oaks, and the walnut and chestnut-trees overshadow you and me, when we walk in our own tracts of woodland. at harvest-time, they were forced to go with their little axes and cut down the grain, exactly as a wood-cutter makes a clearing in the forest; and when a stalk of wheat, with its overburdened top, chanced to come crashing down upon an unfortunate pygmy, it was apt to be a very sad affair. if it did not smash him all to pieces, at least, i am sure, it must have made the poor little fellow's head ache. and oh, my stars! if the fathers and mothers were so small, what must the children and babies have been? a whole family of them might have been put to bed in a shoe, or have crept into an old glove, and played at hide-and-seek in its thumb and fingers. you might have hidden a year-old baby under a thimble. now these funny pygmies, as i told you before, had a giant for their neighbor and brother, who was bigger, if possible, than they were little. he was so very tall that he carried a pine-tree, which was eight feet through the butt, for a walking-stick. it took a far-sighted pygmy, i can assure you, to discern his summit without the help of a telescope; and sometimes, in misty weather, they could not see his upper half, but only his long legs, which seemed to be striding about by themselves. but at noonday, in a clear atmosphere, when the sun shone brightly over him, the giant antæus presented a very grand spectacle. there he used to stand, a perfect mountain of a man, with his great countenance smiling down upon his little brothers, and his one vast eye (which was as big as a cart-wheel, and placed right in the centre of his forehead) giving a friendly wink to the whole nation at once. the pygmies loved to talk with antæus; and fifty times a day, one or another of them would turn up his head, and shout through the hollow of his fists, "halloo, brother antæus! how are you, my good fellow?" and when the small, distant squeak of their voices reached his ear, the giant would make answer, "pretty well, brother pygmy, i thank you," in a thunderous roar that would have shaken down the walls of their strongest temple, only that it came from so far aloft. it was a happy circumstance that antæus was the pygmy people's friend; for there was more strength in his little finger than in ten million of such bodies as theirs. if he had been as ill-natured to them as he was to everybody else, he might have beaten down their biggest city at one kick, and hardly have known that he did it. with the tornado of his breath, he could have stripped the roofs from a hundred dwellings, and sent thousands of the inhabitants whirling through the air. he might have set his immense foot upon a multitude; and when he took it up again, there would have been a pitiful sight, to be sure. but, being the son of mother earth, as they likewise were, the giant gave them his brotherly kindness, and loved them with as big a love as it was possible to feel for creatures so very small. and, on their parts, the pygmies loved antæus with as much affection as their tiny hearts could hold. he was always ready to do them any good offices that lay in his power; as, for example, when they wanted a breeze to turn their windmills, the giant would set all the sails a-going with the mere natural respiration of his lungs. when the sun was too hot, he often sat himself down, and let his shadow fall over the kingdom, from one frontier to the other; and as for matters in general, he was wise enough to let them alone, and leave the pygmies to manage their own affairs,--which, after all, is about the best thing that great people can do for little ones. in short, as i said before, antæus loved the pygmies, and the pygmies loved antæus. the giant's life being as long as his body was large, while the lifetime of a pygmy was but a span, this friendly intercourse had been going on for innumerable generations and ages. it was written about in the pygmy histories, and talked about in their ancient traditions. the most venerable and white-bearded pygmy had never heard of a time, even in his greatest of grandfather's days, when the giant was not their enormous friend. once, to be sure (as was recorded on an obelisk, three feet high, erected on the place of the catastrophe), antæus sat down upon about five thousand pygmies, who were assembled at a military review. but this was one of those unlucky accidents for which nobody is to blame; so that the small folks never took it to heart, and only requested the giant to be careful forever afterwards to examine the acre of ground where he intended to squat himself. it is a very pleasant picture to imagine antæus standing among the pygmies, like the spire of the tallest cathedral that ever was built, while they ran about like pismires at his feet; and to think that, in spite of their difference in size, there were affection and sympathy between them and him! indeed, it has always seemed to me that the giant needed the little people more than the pygmies needed the giant. for, unless they had been his neighbors and wellwishers, and, as we may say, his playfellows, antæus would not have had a single friend in the world. no other being like himself had ever been created. no creature of his own size had ever talked with him, in thunder-like accents, face to face. when he stood with his head among the clouds, he was quite alone, and had been so for hundreds of years, and would be so forever. even if he had met another giant, antæus would have fancied the world not big enough for two such vast personages, and, instead of being friends with him, would have fought him till one of the two was killed. but with the pygmies he was the most sportive, and humorous, and merry-hearted, and sweet-tempered old giant that ever washed his face in a wet cloud. his little friends, like all other small people, had a great opinion of their own importance, and used to assume quite a patronizing air towards the giant. "poor creature!" they said one to another. "he has a very dull time of it, all by himself; and we ought not to grudge wasting a little of our precious time to amuse him. he is not half so bright as we are, to be sure; and, for that reason, he needs us to look after his comfort and happiness. let us be kind to the old fellow. why, if mother earth had not been very kind to ourselves, we might all have been giants too." on all their holidays, the pygmies had excellent sport with antæus. he often stretched himself out at full length on the ground, where he looked like the long ridge of a hill; and it was a good hour's walk, no doubt, for a short-legged pygmy to journey from head to foot of the giant. he would lay down his great hand flat on the grass, and challenge the tallest of them to clamber upon it, and straddle from finger to finger. so fearless were they, that they made nothing of creeping in among the folds of his garments. when his head lay sidewise on the earth, they would march boldly up, and peep into the great cavern of his mouth, and take it all as a joke, (as indeed it was meant) when antæus gave a sudden snap with his jaws, as if he were going to swallow fifty of them at once. you would have laughed to see the children dodging in and out among his hair, or swinging from his beard. it is impossible to tell half of the funny tricks that they played with their huge comrade; but i do not know that anything was more curious than when a party of boys were seen running races on his forehead, to try which of them could get first round the circle of his one great eye. it was another favorite feat with them to march along the bridge of his nose, and jump down upon his upper lip. if the truth must be told, they were sometimes as troublesome to the giant as a swarm of ants or mosquitoes, especially as they had a fondness for mischief, and liked to prick his skin with their little swords and lances, to see how thick and tough it was. but antæus took it all kindly enough; although, once in a while, when he happened to be sleepy, he would grumble out a peevish word or two, like the muttering of a tempest, and ask them to have done with their nonsense. a great deal oftener, however, he watched their merriment and gambols until his huge, heavy, clumsy wits were completely stirred up by them; and then would he roar out such a tremendous volume of immeasurable laughter, that the whole nation of pygmies had to put their hands to their ears, else it would certainly have deafened them. "ho! ho! ho!" quoth the giant, shaking his mountainous sides. "what a funny thing it is to be little! if i were not antæus, i should like to be a pygmy, just for the joke's sake." the pygmies had but one thing to trouble them in the world. they were constantly at war with the cranes, and had always been so, ever since the long-lived giant could remember. from time to time very terrible battles had been fought, in which sometimes the little men won the victory, and sometimes the cranes. according to some historians, the pygmies used to go to the battle, mounted on the backs of goats and rams; but such animals as these must have been far too big for pygmies to ride upon; so that, i rather suppose, they rode on squirrel-back, or rabbit-back, or rat-back, or perhaps got upon hedgehogs, whose prickly quills would be very terrible to the enemy. however this might be, and whatever creatures the pygmies rode upon, i do not doubt that they made a formidable appearance, armed with sword and spear, and bow and arrow, blowing their tiny trumpet, and shouting their little war-cry. they never failed to exhort one another to fight bravely, and recollect that the world had its eyes upon them; although, in simple truth, the only spectator was the giant antæus, with his one, great, stupid eye, in the middle of his forehead. when the two armies joined battle, the cranes would rush forward, flapping their wings and stretching out their necks, and would perhaps snatch up some of the pygmies crosswise in their beaks. whenever this happened, it was truly an awful spectacle to see those little men of might kicking and sprawling in the air, and at last disappearing down the crane's long, crooked throat, swallowed up alive. a hero, you know, must hold himself in readiness for any kind of fate; and doubtless the glory of the thing was a consolation to him, even in the crane's gizzard. if antæus observed that the battle was going hard against his little allies, he generally stopped laughing, and ran with mile-long strides to their assistance, flourishing his club aloft and shouting at the cranes, who quacked and croaked, and retreated as fast as they could. then the pygmy army would march homeward in triumph, attributing the victory entirely to their own valor, and to the warlike skill and strategy of whomsoever happened to be captain general; and for a tedious while afterwards, nothing would be heard of but grand processions, and public banquets, and brilliant illuminations, and shows of waxwork, with likenesses of the distinguished officers as small as life. in the above-described warfare, if a pygmy chanced to pluck out a crane's tail-feather, it proved a very great feather in his cap. once or twice, if you will believe me, a little man was made chief ruler of the nation for no other merit in the world than bringing home such a feather. but i have now said enough to let you see what a gallant little people these were, and how happily they and their forefathers, for nobody knows how many generations, had lived with the immeasurable giant antæus. in the remaining part of the story, i shall tell you of a far more astonishing battle than any that was fought between the pygmies and the cranes. one day the mighty antæus was lolling at full length among his little friends. his pine-tree walking-stick lay on the ground close by his side. his head was in one part of the kingdom, and his feet extended across the boundaries of another part; and he was taking whatever comfort he could get, while the pygmies scrambled over him, and peeped into his cavernous mouth, and played among his hair. sometimes, for a minute or two, the giant dropped asleep, and snored like the rush of a whirlwind. during one of these little bits of slumber, a pygmy chanced to climb upon his shoulder, and took a view around the horizon, as from the summit of a hill; and he beheld something, a long way off, which made him rub the bright specks of his eyes, and look sharper than before. at first he mistook it for a mountain, and wondered how it had grown up so suddenly out of the earth. but soon he saw the mountain move. as it came nearer and nearer, what should it turn out to be but a human shape, not so big as antæus, it is true, although a very enormous figure, in comparison with pygmies, and a vast deal bigger than the men whom we see nowadays. when the pygmy was quite satisfied that his eyes had not deceived him, he scampered, as fast as his legs would carry him, to the giant's ear, and stooping over its cavity, shouted lustily into it,-- "halloo, brother antæus! get up this minute, and take your pine-tree walking-stick in your hand. here comes another giant to have a tussle with you." "poh, poh!" grumbled antæus, only half awake, "none of your nonsense, my little fellow! don't you see i'm sleepy. there is not a giant on earth for whom i would take the trouble to get up." but the pygmy looked again, and now perceived that the stranger was coming directly towards the prostrate form of antæus. with every step he looked less like a blue mountain, and more like an immensely large man. he was soon so nigh, that there could be no possible mistake about the matter. there he was, with the sun flaming on his golden helmet, and flashing from his polished breastplate; he had a sword by his side, and a lion's skin over his back, and on his right shoulder he carried a club, which looked bulkier and heavier than the pine-tree walking-stick of antæus. by this time, the whole nation of pygmies had seen the new wonder, and a million of them set up a shout, all together; so that it really made quite an audible squeak. "get up, antæus! bestir yourself, you lazy old giant! here comes another giant, as strong as you are, to fight with you." "nonsense, nonsense!" growled the sleepy giant. "i'll have my nap out." still the stranger drew nearer; and now the pygmies could plainly discern that if his stature were less lofty than the giant's, yet his shoulders were even broader. and, in truth, what a pair of shoulders they must have been! as i told you, a long while ago, they once upheld the sky. the pygmies, being ten times as vivacious as their great numskull of a brother, could not abide the giant's slow movements, and were determined to have him on his feet. so they kept shouting to him, and even went so far as to prick him with their swords. "get up, get up, get up!" they cried. "up with you, lazy bones! the strange giant's club is bigger than your own, his shoulders are the broadest, and we think him the stronger of the two." antæus could not endure to have it said that any mortal was half so mighty as himself. this latter remark of the pygmies pricked him deeper than their swords; and, sitting up, in rather a sulky humor, he gave a gape of several yards wide, rubbed his eye, and finally turned his stupid head in the direction whither his little friends were eagerly pointing. no sooner did he set eye on the stranger than, leaping on his feet, and seizing his walking-stick, he strode a mile or two to meet him; all the while brandishing the sturdy pine-tree, so that it whistled through the air. "who are you?" thundered the giant. "and what do you want in my dominions?" there was one strange thing about antæus, of which i have not yet told you, lest, hearing of so many wonders all in a lump, you might not believe much more than half of them. you are to know, then, that whenever this redoubtable giant touched the ground, either with his hand, his foot, or any other part of his body, he grew stronger than ever he had been before. the earth, you remember, was his mother, and was very fond of him, as being almost the biggest of her children; and so she took this method of keeping him always in full vigor. some persons affirm that he grew ten times stronger at every touch; others say that it was only twice as strong. but only think of it! whenever antæus took a walk, supposing it were but ten miles, and that he stepped a hundred yards at a stride, you may try to cipher out how much mightier he was, on sitting down again, than when he first started. and whenever he flung himself on the earth to take a little repose, even if he got up the very next instant, he would be as strong as exactly ten just such giants as his former self. it was well for the world that antæus happened to be of a sluggish disposition, and liked ease better than exercise; for, if he had frisked about like the pygmies, and touched the earth as often as they did, he would long ago have been strong enough to pull down the sky about people's ears. but these great lubberly fellows resemble mountains, not only in bulk, but in their disinclination to move. any other mortal man, except the very one whom antæus had now encountered, would have been half frightened to death by the giant's ferocious aspect and terrible voice. but the stranger did not seem at all disturbed. he carelessly lifted his club, and balanced it in his hand, measuring antæus with his eye from head to foot, not as if wonder-smitten at his stature, but as if he had seen a great many giants before, and this was by no means the biggest of them. in fact, if the giant had been no bigger than the pygmies (who stood pricking up their ears, and looking and listening to what was going forward), the stranger could not have been less afraid of him. "who are you, i say?" roared antæus again. "what's your name? why do you come hither? speak, you vagabond, or i'll try the thickness of your skull with my walking-stick." "you are a very discourteous giant," answered the stranger, quietly, "and i shall probably have to teach you a little civility, before we part. as for my name, it is hercules. i have come hither because this is my most convenient road to the garden of the hesperides, whither i am going to get three of the golden apples for king eurystheus." "caitiff, you shall go no farther!" bellowed antæus, putting on a grimmer look than before; for he had heard of the mighty hercules, and hated him because he was said to be so strong. "neither shall you go back whence you came!" "how will you prevent me," asked hercules, "from going whither i please?" "by hitting you a rap with this pine-tree here," shouted antæus, scowling so that he made himself the ugliest monster in africa. "i am fifty times stronger than you; and, now that i stamp my foot upon the ground, i am five hundred times stronger! i am ashamed to kill such a puny little dwarf as you seem to be. i will make a slave of you, and you shall likewise be the slave of my brethren, here, the pygmies. so throw down your club and your other weapons; and as for that lion's skin, i intend to have a pair of gloves made of it." "come and take it off my shoulders, then," answered hercules, lifting his club. then the giant, grinning with rage, strode towerlike towards the stranger (ten times strengthened at every step), and fetched a monstrous blow at him with his pine-tree, which hercules caught upon his club; and being more skilful than antæus, he paid him back such a rap upon the sconce, that down tumbled the great lumbering man-mountain, flat upon the ground. the poor little pygmies (who really never dreamed that anybody in the world was half so strong as their brother antæus) were a good deal dismayed at this. but no sooner was the giant down, than up he bounced again, with tenfold might, and such a furious visage as was horrible to behold. he aimed another blow at hercules, but struck awry, being blinded with wrath, and only hit his poor, innocent mother earth, who groaned and trembled at the stroke. his pine-tree went so deep into the ground, and stuck there so fast, that before antæus could get it out, hercules brought down his club across his shoulders with a mighty thwack, which made the giant roar as if all sorts of intolerable noises had come screeching and rumbling out of his immeasurable lungs in that one cry. away it went, over mountains and valleys, and, for aught i know, was heard on the other side of the african deserts. as for the pygmies, their capital city was laid in ruins by the concussion and vibration of the air; and, though there was uproar enough without their help, they all set up a shriek out of three millions of little throats, fancying, no doubt, that they swelled the giant's bellow by at least ten times as much. meanwhile, antæus had scrambled upon his feet again, and pulled his pine-tree out of the earth; and, all a-flame with fury, and more outrageously strong than ever, he ran at hercules, and brought down another blow. "this time, rascal," shouted he, "you shall not escape me." but once more hercules warded off the stroke with his club, and the giant's pine-tree was shattered into a thousand splinters, most of which flew among the pygmies, and did them more mischief than i like to think about. before antæus could get out of the way, hercules let drive again, and gave him another knock-down blow, which sent him heels over head, but served only to increase his already enormous and insufferable strength. as for his rage, there is no telling what a fiery furnace it had now got to be. his one eye was nothing but a circle of red flame. having now no weapons but his fists, he doubled them up (each bigger than a hogshead), smote one against the other, and danced up and down with absolute frenzy, flourishing his immense arms about, as if he meant not merely to kill hercules, but to smash the whole world to pieces. "come on!" roared this thundering giant. "let me hit you but one box on the ear, and you'll never have the headache again." now hercules (though strong enough, as you already know, to hold the sky up) began to be sensible that he should never win the victory, if he kept on knocking antæus down; for, by and by, if he hit him such hard blows, the giant would inevitably, by the help of his mother earth, become stronger than the mighty hercules himself. so, throwing down his club, with which he had fought so many dreadful battles, the hero stood ready to receive his antagonist with naked arms. "step forward," cried he. "since i've broken your pine-tree, we'll try which is the better man at a wrestling-match." "aha! then i'll soon satisfy you," shouted the giant; for, if there was one thing on which he prided himself more than another, it was his skill in wrestling. "villain, i'll fling you where you can never pick yourself up again." on came antæus, hopping and capering with the scorching heat of his rage, and getting new vigor wherewith to wreak his passion every time he hopped. but hercules, you must understand, was wiser than this numskull of a giant, and had thought of a way to fight him,--huge, earth-born monster that he was,--and to conquer him too, in spite of all that his mother earth could do for him. watching his opportunity, as the mad giant made a rush at him, hercules caught him round the middle with both hands, lifted him high into the air, and held him aloft overhead. just imagine it, my dear little friends! what a spectacle it must have been, to see this monstrous fellow sprawling in the air, face downward, kicking out his long legs and wriggling his whole vast body, like a baby when its father holds it at arm's-length toward the ceiling. but the most wonderful thing was, that, as soon as antæus was fairly off the earth, he began to lose the vigor which he had gained by touching it. hercules very soon perceived that his troublesome enemy was growing weaker, both because he struggled and kicked with less violence, and because the thunder of his big voice subsided into a grumble. the truth was, that, unless the giant touched mother earth as often as once in five minutes, not only his overgrown strength, but the very breath of his life, would depart from him. hercules had guessed this secret; and it may be well for us all to remember it, in case we should ever have to fight a battle with a fellow like antæus. for these earth-born creatures are only difficult to conquer on their own ground, but may easily be managed if we can contrive to lift them into a loftier and purer region. so it proved with the poor giant, whom i am really sorry for, notwithstanding his uncivil way of treating strangers who came to visit him. when his strength and breath were quite gone, hercules gave his huge body a toss, and flung it about a mile off, where it fell heavily, and lay with no more motion than a sand-hill. it was too late for the giant's mother earth to help him now; and i should not wonder if his ponderous bones were lying on the same spot to this very day, and were mistaken for those of an uncommonly large elephant. but, alas me! what a wailing did the poor little pygmies set up when they saw their enormous brother treated in this terrible manner! if hercules heard their shrieks, however, he took no notice, and perhaps fancied them only the shrill, plaintive twittering of small birds that had been frightened from their nests by the uproar of the battle between himself and antæus. indeed, his thoughts had been so much taken up with the giant, that he had never once looked at the pygmies, nor even knew that there was such a funny little nation in the world. and now, as he had travelled a good way, and was also rather weary with his exertions in the fight, he spread out his lion's skin on the ground, and reclining himself upon it, fell fast asleep. as soon as the pygmies saw hercules preparing for a nap, they nodded their little heads at one another, and winked with their little eyes. and when his deep, regular breathing gave them notice that he was asleep, they assembled together in an immense crowd, spreading over a space of about twenty-seven feet square. one of their most eloquent orators (and a valiant warrior enough, besides, though hardly so good at any other weapon as he was with his tongue) climbed upon a toadstool, and, from that elevated position, addressed the multitude. his sentiments were pretty much as follows; or, at all events, something like this was probably the upshot of his speech:-- "tall pygmies and mighty little men! you and all of us have seen what a public calamity has been brought to pass, and what an insult has here been offered to the majesty of our nation. yonder lies antæus, our great friend and brother, slain, within our territory, by a miscreant who took him at disadvantage, and fought him (if fighting it can be called) in a way that neither man, nor giant, nor pygmy ever dreamed of fighting until this hour. and, adding a grievous contumely to the wrong already done us, the miscreant has now fallen asleep as quietly as if nothing were to be dreaded from our wrath! it behooves you, fellow-countrymen, to consider in what aspect we shall stand before the world, and what will be the verdict of impartial history, should we suffer these accumulated outrages to go unavenged. "antæus was our brother, born of that same beloved parent to whom we owe the thews and sinews, as well as the courageous hearts, which made him proud of our relationship. he was our faithful ally, and fell fighting as much for our national rights and immunities as for his own personal ones. we and our forefathers have dwelt in friendship with him, and held affectionate intercourse, as man to man, through immemorial generations. you remember how often our entire people have reposed in his great shadow, and how our little ones have played at hide-and-seek in the tangles of his hair, and how his mighty footsteps have familiarly gone to and fro among us, and never trodden upon any of our toes. and there lies this dear brother,--this sweet and amiable friend,--this brave and faithful ally,--this virtuous giant,--this blameless and excellent antæus,--dead! dead! silent! powerless! a mere mountain of clay! forgive my tears! nay, i behold your own! were we to drown the world with them, could the world blame us? "but to resume: shall we, my countrymen, suffer this wicked stranger to depart unharmed, and triumph in his treacherous victory, among distant communities of the earth? shall we not rather compel him to leave his bones here on our soil, by the side of our slain brother's bones, so that, while one skeleton shall remain as the everlasting monument of our sorrow, the other shall endure as long, exhibiting to the whole human race a terrible example of pygmy vengeance? such is the question. i put it to you in full confidence of a response that shall be worthy of our national character, and calculated to increase, rather than diminish, the glory which our ancestors have transmitted to us, and which we ourselves have proudly vindicated in our welfare with the cranes." the orator was here interrupted by a burst of irrepressible enthusiasm; every individual pygmy crying out that the national honor must be preserved at all hazards. he bowed, and making a gesture for silence, wound up his harangue in the following admirable manner:-- "it only remains for us, then, to decide whether we shall carry on the war in our national capacity,--one united people against a common enemy,--or whether some champion, famous in former fights, shall be selected to defy the slayer of our brother antæus to single combat. in the latter case, though not unconscious that there may be taller men among you, i hereby offer myself for that enviable duty. and, believe me, dear countrymen, whether i live or die, the honor of this great country, and the fame bequeathed us by our heroic progenitors, shall suffer no diminution in my hands. never, while i can wield this sword, of which i now fling away the scabbard,--never, never, never, even if the crimson hand that slew the great antæus shall lay me prostrate, like him, on the soil which i give my life to defend." so saying, this valiant pygmy drew out his weapon (which was terrible to behold, being as long as the blade of a penknife), and sent the scabbard whirling over the heads of the multitude. his speech was followed by an uproar of applause, as its patriotism and self-devotion unquestionably deserved; and the shouts and clapping of hands would have been greatly prolonged had they not been rendered quite inaudible by a deep respiration, vulgarly called a snore, from the sleeping hercules. it was finally decided that the whole nation of pygmies should set to work to destroy hercules; not, be it understood, from any doubt that a single champion would be capable of putting him to the sword, but because he was a public enemy, and all were desirous of sharing in the glory of his defeat. there was a debate whether the national honor did not demand that a herald should be sent with a trumpet, to stand over the ear of hercules, and, after blowing a blast right into it, to defy him to the combat by formal proclamation. but two or three venerable and sagacious pygmies, well versed in state affairs, gave it as their opinion that war already existed, and that it was their rightful privilege to take the enemy by surprise. moreover, if awakened, and allowed to get upon his feet, hercules might happen to do them a mischief before he could be beaten down again. for, as these sage counsellors remarked, the stranger's club was really very big, and had rattled like a thunderbolt against the skull of antæus. so the pygmies resolved to set aside all foolish punctilios, and assail their antagonist at once. accordingly, all the fighting men of the nation took their weapons, and went boldly up to hercules, who still lay fast asleep, little dreaming of the harm which the pygmies meant to do him. a body of twenty thousand archers marched in front, with their little bows all ready, and the arrows on the string. the same number were ordered to clamber upon hercules, some with spades to dig his eyes out, and others with bundles of hay, and all manner of rubbish, with which they intended to plug up his mouth and nostrils, so that he might perish for lack of breath. these last, however, could by no means perform their appointed duty; inasmuch as the enemy's breath rushed out of his nose in an obstreperous hurricane and whirlwind, which blew the pygmies away as fast as they came nigh. it was found necessary, therefore, to hit upon some other method of carrying on the war. after holding a council, the captains ordered their troops to collect sticks, straws, dry weeds, and whatever combustible stuff they could find, and make a pile of it, heaping it high around the head of hercules. as a great many thousand pygmies were employed in this task, they soon brought together several bushels of inflammatory matter, and raised so tall a heap, that, mounting on its summit, they were quite upon a level with the sleeper's face. the archers, meanwhile, were stationed within bow-shot, with orders to let fly at hercules the instant that he stirred. everything being in readiness, a torch was applied to the pile, which immediately burst into flames, and soon waxed hot enough to roast the enemy, had he but chosen to lie still. a pygmy, you know, though so very small, might set the world on fire, just as easily as a giant could; so that this was certainly the very best way of dealing with their foe, provided they could have kept him quiet while the conflagration was going forward. but no sooner did hercules begin to be scorched, than up he started, with his hair in a red blaze. "what's all this?" he cried, bewildered with sleep, and staring about him as if he expected to see another giant. at that moment the twenty thousand archers twanged their bowstrings, and the arrows came whizzing, like so many winged mosquitoes, right into the face of hercules. but i doubt whether more than half a dozen of them punctured the skin, which was remarkably tough, as you know the skin of a hero has good need to be. "villain!" shouted all the pygmies at once. "you have killed the giant antæus, our great brother, and the ally of our nation. we declare bloody war against you and will slay you on the spot." surprised at the shrill piping of so many little voices, hercules, after putting out the conflagration of his hair, gazed all round about, but could see nothing. at last, however, looking narrowly on the ground, he espied the innumerable assemblage of pygmies at his feet. he stooped down, and taking up the nearest one between his thumb and finger, set him on the palm of his left hand, and held him at a proper distance for examination. it chanced to be the very identical pygmy who had spoken from the top of the toadstool, and had offered himself as a champion to meet hercules in single combat. "what in the world, my little fellow," ejaculated hercules, "may you be?" "i am your enemy," answered the valiant pygmy, in his mightiest squeak. "you have slain the enormous antæus, our brother by the mother's side, and for ages the faithful ally of our illustrious nation. we are determined to put you to death; and for my own part, i challenge you to instant battle, on equal ground." hercules was so tickled with the pygmy's big words and warlike gestures, that he burst into a great explosion of laughter, and almost dropped the poor little mite of a creature off the palm of his hand, through the ecstasy and convulsion of his merriment. "upon my word," cried he, "i thought i had seen wonders before to-day,--hydras with nine heads, stags with golden horns, six-legged men, three-headed dogs, giants with furnaces in their stomachs, and nobody knows what besides. but here, on the palm of my hand, stands a wonder that outdoes them all! your body, my little friend, is about the size of an ordinary man's finger. pray, how big may your soul be?" "as big as your own!" said the pygmy. hercules was touched with the little man's dauntless courage, and could not help acknowledging such a brotherhood with him as one hero feels for another. "my good little people," said he, making a low obeisance to the grand nation, "not for all the world would i do an intentional injury to such brave fellows as you! your hearts seem to me so exceedingly great, that, upon my honor, i marvel how your small bodies can contain them. i sue for peace, and, as a condition of it, will take five strides, and be out of your kingdom at the sixth. good-by. i shall pick my steps carefully, for fear of treading upon some fifty of you, without knowing it. ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho! for once, hercules acknowledges himself vanquished." some writers say, that hercules gathered up the whole race of pygmies in his lion's skin, and carried them home to greece, for the children of king eurystheus to play with. but this is a mistake. he left them, one and all, within their own territory, where, for aught i can tell, their descendants are alive to the present day, building their little houses, cultivating their little fields, spanking their little children, waging their little warfare with the cranes, doing their little business, whatever it may be, and reading their little histories of ancient times. in those histories, perhaps, it stands recorded, that, a great many centuries ago, the valiant pygmies avenged the death of the giant antæus by scaring away the mighty hercules. the dragon's teeth cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, the three sons of king agenor, and their little sister europa (who was a very beautiful child) were at play together, near the sea-shore, in their father's kingdom of phoenicia. they had rambled to some distance from the palace where their parents dwelt, and were now in a verdant meadow, on one side of which lay the sea, all sparkling and dimpling in the sunshine, and murmuring gently against the beach. the three boys were very happy, gathering flowers, and twining them into garlands, with which they adorned the little europa. seated on the grass, the child was almost hidden under an abundance of buds and blossoms, whence her rosy face peeped merrily out, and, as cadmus said, was the prettiest of all the flowers. just then, there came a splendid butterfly, fluttering along the meadow; and cadmus, phoenix, and cilix set off in pursuit of it, crying out that it was a flower with wings. europa, who was a little wearied with playing all day long, did not chase the butterfly with her brothers, but sat still where they had left her, and closed her eyes. for a while, she listened to the pleasant murmur of the sea, which was like a voice saying "hush!" and bidding her go to sleep. but the pretty child, if she slept at all, could not have slept more than a moment, when she heard something trample on the grass, not far from her, and peeping out from the heap of flowers, beheld a snow-white bull. and whence could this bull have come? europa and her brothers had been a long time playing in the meadow, and had seen no cattle, nor other living thing, either there or on the neighboring hills. [illustration: cadmus sowing the dragon's teeth] "brother cadmus!" cried europa, starting up out of the midst of the roses and lilies. "phoenix! cilix! where are you all? help! help! come and drive away this bull!" but her brothers were too far off to hear; especially as the fright took away europa's voice, and hindered her from calling very loudly. so there she stood, with her pretty mouth wide open, as pale as the white lilies that were twisted among the other flowers in her garlands. nevertheless, it was the suddenness with which she had perceived the bull, rather than anything frightful in his appearance, that caused europa so much alarm. on looking at him more attentively, she began to see that he was a beautiful animal, and even fancied a particularly amiable expression in his face. as for his breath,--the breath of cattle, you know, is always sweet,--it was as fragrant as if he had been grazing on no other food than rosebuds, or, at least, the most delicate of clover-blossoms. never before did a bull have such bright and tender eyes, and such smooth horns of ivory, as this one. and the bull ran little races, and capered sportively around the child; so that she quite forgot how big and strong he was, and, from the gentleness and playfulness of his actions, soon came to consider him as innocent a creature as a pet lamb. thus, frightened as she at first was, you might by and by have seen europa stroking the bull's forehead with her small white hand, and taking the garlands off her own head to hang them on his neck and ivory horns. then she pulled up some blades of grass, and he ate them out of her hand, not as if he were hungry, but because he wanted to be friends with the child, and took pleasure in eating what she had touched. well, my stars! was there ever such a gentle, sweet, pretty, and amiable creature as this bull, and ever such a nice playmate for a little girl? when the animal saw (for the bull had so much intelligence that it is really wonderful to think of), when he saw that europa was no longer afraid of him, he grew overjoyed, and could hardly contain himself for delight. he frisked about the meadow, now here, now there, making sprightly leaps, with as little effort as a bird expends in hopping from twig to twig. indeed, his motion was as light as if he were flying through the air, and his hoofs seemed hardly to leave their print in the grassy soil over which he trod. with his spotless hue, he resembled a snow-drift, wafted along by the wind. once be galloped so far away that europa feared lest she might never see him again; so, setting up her childish voice, she called him back. "come back, pretty creature!" she cried. "here is a nice clover-blossom." and then it was delightful to witness the gratitude of this amiable bull, and how he was so full of joy and thankfulness that he capered higher than ever. he came running, and bowed his head before europa, as if he knew her to be a king's daughter, or else recognized the important truth that a little girl is everybody's queen. and not only did the bull bend his neck, he absolutely knelt down at her feet, and made such intelligent nods, and other inviting gestures, that europa understood what he meant just as well as if he had put it in so many words. "come, dear child," was what he wanted to say, "let me give you a ride on my back." at the first thought of such a thing, europa drew back. but then she considered in her wise little head that there could be no possible harm in taking just one gallop on the back of this docile and friendly animal, who would certainly set her down the very instant she desired it. and how it would surprise her brothers to see her riding across the green meadow! and what merry times they might have, either taking turns for a gallop, or clambering on the gentle creature, all four children together, and careering round the field with shouts of laughter that would be heard as far off as king agenor's palace! "i think i will do it," said the child to herself. and, indeed, why not? she cast a glance around, and caught a glimpse of cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, who were still in pursuit of the butterfly, almost at the other end of the meadow. it would be the quickest way of rejoining them, to get upon the white bull's back. she came a step nearer to him, therefore; and--sociable creature that he was--he showed so much joy at this mark of her confidence, that the child could not find it in her heart to hesitate any longer. making one bound (for this little princess was as active as a squirrel), there sat europa on the beautiful bull, holding an ivory horn in each hand, lest she should fall off. "softly, pretty bull, softly!" she said, rather frightened at what she had done. "do not gallop too fast." having got the child on his back, the animal gave a leap into the air, and came down so like a feather that europa did not know when his hoofs touched the ground. he then began a race to that part of the flowery plain where her three brothers were, and where they had just caught their splendid butterfly. europa screamed with delight; and phoenix, cilix, and cadmus stood gaping at the spectacle of their sister mounted on a white bull, not knowing whether to be frightened or to wish the same good luck for themselves. the gentle and innocent creature (for who could possibly doubt that he was so?) pranced round among the children as sportively as a kitten. europa all the while looked down upon her brothers, nodding and laughing, but yet with a sort of stateliness in her rosy little face. as the bull wheeled about to take another gallop across the meadow, the child waved her hand, and said, "good-by," playfully pretending that she was now bound on a distant journey, and might not see her brothers again for nobody could tell how long. "good-by," shouted cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, all in one breath. but, together with her enjoyment of the sport, there was still a little remnant of fear in the child's heart; so that her last look at the three boys was a troubled one, and made them feel as if their dear sister were really leaving them forever. and what do you think the snowy bull did next? why, he set off, as swift as the wind, straight down to the sea-shore, scampered across the sand, took an airy leap, and plunged right in among the foaming billows. the white spray rose in a shower over him and little europa, and fell spattering down upon the water. then what a scream of terror did the poor child send forth! the three brothers screamed manfully, likewise, and ran to the shore as fast as their legs would carry them, with cadmus at their head. but it was too late. when they reached the margin of the sand, the treacherous animal was already far away in the wide blue sea, with only his snowy head and tail emerging, and poor little europa between them, stretching out one hand towards her dear brothers, while she grasped the bull's ivory horn with the other. and there stood cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, gazing at this sad spectacle, through their tears, until they could no longer distinguish the bull's snowy head from the white-capped billows that seemed to boil up out of the sea's depths around him. nothing more was ever seen of the white bull,--nothing more of the beautiful child. this was a mournful story, as you may well think, for the three boys to carry home to their parents. king agenor, their father, was the ruler of the whole country; but he loved his little daughter europa better than his kingdom, or than all his other children, or than anything else in the world. therefore, when cadmus and his two brothers came crying home, and told him how that a white bull had carried off their sister, and swam with her over the sea, the king was quite beside himself with grief and rage. although it was now twilight, and fast growing dark, he bade them set out instantly in search of her. "never shall you see my face again," he cried, "unless you bring me back my little europa, to gladden me with her smiles and her pretty ways. begone, and enter my presence no more, till you come leading her by the hand." as king agenor said this, his eyes flashed fire (for he was a very passionate king), and he looked so terribly angry that the poor boys did not even venture to ask for their suppers, but slunk away out of the palace, and only paused on the steps a moment to consult whither they should go first. while they were standing there all in dismay, their mother, queen telephassa (who happened not to be by when they told the story to the king), came hurrying after them, and said that she too would go in quest of her daughter. "oh no, mother!" cried the boys. "the night is dark, and there is no knowing what troubles and perils we may meet with." "alas! my dear children," answered poor queen telephassa, weeping bitterly, "that is only another reason why i should go with you. if i should lose you, too, as well as my little europa, what would become of me?" "and let me go likewise!" said their playfellow thasus, who came running to join them. thasus was the son of a sea-faring person in the neighborhood; he had been brought up with the young princes, and was their intimate friend, and loved europa very much; so they consented that he should accompany them. the whole party, therefore, set forth together; cadmus, phoenix, cilix, and thasus clustered round queen telephassa, grasping her skirts, and begging her to lean upon their shoulders whenever she felt weary. in this manner they went down the palace steps, and began a journey which turned out to be a great deal longer than they dreamed of. the last that they saw of king agenor, he came to the door, with a servant holding a torch beside him, and called after them into the gathering darkness:-- "remember! never ascend these steps again without the child!" "never!" sobbed queen telephassa; and the three brothers and thasus answered, "never! never! never! never!" and they kept their word. year after year king agenor sat in the solitude of his beautiful palace, listening in vain for their returning footsteps, hoping to hear the familiar voice of the queen, and the cheerful talk of his sons and their playfellow thasus, entering the door together, and the sweet, childish accents of little europa in the midst of them. but so long a time went by, that, at last, if they had really come, the king would not have known that this was the voice of telephassa, and these the younger voices that used to make such joyful echoes when the children were playing about the palace. we must now leave king agenor to sit on his throne, and must go along with queen telephassa and her four youthful companions. they went on and on, and travelled a long way, and passed over mountains and rivers, and sailed over seas. here, and there, and everywhere, they made continual inquiry if any person could tell them what had become of europa. the rustic people, of whom they asked this question, paused a little while from their labors in the field, and looked very much surprised. they thought it strange to behold a woman in the garb of a queen (for telephassa, in her haste, had forgotten to take off her crown and her royal robes), roaming about the country, with four lads around her, on such an errand as this seemed to be. but nobody could give them any tidings of europa; nobody had seen a little girl dressed like a princess, and mounted on a snow-white bull, which galloped as swiftly as the wind. i cannot tell you how long queen telephassa, and cadmus, phoenix, and cilix, her three sons, and thasus, their playfellow, went wandering along the highways and bypaths, or through the pathless wildernesses of the earth, in this manner. but certain it is, that, before they reached any place of rest, their splendid garments were quite worn out. they all looked very much travel-stained, and would have had the dust of many countries on their shoes, if the streams, through which they had waded, had not washed it all away. when they had been gone a year, telephassa threw away her crown, because it chafed her forehead. "it has given me many a headache," said the poor queen, "and it cannot cure my heartache." as fast as their princely robes got torn and tattered, they exchanged them for such mean attire as ordinary people wore. by and by they came to have a wild and homeless aspect; so that you would sooner have taken them for a gypsy family than a queen and three princes and a young nobleman, who had once a palace for their home, and a train of servants to do their bidding. the four boys grew up to be tall young men, with sunburnt faces. each of them girded on a sword, to defend themselves against the perils of the way. when the husbandmen, at whose farm-houses they sought hospitality, needed their assistance in the harvest-field, they gave it willingly; and queen telephassa (who had done no work in her palace, save to braid silk threads with golden ones) came behind them to bind the sheaves. if payment was offered, they shook their heads, and only asked for tidings of europa. "there are bulls enough in my pasture," the old farmer would reply; "but i never heard of one like this you tell me of. a snow-white bull with a little princess on his back! ho! ho! i ask your pardon, good folks; but there was never such a sight seen hereabouts." at last, when his upper lip began to have the down on it, phoenix grew weary of rambling hither and thither to no purpose. so, one day, when they happened to be passing through a pleasant and solitary tract of country, he sat himself down on a heap of moss. "i can go no farther," said phoenix. "it is a mere foolish waste of life, to spend it, as we do, in always wandering up and down, and never coming to any home at nightfall. our sister is lost, and never will be found. she probably perished in the sea; or, to whatever shore the white bull may have carried her; it is now so many years ago, that there would be neither love nor acquaintance between us should we meet again. my father has forbidden us to return to his palace; so i shall build me a hut of branches, and dwell here." "well, son phoenix," said telephassa, sorrowfully, "you have grown to be a man, and must do as you judge best. but, for my part, i will still go in quest of my poor child." "and we three will go along with you!" cried cadmus and cilix, and their faithful friend thasus. but, before setting out, they all helped phoenix to build a habitation. when completed, it was a sweet rural bower, roofed overhead with an arch of living boughs. inside there were two pleasant rooms, one of which had a soft heap of moss for a bed, while the other was furnished with a rustic seat or two, curiously fashioned out of the crooked roots of trees. so comfortable and homelike did it seem, that telephassa and her three companions could not help sighing, to think that they must still roam about the world, instead of spending the remainder of their lives in some such cheerful abode as they had here built for phoenix. but, when they bade him farewell, phoenix shed tears, and probably regretted that he was no longer to keep them company. however, he had fixed upon an admirable place to dwell in. and by and by there came other people, who chanced to have no homes; and, seeing how pleasant a spot it was, they built themselves huts in the neighborhood of phoenix's habitation. thus, before many years went by, a city had grown up there, in the centre of which was seen a stately palace of marble, wherein dwelt phoenix, clothed in a purple robe, and wearing a golden crown upon his head. for the inhabitants of the new city, finding that he had royal blood in his veins, had chosen him to be their king. the very first decree of state which king phoenix issued was, that if a maiden happened to arrive in the kingdom, mounted on a snow-white bull, and calling herself europa, his subjects should treat her with the greatest kindness and respect, and immediately bring her to the palace. you may see, by this, that phoenix's conscience never quite ceased to trouble him, for giving up the quest of his dear sister, and sitting himself down to be comfortable, while his mother and her companions went onward. but often and often, at the close of a weary day's journey, did telephassa and cadmus, cilix and thasus, remember the pleasant spot in which they had left phoenix. it was a sorrowful prospect for these wanderers, that on the morrow they must again set forth, and that, after many nightfalls, they would perhaps be no nearer the close of their toilsome pilgrimage than now. these thoughts made them all melancholy at times, but appeared to torment cilix more than the rest of the party. at length, one morning, when they were taking their staffs in hand to set out, he thus addressed them:-- "my dear mother, and you good brother cadmus, and my friend thasus, methinks we are like people in a dream. there is no substance in the life which we are leading. it is such a dreary length of time since the white bull carried off my sister europa, that i have quite forgotten how she looked, and the tones of her voice, and, indeed, almost doubt whether such a little girl ever lived in the world. and whether she once lived or no, i am convinced that she no longer survives, and that therefore it is the merest folly to waste our own lives and happiness in seeking her. were we to find her, she would now be a woman grown, and would look upon us all as strangers. so, to tell you the truth, i have resolved to take up my abode here; and i entreat you, mother, brother, and friend, to follow my example." "not i, for one," said telephassa; although the poor queen, firmly as she spoke, was so travel-worn that she could hardly put her foot to the ground,--"not i, for one! in the depths of my heart, little europa is still the rosy child who ran to gather flowers so many years ago. she has not grown to womanhood, nor forgotten me. at noon, at night, journeying onward, sitting down to rest, her childish voice is always in my ears, calling, 'mother! mother!' stop here who may, there is no repose for me." "nor for me," said cadmus, "while my dear mother pleases to go onward." and the faithful thasus, too, was resolved to bear them company. they remained with cilix a few days, however, and helped him to build a rustic bower, resembling the one which they had formerly built for phoenix. when they were bidding him farewell, cilix burst into tears, and told his mother that it seemed just as melancholy a dream to stay there, in solitude, as to go onward. if she really believed that they would ever find europa, he was willing to continue the search with them, even now. but telephassa bade him remain there, and be happy, if his own heart would let him. so the pilgrims took their leave of him, and departed, and were hardly out of sight before some other wandering people came along that way, and saw cilix's habitation, and were greatly delighted with the appearance of the place. there being abundance of unoccupied ground in the neighborhood, these strangers built huts for themselves, and were soon joined by a multitude of new settlers, who quickly formed a city. in the middle of it was seen a magnificent palace of colored marble, on the balcony of which, every noontide, appeared cilix, in a long purple robe, and with a jewelled crown upon his head; for the inhabitants, when they found out that he was a king's son, had considered him the fittest of all men to be a king himself. one of the first acts of king cilix's government was to send out an expedition, consisting of a grave ambassador and an escort of bold and hardy young men, with orders to visit the principal kingdoms of the earth, and inquire whether a young maiden had passed through those regions, galloping swiftly on a white bull. it is, therefore, plain to my mind, that cilix secretly blamed himself for giving up the search for europa, as long as he was able to put one foot before the other. as for telephassa, and cadmus, and the good thasus, it grieves me to think of them, still keeping up that weary pilgrimage. the two young men did their best for the poor queen, helping her over the rough places often carrying her across rivulets in their faithful arms, and seeking to shelter her at nightfall, even when they themselves lay on the ground. sad, sad it was to hear them asking of every passer-by if he had seen europa, so long after the white bull had carried her away. but, though the gray years thrust themselves between, and made the child's figure dim in their remembrance, neither of these true-hearted three ever dreamed of giving up the search. one morning, however, poor thasus found that he had sprained his ankle, and could not possibly go a step farther. "after a few days, to be sure," said he, mournfully, "i might make shift to hobble along with a stick. but that would only delay you, and perhaps hinder you from finding dear little europa, after all your pains and trouble. do you go forward, therefore, my beloved companions, and leave me to follow as i may." "thou hast been a true friend, dear thasus," said queen telephassa, kissing his forehead. "being neither my son, nor the brother of our lost europa, thou hast shown thyself truer to me and her than phoenix and cilix did, whom we have left behind us. without thy loving help, and that of my son cadmus, my limbs could not have borne me half so far as this. now, take thy rest, and be at peace. for--and it is the first time i have owned it to myself--i begin to question whether we shall ever find my beloved daughter in this world." saying this, the poor queen shed tears, because it was a grievous trial to the mother's heart to confess that her hopes were growing faint. from that day forward, cadmus noticed that she never travelled with the same alacrity of spirit that had heretofore supported her. her weight was heavier upon his arm. before setting out, cadmus helped thasus build a bower; while telephassa, being too infirm to give any great assistance, advised them how to fit it up and furnish it, so that it might be as comfortable as a hut of branches could. thasus, however, did not spend all his days in this green bower. for it happened to him, as to phoenix and cilix, that other homeless people visited the spot and liked it, and built themselves habitations in the neighborhood. so here, in the course of a few years, was another thriving city with a red freestone palace in the centre of it, where thasus sat upon a throne, doing justice to the people, with a purple robe over his shoulders, a sceptre in his hand, and a crown upon his head. the inhabitants had made him king, not for the sake of any royal blood (for none was in his veins), but because thasus was an upright, true-hearted, and courageous man, and therefore fit to rule. but, when the affairs of his kingdom were all settled, king thasus laid aside his purple robe, and crown, and sceptre, and bade his worthiest subject distribute justice to the people in his stead. then, grasping the pilgrim's staff that had supported him so long, he set forth again, hoping still to discover some hoof-mark of the snow-white bull, some trace of the vanished child. he returned, after a lengthened absence, and sat down wearily upon his throne. to his latest hour, nevertheless, king thasus showed his true-hearted remembrance of europa, by ordering that a fire should always be kept burning in his palace, and a bath steaming hot, and food ready to be served up, and a bed with snow-white sheets, in case the maiden should arrive, and require immediate refreshment. and though europa never came, the good thasus had the blessings of many a poor traveller, who profited by the food and lodging which were meant for the little playmate of the king's boyhood. telephassa and cadmus were now pursuing their weary way, with no companion but each other. the queen leaned heavily upon her son's arm, and could walk only a few miles a day. but for all her weakness and weariness, she would not be persuaded to give up the search. it was enough to bring tears into the eyes of bearded men to hear the melancholy tone with which she inquired of every stranger whether he could tell her any news of the lost child. "have you seen a little girl--no, no, i mean a young maiden of full growth--passing by this way, mounted on a snow-white bull, which gallops as swiftly as the wind?" "we have seen no such wondrous sight," the people would reply; and very often, taking cadmus aside, they whispered to him, "is this stately and sad-looking woman your mother? surely she is not in her right mind; and you ought to take her home, and make her comfortable, and do your best to get this dream out of her fancy." "it is no dream," said cadmus. "everything else is a dream, save that." but, one day, telephassa seemed feebler than usual, and leaned almost her whole weight on the arm of cadmus, and walked more slowly than ever before. at last they reached a solitary spot, where she told her son that she must needs lie down, and take a good, long rest. "a good, long rest!" she repeated, looking cadmus tenderly in the face,"--a good, long rest, thou dearest one!" "as long as you please, dear mother," answered cadmus. telephassa bade him sit down on the turf beside her, and then she took his hand. "my son," said she, fixing her dim eyes most lovingly upon him, "this rest that i speak of will be very long indeed! you must not wait till it is finished. dear cadmus, you do not comprehend me. you must make a grave here, and lay your mother's weary frame into it. my pilgrimage is over." cadmus burst into tears, and, for a long time, refused to believe that his dear mother was now to be taken from him. but telephassa reasoned with him, and kissed him, and at length made him discern that it was better for her spirit to pass away out of the toil, the weariness, the grief, and disappointment which had burdened her on earth, ever since the child was lost. he therefore repressed his sorrow and listened to her last words. "dearest cadmus," said she, "thou hast been the truest son that mother ever had, and faithful to the last. who else would have borne with my infirmities as thou hast! it is owing to thy care, thou tenderest child, that my grave was not dug long years ago, in some valley, or on some hill-side, that lies far, far behind us. it is enough. thou shalt wander no more on this hopeless search. but when thou hast laid thy mother in the earth, then go, my son, to delphi, and inquire of the oracle what thou shalt do next." "o mother, mother," cried cadmus, "couldst thou but have seen my sister before this hour!" "it matters little now," answered telephassa, and there was a smile upon her face. "i go to the better world, and, sooner or later, shall find my daughter there." i will not sadden you, my little hearers, with telling how telephassa died and was buried, but will only say, that her dying smile grew brighter, instead of vanishing from her dead face; so that cadmus felt convinced that, at her very first step into the better world, she had caught europa in her arms. he planted some flowers on his mother's grave, and left them to grow there, and make the place beautiful, when he should be far away. after performing this last sorrowful duty, he set forth alone, and took the road towards the famous oracle of delphi, as telephassa had advised him. on his way thither, he still inquired of most people whom he met whether they had seen europa; for, to say the truth, cadmus had grown so accustomed to ask the question, that it came to his lips as readily as a remark about the weather. he received various answers. some told him one thing, and some another. among the rest, a mariner affirmed, that, many years before, in a distant country, he had heard a rumor about a white bull, which came swimming across the sea with a child on his back, dressed up in flowers that were blighted by the sea-water. he did not know what had become of the child or the bull; and cadmus suspected, indeed, by a queer twinkle in the mariner's eyes, that he was putting a joke upon him, and had never really heard anything about the matter. poor cadmus found it more wearisome to travel alone than to bear all his dear mother's weight while she had kept him company. his heart, you will understand, was now so heavy that it seemed impossible, sometimes, to carry it any farther. but his limbs were strong and active, and well accustomed to exercise. he walked swiftly along, thinking of king agenor and queen telephassa, and his brothers, and the friendly thasus, all of whom he had left behind him, at one point of his pilgrimage or another, and never expected to see them any more. full of these remembrances, he came within sight of a lofty mountain, which the people thereabouts told him was called parnassus. on the slope of mount parnassus was the famous delphi, whither cadmus was going. this delphi was supposed to be the very midmost spot of the whole world. the place of the oracle was a certain cavity in the mountain-side, over which, when cadmus came thither, he found a rude bower of branches. it reminded him of those which he had helped to build for phoenix and cilix, and afterwards for thasus. in later times, when multitudes of people came from great distances to put questions to the oracle, a spacious temple of marble was erected over the spot. but in the days of cadmus, as i have told you, there was only this rustic bower, with its abundance of green foliage, and a tuft of shrubbery, that ran wild over the mysterious hole in the hill-side. when cadmus had thrust a passage through the tangled boughs, and made his way into the bower, he did not at first discern the half-hidden cavity. but soon he felt a cold stream of air rushing out of it, with so much force that it shook the ringlets on his cheek. pulling away the shrubbery which clustered over the hole, he bent forward, and spoke in a distinct but reverential tone, as if addressing some unseen personage inside of the mountain. "sacred oracle of delphi," said he, "whither shall i go next in quest of my dear sister europa?" there was at first a deep silence, and then a rushing sound, or a noise like a long sigh, proceeding out of the interior of the earth. this cavity, you must know, was looked upon as a sort of fountain of truth, which sometimes gushed out in audible words; although, for the most part, these words were such a riddle that they might just as well have stayed at the bottom of the hole. but cadmus was more fortunate than many others who went to delphi in search of truth. by and by, the rushing noise began to sound like articulate language. it repeated, over and over again, the following sentence, which, after all, was so like the vague whistle of a blast of air, that cadmus really did not quite know whether it meant anything or not:-- "seek her no more! seek her no more! seek her no more!" "what, then, shall i do?" asked cadmus. for, ever since he was a child, you know, it had been the great object of his life to find his sister. from the very hour that he left following the butterfly in the meadow, near his father's palace, he had done his best to follow europa, over land and sea. and now, if he must give up the search, he seemed to have no more business in the world. but again the sighing gust of air grew into something like a hoarse voice. "follow the cow!" it said. "follow the cow! follow the cow!" and when these words had been repeated until cadmus was tired of hearing them (especially as he could not imagine what cow it was, or why he was to follow her), the gusty hole gave vent to another sentence. "where the stray cow lies down, there is your home." these words were pronounced but a single time, and died away into a whisper before cadmus was fully satisfied that he had caught the meaning. he put other questions, but received no answer; only the gust of wind sighed continually out of the cavity, and blew the withered leaves rustling along the ground before it. "did there really come any words out of the hole?" thought cadmus; "or have i been dreaming all this while?" he turned away from the oracle, and thought himself no wiser than when he came thither. caring little what might happen to him, he took the first path that offered itself, and went along at a sluggish pace; for, having no object in view, nor any reason to go one way more than another, it would certainly have been foolish to make haste. whenever he met anybody, the old question was at his tongue's end:-- "have you seen a beautiful maiden, dressed like a king's daughter, and mounted on a snow-white bull, that gallops as swiftly as the wind?" but, remembering what the oracle had said, he only half uttered the words, and then mumbled the rest indistinctly; and from his confusion, people must have imagined that this handsome young man had lost his wits. i know not how far cadmus had gone, nor could he himself have told you, when, at no great distance before him, he beheld a brindled cow. she was lying down by the wayside, and quietly chewing her cud; nor did she take any notice of the young man until he had approached pretty nigh. then, getting leisurely upon her feet, and giving her head a gentle toss, she began to move along at a moderate pace, often pausing just long enough to crop a mouthful of grass. cadmus loitered behind, whistling idly to himself, and scarcely noticing the cow; until the thought occurred to him, whether this could possibly be the animal which, according to the oracle's response, was to serve him for a guide. but he smiled at himself for fancying such a thing. he could not seriously think that this was the cow, because she went along so quietly, behaving just like any other cow. evidently she neither knew nor cared so much as a wisp of hay about cadmus, and was only thinking how to get her living along the wayside, where the herbage was green and fresh. perhaps she was going home to be milked. "cow, cow, cow!" cried cadmus. "hey, brindle, hey! stop, my good cow." he wanted to come up with the cow, so as to examine her, and see if she would appear to know him, or whether there were any peculiarities to distinguish her from a thousand other cows, whose only business is to fill the milk-pail, and sometimes kick it over. but still the brindled cow trudged on, whisking her tail to keep the flies away, and taking as little notice of cadmus as she well could. if he walked slowly, so did the cow, and seized the opportunity to graze. if he quickened his pace, the cow went just so much the faster; and once, when cadmus tried to catch her by running, she threw out her heels, stuck her tail straight on end, and set off at a gallop, looking as queerly as cows generally do, while putting themselves to their speed. when cadmus saw that it was impossible to come up with her, he walked on moderately, as before. the cow, too, went leisurely on, without looking behind. wherever the grass was greenest, there she nibbled a mouthful or two. where a brook glistened brightly across the path, there the cow drank, and breathed a comfortable sigh, and drank again, and trudged onward at the pace that best suited herself and cadmus. "i do believe," thought cadmus, "that this may be the cow that was foretold me. if it be the one, i suppose she will lie down somewhere hereabouts." whether it were the oracular cow or some other one, it did not seem reasonable that she should travel a great way farther. so, whenever they reached a particularly pleasant spot on a breezy hill-side, or in a sheltered vale, or flowery meadow, on the shore of a calm lake, or along the bank of a clear stream, cadmus looked eagerly around to see if the situation would suit him for a home. but still, whether he liked the place or no, the brindled cow never offered to lie down. on she went at the quiet pace of a cow going homeward to the barn-yard; and, every moment, cadmus expected to see a milkmaid approaching with a pail, or a herdsman running to head the stray animal, and turn her back towards the pasture. but no milkmaid came; no herdsman drove her back; and cadmus followed the stray brindle till he was almost ready to drop down with fatigue. "o brindled cow," cried he, in a tone of despair, "do you never mean to stop?" he had now grown too intent on following her to think of lagging behind, however long the way, and whatever might be his fatigue. indeed, it seemed as if there were something about the animal that bewitched people. several persons who happened to see the brindled cow, and cadmus following behind, began to trudge after her, precisely as he did. cadmus was glad of somebody to converse with, and therefore talked very freely to these good people. he told them all his adventures, and how he had left king agenor in his palace, and phoenix at one place, and cilix at another, and thasus at a third, and his dear mother, queen telephassa, under a flowery sod; so that now he was quite alone, both friendless and homeless. he mentioned, likewise, that the oracle had bidden him be guided by a cow, and inquired of the strangers whether they supposed that this brindled animal could be the one. "why, 'tis a very wonderful affair," answered one of his new companions. "i am pretty well acquainted with the ways of cattle, and i never knew a cow, of her own accord, to go so far without stopping. if my legs will let me, i'll never leave following the beast till she lies down." "nor i!" said a second. "nor i!" cried a third. "if she goes a hundred miles farther, i'm determined to see the end of it." the secret of it was, you must know, that the cow was an enchanted cow, and that, without their being conscious of it, she threw some of her enchantment over everybody that took so much as half a dozen steps behind her. they could not possibly help following her, though, all the time, they fancied themselves doing it of their own accord. the cow was by no means very nice in choosing her path; so that sometimes they had to scramble over rocks, or wade through mud and mire, and were all in a terribly bedraggled condition, and tired to death, and very hungry, into the bargain. what a weary business it was! but still they kept trudging stoutly forward, and talking as they went. the strangers grew very fond of cadmus, and resolved never to leave him, but to help him build a city wherever the cow might lie down. in the centre of it there should be a noble palace, in which cadmus might dwell, and be their king, with a throne, a crown and sceptre, a purple robe, and everything else that a king ought to have; for in him there was the royal blood, and the royal heart, and the head that knew how to rule. while they were talking of these schemes, and beguiling the tediousness of the way with laying out the plan of the new city, one of the company happened to look at the cow. "joy! joy!" cried he, clapping his hands. "brindle is going to lie down." they all looked; and, sure enough, the cow had stopped, and was staring leisurely about her, as other cows do when on the point of lying down. and slowly, slowly did she recline herself on the soft grass, first bending her fore legs, and then crouching her hind ones. when cadmus and his companions came up with her, there was the brindled cow taking her ease, chewing her cud, and looking them quietly in the face; as if this was just the spot she had been seeking for, and as if it were all a matter of course. "this, then," said cadmus, gazing around him, "this is to be my home." it was a fertile and lovely plain, with great trees flinging their sun-speckled shadows over it, and hills fencing it in from the rough weather. at no great distance, they beheld a river gleaming in the sunshine. a home feeling stole into the heart of poor cadmus. he was very glad to know that here he might awake in the morning, without the necessity of pulling on his dusty sandals to travel farther and farther. the days and the years would pass over him, and find him still in this pleasant spot. if he could have had his brothers with him, and his friend thasus, and could have seen his dear mother under a roof of his own, he might here have been happy, after all their disappointments. some day or other, too, his sister europa might have come quietly to the door of his home, and smiled round upon the familiar faces. but, indeed, since there was no hope of regaining the friends of his boyhood, or ever seeing his dear sister again, cadmus resolved to make himself happy with these new companions, who had grown so fond of him while following the cow. "yes, my friends," said he to them, "this is to be our home. here we will build our habitations. the brindled cow, which has led us hither, will supply us with milk. we will cultivate the neighboring soil, and lead an innocent and happy life." his companions joyfully assented to this plan; and, in the first place, being very hungry and thirsty, they looked about them for the means of providing a comfortable meal. not far off, they saw a tuft of trees, which appeared as if there might be a spring of water beneath them. they went thither to fetch some, leaving cadmus stretched on the ground along with the brindled cow; for, now that he had found a place of rest, it seemed as if all the weariness of his pilgrimage, ever since he left king agenor's palace, had fallen upon him at once. but his new friends had not long been gone, when he was suddenly startled by cries, shouts, and screams, and the noise of a terrible struggle, and in the midst of it all, a most awful hissing, which went right through his ears like a rough saw. running towards the tuft of trees, he beheld the head and fiery eyes of an immense serpent or dragon, with the widest jaws that ever a dragon had, and a vast many rows of horribly sharp teeth. before cadmus could reach the spot, this pitiless reptile had killed his poor companions, and was busily devouring them, making but a mouthful of each man. it appears that the fountain of water was enchanted, and that the dragon had been set to guard it, so that no mortal might ever quench his thirst there. as the neighboring inhabitants carefully avoided the spot, it was now a long time (not less than a hundred years, or thereabouts) since the monster had broken his fast; and, as was natural enough, his appetite had grown to be enormous, and was not half satisfied by the poor people whom he had just eaten up. when he caught sight of cadmus, therefore, he set up another abominable hiss, and flung back his immense jaws, until his mouth looked like a great red cavern, at the farther end of which were seen the legs of his last victim, whom he had hardly had time to swallow. but cadmus was so enraged at the destruction of his friends, that he cared neither for the size of the dragon's jaws nor for his hundreds of sharp teeth. drawing his sword, he rushed at the monster, and flung himself right into his cavernous mouth. this bold method of attacking him took the dragon by surprise; for, in fact, cadmus had leaped so far down into his throat, that the rows of terrible teeth could not close upon him, nor do him the least harm in the world. thus, though the struggle was a tremendous one, and though the dragon shattered the tuft of trees into small splinters by the lashing of his tail, yet, as cadmus was all the while slashing and stabbing at his very vitals, it was not long before the scaly wretch bethought himself of slipping away. he had not gone his length, however, when the brave cadmus gave him a sword-thrust that finished the battle; and, creeping out of the gateway of the creature's jaws, there he beheld him still wriggling his vast bulk, although there was no longer life enough in him to harm a little child. but do not you suppose that it made cadmus sorrowful to think of the melancholy fate which had befallen those poor, friendly people, who had followed the cow along with him? it seemed as if he were doomed to lose everybody whom he loved, or to see them perish in one way or another. and here he was, after all his toils and troubles, in a solitary place, with not a single human being to help him build a hut. "what shall i do?" cried he aloud. "it were better for me to have been devoured by the dragon, as my poor companions were." "cadmus," said a voice,--but whether it came from above or below him, or whether it spoke within his own breast, the young man could not tell,--"cadmus, pluck out the dragon's teeth, and plant them in the earth." this was a strange thing to do; nor was it very easy, i should imagine, to dig out all those deep-rooted fangs from the dead dragon's jaws. but cadmus toiled and tugged, and after pounding the monstrous head almost to pieces with a great stone, he at last collected as many teeth as might have filled a bushel or two. the next thing was to plant them. this, likewise, was a tedious piece of work, especially as cadmus was already exhausted with killing the dragon and knocking his head to pieces, and had nothing to dig the earth with, that i know of, unless it were his sword-blade. finally, however, a sufficiently large tract of ground was turned up, and sown with this new kind of seed; although half of the dragon's teeth still remained to be planted some other day. cadmus, quite out of breath, stood leaning upon his sword, and wondering what was to happen next. he had waited but a few moments, when he began to see a sight, which was as great a marvel as the most marvellous thing i ever told you about. the sun was shining slantwise over the field, and showed all the moist, dark soil just like any other newly planted piece of ground. all at once, cadmus fancied he saw something glisten very brightly, first at one spot, then at another, and then at a hundred and a thousand spots together. soon he perceived them to be the steel heads of spears, sprouting up everywhere like so many stalks of grain, and continually growing taller and taller. next appeared a vast number of bright sword-blades, thrusting themselves up in the same way. a moment afterwards, the whole surface of the ground was broken up by a multitude of polished brass helmets, coming up like a crop of enormous beans. so rapidly did they grow, that cadmus now discerned the fierce countenance of a man beneath every one. in short, before he had time to think what a wonderful affair it was, he beheld an abundant harvest of what looked like human beings, armed with helmets and breastplates, shields, swords and spears; and before they were well out of the earth, they brandished their weapons, and clashed them one against another, seeming to think, little while as they had yet lived, that they had wasted too much of life without a battle. every tooth of the dragon had produced one of these sons of deadly mischief. up sprouted, also, a great many trumpeters; and with the first breath that they drew, they put their brazen trumpets to their lips, and sounded a tremendous and ear-shattering blast; so that the whole space, just now so quiet and solitary, reverberated with the clash and clang of arms, the bray of warlike music, and the shouts of angry men. so enraged did they all look, that cadmus fully expected them to put the whole world to the sword. how fortunate would it be for a great conqueror, if he could get a bushel of the dragon's teeth to sow! "cadmus," said the same voice which he had before heard, "throw a stone into the midst of the armed men." so cadmus seized a large stone, and, flinging it into the middle of the earth army, saw it strike the breastplate of a gigantic and fierce-looking warrior. immediately on feeling the blow, he seemed to take it for granted that somebody had struck him; and, uplifting his weapon, he smote his next neighbor a blow that cleft his helmet asunder, and stretched him on the ground. in an instant, those nearest the fallen warrior began to strike at one another with their swords and stab with their spears. the confusion spread wider and wider. each man smote down his brother, and was himself smitten down before he had time to exult in his victory. the trumpeters, all the while, blew their blasts shriller and shriller; each soldier shouted a battle-cry and often fell with it on his lips. it was the strangest spectacle of causeless wrath, and of mischief for no good end, that had ever been witnessed; but, after all, it was neither more foolish nor more wicked than a thousand battles that have since been fought, in which men have slain their brothers with just as little reason as these children of the dragon's teeth. it ought to be considered, too, that the dragon people were made for nothing else; whereas other mortals were born to love and help one another. well, this memorable battle continued to rage until the ground was strewn with helmeted heads that had been cut off. of all the thousands that began the fight, there were only five left standing. these now rushed from different parts of the field, and, meeting in the middle of it, clashed their swords, and struck at each other's hearts as fiercely as ever. "cadmus," said the voice again, "bid those five warriors sheathe their swords. they will help you to build the city." without hesitating an instant, cadmus stepped forward, with the aspect of a king and a leader, and extending his drawn sword amongst them, spoke to the warriors in a stern and commanding voice. "sheathe your weapons!" said he. and forthwith, feeling themselves bound to obey him, the five remaining sons of the dragon's teeth made him a military salute with their swords, returned them to the scabbards, and stood before cadmus in a rank, eyeing him as soldiers eye their captain, while awaiting the word of command. these five men had probably sprung from the biggest of the dragon's teeth, and were the boldest and strongest of the whole army. they were almost giants, indeed, and had good need to be so, else they never could have lived through so terrible a fight. they still had a very furious look, and, if cadmus happened to glance aside, would glare at one another, with fire flashing out of their eyes. it was strange, too, to observe how the earth, out of which they had so lately grown, was incrusted, here and there, on their bright breastplates, and even begrimed their faces, just as you may have seen it clinging to beets and carrots when pulled out of their native soil. cadmus hardly knew whether to consider them as men, or some odd kind of vegetable; although, on the whole, he concluded that there was human nature in them, because they were so fond of trumpets and weapons, and so ready to shed blood. they looked him earnestly in the face, waiting for his next order, and evidently desiring no other employment than to follow him from one battle-field to another, all over the wide world. but cadmus was wiser than these earth-born creatures, with the dragon's fierceness in them, and knew better how to use their strength and hardihood. "come!" said he. "you are sturdy fellows. make yourselves useful! quarry some stones with those great swords of yours, and help me to build a city." the five soldiers grumbled a little, and muttered that it was their business to overthrow cities, not to build them up. but cadmus looked at them with a stern eye, and spoke to them in a tone of authority, so that they knew him for their master, and never again thought of disobeying his commands. they set to work in good earnest, and toiled so diligently, that, in a very short time, a city began to make its appearance. at first, to be sure, the workmen showed a quarrelsome disposition. like savage beasts, they would doubtless have done one another a mischief, if cadmus had not kept watch over them and quelled the fierce old serpent that lurked in their hearts, when he saw it gleaming out of their wild eyes. but, in course of time, they got accustomed to honest labor, and had sense enough to feel that there was more true enjoyment in living in peace, and doing good to one's neighbor, than in striking at him with a two-edged sword. it may not be too much to hope that the rest of mankind will by and by grow as wise and peaceable as these five earth-begrimed warriors, who sprang from the dragon's teeth. and now the city was built, and there was a home in it for each of the workmen. but the palace of cadmus was not yet erected, because they had left it till the last, meaning to introduce all the new improvements of architecture, and make it very commodious, as well as stately and beautiful. after finishing the rest of their labors, they all went to bed betimes, in order to rise in the gray of the morning, and get at least the foundation of the edifice laid before nightfall. but, when cadmus arose, and took his way toward the site where the palace was to be built, followed by his five sturdy workmen marching all in a row, what do you think he saw? what should it be but the most magnificent palace that had ever been seen in the world? it was built of marble and other beautiful kinds of stone, and rose high into the air, with a splendid dome and portico along the front, and carved pillars, and everything else that befitted the habitation of a mighty king. it had grown up out of the earth in almost as short a time as it had taken the armed host to spring from the dragon's teeth; and what made the matter more strange, no seed of this stately edifice had ever been planted. when the five workmen beheld the dome, with the morning sunshine making it look golden and glorious, they gave a great shout. "long live king cadmus," they cried, "in his beautiful palace." and the new king, with his five faithful followers at his heels, shouldering their pickaxes and marching in a rank (for they still had a soldier-like sort of behavior, as their nature was), ascended the palace steps. halting at the entrance, they gazed through a long vista of lofty pillars that were ranged from end to end of a great hall. at the farther extremity of this hall, approaching slowly towards him, cadmus beheld a female figure, wonderfully beautiful, and adorned with a royal robe, and a crown of diamonds over her golden ringlets, and the richest necklace that ever a queen wore. his heart thrilled with delight. he fancied it his long-lost sister europa, now grown to womanhood, coming to make him happy, and to repay him, with her sweet sisterly affection, for all those weary wanderings in quest of her since he left king agenor's palace,--for the tears that he had shed, on parting with phoenix, and cilix, and thasus,--for the heart-breakings that had made the whole world seem dismal to him over his dear mother's grave. but, as cadmus advanced to meet the beautiful stranger, he saw that her features were unknown to him, although, in the little time that it required to tread along the hall, he had already felt a sympathy twixt himself and her. "no, cadmus," said the same voice that had spoken to him in the field of the armed men, "this is not that dear sister europa whom you have sought so faithfully all over the wide world. this is harmonia, a daughter of the sky, who is given you instead of sister, and brothers, and friend, and mother. you will find all those dear ones in her alone." so king cadmus dwelt in the palace, with his new friend harmonia, and found a great deal of comfort in his magnificent abode, but would doubtless have found as much, if not more, in the humblest cottage by the wayside. before many years went by, there was a group of rosy little children (but how they came thither has always been a mystery to me) sporting in the great hall, and on the marble steps of the palace, and running joyfully to meet king cadmus when affairs of state left him at leisure to play with them. they called him father, and queen harmonia mother. the five old soldiers of the dragon's teeth grew very fond of these small urchins, and were never weary of showing them how to shoulder sticks, flourish wooden swords, and march in military order, blowing a penny trumpet, or beating an abominable rub-a-dub upon a little drum. but king cadmus, lest there should be too much of the dragon's tooth in his children's disposition, used to find time from his kingly duties to teach them their a b c,--which he invented for their benefit, and for which many little people, i am afraid, are not half so grateful to him as they ought to be. circe's palace some of you have heard, no doubt, of the wise king ulysses, and how he went to the siege of troy, and how, after that famous city was taken and burned, he spent ten long years in trying to get back again to his own little kingdom of ithaca. at one time in the course of this weary voyage, he arrived at an island that looked very green and pleasant, but the name of which was unknown to him. for, only a little while before he came thither, he had met with a terrible hurricane, or rather a great many hurricanes at once, which drove his fleet of vessels into a strange part of the sea, where neither himself nor any of his mariners had ever sailed. this misfortune was entirely owing to the foolish curiosity of his shipmates, who, while ulysses lay asleep, had untied some very bulky leathern bags, in which they supposed a valuable treasure to be concealed. but in each of these stout bags, king Æolus, the ruler of the winds, had tied up a tempest, and had given it to ulysses to keep, in order that he might be sure of a favorable passage homeward to ithaca; and when the strings were loosened, forth rushed the whistling blasts, like air out of a blown bladder, whitening the sea with foam, and scattering the vessels nobody could tell whither. immediately after escaping from this peril, a still greater one had befallen him. scudding before the hurricane, he reached a place, which, as he afterwards found, was called læstrygonia, where some monstrous giants had eaten up many of his companions, and had sunk every one of his vessels, except that in which he himself sailed, by flinging great masses of rock at them, from the cliffs along the shore. after going through such troubles as these, you cannot wonder that king ulysses was glad to moor his tempest-beaten bark in a quiet cove of the green island, which i began with telling you about. but he had encountered so many dangers from giants, and one-eyed cyclopes, and monsters of the sea and land, that he could not help dreading some mischief, even in this pleasant and seemingly solitary spot. for two days, therefore, the poor weather-worn voyagers kept quiet, and either stayed on board of their vessel, or merely crept along under cliffs that bordered the shore; and to keep themselves alive, they dug shell-fish out of the sand, and sought for any little rill of fresh water that might be running towards the sea. before the two days were spent, they grew very weary of this kind of life; for the followers of king ulysses, as you will find it important to remember, were terrible gormandizers, and pretty sure to grumble if they missed their regular meals, and their irregular ones besides. their stock of provisions was quite exhausted, and even the shell-fish began to get scarce, so that they had now to choose between starving to death or venturing into the interior of the island, where, perhaps, some huge three-headed dragon, or other horrible monster, had his den. such misshapen creatures were very numerous in those days; and nobody ever expected to make a voyage, or take a journey, without running more or less risk of being devoured by them. but king ulysses was a bold man as well as a prudent one; and on the third morning he determined to discover what sort of a place the island was, and whether it were possible to obtain a supply of food for the hungry mouths of his companions. so, taking a spear in his hand, he clambered to the summit of a cliff, and gazed round about him. at a distance, towards the centre of the island, he beheld the stately towers of what seemed to be a palace, built of snow-white marble, and rising in the midst of a grove of lofty trees. the thick branches of these trees stretched across the front of the edifice, and more than half concealed it, although, from the portion which he saw, ulysses judged it to be spacious and exceedingly beautiful, and probably the residence of some great nobleman or prince. a blue smoke went curling up from the chimney, and was almost the pleasantest part of the spectacle to ulysses. for, from the abundance of this smoke, it was reasonable to conclude that there was a good fire in the kitchen, and that, at dinner-time, a plentiful banquet would be served up to the inhabitants of the palace, and to whatever guests might happen to drop in. [illustration: circe's palace] with so agreeable a prospect before him, ulysses fancied that he could not do better than to go straight to the palace gate, and tell the master of it that there was a crew of poor shipwrecked mariners, not far off, who had eaten nothing for a day or two save a few clams and oysters, and would therefore be thankful for a little food. and the prince or nobleman must be a very stingy curmudgeon, to be sure, if, at least, when his own dinner was over, he would not bid them welcome to the broken victuals from the table. pleasing himself with this idea, king ulysses had made a few steps in the direction of the palace, when there was a great twittering and chirping from the branch of a neighboring tree. a moment afterwards, a bird came flying towards him, and hovered in the air, so as almost to brush his face with its wings. it was a very pretty little bird, with purple wings and body, and yellow legs, and a circle of golden feathers round his neck, and on its head a golden tuft, which looked like a king's crown in miniature. ulysses tried to catch the bird. but it fluttered nimbly out of his reach, still chirping in a piteous tone, as if it could have told a lamentable story, had it only been gifted with human language. and when he attempted to drive it away, the bird flew no farther than the bough of the next tree, and again came fluttering about his head, with its doleful chirp, as soon as he showed a purpose of going forward. "have you anything to tell me, little bird?" asked ulysses. and he was ready to listen attentively to whatever the bird might communicate; for at the siege of troy, and elsewhere, he had known such odd things to happen, that he would not have considered it much out of the common run had this little feathered creature talked as plainly as himself. "peep!" said the bird, "peep, peep, pe--weep!" and nothing else would it say, but only, "peep, peep, pe--weep!" in a melancholy cadence, over and over and over again. as often as ulysses moved forward, however, the bird showed the greatest alarm, and did its best to drive him back, with the anxious flutter of its purple wings. its unaccountable behavior made him conclude, at last, that the bird knew of some danger that awaited him, and which must needs be very terrible, beyond all question, since it moved even a little fowl to feel compassion for a human being. so he resolved, for the present, to return to the vessel, and tell his companions what he had seen. this appeared to satisfy the bird. as soon as ulysses turned back, it ran up the trunk of a tree, and began to pick insects out of the bark with its long, sharp bill; for it was a kind of wood-pecker, you must know, and had to get its living in the same manner as other birds of that species. but every little while, as it pecked at the bark of the tree, the purple bird bethought itself of some secret sorrow, and repeated its plaintive note of "peep, peep, pe--weep!" on his way to the shore, ulysses had the good luck to kill a large stag by thrusting his spear into its back. taking it on his shoulders (for he was a remarkably strong man), he lugged it along with him, and flung it down before his hungry companions. i have already hinted to you what gormandizers some of the comrades of king ulysses were. from what is related of them, i reckon that their favorite diet was pork, and that they had lived upon it until a good part of their physical substance was swine's flesh, and their tempers and dispositions were very much akin to the hog. a dish of venison, however, was no unacceptable meal to them, especially after feeding so long on oysters and clams. so, beholding the dead stag, they felt of its ribs in a knowing way, and lost no time in kindling a fire, of drift-wood, to cook it. the rest of the day was spent in feasting; and if these enormous eaters got up from table at sunset, it was only because they could not scrape another morsel off the poor animal's bones. the next morning their appetites were as sharp as ever. they looked at ulysses, as if they expected him to clamber up the cliff again, and come back with another fat deer upon his shoulders. instead of setting out, however, he summoned the whole crew together, and told them it was in vain to hope that he could kill a stag every day for their dinner, and therefore it was advisable to think of some other mode of satisfying their hunger. "now," said he, "when i was on the cliff yesterday, i discovered that this island is inhabited. at a considerable distance from the shore stood a marble palace, which appeared to be very spacious, and had a great deal of smoke curling out of one of its chimneys." "aha!" muttered some of his companions, smacking their lips. "that smoke must have come from the kitchen fire. there was a good dinner on the spit; and no doubt there will be as good a one to-day." "but," continued the wise ulysses, "you must remember, my good friends, our misadventure in the cavern of one-eyed polyphemus, the cyclops! instead of his ordinary milk diet, did he not eat up two of our comrades for his supper, and a couple more for breakfast, and two at his supper again? methinks i see him yet, the hideous monster, scanning us with that great red eye, in the middle of his forehead, to single out the fattest. and then again only a few days ago, did we not fall into the hands of the king of the læstrygons, and those other horrible giants, his subjects, who devoured a great many more of us than are now left? to tell you the truth, if we go to yonder palace, there can be no question that we shall make our appearance at the dinner-table; but whether seated as guests, or served up as food, is a point to be seriously considered." "either way," murmured some of the hungriest of the crew, "it will be better than starvation; particularly if one could be sure of being well fattened beforehand, and daintily cooked afterwards." "that is a matter of taste," said king ulysses, "and, for my own part, neither the most careful fattening nor the daintiest of cookery would reconcile me to being dished at last. my proposal is, therefore, that we divide ourselves into two equal parties, and ascertain, by drawing lots, which of the two shall go to the palace, and beg for food and assistance. if these can be obtained, all is well. if not, and if the inhabitants prove as inhospitable as polyphemus, or the læstrygons, then there will but half of us perish, and the remainder may set sail and escape." as nobody objected to this scheme, ulysses proceeded to count the whole band, and found that there were forty-six men including himself. he then numbered off twenty-two of them, and put eurylochus (who was one of his chief officers, and second only to himself in sagacity) at their head. ulysses took command of the remaining twenty-two men, in person. then, taking off his helmet, he put two shells into it, on one of which was written, "go," and on the other "stay." another person now held the helmet, while ulysses and eurylochus drew out each a shell; and the word "go" was found written on that which eurylochus had drawn. in this manner, it was decided that ulysses and his twenty-two men were to remain at the seaside until the other party should have found out what sort of treatment they might expect at the mysterious palace. as there was no help for it, eurylochus immediately set forth at the head of his twenty-two followers, who went off in a very melancholy state of mind, leaving their friends in hardly better spirits than themselves. no sooner had they clambered up the cliff, than they discerned the tall marble towers of the palace, ascending, as white as snow, out of the lovely green shadow of the trees which surrounded it. a gush of smoke came from a chimney in the rear of the edifice. this vapor rose high in the air, and, meeting with a breeze, was wafted seaward, and made to pass over the heads of the hungry mariners. when people's appetites are keen, they have a very quick scent for anything savory in the wind. "that smoke comes from the kitchen!" cried one of them, turning up his nose as high as he could, and snuffing eagerly. "and, as sure as i'm a half-starved vagabond, i smell roast meat in it." "pig, roast pig!" said another. "ah, the dainty little porker! my mouth waters for him." "let us make haste," cried the others, "or we shall be too late for the good cheer!" but scarcely had they made half a dozen steps from the edge of the cliff, when a bird came fluttering to meet them. it was the same pretty little bird, with the purple wings and body, the yellow legs, the golden collar round its neck, and the crown-like tuft upon its head, whose behavior had so much surprised ulysses. it hovered about eurylochus, and almost brushed his face with its wings. "peep, peep, pe--weep!" chirped the bird. so plaintively intelligent was the sound, that it seemed as if the little creature were going to break its heart with some mighty secret that it had to tell, and only this one poor note to tell it with. "my pretty bird," said eurylochus,--for he was a wary person, and let no token of harm escape his notice,--"my pretty bird, who sent you hither? and what is the message which you bring?" "peep, peep, pe--weep!" replied the bird, very sorrowfully. then it flew towards the edge of the cliff, and looked round at them, as if exceedingly anxious that they should return whence they came. eurylochus and a few of the others were inclined to turn back. they could not help suspecting that the purple bird must be aware of something mischievous that would befall them at the palace, and the knowledge of which affected its airy spirit with a human sympathy and sorrow. but the rest of the voyagers, snuffing up the smoke from the palace kitchen, ridiculed the idea of returning to the vessel. one of them (more brutal than his fellows, and the most notorious gormandizer in the whole crew) said such a cruel and wicked thing, that i wonder the mere thought did not turn him into a wild beast in shape, as he already was in his nature. "this troublesome and impertinent little fowl," said he, "would make a delicate titbit to begin dinner with. just one plump morsel, melting away between the teeth. if he comes within my reach, i'll catch him, and give him to the palace cook to be roasted on a skewer." the words were hardly out of his mouth, before the purple bird flew away, crying "peep, peep, pe--weep," more dolorously than ever. "that bird," remarked eurylochus, "knows more than we do about what awaits us at the palace." "come on, then," cried his comrades, "and we'll soon know as much as he does." the party, accordingly, went onward through the green and pleasant wood. every little while they caught new glimpses of the marble palace, which looked more and more beautiful the nearer they approached it. they soon entered a broad pathway, which seemed to be very neatly kept, and which went winding along with streaks of sunshine falling across it, and specks of light quivering among the deepest shadows that fell from the lofty trees. it was bordered, too, with a great many sweet-smelling flowers, such as the mariners had never seen before. so rich and beautiful they were, that, if the shrubs grew wild here, and were native in the soil, then this island was surely the flower-garden of the whole earth; or, if transplanted from some other clime, it must have been from the happy islands that lay towards the golden sunset. "there has been a great deal of pains foolishly wasted on these flowers," observed one of the company; and i tell you what he said, that you may keep in mind what gormandizers they were. "for my part, if i were the owner of the palace, i would bid my gardener cultivate nothing but savory potherbs to make a stuffing for roast meat, or to flavor a stew with." "well said!" cried the others. "but i'll warrant you there's a kitchen-garden in the rear of the palace." at one place they came to a crystal spring, and paused to drink at it for want of liquor which they liked better. looking into its bosom, they beheld their own faces dimly reflected, but so extravagantly distorted by the gush and motion of the water, that each one of them appeared to be laughing at himself and all his companions. so ridiculous were these images of themselves, indeed, that they did really laugh aloud, and could hardly be grave again as soon as they wished. and after they had drank, they grew still merrier than before. "it has a twang of the wine-cask in it," said one, smacking his lips. "make haste!" cried his fellows; "we'll find the wine-cask itself at the palace; and that will be better than a hundred crystal fountains." then they quickened their pace, and capered for joy at the thought of the savory banquet at which they hoped to be guests. but eurylochus told them that he felt as if he were walking in a dream. "if i am really awake," continued he, "then, in my opinion, we are on the point of meeting with some stranger adventure than any that befell us in the cave of polyphemus, or among the gigantic man-eating læstrygons, or in the windy palace of king Æolus, which stands on a brazen-walled island. this kind of dreamy feeling always comes over me before any wonderful occurrence. if you take my advice, you will turn back." "no, no," answered his comrades, snuffing the air, in which the scent from the palace kitchen was now very perceptible. "we would not turn back, though we were certain that the king of the læstrygons, as big as a mountain, would sit at the head of the table, and huge polyphemus, the one-eyed cyclops, at its foot." at length they came within full sight of the palace, which proved to be very large and lofty, with a great number of airy pinnacles upon its roof. though it was now midday, and the sun shone brightly over the marble front, yet its snowy whiteness, and its fantastic style of architecture, made it look unreal, like the frostwork on a window-pane, or like the shapes of castles which one sees among the clouds by moonlight. but, just then, a puff of wind brought down the smoke of the kitchen chimney among them, and caused each man to smell the odor of the dish that he liked best; and, after scenting it, they thought everything else moonshine, and nothing real save this palace, and save the banquet that was evidently ready to be served up in it. so they hastened their steps towards the portal, but had not got half-way across the wide lawn, when a pack of lions, tigers, and wolves came bounding to meet them. the terrified mariners started back, expecting no better fate than to be torn to pieces and devoured. to their surprise and joy, however, these wild beasts merely capered around them, wagging their tails, offering their heads to be stroked and patted, and behaving just like so many well-bred house-dogs, when they wish to express their delight at meeting their master, or their master's friends. the biggest lion licked the feet of eurylochus; and every other lion, and every wolf and tiger, singled out one of his two-and-twenty followers, whom the beast fondled as if he loved him better than a beef-bone. but, for all that, eurylochus imagined that he saw something fierce and savage in their eyes; nor would he have been surprised, at any moment, to feel the big lion's terrible claws, or to see each of the tigers make a deadly spring, or each wolf leap at the throat of the man whom he had fondled. their mildness seemed unreal, and a mere freak; but their savage nature was as true as their teeth and claws. nevertheless, the men went safely across the lawn with the wild beasts frisking about them, and doing no manner of harm; although, as they mounted the steps of the palace, you might possibly have heard a low growl, particularly from the wolves; as if they thought it a pity, after all, to let the strangers pass without so much as tasting what they were made of. eurylochus and his followers now passed under a lofty portal, and looked through the open doorway into the interior of the palace. the first thing that they saw was a spacious hall, and a fountain in the middle of it, gushing up towards the ceiling out of a marble basin, and falling back into it with a continual plash. the water of this fountain, as it spouted upward, was constantly taking new shapes, not very distinctly, but plainly enough for a nimble fancy to recognize what they were. now it was the shape of a man in a long robe, the fleecy whiteness of which was made out of the fountain's spray; now it was a lion, or a tiger, or a wolf, or an ass, or, as often as anything else, a hog, wallowing in the marble basin as if it were his sty. it was either magic or some very curious machinery that caused the gushing waterspout to assume all these forms. but, before the strangers had time to look closely at this wonderful sight, their attention was drawn off by a very sweet and agreeable sound. a woman's voice was singing melodiously in another room of the palace, and with her voice was mingled the noise of a loom, at which she was probably seated, weaving a rich texture of cloth, and intertwining the high and low sweetness of her voice into a rich tissue of harmony. by and by, the song came to an end; and then, all at once, there were several feminine voices, talking airily and cheerfully, with now and then a merry burst of laughter, such as you may always hear when three or four young women sit at work together. "what a sweet song that was!" exclaimed one of the voyagers. "too sweet, indeed," answered eurylochus, shaking his head. "yet it was not so sweet as the song of the sirens, those birdlike damsels who wanted to tempt us on the rocks, so that our vessel might be wrecked, and our bones left whitening along the shore." "but just listen to the pleasant voices of those maidens, and that buzz of the loom, as the shuttle passes to and fro," said another comrade. "what a domestic, household, homelike sound it is! ah, before that weary siege of troy, i used to hear the buzzing loom and the women's voices under my own roof. shall i never hear them again? nor taste those nice little savory dishes which my dearest wife knew how to serve up?" "tush! we shall fare better here," said another. "but how innocently those women are babbling together, without guessing that we overhear them! and mark that richest voice of all, so pleasant and familiar, but which yet seems to have the authority of a mistress among them. let us show ourselves at once. what harm can the lady of the palace and her maidens do to mariners and warriors like us?" "remember," said eurylochus, "that it was a young maiden who beguiled three of our friends into the palace of the king of the læstrygons, who ate up one of them in the twinkling of an eye." no warning or persuasion, however, had any effect on his companions. they went up to a pair of folding-doors at the farther end of the hall, and, throwing them wide open, passed into the next room. eurylochus, meanwhile, had stepped behind a pillar. in the short moment while the folding-doors opened and closed again, he caught a glimpse of a very beautiful woman rising from the loom, and coming to meet the poor weather-beaten wanderers, with a hospitable smile, and her hand stretched out in welcome. there were four other young women, who joined their hands and danced merrily forward, making gestures of obeisance to the strangers. they were only less beautiful than the lady who seemed to be their mistress. yet eurylochus fancied that one of them had sea-green hair, and that the close-fitting bodice of a second looked like the bark of a tree, and that both the others had something odd in their aspect, although he could not quite determine what it was, in the little while that he had to examine them. the folding-doors swung quickly back, and left him standing behind the pillar, in the solitude of the outer hall. there eurylochus waited until he was quite weary, and listened eagerly to every sound, but without hearing anything that could help him to guess what had become of his friends. footsteps, it is true, seemed to be passing and repassing in other parts of the palace. then there was a clatter of silver dishes, or golden ones, which made him imagine a rich feast in a splendid banqueting-hall. but by and by he heard a tremendous grunting and squealing, and then a sudden scampering, like that of small, hard hoofs over a marble floor, while the voices of the mistress and her four handmaidens were screaming all together, in tones of anger and derision. eurylochus could not conceive what had happened, unless a drove of swine had broken into the palace, attracted by the smell of the feast. chancing to cast his eyes at the fountain, he saw that it did not shift its shape, as formerly, nor looked either like a long-robed man, or a lion, a tiger, a wolf, or an ass. it looked like nothing but a hog, which lay wallowing in the marble basin, and filled it from brim to brim. but we must leave the prudent eurylochus waiting in the outer hall, and follow his friends into the inner secrecy of the palace. as soon as the beautiful woman saw them, she arose from the loom, as i have told you, and came forward, smiling, and stretching out her hand. she took the hand of the foremost among them, and bade him and the whole party welcome. "you have been long expected, my good friends," said she. "i and my maidens are well acquainted with you, although you do not appear to recognize us. look at this piece of tapestry, and judge if your faces must not have been familiar to us." so the voyagers examined the web of cloth which the beautiful woman had been weaving in her loom; and, to their vast astonishment they saw their own figures perfectly represented in different colored threads. it was a lifelike picture of their recent adventures, showing them in the cave of polyphemus, and how they had put out his one great moony eye; while in another part of the tapestry they were untying the leathern bags, puffed out with contrary winds; and farther on, they beheld themselves scampering away from the gigantic king of the læstrygons, who had caught one of them by the leg. lastly, there they were, sitting on the desolate shore of this very island, hungry and downcast, and looking ruefully at the bare bones of the stag which they devoured yesterday. this was as far as the work had yet proceeded; but when the beautiful woman should again sit down at her loom, she would probably make a picture of what had since happened to the strangers, and of what was now going to happen. "you see," she said, "that i know all about your troubles; and you cannot doubt that i desire to make you happy for as long a time as you may remain with me. for this purpose, my honored guests, i have ordered a banquet to be prepared. fish, fowl, and flesh, roasted, and in luscious stews, and seasoned, i trust, to all your tastes, are ready to be served up. if your appetites tell you it is dinner-time, then come with me to the festal saloon." at this kind invitation, the hungry mariners were quite overjoyed; and one of them, taking upon himself to be spokesman, assured their hospitable hostess that any hour of the day was dinner-time with them, whenever they could get flesh to put in the pot, and fire to boil it with. so the beautiful woman led the way; and the four maidens (one of them had sea-green hair, another a bodice of oak bark, a third sprinkled a shower of water-drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth had some other oddity, which i have forgotten), all these followed behind, and hurried the guests along, until they entered a magnificent saloon. it was built in a perfect oval, and lighted from a crystal dome above. around the walls were ranged two-and-twenty thrones, overhung by canopies of crimson and gold, and provided with the softest of cushions, which were tasselled and fringed with gold cord. each of the strangers was invited to sit down; and there they were, two-and-twenty storm-beaten mariners, in worn and tattered garb, sitting on two-and-twenty canopied thrones, so rich and gorgeous that the proudest monarch had nothing more splendid in his stateliest hall. then you might have seen the guests nodding, winking with one eye, and leaning from one throne to another, to communicate their satisfaction in hoarse whispers. "our good hostess has made kings of us all," said one. "ha! do you smell the feast? i'll engage it will be fit to set before two-and-twenty kings." "i hope," said another, "it will be, mainly, good substantial joints, sirloins, spareribs, and hinder quarters, without too many kickshaws. if i thought the good lady would not take it amiss, i should call for a fat slice of fried bacon to begin with." ah, the gluttons and gormandizers! you see how it was with them. in the loftiest seats of dignity, on royal thrones, they could think of nothing but their greedy appetite, which was the portion of their nature that they shared with wolves and swine; so that they resembled those vilest of animals far more than they did kings,--if, indeed, kings were what they ought to be. but the beautiful woman now clapped her hands; and immediately there entered a train of two-and-twenty serving-men, bringing dishes of the richest food, all hot from the kitchen fire, and sending up such a steam that it hung like a cloud below the crystal dome of the saloon. an equal number of attendants brought great flagons of wine, of various kinds, some of which sparkled as it was poured out, and went bubbling down the throat; while, of other sorts, the purple liquor was so clear that you could see the wrought figures at the bottom of the goblet. while the servants supplied the two-and-twenty guests with food and drink, the hostess and her four maidens went from one throne to another, exhorting them to eat their fill, and to quaff wine abundantly, and thus to recompense themselves, at this one banquet, for the many days when they had gone without a dinner. but, whenever the mariners were not looking at them (which was pretty often, as they looked chiefly into the basins and platters), the beautiful woman and her damsels turned aside and laughed. even the servants, as they knelt down to present the dishes, might be seen to grin and sneer, while the guests were helping themselves to the offered dainties. and, once in a while, the strangers seemed to taste something that they did not like. "here is an odd kind of a spice in this dish," said one. "i can't say it quite suits my palate. down it goes, however." "send a good draught of wine down your throat," said his comrade on the next throne. "that is the stuff to make this sort of cookery relish well. though i must needs say, the wine has a queer taste too. but the more i drink of it the better i like the flavor." whatever little fault they might find with the dishes, they sat at dinner a prodigiously long while; and it would really have made you ashamed to see how they swilled down the liquor and gobbled up the food. they sat on golden thrones, to be sure; but they behaved like pigs in a sty; and, if they had had their wits about them, they might have guessed that this was the opinion of their beautiful hostess and her maidens. it brings a blush into my face to reckon up, in my own mind, what mountains of meat and pudding, and what gallons of wine, these two-and-twenty guzzlers and gormandizers ate and drank. they forgot all about their homes, and their wives and children, and all about ulysses, and everything else, except this banquet, at which they wanted to keep feasting forever. but at length they began to give over, from mere incapacity to hold any more. "that last bit of fat is too much for me," said one. "and i have not room for another morsel," said his next neighbor, heaving a sigh. "what a pity! my appetite is as sharp as ever." in short, they all left off eating, and leaned back on their thrones, with such a stupid and helpless aspect as made them ridiculous to behold. when their hostess saw this, she laughed aloud; so did her four damsels; so did the two-and-twenty serving men that bore the dishes, and their two-and-twenty fellows that poured out the wine. and the louder they all laughed, the more stupid and helpless did the two-and-twenty gormandizers look. then the beautiful woman took her stand in the middle of the saloon, and stretching out a slender rod (it had been all the while in her hand, although they never noticed it till this moment), she turned it from one guest to another, until each had felt it pointed at himself. beautiful as her face was, and though there was a smile on it, it looked just as wicked and mischievous as the ugliest serpent that ever was seen; and fat-witted as the voyagers had made themselves, they began to suspect that they had fallen into the power of an evil-minded enchantress. "wretches," cried she, "you have abused a lady's hospitality; and in this princely saloon your behavior has been suited to a hogpen. you are already swine in everything but the human form, which you disgrace, and which i myself should be ashamed to keep a moment longer, were you to share it with me. but it will require only the slightest exercise of magic to make the exterior conform to the hoggish disposition. assume your proper shapes, gormandizers, and begone to the sty!" uttering these last words, she waved her wand; and stamping her foot imperiously, each of the guests was struck aghast at beholding, instead of his comrades in human shape, one-and-twenty hogs sitting on the same number of golden thrones. each man (as he still supposed himself to be) essayed to give a cry of surprise, but found that he could merely grunt, and that, in a word, he was just such another beast as his companions. it looked so intolerably absurd to see hogs on cushioned thrones, that they made haste to wallow down upon all fours, like other swine. they tried to groan and beg for mercy, but forthwith emitted the most awful grunting and squealing that ever came out of swinish throats. they would have wrung their hands in despair, but, attempting to do so, grew all the more desperate for seeing themselves squatted on their hams, and pawing the air with their fore trotters. dear me! what pendulous ears they had! what little red eyes, half buried in fat! and what long snouts, instead of grecian noses! but brutes as they certainly were, they yet had enough of human nature in them to be shocked at their own hideousness; and, still intending to groan, they uttered a viler grunt and squeal than before. so harsh and ear-piercing it was, that you would have fancied a butcher was sticking his knife into each of their throats, or, at the very least, that somebody was pulling every hog by his funny little twist of a tail. "begone to your sty!" cried the enchantress, giving them some smart strokes with her wand; and then she turned to the serving-men, "drive out these swine, and throw down some acorns for them to eat." the door of the saloon being flung open, the drove of hogs ran in all directions save the right one, in accordance with their hoggish perversity, but were finally driven into the back yard of the palace. it was a sight to bring tears into one's eyes (and i hope none of you will be cruel enough to laugh at it), to see the poor creatures go snuffing along, picking up here a cabbage leaf and there a turnip-top, and rooting their noses in the earth for whatever they could find. in their sty, moreover, they behaved more piggishly than the pigs that had been born so; for they bit and snorted at one another, put their feet in the trough, and gobbled up their victuals in a ridiculous hurry; and, when there was nothing more to be had, they made a great pile of themselves among some unclean straw, and fell fast asleep. if they had any human reason left, it was just enough to keep them wondering when they should be slaughtered, and what quality of bacon they should make. meantime, as i told you before, eurylochus had waited, and waited, and waited, in the entrance-hall of the palace, without being able to comprehend what had befallen his friends. at last, when the swinish uproar resounded through the palace, and when he saw the image of a hog in the marble basin, he thought it best to hasten back to the vessel, and inform the wise ulysses of these marvellous occurrences. so he ran as fast as he could down the steps, and never stopped to draw breath till he reached the shore. "why do you come alone?" asked king ulysses, as soon as he saw him. "where are your two-and-twenty comrades?" at these questions, eurylochus burst into tears. "alas!" cried he, "i greatly fear that we shall never see one of their faces again." then he told ulysses all that had happened, as far as he knew it, and added that he suspected the beautiful woman to be a vile enchantress, and the marble palace, magnificent as it looked, to be only a dismal cavern in reality. as for his companions, he could not imagine what had become of them, unless they had been given to the swine to be devoured alive. at this intelligence all the voyagers were greatly affrighted. but ulysses lost no time in girding on his sword, and hanging his bow and quiver over his shoulders, and taking his spear in his right hand. when his followers saw their wise leader making these preparations, they inquired whither he was going, and earnestly besought him not to leave them. "you are our king," cried they; "and what is more, you are the wisest man in the whole world, and nothing but your wisdom and courage can get us out of this danger. if you desert us, and go to the enchanted palace, you will suffer the same fate as our poor companions, and not a soul of us will ever see our dear ithaca again." "as i am your king," answered ulysses, "and wiser than any of you, it is therefore the more my duty to see what has befallen our comrades, and whether anything can yet be done to rescue them. wait for me here until to-morrow. if i do not then return, you must hoist sail, and endeavor to find your way to our native land. for my part, i am answerable for the fate of these poor mariners, who have stood by my side in battle, and been so often drenched to the skin, along with me, by the same tempestuous surges. i will either bring them back with me or perish." had his followers dared, they would have detained him by force. but king ulysses frowned sternly on them, and shook his spear, and bade them stop him at their peril. seeing him so determined, they let him go, and sat down on the sand, as disconsolate a set of people as could be, waiting and praying for his return. it happened to ulysses, just as before, that, when he had gone a few steps from the edge of the cliff, the purple bird came fluttering towards him, crying, "peep, peep, pe--weep!" and using all the art it could to persuade him to go no farther. "what mean you, little bird?" cried ulysses. "you are arrayed like a king in purple and gold, and wear a golden crown upon your head. is it because i too am a king, that you desire so earnestly to speak with me? if you can talk in human language, say what you would have me do." "peep!" answered the purple bird, very dolorously. "peep, peep, pe--we--ep!" certainly there lay some heavy anguish at the little bird's heart; and it was a sorrowful predicament that he could not, at least, have the consolation of telling what it was. but ulysses had no time to waste in trying to get at the mystery. he therefore quickened his pace, and had gone a good way along the pleasant wood-path, when there met him a young man of very brisk and intelligent aspect, and clad in a rather singular garb. he wore a short cloak, and a sort of cap that seemed to be furnished with a pair of wings; and from the lightness of his step, you would have supposed that there might likewise be wings on his feet. to enable him to walk still better (for he was always on one journey or another), he carried a winged staff, around which two serpents were wriggling and twisting. in short, i have said enough to make you guess that it was quicksilver; and ulysses (who knew him of old, and had learned a great deal of his wisdom from him) recognized him in a moment. "whither are you going in such a hurry, wise ulysses?" asked quicksilver. "do you not know that this island is enchanted? the wicked enchantress (whose name is circe, the sister of king Æetes) dwells in the marble palace which you see yonder among the trees. by her magic arts, she changes every human being into the brute, beast, or fowl whom he happens most to resemble." "that little bird, which met me at the edge of the cliff," exclaimed ulysses; "was he a human being once?" "yes," answered quicksilver. "he was once a king, named picus, and a pretty good sort of a king too, only rather too proud of his purple robe, and his crown, and the golden chain about his neck; so he was forced to take the shape of a gaudy-feathered bird. the lions, and wolves, and tigers, who will come running to meet you, in front of the palace, were formerly fierce and cruel men, resembling in their dispositions the wild beasts whose forms they now rightfully wear." "and my poor companions," said ulysses. "have they undergone a similar change, through the arts of this wicked circe?" "you well know what gormandizers they were," replied quicksilver; and, rogue that he was, he could not help laughing at the joke. "so you will not be surprised to hear that they have all taken the shapes of swine! if circe had never done anything worse, i really should not think her so very much to blame." "but can i do nothing to help them?" inquired ulysses. "it will require all your wisdom," said quicksilver, "and a little of my own into the bargain, to keep your royal and sagacious self from being transformed into a fox. but do as i bid you; and the matter may end better than it has begun." while he was speaking, quicksilver seemed to be in search of something; he went stooping along the ground, and soon laid his hand on a little plant with a snow-white flower, which he plucked and smelt of. ulysses had been looking at that very spot only just before; and it appeared to him that the plant had burst into full flower the instant when quicksilver touched it with his fingers. "take this flower, king ulysses," said he. "guard it as you do your eyesight; for i can assure you it is exceedingly rare and precious, and you might seek the whole earth over without ever finding another like it. keep it in your hand, and smell of it frequently after you enter the palace, and while you are talking with the enchantress. especially when she offers you food, or a draught of wine out of her goblet, be careful to fill your nostrils with the flower's fragrance. follow these directions, and you may defy her magic arts to change you into a fox." quicksilver then gave him some further advice how to behave, and, bidding him be bold and prudent, again assured him that, powerful as circe was, he would have a fair prospect of coming safely out of her enchanted palace. after listening attentively, ulysses thanked his good friend, and resumed his way. but he had taken only a few steps, when, recollecting some other questions which he wished to ask, he turned round again, and beheld nobody on the spot where quicksilver had stood; for that winged cap of his, and those winged shoes, with the help of the winged staff, had carried him quickly out of sight. when ulysses reached the lawn, in front of the palace, the lions and other savage animals came bounding to meet him, and would have fawned upon him and licked his feet. but the wise king struck at them with his long spear, and sternly bade them begone out of his path; for he knew that they had once been bloodthirsty men, and would now tear him limb from limb, instead of fawning upon him, could they do the mischief that was in their hearts. the wild beasts yelped and glared at him, and stood at a distance while he ascended the palace steps. on entering the hall, ulysses saw the magic fountain in the centre of it. the up-gushing water had now again taken the shape of a man in a long, white, fleecy robe, who appeared to be making gestures of welcome. the king likewise heard the noise of the shuttle in the loom, and the sweet melody of the beautiful woman's song, and then the pleasant voices of herself and the four maidens talking together, with peals of merry laughter intermixed. but ulysses did not waste much time in listening to the laughter or the song. he leaned his spear against one of the pillars of the hall, and then, after loosening his sword in the scabbard, stepped boldly forward, and threw the folding-doors wide open. the moment she beheld his stately figure standing in the doorway, the beautiful woman rose from the loom, and ran to meet him with a glad smile throwing its sunshine over her face, and both her hands extended. "welcome, brave stranger!" cried she. "we were expecting you." and the nymph with the sea-green hair made a courtesy down to the ground, and likewise bade him welcome; so did her sister with the bodice of oaken bark, and she that sprinkled dew-drops from her fingers' ends, and the fourth one with some oddity which i cannot remember. and circe, as the beautiful enchantress was called (who had deluded so many persons that she did not doubt of being able to delude ulysses, not imagining how wise he was), again addressed him. "your companions," said she, "have already been received into my palace, and have enjoyed the hospitable treatment to which the propriety of their behavior so well entitles them. if such be your pleasure, you shall first take some refreshment, and then join them in the elegant apartment which they now occupy. see, i and my maidens have been weaving their figures into this piece of tapestry." she pointed to the web of beautifully woven cloth in the loom. circe and the four nymphs must have been very diligently at work since the arrival of the mariners: for a great many yards of tapestry had now been wrought, in addition to what i before described. in this new part, ulysses saw his two-and-twenty friends represented as sitting on cushioned and canopied thrones, greedily devouring dainties and quaffing deep draughts of wine. the work had not yet gone any further. oh no, indeed. the enchantress was far too cunning to let ulysses see the mischief which her magic arts had since brought upon the gormandizers. "as for yourself, valiant sir," said circe, "judging by the dignity of your aspect, i take you to be nothing less than a king. deign to follow me, and you shall be treated as befits your rank." so ulysses followed her into the oval saloon, where his two-and-twenty comrades had devoured the banquet, which ended so disastrously for themselves. but, all this while, he had held the snow-white flower in his hand, and had constantly smelt of it while circe was speaking; and as he crossed the threshold of the saloon, he took good care to inhale several long and deep snuffs of its fragrance. instead of two-and-twenty thrones, which had before been ranged around the wall, there was now only a single throne, in the centre of the apartment. but this was surely the most magnificent seat that ever a king or an emperor reposed himself upon, all made of chased gold, studded with precious stones, with a cushion that looked like a soft heap of living roses, and overhung by a canopy of sunlight which circe knew how to weave into drapery. the enchantress took ulysses by the hand, and made him sit down upon this dazzling throne. then, clapping her hands, she summoned the chief butler. "bring hither," said she, "the goblet that is set apart for kings to drink out of. and fill it with the same delicious wine which my royal brother, king Æetes, praised so highly, when he last visited me with my fair daughter medea. that good and amiable child! were she now here, it would delight her to see me offering this wine to my honored guest." but ulysses, while the butler was gone for the wine, held the snow-white flower to his nose. "is it a wholesome wine?" he asked. at this the four maidens tittered; whereupon the enchantress looked round at them, with an aspect of severity. "it is the wholesomest juice that ever was squeezed out of the grape," said she; "for, instead of disguising a man, as other liquor is apt to do, it brings him to his true self, and shows him as he ought to be." the chief butler liked nothing better than to see people turned into swine, or making any kind of a beast of themselves; so he made haste to bring the royal goblet, filled with a liquid as bright as gold, and which kept sparkling upward, and throwing a sunny spray over the brim. but, delightfully as the wine looked, it was mingled with the most potent enchantments that circe knew how to concoct. for every drop of the pure grape-juice there were two drops of the pure mischief; and the danger of the thing was, that the mischief made it taste all the better. the mere smell of the bubbles, which effervesced at the brim, was enough to turn a man's beard into pig's bristles, or make a lion's claws grow out of his fingers, or a fox's brush behind him. "drink, my noble guest," said circe, smiling as she presented him with the goblet. "you will find in this draught a solace for all your troubles." king ulysses took the goblet with his right hand, while with his left he held the snow-white flower to his nostrils, and drew in so long a breath that his lungs were quite filled with its pure and simple fragrance. then, drinking off all the wine, he looked the enchantress calmly in the face. "wretch," cried circe, giving him a smart stroke with her wand, "how dare you keep your human shape a moment longer? take the form of the brute whom you most resemble. if a hog, go join your fellow-swine in the sty; if a lion, a wolf, a tiger, go howl with the wild beasts on the lawn; if a fox, go exercise your craft in stealing poultry. thou hast quaffed off my wine, and canst be man no longer." but, such was the virtue of the snow-white flower, instead of wallowing down from his throne in swinish shape, or taking any other brutal form, ulysses looked even more manly and king-like than before. he gave the magic goblet a toss, and sent it clashing over the marble floor, to the farthest end of the saloon. then, drawing his sword, he seized the enchantress by her beautiful ringlets, and made a gesture as if he meant to strike off her head at one blow. "wicked circe," cried he, in a terrible voice, "this sword shall put an end to thy enchantments. thou shalt die, vile wretch, and do no more mischief in the world, by tempting human beings into the vices which make beasts of them." the tone and countenance of ulysses were so awful, and his sword gleamed so brightly, and seemed to have so intolerably keen an edge, that circe was almost killed by the mere fright, without waiting for a blow. the chief butler scrambled out of the saloon, picking up the golden goblet as he went; and the enchantress and the four maidens fell on their knees, wringing their hands, and screaming for mercy. "spare me!" cried circe,--"spare me, royal and wise ulysses. for now i know that thou art he of whom quicksilver forewarned me, the most prudent of mortals, against whom no enchantments can prevail. thou only couldst have conquered circe. spare me, wisest of men. i will show thee true hospitality, and even give myself to be thy slave, and this magnificent palace to be henceforth thy home." the four nymphs, meanwhile, were making a most piteous ado; and especially the ocean-nymph, with the sea-green hair, wept a great deal of salt water, and the fountain-nymph, besides scattering dew-drops from her fingers' ends, nearly melted away into tears. but ulysses would not be pacified until circe had taken a solemn oath to change back his companions, and as many others as he should direct, from their present forms of beast or bird into their former shapes of men. "on these conditions," said he, "i consent to spare your life. otherwise you must die upon the spot." with a drawn sword hanging over her, the enchantress would readily have consented to do as much good as she had hitherto done mischief, however little she might like such employment. she therefore led ulysses out of the back entrance of the palace, and showed him the swine in their sty. there were about fifty of these unclean beasts in the whole herd; and though the greater part were hogs by birth and education, there was wonderfully little difference to be seen betwixt them and their new brethren who had so recently worn the human shape. to speak critically, indeed, the latter rather carried the thing to excess, and seemed to make it a point to wallow in the miriest part of the sty, and otherwise to outdo the original swine in their own natural vocation. when men once turn to brutes, the trifle of man's wit that remains in them adds tenfold to their brutality. the comrades of ulysses, however, had not quite lost the remembrance of having formerly stood erect. when he approached the sty, two-and-twenty enormous swine separated themselves from the herd, and scampered towards him, with such a chorus of horrible squealing as made him clap both hands to his ears. and yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they were merely hungry, or miserable from some other cause. it was curious, in the midst of their distress, to observe them thrusting their noses into the mire, in quest of something to eat. the nymph with the bodice of oaken bark (she was the hamadryad of an oak) threw a handful of acorns among them; and the two-and-twenty hogs scrambled and fought for the prize, as if they had tasted not so much as a noggin of sour milk for a twelvemonth. "these must certainly be my comrades," said ulysses. "i recognize their dispositions. they are hardly worth the trouble of changing them into the human form again. nevertheless, we will have it done, lest their bad example should corrupt the other hogs. let them take their original shapes, therefore, dame circe, if your skill is equal to the task. it will require greater magic, i trow, than it did to make swine of them." so circe waved her wand again, and repeated a few magic words, at the sound of which the two-and-twenty hogs pricked up their pendulous ears. it was a wonder to behold how their snouts grew shorter and shorter, and their mouths (which they seemed to be sorry for, because they could not gobble so expeditiously) smaller and smaller, and how one and another began to stand upon his hind legs, and scratch his nose with his fore trotters. at first the spectators hardly knew whether to call them hogs or men, but by and by came to the conclusion that they rather resembled the latter. finally, there stood the twenty-two comrades of ulysses, looking pretty much the same as when they left the vessel. you must not imagine, however, that the swinish quality had entirely gone out of them. when once it fastens itself into a person's character, it is very difficult getting rid of it. this was proved by the hamadryad, who, being exceedingly fond of mischief, threw another handful of acorns before the twenty-two newly restored people; whereupon down they wallowed, in a moment, and gobbled them up in a very shameful way. then, recollecting themselves, they scrambled to their feet, and looked more than commonly foolish. "thanks, noble ulysses!" they cried. "from brute beasts you have restored us to the condition of men again." "do not put yourselves to the trouble of thanking me," said the wise king. "i fear i have done but little for you." to say the truth, there was a suspicious kind of a grunt in their voices, and for a long time afterwards they spoke gruffly, and were apt to set up a squeal. "it must depend on your own future behavior," added ulysses, "whether you do not find your way back to the sty." at this moment, the note of a bird sounded from the branch of a neighboring tree. "peep, peep, pe--wee--ep!" it was the purple bird, who, all this while, had been sitting over their heads, watching what was going forward, and hoping that ulysses would remember how he had done his utmost to keep him and his followers out of harm's way. ulysses ordered circe instantly to make a king of this good little fowl, and leave him exactly as she found him. hardly were the words spoken, and before the bird had time to utter another "pe--weep," king picus leaped down from the bough of the tree, as majestic a sovereign as any in the world, dressed in a long purple robe and gorgeous yellow stockings, with a splendidly wrought collar about his neck, and a golden crown upon his head. he and king ulysses exchanged with one another the courtesies which belong to their elevated rank. but from that time forth, king picus was no longer proud of his crown and his trappings of royalty, nor of the fact of his being a king; he felt himself merely the upper servant of his people, and that it must be his lifelong labor to make them better and happier. as for the lions, tigers, and wolves (though circe would have restored them to their former shapes at his slightest word), ulysses thought it advisable that they should remain as they now were, and thus give warning of their cruel dispositions, instead of going about under the guise of men, and pretending to human sympathies, while their hearts had the blood-thirstiness of wild beasts. so he let them howl as much as they liked, but never troubled his head about them. and, when everything was settled according to his pleasure, he sent to summon the remainder of his comrades, whom he had left at the sea-shore. these being arrived, with the prudent eurylochus at their head, they all made themselves comfortable in circe's enchanted palace, until quite rested and refreshed from the toils and hardships of their voyage. the pomegranate seeds mother ceres was exceedingly fond of her daughter proserpina, and seldom let her go alone into the fields. but, just at the time when my story begins, the good lady was very busy, because she had the care of the wheat, and the indian corn, and the rye and barley, and, in short, of the crops of every kind, all over the earth; and as the season had thus far been uncommonly backward, it was necessary to make the harvest ripen more speedily than usual. so she put on her turban, made of poppies (a kind of flower which she was always noted for wearing), and got into her car drawn by a pair of winged dragons, and was just ready to set off. "dear mother," said proserpina, "i shall be very lonely while you are away. may i not run down to the shore, and ask some of the sea-nymphs to come up out of the waves and play with me?" "yes, child," answered mother ceres. "the sea-nymphs are good creatures, and will never lead you into any harm. but you must take care not to stray away from them, nor go wandering about the fields by yourself. young girls, without their mothers to take care of them, are very apt to get into mischief." the child promised to be as prudent as if she were a grown-up woman, and, by the time the winged dragons had whirled the car out of sight, she was already on the shore, calling to the sea-nymphs to come and play with her. they knew proserpina's voice, and were not long in showing their glistening faces and sea-green hair above the water, at the bottom of which was their home. they brought along with them a great many beautiful shells; and, sitting down on the moist sand, where the surf wave broke over them, they busied themselves in making a necklace, which they hung round proserpina's neck. by way of showing her gratitude, the child besought them to go with her a little way into the fields, so that they might gather abundance of flowers, with which she would make each of her kind playmates a wreath. [illustration: proserpina (from the original in the collection of mrs. william b. dinsmore staatsburg, new york)] "oh no, dear proserpina," cried the sea-nymphs; "we dare not go with you upon the dry land. we are apt to grow faint, unless at every breath we can snuff up the salt breeze of the ocean. and don't you see how careful we are to let the surf wave break over us every moment or two, so as to keep ourselves comfortably moist? if it were not for that, we should soon look like bunches of uprooted sea-weed dried in the sun." "it is a great pity," said proserpina. "but do you wait for me here, and i will run and gather my apron full of flowers, and be back again before the surf wave has broken ten times over you. i long to make you some wreaths that shall be as lovely as this necklace of many-colored shells." "we will wait, then," answered the sea-nymphs. "but while you are gone, we may as well lie down on a bank of soft sponge, under the water. the air to-day is a little too dry for our comfort. but we will pop up our heads every few minutes to see if you are coming." the young proserpina ran quickly to a spot where, only the day before, she had seen a great many flowers. these, however, were now a little past their bloom; and wishing to give her friends the freshest and loveliest blossoms, she strayed farther into the fields, and found some that made her scream with delight. never had she met with such exquisite flowers before,--violets, so large and fragrant,--roses, with so rich and delicate a blush,--such superb hyacinths and such aromatic pinks,--and many others, some of which seemed to be of new shapes and colors. two or three times, moreover, she could not help thinking that a tuft of most splendid flowers had suddenly sprouted out of the earth before her very eyes, as if on purpose to tempt her a few steps farther. proserpina's apron was soon filled and brimming over with delightful blossoms. she was on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the sea-nymphs, and sit with them on the moist sands, all twining wreaths together. but, a little farther on, what should she behold? it was a large shrub, completely covered with the most magnificent flowers in the world. "the darlings!" cried proserpina; and then she thought to herself, "i was looking at that spot only a moment ago. how strange it is that i did not see the flowers!" the nearer she approached the shrub, the more attractive it looked, until she came quite close to it; and then, although its beauty was richer than words can tell, she hardly knew whether to like it or not. it bore above a hundred flowers of the most brilliant hues, and each different from the others, but all having a kind of resemblance among themselves, which showed them to be sister blossoms. but there was a deep, glossy lustre on the leaves of the shrub, and on the petals of the flowers, that made proserpina doubt whether they might not be poisonous. to tell you the truth, foolish as it may seem, she was half inclined to turn round and run away. "what a silly child i am!" thought she, taking courage. "it is really the most beautiful shrub that ever sprang out of the earth. i will pull it up by the roots, and carry it home, and plant it in my mother's garden." holding up her apron full of flowers with her left hand, proserpina seized the large shrub with the other, and pulled and pulled, but was hardly able to loosen the soil about its roots. what a deep-rooted plant it was! again the girl pulled with all her might, and observed that the earth began to stir and crack to some distance around the stem. she gave another pull, but relaxed her hold, fancying that there was a rumbling sound right beneath her feet. did the roots extend down into some enchanted cavern? then, laughing at herself for so childish a notion, she made another effort; up came the shrub, and proserpina staggered back, holding the stem triumphantly in her hand, and gazing at the deep hole which its roots had left in the soil. much to her astonishment, this hole kept spreading wider and wider, and growing deeper and deeper, until it really seemed to have no bottom; and all the while, there came a rumbling noise out of its depths, louder and louder, and nearer and nearer, and sounding like the tramp of horses' hoofs and the rattling of wheels. too much frightened to run away, she stood straining her eyes into this wonderful cavity, and soon saw a team of four sable horses, snorting smoke out of their nostrils, and tearing their way out of the earth with a splendid golden chariot whirling at their heels. they leaped out of the bottomless hole, chariot and all; and there they were, tossing their black manes, flourishing their black tails, and curvetting with every one of their hoofs off the ground at once, close by the spot where proserpina stood. in the chariot sat the figure of a man, richly dressed, with a crown on his head, all flaming with diamonds. he was of a noble aspect, and rather handsome, but looked sullen and discontented; and he kept rubbing his eyes and shading them with his hand, as if he did not live enough in the sunshine to be very fond of its light. as soon as this personage saw the affrighted proserpina, he beckoned her to come a little nearer. "do not be afraid," said he, with as cheerful a smile as he knew how to put on. "come! will not you like to ride a little way with me, in my beautiful chariot?" but proserpina was so alarmed, that she wished for nothing but to get out of his reach. and no wonder. the stranger did not look remarkably good-natured, in spite of his smile; and as for his voice, its tones were deep and stern, and sounded as much like the rumbling of an earthquake under ground as anything else. as is always the case with children in trouble, proserpina's first thought was to call for her mother. "mother, mother ceres!" cried she, all in a tremble. "come quickly and save me." but her voice was too faint for her mother to hear. indeed, it is most probable that ceres was then a thousand miles off, making the corn grow in some far-distant country. nor could it have availed her poor daughter, even had she been within hearing; for no sooner did proserpina begin to cry out, than the stranger leaped to the ground, caught the child in his arms, and again mounting the chariot, shook the reins, and shouted to the four black horses to set off. they immediately broke into so swift a gallop that it seemed rather like flying through the air than running along the earth. in a moment, proserpina lost sight of the pleasant vale of enna, in which she had always dwelt. another instant, and even the summit of mount Ætna had become so blue in the distance, that she could scarcely distinguish it from the smoke that gushed out of its crater. but still the poor child screamed, and scattered her apron full of flowers along the way, and left a long cry trailing behind the chariot; and many mothers, to whose ears it came, ran quickly to see if any mischief had befallen their children. but mother ceres was a great way off, and could not hear the cry. as they rode on, the stranger did his best to soothe her. "why should you be so frightened, my pretty child?" said he, trying to soften his rough voice. "i promise not to do you any harm. what! you have been gathering flowers? wait till we come to my palace, and i will give you a garden full of prettier flowers than those, all made of pearls, and diamonds, and rubies. can you guess who i am? they call my name pluto, and i am the king of diamonds and all other precious stones. every atom of the gold and silver that lies under the earth belongs to me, to say nothing of the copper and iron, and of the coal-mines, which supply me with abundance of fuel. do you see this splendid crown upon my head? you may have it for a plaything. oh, we shall be very good friends, and you will find me more agreeable than you expect, when once we get out of this troublesome sunshine." "let me go home!" cried proserpina,--"let me go home!" "my home is better than your mother's," answered king pluto. "it is a palace, all made of gold, with crystal windows; and because there is little or no sunshine thereabouts, the apartments are illuminated with diamond lamps. you never saw anything half so magnificent as my throne. if you like, you may sit down on it, and be my little queen, and i will sit on the footstool." "i don't care for golden palaces and thrones," sobbed proserpina. "oh, my mother, my mother! carry me back to my mother!" but king pluto, as he called himself, only shouted to his steeds to go faster. "pray do not be foolish, proserpina," said he, in rather a sullen tone. "i offer you my palace and my crown, and all the riches that are under the earth; and you treat me as if i were doing you an injury. the one thing which my palace needs is a merry little maid, to run up stairs and down, and cheer up the rooms with her smile. and this is what you must do for king pluto." "never!" answered proserpina, looking as miserable as she could. "i shall never smile again till you set me down at my mother's door." but she might just as well have talked to the wind that whistled past them; for pluto urged on his horses, and went faster than ever. proserpina continued to cry out, and screamed so long and so loudly, that her poor little voice was almost screamed away; and when it was nothing but a whisper, she happened to cast her eyes over a great, broad field of waving grain--and whom do you think she saw? who, but mother ceres, making the corn grow, and too busy to notice the golden chariot as it went rattling along. the child mustered all her strength, and gave one more scream, but was out of sight before ceres had time to turn her head. king pluto had taken a road which now began to grow excessively gloomy. it was bordered on each side with rocks and precipices, between which the rumbling of the chariot-wheels was reverberated with a noise like rolling thunder. the trees and bushes that grew in the crevices of the rocks had very dismal foliage; and by and by, although it was hardly noon, the air became obscured with a gray twilight. the black horses had rushed along so swiftly, that they were already beyond the limits of the sunshine. but the duskier it grew, the more did pluto's visage assume an air of satisfaction. after all, he was not an ill-looking person, especially when he left off twisting his features into a smile that did not belong to them. proserpina peeped at his face through the gathering dusk, and hoped that he might not be so very wicked as she at first thought him. "ah, this twilight is truly refreshing," said king pluto, "after being so tormented with that ugly and impertinent glare of the sun. how much more agreeable is lamplight or torchlight, more particularly when reflected from diamonds! it will be a magnificent sight when we get to my palace." "is it much farther?" asked proserpina. "and will you carry me back when i have seen it?" "we will talk of that by and by," answered pluto. "we are just entering my dominions. do you see that tall gateway before us? when we pass those gates, we are at home. and there lies my faithful mastiff at the threshold. cerberus! cerberus! come hither, my good dog!" so saying, pluto pulled at the reins, and stopped the charriot right between the tall, massive pillars of the gateway. the mastiff of which he had spoken got up from the threshold, and stood on his hinder legs, so as to put his fore paws on the chariot-wheel. but, my stars, what a strange dog it was! why, he was a big, rough, ugly-looking monster, with three separate heads, and each of them fiercer than the two others; but, fierce as they were, king pluto patted them all. he seemed as fond of his three-headed dog as if it had been a sweet little spaniel, with silken ears and curly hair. cerberus, on the other hand, was evidently rejoiced to see his master, and expressed his attachment, as other dogs do, by wagging his tail at a great rate. proserpina's eyes being drawn to it by its brisk motion, she saw that this tail was neither more nor less than a live dragon, with fiery eyes, and fangs that had a very poisonous aspect. and while the three-headed cerberus was fawning so lovingly on king pluto, there was the dragon tail wagging against its will, and looking as cross and ill-natured as you can imagine, on its own separate account. "will the dog bite me?" asked proserpina, shrinking closer to pluto. "what an ugly creature he is!" "oh, never fear," answered her companion. "he never harms people, unless they try to enter my dominions without being sent for, or to get away when i wish to keep them here. down, cerberus! now, my pretty proserpina, we will drive on." on went the chariot, and king pluto seemed greatly pleased to find himself once more in his own kingdom. he drew proserpina's attention to the rich veins of gold that were to be seen among the rocks, and pointed to several places where one stroke of a pickaxe would loosen a bushel of diamonds. all along the road, indeed, there were sparkling gems, which would have been of inestimable value above ground, but which were here reckoned of the meaner sort, and hardly worth a beggar's stooping for. not far from the gateway, they came to a bridge, which seemed to be built of iron. pluto stopped the chariot, and bade proserpina look at the stream which was gliding so lazily beneath it. never in her life had she beheld so torpid, so black, so muddy-looking a stream: its waters reflected no images of anything that was on the banks, and it moved as sluggishly as if it had quite forgotten which way it ought to flow, and had rather stagnate than flow either one way or the other. "this is the river lethe," observed king pluto. "is it not a very pleasant stream?" "i think it is a very dismal one," said proserpina. "it suits my taste, however," answered pluto, who was apt to be sullen when anybody disagreed with him. "at all events, its water has one very excellent quality; for a single draught of it makes people forget every care and sorrow that has hitherto tormented them. only sip a little of it, my dear proserpina, and you will instantly cease to grieve for your mother, and will have nothing in your memory that can prevent your being perfectly happy in my palace. i will send for some, in a golden goblet, the moment we arrive." "oh no, no, no!" cried proserpina, weeping afresh. "i had a thousand times rather be miserable with remembering my mother, than be happy in forgetting her. that dear, dear mother! i never, never will forget her." "we shall see," said king pluto. "you do not know what fine times we will have in my palace. here we are just at the portal. these pillars are solid gold, i assure you." he alighted from the chariot, and taking proserpina in his arms, carried her up a lofty flight of steps into the great hall of the palace. it was splendidly illuminated by means of large precious stones, of various hues, which seemed to burn like so many lamps, and glowed with a hundred-fold radiance all through the vast apartment. and yet there was a kind of gloom in the midst of this enchanted light; nor was there a single object in the hall that was really agreeable to behold, except the little proserpina herself, a lovely child, with one earthly flower which she had not let fall from her hand. it is my opinion that even king pluto had never been happy in his palace, and that this was the true reason why he had stolen away proserpina, in order that he might have something to love, instead of cheating his heart any longer with this tiresome magnificence. and, though he pretended to dislike the sunshine of the upper world, yet the effect of the child's presence, bedimmed as she was by her tears, was as if a faint and watery sunbeam had somehow or other found its way into the enchanted hall. pluto now summoned his domestics, and bade them lose no time in preparing a most sumptuous banquet, and above all things, not to fail of setting a golden beaker of the water of lethe by proserpina's plate. "i will neither drink that nor anything else," said proserpina. "nor will i taste a morsel of food, even if you keep me forever in your palace." "i should be sorry for that," replied king pluto, patting her cheek; for he really wished to be kind, if he had only known how. "you are a spoiled child, i perceive, my little proserpina; but when you see the nice things which my cook will make for you, your appetite will quickly come again." then, sending for the head cook, he gave strict orders that all sorts of delicacies, such as young people are usually fond of, should be set before proserpina. he had a secret motive in this; for, you are to understand, it is a fixed law, that, when persons are carried off to the land of magic, if they once taste any food there, they can never get back to their friends. now, if king pluto had been cunning enough to offer proserpina some fruit, or bread and milk (which was the simple fare to which the child had always been accustomed), it is very probable that she would soon have been tempted to eat it. but he left the matter entirely to his cook, who, like all other cooks, considered nothing fit to eat unless it were rich pastry, or highly seasoned meat, or spiced sweet cakes,--things which proserpina's mother had never given her, and the smell of which quite took away her appetite, instead of sharpening it. but my story must now clamber out of king pluto's dominions, and see what mother ceres has been about, since she was bereft of her daughter. we had a glimpse of her, as you remember, half hidden among the waving grain, while the four black steeds were swiftly whirling along the chariot in which her beloved proserpina was so unwillingly borne away. you recollect, too, the loud scream which proserpina gave, just when the chariot was out of sight. of all the child's outcries, this last shriek was the only one that reached the ears of mother ceres. she had mistaken the rumbling of the chariot-wheels for a peal of thunder, and imagined that a shower was coming up, and that it would assist her in making the corn grow. but, at the sound of proserpina's shriek, she started, and looked about in every direction, not knowing whence it came, but feeling almost certain that it was her daughter's voice. it seemed so unaccountable, however, that the girl should have strayed over so many lands and seas (which she herself could not have traversed without the aid of her winged dragons), that the good ceres tried to believe that it must be the child of some other parent, and not her own darling proserpina, who had uttered this lamentable cry. nevertheless, it troubled her with a vast many tender fears, such as are ready to bestir themselves in every mother's heart, when she finds it necessary to go away from her dear children without leaving them under the care of some maiden aunt, or other such faithful guardian. so she quickly left the field in which she had been so busy; and, as her work was not half done, the grain looked, next day, as if it needed both sun and rain, and as if it were blighted in the ear, and had something the matter with its roots. the pair of dragons must have had very nimble wings; for, in less than an hour, mother ceres had alighted at the door of her home, and found it empty. knowing, however, that the child was fond of sporting on the sea-shore, she hastened thither as fast as she could, and there beheld the wet faces of the poor sea-nymphs peeping over a wave. all this while, the good creatures had been waiting on the bank of sponge, and, once every half-minute or so, had popped up their four heads above water, to see if their playmate were yet coming back. when they saw mother ceres, they sat down on the crest of the surf wave, and let it toss them ashore at her feet. "where is proserpina?" cried ceres. "where is my child? tell me, you naughty sea-nymphs, have you enticed her under the sea?" "oh no, good mother ceres," said the innocent sea-nymphs, tossing back their green ringlets, and looking her in the face. "we never should dream of such a thing. proserpina has been at play with us, it is true; but she left us a long while ago, meaning only to run a little way upon the dry land, and gather some flowers for a wreath. this was early in the day, and we have seen nothing of her since." ceres scarcely waited to hear what the nymphs had to say, before she hurried off to make inquiries all through the neighborhood. but nobody told her anything that could enable the poor mother to guess what had become of proserpina. a fisherman, it is true, had noticed her little footprints in the sand, as he went homeward along the beach with a basket of fish; a rustic had seen the child stooping to gather flowers; several persons had heard either the rattling of chariot-wheels, or the rumbling of distant thunder; and one old woman, while plucking vervain and catnip, had heard a scream, but supposed it to be some childish nonsense, and therefore did not take the trouble to look up. the stupid people! it took them such a tedious while to tell the nothing that they knew, that it was dark night before mother ceres found out that she must seek her daughter elsewhere. so she lighted a torch, and set forth resolving never to come back until proserpina was discovered. in her haste and trouble of mind, she quite forgot her car and the winged dragons; or, it may be, she thought that she could follow up the search more thoroughly on foot. at all events, this was the way in which she began her sorrowful journey, holding her torch before her, and looking carefully at every object along the path. and as it happened, she had not gone far before she found one of the magnificent flowers which grew on the shrub that proserpina had pulled up. "ha!" thought mother ceres, examining it by torchlight. "here is mischief in this flower! the earth did not produce it by any help of mine, nor of its own accord. it is the work of enchantment, and is therefore poisonous; and perhaps it has poisoned my poor child." but she put the poisonous flower in her bosom, not knowing whether she might ever find any other memorial of proserpina. all night long, at the door of every cottage and farm-house, ceres knocked, and called up the weary laborers to inquire if they had seen her child; and they stood, gaping and half asleep, at the threshold, and answered her pityingly, and besought her to come in and rest. at the portal of every palace, too, she made so loud a summons that the menials hurried to throw open the gate, thinking that it must be some great king or queen, who would demand a banquet for supper and a stately chamber to repose in. and when they saw only a sad and anxious woman, with a torch in her hand and a wreath of withered poppies on her head, they spoke rudely, and sometimes threatened to set the dogs upon her. but nobody had seen proserpina, nor could give mother ceres the least hint which way to seek her. thus passed the night; and still she continued her search without sitting down to rest, or stopping to take food, or even remembering to put out the torch; although first the rosy dawn, and then the glad light of the morning sun, made its red flame look thin and pale. but i wonder what sort of stuff this torch was made of; for it burned dimly through the day, and, at night, was as bright as ever, and never was extinguished by the rain or wind, in all the weary days and nights while ceres was seeking for proserpina. it was not merely of human beings that she asked tidings of her daughter. in the woods and by the streams, she met creatures of another nature, who used, in those old times, to haunt the pleasant and solitary places, and were very sociable with persons who understood their language and customs, as mother ceres did. sometimes, for instance, she tapped with her finger against the knotted trunk of a majestic oak; and immediately its rude bark would cleave asunder, and forth would step a beautiful maiden, who was the hamadryad of the oak, dwelling inside of it, and sharing its long life, and rejoicing when its green leaves sported with the breeze. but not one of these leafy damsels had seen proserpina. then, going a little farther, ceres would, perhaps, come to a fountain, gushing out of a pebbly hollow in the earth, and would dabble with her hand in the water. behold, up through its sandy and pebbly bed, along with the fountain's gush, a young woman with dripping hair would arise, and stand gazing at mother ceres, half out of the water, and undulating up and down with its ever-restless motion. but when the mother asked whether her poor lost child had stopped to drink out of the fountain, the naiad, with weeping eyes (for these water-nymphs had tears to spare for everybody's grief), would answer, "no!" in a murmuring voice, which was just like the murmur of the stream. often, likewise, she encountered fauns, who looked like sunburnt country people, except that they had hairy ears, and little horns upon their foreheads, and the hinder legs of goats, on which they gambolled merrily about the woods and fields. they were a frolicsome kind of creature, but grew as sad as their cheerful dispositions would allow when ceres inquired for her daughter, and they had no good news to tell. but sometimes she came suddenly upon a rude gang of satyrs, who had faces like monkeys and horses' tails behind them, and who were generally dancing in a very boisterous manner, with shouts of noisy laughter. when she stopped to question them, they would only laugh the louder, and make new merriment out of the lone woman's distress. how unkind of those ugly satyrs! and once, while crossing a solitary sheep-pasture, she saw a personage named pan, seated at the foot of a tall rock, and making music on a shepherd's flute. he, too, had horns, and hairy ears, and goat's feet; but, being acquainted with mother ceres, he answered her question as civilly as he knew how, and invited her to taste some milk and honey out of a wooden bowl. but neither could pan tell her what had become of proserpina, any better than the rest of these wild people. and thus mother ceres went wandering about for nine long days and nights, finding no trace of proserpina, unless it were now and then a withered flower; and these she picked up and put in her bosom, because she fancied that they might have fallen from her poor child's hand. all day she travelled onward through the hot sun; and at night, again, the flame of the torch would redden and gleam along the pathway, and she continued her search by its light, without ever sitting down to rest. on the tenth day, she chanced to espy the mouth of a cavern, within which (though it was bright noon everywhere else) there would have been only a dusky twilight; but it so happened that a torch was burning there. it flickered, and struggled with the duskiness, but could not half light up the gloomy cavern with all its melancholy glimmer. ceres was resolved to leave no spot without a search; so she peeped into the entrance of the cave, and lighted it up a little more, by holding her own torch before her. in so doing, she caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a woman, sitting on the brown leaves of the last autumn, a great heap of which had been swept into the cave by the wind. this woman (if woman it were) was by no means so beautiful as many of her sex; for her head, they tell me, was shaped very much like a dog's, and, by way of ornament, she wore a wreath of snakes around it. but mother ceres, the moment she saw her, knew that this was an odd kind of a person, who put all her enjoyment in being miserable, and never would have a word to say to other people, unless they were as melancholy and wretched as she herself delighted to be. "i am wretched enough now," thought poor ceres, "to talk with this melancholy hecate, were she ten times sadder than ever she was yet." so she stepped into the cave, and sat down on the withered leaves by the dog-headed woman's side. in all the world, since her daughter's loss, she had found no other companion. "o hecate," said she, "if ever you lose a daughter, you will know what sorrow is. tell me, for pity's sake, have you seen my poor child proserpina pass by the mouth of your cavern?" "no," answered hecate, in a cracked voice, and sighing betwixt every word or two,--"no, mother ceres, i have seen nothing of your daughter. but my ears, you must know, are made in such a way that all cries of distress and affright, all over the world, are pretty sure to find their way to them; and nine days ago, as i sat in my cave, making myself very miserable, i heard the voice of a young girl, shrieking as if in great distress. something terrible has happened to the child, you may rest assured. as well as i could judge, a dragon, or some other cruel monster, was carrying her away." "you kill me by saying so," cried ceres, almost ready to faint. "where was the sound, and which way did it seem to go?" "it passed very swiftly along," said hecate, "and, at the same time, there was a heavy rumbling of wheels towards the eastward. i can tell you nothing more, except that, in my honest opinion, you will never see your daughter again. the best advice i can give you is, to take up your abode in this cavern, where we will be the two most wretched women in the world." "not yet, dark hecate," replied ceres. "but do you first come with your torch, and help me to seek for my lost child. and when there shall be no more hope of finding her (if that black day is ordained to come) then, if you will give me room to fling myself down, either on these withered leaves or on the naked rock, i will show you what it is to be miserable. but, until i know that she has perished from the face of the earth, i will not allow myself space even to grieve." the dismal hecate did not much like the idea of going abroad into the sunny world. but then she reflected that the sorrow of the disconsolate ceres would be like a gloomy twilight round about them both, let the sun shine ever so brightly, and that therefore she might enjoy her bad spirits quite as well as if she were to stay in the cave. so she finally consented to go, and they set out together, both carrying torches, although it was broad daylight and clear sunshine. the torchlight seemed to make a gloom; so that the people whom they met along the road could not very distinctly see their figures; and, indeed, if they once caught a glimpse of hecate, with the wreath of snakes round her forehead, they generally thought it prudent to run away, without waiting for a second glance. as the pair travelled along in this woe-begone manner, a thought struck ceres. "there is one person," she exclaimed, "who must have seen my poor child, and can doubtless tell what has become of her. why did not i think of him before? it is phoebus." "what," said hecate, "the young man that always sits in the sunshine? oh, pray do not think of going near him. he is a gay, light, frivolous young fellow, and will only smile in your face. and besides, there is such a glare of the sun about him, that he will quite blind my poor eyes, which i have almost wept away already." "you have promised to be my companion," answered ceres. "come, let us make haste, or the sunshine will be gone, and phoebus along with it." accordingly, they went along in quest of phoebus, both of them sighing grievously, and hecate, to say the truth, making a great deal worse lamentation than ceres; for all the pleasure she had, you know, lay in being miserable, and therefore she made the most of it. by and by, after a pretty long journey, they arrived at the sunniest spot in the whole world. there they beheld a beautiful young man, with long, curling ringlets, which seemed to be made of golden sunbeams; his garments were like light summer clouds; and the expression of his face was so exceedingly vivid, that hecate held her hands before her eyes, muttering that he ought to wear a black veil. phoebus (for this was the very person whom they were seeking) had a lyre in his hands, and was making its chords tremble with sweet music; at the same time singing a most exquisite song, which he had recently composed. for, besides a great many other accomplishments, this young man was renowned for his admirable poetry. as ceres and her dismal companion approached him, phoebus smiled on them so cheerfully that hecate's wreath of snakes gave a spiteful hiss, and hecate heartily wished herself back in her cave. but as for ceres, she was too earnest in her grief either to know or care whether phoebus smiled or frowned. "phoebus!" exclaimed she, "i am in great trouble, and have come to you for assistance. can you tell me what has become of my dear child proserpina?" "proserpina! proserpina, did you call her name?" answered phoebus, endeavoring to recollect; for there was such a continual flow of pleasant ideas in his mind that he was apt to forget what had happened no longer ago than yesterday. "ah, yes, i remember her now. a very lovely child, indeed. i am happy to tell you, my dear madam, that i did see the little proserpina not many days ago. you may make yourself perfectly easy about her. she is safe, and in excellent hands." "oh, where is my dear child?" cried ceres, clasping her hands and flinging herself at his feet. "why," said phoebus,--and as he spoke, he kept touching his lyre so as to make a thread of music run in and out among his words,--"as the little damsel was gathering flowers (and she has really a very exquisite taste for flowers) she was suddenly snatched up by king pluto, and carried off to his dominions. i have never been in that part of the universe; but the royal palace, i am told, is built in a very noble style of architecture, and of the most splendid and costly materials. gold, diamonds, pearls, and all manner of precious stones will be your daughter's ordinary playthings. i recommend to you, my dear lady, to give yourself no uneasiness. proserpina's sense of beauty will be duly gratified, and, even in spite of the lack of sunshine, she will lead a very enviable life." "hush! say not such a word!" answered ceres, indignantly. "what is there to gratify her heart? what are all the splendors you speak of, without affection? i must have her back again. will you go with me, phoebus, to demand my daughter of this wicked pluto?" "pray excuse me," replied phoebus, with an elegant obeisance. "i certainly wish you success, and regret that my own affairs are so immediately pressing that i cannot have the pleasure of attending you. besides, i am not upon the best of terms with king pluto. to tell you the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass the gateway; for i should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me, and those, you know, are forbidden things in pluto's kingdom." "ah, phoebus," said ceres, with bitter meaning in her words, "you have a harp instead of a heart. farewell." "will not you stay a moment," asked phoebus, "and hear me turn the pretty and touching story of proserpina into extemporary verses?" but ceres shook her head, and hastened away, along with hecate. phoebus (who, as i have told you, was an exquisite poet) forthwith began to make an ode about the poor mother's grief; and, if we were to judge of his sensibility by this beautiful production, he must have been endowed with a very tender heart. but when a poet gets into the habit of using his heart-strings to make chords for his lyre, he may thrum upon them as much as he will, without any great pain to himself. accordingly, though phoebus sang a very sad song, he was as merry all the while as were the sunbeams amid which he dwelt. poor mother ceres had now found out what had become of her daughter, but was not a whit happier than before. her case, on the contrary, looked more desperate than ever. as long as proserpina was above ground there might have been hopes of regaining her. but now that the poor child was shut up within the iron gates of the king of the mines, at the threshold of which lay the three-headed cerberus, there seemed no possibility of her ever making her escape. the dismal hecate, who loved to take the darkest view of things, told ceres that she had better come with her to the cavern, and spend the rest of her life in being miserable. ceres answered that hecate was welcome to go back thither herself, but that, for her part, she would wander about the earth in quest of the entrance to king pluto's dominions. and hecate took her at her word, and hurried back to her beloved cave, frightening a great many little children with a glimpse of her dog's face, as she went. poor mother ceres! it is melancholy to think of her, pursuing her toilsome way all alone, and holding up that never-dying torch, the flame of which seemed an emblem of the grief and hope that burned together in her heart. so much did she suffer, that, though her aspect had been quite youthful when her troubles began, she grew to look like an elderly person in a very brief time. she cared not how she was dressed, nor had she ever thought of flinging away the wreath of withered poppies, which she put on the very morning of proserpina's disappearance. she roamed about in so wild a way, and with her hair so dishevelled, that people took her for some distracted creature, and never dreamed that this was mother ceres, who had the oversight of every seed which the husbandman planted. nowadays, however, she gave herself no trouble about seed-time nor harvest, but left the farmers to take care of their own affairs, and the crops to fade or flourish, as the case might be. there was nothing, now, in which ceres seemed to feel an interest, unless when she saw children at play, or gathering flowers along the wayside. then, indeed, she would stand and gaze at them with tears in her eyes. the children, too, appeared to have a sympathy with her grief, and would cluster themselves in a little group about her knees, and look up wistfully in her face; and ceres, after giving them a kiss all round, would lead them to their homes, and advise their mothers never to let them stray out of sight. "for if they do," said she, "it may happen to you, as it has to me, that the iron-hearted king pluto will take a liking to your darlings, and snatch them up in his chariot, and carry them away." one day, during her pilgrimage in quest of the entrance to pluto's kingdom, she came to the palace of king celeus, who reigned at eleusis. ascending a lofty flight of steps, she entered the portal, and found the royal household in very great alarm about the queen's baby. the infant, it seems, was sickly (being troubled with its teeth, i suppose), and would take no food, and was all the time moaning with pain. the queen--her name was metanira--was desirous of finding a nurse; and when she beheld a woman of matronly aspect coming up the palace steps, she thought, in her own mind, that here was the very person whom she needed. so queen metanira ran to the door, with the poor wailing baby in her arms, and besought ceres to take charge of it, or, at least, to tell her what would do it good. "will you trust the child entirely to me?" asked ceres. "yes, and gladly too," answered the queen, "if you will devote all your time to him. for i can see that you have been a mother." "you are right," said ceres. "i once had a child of my own. well; i will be the nurse of this poor, sickly boy. but beware, i warn you, that you do not interfere with any kind of treatment which i may judge proper for him. if you do so, the poor infant must suffer for his mother's folly." then she kissed the child, and it seemed to do him good; for he smiled and nestled closely into her bosom. so mother ceres set her torch in a corner (where it kept burning all the while), and took up her abode in the palace of king celeus, as nurse to the little prince demophoön. she treated him as if he were her own child, and allowed neither the king nor the queen to say whether he should be bathed in warm or cold water, or what he should eat, or how often he should take the air, or when he should be put to bed. you would hardly believe me, if i were to tell how quickly the baby prince got rid of his ailments, and grew fat, and rosy, and strong, and how he had two rows of ivory teeth in less time than any other little fellow, before or since. instead of the palest, and wretchedest, and puniest imp in the world (as his own mother confessed him to be when ceres first took him in charge), he was now a strapping baby, crowing, laughing, kicking up his heels, and rolling from one end of the room to the other. all the good women of the neighborhood crowded to the palace, and held up their hands, in unutterable amazement, at the beauty and wholesomeness of this darling little prince. their wonder was the greater, because he was never seen to taste any food; not even so much as a cup of milk. "pray, nurse," the queen kept saying, "how is it that you make the child thrive so?" "i was a mother once," ceres always replied; "and having nursed my own child, i know what other children need." but queen metanira, as was very natural, had a great curiosity to know precisely what the nurse did to her child. one night, therefore, she hid herself in the chamber where ceres and the little prince were accustomed to sleep. there was a fire in the chimney, and it had now crumbled into great coals and embers, which lay glowing on the hearth, with a blaze flickering up now and then, and flinging a warm and ruddy light upon the walls. ceres sat before the hearth with the child in her lap, and the fire-light making her shadow dance upon the ceiling overhead. she undressed the little prince, and bathed him all over with some fragrant liquid out of a vase. the next thing she did was to rake back the red embers, and make a hollow place among them, just where the backlog had been. at last, while the baby was crowing, and clapping its fat little hands, and laughing in the nurse's face (just as you may have seen your little brother or sister do before going into its warm bath), ceres suddenly laid him, all naked as he was, in the hollow among the red-hot embers. she then raked the ashes over him, and turned quietly away. you may imagine, if you can, how queen metanira shrieked, thinking nothing less than that her dear child would be burned to a cinder. she burst forth from her hiding-place, and running to the hearth, raked open the fire, and snatched up poor little prince demophoön out of his bed of live coals, one of which he was gripping in each of his fists. he immediately set up a grievous cry, as babies are apt to do when rudely startled out of a sound sleep. to the queen's astonishment and joy, she could perceive no token of the child's being injured by the hot fire in which he had lain. she now turned to mother ceres, and asked her to explain the mystery. "foolish woman," answered ceres, "did you not promise to intrust this poor infant entirely to me? you little know the mischief you have done him. had you left him to my care, he would have grown up like a child of celestial birth, endowed with super-human strength and intelligence, and would have lived forever. do you imagine that earthly children are to become immortal without being tempered to it in the fiercest heat of the fire? but you have ruined your own son. for though he will be a strong man and a hero in his day, yet, on account of your folly, he will grow old, and finally die, like the sons of other women. the weak tenderness of his mother has cost the poor boy an immortality. farewell." saying these words, she kissed the little prince demophoön, and sighed to think what he had lost, and took her departure without heeding queen metanira, who entreated her to remain, and cover up the child among the hot embers as often as she pleased. poor baby! he never slept so warmly again. while she dwelt in the king's palace, mother ceres had been so continually occupied with taking care of the young prince, that her heart was a little lightened of its grief for proserpina. but now, having nothing else to busy herself about, she became just as wretched as before. at length, in her despair, she came to the dreadful resolution that not a stalk of grain, nor a blade of grass, not a potato, nor a turnip, nor any other vegetable that was good for man or beast to eat, should be suffered to grow until her daughter were restored. she even forbade the flowers to bloom, lest somebody's heart should be cheered by their beauty. now, as not so much as a head of asparagus ever presumed to poke itself out of the ground, without the especial permission of ceres, you may conceive what a terrible calamity had here fallen upon the earth. the husbandmen ploughed and planted as usual; but there lay the rich black furrows, all as barren as a desert of sand. the pastures looked as brown in the sweet month of june as ever they did in chill november. the rich man's broad acres and the cottager's small garden-patch were equally blighted. every little girl's flower-bed showed nothing but dry stalks. the old people shook their white heads, and said that the earth had grown aged like themselves, and was no longer capable of wearing the warm smile of summer on its face. it was really piteous to see the poor, starving cattle and sheep, how they followed behind ceres, lowing and bleating, as if their instinct taught them to expect help from her; and everybody that was acquainted with her power besought her to have mercy on the human race, and, at all events, to let the grass grow. but mother ceres, though naturally of an affectionate disposition, was now inexorable. "never," said she. "if the earth is ever again to see any verdure, it must first grow along the path which my daughter will tread in coming back to me." finally, as there seemed to be no other remedy, our old friend quicksilver was sent post haste to king pluto, in hopes that he might be persuaded to undo the mischief he had done, and to set everything right again, by giving up proserpina. quicksilver accordingly made the best of his way to the great gate, took a flying leap right over the three-headed mastiff, and stood at the door of the palace in an inconceivably short time. the servants knew him both by his face and garb; for his short cloak, and his winged cap and shoes, and his snaky staff had often been seen thereabouts in times gone by. he requested to be shown immediately into the king's presence; and pluto, who heard his voice from the top of the stairs, and who loved to recreate himself with quicksilver's merry talk, called out to him to come up. and while they settle their business together, we must inquire what proserpina has been doing ever since we saw her last. the child had declared, as you may remember, that she would not taste a mouthful of food as long as she should be compelled to remain in king pluto's palace. how she contrived to maintain her resolution, and at the same time to keep herself tolerably plump and rosy, is more than i can explain; but some young ladies, i am given to understand, possess the faculty of living on air, and proserpina seems to have possessed it too. at any rate, it was now six months since she left the outside of the earth; and not a morsel, so far as the attendants were able to testify, had yet passed between her teeth. this was the more creditable to proserpina, inasmuch as king pluto had caused her to be tempted day after day, with all manner of sweetmeats, and richly preserved fruits, and delicacies of every sort, such as young people are generally most fond of. but her good mother had often told her of the hurtfulness of these things; and for that reason alone, if there had been no other, she would have resolutely refused to taste them. all this time, being of a cheerful and active disposition, the little damsel was not quite so unhappy as you may have supposed. the immense palace had a thousand rooms, and was full of beautiful and wonderful objects. there was a never-ceasing gloom, it is true, which half hid itself among the innumerable pillars, gliding before the child as she wandered among them, and treading stealthily behind her in the echo of her footsteps. neither was all the dazzle of the precious stones, which flamed with their own light, worth one gleam of natural sunshine; nor could the most brilliant of the many-colored gems, which proserpina had for playthings, vie with the simple beauty of the flowers she used to gather. but still, wherever the girl went, among those gilded halls and chambers, it seemed as if she carried nature and sunshine along with her, and as if she scattered dewy blossoms on her right hand and on her left. after proserpina came, the palace was no longer the same abode of stately artifice and dismal magnificence that it had before been. the inhabitants all felt this, and king pluto more than any of them. "my own little proserpina," he used to say, "i wish you could like me a little better. we gloomy and cloudy-natured persons have often as warm hearts at bottom, as those of a more cheerful character. if you would only stay with me of your own accord, it would make me happier than the possession of a hundred such palaces as this." "ah," said proserpina, "you should have tried to make me like you before carrying me off. and the best thing you can do now is, to let me go again. then i might remember you sometimes, and think that you were as kind as you knew how to be. perhaps, too, one day or other, i might come back, and pay you a visit." "no, no," answered pluto, with his gloomy smile, "i will not trust you for that. you are too fond of living in the broad daylight, and gathering flowers. what an idle and childish taste that is! are not these gems, which i have ordered to be dug for you, and which are richer than any in my crown,--are they not prettier than a violet?" "not half so pretty," said proserpina, snatching the gems from pluto's hand, and flinging them to the other end of the hall. "oh, my sweet violets, shall i never see you again?" and then she burst into tears. but young people's tears have very little saltness or acidity in them, and do not inflame the eyes so much as those of grown persons; so that it is not to be wondered at if, a few moments afterwards, proserpina was sporting through the hall almost as merrily as she and the four sea-nymphs had sported along the edge of the surf wave. king pluto gazed after her, and wished that he, too, was a child. and little proserpina, when she turned about, and beheld this great king standing in his splendid hall, and looking so grand, and so melancholy, and so lonesome, was smitten with a kind of pity. she ran back to him, and, for the first time in all her life, put her small soft hand in his. "i love you a little," whispered she, looking up in his face. "do you, indeed, my dear child?" cried pluto, bending his dark face down to kiss her; but proserpina shrank away from the kiss, for though his features were noble, they were very dusky and grim. "well, i have not deserved it of you, after keeping you a prisoner for so many months, and starving you, besides. are you not terribly hungry? is there nothing which i can get you to eat?" in asking this question, the king of the mines had a very cunning purpose; for, you will recollect, if proserpina tasted a morsel of food in his dominions, she would never afterwards be at liberty to quit them. "no, indeed," said proserpina. "your head cook is always baking, and stewing, and roasting, and rolling out paste, and contriving one dish or another, which he imagines may be to my liking. but he might just as well save himself the trouble, poor, fat little man that he is. i have no appetite for anything in the world, unless it were a slice of bread of my mother's own baking, or a little fruit out of her garden." when pluto heard this, he began to see that he had mistaken the best method of tempting proserpina to eat. the cook's made dishes and artificial dainties were not half so delicious, in the good child's opinion, as the simple fare to which mother ceres had accustomed her. wondering that he had never thought of it before, the king now sent one of his trusty attendants, with a large basket, to get some of the finest and juiciest pears, peaches, and plums which could anywhere be found in the upper world. unfortunately, however, this was during the time when ceres had forbidden any fruits or vegetables to grow; and, after seeking all over the earth, king pluto's servant found only a single pomegranate, and that so dried up as to be not worth eating. nevertheless, since there was no better to be had, he brought this dry, old, withered pomegranate home to the palace, put it on a magnificent golden salver, and carried it up to proserpina. now it happened, curiously enough, that, just as the servant was bringing the pomegranate into the back door of the palace, our friend quicksilver had gone up the front steps, on his errand to get proserpina away from king pluto. as soon as proserpina saw the pomegranate on the golden salver, she told the servant he had better take it away again. "i shall not touch it, i assure you," said she. "if i were ever so hungry, i should never think of eating such a miserable, dry pomegranate as that." "it is the only one in the world," said the servant. he set down the golden salver, with the wizened pomegranate upon it, and left the room. when he was gone, proserpina could not help coming close to the table, and looking at this poor specimen of dried fruit with a great deal of eagerness; for, to say the truth, on seeing something that suited her taste, she felt all the six months' appetite taking possession of her at once. to be sure, it was a very wretched-looking pomegranate, and seemed to have no more juice in it than an oyster-shell. but there was no choice of such things in king pluto's palace. this was the first fruit she had seen there, and the last she was ever likely to see; and unless she ate it up immediately, it would grow drier than it already was, and be wholly unfit to eat. "at least, i may smell it," thought proserpina. so she took up the pomegranate, and applied it to her nose; and, somehow or other, being in such close neighborhood to her mouth, the fruit found its way into that little red cave. dear me! what an everlasting pity! before proserpina knew what she was about, her teeth had actually bitten it, of their own accord. just as this fatal deed was done, the door of the apartment opened, and in came king pluto, followed by quicksilver, who had been urging him to let his little prisoner go. at the first noise of their entrance, proserpina withdrew the pomegranate from her mouth. but quicksilver (whose eyes were very keen, and his wits the sharpest that ever anybody had) perceived that the child was a little confused; and seeing the empty salver, he suspected that she had been taking a sly nibble of something or other. as for honest pluto, he never guessed at the secret. "my little proserpina," said the king, sitting down, and affectionately drawing her between his knees, "here is quicksilver, who tells me that a great many misfortunes have befallen innocent people on account of my detaining you in my dominions. to confess the truth, i myself had already reflected that it was an unjustifiable act to take you away from your good mother. but, then, you must consider, my dear child, that this vast palace is apt to be gloomy (although the precious stones certainly shine very bright), and that i am not of the most cheerful disposition, and that therefore it was a natural thing enough to seek for the society of some merrier creature than myself. i hoped you would take my crown for a plaything, and me--ah, you laugh, naughty proserpina--me, grim as i am, for a playmate. it was a silly expectation." "not so extremely silly," whispered proserpina. "you have really amused me very much, sometimes." "thank you," said king pluto, rather dryly. "but i can see, plainly enough, that you think my palace a dusky prison, and me the iron-hearted keeper of it. and an iron heart i should surely have, if i could detain you here any longer, my poor child, when it is now six months since you tasted food. i give you your liberty. go with quicksilver. hasten home to your dear mother." now, although you may not have supposed it, proserpina found it impossible to take leave of poor king pluto without some regrets, and a good deal of compunction for not telling him about the pomegranate. she even shed a tear or two, thinking how lonely and cheerless the great palace would seem to him, with all its ugly glare of artificial light, after she herself,--his one little ray of natural sunshine, whom he had stolen, to be sure, but only because he valued her so much,--after she should have departed. i know not how many kind things she might have said to the disconsolate king of the mines, had not quicksilver hurried her away. "come along quickly," whispered he in her ear, "or his majesty may change his royal mind. and take care, above all things, that you say nothing of what was brought you on the golden salver." in a very short time, they had passed the great gateway (leaving the three-headed cerberus, barking, and yelping, and growling, with threefold din, behind them), and emerged upon the surface of the earth. it was delightful to behold, as proserpina hastened along, how the path grew verdant behind and on either side of her. wherever she set her blessed foot, there was at once a dewy flower. the violets gushed up along the wayside. the grass and the grain began to sprout with tenfold vigor and luxuriance, to make up for the dreary months that had been wasted in barrenness. the starved cattle immediately set to work grazing, after their long fast, and ate enormously all day, and got up at midnight to eat more. but i can assure you it was a busy time of year with the farmers, when they found the summer coming upon them with such a rush. nor must i forget to say that all the birds in the whole world hopped about upon the newly blossoming trees, and sang together in a prodigious ecstasy of joy. mother ceres had returned to her deserted home, and was sitting disconsolately on the doorstep, with her torch burning in her hand. she had been idly watching the flame for some moments past, when, all at once, it flickered and went out. "what does this mean?" thought she. "it was an enchanted torch, and should have kept burning till my child came back." lifting her eyes, she was surprised to see a sudden verdure flashing over the brown and barren fields, exactly as you may have observed a golden hue gleaming far and wide across the landscape, from the just risen sun. "does the earth disobey me?" exclaimed mother ceres, indignantly. "does it presume to be green, when i have bidden it be barren, until my daughter shall be restored to my arms?" "then open your arms, dear mother," cried a well-known voice, "and take your little daughter into them." and proserpina came running, and flung herself upon her mother's bosom. their mutual transport is not to be described. the grief of their separation had caused both of them to shed a great many tears; and now they shed a great many more, because their joy could not so well express itself in any other way. when their hearts had grown a little more quiet, mother ceres looked anxiously at proserpina. "my child," said she, "did you taste any food while you were in king pluto's palace?" "dearest mother," answered proserpina, "i will tell you the whole truth. until this very morning, not a morsel of food had passed my lips. but to-day, they brought me a pomegranate (a very dry one it was, and all shrivelled up, till there was little left of it but seeds and skin), and having seen no fruit for so long a time, and being faint with hunger, i was tempted just to bite it. the instant i tasted it, king pluto and quicksilver came into the room. i had not swallowed a morsel; but--dear mother, i hope it was no harm--but six of the pomegranate seeds, i am afraid, remained in my mouth." "ah, unfortunate child, and miserable me!" exclaimed ceres. "for each of those six pomegranate seeds you must spend one month of every year in king pluto's palace. you are but half restored to your mother. only six months with me, and six with that good-for-nothing king of darkness!" "do not speak so harshly of poor king pluto," said proserpina, kissing her mother. "he has some very good qualities; and i really think i can bear to spend six months in his palace, if he will only let me spend the other six with you. he certainly did very wrong to carry me off; but then, as he says, it was but a dismal sort of life for him, to live in that great gloomy place, all alone; and it has made a wonderful change in his spirits to have a little girl to run up stairs and down. there is some comfort in making him so happy; and so, upon the whole, dearest mother, let us be thankful that he is not to keep me the whole year round." the golden fleece when jason, the son of the dethroned king of iolchos, was a little boy, he was sent away from his parents, and placed under the queerest schoolmaster that ever you heard of. this learned person was one of the people, or quadrupeds, called centaurs. he lived in a cavern, and had the body and legs of a white horse, with the head and shoulders of a man. his name was chiron; and, in spite of his odd appearance, he was a very excellent teacher, and had several scholars, who afterwards did him credit by making a great figure in the world. the famous hercules was one, and so was achilles, and philoctetes, likewise, and Æsculapius, who acquired immense repute as a doctor. the good chiron taught his pupils how to play upon the harp, and how to cure diseases, and how to use the sword and shield, together with various other branches of education, in which the lads of those days used to be instructed, instead of writing and arithmetic. i have sometimes suspected that master chiron was not really very different from other people, but that, being a kind-hearted and merry old fellow, he was in the habit of making believe that he was a horse, and scrambling about the school-room on all fours, and letting the little boys ride upon his back. and so, when his scholars had grown up, and grown old, and were trotting their grandchildren on their knees, they told them about the sports of their school-days; and these young folks took the idea that their grandfathers had been taught their letters by a centaur, half man and half horse. little children, not quite understanding what is said to them, often get such absurd notions into their heads, you know. be that as it may, it has always been told for a fact (and always will be told, as long as the world lasts), that chiron, with the head of a schoolmaster, had the body and legs of a horse. just imagine the grave old gentleman clattering and stamping into the school-room on his four hoofs, perhaps treading on some little fellow's toes, flourishing his switch tail instead of a rod, and, now and then, trotting out of doors to eat a mouthful of grass! i wonder what the blacksmith charged him for a set of iron shoes. so jason dwelt in the cave, with this four-footed chiron, from the time that he was an infant, only a few months old, until he had grown to the full height of a man. he became a very good harper, i suppose, and skilful in the use of weapons, and tolerably acquainted with herbs and other doctor's stuff, and, above all, an admirable horseman; for, in teaching young people to ride, the good chiron must have been without a rival among schoolmasters. at length, being now a tall and athletic youth, jason resolved to seek his fortune in the world, without asking chiron's advice, or telling him anything about the matter. this was very unwise, to be sure; and i hope none of you, my little hearers, will ever follow jason's example. but, you are to understand, he had heard how that he himself was a prince royal, and how his father, king Æson, had been deprived of the kingdom of iolchos by a certain pelias who would also have killed jason, had he not been hidden in the centaur's cave. and, being come to the strength of a man, jason determined to set all this business to rights, and to punish the wicked pelias for wronging his dear father, and to cast him down from the throne, and seat himself there instead. with this intention, he took a spear in each hand, and threw a leopard's skin over his shoulders, to keep off the rain, and set forth on his travels, with his long yellow ringlets waving in the wind. the part of his dress on which he most prided himself was a pair of sandals, that had been his father's. they were handsomely embroidered, and were tied upon his feet with strings of gold. but his whole attire was such as people did not very often see; and as he passed along, the women and children ran to the doors and windows, wondering whither this beautiful youth was journeying, with his leopard's skin and his golden-tied sandals, and what heroic deeds he meant to perform, with a spear in his right hand and another in his left. [illustration: jason and his teacher] i know not how far jason had travelled, when he came to a turbulent river, which rushed right across his pathway, with specks of white foam among its black eddies, hurrying tumultuously onward, and roaring angrily as it went. though not a very broad river in the dry seasons of the year, it was now swollen by heavy rains and by the melting of the snow on the sides of mount olympus; and it thundered so loudly, and looked so wild and dangerous, that jason, bold as he was, thought it prudent to pause upon the brink. the bed of the stream seemed to be strewn with sharp and rugged rocks, some of which thrust themselves above the water. by and by, an uprooted tree, with shattered branches, came drifting along the current, and got entangled among the rocks. now and then, a drowned sheep, and once the carcass of a cow, floated past. in short, the swollen river had already done a great deal of mischief. it was evidently too deep for jason to wade, and too boisterous for him to swim; he could see no bridge; and as for a boat, had there been any, the rocks would have broken it to pieces in an instant. "see the poor lad," said a cracked voice close to his side. "he must have had but a poor education, since he does not know how to cross a little stream like this. or is he afraid of wetting his fine golden-stringed sandals? it is a pity his four-footed schoolmaster is not here to carry him safely across on his back!" jason looked round greatly surprised, for he did not know that anybody was near. but beside him stood an old woman, with a ragged mantle over her head, leaning on a staff, the top of which was carved into the shape of a cuckoo. she looked very aged, and wrinkled, and infirm; and yet her eyes, which were as brown as those of an ox, were so extremely large and beautiful, that, when they were fixed on jason's eyes, he could see nothing else but them. the old woman had a pomegranate in her hand, although the fruit was then quite out of season. "whither are you going, jason?" she now asked. she seemed to know his name, you will observe; and, indeed, those great brown eyes looked as if they had a knowledge of everything, whether past or to come. while jason was gazing at her, a peacock strutted forward and took his stand at the old woman's side. "i am going to iolchos," answered the young man, "to bid the wicked king pelias come down from my father's throne, and let me reign in his stead." "ah, well, then," said the old woman, still with the same cracked voice, "if that is all your business, you need not be in a very great hurry. just take me on your back, there's a good youth, and carry me across the river. i and my peacock have something to do on the other side, as well as yourself." "good mother," replied jason, "your business can hardly be so important as the pulling down a king from his throne. besides, as you may see for yourself, the river is very boisterous; and if i should chance to stumble, it would sweep both of us away more easily than it has carried off yonder uprooted tree. i would gladly help you if i could; but i doubt whether i am strong enough to carry you across." "then," said she, very scornfully, "neither are you strong enough to pull king pelias off his throne. and, jason, unless you will help an old woman at her need, you ought not to be a king. what are kings made for, save to succor the feeble and distressed? but do as you please. either take me on your back, or with my poor old limbs i shall try my best to struggle across the stream." saying this, the old woman poked with her staff in the river, as if to find the safest place in its rocky bed where she might make the first step. but jason, by this time, had grown ashamed of his reluctance to help her. he felt that he could never forgive himself, if this poor feeble creature should come to any harm in attempting to wrestle against the headlong current. the good chiron, whether half horse or no, had taught him that the noblest use of his strength was to assist the weak; and also that he must treat every young woman as if she were his sister, and every old one like a mother. remembering these maxims, the vigorous and beautiful young man knelt down, and requested the good dame to mount upon his back. "the passage seems to me not very safe," he remarked. "but as your business is so urgent, i will try to carry you across. if the river sweeps you away, it shall take me too." "that, no doubt, will be a great comfort to both of us," quoth the old woman. "but never fear. we shall get safely across." so she threw her arms around jason's neck; and lifting her from the ground, he stepped boldly into the raging and foamy current, and began to stagger away from the shore. as for the peacock, it alighted on the old dame's shoulder. jason's two spears, one in each hand, kept him from stumbling, and enabled him to feel his way among the hidden rocks; although, every instant, he expected that his companion and himself would go down the stream, together with the drift-wood of shattered trees, and the carcasses of the sheep and cow. down came the cold, snowy torrent from the steep side of olympus, raging and thundering as if it had a real spite against jason, or, at all events, were determined to snatch off his living burden from his shoulders. when he was half-way across, the uprooted tree (which i have already told you about) broke loose from among the rocks, and bore down upon him, with all its splintered branches sticking out like the hundred arms of the giant briareus. it rushed past, however, without touching him. but the next moment, his foot was caught in a crevice between two rocks, and stuck there so fast, that, in the effort to get free, he lost one of his golden-stringed sandals. at this accident jason could not help uttering a cry of vexation. "what is the matter, jason?" asked the old woman. "matter enough," said the young man. "i have lost a sandal here among the rocks. and what sort of a figure shall i cut at the court of king pelias, with a golden-stringed sandal on one foot, and the other foot bare!" "do not take it to heart," answered his companion, cheerily. "you never met with better fortune than in losing that sandal. it satisfies me that you are the very person whom the speaking oak has been talking about." there was no time, just then, to inquire what the speaking oak had said. but the briskness of her tone encouraged the young man; and besides, he had never in his life felt so vigorous and mighty as since taking this old woman on his back. instead of being exhausted, he gathered strength as he went on; and, struggling up against the torrent, he at last gained the opposite shore, clambered up the bank, and set down the old dame and her peacock safely on the grass. as soon as this was done, however, he could not help looking rather despondently at his bare foot, with only a remnant of the golden string of the sandal clinging round his ankle. "you will get a handsomer pair of sandals by and by," said the old woman, with a kindly look out of her beautiful brown eyes. "only let king pelias get a glimpse of that bare foot, and you shall see him turn as pale as ashes, i promise you. there is your path. go along, my good jason, and my blessing go with you. and when you sit on your throne, remember the old woman whom you helped over the river." with these words, she hobbled away, giving him a smile over her shoulder as she departed. whether the light of her beautiful brown eyes threw a glory round about her, or whatever the cause might be, jason fancied that there was something very noble and majestic in her figure, after all, and that, though her gait seemed to be a rheumatic hobble, yet she moved with as much grace and dignity as any queen on earth. her peacock, which had now fluttered down from her shoulder, strutted behind her in prodigious pomp, and spread out its magnificent tail on purpose for jason to admire it. when the old dame and her peacock were out of sight, jason set forward on his journey. after travelling a pretty long distance, he came to a town situated at the foot of a mountain, and not a great way from the shore of the sea. on the outside of the town there was an immense crowd of people, not only men and women, but children, too, all in their best clothes, and evidently enjoying a holiday. the crowd was thickest towards the sea-shore; and in that direction, over the people's heads, jason saw a wreath of smoke curling upward to the blue sky. he inquired of one of the multitude what town it was, near by, and why so many persons were here assembled together. "this is the kingdom of iolchos," answered the man, "and we are the subjects of king pelias. our monarch has summoned us together, that we may see him sacrifice a black bull to neptune, who, they say, is his majesty's father. yonder is the king, where you see the smoke going up from the altar." while the man spoke he eyed jason with great curiosity; for his garb was quite unlike that of the iolchians, and it looked very odd to see a youth with a leopard's skin over his shoulders, and each hand grasping a spear. jason perceived, too, that the man stared particularly at his feet, one of which, you remember, was bare, while the other was decorated with his father's golden-stringed sandal. "look at him! only look at him!" said the man to his next neighbor. "do you see? he wears but one sandal!" upon this, first one person, and then another, began to stare at jason, and everybody seemed to be greatly struck with something in his aspect; though they turned their eyes much oftener towards his feet than to any other part of his figure. besides, he could hear them whispering to one another. "one sandal! one sandal!" they kept saying. "the man with one sandal! here he is at last! whence has he come? what does he mean to do? what will the king say to the one-sandalled man?" poor jason was greatly abashed, and made up his mind that the people of iolchos were exceedingly ill bred, to take such public notice of an accidental deficiency in his dress. meanwhile, whether it were that they hustled him forward, or that jason, of his own accord, thrust a passage through the crowd, it so happened that he soon found himself close to the smoking altar, where king pelias was sacrificing the black bull. the murmur and hum of the multitude, in their surprise at the spectacle of jason with his one bare foot, grew so loud that it disturbed the ceremonies; and the king, holding the great knife with which he was just going to cut the bull's throat, turned angrily about, and fixed his eyes on jason. the people had now withdrawn from around him, so that the youth stood in an open space near the smoking altar, front to front with the angry king pelias. "who are you?" cried the king, with a terrible frown. "and how dare you make this disturbance, while i am sacrificing a black bull to my father neptune?" "it is no fault of mine," answered jason. "your majesty must blame the rudeness of your subjects, who have raised all this tumult because one of my feet happens to be bare." when jason said this, the king gave a quick, startled glance down at his feet. "ha!" muttered he, "here is the one-sandalled fellow, sure enough! what can i do with him?" and he clutched more closely the great knife in his hand, as if he were half a mind to slay jason instead of the black bull. the people round about caught up the king's words indistinctly as they were uttered; and first there was a murmur among them, and then a loud shout. "the one-sandalled man has come! the prophecy must be fulfilled!" for you are to know that, many years before, king pelias had been told by the speaking oak of dodona, that a man with one sandal should cast him down from his throne. on this account, he had given strict orders that nobody should ever come into his presence, unless both sandals were securely tied upon his feet; and he kept an officer in his palace, whose sole business it was to examine people's sandals, and to supply them with a new pair, at the expense of the royal treasury, as soon as the old ones began to wear out. in the whole course of the king's reign, he had never been thrown into such a fright and agitation as by the spectacle of poor jason's bare foot. but, as he was naturally a bold and hard-hearted man, he soon took courage, and began to consider in what way he might rid himself of this terrible one-sandalled stranger. "my good young man," said king pelias, taking the softest tone imaginable, in order to throw jason off his guard, "you are excessively welcome to my kingdom. judging by your dress, you must have travelled a long distance; for it is not the fashion to wear leopard-skins in this part of the world. pray, what may i call your name? and where did you receive your education?" "my name is jason," answered the young stranger. "ever since my infancy, i have dwelt in the cave of chiron the centaur. he was my instructor, and taught me music, and horsemanship, and how to cure wounds, and likewise how to inflict wounds with my weapons!" "i have heard of chiron the schoolmaster," replied king pelias, "and how that there is an immense deal of learning and wisdom in his head, although it happens to be set on a horse's body. it gives me great delight to see one of his scholars at my court. but, to test how much you have profited under so excellent a teacher, will you allow me to ask you a single question?" "i do not pretend to be very wise," said jason. "but ask me what you please, and i will answer to the best of my ability." now king pelias meant cunningly to entrap the young man, and to make him say something that should be the cause of mischief and destruction to himself. so with a crafty and evil smile upon his face, he spoke as follows:-- "what would you do, brave jason," asked he, "if there were a man in the world, by whom, as you had reason to believe, you were doomed to be ruined and slain,--what would you do, i say, if that man stood before you, and in your power?" when jason saw the malice and wickedness which king pelias could not prevent from gleaming out of his eyes, he probably guessed that the king had discovered what he came for, and that he intended to turn his own words against himself. still he scorned to tell a falsehood. like an upright and honorable prince, as he was, he determined to speak out the real truth. since the king had chosen to ask him the question, and since jason had promised him an answer, there was no right way, save to tell him precisely what would be the most prudent thing to do, if he had his worst enemy in his power. therefore, after a moment's consideration, he spoke up, with a firm and manly voice. "i would send such a man," said he, "in quest of the golden fleece!" this enterprise, you will understand, was, of all others, the most difficult and dangerous in the world. in the first place, it would be necessary to make a long voyage through unknown seas. there was hardly a hope, or a possibility, that any young man who should undertake this voyage would either succeed in obtaining the golden fleece, or would survive to return home, and tell of the perils he had run. the eyes of king pelias sparkled with joy, therefore, when he heard jason's reply. "well said, wise man with the one sandal!" cried he. "go, then, and, at the peril of your life, bring me back the golden fleece." "i go," answered jason, composedly. "if i fail, you need not fear that i will ever come back to trouble you again. but if i return to iolchos with the prize, then, king pelias, you must hasten down from your lofty throne, and give me your crown and sceptre." "that i will," said the king, with a sneer. "meantime, i will keep them very safely for you." the first thing that jason thought of doing, after he left the king's presence, was to go to dodona, and inquire of the talking oak what course it was best to pursue. this wonderful tree stood in the centre of an ancient wood. its stately trunk rose up a hundred feet into the air, and threw a broad and dense shadow over more than an acre of ground. standing beneath it, jason looked up among the knotted branches and green leaves, and into the mysterious heart of the old tree, and spoke aloud, as if he were addressing some person who was hidden in the depths of the foliage. "what shall i do," said he, "in order to win the golden fleece?" at first there was a deep silence, not only within the shadow of the talking oak, but all through the solitary wood. in a moment or two, however, the leaves of the oak began to stir and rustle, as if a gentle breeze were wandering amongst them, although the other trees of the wood were perfectly still. the sound grew louder, and became like the roar of a high wind. by and by, jason imagined that he could distinguish words, but very confusedly, because each separate leaf of the tree seemed to be a tongue, and the whole myriad of tongues were babbling at once. but the noise waxed broader and deeper, until it resembled a tornado sweeping through the oak, and making one great utterance out of the thousand and thousand of little murmurs which each leafy tongue had caused by its rustling. and now, though it still had the tone of mighty wind roaring among the branches, it was also like a deep bass voice, speaking, as distinctly as a tree could be expected to speak, the following words:-- "go to argus, the ship-builder, and bid him build a galley with fifty oars." then the voice melted again into the indistinct murmur of the rustling leaves, and died gradually away. when it was quite gone, jason felt inclined to doubt whether he had actually heard the words, or whether his fancy had not shaped them out of the ordinary sound made by a breeze, while passing through the thick foliage of the tree. but on inquiry among the people of iolchos, he found that there was really a man in the city, by the name of argus, who was a very skilful builder of vessels. this showed some intelligence in the oak; else how should it have known that any such person existed? at jason's request, argus readily consented to build him a galley so big that it should require fifty strong men to row it; although no vessel of such a size and burden had heretofore been seen in the world. so the head carpenter, and all his journeymen and apprentices, began their work; and for a good while afterwards, there they were, busily employed, hewing out the timbers, and making a great clatter with their hammers; until the new ship, which was called the argo, seemed to be quite ready for sea. and, as the talking oak had already given him such good advice, jason thought that it would not be amiss to ask for a little more. he visited it again, therefore, and standing beside its huge, rough trunk, inquired what he should do next. this time, there was no such universal quivering of the leaves, throughout the whole tree, as there had been before. but after a while, jason observed that the foliage of a great branch which stretched above his head had begun to rustle, as if the wind were stirring that one bough, while all the other boughs of the oak were at rest. "cut me off!" said the branch, as soon as it could speak distinctly,--"cut me off! cut me off! and carve me into a figure-head for your galley." accordingly, jason took the branch at its word, and lopped it off the tree. a carver in the neighborhood engaged to make the figure-head. he was a tolerably good workman, and had already carved several figure-heads, in what he intended for feminine shapes, and looking pretty much like those which we see nowadays stuck up under a vessel's bowsprit, with great staring eyes, that never wink at the dash of the spray. but (what was very strange) the carver found that his hand was guided by some unseen power, and by a skill beyond his own, and that his tools shaped out an image which he had never dreamed of. when the work was finished, it turned out to be the figure of a beautiful woman with a helmet on her head, from beneath which the long ringlets fell down upon her shoulders. on the left arm was a shield, and in its centre appeared a lifelike representation of the head of medusa with the snaky locks. the right arm was extended, as if pointing onward. the face of this wonderful statue, though not angry or forbidding, was so grave and majestic, that perhaps you might call it severe; and as for the mouth, it seemed just ready to unclose its lips, and utter words of the deepest wisdom. jason was delighted with the oaken image, and gave the carver no rest until it was completed, and set up where a figure-head has always stood, from that time to this, in the vessel's prow. "and now," cried he, as he stood gazing at the calm, majestic face of the statue, "i must go to the talking oak, and inquire what next to do." "there is no need of that, jason," said a voice which, though it was far lower, reminded him of the mighty tones of the great oak. "when you desire good advice, you can seek it of me." jason had been looking straight into the face of the image when these words were spoken. but he could hardly believe either his ears or his eyes. the truth was, however, that the oaken lips had moved, and, to all appearance, the voice had proceeded from the statue's mouth. recovering a little from his surprise, jason bethought himself that the image had been carved out of the wood of the talking oak, and that, therefore, it was really no great wonder, but on the contrary, the most natural thing in the world, that it should possess the faculty of speech. it would have been very odd, indeed, if it had not. but certainly it was a great piece of good fortune that he should be able to carry so wise a block of wood along with him in his perilous voyage. "tell me, wondrous image," exclaimed jason,--"since you inherit the wisdom of the speaking oak of dodona, whose daughter you are,--tell me, where shall i find fifty bold youths, who will take each of them an oar of my galley? they must have sturdy arms to row, and brave hearts to encounter perils, or we shall never win the golden fleece." "go," replied the oaken image,--"go, summon all the heroes of greece." and, in fact, considering what a great deed was to be done, could any advice be wiser than this which jason received from the figure-head of his vessel? he lost no time in sending messengers to all the cities, and making known to the whole people of greece, that prince jason, the son of king Æson, was going in quest of the fleece of gold, and that he desired the help of forty-nine of the bravest and strongest young men alive, to row his vessel and share his dangers. and jason himself would be the fiftieth. at this news, the adventurous youths, all over the country, began to bestir themselves. some of them had already fought with giants, and slain dragons; and the younger ones, who had not yet met with such good fortune, thought it a shame to have lived so long without getting astride of a flying serpent, or sticking their spears into a chimæra, or, at least, thrusting their right arms down a monstrous lion's throat. there was a fair prospect that they would meet with plenty of such adventures before finding the golden fleece. as soon as they could furbish up their helmets and shields, therefore, and gird on their trusty swords, they came thronging to iolchos, and clambered on board the new galley. shaking hands with jason, they assured him that they did not care a pin for their lives, but would help row the vessel to the remotest edge of the world, and as much farther as he might think it best to go. many of these brave fellows had been educated by chiron, the four-footed pedagogue, and were therefore old schoolmates of jason, and knew him to be a lad of spirit. the mighty hercules, whose shoulders afterwards held up the sky, was one of them. and there were castor and pollux, the twin brothers, who were never accused of being chicken-hearted, although they had been hatched out of an egg; and theseus, who was so renowned for killing the minotaur; and lynceus, with his wonderfully sharp eyes, which could see through a millstone, or look right down into the depths of the earth, and discover the treasures that were there; and orpheus, the very best of harpers, who sang and played upon his lyre so sweetly, that the brute beasts stood upon their hind legs, and capered merrily to the music. yes, and at some of his more moving tunes, the rocks bestirred their moss-grown bulk out of the ground, and a grove of forest trees uprooted themselves, and, nodding their tops to one another, performed a country dance. one of the rowers was a beautiful young woman, named atalanta, who had been nursed among the mountains by a bear. so light of foot was this fair damsel that she could step from one foamy crest of a wave to the foamy crest of another, without wetting more than the sole of her sandal. she had grown up in a very wild way, and talked much about the rights of women, and loved hunting and war far better than her needle. but, in my opinion, the most remarkable of this famous company were two sons of the north wind (airy youngsters, and of rather a blustering disposition), who had wings on their shoulders, and, in case of a calm, could puff out their cheeks, and blow almost as fresh a breeze as their father. i ought not to forget the prophets and conjurers, of whom there were several in the crew, and who could foretell what would happen to-morrow, or the next day, or a hundred years hence, but were generally quite unconscious of what was passing at the moment. jason appointed tiphys to be helmsman, because he was a star-gazer, and knew the points of the compass. lynceus, on account of his sharp sight, was stationed as a lookout in the prow, where he saw a whole day's sail ahead, but was rather apt to overlook things that lay directly under his nose. if the sea only happened to be deep enough, however, lynceus could tell you exactly what kind of rocks or sands were at the bottom of it; and he often cried out to his companions, that they were sailing over heaps of sunken treasure, which yet he was none the richer for beholding. to confess the truth, few people believed him when he said it. well! but when the argonauts, as these fifty brave adventurers were called, had prepared everything for the voyage, an unforeseen difficulty threatened to end it before it was begun. the vessel, you must understand, was so long, and broad, and ponderous, that the united force of all the fifty was insufficient to shove her into the water. hercules, i suppose, had not grown to his full strength, else he might have set her afloat as easily as a little boy launches his boat upon a puddle. but here were these fifty heroes pushing, and straining, and growing red in the face, without making the argo start an inch. at last, quite wearied out, they sat themselves down on the shore, exceedingly disconsolate, and thinking that the vessel must be left to rot and fall in pieces, and that they must either swim across the sea or lose the golden fleece. all at once, jason bethought himself of the galley's miraculous figure-head. "o daughter of the talking oak," cried he, "how shall we set to work to get our vessel into the water?" "seat yourselves," answered the image (for it had known what ought to be done from the very first, and was only waiting for the question to be put),--"seat yourselves, and handle your oars, and let orpheus play upon his harp." immediately the fifty heroes got on board, and seizing their oars, held them perpendicularly in the air, while orpheus (who liked such a task far better than rowing) swept his fingers across the harp. at the first ringing note of the music, they felt the vessel stir. orpheus thrummed away briskly, and the galley slid at once into the sea, dipping her prow so deeply that the figure-head drank the wave with its marvellous lips, and rose again as buoyant as a swan. the rowers plied their fifty oars; the white foam boiled up before the prow; the water gurgled and bubbled in their wake; while orpheus continued to play so lively a strain of music, that the vessel seemed to dance over the billows by way of keeping time to it. thus triumphantly did the argo sail out of the harbor, amidst the huzzas and good wishes of everybody except the wicked old pelias, who stood on a promontory, scowling at her, and wishing that he could blow out of his lungs the tempest of wrath that was in his heart, and so sink the galley with all on board. when they had sailed above fifty miles over the sea, lynceus happened to cast his sharp eyes behind, and said that there was this bad-hearted king, still perched upon the promontory, and scowling so gloomily that it looked like a black thunder-cloud in that quarter of the horizon. in order to make the time pass away more pleasantly during the voyage, the heroes talked about the golden fleece. it originally belonged, it appears, to a boeotian ram, who had taken on his back two children, when in danger of their lives, and fled with them over land and sea, as far as colchis. one of the children, whose name was helle, fell into the sea and was drowned. but the other (a little boy, named phrixus) was brought safe ashore by the faithful ram, who, however, was so exhausted that he immediately lay down and died. in memory of this good deed, and as a token of his true heart, the fleece of the poor dead ram was miraculously changed to gold, and became one of the most beautiful objects ever seen on earth. it was hung upon a tree in a sacred grove, where it had now been kept i know not how many years, and was the envy of mighty kings, who had nothing so magnificent in any of their palaces. if i were to tell you all the adventures of the argonauts, it would take me till nightfall, and perhaps a great deal longer. there was no lack of wonderful events, as you may judge from what you may have already heard. at a certain island they were hospitably received by king cyzicus, its sovereign, who made a feast for them, and treated them like brothers. but the argonauts saw that this good king looked downcast and very much troubled, and they therefore inquired of him what was the matter. king cyzicus hereupon informed them that he and his subjects were greatly abused and incommoded by the inhabitants of a neighboring mountain, who made war upon them, and killed many people, and ravaged the country. and while they were talking about it, cyzicus pointed to the mountain, and asked jason and his companions what they saw there. "i see some very tall objects," answered jason; "but they are at such a distance that i cannot distinctly make out what they are. to tell your majesty the truth, they look so very strangely that i am inclined to think them clouds, which have chanced to take something like human shapes." "i see them very plainly," remarked lynceus, whose eyes, you know, were as far-sighted as a telescope. "they are a band of enormous giants, all of whom have six arms apiece, and a club, a sword, or some other weapon in each of their hands." "you have excellent eyes," said king cyzicus. "yes; they are six-armed giants, as you say, and these are the enemies whom i and my subjects have to contend with." the next day, when the argonauts were about setting sail, down came these terrible giants, stepping a hundred yards at a stride, brandishing their six arms apiece, and looking very formidable, so far aloft in the air. each of these monsters was able to carry on a whole war by himself, for with one of his arms he could fling immense stones, and wield a club with another, and a sword with a third, while the fourth was poking a long spear at the enemy, and the fifth and sixth were shooting him with a bow and arrow. but, luckily, though the giants were so huge, and had so many arms, they had each but one heart, and that no bigger nor braver than the heart of an ordinary man. besides, if they had been like the hundred-armed briareus, the brave argonauts would have given them their hands full of fight. jason and his friends went boldly to meet them, slew a great many, and made the rest take to their heels, so that, if the giants had had six legs apiece instead of six arms, it would have served them better to run away with. another strange adventure happened when the voyagers came to thrace, where they found a poor blind king, named phineus, deserted by his subjects, and living in a very sorrowful way, all by himself. on jason's inquiring whether they could do him any service, the king answered that he was terribly tormented by three great winged creatures, called harpies, which had the faces of women, and the wings, bodies, and claws of vultures. these ugly wretches were in the habit of snatching away his dinner, and allowing him no peace of his life. upon hearing this, the argonauts spread a plentiful feast on the sea-shore, well knowing, from what the blind king said of their greediness, that the harpies would snuff up the scent of the victuals, and quickly come to steal them away. and so it turned out; for, hardly was the table set, before the three hideous vulture women came flapping their wings, seized the food in their talons, and flew off as fast as they could. but the two sons of the north wind drew their swords, spread their pinions, and set off through the air in pursuit of the thieves, whom they at last overtook among some islands, after a chase of hundreds of miles. the two winged youths blustered terribly at the harpies (for they had the rough temper of their father), and so frightened them with their drawn swords, that they solemnly promised never to trouble king phineus again. then the argonauts sailed onward, and met with many other marvellous incidents any one of which would make a story by itself. at one time, they landed on an island, and were reposing on the grass, when they suddenly found themselves assailed by what seemed a shower of steel-headed arrows. some of them stuck in the ground, while others hit against their shields, and several penetrated their flesh. the fifty heroes started up, and looked about them for the hidden enemy, but could find none, nor see any spot, on the whole island, where even a single archer could lie concealed. still, however, the steel-headed arrows came whizzing among them; and, at last, happening to look upward, they beheld a large flock of birds, hovering and wheeling aloft, and shooting their feathers down upon the argonauts. these feathers were the steel-headed arrows that had so tormented them. there was no possibility of making any resistance; and the fifty heroic argonauts might all have been killed or wounded by a flock of troublesome birds, without ever setting eyes on the golden fleece, if jason had not thought of asking the advice of the oaken image. [illustration: the argonauts in quest of the golden fleece (from the original in the collection of harry payne whitney esq're, new york)] so he ran to the galley as fast as his legs would carry him. "o daughter of the speaking oak," cried he, all out of breath, "we need your wisdom more than ever before! we are in great peril from a flock of birds, who are shooting us with their steel-pointed feathers. what can we do to drive them away?" "make a clatter on your shields," said the image. on receiving this excellent counsel, jason hurried back to his companions (who were far more dismayed than when they fought with the six-armed giants), and bade them strike with their swords upon their brazen shields. forthwith the fifty heroes set heartily to work, banging with might and main, and raised such a terrible clatter that the birds made what haste they could to get away; and though they had shot half the feathers out of their wings, they were soon seen skimming among the clouds, a long distance off, and looking like a flock of wild geese. orpheus celebrated this victory by playing a triumphant anthem on his harp, and sang so melodiously that jason begged him to desist, lest, as the steel-feathered birds had been driven away by an ugly sound, they might be enticed back again by a sweet one. while the argonauts remained on this island, they saw a small vessel approaching the shore, in which were two young men of princely demeanor, and exceedingly handsome, as young princes generally were in those days. now, who do you imagine these two voyagers turned out to be? why, if you will believe me, they were the sons of that very phrixus, who, in his childhood, had been carried to colchis on the back of the golden-fleeced ram. since that time, phrixus had married the king's daughter; and the two young princes had been born and brought up at colchis, and had spent their play-days in the outskirts of the grove, in the centre of which the golden fleece was hanging upon a tree. they were now on their way to greece, in hopes of getting back a kingdom that had been wrongfully taken from their father. when the princes understood whither the argonauts were going, they offered to turn back and guide them to colchis. at the same time, however, they spoke as if it were very doubtful whether jason would succeed in getting the golden fleece. according to their account, the tree on which it hung was guarded by a terrible dragon, who never failed to devour, at one mouthful, every person who might venture within his reach. "there are other difficulties in the way," continued the young princes. "but is not this enough? ah, brave jason, turn back before it is too late. it would grieve us to the heart, if you and your nine-and-forty brave companions should be eaten up, at fifty mouthfuls, by this execrable dragon." "my young friends," quietly replied jason, "i do not wonder that you think the dragon very terrible. you have grown up from infancy in the fear of this monster, and therefore still regard him with the awe that children feel for the bugbears and hobgoblins which their nurses have talked to them about. but, in my view of the matter, the dragon is merely a pretty large serpent, who is not half so likely to snap me up at one mouthful as i am to cut off his ugly head, and strip the skin from his body. at all events, turn back who may, i will never see greece again unless i carry with me the golden fleece." "we will none of us turn back!" cried his nine-and-forty brave comrades. "let us get on board the galley this instant; and if the dragon is to make a breakfast of us, much good may it do him." and orpheus (whose custom it was to set everything to music) began to harp and sing most gloriously, and made every mother's son of them feel as if nothing in this world were so delectable as to fight dragons, and nothing so truly honorable as to be eaten up at one mouthful, in case of the worst. after this (being now under the guidance of the two princes, who were well acquainted with the way), they quickly sailed to colchis. when the king of the country, whose name was Æetes, heard of their arrival, he instantly summoned jason to court. the king was a stern and cruel-looking potentate; and though he put on as polite and hospitable an expression as he could, jason did not like his face a whit better than that of the wicked king pelias, who dethroned his father. "you are welcome, brave jason," said king Æetes. "pray, are you on a pleasure voyage?--or do you meditate the discovery of unknown islands?--or what other cause has procured me the happiness of seeing you at my court?" "great sir," replied jason, with an obeisance,--for chiron had taught him how to behave with propriety, whether to kings or beggars,--"i have come hither with a purpose which i now beg your majesty's permission to execute. king pelias, who sits on my father's throne (to which he has no more right than to the one on which your excellent majesty is now seated), has engaged to come down from it, and to give me his crown and sceptre, provided i bring him the golden fleece. this, as your majesty is aware, is now hanging on a tree here at colchis; and i humbly solicit your gracious leave to take it away." in spite of himself, the king's face twisted itself into an angry frown; for, above all things else in the world, he prized the golden fleece, and was even suspected of having done a very wicked act, in order to get it into his own possession. it put him into the worst possible humor, therefore, to hear that the gallant prince jason, and forty-nine of the bravest young warriors of greece, had come to colchis with the sole purpose of taking away his chief treasure. "do you know," asked king Æetes, eying jason very sternly, "what are the conditions which you must fulfil before getting possession of the golden fleece?" "i have heard," rejoined the youth, "that a dragon lies beneath the tree on which the prize hangs, and that whoever approaches him runs the risk of being devoured at a mouthful." "true," said the king, with a smile that did not look particularly good-natured. "very true, young man. but there are other things as hard, or perhaps a little harder, to be done, before you can even have the privilege of being devoured by the dragon. for example, you must first tame my two brazen-footed and brazen-lunged bulls, which vulcan, the wonderful blacksmith, made for me. there is a furnace in each of their stomachs; and they breathe such hot fire out of their mouths and nostrils, that nobody has hitherto gone nigh them without being instantly burned to a small, black cinder. what do you think of this, my brave jason?" "i must encounter the peril," answered jason, composedly, "since it stands in the way of my purpose." "after taming the fiery bulls," continued king Æetes, who was determined to scare jason if possible, "you must yoke them to a plough, and must plough the sacred earth in the grove of mars, and sow some of the same dragon's teeth from which cadmus raised a crop of armed men. they are an unruly set of reprobates, those sons of the dragon's teeth; and unless you treat them suitably, they will fall upon you sword in hand. you and your nine-and-forty argonauts, my bold jason, are hardly numerous or strong enough to fight with such a host as will spring up." "my master chiron," replied jason, "taught me, long ago, the story of cadmus. perhaps i can manage the quarrelsome sons of the dragon's teeth as well as cadmus did." "i wish the dragon had him," muttered king Æetes to himself, "and the four-footed pedant, his schoolmaster, into the bargain. why, what a foolhardy, self-conceited coxcomb he is! we'll see what my fire-breathing bulls will do for him. well, prince jason," he continued, aloud, and as complaisantly as he could, "make yourself comfortable for to-day, and to-morrow morning, since you insist upon it, you shall try your skill at the plough." while the king talked with jason, a beautiful young woman was standing behind the throne. she fixed her eyes earnestly upon the youthful stranger, and listened attentively to every word that was spoken; and when jason withdrew from the king's presence, this young woman followed him out of the room. "i am the king's daughter," she said to him, "and my name is medea. i know a great deal of which other young princesses are ignorant, and can do many things which they would be afraid so much as to dream of. if you will trust to me, i can instruct you how to tame the fiery bulls, and sow the dragon's teeth, and get the golden fleece." "indeed, beautiful princess," answered jason, "if you will do me this service, i promise to be grateful to you my whole life long." gazing at medea, he beheld a wonderful intelligence in her face. she was one of those persons whose eyes are full of mystery; so that, while looking into them, you seem to see a very great way, as into a deep well, yet can never be certain whether you see into the farthest depths, or whether there be not something else hidden at the bottom. if jason had been capable of fearing anything, he would have been afraid of making this young princess his enemy; for, beautiful as she now looked, she might, the very next instant, become as terrible as the dragon that kept watch over the golden fleece. "princess," he exclaimed, "you seem indeed very wise and very powerful. but how can you help me to do the things of which you speak? are you an enchantress?" "yes, prince jason," answered medea, with a smile, "you have hit upon the truth. i am an enchantress. circe, my father's sister, taught me to be one, and i could tell you, if i pleased, who was the old woman with the peacock, the pomegranate, and the cuckoo staff, whom you carried over the river; and, likewise, who it is that speaks through the lips of the oaken image, that stands in the prow of your galley. i am acquainted with some of your secrets, you perceive. it is well for you that i am favorably inclined; for, otherwise, you would hardly escape being snapped up by the dragon." "i should not so much care for the dragon," replied jason, "if i only knew how to manage the brazen-footed and fiery-lunged bulls." "if you are as brave as i think you, and as you have need to be," said medea, "your own bold heart will teach you that there is but one way of dealing with a mad bull. what it is i leave you to find out in the moment of peril. as for the fiery breath of these animals, i have a charmed ointment here, which will prevent you from being burned up, and cure you if you chance to be a little scorched." so she put a golden box into his hand, and directed him how to apply the perfumed unguent which it contained, and where to meet her at midnight. "only be brave," added she, "and before daybreak the brazen bulls shall be tamed." the young man assured her that his heart would not fail him. he then rejoined his comrades, and told them what had passed between the princess and himself, and warned them to be in readiness in case there might be need of their help. at the appointed hour he met the beautiful medea on the marble steps of the king's palace. she gave him a basket, in which were the dragon's teeth, just as they had been pulled out of the monster's jaws by cadmus, long ago. medea then led jason down the palace steps, and through the silent streets of the city, and into the royal pasture-ground, where the two brazen-footed bulls were kept. it was a starry night, with a bright gleam along the eastern edge of the sky, where the moon was soon going to show herself. after entering the pasture, the princess paused and looked around. "there they are," said she, "reposing themselves and chewing their fiery cuds in that farthest corner of the field. it will be excellent sport, i assure you, when they catch a glimpse of your figure. my father and all his court delight in nothing so much as to see a stranger trying to yoke them, in order to come at the golden fleece. it makes a holiday in colchis whenever such a thing happens. for my part, i enjoy it immensely. you cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder." "are you sure, beautiful medea," asked jason, "quite sure, that the unguent in the gold box will prove a remedy against those terrible burns?" "if you doubt it, if you are in the least afraid," said the princess, looking him in the face by the dim starlight, "you had better never have been born than go a step nigher to the bulls." but jason had set his heart steadfastly on getting the golden fleece; and i positively doubt whether he would have gone back without it, even had he been certain of finding himself turned into a red-hot cinder, or a handful of white ashes, the instant he made a step farther. he therefore let go medea's hand, and walked boldly forward in the direction whither she had pointed. at some distance before him he perceived four streams of fiery vapor, regularly appearing, and again vanishing, after dimly lighting up the surrounding obscurity. these, you will understand, were caused by the breath of the brazen bulls, which was quietly stealing out of their four nostrils, as they lay chewing their cuds. at the first two or three steps which jason made, the four fiery streams appeared to gush out somewhat more plentifully; for the two brazen bulls had heard his foot-tramp, and were lifting up their hot noses to snuff the air. he went a little farther, and by the way in which the red vapor now spouted forth, he judged that the creatures had got upon their feet. now he could see glowing sparks, and vivid jets of flame. at the next step, each of the bulls made the pasture echo with a terrible roar, while the burning breath, which they thus belched forth, lit up the whole field with a momentary flash. one other stride did bold jason make; and, suddenly, as a streak of lightning, on came these fiery animals, roaring like thunder, and sending out sheets of white flame, which so kindled up the scene that the young man could discern every object more distinctly than by daylight. most distinctly of all he saw the two horrible creatures galloping right down upon him, their brazen hoofs rattling and ringing over the ground, and their tails sticking up stiffly into the air, as has always been the fashion with angry bulls. their breath scorched the herbage before them. so intensely hot it was, indeed, that it caught a dry tree, under which jason was now standing, and set it all in a light blaze. but as for jason himself (thanks to medea's enchanted ointment), the white flame curled around his body, without injuring him a jot more than if he had been made of asbestos. greatly encouraged at finding himself not yet turned into a cinder, the young man awaited the attack of the bulls. just as the brazen brutes fancied themselves sure of tossing him into the air, he caught one of them by the horn, and the other by his screwed-up tail, and held them in a gripe like that of an iron vise, one with his right hand, the other with his left. well, he must have been wonderfully strong in his arms, to be sure. but the secret of the matter was, that the brazen bulls were enchanted creatures, and that jason had broken the spell of their fiery fierceness by his bold way of handling them. and, ever since that time, it has been the favorite method of brave men, when danger assails them, to do what they call "taking the bull by the horns"; and to gripe him by the tail is pretty much the same thing,--that is, to throw aside fear, and overcome the peril by despising it. it was now easy to yoke the bulls, and to harness them to the plough, which had lain rusting on the ground for a great many years gone by; so long was it before anybody could be found capable of ploughing that piece of land. jason, i suppose, had been taught how to draw a furrow by the good old chiron, who, perhaps, used to allow himself to be harnessed to the plough. at any rate, our hero succeeded perfectly well in breaking up the greensward; and, by the time that the moon was a quarter of her journey up the sky, the ploughed field lay before him, a large tract of black earth, ready to be sown with the dragon's teeth. so jason scattered them broadcast, and harrowed them into the soil with a brush-harrow, and took his stand on the edge of the field, anxious to see what would happen next. "must we wait long for harvest-time?" he inquired of medea, who was now standing by his side. "whether sooner or later, it will be sure to come," answered the princess. "a crop of armed men never fails to spring up, when the dragon's teeth have been sown." the moon was now high aloft in the heavens, and threw its bright beams over the ploughed field, where as yet there was nothing to be seen. any farmer, on viewing it, would have said that jason must wait weeks before the green blades would peep from among the clods, and whole months before the yellow grain would be ripened for the sickle. but by and by, all over the field, there was something that glistened in the moonbeams, like sparkling drops of dew. these bright objects sprouted higher, and proved to be the steel heads of spears. then there was a dazzling gleam from a vast number of polished brass helmets, beneath which, as they grew farther out of the soil, appeared the dark and bearded visages of warriors, struggling to free themselves from the imprisoning earth. the first look that they gave at the upper world was a glare of wrath and defiance. next were seen their bright breastplates; in every right hand there was a sword or a spear, and on each left arm a shield; and when this strange crop of warriors had but half grown out of the earth, they struggled,--such was their impatience of restraint,--and, as it were, tore themselves up by the roots. wherever a dragon's tooth had fallen, there stood a man armed for battle. they made a clangor with their swords against their shields, and eyed one another fiercely; for they had come into this beautiful world, and into the peaceful moonlight, full of rage and stormy passions, and ready to take the life of every human brother, in recompense of the boon of their own existence. there have been many other armies in the world that seemed to possess the same fierce nature with the one which had now sprouted from the dragon's teeth; but these, in the moonlit field, were the more excusable, because they never had women for their mothers. and how it would have rejoiced any great captain, who was bent on conquering the world, like alexander or napoleon, to raise a crop of armed soldiers as easily as jason did. for a while, the warriors stood flourishing their weapons, clashing their swords against their shields, and boiling over with the red-hot thirst for battle. then they began to shout, "show us the enemy! lead us to the charge! death or victory! come on, brave comrades! conquer or die!" and a hundred other outcries, such as men always bellow forth on a battle-field, and which these dragon people seemed to have at their tongues' ends. at last, the front rank caught sight of jason, who, beholding the flash of so many weapons in the moonlight, had thought it best to draw his sword. in a moment all the sons of the dragon's teeth appeared to take jason for an enemy; and crying with one voice, "guard the golden fleece!" they ran at him with uplifted swords and protruded spears. jason knew that it would be impossible to withstand this bloodthirsty battalion with his single arm, but determined, since there was nothing better to be done, to die as valiantly as if he himself had sprung from a dragon's tooth. medea, however, bade him snatch up a stone from the ground. "throw it among them quickly!" cried she. "it is the only way to save yourself." the armed men were now so nigh that jason could discern the fire flashing out of their enraged eyes, when he let fly the stone, and saw it strike the helmet of a tall warrior, who was rushing upon him with his blade aloft. the stone glanced from this man's helmet to the shield of his nearest comrade, and thence flew right into the angry face of another, hitting him smartly between the eyes. each of the three who had been struck by the stone took it for granted that his next neighbor had given him a blow; and instead of running any farther towards jason, they began a fight among themselves. the confusion spread through the host, so that it seemed scarcely a moment before they were all hacking, hewing, and stabbing at one another, lopping off arms, heads, and legs, and doing such memorable deeds that jason was filled with immense admiration; although, at the same time, he could not help laughing to behold these mighty men punishing each other for an offence which he himself had committed. in an incredibly short space of time (almost as short, indeed, as it had taken them to grow up), all but one of the heroes of the dragon's teeth were stretched lifeless on the field. the last survivor, the bravest and strongest of the whole, had just force enough to wave his crimson sword over his head, and give a shout of exultation, crying, "victory! victory! immortal fame!" when he himself fell down, and lay quietly among his slain brethren. and there was the end of the army that had sprouted from the dragons teeth. that fierce and feverish fight was the only enjoyment which they had tasted on this beautiful earth. "let them sleep in the bed of honor," said the princess medea, with a sly smile at jason. "the world will always have simpletons enough, just like them, fighting and dying for they know not what, and fancying that posterity will take the trouble to put laurel wreaths on their rusty and battered helmets. could you help smiling, prince jason, to see the self-conceit of that last fellow, just as he tumbled down?" "it made me very sad," answered jason, gravely. "and, to tell you the truth, princess, the golden fleece does not appear so well worth the winning, after what i have here beheld." "you will think differently in the morning," said medea. "true, the golden fleece may not be so valuable as you have thought it; but then there is nothing better in the world; and one must needs have an object, you know. come! your night's work has been well performed; and to-morrow you can inform king Æetes that the first part of your allotted task is fulfilled." agreeably to medea's advice, jason went betimes in the morning to the palace of king Æetes. entering the presence-chamber, he stood at the foot of the throne, and made a low obeisance. "your eyes look heavy, prince jason," observed the king; "you appear to have spent a sleepless night. i hope you have been considering the matter a little more wisely, and have concluded not to get yourself scorched to a cinder, in attempting to tame my brazen-lunged bulls." "that is already accomplished, may it please your majesty," replied jason. "the bulls have been tamed and yoked; the field has been ploughed; the dragon's teeth have been sown broadcast, and harrowed into the soil; the crop of armed warriors has sprung up, and they have slain one another, to the last man. and now i solicit your majesty's permission to encounter the dragon, that i may take down the golden fleece from the tree, and depart, with my nine-and-forty comrades." king Æetes scowled, and looked very angry and excessively disturbed; for he knew that, in accordance with his kingly promise, he ought now to permit jason to win the fleece, if his courage and skill should enable him to do so. but, since the young man had met with such good luck in the matter of the brazen bulls and the dragon's teeth, the king feared that he would be equally successful in slaying the dragon. and therefore, though he would gladly have seen jason snapped up at a mouthful, he was resolved (and it was a very wrong thing of this wicked potentate) not to run any further risk of losing his beloved fleece. "you never would have succeeded in this business, young man," said he, "if my undutiful daughter medea had not helped you with her enchantments. had you acted fairly, you would have been, at this instant, a black cinder, or a handful of white ashes. i forbid you, on pain of death, to make any more attempts to get the golden fleece. to speak my mind plainly, you shall never set eyes on so much as one of its glistening locks." jason left the king's presence in great sorrow and anger. he could think of nothing better to be done than to summon together his forty-nine brave argonauts, march at once to the grove of mars, slay the dragon, take possession of the golden fleece, get on board the argo, and spread all sail for iolchos. the success of the scheme depended, it is true, on the doubtful point whether all the fifty heroes might not be snapped up, at so many mouthfuls, by the dragon. but, as jason was hastening down the palace steps, the princess medea called after him, and beckoned him to return. her black eyes shone upon him with such a keen intelligence, that he felt as if there were a serpent peeping out of them; and although she had done him so much service only the night before, he was by no means very certain that she would not do him an equally great mischief before sunset. these enchantresses, you must know, are never to be depended upon. "what says king Æetes, my royal and upright father?" inquired medea, slightly smiling. "will he give you the golden fleece, without any further risk or trouble?" "on the contrary," answered jason, "he is very angry with me for taming the brazen bulls and sowing the dragon's teeth. and he forbids me to make any more attempts, and positively refuses to give up the golden fleece, whether i slay the dragon or no." "yes, jason," said the princess, "and i can tell you more. unless you set sail from colchis before to-morrow's sunrise, the king means to burn your fifty-oared galley, and put yourself and your forty-nine brave comrades to the sword. but be of good courage. the golden fleece you shall have, if it lies within the power of my enchantments to get it for you. wait for me here an hour before midnight." at the appointed hour, you might again have seen prince jason and the princess medea, side by side, stealing through the streets of colchis, on their way to the sacred grove, in the centre of which the golden fleece was suspended to a tree. while they were crossing the pasture-ground, the brazen bulls came towards jason, lowing, nodding their heads, and thrusting forth their snouts, which, as other cattle do, they loved to have rubbed and caressed by a friendly hand. their fierce nature was thoroughly tamed; and, with their fierceness, the two furnaces in their stomachs had likewise been extinguished, insomuch that they probably enjoyed far more comfort in grazing and chewing their cuds than ever before. indeed, it had heretofore been a great inconvenience to these poor animals, that, whenever they wished to eat a mouthful of grass, the fire out of their nostrils had shrivelled it up, before they could manage to crop it. how they contrived to keep themselves alive is more than i can imagine. but now, instead of emitting jets of flame and streams of sulphurous vapor, they breathed the very sweetest of cow breath. after kindly patting the bulls, jason followed medea's guidance into the grove of mars, where the great oak-trees, that had been growing for centuries, threw so thick a shade that the moonbeams struggled vainly to find their way through it. only here and there a glimmer fell upon the leaf-strewn earth, or now and then a breeze stirred the boughs aside, and gave jason a glimpse of the sky, lest, in that deep obscurity, he might forget that there was one, overhead. at length, when they had gone farther and farther into the heart of the duskiness, medea squeezed jason's hand. "look yonder," she whispered. "do you see it?" gleaming among the venerable oaks, there was a radiance, not like the moonbeams, but rather resembling the golden glory of the setting sun. it proceeded from an object, which appeared to be suspended at about a man's height from the ground, a little farther within the wood. "what is it?" asked jason. "have you come so far to seek it," exclaimed medea, "and do you not recognize the meed of all your toils and perils, when it glitters before your eyes? it is the golden fleece." jason went onward a few steps farther, and then stopped to gaze. oh, how beautiful it looked, shining with a marvellous light of its own, that inestimable prize, which so many heroes had longed to behold, but had perished in the quest of it, either by the perils of their voyage, or by the fiery breath of the brazen-lunged bulls. "how gloriously it shines!" cried jason, in a rapture. "it has surely been dipped in the richest gold of sunset. let me hasten onward, and take it to my bosom." "stay," said medea, holding him back. "have you forgotten what guards it?" to say the truth, in the joy of beholding the object of his desires, the terrible dragon had quite slipped out of jason's memory. soon, however, something came to pass that reminded him what perils were still to be encountered. an antelope, that probably mistook the yellow radiance for sunrise, came bounding fleetly through the grove. he was rushing straight towards the golden fleece, when suddenly there was a frightful hiss, and the immense head and half of the scaly body of the dragon was thrust forth (for he was twisted round the trunk of the tree on which the fleece hung), and seizing the poor antelope, swallowed him with one snap of his jaws. after this feat, the dragon seemed sensible that some other living creature was within reach on which he felt inclined to finish his meal. in various directions he kept poking his ugly snout among the trees, stretching out his neck a terrible long way, now here, now there, and now close to the spot where jason and the princess were hiding behind an oak. upon my word, as the head came waving and undulating through the air, and reaching almost within arm's-length of prince jason, it was a very hideous and uncomfortable sight. the gape of his enormous jaws was nearly as wide as the gateway of the king's palace. "well, jason," whispered medea (for she was ill-natured, as all enchantresses are, and wanted to make the bold youth tremble), "what do you think now of your prospect of winning the golden fleece?" jason answered only by drawing his sword and making a step forward. "stay, foolish youth," said medea, grasping his arm. "do not you see you are lost, without me as your good angel? in this gold box i have a magic potion, which will do the dragon's business far more effectually than your sword." the dragon had probably heard the voices; for, swift as lightning, his black head and forked tongue came hissing among the trees again, darting full forty feet at a stretch. as it approached, medea tossed the contents of the gold box right down the monster's wide open throat. immediately, with an outrageous hiss and a tremendous wriggle,--flinging his tail up to the tip-top of the tallest tree, and shattering all its branches as it crashed heavily down again,--the dragon fell at full length upon the ground, and lay quite motionless. "it is only a sleeping potion," said the enchantress to prince jason. "one always finds a use for these mischievous creatures, sooner or later; so i did not wish to kill him outright. quick! snatch the prize, and let us begone. you have won the golden fleece." jason caught the fleece from the tree, and hurried through the grove, the deep shadows of which were illuminated as he passed by the golden glory of the precious object that he bore along. a little way before him, he beheld the old woman whom he had helped over the stream, with her peacock beside her. she clapped her hands for joy, and beckoning him to make haste, disappeared among the duskiness of the trees. espying the two winged sons of the north wind (who were disporting themselves in the moonlight, a few hundred feet aloft), jason bade them tell the rest of the argonauts to embark as speedily as possible. but lynceus, with his sharp eyes, had already caught a glimpse of him, bringing the golden fleece, although several stone-walls, a hill, and the black shadows of the grove of mars intervened between. by his advice, the heroes had seated themselves on the benches of the galley, with their oars held perpendicularly, ready to let fall into the water. as jason drew near, he heard the talking image calling to him with more than ordinary eagerness, in its grave, sweet voice:-- "make haste, prince jason! for your life, make haste!" with one hound he leaped aboard. at sight of the glorious radiance of the golden fleece, the nine-and-forty heroes gave a mighty shout, and orpheus, striking his harp, sang a song of triumph, to the cadence of which the galley flew over the water, homeward bound, as if careering along with wings!